CHAPTER I.—AN OLD STORY.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXCVI. FEBRUARY 1857. VOL. LXXXI.

CONTENTS.

a. THE WAR IN ASIA, 135

b. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.—NO. I. THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND

AMOS BARTON.—PART II., 153

c. TICKET-OF-LEAVE.—A LETTER TO IRENÆUS, 173

d. THE ATHELINGS; OR, THE THREE GIFTS.—PART IX., 189

e. FROM PERA TO BUCHAREST, 205

f. LETTERS FROM A LIGHTHOUSE.—NO. I. 227

g. LORD ST LEONARDS, 243

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BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCXCVI. FEBRUARY 1857. VOL. LXXXI.

THE WAR IN ASIA.

The Russian Empire has two gates, through which her armies may march on

their mission of territorial aggrandisement. These are not on her

western front. Cossack absolutism, the sway of Muscovite principles, may

yet spread to the Atlantic; but, territorially, Russia will never extend

her rule westwards in Europe beyond the limits of the Slavonian race.

The case is different along her southern frontier. Occupying the vast

territories constituting that _officina gentium_ from whence issued the

invading hordes which overthrew in succession all the old governments of

the civilised world—Hindoo, Persian, Roman, Saracenic, Byzantine—the

Russian Empire still seeks expansion in the same direction. Half

imbedded in its southern frontier lies the Black Sea, forming a barrier

to landward progress nearly 800 miles long, and compelling the downward

pressure of the colossal empire to divide into an eastern and western

stream. Once the Black Sea is fairly enclasped by the dominions of the

Czar, and the Bosphorus closed against hostile fleets, this inland sea

will be no longer an obstacle, but a facility, to the southern advance

of the Muscovite legions: but at present it is as we say,—an impassable

expanse which must be turned by marching round its flanks. The regions

to the east and west of this sea are the two Gates of Russia, through

which the ambition of the Czars has sought and will continue to seek

expansion. The one gate opens into Europe, the other into Asia. The

former at present is shut—the latter stands open.

When at war with a restless and ambitious power—with a young and growing

state whose rulers and people still prefer territorial extension to

commercial development, it is wise, when closing one’s own frontier

against attack, to leave open some other channel into which the energies

of the foe may be directed. This is what the Continental Governments did

at the close of the late war. The French Emperor, having served his own

immediate purpose in the war, and fearing to face the eventualities

which a prosecution of the contest might have produced, resolved

abruptly to close it after the fall of Sebastopol. With this end in

view, no further blow was allowed to be struck in the Crimea; and, at

the same time, not a regiment was allowed to be sent to relieve Kars, or

to support Omar Pasha in his important invasion of Georgia. Russia was

proud, and would rather push the war to extremities than consent to

humiliating terms of peace. The measures of the French Government saved

her from such humiliation. The fall of Sebastopol was made a barren

victory in the Crimea, and was allowed to be balanced in some measure by

the fall of Kars in Armenia; and these facts, duly improved at the

Congress of Peace, resulted in that Treaty of Paris which the _Moniteur_

eulogised as “humiliating to none.” The fall of Kars, and the

withholding of support from Omar Pasha’s invasion of Georgia, enabled

the Continental Powers, while shutting the door against Russia in

Europe, to leave wider open than ever her gate into Asia. The

representatives of England, we hope, struggled against this decision,

but they struggled vainly: (when it comes to a question of votes, the

interests of the Continental Powers must always override those of

insulated Britain).[1] And now we already begin to perceive the

consequence. Russian prestige is greater than ever throughout western

Asia. The capture of Kars enabled General Mouravieff for ten months to

keep possession of that fortress and the surrounding region,—to

distribute far and wide hand-bills announcing the triumph of the Czar,

and representing it, by a colourable lie, as a victory over the arms of

England. The wavering allegiance of the Kurdish tribes of Armenia has

been half-won to the Czar. Persia has gone wholly over to the same side.

A renewed onset is being made to complete the subjugation of the

Caucasus, and render the isthmus between the Euxine and Caspian a broad

highway for Russian advance. From Soujouk-kale to Erivan, from Erivan to

the mouth of the Araxes, and thence northwards along the shores and upon

the islands of the Caspian, an unusual mustering of troops and din of

warlike preparation is going on. The eastern Gate of Russia already

creaks on its hinges. Perhaps while we write, the Muscovite battalions

are once more entering the thrice-despoiled territories of Persia,—this

time all the more dangerously for her, and ominously for us, that they

enter not as enemies but in the guise of friends.

It is long since Russia began to foray southwards by her eastern Gate.

And it is important to note this, for it is only by the light of the

past that we shall properly comprehend the true character of Russian

aggression in this quarter. It is needless to rail at such aggression,

for it is alike natural and inevitable. Russia lies between Europe and

Asia like a vast lake, whose waters are slowly but steadily increasing,

and which, hemmed in by steep banks on its western side, must inevitably

overflow into the vast unbulwarked regions of Central Asia. As Russian

wealth, population, and resources increase, the Muscovite tide will

swell out more and more into the territories of Turkistan, and encroach

more and more upon the native sovereignty of Persia. The tide will never

recede,—for it is but the overflowings of the great fountains of

Slavonian life, which promise, for ages to come, to continue pouring

forth their populating streams into the half-vacant basins of Asia.

Russian domination over the tribes of the Steppes and the organised

communities of Persia and Anatolia is a mere question of time, which may

be as surely predicted as that the Russian population will one day be

double and treble what it is now. That population will for centuries

have room to spread eastward across the Asiatic continent; but it will

take that course reluctantly, and will prefer to foray southwards, until

it reach a limit where other portions of the European race have become

too firmly consolidated to be driven from their ground.

Commerce and ambition alike impel Russia to go forth conquering through

her eastern gates. A century and a half ago the Czar Peter perceived

this, and laid down the outlines of a vast plan of Asiatic conquest for

the guidance of his imperial successors. By an error common to minds of

high speculative and imaginative power—to whom, seeing clearly the

future, distant events often appear too near and their realisation too

easy—Peter himself does not seem to have adequately appreciated the

obstacles to his projects, and by a bold dash at Khiva in 1717,

attempted to win a vantage-ground which was not destined to be gained by

Russia until the present day. The armed mission which he sent to that

Khanate, to establish relations with the natives and to seize a gold

mine, easily reached their destination; but being outwitted by the

Khivans, they were induced to separate into detached parties, and were

then cut to pieces. Six years afterwards witnessed the real commencement

of his schemes of aggression. It was in 1723–25, when the power of

Persia was prostrated by the revolt of the Affghans and the attacks of

the Turks, that Russia first struck her fangs into her prey; and during

the dismemberment of Persia which then occurred, the Russian forces

seized the territories of the Shah lying between the Caspian and the

Black Seas. The martial genius of Nadir Shah temporarily checked the

progress of Muscovite ambition, and in 1735 compelled the Empress Anne

to resign the captured provinces before they had been Russianised. But

in due time the advances of Russia were resumed in a more subtle form;

and in 1774 the Empress Catherine commenced a series of intrigues with

the states lying to the south of the Caucasus, with a view to induce

them to throw off their allegiance to Persia, and to place themselves

under the protectorate of Russia. All the usual Muscovite seductions and

threats were had recourse to: missions and subsidies were first

employed, then the erection of fortresses, and ultimately the

introduction of troops; and so successful were those arts that, in 1773,

Mingrelia, Imeritia, and Georgia accepted the Russian protectorate. For

twelve years Persia submitted to this unjust domination; and when at

length, in 1795, Aga Mahomed Khan attempted to recover the

Trans-Caucasian provinces, the Russians were victorious and pushed their

way still farther along the shores of the Caspian. Thus, ere the death

of Catherine, Russia was paramount all over the isthmus between the

Caspian and Black Seas, and had secured for herself the long-coveted

gate through which she was to push southwards. The advanced posts of

Persia and Turkey had been first sapped and then carried, and now Russia

was brought in contact with the main body of those empires. The ten

years’ war with Persia, which terminated in 1814 by the peace of

Gulistan, accomplished apparently little,—Russia having then fighting

enough in Europe; but during its continuance Muscovite power was

consolidated on the isthmus (the Circassians alone remaining unsubdued),

and Persia surrendered the right of having ships of war on the Caspian,

which handed over that sea to the exclusive domination of Russia. Twelve

years more, and again there was war. The treaty which closed the former

war became the occasion for commencing a new one, furnishing fresh

triumphs to Russia; and at the close of hostilities in 1828, by the

treaty of Turkomanchai, the provinces of Erivan (with the strong

fortress of that name) and Nakchivan were ceded to the Czar,—thus

extending the Muscovite frontier to the banks of the Araxes; while

possession was kept of the province of Talish beyond that river, and a

heavy indemnity (!) was exacted for the expenses of the war. To sum

up,—in the period between 1774 and 1828, Russia advanced her frontier a

thousand miles into Asia; so that the Russian regiment stationed at her

farthest frontier-post, on the western shore of the Caspian, has as

great a distance to march back to Moscow as onward to Attock on the

Indus, and is actually farther from St Petersburg than from Lahore, the

capital of the Punjaub.

Any one who has seen an empty bottle thrown into a river, will have

perceived that at first the vessel shows great repugnance to be immersed

by the fluid, and ever strives to leap towards, and keep itself buoyant

by, the air; but that at last there comes a moment when, the invading

water having fairly overbalanced the rival element, all struggle ceases,

and the vessel, losing all motive power of its own, drifts along

helplessly as if it were actually part of the engulfing stream. It was

in 1828 that this turning-point came to Persia. Prior to that time

British influence had been paramount at the Court of Teheran. Of the

state of matters before Paskewitch’s conquests, we read: “Russia has

always viewed with undisguised jealousy the ascendancy of English

influence in the councils of Persia. She has not hesitated, at different

times, to make it matter of formal complaint even that Persian troops

are commanded by English officers, clothed in English uniforms, and

supplied with English arms. In short, the whole machinery of the Persian

government is put in motion immediately or remotely by English agents

and by English influence.” How Russia has turned the tables upon us

since this was written twenty-seven years ago! Moral as well as material

causes, we are sorry to say, contributed to produce this result. It was

inevitable that the influence of Russia, with her contiguous frontier

and great military power, should one day predominate over that of

Britain in Central Asia; but it is to be regretted that we ourselves

should have furnished discreditable proofs of our inferiority. By the

treaty of Gulistan in 1814, England pledged herself that Russia should

fulfil the engagement to restore Talish; but Russia evaded doing so,

and, either from weakness or bad faith, we took no steps to compel

fulfilment of the promise. Again, at the breaking-out of the war in

1826, England was bound by treaty to assist Persia against any European

power with an army from India, or to pay an annual subsidy of £100,000;

yet England broke her pledge, on the plea that Persia had provoked the

war, although a more transparent case of wolf and lamb never existed.

Well might Mr Kaye remark of this proceeding, that “the backwardness of

England was of dubious honesty, as it doubtless was of dubious

expediency.” And Sir Harford Jones did not much exaggerate the

consequences, when he said, that by the treaty of 1828 “Persia was

delivered, bound hand and foot, to the Court of St Petersburg.”

The turning-point being passed, then began those demonstrations and

expeditions against Herat, which have since, not without reason,

occasioned us so much disquietude. To annex Herat is the most natural

object of Persian ambition, and it is at the same time one which

perfectly coincides with the views of the Russian government.

Geographically as well as politically, Herat belongs to Affghanistan, of

which it is the door. So far from being an appanage of the Shahs, it

was, under the successors of Timour, the seat of a great empire; and in

the early part of last century, the Affghans even extended their rule by

conquest over Persia. Nadir Shah, however, when he set free his country,

retaliated by capturing Herat, and planting there a Persian colony; and

though the city quickly returned into the possession of its natural

owners, the Affghan power no sooner began to decline than the Persian

monarchs cast covetous eyes upon this important frontier city. So

formidable was the Affghan power even at the commencement of the present

century, that the principal object of the treaties between our Indian

government and Persia was, that each might help the other if attacked by

the dreaded mountaineers; but the civil wars which thereafter broke into

fragments the Affghan empire, and arrayed clan against clan, and chief

against chief, not only destroyed its aggressive power, but exposed the

country to the attack of foreign arms and influence. So matters stood

when the treaty of Turkomanchai first demonstrated to the Court of

Teheran that Russia was more potent than England in Central Asia, and

that it was better policy to propitiate the former than the latter.

Accordingly, in 1832, Persia commenced preparations to attack Herat, and

a Russian officer of engineers was ready to accompany the expedition. An

early exertion of British influence succeeded in preventing the

enterprise being carried out; but just four years afterwards, in 1836,

the project was revived,—the Russian ambassador at the same time urging

the Shah to make haste, lest Britain should again interpose. Sir Henry

Ellis, who was then our envoy at the Persian court, lost no time in

apprising his government of what was in preparation, and of urging them

to take vigorous measures to frustrate the project. His own

remonstrances with the Persian government were vain; a quarrel was even

picked with him _à l’Orientale_—a horseman under his protection being

seized by the Persian Government, just as the wife of Mirza Hashem was

eighteen months ago; and, ultimately, like Mr Murray, he felt compelled

to strike his flag, and withdraw from Teheran. Meanwhile the Shah had

set out on his famous expedition against Herat, with the Russian

ambassador Simonich in his train; while Captain Vicovich, a secret agent

of the Russian government, armed with a holograph letter from the Czar,

was busily endeavouring to procure the support of the Affghan chiefs.

Fortunately, Eldred Pottinger, a young lieutenant of the Bombay

artillery, was then in Herat, and conducted the defence of the place

with a courage and ability which have immortalised his name. So

interested was Russia in this attack on Herat, that she remitted £25,000

of the debt contracted by Persia in 1828, in order that it might be

expended in fitting out the expedition, and engaged to remit the

remainder if the expedition proved successful. The Russian Embassy

accompanied the expedition, a body of Russian troops (styled

“deserters”) aided in the siege, and the assaults were led by Russian

officers. But all was in vain. From the first investment in November

1836 to the final raising of the siege in September 1837, three

desperate assaults were made upon the town, and were repulsed by the

garrison, led by the heroic Pottinger,—the assailants on one of those

occasions losing 1700 men. These bloody repulses, combined with the

appearance of a British force in the Persian Gulf, the seizure of the

island of Karrak, and a threat of active hostilities on our part, at

length led the Shah and his counsellors to abandon the enterprise.

Simultaneously with these events in Asia, the dispute arising from the

capture of the “Vixen” in the Black Sea showed the irritation subsisting

between the British and Russian Governments. And it is instructive to

note that all the time that the Russian ambassador was instigating the

Shah to attack Herat, and that Russian money, officers, and troops, were

assisting him in the enterprise, Count Nesselrode professed to agree

with the British Government as to the viciousness of the course pursued

by the Persian monarch, and affirmed that the conduct of the Russian

ambassador and agents was in opposition to his instructions! A good

illustration of the truth of Karamsin’s remark, that it is a maxim of

the Russian government to repudiate the conduct of its officers until

their project is accomplished,—thus preventing opposition until it is

too late for other governments to interfere.

Although this attempt upon Herat was foiled, it naturally occasioned our

Indian Government much disquiet; and it was with a view to strengthen

our influence in that important region that the ill-fated invasion of

Affghanistan was undertaken. Both in a political and military point of

view, the expedition was characterised by the grossest blunders; and the

disastrous retreat from Cabool only served to augment the ascendancy of

Russia at the Court of Teheran. Indeed, to so low an ebb had all other

foreign influence sunk at that court, that M. Ferrier records that,

during his residence in Persia, both British and French subjects were in

the practice of employing the good offices of the Russian ambassador, as

they knew that their own envoys were powerless at court. When war broke

out between Russia and the Allies in Europe, and troops from India were

being brought to the battle-fields of the Crimea, it was only natural

that Russia should seek to convert her ascendancy at the Persian Court

into a means of disquieting us on the side of India. Etiquette is

everything in the East, and when Asiatic governments become hostile,

they almost always choose to testify their feelings by putting a slight

on the representative of the Power whom they mean to defy. In this way

the “Mrs Hashem affair” was not so unimportant as it appears to European

eyes; and from the _animus_ displayed on this and previous occasions by

the Persian Government, it is clear that had Mr Murray continued at his

post, he would only have been subjected to fresh demands and contumely.

It was the last of a series of insults directed against the British

Government; and to those who assume it as the cause of the present war,

it is sufficient to say that not even the Persian Government regards it

in that light, or alleges it as a pretext for its attack upon

Affghanistan. The fall of Kars, in fact, threw Persia completely into

the arms of Russia; and the old design of attacking Herat and extending

Persian influence over Affghanistan was eagerly revived. It is alleged

that, in prospect of the war in Europe continuing, an arrangement had

been made by which a Russian army was to land at Astrabad, and support

the Shah in his advance towards our Indian frontier. There is much

probability in the statement; and it is certain that Persian vessels on

the Caspian assisted the Russians in conveying warlike stores for the

use of Mouravieff’s army,—thus breaking the neutrality which the Shah

professed so greatly to respect. But, leaving the conjectured connivance

between Persia and Russia during the war to be revealed at a future

time, let us look simply at the overt acts of the former Power, and

endeavour to set forth what actually occurred. With this view we must

give our readers a glimpse into Affghan politics and the state of

matters at Herat.

At the commencement of the present century, Affghanistan and Cashmere,

with parts of Khorassan and Scinde, were united under the rule of Zeeman

Shah, grandson of that Ahmed Shah who with his Affghans broke the power

of the Mahrattas at the terrible battle of Paniput in 1761. But the days

of the Dooraunee Empire were numbered, and an era of suicidal

convulsions was about to commence. Zeeman was deposed, and his brother

Mahmoud succeeded. The royal family belonged to the Suddozee tribe,

whose rivals in the state were the great clan of the Barukzees, headed

by Futteh Khan and his twenty brothers, one of the youngest of whom was

Dost Mahomed. Futteh Khan was prime-minister, and proved a _maire du

palais_ to the _roi fainéant_. In the struggles that ensued, Futteh Khan

was barbarously murdered by the Suddozees; but finally the Barukzee

brothers triumphed, and by 1823 had partitioned the country among

themselves,—Dost Mahomed, whose abilities had raised him to the foremost

place among his brethren, obtaining Cabool as his share. One corner

alone of their old empire remained to the fallen Suddozee race—namely,

the principality of Herat, to which place the deposed Mahmoud retired

with his son, Prince Kamram. The prince in due course succeeded his

father, and was ruling Herat, with one Yar Mahomed for his vizier, when

the Persians attacked the place in 1837. On Kamram’s death, the sceptre

departed from the Suddozees, and fell peaceably into the hands of the

old vizier, Yar Mahomed, who had long been the virtual ruler; and who at

his decease, a few years ago, transmitted his power to his son, Mahomed

Said—a weak and dissolute wretch, willing to barter the independence of

Herat for Persian support; but whose myrmidons, seeing him immersed in

sensuality, took advantage of his apathy so to tyrannise over the

community that all classes wished for a revolution. Persia resolved that

the revolution should come from her side; and the Persian envoy at Herat

became prime director of the enterprise. It was his custom to take a

ride of twenty or thirty miles every afternoon, returning to the city

about ten at night, the gate being regularly opened to him. On these

occasions he was escorted by about a hundred horsemen, and generally

rode towards Gorian, on the road to Meshed, the Persian capital of

Khorassan. Now, there was stationed between Gorian and Meshed, for the

purpose of keeping in check the wild Turkomans, a certain Prince Yusoof,

nephew to the departed Shah Kamram, and therefore well fitted to be the

instrument for effecting a revolution in Herat. With this prince and Esa

Khan, a chief of Herat, the Persian envoy arranged the plans for a

surprise; and when all was ready, he was joined on his ride one

afternoon by Prince Yusoof and a body of Persian cavalry. The first

quarter of the night was passed when they arrived at the gates of Herat;

and on admission being given to the envoy as usual, his escort sabred

the guard, and the Prince with his cavalry rushed in, took possession of

the city, and advanced against the Arg citadel. The besotted ruler, in

his cups, shot the servant who first reported to him that the enemy was

in the city, but at length, arousing himself, ordered a charge when it

was too late. The result was that he and all his relatives were captured

and put to death; and Prince Yusoof, a member of the royal Suddozee

race, mounted the throne of Herat. His first act was to thank the Shah

for his success, and to beg him to continue his protection and freely

command his services;—to which the Shah replied by assuring him of aid

against his present or future enemies, and informing him that all the

commanders of the Persian forces in Khorassan had been strictly enjoined

to watch over his welfare, and punish the disturbers of his dominion.[2]

It may easily be believed that Dost Mahomed of Cabool, and his brother

chiefs of the Barukzee clan, by no means relished the appearance of a

prince of the Suddozee line at Herat. The Persian Government had placed

him there as a means of establishing its influence in Affghanistan, and

as a thorn in the side of the old Ameer; and one of the prince’s first

acts was to push forward a detachment to take possession of Furrah, a

town half-way on the road to Candahar. Upon this, the Barukzee chiefs

resolved to forget their disagreements, and unite to prevent the

encroachments of the common foe. Indeed, the aspect of affairs had begun

to look menacing for the independence of Affghanistan. Not only had

Herat been revolutionised by Persian agency, but Khiva had fallen under

the domination of Persia and Russia; and the king of Bokhara was so

concerned by these menacing events, and by the increasing number of

Persian troops in Khorassan, that a letter from Bokhara (Sept. 1855)

states that “owing to his disquiet he frequently fails in going to the

Friday prayers in the Great Mosque.” Kokan, the third and remaining

state of Central Asia, was likewise apprehensive of a Muscovite attack;

and several Russian agents were reported to be wandering about in

Turkistan as petty traders, professing themselves Jews. The danger had

been early descried by the shrewd old Ameer of Cabool, who had sent a

friendly embassy and presents to the king of Khiva; but ere they arrived

the king had been killed, the Russians and Persians were in possession,

and the Affghan embassy was treated with the utmost contumely. Indeed,

the ambitious projects of the Persian government had been revealed to

himself by an offer from the Shah to aid him with money and troops

against all foreign powers, if he would consent to own the suzerainty of

Persia. Turning a deaf ear to the insidious proposal, the old Ameer sent

a trusty messenger to Mahomed Said at Herat, a short time before that

prince’s death, to warn him of his danger from Persia; but that

dissolute wretch being in his cups when the messenger arrived, ordered

his beard to be shaved, and nearly had him blown out of the mouth of a

cannon! Turning to the British, Dost Mahomed contracted with our Indian

Government a treaty of general amity, but failed to obtain from it the

guarantee which he desired for the independence of Affghanistan and

Herat.

It is manifest that the Persian government was resolved to find or make

a pretext for the actual invasion of Affghanistan. In December 1855,

when Prince Yusoof was still its obedient vassal, the Teheran _Official

Gazette_ announced the intention of the government to despatch an army

to Herat,—alleging in excuse that Dost Mahomed had made himself master

of Candahar, to the prejudice of the relatives of the deceased sirdar of

that place, Kohendil Khan (a half-brother of Dost Mahomed, who with his

family leant much to Persia), and that he meditated an attack upon

Herat. In the same article it was insinuated that these proceedings on

the part of the Dost were instigated and aided by the British

Government; nevertheless the Persian Court, following the usual

Muscovite ruse, professed its desire to maintain inviolate its position

of neutrality. In a subsequent manifesto, published before despatching

the army, the Shah represented Mr Murray’s retirement as a mere personal

misunderstanding, and explained the Herat expedition as one undertaken

at the urgent entreaty of Prince Yusoof, in order to save the place from

the threatened attack of Dost Mahomed’s forces. In refutation of these

allegations, it is sufficient to say that neither the Ameer nor a single

soldier of his had been within 200 miles of Herat, and that he had made

no preparations for such an attack. The Persian Government at the same

time announced its intention of despatching a corps of 20,000 men to

Candahar, to reinstate Kohendil Khan’s son in the government.

Last spring the Persian army commenced its march to Herat, and in due

course reached its destination. At Gorian, thirty miles to the west of

Herat, they met and cut up a body either of Affghans or of Turkoman

cavalry coming to the assistance of the menaced city. Prince Yusoof

inclined to favour the Persian cause; and with his consent the first

Persian detachment that arrived, under Sano Khan, was admitted into the

city. But the Barukzee party is strong in Herat; the Alekozee clan, to

which Yar Mahomed belonged, and of which Esa Khan is a chief, likewise

declared against the Persians; and the result was that Sano Khan was

ejected, and preparations made for a vigorous defence. Messengers were

sent to Dost Mahomed, then at Candahar, and to the British Commissioner

in Scinde, urgently entreating aid; and several successful sorties were

made, blowing up the Persian magazines, and destroying their supplies.

The defence was conducted jointly by Prince Yusoof and Esa Khan.

Meanwhile the main body of the Persian army arrived under Murad Mirza,

the commander-in-chief, raising the besieging force to 30,000 men; but

it was not till the end of August that any serious action took place. Of

the two great sects which divide the Mahomedan world, the Persians

belong to one (Sheahs) and the Affghans and Turks to the other

(Sunnees). A portion of the population of Herat, probably descendants of

the Persian colony planted by Nadir Shah, are Sheeites; and betwixt

certain chiefs of this sect and their co-religionists without, a secret

correspondence was opened; and it was concerted that about noon, when

Esa Khan and his chief officers were at prayers in the mosque, a body of

Persians should surprise and take possession of one of the gates and the

tower which commanded it. On the 29th August the attempt was made with

success, and the gate and tower were seized by a detachment of the

besieging force; but the main body remained inactive, and Esa Khan,

hastily collecting his troops, gallantly led them against the enemy. The

_mêlée_ was so confused that the Persians were unable to use their

muskets, and, overpowered by the rush of the Affghans, armed with

hanjars, were driven out with great slaughter. Being pursued by the

Affghans beyond the gates, the routed Persians suffered still more

severely, till they were carried off by a brigade sent to their rescue.

Reinforcements, however, continued to arrive to the besieging army;

intrenchments were thrown up around each gate, to make the blockade

complete; and a native eyewitness states that “the Persians built

barracks for their troops, so that there are so many buildings in the

camp that it appears to form another city rivalling Herat.” M. Buhler, a

French officer, who was sent to the camp with special recommendations

from the Shah, gave an impulse of energy to the whole army; and by his

advice the trenches were pushed far in advance, till at several points

the head of the _boyau_ was within from ten to fifteen yards of the

ditch. Discouragement began to spread in the city; provisions were

scarce; the Sheeites were deserting and taking service with the enemy;

the succours promised by Dost Mahomed were not forthcoming, and

defections were reported among the Affghan chiefs. Finding his affairs

desperate, Prince Yusoof made an attempt to escape from the city—other

accounts say he was ejected by the Affghans; and, being taken by the

Persians, was sent as a prisoner to Teheran, where he received the

pardon of the Shah.

The defence now devolved wholly upon Esa Khan, who appears to have acted

throughout with much gallantry. But it was impossible to avert the fall

of the place. By the third week of October a considerable breach had

been made at the foot of one of the numerous towers which flank the

walls of the town; but in order to reach that spot it was necessary to

carry an advanced work, which had been erected at a former time by the

advice of British officers. The Persian attacking columns, composed of

picked troops, rushed forward to the assault with intrepidity; and the

Affghans, though they stood the first shock, were soon obliged to give

way. Upon this, seeing that further resistance was impossible, Esa Khan

(25th October) surrendered, and Herat was taken possession of by the

Persians.

Nor was Herat the goal of Persian aggression. At an early period of the

siege, a Persian corps had been pushed forward to Furrah, an Affghan

town about 180 miles due south from Herat, at the point where the main

road turns eastward towards Candahar. Furrah, although surrounded by a

high earthen rampart, appears to have been captured without opposition;

and thereafter a further advance was made towards Geerishk (a town lying

between Furrah and Candahar, and within 60 miles of the latter city),

where some skirmishing took place between the Persians and the advanced

guard of the Ameer’s forces,—about 8000 of whom were stationed for the

defence of Candahar. The latest intelligence reports that the Persian

army has greatly extended itself in Affghanistan. It has pushed

southwards from Furrah, taking possession of the province of Seistan—as

well as eastwards, threatening Khelat and Candahar. And the result of

these successes, following the capture of Herat, has been to induce not

a few of the Affghan chiefs to lean to Persia as the winning side,—among

others, Sultan Mahomed, the ex-chief of Peshawur, who was caught

intriguing with the Persians against his brother the Ameer, and by the

latter was summarily ordered off to Cabool.

Independently of any treaty forbidding Persia to invade Affghanistan, it

is obvious that _the British had as clear a right to defend that country

as the Persians had to attack it_. Our aid, moreover, had been urgently

solicited by the Affghans themselves. A proclamation of war,

accordingly, was made at Calcutta, on the 1st of November; and a

fortnight afterwards a naval expedition was despatched from Bombay for

the Persian Gulf, where the island of Karrak (seized in the former war)

has been reoccupied, and the town and port of Bushire taken possession

of. In the proclamation of war (as is too commonly the case in

diplomatic documents), the reasons of common-sense and national interest

are passed over in silence; and the whole ground of hostilities is made

to rest upon the convention concluded between Colonel Sheil and the

Persian Government in January 1853—of which more anon. As it is

important to note the terms of the proclamation, we quote its principal

clauses. After referring to the convention of 1853, it proceeds as

follows:—

“By those articles the Persian Government engaged not to send troops

to Herat on any account, unless foreign troops—that is, troops from

the direction of Cabool or Candahar, or other foreign country—should

invade Herat. In the event of troops being sent, the Persian

Government engaged that the said troops should not enter the city of

Herat; and that, on the return of the foreign troops towards their own

territory, the Persian troops should be immediately withdrawn from the

neighbourhood of Herat to Persian soil.

“The Persian Government also engaged to abstain from all interference

whatsoever in the internal affairs of Herat, whether ‘in taking

possession, or occupying, or assuming the sovereignty, or governing,

except in so far as interference existed between the two parties

during the lifetime of the late Yar Mahomed.’

“And, lastly, the Persian Government engaged to relinquish all

pretension to and demand for the coinage, or the reading of the

Khootbeh, or any other acknowledgment of allegiance or subjection on

the part of the people of Herat to the government of Persia.

“It was, at the same time, stipulated that, so long as there should be

no interference of any sort whatever on the part of the British

Government in the affairs of Herat, the engagements contracted by the

Persian Government, as aforesaid, should remain in full force and

effect. On the other hand, it was agreed in the name of the British

Government, that ‘if any foreign power, such as the Affghans or

others,’ should wish to interfere with, or take possession of Herat,

the British Government, on the requisition of the Persian Ministers,

would not object to restrain such foreign power by friendly advice,

‘so that Herat might remain in its own state of independence.’

“While the British Government has faithfully and constantly adhered to

the obligations which it accepted [?] under the agreement of January

1853, the Government of Persia has manifested a deliberate and

persevering disregard of the reciprocal engagements, by which at the

same time it became bound, and is now endeavouring to subvert by force

the independence of Herat, which was the declared object of the

agreement in question.”

Herat, the proximate cause of this war, needs a word of description. The

_Times_ asks, “Where is Herat?” and as it is obvious that every year

will give the British nation a livelier interest in that part of the

world, it may be useful to give a general sketch of the locality. Let us

say, then, that Affghanistan, with its five millions of a warlike race,

intervenes like a huge quadrangular mountain-citadel between India and

Persia,—and that Herat is the only gate by which entrance can be

obtained to this citadel from the west. The lofty Suleiman range of

mountains, running parallel with the Indus, bounds Affghanistan on the

east; the still more lofty range of the Hindoo Koosh (a continuation of

the Himalayas) bounds it on the north; to the south, the sandy plains of

Beloochistan stretch between it and the sea; and on the west it is

separated from Persia by the deserts of Khorassan. Across those deserts

the only passage for an army is to be found at their north side, where

two or three routes exist more or less practicable for troops. These

routes all converge and unite as they approach the north-west angle of

Affghanistan, where stands HERAT. This city, then, is the door which

must be opened before entrance can be obtained to the quadrangular mass

of mountains, valleys, and waterless plateaus which constitute

Affghanistan. Its situation is one of great military and commercial

importance. The peaceful files of the caravan, and the dread battalions

of war, alike pass through it on their march from India to Persia, or

from Persia to India. The long camel-trains from Delhi, Mooltan, and

Lahore pass through it, bearing the merchandise of India and the

manufactures of England to the distant towns and oases of Persia and

Turkistan; and so completely is Herat a gateway of commerce that it is

called _Bunder_, or Port,—although the only sea upon which it borders

are seas of sand. The march of conquest has passed through it from time

immemorial. The cavalry-host of Timour and the disciplined army of Nadir

Shah, in their invasions of India, went and came by this route; and

though Alexander the Great, Gengis Khan, and Baber marched by Balkh, and

crossed the Hindoo Koosh immediately to the north of Cabool, the route

by Herat is the only one practicable for an army with the usual

complement of artillery. The country around Herat affords an admirable

halting-place for armies. It is a spacious plain, thirty miles long and

half as broad, once studded with villages, and still exhibiting a fair

expanse of gardens, vineyards, and corn-fields; while the Herat river

and “the bright waters of small running streams [canals?] lighten the

pleasant landscape,” and fertilise the plain. In the hamlets and gardens

around, the celebrated _attar_, or otto of roses, is manufactured; and

such is the profusion of this regal flower that Herat has been styled

the City of Roses. In the midst of the plain stands the city, now much

fallen from its olden prosperity, but still containing a population of

about fifty thousand, and destined ever to retain much wealth and

importance from lying in the track of the caravans. Its staple

commodities are silk, assafœtida, and saffron; and the principal

merchants of the place are Hindoos. Like most Asiatic towns, there is

much dirt and desolation within; yet water, that prime necessity of

Oriental life, is so abundant that almost every house has a fountain,

besides the public ones in the bazaars. The city, which forms a square,

each side of which is about a mile long, is strongly fortified for an

Eastern town, being encircled by a solid bastioned earthen wall and wet

ditch; and within there is a citadel, a square castle built of burnt

brick, elevated on a mound, sufficiently strong to constitute a

rallying-point, but incapable of separate defence. Abundant crops of

wheat and barley, and every kind of fruit known in Persia, are supplied

by the fertile region around; and though cattle are not very numerous,

there are large flocks of the broad-tailed sheep so well known and

prized in Central Asia. Thus no better camping-ground and quarters could

be found for an army; and as an intermediate station between the deserts

on the west and the Affghan mountains on the east, it is for such a

purpose invaluable. It is a vast _place d’armes_, where all assaulting

columns from the west must unite and recruit before making their final

attack upon the defences of our Indian empire. To speak in miniature, it

is just such a place as a skilful defender of India would desire to

cover with a horn-work, in order to prevent the enemy from getting

possession of a spot where they could collect their forces under cover,

and from which they could so advantageously push forward their assault

upon our interior works of defence.

“We have a garden, which is India; the walls are the fortified towns of

Tartary and Affghanistan. Let the Russians once seize them, and our

garden is theirs.” So said Sir Richmond Shakspere to the Khan of Khiva,

in language not more finely figurative than true; and M. Ferrier, the

French officer who lately wandered with the caravans throughout that

region, and who has elaborately speculated on the future of Russian and

Anglo-Indian power in the East, adds, “I believe he is right.” In the

imperial policy of Russia, designs upon India have been very long

cherished. First sighted by the genius of Peter, and first practically

contemplated by the madman Paul; talked of by Alexander and Napoleon,

and sketched out like a grand dream by the latter, the invasion of India

is a design never laid aside at the Court of St Petersburg. But apart

from the question of design, look at the mere facts. Russia is advancing

farther and farther into Asia, nearer and nearer to the bulwarks of our

Indian empire. “If we go on at this rate,” said Baron Brunow to Sir John

Hobhouse, in 1837, “the Cossack and the Sepoy will soon meet on the

banks of the Oxus.” They will so meet some day. Russia knows this, and

intends this; and it were well that the grand issue to which things are

tending should be timeously perceived in England. Nothing can stop the

progress of Russia through Central Asia,—one might as well think of

stopping the welling of a fountain or the movement of a glacier. And

before this generation pass away, Russia will have organised the forces

of Persia on her side, and be sitting in armed leaguer around our

mountain outworks of Affghanistan. For we hardly contemplate the

possibility of the British Government being so demented as to allow

these hostile powers to effect a lodgment in the Affghan territories.

When engaged in a desperate war with Great Britain in Europe, it was

most natural for Russia to seek to disquiet us on the side of India. But

even before the war, our Government had felt the serious inconveniences

resulting from the downfall of British ascendancy at the Court of

Teheran. Persia is lastingly covetous of Herat; and knowing that Russia,

now the dominant power in Central Asia, is secretly but assuredly in

favour of the project, it was with difficulty that the Shah could be

induced to keep his hands off the coveted city, or to pay ordinary

respect to our embassy, which was always on the watch to thwart him.

Rarely has the foreign policy of this country been more actively and

beneficially directed than during the nine months that Lord Malmesbury

presided at the Foreign Office; and it is to this statesman that we owe

the “convention” of January 1853, by which Persia bound herself to

abstain from attacking, occupying, or making any claim of sovereignty

over Herat. This convention was signed by the Persian Government, but

was never ratified by ours. An attempt is being now made to show that

this non-ratification is of no importance, as the convention was simply

a pledge on the part of Persia, and was duly signed by her. But this is

not true,—for it contained a reciprocal agreement on the part of the

British Government to restrain any Affghan power from attacking Herat;

therefore, not being ratified by our Government, the whole convention is

null. The question naturally arises,—_Why_ was not the treaty ratified?

The explanation of this unusual and unfortunate circumstance demands

consideration. Diplomacy often keeps secret from one generation what is

duly revealed to the next, (when the information is useless); and

probably it will ere long be known that this country was nearer a

rupture with Russia in 1852 than the public are aware of. In an article

on the Aberdeen Ministry (July 1855), we mentioned the anti-Russian

policy of Lord Derby’s Administration as a secret cause of the abrupt

overthrow of the Conservative rule. Russian influence prevented the

appointment of Lord de Redcliffe to the Foreign Office; and anecdotes

are current which indicate that the differences between the two

Governments were so great as to threaten even a warlike result. Persia,

in fact, was giving us serious provocations, and went the length of

officially announcing her intention to regard Herat as an appanage,

which she would maintain by force of arms against any Affghan power that

might contest her claim. If we are to believe M. Ferrier, a Russian

force of 5000 men was simultaneously (autumn of 1852) landed at

Astrabad, and advanced eastwards up the river Attruck (which forms the

boundary between Persia and Turkistan), and was only recalled upon an

_ultimatum_ to that effect being presented by England at St Petersburg.

At that time the British Government threatened to break off diplomatic

relations with the Court of Teheran, and directed Colonel Sheil to

intimate that hostile measures would be had recourse to in the event of

Persia making any attack upon the independence of Affghanistan. The

result of this firmness on the part of the British Government was, that

the Persian Government gave up its pretensions to Herat, and signed the

terms of treaty required by Colonel Sheil. The treaty was concluded in

January 1853, but in the preceding month a change of Ministry had taken

place in England. Lord Aberdeen and the “Coalition” had displaced Lord

Derby; and philo-Russianism and implicit faith in the word and policy of

the Czar had become the order of the day. _Therefore_, say we, the

treaty was never ratified. If there be another explanation, let it be

stated, and let blame fall upon the right shoulders. But this much is

certain, that in consequence of the non-ratification of that treaty, the

proclamation of war with Persia issued by our Government is groundless;

for it founds wholly upon a violation of that treaty, and the treaty is

utterly _null_.

When the war in Europe commenced, the Shah, flattered by Russia, saw in

it a favourable opportunity for reviving his projects against Herat and

Affghanistan; and so he plunged into the present quarrel. Despite his

professions of neutrality, the crafty Persian is said to have followed

the diplomatic and strategic counsels of the Russian Government; and

there is reason to believe that, but for the intervention of the Paris

negotiations, a Russian armament would have crossed the Caspian early in

spring, and occupied the Persian towns of Amol and Astrabad,—the goal of

the expedition being Herat. The Peace of Paris, though it stopped the

actual entrance of the Russians into Persia, allowed the Court of St

Petersburg to make a great addition to her forces on the Caspian; and at

the beginning of November, immediately after the fall of Herat, orders

were given at St Petersburg to assemble an army of 40,000 men on the

Persian frontiers. Prince Bariatinski was appointed Lieutenant-General

of the Caucasian provinces, with ampler powers than his predecessors.

All the war-steamers on the Caspian have been fully manned by the

arrival of seamen from the naval ports. The war-magazines throughout the

whole region, in part exhausted by the war, have been refilled; and it

appears that both troops and stores have of late been transported by

water to Astrabad, or the islands adjoining it. The “fiery” Chruleff

commands the _corps-d’armée_ echeloned from Bakou to Erivan, along the

verge of the Persian frontier; and as the principal weight of the

Russian armaments is accumulated in this quarter, it is to be expected

that the main intervention (if there be one) will take place from this

point. Several staff-officers have been despatched into the adjoining

Persian province of Mazanderan, to reconnoitre the passage for troops

and to draw topographical plans; and in the event of invasion, it is

designed to occupy strongly the defiles of the Caspian Gates and of

Komis, as it is by these two points that the centre of Persia can be

approached. While these preparations are in progress, the semi-official

letters from St Petersburg which appear in the Continental journals,

boast that, despite the noisy demonstrations of England, Russia, owing

to her silent preparations, will be able to take the upper hand of us in

Persia; and the Russian journal _Le Nord_ points to Persia “as a field

of battle upon which, one day or other, there will be measured the

relative strength of two great powers, which are at the same time

European and Asiatic; and where will be ultimately decided the fortunes

of Russia.”

The long-debated question as to the possibility of Russia attacking

India is now universally regarded as solved in the affirmative. Those

who once so stoutly denied it, must have been men who could not look

beyond the present hour, and conceived that the world would stand still

ever as it was in their day. Every decade of years has been removing

some difficulty which these men thought insuperable. In these days of

railways, telegraphs, and steam-navigation (of all of which Russia is

availing herself), the remaining difficulties will vanish still more

rapidly. Russia is not ready for an actual onset upon our Indian empire,

but she is both ready and willing to engage with us in warlike rivalry

for ascendancy over the intervening region of Persia, and will push

forward her Asiatic vassals against the Indian ramparts which she

herself is not yet ready to assail. The policy of Russia is a game of

centuries. She will not spring too soon; she has learnt that grand

secret of success—to wait. But waiting, with her, is not inaction; and

her approaches towards India are now sufficiently far advanced to cause

us active disquietude. She has begun in earnest to push forward her

tirailleurs against us preparatory to the pitched battle. She will

continue to throw Persia against our first parallel of defence,

Affghanistan; and, if unopposed, will carry the sap of bribery and

coercion through that mountain-rampart up to the very plains of India.

Henceforth we may look for a series of harassing attacks, increasing in

magnitude—wandering Turkomans and civilised Persians being alike pressed

into the service, until Russia descend herself into the arena, and press

the assault with all her forces. It is at present only an affair of

outposts; but such skirmishes often decide the issue of the ensuing

battle, by allowing one side or other to seize posts of vantage which

dominate over the rest of the field. Such a post is Herat; and if we do

not get the Persians quickly expelled from it, we shall give them time

to fortify and maintain it until the Russians also may arrive on the

scene,—in which case the contest around its walls would at once assume

most formidable proportions.

It is important to note the means and routes by which the Russians may

advance to Affghanistan. It has been far too much the custom of

geographers, as well as of the multitude, to regard all unknown regions

as desert. Blank expanses in maps, undotted by the tiny circles which

represent towns, we are too apt to look upon as uninhabitable solitudes,

forgetful that the ignorance of the chart-maker may have as much to do

with the matter as any want of population and fertility in the region

itself. In this way we have been accustomed, from our schooldays

upwards, to regard the whole interior of Africa as an expanse of arid

sand, whereas the recent explorations of Dr Livingstone and others show

it to be in many parts one of the most luxuriant regions of the earth.

We suspect that a larger portion of Central Asia will be found habitable

and fertile than is now believed; and we shall see immediately, on the

testimony of M. Ferrier and others, corroborated by the inductions of

common sense, that not only the routes from the Caspian to Herat, but

also those _viâ_ Khiva and the Oxus, do not lie through such arid wastes

as is commonly supposed. _Omne ignotum pro deserto_ seems to be as

common a notion in geography, as is the tendency in other sciences to

make synonymous terms of the unknown and the wonderful.

In describing the routes by which Russia is advancing towards the

mountain-portals of India, let us start from the heart of the Czar’s

empire, viz., St Petersburg and Moscow,—twin capitals, already united to

one another by railway, and soon about to be similarly united with the

western and southern frontiers of the empire. From Moscow, the ancient

and semi-Asiatic capital of Russia, the route stretches north-east to

the banks of the Volga at Nishni-Novgorod,—the water-gate to Central

Asia, and the scene of the great fair to which traders annually repair

from all parts of northern and central Asia. The projected Moscow and

Novgorod railway will encounter no engineering difficulties; for the

country is an undulating plain, diversified by low hills, none of which

rise more than five hundred feet above the sea-level. From Novgorod the

route to Asia is by water, on the broad and vast stream of the Volga,

upon which ply steamboats and craft of all kinds, in numbers already

great, and yearly increasing; and by this cheapest of all kinds of

conveyance, stores and troops are annually transported to and from the

Persian frontiers. Sixteen or seventeen hundred miles of this watery

highway, running south-eastwards, bring us to Astrakan, where the Volga

debouches into the Caspian Sea. Here a long sheet of water opens out,

extending nearly 700 miles from north to south, and varying from 100 to

250 miles in breadth. With the exception of a part of the western coast

adjoining the mouth of the Terek, the shores are said to be bold, and

the water so deep that in some places 450 fathoms will not reach the

bottom. This inland sea is in the exclusive possession of Russia. No

ship of war can sail its waters unless it bear the Russian flag. Indeed

Persia, forbidden by treaty to have armed vessels of her own in that

sea, has for a long time been compelled to invoke the assistance of the

Russian war-ships, as a means of coercing the Turkomans on the eastern

coast; the consequence of which has been, that not only the Turkomans,

but the population of the Persian provinces adjoining the Caspian, have

learnt to stand more in awe of the Russians than of their natural

rulers. The islands of the Caspian virtually belong to Russia, and two

important insular groups, one in the bay of Balkan, half-way down the

eastern side of the sea, and another in the bay of Astrabad, in the

south-eastern corner, have just been seized by the Muscovites, as if in

preparation for ulterior movements on the adjoining portions of the

mainland.

From the shores of the Caspian, Russia is preparing to advance by two

grand converging lines upon Affghanistan. Of these lines, one sets out

from the north-eastern shores of the Caspian, the other from its

south-eastern extremity. The latter, starting from Astrabad and

proceeding straight to Herat, seems to us designed for the main attack;

the former, proceeding _viâ_ Khiva and the Oxus, as a supporting

flank-movement. Along either of these lines Russian corps may make an

early advance for the purpose of skirmishing, causing disquiet, and

weakening British prestige in Affghanistan; or even, in concert with

Persia, of taking permanent possession of Herat, if we are so tardy in

our movements as to allow of her doing so. But the real attack, the

solid and deliberate charge which meditates no recoiling, will not be

made by Russia until she have converted Persia into a vassal state, and

efficiently organised her forces and resources. This she will seek to do

by keeping the Shah on the throne, but subjecting the Persian army to

Russian officers and drill, and pulling the wires of the puppet

government from St Petersburg. The accomplishment of all this by Russia

is, in our opinion, a mere question of time; and, once accomplished, it

will be found that in absorbing Persia our great Asiatic rival has most

formidably added to his strength. The Persian army at present consists

of 80,000 infantry; an artillery which, like that of all Asiatic

nations, is better than its infantry; and clouds of cavalry, that can

perform marches of sixty or seventy miles a-day for several successive

days, without inconvenience—thus being able to pass over tracts wholly

impracticable to ordinary troops, and make most effective surprises. The

raw material of the Persian army is excellent. “If regularly

disciplined,” says Sir John M‘Neill, “and led by a competent number of

European officers of intelligence and activity, there are few armies

that, in a campaign in Asia, could boast of any great superiority over

that of Persia. The men are singularly tractable, orderly, and

obedient,—active, contented, and intelligent,—capable of enduring

extraordinary fatigue and privations,—easily fed, and maintained at a

moderate cost,—by no means wanting in courage or enterprise, and capable

of perfect attachment to their officers,—in short, admirable materials

for soldiers.” Such is the Power which Russia is moulding to her

purposes,—over which she is likely immediately to get a still firmer

hold,—and which will march by her side, or as a vanguard, in her onsets

upon Affghanistan. So that, while a Russian corps advances from Astrabad

as the base of its Trans-Caspian operations, the military forces of the

Shah will advance from the heart of Persia, and both together march by

contiguous and parallel routes to Herat.

From the Caspian to Herat is a distance of not quite six hundred miles.

Part of this distance the Russians might travel by water, up the river

Goorgan, and the still larger Attruck river,—both of which fall into the

Caspian a little to the north of Astrabad, and the courses of which run

due eastwards in the direction of Herat. Independently of these routes

by water, which might be of use for nearly a third part of the way,

three parallel lines of road lead through northern Khorassan to Herat.

On all of these a scarcity of water, necessitating long marches, occurs

at some points; but they are constantly travelled by the caravans, and

have been repeatedly traversed by Persian armies and their artillery

without difficulty. We could easily accumulate testimony, from the

personal observations of Burnes, Conolly, M‘Neill, and Ferrier, to show

that the region between the Caspian and Herat is no desert, that the

food-supplies are sufficiently abundant, and the roads quite practicable

for armies; but, not to speak of more ancient cases, we think the simple

fact that Persian armies have repeatedly made the journey both backwards

and forwards within the last thirty years, renders the tendering of such

proof mere pedantry and supererogation. Let it suffice, then, to quote

the compendious affirmation of Sir John M‘Neill, who, writing from

Meshed, in the very heart of these routes, and speaking of the region to

the east of Herat as well as to the west of it, says: “The country

between the frontiers of Persia and India is far more productive than I

had imagined it to be; and I can assure your lordship there is no

impediment, either from the physical features of the country or from

deficiency of supplies, to the march of a large army from the frontiers

of Georgia to Candahar, or, as I believe, to the Indus.”

And so we reach Herat, by the main line of Russo-Persian attack. The

other line of attack by which the Russians are advancing towards

Affghanistan starts from the northern instead of the southern extremity

of the Caspian, stretching across to the Aral Sea, making Khiva and its

fertile oasis a base of operations, and thereafter ascending the great

river Oxus to Balkh,—from whence a road leads due south, crossing the

Hindoo Koosh at Bameean, to Cabool. In order to facilitate the crossing

of the steppes between the Caspian and Aral Seas, the Russians have been

slowly preparing three distinct routes for the march of troops. One of

these ascends the course of the navigable river Yemba (which falls into

the Caspian at its north-eastern corner), to a point where the river

approaches the Aral Sea; and from that point there has been dug a line

of wells, around which military colonies of Cossacks have been settled,

across the steppe to the sea. These colonies of Cossacks, says M.

Ferrier, “cultivate the surrounding soil, and create resources which

never existed before; so that in a few years an army will be able to

obtain sufficient food and forage in all their encampments, and will

reach the Aral Sea without difficulty.” To the south of this line of

wells lie two others,—one reaching from the river Ourloo Irghiz (a

tributary of the Caspian), and tending towards the northern part of the

Aral Sea; the other commencing from two points (Mangishlak and

Dash-killeh) on the eastern shore of the Caspian, and uniting half-way

in one line, which thence proceeds in the direction of Khiva, at the

southern end of the Aral Sea. On the Aral, as on the Caspian, the

Russians have already established a flotilla, which will serve to

navigate the great Oxus river,—indeed, it is said that they even have

steamers already plying upon that river. “The outposts of the Orenburg

corps,” says a Russian letter, “extend to the very extremity of the

country of Turan, upon the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes; and the military

flotilla of the Sea of Aral is brought by the above-named rivers to the

frontiers of India.” By this means the Russians will in due time advance

south-eastwards up its course,—past Bokhara, which will fall, as Khiva

has already fallen, under their domination—up to Balkh, where the Oxus

ceases to be navigable, and which they must make a _point d’appui_

before pushing southwards by the Bameean and five other more difficult

passes to Cabool. It was by these passes through the Hindoo Koosh that

Alexander, Baber, and Timour made their way into Affghanistan; but as

the armies of the two latter were chiefly composed of Tartar horse, and

that of the former had no artillery (though heavily baggaged), the

success of their invasions is no test of the practicability of this

route for a modern army; and it appears that, even if undefended, the

Bameean passes are only traversable by a force armed with light or

mountain artillery. As Russia, when she establishes herself at Balkh,

will have the whole cavalry of Khiva, Bokhara, and the Turkomanian

steppes on her side, it is obvious that the least slip made in the

defence—the least opening left in the line of the Hindoo Koosh, would in

such circumstances involve most embarrassing consequences to the

defenders. Nevertheless it is equally obvious that such a quarter is ill

suited to be made the object of the main attack, and that it is rather

to be regarded as a flank movement subsidiary to, and in support of, the

main line of Russo-Persian attack, _viâ_ Astrabad and Meshed, against

Herat.

One important object which, it seems to us, Russia has in advancing by

Khiva and the Oxus, is the power which it will confer of winning or

coercing the hardy tribes of Turkistan, which she will thus, as it were,

catch in a net between her two lines of advance. Horses, cattle, and

camels are the staple products of the region, and will thus be procured

in great abundance; while the horsemen of the steppes, greedy of gain

and fond of warlike adventure, would readily join in any enterprise

against the regions of the south. For such auxiliaries, and even for a

European corps, there is another route from the Oxus than that which

leads to the Bameean passes of the Hindoo Koosh. Instead of proceeding

all the way up the Oxus to Balkh, and thence crossing the mountains to

Cabool, this other route leaves the banks of the Oxus at Charjooee

(half-way between the Aral Sea and Balkh), and strikes due southwards by

Merv to Herat. The desert between Charjooee and Merv was crossed by

Burnes in 1832, and does not present the difficulties which he

anticipated. It is crossed almost annually by the khans of Khiva and

Bokhara, at the head of expeditions sometimes numbering ten or twelve

thousand horse; and M. Ferrier, who believes this route practicable for

an army, states, that in the winter and spring even the desert steppes

are covered with sufficient herbage to meet the requirements of an army.

From Charjooee to Merv is about 130 miles; from Merv to Herat, about

240,—in all, 370. But the difficulties of the route terminate at Merv,

where there is a well-watered oasis; and from thence the expeditionary

force could march along the banks of the Morghab river for nearly the

whole way to Herat.

Thus, while flank-attacks might be made by the passes of the Hindoo

Koosh upon Cabool, everything conspires to show that the main attack

upon Affghanistan must take place by Herat. We have already described

the importance of this place. “Herat,” said Captain Conolly,

twenty-seven years ago, “could be made a place of considerable strength.

Nothing can exceed the plenty and excellence of the supplies from the

valley; and an army might be garrisoned there for years with every

necessary within its reach.” That is just what the Russians will do with

it, if ever it falls into their power. They will establish themselves

there,—solidify their communications with the Caspian, by improving the

roads and sinking wells,—push forward the sap of bribery and fair

promises through Affghanistan, and excite disquiet and disaffection in

India, until all things are ready for the grand assault and invasion. On

the other hand, were Herat maintained by a British army, it would be

almost impossible for either Persian or Russian to win a footing in its

fertile valley. For it is one of the necessities of desert travelling,

that an army can never march in a united body. It must advance in

separate divisions, by different routes, or with intervals of one or

more days’ march between each corps, from the difficulty of maintaining

a large force at any one halting-place, and in order that the scanty

wells may have time to refill themselves. The consequence is, that were

an efficient force concentrated about Gorian, at the western extremity

of the Herat valley, it could attack the invading army with decisive

advantage as the wearied corps came up in succession, or by separate

routes, from their thirsty march through northern Khorassan.

Other topics connected with the war in Asia invite attention, and may be

treated of in a future article. It will suffice for the present to have

directed attention to the slow and sure advance of a rival European

Power towards our Indian “garden,”—to the circumstances out of which has

arisen the present war with Persia—and the immense importance of Herat

as the door of Affghanistan and key to the mountain-portals of our

Indian empire. As to the merits of the war with Persia, we have clearly

expressed ourselves. The grounds upon which our Government, in the

proclamation of war, has justified a recourse to hostilities, are quite

inadmissible; for they are founded upon a treaty which never was

ratified. But, though wrong in its plea, the British Government was

perfectly justified in having recourse to hostilities,—nay, more, it was

imperatively called upon by the interests of the empire to take such a

course. It is a strange misfortune that the treaty of 1853 was never

ratified by the Aberdeen Government, and in such circumstances it was a

grievous error of the present Government to found upon a document so

obviously null. But the grand and simple justification of hostilities

remains—namely, that apart from all conventions, if Persia choose to

attack Affghanistan, we have an equal right to act in its defence; and

that every principle of national interest concurred in urging us so to

act. It will be a sad day for our Indian empire when Persia succeeds in

establishing her power in Affghanistan.

As to the military measures of the Government, the least that we can say

is that they have failed in warding off the most pressing danger. Not

only Herat, but the whole western front of Affghanistan, embracing a

third of the entire region, is in the hands of the Persians, who are

doubtless consolidating their position there. The expedition to the

Persian Gulf is a most important movement as regards ulterior results,

but all the measures of actual defence for Affghanistan have been marked

by a dilatoriness which has rendered them fruitless. The plan of the

Government was, that a select band of officers should proceed to Herat

to aid in its defence,—and had they gained that city in time it would

have been saved; but although Herat held out much longer than was

anticipated, the Persians were masters of it before the British officers

had set out on their journey! Money and arms, too, were ordered by the

Home Government to be transmitted to Dost Mahomed, in order that he

might manœuvre to raise the siege; but so tardily was the resolution

taken that even yet no news has arrived of these supplies having reached

Candahar! The fact is, our Indian Government ought to have been left to

deal with Persia when that Power makes any attack upon Affghanistan; for

in no other way can the requisite celerity of movement be attained. An

army from the Caspian can reach Herat before the news of its starting

can reach England, and Herat be easily captured before an answer from

Downing Street be received at Bombay! In truth, even with the entire

direction of affairs committed to the Indian Government, the chances

are, that our measures of defence will be taken too late. The frontier

of the Indus is too distant from Herat to allow of our maintaining that

watch over its independence which is imperatively demanded by a regard

for the safety of India. In 1839 our army, including a short halt at

Khelat, took from the 23d February to the 25th April to march from

Shikarpoor on the Indus to Candahar—about sixty days, a period that

would suffice to bring an army to Herat from the Caspian; and other four

hundred miles intervene between Candahar and Herat. In fact, the journey

from the Indus to Herat is fully a half longer than that from Astrabad

to the same place. These facts suggest grave reflections, which we

cannot enter upon at the close of an article. But let the Government and

public of this country lay this to heart, that a Russian corps could be

landed at Astrabad, and be far on its march to Herat, before any

intelligence of the event could reach England, or even India; and that

the presence of a couple of Russian brigades, and a few engineers of the

Todleben school, could hold the earthen defences of Herat for years

against any force which we could bring against it. Even if the present

danger blow over, these are facts which demand the most earnest

attention of the Government and our military authorities.

SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.—NO. I.

THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND AMOS BARTON.

PART II.—CHAPTER V.

The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate,

was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character, and

perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a

man who was so very far from remarkable,—a man whose virtues were not

heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not

the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and

unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that

complaint favourably many years ago. “An utterly uninteresting

character!” I think I hear a lady reader exclaim—Mrs Farthingale, for

example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine

tippets, adultery, and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some

personage who is “quite a character.”

But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your

fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty

out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last

census, are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked,

nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with

sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably

had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are

certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not

manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are

simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more

or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people—many of

them—bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the

painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys;

their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they

have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in

their very insignificance,—in our comparison of their dim and narrow

existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which

they share?

Depend upon it, my dear lady, you would gain unspeakably if you would

learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and

the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out

through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary

tones. In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know

what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely

details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it is, you can,

if you please, decline to pursue my story farther; and you will easily

find reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that

many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling

incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last

season.

Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos

Barton and his wife, will be glad to learn that Mr Oldinport lent the

twenty pounds. But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due

as back payment to the butcher, and when the possession of eight extra

sovereigns in February weather is an irresistible temptation to order a

new greatcoat. And though Mr Bridmain so far departed from the necessary

economy entailed on him by the Countess’s elegant toilette and expensive

maid, as to choose a handsome black silk, stiff, as his experienced eye

discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture, and not with

the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs Barton, in

retrieval of the accident that had occurred at his table, yet, dear

me—as every husband has heard—what is the present of a gown, when you

are deficiently furnished with the et-ceteras of apparel, and when,

moreover, there are six children whose wear and tear of clothes is

something incredible to the non-maternal mind?

Indeed, the equation of income and expenditure was offering new and

constantly accumulating difficulties to Mr and Mrs Barton; for shortly

after the birth of little Walter, Milly’s aunt, who had lived with her

ever since her marriage, had withdrawn herself, her furniture, and her

yearly income, to the household of another niece; prompted to that step,

very probably, by a slight “tiff” with the Rev. Amos, which occurred

while Milly was up-stairs, and proved one too many for the elderly

lady’s patience and magnanimity. Mr Barton’s temper was a little warm,

but, on the other hand, elderly maiden ladies are known to be

susceptible; so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his

side—the less so, as he had every motive for humouring an inmate whose

presence kept the wolf from the door. It was now nearly a year since

Miss Jackson’s departure, and, to a fine ear, the howl of the wolf was

audibly approaching.

It was a sad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted, when the

purple and yellow crocuses were coming up in the garden, and the old

church was already half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her

lips look pale, and rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not

exert herself for some time. Mr Brand, the Shepperton doctor so

obnoxious to Mr Pillgrim, ordered her to drink port-wine, and it was

quite necessary to have a charwoman very often, to assist Nanny in all

the extra work that fell upon her.

Mrs Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and

nearest neighbour Mrs Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at

the vicarage one morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes

as she saw Milly seated pale and feeble in the parlour, unable to

persevere in sewing the pinafore that lay on the table beside her.

Little Dickey, a boisterous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and

sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with Mamma, and was squatting

quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his

little red, black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs Hackit, in a

severe mood, had pronounced “stocky” (a word that etymologically, in all

probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for

the refractory); but seeing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled

at him with her kindest smile, and, stooping down, suggested a kiss—a

favour which Dickey resolutely declined.

“Now _do_ you take nourishing things anuff?” was one of Mrs Hackit’s

first questions, and Milly endeavoured to make it appear that no woman

was ever so much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent

habits as herself. But Mrs Hackit gathered one fact from her replies,

namely, that Mr Brand had ordered port-wine.

While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively

stroking and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause

came, his mother said, smilingly, “Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey?”

“It id to yovely,” answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly

backward in his pronunciation.

Mrs Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with

peculiar tenderness and pity of the “stocky boy.”

The next day there came a hamper with Mrs Hackit’s respects; and on

being opened, it was found to contain half-a-dozen of port-wine and two

couples of fowls. Mrs Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs

Barton’s rejecting all arrow-root but hers, which was genuine Indian,

and carried away Sophy and Fred to stay with her a fortnight. These and

other good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly’s illness more

bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr

Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing his case to a

certain charity for the relief of needy curates.

Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more

likely to have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material

aid, than that they needed his spiritual aid,—not the best state of

things in this age and country, where faith in men solely on the ground

of their spiritual gifts has considerably diminished, and especially

unfavourable to the influence of the Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts

would not have had a very commanding power even in an age of faith.

But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her

friends all this time? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in

visiting her “sweet Milly,” and sitting with her for hours together; and

it may seem remarkable to you that she neither thought of taking away

any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly’s probable wants;

but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cannot be expected

to surmise the details of poverty. She put a great deal of

eau-de-Cologne on Mrs Barton’s pocket-handkerchief, rearranged her

pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm

shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life

she had seen abroad. When Mr Barton joined them, she talked of

Tractarianism, of her determination not to re-enter the vortex of

fashionable life, and of her anxiety to see him in a sphere large enough

for his talents. Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth

quite charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a

vague consciousness that he had risen into aristocratic life, and only

associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and

parenthetic manner.

However, as the days brightened, Milly’s cheeks and lips brightened too;

and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful

eyes might have seen that activity was not easy to her. Mrs Hackit’s

eyes were of that kind, and one day that Mr and Mrs Barton had been

dining with her for the first time since Milly’s illness, she observed

to her husband—“That poor thing’s dreadful weak an’ delicate, she won’t

stan’ havin’ many more children.”

Mr Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his vocation. He had

preached two extemporary sermons every Sunday at the workhouse, where a

room had been fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in

the church; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other

extremity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more

extemporary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and

perspiration. After all these labours you will easily conceive that he

was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o’clock in the evening, and

that a supper at a friendly parishioner’s, with a glass, or even two

glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement. Mr

Barton was not at all an ascetic; he thought the benefits of fasting

were entirely confined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of

relaxing himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other

ladies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr Barton did not

more uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh.

Thin ladies, who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong

enough to bear stimulants, are so extremely critical about one’s

personal habits! And, after all, the Rev. Amos never came near the

borders of a vice. His very faults were middling—he was not _very_

ungrammatical. It was not in his nature to be superlative in anything;

unless, indeed, he was superlatively middling, the quintessential

extract of mediocrity. If there was any one point on which he showed an

inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness and

ability in practical matters, so that he was very full of plans which

were something like his moves in chess—admirably well calculated,

supposing the state of the case were otherwise. For example, that

notable plan of introducing anti-dissenting books into his lending

library did not in the least appear to have bruised the head of Dissent,

though it had certainly made Dissent strongly inclined to bite the Rev.

Amos’s heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his churchwardens and

influential parishioners by his fertile suggestiveness as to what it

would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and

other ecclesiastical secularities.

“I never see the like to parsons,” Mr Hackit said one day in

conversation with his brother churchwarden Mr Bond; “they’re al’ys for

meddlin’ wi’ business, an’ they know no moor about it than my black

filly.”

“Ah,” said Mr Bond, “they’re too high learnt to have much common-sense.”

“Well,” remarked Mr Hackit, in a modest and dubious tone, as if throwing

out a hypothesis which might be considered bold, “I should say that’s a

bad sort o’ eddication as makes folks onreasonable.”

So that, you perceive, Mr Barton’s popularity was in that precarious

condition, in that toppling and contingent state, in which a very slight

push from a malignant destiny would utterly upset it. That push was not

long in being given, as you shall hear.

One fine May morning, when Amos was out on his parochial visits, and the

sunlight was streaming through the bow-window of the sitting-room, where

Milly was seated at her sewing, occasionally looking up to glance at the

children playing in the garden, there came a loud rap at the door, which

she at once recognised as the Countess’s, and that well-dressed lady

presently entered the sitting-room, with her veil drawn over her face.

Milly was not at all surprised or sorry to see her; but when the

Countess threw up her veil, and showed that her eyes were red and

swollen, she was both surprised and sorry.

“What can be the matter, dear Caroline?”

Caroline threw down Jet, who gave a little yelp; then she threw her arms

round Milly’s neck, and began to sob; then she threw herself on the

sofa, and begged for a glass of water; then she threw off her bonnet and

shawl; and, by the time Milly’s imagination had exhausted itself in

conjuring up calamities, she said—

“Dear, how shall I tell you? I am the most wretched woman. To be

deceived by a brother to whom I have been so devoted—to see him

degrading himself—giving himself utterly to the dogs!”

“What can it be?” said Milly, who began to picture to herself the sober

Mr Bridmain taking to brandy and betting.

“He is going to be married—to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice,

to whom I have been the most indulgent mistress. Did you ever hear of

anything so disgraceful? so mortifying? so disreputable?”

“And has he only just told you of it?” said Milly, who, having really

heard of worse conduct, even in her innocent life, avoided a direct

answer.

“Told me of it! he had not even the grace to do that. I went into the

dining-room suddenly and found him kissing her—disgusting at his time of

life, is it not?—and when I reproved her for allowing such liberties,

she turned round saucily, and said she was engaged to be married to my

brother, and she saw no shame in allowing him to kiss her. Edmund is a

miserable coward, you know, and looked frightened; but when she asked

him to say whether it was not so, he tried to summon up courage and say

yes. I left the room in disgust, and this morning I have been

questioning Edmund, and find that he is bent on marrying this woman, and

that he has been putting off telling me—because he was ashamed of

himself, I suppose. I couldn’t possibly stay in the house after this,

with my own maid turned mistress. And now, Milly, I am come to throw

myself on your charity for a week or two. _Will_ you take me in?”

“That we will,” said Milly, “if you will only put up with our poor rooms

and way of living. It will be delightful to have you!”

“It will soothe me to be with you and Mr Barton a little while. I feel

quite unable to go among my other friends just at present. What those

two wretched people will do I don’t know—leave the neighbourhood at

once, I hope. I entreated my brother to do so, before he disgraced

himself.”

When Amos came home, he joined his cordial welcome and sympathy to

Milly’s. By-and-by the Countess’s formidable boxes, which she had

carefully packed before her indignation drove her away from Camp Villa,

arrived at the vicarage, and were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in

two closets, not spare, which Milly emptied for their reception. A week

afterwards, the excellent apartments at Camp Villa, comprising dining

and drawing rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing-room, were again to

let, and Mr Bridmain’s sudden departure, together with the Countess

Czerlaski’s installation as a visitor at Shepperton Vicarage, became a

topic of general conversation in the neighbourhood. The keen-sighted

virtue of Millby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its

worst suspicions, and pitied the Rev. Amos Barton’s gullibility.

But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without

witnessing the Countess’s departure—when summer and harvest had fled,

and still left her behind them occupying the spare bedroom and the

closets, and also a large proportion of Mrs Barton’s time and attention,

new surmises of a very evil kind were added to the old rumours, and

began to take the form of settled convictions in the minds even of Mr

Barton’s most friendly parishioners.

And now, here is an opportunity for an accomplished writer to

apostrophise calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted

with the most ingenious things which have been said on that subject in

polite literature.

But what is opportunity to the man who can’t use it? An unfecundated

egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory

is ill-furnished, and my note-book still worse, I am unable to show

myself either erudite or eloquent _à propos_ of the calumny whereof the

Rev. Amos Barton was the victim. I can only ask my reader, did you ever

upset your ink-bottle, and watch, in helpless agony, the rapid spread of

Stygian blackness over your fair manuscript or fairer table-cover? With

a like inky swiftness did gossip now blacken the reputation of the Rev.

Amos Barton, causing the unfriendly to scorn and even the friendly to

stand aloof, at a time when difficulties of another kind were fast

thickening around him.

CHAPTER VI.

One November morning, at least six months after the Countess Czerlaski

had taken up her residence at the vicarage, Mrs Hackit heard that her

neighbour Mrs Patten had an attack of her old complaint, vaguely called

“the spasms.” Accordingly, about eleven o’clock, she put on her velvet

bonnet and cloth cloak, with a long boa and a muff large enough to stow

a prize baby in; for Mrs Hackit regulated her costume by the calendar,

and brought out her furs on the first of November, whatever might be the

temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate herself to

shilly-shally proceedings. If the season didn’t know what it ought to

do, Mrs Hackit did. In her best days, it was always sharp weather at

“Gunpowder Plot,” and she didn’t like new fashions.

And this morning the weather was very rationally in accordance with her

costume, for as she made her way through the fields to Cross Farm, the

yellow leaves on the hedge-girt elms, which showed bright and golden

against the low-hanging purple clouds, were being scattered across the

grassy path by the coldest of November winds. “Ah,” Mrs Hackit thought

to herself, “I dare say we shall have a sharp pinch this winter, and if

we do, I shouldn’t wonder if it takes the old lady off. They say a green

Yule makes a fat churchyard; but so does a white Yule too, for that

matter. When the stool’s rotten enough, no matter who sits on’t.”

However, on her arrival at Cross Farm, the prospect of Mrs Patten’s

decease was again thrown into the dim distance in her imagination, for

Miss Janet Gibbs met her with the news that Mrs Patten was much better,

and led her, without any preliminary announcement, to the old lady’s

bedroom. Janet had scarcely reached the end of her circumstantial

narrative how the attack came on and what were her aunt’s sensations—a

narrative to which Mrs Patten, in her neatly plaited night-cap, seemed

to listen with a contemptuous resignation to her niece’s historical

inaccuracy, contenting herself with occasionally confounding Janet by a

shake of the head—when the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the yard

pavement announced the arrival of Mr Pillgrim, whose large, top-booted

person presently made its appearance up-stairs. He found Mrs Patten

going on so well that there was no need to look solemn. He might glide

from condolence into gossip without offence, and the temptation of

having Mrs Hackit’s ear was irresistible.

“What a disgraceful business this is turning out of your parson’s,” was

the remark with which he made this agreeable transition, throwing

himself back in the chair from which he had been leaning towards the

patient.

“Eh, dear me!” said Mrs Hackit, “disgraceful enough. I stuck to Mr

Barton as long as I could, for his wife’s sake; but I can’t countenance

such goings on. It’s hateful to see that woman coming with ’em to

service of a Sunday, and if Mr Hackit wasn’t churchwarden and I didn’t

think it wrong to forsake one’s own parish, I should go to Knebley

church. There’s a many parish’ners as do.”

“I used to think Barton was only a fool,” observed Mr Pillgrim, in a

tone which implied that he was conscious of having been weakly

charitable. “I thought he was imposed upon and led away by those people

when they first came. But that’s impossible now.”

“O, it’s as plain as the nose in your face,” said Mrs Hackit,

unreflectingly, not perceiving the equivoque in her comparison,—“coming

to Millby, like a sparrow perchin’ on a bough, as I may say, with her

brother, as she called him; and then, all on a sudden, the brother goes

off wi’ himself, and she throws herself on the Bartons. Though what

could make her take up wi’ a poor notomise of a parson, as hasn’t got

enough to keep wife and children, there’s one above knows—_I_ don’t.”

“Mr Barton may have attractions we don’t know of,” said Mr Pillgrim, who

piqued himself on a talent for sarcasm. “The Countess has no maid now,

and they say Mr Barton is handy in assisting at her toilette—laces her

boots, and so forth.”

“Tilette, be fiddled!” said Mrs Hackit, with indignant boldness of

metaphor; “an’ there’s that poor thing a-sewing her fingers to the bone

for them children—an’ another comin’ on. What she must have to go

through! It goes to my heart to turn my back on her. But she’s i’ the

wrong to let herself be put upon a’ that manner.”

“Ah! I was talking to Mrs Farquhar about that the other day. She said,

‘I think Mrs Barton a v-e-r-y w-e-a-k w-o-m-a-n.’” (Mr Pillgrim gave

this quotation with slow emphasis, as if he thought Mrs Farquhar had

uttered a remarkable sentiment.) “They find it impossible to invite her

to their house while she has that equivocal person staying with her.”

“Well!” remarked Miss Gibbs, “if I was a wife, nothing should induce me

to bear what Mrs Barton does.”

“Yes, it’s fine talking,” said Mrs Patten, from her pillow; “old maids’

husbands are al’ys well-managed. If you was a wife you’d be as foolish

as your betters, belike.”

“All my wonder is,” observed Mrs Hackit, “how the Bartons make both ends

meet. You may depend on’t she’s got nothing to give ’em; for I

understand as he’s been havin’ money from some clergy charity. They said

at first as she stuffed Mr Barton wi’ notions about her writing to the

Chancellor an’ her fine friends to give him a living. Howiver, I don’t

know what’s true an’ what’s false. Mr Barton keeps away from our house

now, for I gave him a bit o’ my mind one day. Maybe he’s ashamed of

himself. He seems to me to look dreadful thin an’ harassed of a Sunday.”

“O, he must be aware he’s getting into bad odour everywhere. The clergy

are quite disgusted with his folly. They say Carpe would be glad to get

Barton out of the curacy if he could; but he can’t do that without

coming to Shepperton himself, as Barton’s a licensed curate; and he

wouldn’t like that, I suppose.”

At this moment Mrs Patten showed signs of uneasiness, which recalled Mr

Pillgrim to professional attentions; and Mrs Hackit, observing that it

was Thursday, and she must see after the butter, said good-by, promising

to look in again soon, and bring her knitting.

This Thursday, by the by, is the first in the month—the day on which the

clerical meeting is held at Millby Vicarage; and as the Rev. Amos Barton

has reasons for not attending, he will very likely be a subject of

conversation amongst his clerical brethren. Suppose we go there, and

hear whether Mr Pillgrim has reported their opinion correctly.

There is not a numerous party to-day, for it is a season of sore throats

and catarrhs; so that the exegetical and theological discussions, which

are the preliminary of dining, have not been quite so spirited as usual;

and although a question relative to the Epistle of Jude has not been

quite cleared up, the striking of six by the church clock, and the

simultaneous announcement of dinner, are sounds that no one feels to be

importunate.

Pleasant (when one is not in the least bilious) to enter a comfortable

dining-room, where the closely-drawn red curtains glow with the double

light of fire and candle, where glass and silver are glittering on the

pure damask, and a soup-tureen gives a hint of the fragrance that will

presently rush out to inundate your hungry senses, and prepare them, by

the delicate visitation of atoms, for the keen gusto of ampler contact!

Especially if you have confidence in the dinner-giving capacity of your

host—if you know that he is not a man who entertains grovelling views of

eating and drinking as a mere satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and,

dead to all the finer influences of the palate, expects his guests to be

brilliant on ill-flavoured gravies and the cheapest Marsala. Mr Ely was

particularly worthy of such confidence, and his virtues as an Amphitryon

had probably contributed quite as much as the central situation of

Millby to the selection of his house as a clerical rendezvous. He looks

particularly graceful at the head of his table, and, indeed, on all

occasions where he acts as president or moderator—a man who seems to

listen well, and is an excellent amalgam of discrepant ingredients.

At the other end of the table, as “Vice,” sits Mr Fellowes, rector and

magistrate, a man of imposing appearance, with a mellifluous voice, and

the readiest of tongues. Mr Fellowes once obtained a living by the

persuasive charms of his conversation, and the fluency with which he

interpreted the opinions of an obese and stammering baronet, so as to

give that elderly gentleman a very pleasing perception of his own

wisdom. Mr Fellowes is a very successful man, and has the highest

character everywhere except in his own parish, where, doubtless, because

his parishioners happen to be quarrelsome people, he is always at fierce

feud with a farmer or two, a colliery proprietor, a grocer who was once

churchwarden, and a tailor who formerly officiated as clerk.

At Mr Ely’s right hand you see a very small man with a sallow and

somewhat puffy face, whose hair is brushed straight up, evidently with

the intention of giving him a height somewhat less disproportionate to

his sense of his own importance than the measure of five feet three

accorded him by an oversight of nature. This is the Rev. Archibald Duke,

a very dyspeptic and evangelical man, who takes the gloomiest view of

mankind and their prospects, and thinks the immense sale of the

“Pickwick Papers,” recently completed, one of the strongest proofs of

original sin. Unfortunately, though Mr Duke was not burdened, with a

family, his yearly expenditure was apt considerably to exceed his

income; and the unpleasant circumstances resulting from this, together

with heavy meat breakfasts, may probably have contributed to his

desponding views of the world generally.

Next to him is seated Mr Furness, a tall young man, with blond hair and

whiskers, who was plucked at Cambridge entirely owing to his genius; at

least, I know that he soon afterwards published a volume of poems, which

were considered remarkably beautiful by many young ladies of his

acquaintance. Mr Furness preached his own sermons, as any one of

tolerable critical acumen might have certified by comparing them with

his poems: in both, there was an exuberance of metaphor and simile

entirely original, and not in the least borrowed from any resemblance in

the things compared.

On Mr Furness’s left you see Mr Pugh, another young curate, of much less

marked characteristics. He had not published any poems; he had not even

been plucked; he had neat black whiskers and a pale complexion; read

prayers and a sermon twice every Sunday, and might be seen any day

sallying forth on his parochial duties in a white tie, a well-brushed

hat, a perfect suit of black, and well-polished boots—an equipment which

he probably supposed hieroglyphically to represent the spirit of

Christianity to the parishioners of Whittlecombe.

Mr Pugh’s _vis-à-vis_ is the Rev. Martin Cleves, a man about

forty—middle-sized, broad-shouldered, with a negligently tied cravat,

large irregular features, and a large head, thickly covered with lanky

brown hair. To a superficial glance, Mr Cleves is the plainest and least

clerical looking of the party; yet, strange to say, _there_ is the true

parish priest, the pastor beloved, consulted, relied on by his flock; a

clergyman who is not associated with the undertaker, but thought of as

the surest helper under a difficulty, as a monitor who is encouraging

rather than severe. Mr Cleves has the wonderful art of preaching sermons

which the wheelwright and the blacksmith can understand, not because he

talks condescending twaddle, but because he can call a spade a spade,

and knows how to disencumber ideas of their wordy frippery. Look at him

more attentively and you will see that his face is a very interesting

one—that there is a great deal of humour and feeling playing in his grey

eyes, and about the corners of his roughly cut mouth:—a man, you

observe, who has most likely sprung from the harder working section of

the middle class, and has hereditary sympathies with the checkered life

of the people. He gets together the working men in his parish on a

Monday evening, and gives them a sort of conversational lecture on

useful practical matters, telling them stories, or reading some select

passages from an agreeable book, and commenting on them; and if you were

to ask the first labourer or artisan in Tripplegate what sort of man the

parson was, he would say,—“a uncommon knowing, sensible, free-spoken

gentleman; very kind an’ good-natur’d too.” Yet for all this, he is

perhaps the best Grecian of the party, if we except Mr Baird, the young

man on his left.

Mr Baird has since gained considerable celebrity as an original writer

and metropolitan lecturer, but at that time he used to preach in a

little church something like a barn, to a congregation consisting of

three rich farmers and their servants, about fifteen labourers, and the

due proportion of women and children. The rich farmers understood him to

be “very high learnt;” but if you had interrogated them for a more

precise description, they would have said that he was “a thinnish-faced

man, with a sort o’ cast in his eye, like.”

Seven, altogether: a delightful number for a dinner party, supposing the

units to be delightful, but everything depends on that. During dinner,

Mr Fellowes took the lead in the conversation, which set strongly in the

direction of mangold-wurzel and the rotation of crops; for Mr Fellowes

and Mr Cleves cultivated their own glebes. Mr Ely, too, had some

agricultural notions, and even the Rev. Archibald Duke was made alive to

that class of mundane subjects by the possession of some potato ground.

The two young curates talked a little aside during these discussions,

which had imperfect interest for their unbeneficed minds; and the

transcendental and near-sighted Mr Baird seemed to listen somewhat

abstractedly, knowing little more of potatoes and mangold-wurzel than

that they were some form of the “Conditioned.”

“What a hobby farming is with Lord Watling!” said Mr Fellowes, when the

cloth was being drawn. “I went over his farm at Tetterley with him last

summer. It is really a model farm; first-rate dairy, grazing and wheat

land, and such splendid farm-buildings! An expensive hobby, though. He

sinks a good deal of money there, I fancy. He has a great whim for black

cattle, and he sends that drunken old Scotch bailiff of his to Scotland

every year, with hundreds in his pocket, to buy these beasts.”

“By the by,” said Mr Ely, “do you know who is the man to whom Lord

Watling has given the Bramhill living?”

“A man named Sargent. I knew him at Oxford. His brother is a lawyer, and

was very useful to Lord Watling in that ugly Brounsell affair. That’s

why Sargent got the living.”

“Sargent,” said Mr Ely. “I know him. Isn’t he a showy, talkative fellow;

has written travels in Mesopotamia, or something of that sort?”

“That’s the man.”

“He was at Witherington once, as Bagshawe’s curate. He got into rather

bad odour there, through some scandal about a flirtation, I think.”

“Talking of scandal,” returned Mr Fellowes, “have you heard the last

story about Barton? Nisbett was telling me the other day that he dines

alone with the Countess at six, while Mrs Barton is in the kitchen

acting as cook.”

“Rather an apocryphal authority, Nisbett,” said Mr Ely.

“Ah,” said Mr Cleves, with good-natured humour twinkling in his eyes,

“depend upon it, that is a corrupt version. The original text is, that

they all dined together _with_ six—meaning six children—and that Mrs

Barton is an excellent cook.”

“I wish dining alone together may be the worst of that sad business,”

said the Rev. Archibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish was a

strong figure of speech.

“Well,” said Mr Fellowes, filling his glass and looking jocose, “Barton

is certainly either the greatest gull in existence, or he has some

cunning secret,—some philtre or other, to make himself charming in the

eyes of a fair lady. It isn’t all of us that can make conquests when our

ugliness is past its bloom.”

“The lady seemed to have made a conquest of him at the very outset,”

said Mr Ely. “I was immensely amused one night at Granby’s, when he was

telling us her story about her husband’s adventures. He said, ‘When she

told me the tale, I felt I don’t know how,—I felt it from the crown of

my head to the sole of my feet.’”

Mr Ely gave these words dramatically, imitating the Rev. Amos’s fervour

and symbolic action, and every one laughed, except Mr Duke, whose

after-dinner view of things was not apt to be jovial. He said:

“I think some of us ought to remonstrate with Mr Barton on the scandal

he is causing. He is not only imperilling his own soul, but the souls of

his flock.”

“Depend upon it,” said Mr Cleves, “there is some simple explanation of

the whole affair, if we only happened to know it. Barton has always

impressed me as a right-minded man, who has the knack of doing himself

injustice by his manner.”

“Now _I_ never liked Barton,” said Mr Fellowes. “He’s not a gentleman.

Why, he used to be on terms of intimacy with that canting Prior, who

died a little while ago;—a fellow who soaked himself with spirits, and

talked of the Gospel through an inflamed nose.”

“The Countess has given him more refined tastes, I dare say,” said Mr

Ely.

“Well,” observed Mr Cleves, “the poor fellow must have a hard pull to

get along, with his small income and large family. Let us hope the

Countess does something towards making the pot boil.”

“Not she,” said Mr Duke; “there are greater signs of poverty about them

than ever.”

“Well, come,” returned Mr Cleves, who could be caustic sometimes, and

who was not at all fond of his reverend brother Mr Duke, “that’s

something in Barton’s favour at all events. He might be poor _without_

showing signs of poverty.”

“Mr Duke turned rather yellow, which was his way of blushing, and Mr Ely

came to his relief by observing:

“They’re making a very good piece of work of Shepperton Church. Dolby,

the architect, who has it in hand, is a very clever fellow.”

“It’s he who has been doing Coppleton Church,” said Mr Furness. “They’ve

got it in excellent order for the visitation.”

This mention of the visitation suggested the Bishop, and thus opened a

wide duct, which entirely diverted the stream of animadversion from that

small pipe—that capillary vessel, the Rev. Amos Barton.

The talk of the clergy about their Bishop belongs to the esoteric part

of their profession; so we will at once quit the dining-room at Millby

Vicarage, lest we should happen to overhear remarks unsuited to the lay

understanding, and perhaps dangerous to our repose of mind.

CHAPTER VII.

I dare say the long residence of the Countess Czerlaski at Shepperton

Vicarage is very puzzling to you also, dear reader, as well as to Mr

Barton’s clerical brethren; the more so, as I hope you are not in the

least inclined to put that very evil interpretation on it which

evidently found acceptance with the sallow and dyspeptic Mr Duke, and

with the florid and highly peptic Mr Fellowes. You have seen enough, I

trust, of the Rev. Amos Barton, to be convinced that he was more apt to

fall into a blunder than into a sin—more apt to be deceived than to

incur a necessity for being deceitful: and if you have a keen eye for

physiognomy, you will have detected that the Countess Czerlaski loved

herself far too well to get entangled in an unprofitable vice.

How, then, you will say, could this fine lady choose to quarter herself

on the establishment of a poor curate, where the carpets were probably

falling into holes, where the attendance was limited to a maid of all

work, and where six children were running loose from eight o’clock in

the morning till eight o’clock in the evening? Surely you must be

misrepresenting the facts.

Heaven forbid! For not having a fertile imagination, as you perceive,

and being unable to invent thrilling incidents for your amusement, my

only merit must lie in the faithfulness with which I represent to you

the humble experience of an ordinary fellow-mortal. I wish to stir your

sympathy with commonplace troubles—to win your tears for real sorrow:

sorrow such as may live next door to you—such as walks neither in rags

nor in velvet, but in very ordinary decent apparel.

Therefore, that you may dismiss your suspicions of my veracity, I will

beg you to consider, that at the time the Countess Czerlaski left Camp

Villa in dudgeon, she had only twenty pounds in her pocket, being about

one-third of the income she possessed independently of her brother. You

will then perceive that she was in the extremely inconvenient

predicament of having quarrelled, not indeed with her bread and cheese,

but certainly with her chicken and tart—a predicament all the more

inconvenient to her, because the habit of idleness had quite unfitted

her for earning those necessary superfluities, and because, with all her

fascinations, she had not secured any enthusiastic friends whose houses

were open to her, and who were dying to see her. Thus she had completely

checkmated herself, unless she could resolve on one unpleasant

move—namely, to humble herself to her brother, and recognise his wife.

This seemed quite impossible to her as long as she entertained the hope

that he would make the first advances; and in this flattering hope she

remained month after month at Shepperton Vicarage, gracefully

overlooking the deficiencies of accommodation, and feeling that she was

really behaving charmingly. “Who, indeed,” she thought to herself,

“could do otherwise with a lovely, gentle creature like Milly? I shall

really be sorry to leave the poor thing.”

So, though she lay in bed till ten, and came down to a separate

breakfast at eleven, she kindly consented to dine as early as five, when

a hot joint was prepared, which coldly furnished forth the children’s

table the next day; she considerately prevented Milly from devoting

herself too closely to the children, by insisting on reading, talking,

and walking with her; and she even began to embroider a cap for the next

baby, which must certainly be a girl, and be named Caroline.

After the first month or two of her residence at the Vicarage, the Rev.

Amos Barton became aware—as, indeed, it was unavoidable that he

should—of the strong disapprobation it drew upon him, and the change of

feeling towards him which it was producing in his kindest parishioners.

But, in the first place, he still believed in the Countess as a charming

and influential woman, disposed to befriend him, and, in any case, he

could hardly hint departure to a lady guest who had been kind to him and

his, and who might any day spontaneously announce the termination of her

visit; in the second place, he was conscious of his own innocence, and

felt some contemptuous indignation towards people who were ready to

imagine evil of him; and, lastly, he had, as I have already intimated, a

strong will of his own, so that a certain obstinacy and defiance mingled

itself with his other feelings on the subject.

The one unpleasant consequence which was not to be evaded or

counteracted by any mere mental state, was the increasing drain on his

slender purse for household expenses, to meet which the remittance he

had received from the clerical charity threatened to be quite

inadequate. Slander may be defeated by equanimity; but courageous

thoughts will not pay your baker’s bill, and fortitude is nowhere

considered legal tender for beef. Month after month the financial aspect

of the Rev. Amos’s affairs became more and more serious to him, and

month after month, too, wore away more and more of that armour of

indignation and defiance with which he had at first defended himself

from the harsh looks of faces that were once the friendliest.

But quite the heaviest pressure of the trouble fell on Milly—on gentle,

uncomplaining Milly—whose delicate body was becoming daily less fit for

all the many things that had to be done between rising up and lying

down. At first, she thought the Countess’s visit would not last long,

and she was quite glad to incur extra exertion for the sake of making

her friend comfortable. I can hardly bear to think of all the rough work

she did with those lovely hands—all by the sly, without letting her

husband know anything about it, and husbands are not clairvoyant—how she

salted bacon, ironed shirts and cravats, put patches on patches, and

redarned darns. Then there was the task of mending and eking out baby

linen in prospect, and the problem perpetually suggesting itself how she

and Nanny _should_ manage when there was another baby, as there would be

before very many months were past.

When time glided on, and the Countess’s visit did not end, Milly was not

blind to any phase of their position. She knew of the slander; she was

aware of the keeping aloof of old friends; but these she felt almost

entirely on her husband’s account. A loving woman’s world lies within

the four walls of her own home; and it is only through her husband that

she is in any electric communication with the world beyond. Mrs Simpkins

may have looked scornfully at her, but baby crows and holds out his

little arms none the less blithely; Mrs Tomkins may have left off

calling on her, but her husband comes home none the less to receive her

care and caresses; it has been wet and gloomy out of doors to-day, but

she has looked well after the shirt buttons, has cut out baby’s

pinafores, and half finished Willy’s blouse.

So it was with Milly. She was only vexed that her husband should be

vexed—only wounded because he was misconceived. But the difficulty about

ways and means she felt in quite a different manner. Her rectitude was

alarmed lest they should have to make tradesmen wait for their money;

her motherly love dreaded the diminution of comforts for the children,

and the sense of her own failing health gave exaggerated force to these

fears.

Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, that the Countess was

inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer

thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her

frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit farther

prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds, which

ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task.

In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shepperton—weary

of waiting for her brother’s overtures which never came; so, one fine

morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a

sister should be placable, that Mr Bridmain must feel the need of her

advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very

likely “that woman” didn’t make the poor man happy. In this amiable

frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, and addressed it to

Mr Bridmain, through his banker.

Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid

of all work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny

adored her mistress: she had been heard to say, that she was “ready to

kiss the ground as the missis trod on;” and Walter, she considered, was

_her_ baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover. But she had from the

first very slight admiration for the Countess Czerlaski. That lady, from

Nanny’s point of view, was a personage always “drawed out i’ fine

clothes,” the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional

bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths and cooking of

dinners. It was a perpetually heightening “aggravation” to Nanny that

she and her mistress had to “slave” more than ever, because there was

this fine lady in the house.

“An’ she pays nothin’ for’t neither,” observed Nanny to Mr Jacob Tomms,

a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally—simply out of

a taste for dialogue—looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. “I

know the master’s shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it maks no end o’

difference i’ th’ housekeepin’—her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to

have a charwoman constant.”

“There’s fine stories i’ the village about her,” said Mr Tomms. “They

say as Muster Barton’s great wi’ her, or else she’d niver stop here.”

“Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to goo an’

tell ’em o’er again. Do _you_ think as the master as has got a wife like

the missis, ‘ud goo runnin’ arter a stuck up piece o’ goods like that

Countess, as isn’t fit to black the missis’s shoes? I’m none so fond o’

the master, but I know better on him nor that.”

“Well, I didn’t b’lieve it,” said Mr Tomms, humbly.

“B’lieve it? you’d ha’ been a ninny if yer did. An’ she’s a nasty stingy

thing, that Countess. She’s niver giv me a sixpence or an old rag

either, sin’ here she’s been. A-lyin’ a bed an’ a-comin’ down to

breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!”

If such was the state of Nanny’s mind as early as the end of August,

when this dialogue with Mr Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must

have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very

slight spark might any day cause the long smouldering anger to flame

forth in open indignation.

That spark happened to fall the very morning that Mrs Hackit paid the

visit to Mrs Patten, recorded in the last chapter. Nanny’s dislike of

the Countess extended to the innocent dog Jet, whom she “couldn’t a-bear

to see made a fuss wi’ like a Christian. An’ the little ouzle must be

washed, too, ivery Saturday, as if there wasn’t children enoo to wash,

wi’out washin’ dogs.”

Now this particular morning it happened that Milly was quite too poorly

to get up, and Mr Barton observed to Nanny, on going out, that he would

call and tell Mr Brand to come. These circumstances were already enough

to make Nanny anxious and susceptible. But the Countess, comfortably

ignorant of them, came down as usual about eleven o’clock to her

separate breakfast, which stood ready for her at that hour in the

parlour; the kettle singing on the hob that she might make her own tea.

There was a little jug of cream, taken according to custom from last

night’s milk, and specially saved for the Countess’s breakfast. Jet

always awaited his mistress at her bedroom door, and it was her habit to

carry him down stairs.

“Now, my little Jet,” she said, putting him down gently on the

hearth-rug, “you shall have a nice, nice breakfast.”

Jet indicated that he thought that observation extremely pertinent and

well-timed, by immediately raising himself on his hind-legs, and the

Countess emptied the cream-jug into the saucer. Now there was usually a

small jug of milk standing on the tray by the side of the cream, and

destined for Jet’s breakfast, but this morning Nanny, being “moithered,”

had forgotten that part of the arrangements, so that when the Countess

had made her tea, she perceived there was no second jug, and rang the

bell. Nanny appeared, looking very red and heated—the fact was, she had

been “doing up” the kitchen fire, and that is a sort of work which by no

means conduces to blandness of temper.

“Nanny, you have forgotten Jet’s milk; will you bring me some more

cream, please?”

This was just a little too much for Nanny’s forbearance.

“Yes, I dare say. Here am I wi’ my hands full o’ the children an’ the

dinner, and missis ill a-bed, and Mr Brand a-comin’; and I must run o’er

the village to get more cream, because you’ve giv it to that nasty

little blackamoor.”

“Is Mrs Barton ill?”

“Ill—yes—I should think she _is_ ill, an’ much you care. She’s likely to

be ill, moithered as _she_ is from mornin’ to night, wi’ folks as had

better be elsewhere.”

“What do you mean by behaving in this way?”

“Mean? Why, I mean as the missis is a slavin’ her life out an’ a-sittin’

up o’ nights, for folks as are better able to wait of _her_, i’stid o’

lyin’ a-bed an’ doin’ nothin’ all the blessed day, but mek work.”

“Leave the room, and don’t be insolent.”

“Insolent! I’d better be insolent than like what some folks is,—a-livin’

on other folks, an’ bringin’ a bad name on ’em into the bargain.”

Here Nanny flung out of the room, leaving the lady to digest this

unexpected breakfast at her leisure.

The Countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall

Nanny’s words, there was no possibility of avoiding very unpleasant

conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the Vicarage

in an entirely new light. The interpretation too of Nanny’s allusion to

a “bad name” did not lie out of the reach of the Countess’s imagination,

and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay. Still,

she would like to wait for her brother’s letter—no—she would ask Milly

to forward it to her—still better, she would go at once to London,

inquire her brother’s address at his banker’s, and go to see him without

preliminary.

She went up to Milly’s room, and, after kisses and inquiries, said—“I

find, on consideration, dear Milly, from the letter I had yesterday,

that I must bid you good-by and go up to London at once. But you must

not let me leave you ill, you naughty thing.”

“O no,” said Milly, who felt as if a load had been taken off her back,

“I shall be very well in an hour or two. Indeed, I’m much better now.

You will want me to help you to pack. But you won’t go for two or three

days?”

“Yes, I must go to-morrow. But I shall not let you help me pack, so

don’t entertain any unreasonable projects, but lie still. Mr Brand is

coming, Nanny says.”

The news was not an unpleasant surprise to Mr Barton when he came home,

though he was able to express more regret at the idea of parting than

Milly could summon to her lips. He retained more of his original feeling

for the Countess than Milly did, for women never betray themselves to

men as they do to each other; and the Rev. Amos had not a keen instinct

for character. But he felt that he was being relieved from a difficulty,

and in the way that was easiest for him. Neither he nor Milly suspected

that it was Nanny who had cut the knot for them, for the Countess took

care to give no sign on that subject. As for Nanny, she was perfectly

aware of the relation between cause and effect in the affair, and

secretly chuckled over her outburst of “sauce,” as the best morning’s

work she had ever done.

So on Friday morning, a fly was seen standing at the Vicarage gate, with

the Countess’s boxes packed upon it; and presently that lady herself was

seen getting into the vehicle. After a last shake of the hand to Mr

Barton, and last kisses to Milly and the children, the door was closed;

and as the fly rolled off, the little party at the Vicarage gate caught

a last glimpse of the handsome Countess leaning and waving kisses from

the carriage window. Jet’s little black phiz was also seen, and

doubtless he had his thoughts and feelings on the occasion, but he kept

them strictly within his own bosom.

The schoolmistress opposite witnessed this departure, and lost no time

in telling it to the schoolmaster, who again communicated the news to

the landlord of “The Jolly Colliers,” at the close of the morning

school-hours. Nanny poured the joyful tidings into the ear of Mr

Farquhar’s footman, who happened to call with a letter, and Mr Brand

carried them to all the patients he visited that morning, after calling

on Mrs Barton. So that before Sunday, it was very generally known in

Shepperton parish, that the Countess Czerlaski had left the Vicarage.

The Countess had left, but alas! the bills she had contributed to swell

still remained; so did the exiguity of the children’s clothing, which

also was partly an indirect consequence of her presence; and so, too,

did the coolness and alienation in the parishioners, which could not at

once vanish before the fact of her departure. The Rev. Amos was not

exculpated—the past was not expunged. But, what was worse than all,

Milly’s health gave frequent cause for alarm, and the prospect of baby’s

birth was overshadowed by more than the usual fears. The birth came

prematurely, about six weeks after the Countess’s departure, but Mr

Brand gave favourable reports to all inquirers on the following day,

which was Saturday. On Sunday, after morning service, Mrs Hackit called

at the Vicarage to inquire how Mrs Barton was, and was invited up-stairs

to see her. Milly lay placid and lovely in her feebleness, and held out

her hand to Mrs Hackit with a beaming smile. It was very pleasant to her

to see her old friend unreserved and cordial once more. The seven

months’ baby was very tiny and very red, but “handsome is that handsome

does,”—he was pronounced to be “doing well,” and Mrs Hackit went home

gladdened at heart to think that the perilous hour was over.

CHAPTER VIII.

The following Wednesday, when Mr and Mrs Hackit were seated comfortably

by their bright hearth, enjoying the long afternoon afforded by an early

dinner, Rachel, the housemaid, came in and said—

“If you please ‘m, the shepherd says, have you heard as Mrs Barton’s

wuss, and not expected to live?”

Mrs Hackit turned pale, and hurried out to question the shepherd, who,

she found, had heard the sad news at an alehouse in the village. Mr

Hackit followed her out and said, “Thee’dst better have the pony-chaise,

and go directly.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Hackit, too much overcome to utter any exclamations.

“Rachel, come an’ help me on wi’ my things.”

When her husband was wrapping her cloak round her feet in the

pony-chaise, she said—

“If I don’t come home to-night, I shall send back the pony-chaise, and

you’ll know I’m wanted there.”

“Yes, yes.”

It was a bright frosty day, and by the time Mrs Hackit arrived at the

Vicarage, the sun was near its setting. There was a carriage and pair

standing at the gate, which she recognised as Dr Madeley’s, the

physician from Rotherby. She entered at the kitchen door, that she might

avoid knocking, and quietly question Nanny. No one was in the kitchen,

but, passing on, she saw the sitting-room door open, and Nanny, with

Walter in her arms, removing the knives and forks, which had been laid

for dinner three hours ago.

“Master says he can’t eat no dinner,” was Nanny’s first word. “He’s

never tasted nothin’ sin’ yesterday mornin’, but a cup o’ tea.”

“When was your missis took worse?”

“O’ Monday night. They sent for Dr Madeley i’ the middle o’ the day

yesterday, an’ he’s here again now.”

“Is the baby alive?”

“No, it died last night. The children’s all at Mrs Bond’s. She came and

took ’em away last night, but the master says they must be fetched soon.

He’s up-stairs now, wi’ Dr Madeley and Mr Brand.”

At this moment Mrs Hackit heard the sound of a heavy, slow foot, in the

passage; and presently Amos Barton entered, with dry despairing eyes,

haggard and unshaven. He expected to find the sitting-room as he left

it, with nothing to meet his eyes but Milly’s work-basket in the corner

of the sofa, and the children’s toys overturned in the bow-window. But

when he saw Mrs Hackit come towards him with answering sorrow in her

face, the pent-up fountain of tears was opened; he threw himself on the

sofa, hid his face, and sobbed aloud.

“Bear up, Mr Barton,” Mrs Hackit ventured to say at last, “bear up for

the sake o’ them dear children.”

“The children,” said Amos, starting up. “They must be sent for. Some one

must fetch them. Milly will want to......”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Mrs Hackit understood him and said,

“I’ll send the man with the pony-carriage for ’em.”

She went out to give the order, and encountered Dr Madeley and Mr Brand,

who were just going.

Mr Brand said: “I am very glad to see you are here, Mrs Hackit. No time

must be lost in sending for the children. Mrs Barton wants to see them.”

“Do you quite give her up, then?”

“She can hardly live through the night. She begged us to tell her how

long she had to live; and then asked for the children.”

The pony-carriage was sent; and Mrs Hackit, returning to Mr Barton, said

she should like to go up-stairs now. He went up-stairs with her and

opened the door. The chamber fronted the west; the sun was just setting,

and the red light fell full upon the bed, where Milly lay with the hand

of death visibly upon her. The feather-bed had been removed, and she lay

low on a mattress with her head slightly raised by pillows. Her long

fair neck seemed to be struggling with a painful effort; her features

were pallid and pinched, and her eyes were closed. There was no one in

the room but the nurse, and the mistress of the free school, who had

come to give her help from the beginning of the change.

Amos and Mrs Hackit stood beside the bed, and Milly opened her eyes.

“My darling, Mrs Hackit is come to see you.”

Milly smiled and looked at her with that strange, far-off look which

belongs to ebbing life.

“Are the children coming?” she said, painfully.

“Yes, they will be here directly.”

She closed her eyes again.

Presently the pony-carriage was heard; and Amos, motioning to Mrs Hackit

to follow him, left the room. On their way down stairs, she suggested

that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterwards, and

Amos assented.

There they stood in the melancholy sitting-room—the five sweet children,

from Patty to Chubby—all, with their mother’s eyes—all, except Patty,

looking up with a vague fear at their father as he entered. Patty

understood the great sorrow that was come upon them, and tried to check

her sobs as she heard her papa’s footsteps.

“My children,” said Amos, taking Chubby in his arms, “God is going to

take away your dear mamma from us. She wants to see you to say good-by.

You must try to be very good and not cry.”

He could say no more, but turned round to see if Nanny was there with

Walter, and then led the way up-stairs, leading Dickey with the other

hand. Mrs Hackit followed with Sophy and Patty, and then came Nanny with

Walter and Fred.

It seemed as if Milly had heard the little footsteps on the stairs, for

when Amos entered her eyes were wide open, eagerly looking towards the

door. They all stood by the bedside—Amos nearest to her, holding Chubby

and Dickey. But she motioned for Patty to come first, and clasping the

poor pale child by the hand, said,—

“Patty, I’m going away from you. Love your papa. Comfort him; and take

care of your little brothers and sisters. God will help you.”

Patty stood perfectly quiet, and said, “Yes, mamma.”

The mother motioned with her pallid lips for the dear child to lean

towards her and kiss her; and then Patty’s great anguish overcame her,

and she burst into sobs. Amos drew her towards him and pressed her head

gently to him, while Milly beckoned Fred and Sophy, and said to them,

more faintly:—

“Patty will try to be your mamma when I am gone, my darlings. You will

be good, and not vex her.”

They leaned towards her, and she stroked their fair heads, and kissed

their tear-stained cheeks. They cried because mamma was ill and papa

looked so unhappy; but they thought, perhaps next week things would be

as they used to be again.

The little ones were lifted on the bed to kiss her. Little Walter said,

“Mamma, mamma,” and stretched out his fat arms and smiled; and Chubby

seemed gravely wondering; but Dickey, who had been looking fixedly at

her, with lip hanging down, ever since he came into the room, now seemed

suddenly pierced with the idea that mamma was going away somewhere; his

little heart swelled, and he cried aloud.

Then Mrs Hackit and Nanny took them all away. Patty at first begged to

stay at home and not go to Mrs Bond’s again; but when Nanny reminded her

that she had better go to take care of the younger ones, she submitted

at once, and they were all packed in the pony-carriage once more.

Milly kept her eyes shut for some time after the children were gone.

Amos had sunk on his knees, and was holding her hand while he watched

her face. By-and-by she opened her eyes, and, drawing him close to her,

whispered slowly,

“My dear—dear—husband—you have been—very—good to me. You—have—made

me—very—happy.”

She spoke no more for many hours. They watched her breathing becoming

more and more difficult, until evening deepened into night, and until

midnight was past. About half-past twelve she seemed to be trying to

speak, and they leaned to catch her words.

“Music—music—didn’t you hear it?”

Amos knelt by the bed, and held her hand in his. He did not believe in

his sorrow. It was a bad dream. He did not know when she was gone. But

Mr Brand, whom Mrs Hackit had sent for before twelve o’clock, thinking

that Mr Barton might probably need his help, now came up to him and

said,—

“She feels no more pain now. Come, my dear sir, come with me.”

“She isn’t _dead_?” shrieked the poor desolate man, struggling to shake

off Mr Brand, who had taken him by the arm. But his weary, weakened

frame was not equal to resistance, and he was dragged out of the room.

CHAPTER IX.

They laid her in the grave—the sweet mother with her baby in her

arms—while the Christmas snow lay thick upon the graves. It was Mr

Cleves who buried her. On the first news of Mr Barton’s calamity, he had

ridden over from Tripplegate to beg that he might be made of some use,

and his silent grasp of Amos’s hand had penetrated like the painful

thrill of life-recovering warmth to the poor benumbed heart of the

stricken man.

The snow lay thick upon the graves, and the day was cold and dreary; but

there was many a sad eye watching that black procession as it passed

from the vicarage to the church, and from the church to the open grave.

There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied

vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with

sin; but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard,

he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with

respectful pity.

All the children were there, for Amos had willed it so, thinking that

some dim memory of that sacred moment might remain even with little

Walter, and link itself with what he would hear of his sweet mother in

after years. He himself led Patty and Dickey; then came Sophy and Fred;

Mr Brand had begged to carry Chubby, and Nanny followed with Walter.

They made a circle round the grave while the coffin was being lowered.

Patty alone of all the children felt that mamma was in that coffin, and

that a new and sadder life had begun for papa and herself. She was pale

and trembling, but she clasped his hand more firmly as the coffin went

down, and gave no sob. Fred and Sophy, though they were only two and

three years younger, and though they had seen mamma in her coffin,

seemed to themselves to be looking at some strange show. They had not

learned to decipher that terrible handwriting of human destiny, illness

and death. Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes, until he was

told that it would be naughty to mamma not to put them on, when he at

once submitted; and now, though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in

heaven, he had a vague notion that she would come home again to-morrow,

and say he had been a good boy, and let him empty her workbox. He stood

close to his father, with great rosy cheeks and wide open blue eyes,

looking first up at Mr Cleves and then down at the coffin, and thinking

he and Chubby would play at that, when they got home.

The burial was over, and Amos turned with his children to re-enter the

house—the house where, an hour ago, Milly’s dear body lay, where the

windows were half-darkened, and sorrow seemed to have a hallowed

precinct for itself, shut out from the world. But now she was gone; the

broad snow-reflected daylight was in all the rooms; the Vicarage again

seemed part of the common working-day world, and Amos, for the first

time, felt that he was alone—that day after day, month after month, year

after year, would have to be lived through without Milly’s love. Spring

would come, and she would not be there; summer, and she would not be

there; and he would never have her again with him by the fireside in the

long evenings. The seasons all seemed irksome to his thoughts; and how

dreary the sunshiny days that would be sure to come! She was gone from

him; and he could never show her his love any more, never make up for

omissions in the past by filling future days with tenderness.

O the anguish of that thought, that we can never atone to our dead for

the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to

their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to

that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest

thing God had given us to know!

Amos Barton had been an affectionate husband, and while Milly was with

him, he was never visited by the thought that perhaps his sympathy with

her was not quick and watchful enough; but now he re-lived all their

life together, with that terrible keenness of memory and imagination

which bereavement gives, and he felt as if his very love needed a pardon

for its poverty and selfishness.

No outward solace could counteract the bitterness of this inward woe.

But outward solace came. Cold faces looked kind again, and parishioners

turned over in their minds what they could best do to help their pastor.

Mr Oldinport wrote to express his sympathy, and enclosed another

twenty-pound note, begging that he might be permitted to contribute in

this way to the relief of Mr Barton’s mind from pecuniary anxieties,

under the pressure of a grief which all his parishioners must share; and

offering his interest towards placing the two eldest girls in a school

expressly founded for clergymen’s daughters. Mr Cleves succeeded in

collecting thirty pounds among his richer clerical brethren, and, adding

ten pounds himself, sent the sum to Amos, with the kindest and most

delicate words of Christian fellowship and manly friendship. Miss

Jackson forgot old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly’s

children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small

income. These were substantial helps, which relieved Amos from the

pressure of his money difficulties; and the friendly attentions, the

kind pressure of the hand, the cordial looks he met with everywhere in

his parish, made him feel that the fatal frost which had settled on his

pastoral duties, during the Countess’s residence at the Vicarage, was

completely thawed, and that the hearts of his parishioners were once

more open to him.

No one breathed the Countess’s name now; for Milly’s memory hallowed her

husband, as of old the place was hallowed on which an angel from God had

alighted.

When the spring came, Mrs Hackit begged that she might have Dickey to

stay with her, and great was the enlargement of Dickey’s experience from

that visit. Every morning he was allowed—being well wrapped up as to his

chest, by Mrs Hackit’s own hands, but very bare and red as to his

legs—to run loose in the cow and poultry yard, to persecute the

turkey-cock by satirical imitations of his gobble-gobble, and to put

difficult questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four

legs, and other transcendental matters. Then Mr Hackit would take Dickey

up on horseback when he rode round his farm, and Mrs Hackit had a large

plumcake in, cut ready to meet incidental attacks of hunger. So that

Dickey had considerably modified his views as to the desirability of Mrs

Hackit’s kisses.

The Miss Farquhars made particular pets of Fred and Sophy, to whom they

undertook to give lessons twice a-week in writing and geography; and Mrs

Farquhar devised many treats for the little ones. Patty’s treat was to

stay at home, or walk about with her papa; and when he sat by the fire

in an evening, after the other children were gone to bed, she would

bring a stool, and placing it against his feet, would sit down upon it

and lean her head against his knee. Then his hand would rest on that

fair head, and he would feel that Milly’s love was not quite gone out of

his life.

So the time wore on till it was May again, and the church was quite

finished and reopened in all its new splendour, and Mr Barton was

devoting himself with more vigour than ever to his parochial duties. But

one morning—it was a very bright morning, and evil tidings sometimes

like to fly in the finest weather—there came a letter for Mr Barton,

addressed in the Vicar’s handwriting. Amos opened it with some

anxiety—somehow or other he had a presentiment of evil. The letter

contained the announcement that Mr Carpe had resolved on coming to

reside at Shepperton, and that, consequently, in six months from that

time Mr Barton’s duties as curate in that parish would be closed.

O, it was hard! Just when Shepperton had become the place where he most

wished to stay—where he had friends who knew his sorrows—where he lived

close to Milly’s grave. To part from that grave seemed like parting with

Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung to all the material

links between his mind and the past. His imagination was not vivid, and

required the stimulus of some actual perception.

It roused some bitter feeling, too, to think that Mr Carpe’s wish to

reside at Shepperton was merely a pretext for removing Mr Barton, in

order that he might ultimately give the curacy of Shepperton to his own

brother-in-law, who was known to be wanting a new position.

Still, it must be borne; and the painful business of seeking another

curacy must be set about without loss of time. After the lapse of some

months, Amos was obliged to renounce the hope of getting one at all near

Shepperton, and he at length resigned himself to accepting one in a

distant county. The parish was in a large manufacturing town, where his

walks would lie among noisy streets and dingy alleys, and where the

children would have no garden to play in, no pleasant farmhouses to

visit.

It was another blow inflicted on the bruised man.

CHAPTER X.

At length the dreaded week was come, when Amos and his children must

leave Shepperton. There was general regret among the parishioners at his

departure: not that any one of them thought his spiritual gifts

pre-eminent, or was conscious of great edification from his ministry.

But his recent troubles had called out their better sympathies, and that

is always a source of love. Amos failed to touch the spring of goodness

by his sermons, but he touched it effectually by his sorrows; and there

was now a real bond between him and his flock.

“My heart aches for them poor motherless children,” said Mrs Hackit to

her husband, “a-goin’ among strangers, an’ into a nasty town, where

there’s no good victuals to be had, and you must pay dear to get bad

‘uns.”

Mrs Hackit had a vague notion of a town-life as a combination of dirty

backyards, measly pork, and dingy linen.

The same sort of sympathy was strong among the poorer class of

parishioners. Old stiff-jointed Mr Tozer, who was still able to earn a

little by gardening “jobs,” stopped Mrs Cramp, the charwoman, on her way

home from the Vicarage, where she had been helping Nanny to pack up the

day before the departure, and inquired very particularly into Mr

Barton’s prospects.

“Ah, poor mon,” he was heard to say, “I am surry fur ’im. He hedn’t much

here, but he’ll be wuss off theer. Half a loaf’s better nor ne’er ‘un.”

The sad good-byes had all been said before that last evening; and after

all the packing was done and all the arrangements were made, Amos felt

the oppression of that blank interval in which one has nothing left to

think of but the dreary future—the separation from the loved and

familiar, and the chilling entrance on the new and strange. In every

parting there is an image of death.

Soon after ten o’clock, when he had sent Nanny to bed, that she might

have a good night’s rest before the fatigues of the morrow, he stole

softly out to pay a last visit to Milly’s grave. It was a moonless

night, but the sky was thick with stars, and their light was enough to

show that the grass had grown long on the grave, and that there was a

tombstone telling in bright letters on a dark ground, that beneath were

deposited the remains of Amelia, the beloved wife of Amos Barton, who

died in the thirty-fifth year of her age, leaving a husband and six

children to lament her loss. The final words of the inscription were,

“Thy will be done.”

The husband was now advancing towards the dear mound from which he was

so soon to be parted, perhaps for ever. He stood a few minutes reading

over and over again the words on the tombstone, as if to assure himself

that all the happy and unhappy past was a reality. For love is

frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that

encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes

efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish.

Gradually, as his eye dwelt on the words, “Amelia, the beloved wife,”

the waves of feeling swelled within his soul, and he threw himself on

the grave, clasping it with his arms and kissing the cold turf.

“Milly, Milly, dost thou hear me? I didn’t love thee enough—I wasn’t

tender enough to thee—but I think of it all now.”

The sobs came and choked his utterance, and the warm tears fell.

CONCLUSION.

Only once again in his life has Amos Barton visited Milly’s grave. It

was in the calm and softened light of an autumnal afternoon, and he was

not alone. He held on his arm a young woman, with a sweet, grave face,

which strongly recalled the expression of Mrs Barton’s, but was less

lovely in form and colour. She was about thirty, but there were some

premature lines round her mouth and eyes, which told of early anxiety.

Amos himself was much changed. His thin circlet of hair was nearly

white, and his walk was no longer firm and upright. But his glance was

calm, and even cheerful, and his neat linen told of a woman’s care.

Milly didn’t take all her love from the earth when she died. She had

left some of it in Patty’s heart.

All the other children were now grown up, and had gone their several

ways. Dickey, you will be glad to hear, had shown remarkable talents as

an engineer. His cheeks are still ruddy, in spite of mixed mathematics,

and his eyes are still large and blue; but in other respects his person

would present no marks of identification for his friend Mrs Hackit, if

she were to see him; especially now that her eyes must be grown very

dim, with the wear of more than twenty additional years. He is nearly

six feet high, and has a proportionately broad chest; he wears

spectacles, and rubs his large white hands through a mass of shaggy

brown hair. But I am sure you have no doubt that Mr Richard Barton is a

thoroughly good fellow, as well as a man of talent, and you will be glad

any day to shake hands with him, for his own sake as well as his

mother’s.

Patty alone remains by her father’s side, and makes the evening sunshine

of his life.

TICKET-OF-LEAVE.

A LETTER TO IRENÆUS.

_Christmas Eve, 1856._

My dear Irenæus,—A merry Yule-tide, and may the young year use you as

well as the old ones, and so you will do very well! So you did not ask

me to eat my Christmas dinner with you; yours is strictly a family

party. The Rector, and the Rose and rose-buds of Devon, and a spinster

cousin of yours, a kind of benignant Banshee of your house, who comes to

light not when any one is going to die, but whenever all the members of

your family are going to live—particularly well: kissed under the

mistletoe like the rest, and blushing like the evening when the Reverend

Celsus unbends so far as to acknowledge that relic of heathendom, the

wicked parasitical plant with which the fair god Balder was slain. Well,

Irenæus, an old bachelor at Christmas is not much unlike the mistletoe;

he cannot live by himself; has no roots of his own, and must find some

family oak to fix himself upon. He cannot dine drearily in his rooms, or

sulk at his club on Christmas day: he must turn parasite for the nonce;

and then it is his duty like the mistletoe to promote the fun as much as

possible. Irenæus, if no eyes but thine were destined to look at this

page, I might tell thee where I ate my Christmas dinner, but my letter

is peculiarly circumstanced. There is a grave old lady called Maga

looking over my shoulder while I write, and I am obliged to be

circumspect in consequence. But if I could have eaten two Christmas

dinners, as young ladies in town go to two or even more balls of a

night, I certainly should like to have eaten my second with you; or had

I the power to divide myself, my wraith or double should have sat down

with you, uninvited as Banquo’s ghost, but rather more cheerfully; that

is, if a wraith or double possesses digestive organs, and organs capable

of digesting a Christmas dinner. Howbeit I can picture in imagination

the cheerfulness of your fireside; the delighted scream of the children

at the blazing pudding, puzzled to know how they were to eat fire,

especially with a grandpapa whose name implies that he is not a

fire-eater himself, although I suspect him of being so in spite of his

name;—the blind man’s buff and hunt-the-slipper with Irenæus obliged to

pay forfeit and remove a taper from a basin of water with his mouth; the

Christmas tree, that prettiest of all modern importations from Germany,

like many other pretty things a little dangerous, liable to set people

a-fire—hung round with the gifts which the little ones believe came from

the Babe of Bethlehem; and when the little ones are gone to bed, the

quiet rubber in the corner, which Irenæus has on principle, because the

Puritans think cards wicked at all times, and especially on Christmas

day; not that he cares much about it himself, for he only plays for

postage stamps. I know that Christmas is a good time with you, Irenæus,

not coming, but come; like that Christmas of the heathen Romans—

When round the lonely cottage

Roars loud the tempest’s din,

And the good logs of Algidus

Roar louder yet within.

When the oldest cask is opened,

And the largest lamp is lit;

When the chestnuts glow in the embers,

And the kid turns on the spit;

When young and old in circle

Around the fire-brands close;

When the girls are wearing baskets,

And the lads are shaping bows.

Might not Macaulay have said that the girls were also shaping beaux in

their imaginations? Forgive me—but on such a subject and at such a time,

the saturnalia of our year—even a pun is pardonable, however despicable

in itself. How strange is the power of suggestion! I meant not when I

sat down to write, to wish you more than the compliments of the season,

but I see now that I am in for a long letter, and so are you. I do not

mean to cross it, and thus you will have no excuse for not reading it

through. “The good logs of Algidus” have suggested to me your wood-fire,

the very poetry of fires, and your wood-fire has suggested your

wood-cutter, and your wood-cutter has suggested a ticket-of-leave man;

and as I have been thinking somewhat lately on this subject of

tickets-of-leave, I by these presents take you by the button, and compel

you to listen to the matter of my ruminations, even as that eternal

gossip detained Horace, when he was walking in the sacred road

“according to his wont.” I still think your experiment with regard to

that man a dangerous one. Had you been a preserver of game, you would

have done better to have made him a gamekeeper, on the principle of “set

a thief to catch a thief,” as he got into trouble by poaching with

aggravations. The most sensible proposition I have seen yet, with regard

to ticket-of-leave men, was that of some speaker at a country public

dinner, who proposed that they should be made policemen. No other scheme

has appeared to me to hold water in the slightest degree. You get a

parcel of jail-birds together, till their cage or “jug,” as it is

affectionately called by the fraternity, is inconveniently full. In

order to relieve its superabundance, you select the mildest specimens,

or those who appear so to the chaplain, clip a feather of their wings

and let them fly again about society at large, forgetting that a clipt

feather will soon grow again. You give them a ticket-of-leave—to be at

large, and they naturally give a large interpretation to the term, so

that a ticket-of-leave has become like an indulgence in the worst times

of Popery, the principal difference being that those who granted

indulgences were wise enough to get paid for them beforehand, while

those who grant tickets-of-leave are fools enough to do it for nothing,

and earn into the bargain the maledictions of all timid old gentlemen,

and the anathemas of all elderly ladies, if elderly ladies be ever

sufficiently unguarded to utter anathemas, as the Council of Trent did.

The other day poor Mrs Seacole, of Crimean memory,

“Spake a bitter jest”

in the court of bankruptcy, and asked for her ticket-of-leave, adding

that she did not mean to garotte any one in consequence; it being

generally understood that a ticket-of-leave would be interpreted by the

public to be a license to garotte with impunity, giving a sacred or

_sacrosanct_ character to the bearer, like that of a Briton with a

Foreign Office passport, an ancient Roman tribune or a modern Swiss

idiot, the latter two classes of people licensed to make themselves

disagreeable to others to any extent within or without reasonable

bounds. We have all heard of _Le spectre rouge_, and how it has

frightened the French people from their impropriety, bending their necks

to the stern yoke of absolutism. The same honourable position appears to

be occupied now in England by the spectre denominated Ticket-of-leave.

Oh, for the brush of a limner that I might portray him, as he is

portrayed to the imagination of Materfamilias Tomkins, whose husband is

a worthy clerk in the City, and has to walk every evening to a

white-washed cottage at Bow, running the gauntlet of all the

white-washed blackguards of Whitechapel on the road to it! I claim no

originality in wishing for a limner’s brush to eke out the weakness of

my words, the conceit is as old as Anacreon. I naturally turn as a model

to that ode in which the poet apostrophises his mistress—

Ἄγε Ζωγράφων ἄριστε

Γράφε Ζωγράφων ἄριστε

Τεχνοκοίρανε ῥόδειε

Ἀπεοῦσαν ὡς ἂν εἴπω

Γράφε τὴν ἐμὴν ἑταίραν,

with questionable compliment, calling upon the _best animal painter_,

the Landseer of Samos, to paint her according to description in her

absence. But I find as I read on, that the glorifications of feminine

loveliness can scarcely be paraphrased so as to do for Bill Sykes. Here

is one that will serve my purpose better, addressed to some graceless

youth of the poet’s acquaintance, I mean the Ode to Bathyllus. I suppose

a confederate speaking to the painter or photographer, though a case not

likely to happen, in fact, unless he wished to turn Queen’s evidence.

Ἐἰς Βάθυλλον.

Γράφε μοι Βάθυλλον οὕτω

Τὸν ἑταῖρον ὡς διδάσκω

Λιπαρὰς κόμας ποίησον

Τὰ μὲν ἔνδοθεν μελαίνας,

Τὰ δ’ ες ἄκρον ἡλιωσας

Ἕλικας δ’ ἐλαυθέρους μοι

Πλοκάμων, ἀτακτα συνθεὶς,

Ἄφες, ὡς θέλωσι, κεῖσθαι

Απαλὸν δὲ καὶ δροσῶδες

Στεφέτω μέτωπον, ὀφρὺς

Κυανωτέρη δρακόντων.

Μέλας ὄμμα γοργὸν ἔστω,

Κεκερασμένον γαλήνῃ*

Τὸ μὲν ἐξ Ἄρηος ἕλκον

Το δε τῆς καλῆς Κυθήρης

Ἵνα τις τὸ μὲν φοβῆται

Τὸ δ’ ἀπ’ ἐλπίδος κρεμᾶται.

Ῥοδίνην δ’, ὁποια μῆλον

Χνοΐην ποίει παρειήυ*

Ερυθημά δ’ ὡς ἄν Αἰδοῦς

(Λύνασαι) πάλιν ποίησον.

Τὸ δὲ χεῖλος, οὐκ ἔτ’ οἶδα

Τίνι μοι τροπῳ ποιήσεις * *

Ἁπαλὸν, γέμοντε πειθοῦς ——

Τὸ δὲ πᾶν, ὁ κηρὸς αὐτὸς

Ἐχέτω λαλῶν σιωπῇ.

Μετὰ δὲ πρόσωπον ἔστω

Τὸν Ἀδώνιδος παρελθὼν,

Ἐλεφάντινος τράχηλος.

Μεταμάζιον δε ποίει

Δίδυμάς τε χεῖρας Ἑρμοῦ;

Πολυδεύκεος δε μηροὺς

Λιονυσίην δὲ νηδύν.

* * *

Φθονερηὺ ἔχεις δὲ τέχνηυ,

Ὅτι μὴ τὰ νῶτα δεῖξαι,

Δύνασαι* τὰ δ’ ἦν ἀμείνω.

Τί πόδας με δεῖ δί δάσκειν;

Λάβε μισθὸν, ὅσσον εἴπῃς.

Τὸν Ἐκηβόλον δὲ τοῦτον

Καθελὼν, ποίει Βάθυλλον.

Ὅτε δ’ ἐς Σαμου ποτ’ ἐλθης

Γράφε Φοῖβον ἐκ Βαθύλλον.

ON BILL SYKES.

(After Anacreon.)

Paint me, Cruikshank, Doyle, or Leech,

Sykes, my pal, as now I teach.

Paint his hair, smut-black and sleek,

Methodistically meek,

Sheared as round a beechen bowl

On the temples; at the pole,

Topknot like a blacking-brush

Which no comb shall tear or crush;

So the porcupine his quill

Droops or upright sets at will.

Paint a clammy forehead now

Heavy, villanously low;

Eyebrows like a coat threadbare;

Eyelids innocent of hair,

Proof against the grease of bear.

Goggle eyes of sullen glare,

Overspread with oily calm

When he sings the prison-psalm;

Piglike in their want of passion;

Catlike in their hue and fashion;

Which to some suggest resistance,

And to some respectful distance.

With his cheek if art can grapple,

Paint it like a stale pine-apple,

Blotched, and mountainous and yellow,

Never blushing (trust the fellow)

Save when liquor spreads the rose

Sidewards from his blushing nose.

Deeply in your medium dip

When you paint the blubber lip,

Mute, yet eloquent of sin,

Blistered with sulphuric gin.

Paint a bloated figure-head,

As found drowned in Thames’ bed.

Let a flashy kerchief deck

Hippopotamus’s neck.

Paint a chest, the dread of Peelers,

Paint his vice-like, vicious feelers,

Paint his legs, short, bowed, and staunch;

Paint a bacchanalian paunch,

Pity that you cannot turn,

Paint at once both stem and stern;

With those pockets, which in doubt

Beaks and traps turn inside out,

Keeping snugly under hatches

Centrebits, and files and matches,

Crowbars, keys and all the things

Good for opening locks and springs.

Paint me last those high-low’d feet

Wary of policeman’s beat.

When you’ve finished my commission,

Take it to the Exhibition.

Surely their _Hanging_ Committee

Must on William Sykes take pity,

Else you might break in by night

And unfix some city knight,

Some lock-jawed pre-Raphaelite,

Some interior, landscape, plan,

“Portrait of a gentleman.”

So may soar in pride of place

Our Bill Sykes’s gallows face,

Not transported, but in fine

Hung precisely on the line.

But, in sober earnest, I think the portrait of Ticket-of-leave, if it

appeared on the walls of the Royal Academy, might produce unpleasant

consequences to ladies in an interesting condition, as happened when

Æschylus brusquely exhibited his Eumenides at Athens, so great a horror

has been engendered in the public mind by the creature’s _late_

misdoings. The word “ticket” was not in very good odour before, between

pawnbrokers’ tickets and lottery tickets. But it was only disreputable;

now it has become formidable. People will ask tremblingly for tickets of

leave for admission to lectures, concerts, and the opera. They will

fancy that every person travelling by railroad in possession of his

ticket, bears also a ticket-of-leave; and should the omnibus companies

adopt them, as in Paris, they will certainly prove fatal to their

traffic. Joking apart, I am not sorry, for some reasons, for this panic

and its causes. It serves to explode, with other things that have

occurred of late, the bubbles of progress and human perfectibility. The

other day we were almost argued into a belief in universal peace, and we

have been disenchanted by a war as barbaric as any that has been waged

before in pomp and circumstance. Now people are beginning to grow sick

of the humanity-hobby, and to allow that after all there are some worse

remedies for moral disease than honest hanging. Calcraft is likely to

have his declining years consoled by an increasing reverence for his

profession, and even to be looked upon in the end as a most

indispensable member of society. The “London Scoundrel,” if his language

was as unobjectionable as his real meaning, has a chance of finding an

echo in the popular heart, for the sovereign people has as much

objection as any other monarch to have its prerogatives invaded by

having its gullet compressed, or its ten-pound house burglariously

entered. Domitian fell when he began to be an object of terror to the

cobblers, and so, it is to be hoped, will that modern Domitian, the

ticket-of-leave man. He has at length succeeded in moving the masses,

and the masses will come down on his head and crush him. Things were,

indeed, come to a pretty pass. It required almost court interest to get

hanged, and to get transported for life nearly as much as would suffice

to get a subordinate clerkship in the Treasury. The judges seemed to

have got universally bitten with the mania for lecturing, and a lecture

from the bench was the panacea for all weaknesses which endangered or

destroyed the lives and properties of peaceable subjects. Sent to jail,

the prisoner was petted, and every encouragement given him to renew his

visit. In the severest light, he was only looked upon as a patient, put

upon the moral sick-list, and dieted with the same care and tenderness

that patients are in the best regulated hospitals, so that there was

often rather more trouble in getting him out than there was in getting

him in. Not that matters are very much mended as yet. Notwithstanding

the feeding and the petting, there are a class of _detenus_ who, like

spirited footmen, do not much like indoor work, or too much of it at one

time. A craving for physical and intellectual exercise impels them to

seek for means of release. Their trump cards in playing this trick are

the chaplain and the doctor, or both, one after the other. The king and

queen are played, and then to follow suit out comes the knave. Bill

Sykes is contrite, avows that his late course of life is a warning to

him, carefully stifles oaths unutterable, before uttered in conversation

with the chaplain, the king of hearts. Chaplain pleads for his release,

and half believes that he will go to the Antipodes, if he goes at all,

only as a missionary. Doctor, an old woman, of course, and so of the

feminine gender, the queen of hearts, feels his pulse, looks at his

tongue, thinks prison-fare, confinement, and early hours are destroying

his constitution and affecting his spirits. Doctor advises change of air

and scene for the invalid, and so the patient leaves the hospital. A

month afterwards back he comes again, being taken ill of a burglary,

committed in delicate health at twelve o’clock on a night in January,

and maliciously reported by the people in his own neighbourhood to be a

dangerous character, albeit in official estimation a saintly

valetudinarian.[3]

In the days of our fathers the ends of justice were defeated by making

the punishments for crime not so much too heavy as too indiscriminating.

Now they are defeated not so much by being too light as also by being

too indiscriminating. Yet given the proper amount of discrimination, and

they would still carry a little extra weight with advantage. The great

mistake is in regarding the offence and not the offender. The adage that

one man may steal an ox, while another is hanged for looking over the

hedge, is an illustration of our criminal code as applied in past and

present times.

During the Great Exhibition, a gentleman of good family got into a

passion with a policeman who attempted to stop his horses, most probably

adding some of the insolence of office, and cut him over the face with

his whip. His offence was grave, but without malice prepense. The

magistrate sent him to prison, and treated him like a common felon; and

the newspapers eulogised the bright example of equal justice to rich and

poor, and adjudged the administrator of the law a place in history

beside Judge Gascoyne, who committed the king’s son. But in their

intercourse with the professional ruffian, the skins of “unboiled

lobsters” are not rated at so high a figure. Then they do not appear in

the light of inviolable tribunes of the people. Some time ago I

recollect reading of a wretch called Cannon, who infested Southwark, and

was the bugbear of the street in which he lived by a habit he had of

butting the passers-by with his head like a bull, establishing, by the

terror of his name, a Cannon Street of his own on the Surrey side of the

water. This Minotaur, often convicted, nearly killed a policeman in the

execution of his duty, and evidently intended to do it outright. He was

neither hanged nor transported, and so trivial was his sentence that it

is the only circumstance of the case which has faded from my memory.

There was a yet more flagrant case the other day. It is so choice a

morceau to illustrate my position, that I have copied it

circumstantially, if not verbatim, from the _Times_.

MIDDLESEX SESSIONS. _Before the Assistant-Judge at the Guildhall,

Westminster._

Mary Horrigan, 17, and John Regan, 24 (lady first, gentleman

afterwards), were indicted for unlawfully (!) assaulting and beating

William Thorne, a constable of the Metropolitan force, whilst in the

execution of his duty; and the prisoner Regan was further indicted for

unlawfully assaulting and wounding George Anderson. The circumstances

were these. Regan went to light his dudheen (he is an Emerald-Islander

from his name) at the shop of Mr Bills, fishmonger, 27 Great _Wild

Street_, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields; Anderson (probably a Northerner), the

fishmonger’s assistant, being engaged very properly in sweeping the

shop. He went outside with the sawdust, and the Hibernian hit him on the

mouth. Next day Regan, still unsatisfied, came again and brought a

shillelah; Anderson dodged the shillelah; and then Regan hit him on the

mouth again with his fist. Thorne, the policeman, who was on duty near,

was called in; Regan came in without being called, and Anderson, being

at home, naturally followed, Regan observing to him in strong language,

“I’ll have your life before 12 o’clock to-night; you had better get the

police to watch, for your life is in my hands.” Upon this Thorne, _who

knew the antecedents_ of the Regan, went to the station-house for more

power, and returned to Wild Street with P. C. Williams, 133 F. They saw

the Regan in Lincoln Street flourishing his sapling in one hand and a

big knife in the other, apparently prepared for all emergencies. He was

heard to exclaim that he would have the something’s life, and that he

should like to see the policeman who would dare to take him. Thorne said

that he would venture to attempt it, and caught hold of his

shillelah-arm, when Regan made a pass at him with the knife, saying,

“There, take a bit of cold steel.” _The knife passed through his

great-coat, but fortunately coming in contact with one of the metal

buttons of the under coat, was bent._ The Regan gave a fiendish howl,

calling to some one to go and fetch Mike. Enter the Horrigan, a nymph

doubtless inferior in reputation to the general run of her sisters of

the sister isle, armed with a brindled bull-terrier, who answered to the

abbreviation of the archangel’s name. She did not merely set him but

threw him at P. C. Williams, who was helping Thorne to pacify the Regan.

The dog seized Williams by the leg and forced him to let go the other

brute, and Thorne was knocked down and kicked; the frail prisoner

encouraging his male assailants to “give it him.” In the affray the

prisoners _were rescued by a large crowd of companions_. The dog bit

Thorne’s leg several times before he could get away. How these wild

beasts were caught at last does not appear. The Saxon jury found

Horrigan guilty of a _common_ assault, and the Regan of all the counts.

What was the sentence? Did the Assistant-Judge put on the black cap and

condemn Regan to hang by the neck till he was dead, and Horrigan to be

whipped and put to bed? Not a bit of it. He did not do much, but he

_said_ a great deal. He was bitten, like Sir Robert Peel, with the

lecturing mania.

“The assistant Judge said that the prisoner Regan was a most dangerous

character (a new light having dawned upon him); for within the last six

years he had been convicted no less than _nine_ times for assaults on

the police, and he had been dealt with by magistrates (very mild ones)

in summary convictions; he had aimed a blow at the policeman with a

knife (fact), which had providentially (very proper) been stopped by a

button (bathos), or there could be but little doubt that it would have

penetrated the flesh (knives will do so), and caused the man to drop

down dead (another possibility approaching to probability), in which

case he would have been tried (certainly) and hanged for murder (by no

means so certainly.) Such offences must be visited with a long

imprisonment (a little stronger), and he therefore sentenced him to

_imprisonment and hard labour for eighteen calendar_ (not lunar)

_months_. As the Jury (gentle jury) had only found Horrigan guilty of a

_common_ assault (a little sarcastic), he should sentence her to

imprisonment (poor caged dove!) for _four_ months (three times four make

twelve, and twelve months a year, and seventeen years Miss Horrigan’s

life; so that, should she expire at the expiration of her term, a

one-and-fortieth portion of her valuable life will have to pass in

_duresse_. Poor Miss Horrigan!)”

I suppose I need not tell you, Irenæus, that the parentheses are my own.

The magistrate made a proper distinction between sauce for the goose and

sauce for the gander; but he did not spice it highly enough for either.

He should have kept a rod in pickle for the woman, and the man he should

certainly have promoted to the post of honour _par excellence_. Among

certain savages people change names as the Germans drink brotherhood, by

way of compliment. I do not know the name of the assistant Judge; but I

think yours, Irenæus, would suit him to a nicety, and you had better

take his. On the part of those who execute and administer the law, this

tenderness towards malefactors is more intelligible than it is in the

case of other members of society. Were the abolition of the police force

voted by public acclamation to-morrow, each man agreeing to watch for

himself over his own person and property, and at liberty to do justice

to any extent on all aggressors, there is no doubt about it that all

crime would quickly cease, as the criminals are, after all, a ridiculous

minority of the people, as may be judged by the statistics of the

memorable 10th of April 1848, when the peace-keepers mustered as ten to

one to the peace-disturbers; and this is one great argument in favour of

an unpaid magistracy and an unpaid constabulary. In Guernsey, where, to

the best of my knowledge—and I speak from information gained many years

ago—the police functions are undertaken by _amateurs_, no such outrages

on person or property are ever heard of. It was even a dangerous matter

then to attempt a comparatively innocent lark in a place where any one

convicted of breaking a lamp had to pay for all the lamps broken since

the last conviction, and where some of our party nearly frightened to

death, or to taking a fishing-boat to France in stormy weather, a

fellow-undergraduate—who had broken a lamp by accident, while engaged in

the edifying amusement of displacing the lamp-covers—by forging a

summons from the Royal Court of Guernsey, with “God save the Queen” in

large letters at the bottom. We were nearly overdoing the joke, for our

friend was on the way to the Royal Court to make a clean breast of it;

and when we told him we had concocted the summons ourselves, he was for

some time too frightened to believe it, and might have implicated the

whole party. It must be borne in mind that the abolition of a criminal

population would lead to an economical outcry for the abolition of all

paid magistrates and paid policemen, and we cannot expect that a _class_

of men will take pains to destroy their own body, although such conduct

is not unheard of in individuals. It is only on such a principle that we

can account for the existence in the heart of our civilisation of that

_imperium in imperio_—the _kleptocracy_ of England—the definite number

of thousands of convicted thieves at large, somewhat outnumbering, I

believe, the legislative body of Athenian citizens, all “known to the

police,” and yet living in perfect security under the wing and eyes of

the law, until they commit some fresh escapade. Surely it is nonsense to

talk of _habeas corpus_ in reference to these gentry. We expect too much

of human nature. We expect men-catchers as a body to be more

disinterested than rat-catchers. And rat-catchers, it is well known,

have a habit of transferring the rodential population of one barn to

another, that they may get another job. This is quite enough to account

for the ticket-of-leave system.

We have probably the finest detective police in the world; the trouble

they take in tracing crime, and bringing it home to the offender, is

scarcely credible to any one who does not know the facts, or has not

read Dickens’s masterly sketches of their proceedings. The detective,

like a stanch huntsman, runs his fox to earth, digs him out, bags him,

but then bolts him for another run. Thus the same fox, like the carted

deer, will serve for many days’ sport, and perhaps grow old in the

service, and get to enjoy the chase as much as those who pursue him. The

public, however, have begun to grow rather weary of this fun, crying

“what is sport to you is death to us,” and adopting the _ultima ratio_

of writing letters to the _Times_ and other newspapers, proposing

ingenious plans for self-defence, and even retaliation,—some of them

likely to be considered by the mealy-mouthed as a little bordering on

the diabolical. For instance, one correspondent of the _Morning Post_

proposes that persons going about London or its suburbs by night, should

wear an _antigarotte_ collar, on the principle of the collars worn by

sheep-dogs in the Pyrenees to protect them from wolves; the said collar

to be set round with barbed fish-hooks, which will fix themselves under

the epidermis of the human boa constrictor’s hands when he attempts to

throttle, and the said fish-hooks to be previously prepared by taking

them to the nearest dissecting-room, and steeping them in some

decomposed subject, so that the garotter will be certain to die under

the poison, as occasionally happens to medical students who unwarily

prick their fingers in dissection. A correspondent of the _Times_, more

mild in disposition, advises holding the chin tight to the chest and

shouting for the police (who of course are in the area-kitchen below,

but too well occupied to hear). Another, more practical, recommends that

a wrestling dodge should be tried on the garotter, the patient throwing

back his right leg, and entwining it with that of the operator, who will

thus be thrown on his back, with the patient above him, to work his will

on him. Another suggests to the consideration of athletic persons like

you, Irenæus, the possibility of catching the arm of the operator, and

holding it tight, bending the back and throwing him over the head of the

intended victim, breaking his back against the flags, if possible, in

the fall. Another suggests wearing hob-nailed boots, and shin-kicking;

another, of Levantine propensities, a dirk in the sleeve. I wonder that

none of them has suggested, on the principle of setting a thief to catch

a thief, the dog-fancier. I would buy the ugliest procurable bull-dog,

crossed in one generation with a terrier, faithful and stanch, and sure

to make his teeth meet in the calf of any aggressor. It is pleasanter to

get rough work done for one than to do it oneself. That Mike who figured

in our police report, would be exactly the fellow for us; the only fear

is, that he would recognise his older master in the garotter, and as the

Saxons treated Napoleon at Leipsic, go over to the enemy in the crisis

of action.

With respect to burglars, it is really time, now that one policeman has

been convicted of burglary, for the public to take the law into their

own hands. It has been done in one or two instances, where we would

least expect it, by the softer sex. One young lady having found the head

of a man poking through the shutter, diminished it, as the classics

would say, with a crowbar; another, rather too precipitous, and without

asking “wha it is at my bower door?” shot her unexpected sweetheart, not

named Finlay, in mistake for the expected cracksman. Chains, bolts, and

locks are of little use, except to make a noise. Bells are troublesome

for the servants to put up, and give false alarms in windy nights. I

propose three things. A little dog, a big dog, and a revolver. The

little dog to wake the big one, who sleeps soundly, especially after

dinner, and the big dog to wake the many-mouthed barker, and assist in a

scuffle, if a scuffle ensues. As a further precaution, I would suggest

some rather unintelligible notice, such as “burglars decimated on these

premises,” large enough to be read by moonlight; if in Runic characters,

so much the better, for crime is naturally superstitious. Timid persons

might act in this way, but bolder ones might sit up in ambush, place

some plate on the hall table, and leave a window temptingly open,

trusting to their accuracy of fire to give a good account of the

intruder, when once in their power. As I observed before, the interest

the constabulary and magistracy take in the preservation, propagation,

and general encouragement of blackguards is perfectly intelligible; it

would be even more so if, like the preservers of game, they had a

_battue_ for their amusement once in a way; but much less intelligible

to me is the interest that the humanitarians and model-prison people

take in the same direction. Those persons who are for reforming the

human race, should reflect that we all want reform more or less, and

efforts of that kind are much more likely to be successful with the

simply vicious, like nineteen in every twenty of us, than with the

wholly criminal. But benevolence must be eccentric to gain a hearing in

Exeter Hall. As Thomas Carlyle justly observes in his Latter Day

pamphlets, these jail-sweepings are the worst possible investment for

benevolence. These people might as well invest their money in coaches to

oppose the rail, but that in simply worldly matters they are far more

sagacious. But it is intolerable that they should exercise their

Promethean philanthropic turn to the detriment of society at large,

furnishing a premium on crime, and putting it into the heads of quiet

Dorsetshire labourers that it pays better to break the law and get into

Pentonville prison, than to attempt to support a wife and family by

honest labour on twelve shillings a-week. A “Dorsetshire labourer,”

writing to the _Times_, has discovered that the _detenus_ (I use the

polite French word) in that Model prison get each for the sum of his

rations for fifteen months 213 pounds of beef, 248 pounds of mutton, 81

pounds of beef-shins for soup, and for luncheons and _severe teas_ no

less than 655 mutton chops, 432 pints of porter, extra allowance. How

these figures would have made the mouths of our poor heroes in the

Crimea water, whom we were starving while we petted our criminals! What

a frightful expenditure of honest stolid oxen, and innocent sheep and

lambs, and sound wholesome malt, on dishonest men, ox-like only in their

stolidity, sheepish only in their hypocrisy, and committing positive

sacrilege while they unappreciatingly imbibed the heavy-wet which

furnishes thews and sinews to the ploughman or the artisan! What a

holocaust of God’s creatures offered on the altar of his enemy! The

bread of affliction and the water of affliction is the proper diet for

these worthies, not _bœuf à-la-mode_, or _cotelettes à la jardinière_,

or Barclay and Perkins’ extra stout. Why did they not do the thing well

at once, and order them rations of Burgundy, venison, and turtle? They

might by these means make them too aldermanic to commit any of the more

active crimes again, especially if the treadmill be abolished, and

thereby benefit society; whereas by only going half-way they merely keep

them in good condition, good working order for committing fresh

offences. And any parsimony is unaccountable, considering that the money

lavished on the appetites of these hungry villains does not come out of

the pockets of the visiting magistrates, except so far as they are units

in the aggregate of the tax-payers of Great Britain. On the whole, I

think it would have been decidedly more economical to have ordered them

ortolans, truffles, and hock, and champagne to wash them down with. They

will perhaps balance the account better in future. I have been lately

much struck with the extreme tenderness of our age and nation, and

reluctance to take human life when it has become worthless both to the

individual and to society, as contrasted with men’s extreme heedlessness

of exposing valuable human life, or letting it go to be destroyed by a

hundred preventible accidents. While it requires almost Court interest

to get hanged, the commonest regulations to insure the safety of railway

passengers are disregarded; and during the continuance of the late gales

it was perfectly awful to read the list of shipwrecks, where all on

board perished, including two crews of heroes who went in life-boats to

rescue seamen in distress, most of which might be prevented by the

construction of harbours of refuge along the coast at proper intervals

by the very hands of the very scoundrels in question, forced into doing

some good to their kind against their will. Even Palmer seemed to have

some chance of getting off, when a short time before we had sacrificed

the flower of our army by the most abominable official mismanagement.

And although such an argument would not have much weight with the

peace-party, who would endure all things without flinching, both from

Russians and rascals, it seems to me a much stronger measure to

sacrifice some thousands of good men and true, both of ourselves and of

the enemy, in an international war, than to obliterate judicially a few

hundreds of scoundrels who are doing all the harm they can to society.

But I am not advocating at present severe measures. I only ask, why it

is necessary to pet criminals? why, instead of putting them out of

harm’s way, they are put in harm’s way as much as possible by

Pentonville indulgences, tickets of leave, and the like, perpetuating

the corruptions of a society quite bad enough if left to its mere vices,

and multiplying it as they perpetuate it, each criminal forming a

nucleus round which others may gather, like cases of sporadic cholera,

until they have gained such a head that they are too much for us all,

and will be calling out, when Lord John Russell’s new Reform scheme

comes on, for members analogous to those of the Universities to

represent their corporate body, perhaps even for life-peerages for their

higher graduates? Imagine Bill Sykes, Member for the “_Minority_”[4] of

Lambeth, and my Lords Erebus and Terror sitting cheek-by-jowl with the

Archbishop of Canterbury! Or, perhaps, these gentlemen will end by

swelling tickets-of-leave to the dimensions of the Red Spectre of Paris,

and after a few days of barricades and blood, we shall find installed in

the new palace of Westminster, a select provisional government of

garotters, burglars, and murderers! There would be no question then of

the social position of our humanitarian apostles, for even the

_moderados_ of villany will be superseded by the _exaltados_ and

swindlers; fraudulent bankers and adulterators of food will find

themselves, for the first time, in the company of honest men, swept away

in the general deluge. These people are either to be punished or not to

be punished. If they have done nothing worthy of death or bonds, but

only contracted a kind of moral measles which will give way to kind

treatment and easy remedies, why put them in the close air of a prison

at all? The virtue of a close sick-room is entirely exploded in the

medical world, and only lingers in the opinions of superannuated monthly

nurses. Why not put money in their purses, and pay their passages to

some country where their antecedents are not known, and they will have a

chance of living by honest means, which they have not here, even if they

were to wish it? Why condemn them, if they do not wish to punish them,

to the moral disease in perpetuity, inoculating others at the same time?

Is it that they wish to keep them as interesting specimens, too valuable

to the moral physiologist to be let go? If so, it is really time to

interfere with the tastes of these pseudo-philanthropists, and to tell

them that society has the same objection to their museums of abomination

under its nose, as it has to tanyards and slaughter-houses near the

public thoroughfares, or the putrifaction of the body of the great

river-god who dwells in the Thames. As Gulliver recoiled from the

embrace of the philosophers of Laputa, so will society recoil from the

contact of those humanitarians who are engaged in a task of

reconstruction or regeneration, equally hopeless, and equally offensive

to the public senses. But and if these persons deserve punishment

condign—if there is such a thing, and I am old-fashioned enough to

believe it, as justice, human and divine—if impunity in crime inevitably

reacts to the deterioration of human society, and pagan Nemesis has a

living existence even for those who have discarded the divine authority

of the Old Testament, I do think that nearly all the punishments enacted

by law for offences, at least as administered by our magistrates, are

most silly and inadequate; powerless, both for prevention and cure, and

only calculated to reproduce the evil they profess to abate. A system

which would be comparatively harmless in a country of sparse population

like Norway or Canada, becomes multifariously pernicious in a bee-hive

of human beings like that in which it is our destiny to breathe or try

to breathe. It was a great principle with that famous schoolmaster Dr

Arnold, who was withal a most humane and charitable man, in his conduct

of a public school, to get rid as soon as possible of all pupils who,

from his knowledge of human nature, he saw to be doing more harm than

good to their companions and themselves by remaining, even before they

were convicted of any overt infraction of law. Not that such cases are

necessarily irreclaimable, but that in such a crowded place, the worst

chance of reformation is given them, and the evil they do to others is

indefinitely multiplied. With private tutors, or under the eye of

parents, they might do better. He judged very much from physiognomy and

physiology, nor was he often wrong. The consequence of his judicious

system of weeding was, that he sent out into the world, as the rule, a

class of high-minded and virtuous students, though, in the innocence of

their hearts, generally Whigs and something more, being led to believe

that the world in general was as much to be trusted as themselves, and

their friends, and their beloved master. What is the population of

London at the present day? How much above two millions, which is about

the whole population of Norway? The drainage of the vast metropolis is a

difficult problem in these days, but how much more difficult the problem

of keeping the great Babylon sweet with such a cesspool of moral miasma

festering in its vitals? Even a simple alien act, giving the executive

the power of dismissing them from the focus of centralisation, would be

better than the present system, as they would be easier to deal with

when scattered abroad, and not living in a compact phalanx of opposition

to all good government, shoulder to shoulder, as at present. It is

perfectly frightful to think that the worst criminals are now often

rescued from the officers of justice by a mob of bystanders, which

implies that every individual in it is either a contemptible coward, or

sympathises to the full extent with the crime they are committing. I

should think, in charity to human nature, the former supposition the

more probable, the metropolitan population having been panic-stricken by

the long-continued impunity of those who set the law at defiance. Some

time ago one Italian stabbed another in Rupert Street, and no one dared,

although many persons witnessed the attempt at murder, to assist the

police in arresting the offender. This is nearly as bad as the state of

things said to exist at Rome, where the witnesses of an assassination

run away as fast as they can, because it is the rule to arrest the

nearest person on suspicion. British freedom is no doubt a fine thing,

but like other fine things it has its drawbacks. It is one thing to

leave the press unfettered and suppress the press-gang, and another to

leave a university of convicted malefactors chartered and privileged to

educate the young, and grant degrees to the old, in the heart of our

metropolis: a Stinkomalee of rascaldom acting quite as much under the

sanction of Government as Lord Brougham’s creation in Gower Street. This

unquestionably diabolical university has more colleges than Oxford and

Cambridge put together. It has its St Giles’ college, which answers to

Christ Church or Trinity; its Bethnal Green college; its Tooley Street

college; its City of London college; its slow colleges and fast

colleges; its aristocratic Belgravian college, and its ecclesiastical

Westminster college, a truly close foundation; its suburban colleges,

situated half-pleasantly in the country, like St John’s, and Worcester,

and Wadham at Oxford. It has its professors, who are better paid than

ours at Oxford—professors of burglary, professors of highway robbery,

professors of the gentler art of picking pockets, professors of stealing

and receiving stolen goods, many of them on a more liberal principle

than that adopted by our old universities—dissenters from the Church of

England, and even of the Hebrew persuasion—and it has its realisation of

the dreams of Mrs Colonel Bloomer in a strong staff of rights-of-women

female professors, abominable she-devils who, having passed through and

outlived every phase of infamy themselves, make it the last business of

their lives to indoctrinate innocent _freshwomen_ from the English

counties, and if they cannot succeed in tempting them to moral suicide

at home, do not scruple to use force and pack them off to Hamburg or

Paris to be drugged and terrified into children of hell. Surely, if such

an university must exist, it is strange that it is not thought advisable

to put it under Government superintendence, and appoint regius

professorships of Desmoterian History and Pastoral Demonology;

Readerships in the “Mysteries of London,” the “Newgate Calendar,” and

the “Memoirs of Harriet Wilson;” fellowships of felons, vacated like an

Oxford fellowship by matrimony, but by no means by any of its

imitations; chairs of Theoretical Toxicology and Clinical practice,

combined with the whole art of child-murder. We cannot help wondering at

the disinterestedness of a ministry, and that a Whig ministry, which

overlooks such an abundantly fertile field of patronage, and so splendid

an opportunity of providing outlying relatives and dependents at the

expense of the nation. And what a fatal mistake it was to hang Palmer!

He was just the man for the Chancellor of this liberal university of

Alsatia, for that must be its most unchristian name. But to speak more

seriously, if British freedom is not competent to put down such a state

of things, and is for ever condemned to halt on one side, going about

like the goddess Pœna of Horace, with a club-foot, would it be so very

strong a measure to perform Tiefenbach’s operation on British freedom,

and cut the shrunken sinew, or to put it on horseback and give it free

action for a limited period? The Romans used to appoint a dictator in

times of emergency whenever there was a _Gallicus tumultus_ (which we

might translate a French _émeute_), or even for the purpose of driving a

nail into some door, and yet Roman freedom emerged from the temporary

eclipse as bright as ever, perhaps even clearer and brighter. Might we

not appoint a dictator for the purpose of knocking the nail on the head

once for all, a strong responsible Hercules, who would turn the New

River into the Augean stable of our social nuisances, and sweep them

away once and for ever? Such men are to be found; at all events we might

find a brook which would do the work of Hercules’s river, even Rajah

Brooke of Borneo, the man who destroyed by one blast, like that of the

destroying angel, some thousands of pestilent pirates. Such a man would,

I take it, make short work with the “characters known to the police.” He

might proceed either by secret fraud or open force. I should think he

would prefer the latter. He might either, as Lord Shaftesbury did, call

a public meeting of thieves, say in St Martin’s Hall, surround them with

soldiers, and destroy them, as the Corcyræan democratical party in

Thucydides did their political opponents; or he might lay all the heavy

lighters in the Thames, which are so much in the way of its navigation,

under an embargo, and have such a _noyade_ at the river’s mouth as would

turn the Goodwin Sands into corn and pasture land, superseding from

thenceforth all necessity for lighthouses—an immense saving to the

nation, and rendering the destruction of the villains of one generation

a blessing to posterity, and a source of permanent security to mariners

of all nations! And he would surely make short work of the tumbling down

of all those streets, alleys, and courts of the metropolis known to be

inhabited only by two-legged, four-legged, and six-legged vermin,

scorching their sites with fire, and sowing the contaminated ground with

salt; and he would burn with fire the gin-palaces, or Persian

Jin-temples—(what a glorious illumination they would make, far better

than that we had for the Peace!)—and feed the flames of their burning

with all the poisoned products concocted by our adulterators of food,

till all are consumed, the usual consumers standing by and applauding

their great deliverance; and he would break down all the altars of

Mormonism, Socialism, and hideous Infidelity, and burn Holywell Street

with fire, and scatter to the winds the ashes of all ungodly and immoral

publications, both letter-press and pictorial; and purify with the

waters of lustration, so as to make them available for honest purposes,

the Circumlocution offices, the Stock Exchange, the sanctimonious Banks,

&c. &c.; in short, he would do all desirable good, and do away with all

undesirable evil. And then, after his London season was over, during the

continuance of which we would put the town in a state of siege, we would

send him to star it in the provinces, and, to the tune of solemn music,

perform the same office of lustration by all the other great towns of

the British empire. I fear that were such a proposition mooted in the

Imperial Parliament, it would be pooh-pooh’d by the Ministry, and

received with derisive cheers by the Opposition, and voted

unconstitutional by all, the consideration of it being perpetually

adjourned to this day six months; and yet it is difficult to see how it

can be any use to entertain the question of what we shall do with our

criminals, without some such preliminary expurgation and purification.

Just as all measures for the diminution of the burden of our taxation

are frustrated by the incubus of the national debt, so must all measures

for the disposition of our rascals be rendered abortive by the enormous

stock of them in hand becoming more morally putrescent and offensive the

longer they endure, and effectually stopping the way of all sanitary and

salutary improvement. It would seem, indeed, somewhat desirable that all

questions of the day, now that the Russians have given us a little

breathing-time, should be postponed to this, that our lay Legislature

should turn away their attention from Committees of Supply, and our

bench of Bishops from deciding on Liddell and Westerton, Ditcher and

Denison cases, questions about more or less candles on the altar, boughs

or flowers in the church, presence or absence of a cross, until this

awful Frankenstein-ghost of our social condition is effectually

exorcised and sent back to the place whence it came. But grant, for

supposition’s sake, that it be done, that we have thus had one thorough

sweeping and cleaning, painting and whitewashing, so as to be able to

keep our house in order for the future by ordinary sweeping down of

cobwebs, and the time come for us to consider what we are to do with our

criminals, I should very much like to hear what your cool head and

practical wisdom, Irenæus, has to say on this subject; and awaiting your

reply, I venture, in the mean time, to lay before you my ruminations on

this all-important matter. We must first take a glance at the nature of

crime. Now crime is happily not the rule but the exception with men; it

is otherwise with vice. Most men are more or less vicious, from those

who suffer from _delirium tremens_ down to those who take snuff; but few

men, and fewer women, are criminal. Those that are so make such a fuss

in the world, and succeed so well in establishing their importance, that

they seem much more numerous than they are. The criminal classes, then,

may be divided into the corrigible and the incorrigible, as, indeed, may

the vicious classes, to which you and I belong, being one of us affected

with the _cacoethes scribendi_, and the other with the evil habit of

taking tobacco; and corrigible crime partakes of the nature of vice,

just as incorrigible vice partakes of the nature of crime, and is apt to

be resolved into it, as all the diseases of Athens were resolved into

the plague. This division is, of course, as old as the hills and

Aristotle, and I do not lay the slightest claim to originality in making

it. Now it seems to me that our laws, in dealing with offences rather

than offenders, take no cognisance of this division of human character,

as to corrigible and incorrigible, except accidentally, and perhaps only

by rule, in one case, that of homicide, where malice prepense is

supposed to give it the character of wilful murder. But it strikes me

that a murderer is by no means of necessity an incorrigible character,

though the punishment of death may be just as the lowest in proportion

to his offence. A man has sustained some grievous wrong from another,

say that a scamp has run away with his wife; he cherishes his vengeance,

he bides his time, he watches for him, and without going through the

etiquette of a formal challenge, shoots him as you and I would be sorry

to shoot a dog. Well, that man is a murderer, and I do not deny that,

for the safety of society, he ought to be hung, and yet I know that he

has lived honourably hitherto, if not very religiously and faithfully,

in all the relations of life. He is certainly by no means one of the

incorrigible class, nor is, as far as we can see, the forgiveness of

Heaven out of the reach of his repentance. But here is a miscreant who

has committed no act of violence, and whom, but for his aquiline

features, you might take for a seedy dissenting minister, whose life has

been passed till he is grey in discounting bills for foolish youths, and

making them and their families miserable for life. He does not perhaps

even cheat in his vile trade, but he pinches and pares and tortures with

interest and compound interest, perhaps, in some cases, making the

greenhorn into a parricide in thought by his post-obits, a fair specimen

of an accomplished usurer, placed by Dante in a circle of the _Inferno_

inhabited by very bad company indeed, and pelted with flakes of fiery

snow. Well, I say that this man, though scarcely a lawbreaker, is an

incorrigible criminal, an enemy of his kind, and it would be no more

than justice to deal with him accordingly. Or take the case of thieving:

one man steals a sheep, as Charles II. did at Boscobel, because he wants

it to eat, or his little ones want it: he is corrigible. Another steals

a widow’s mite in a bank, having seduced her into trusting him with it

by a life of religious hypocrisy: this man is incorrigible, or

corrigible only by the crank and a long course of penal discipline. Or

take the very bad case of poisoning: a young woman was hung some years

ago at Bristol for poisoning an old one who had frightfully and

systematically maltreated her: no doubt the law did right, if it is

right to hang women at all; but I do not look upon the case as

necessarily incorrigible. But look at the case of a baker or a grocer

who poisons the food of multitudes, at all events succeeding so far that

he injures their health, and all for the sake of making a slight profit,

from utter, cold, unmitigated selfishness. I say that such a man is

incorrigible, and deserves to be hung, though whether or not it would be

expedient to hang him is another question. Again, there is a manifest

difference between old and young offenders committing the same crime,

and I believe the usual practice recognises this difference. It does

indeed seem to me unjust to punish at all little children, whom, in the

spirit of our glorious constitution, we have left to be brought up by

vicious parents, without being taught the difference between right and

wrong, or rather, with having been taught to transpose these from the

very first. We are all by nature liars and thieves, as much as these

little children, and unless we had been taken in hand by kind parents

and friends, who imitated in this only the example of a Greater, who

ordered little children to be brought to Him, we should inevitably have

grown up in the same moral ignorance. At the same time, a certain weight

must be given to the fact that vice engenders vice as virtue does

virtue, and that the human race is brutified by generations of evil

living, as it deteriorates by living in a bad climate for many

generations. The low stupid animal configuration is a sad puzzle to the

philanthropist, the ragged schoolmaster, and the keeper of the juvenile

prison; and the actually abandoned children of the metaphorically

abandoned, appear often as hopeless of receiving instruction in better

things as the Bushman or the New Guinea savage. Not that we need

absolutely despair of any human being who retains a vestige of the

human, which is indeed also a vestige of the godlike. He is still

something more than an ourang-outang. Only when he fairly declares war

against society, we have a manifest right to take his life, as we have

the life of our enemies in international war, and on the principle of

self-defence, not only against physical injury, but moral contamination.

Now war is declared against society by certain definite overt acts, such

as murder, and the existence of the incorrigible character, perpetually

asserting, whether with truth or not, its incorrigibility. Although some

who commit great crimes are doubtless corrigible, yet the world is not

strong enough to pardon them, considering the greatness, or rather

extreme dangerousness, of the acts they commit. And it is not the danger

to life and property on which I would lay the greatest stress; it is the

danger of their example to the crowd of waverers between guilt and

innocence, which in fact comprises perhaps a quarter of mankind. Now, as

long as they live, they are objects of a certain interest, and at least

noticeable; whereas, had they ceased to live, they would be virtually

and personally forgotten. If Madame Laffarge had been put to death for

the poisoning of her husband, the crime of poisoning would have been in

a manner put to death with her; whereas her perpetual imprisonment is a

perpetual reminder of her offence. But it seems to some hard to put to

death political offenders. So it is, if we consider the persons only and

not the offence. But rebellion against established government is an act

so very inconvenient to the interests of society that the law is

doubtless in the right in making it a capital offence. And yet a rebel

may be a glorious hero and genuine patriot. But no one ought to be

allowed to assume this character cheaply. If he plays at all, he must

stake his all, and be prepared, if he loses, for loss of head and

confiscation of property. I readily admit that he may be a holy martyr

if he loses, even as he is sure to be a very great man indeed if he

wins: but no less should be the stake he plays for. Although I have a

very high opinion of the French Emperor, and think that, having won, he

most fully deserves to wear the position he holds, I think he would

equally have deserved a bullet or the guillotine had he been unlucky.

Nothing has done more harm in the case of murder than the foolish plea

of insanity, and I do, from my heart, hope that Verger will suffer death

for the murder of the Archbishop of Paris, a crime indeed complicated

with sacrilege as committed at the altar of God, and parricide as

committed by a priest against a spiritual father. The weak conduct of

the poor Archbishop to this ungrateful ruffian, in suffering him to be

appointed to a cure of souls, in spite of his manifest incorrigibleness,

was well commented upon by the _Times_, and illustrates forcibly my

general position. The man who murdered Mr Drummond some years ago

(Macnaughten) ought to have been hung, as he had destroyed his moral

sense by bad habits before he became insane, and his madness was

evidently the child of his badness. Between the labials _b_ and _m_

there is not so wide a difference that the words are not often

interchanged, and it would do no great harm in the world to kill, once

in the way, a mad murderer, even if he is morally innocent, while it is

productive of unending harm to suffer a bad one, who is assuredly

morally guilty, to escape. It seems to me, then, that murder, no matter

whether its subject be corrigible or not, always demands death; in case

of treason the sentence must depend on political expediency. Our

Government was quite strong enough to pardon Smith O’Brien, and

doubtless did infinitely more good by remitting his sentence than by

executing it; but still he would have no reason to complain had he been

shot after a court-martial, by Inspector Trant, in the very

cabbage-garden of the widow Cormack. Our Government did not so well in

mitigating the penalties of the Chartists Frost and Co., who exposed a

number of misguided men to be shot down, keeping out of fire themselves,

and are still, as it appears, engaged in plotting mischief against the

State. Arson should always be capital, because it is a crime of such

portentous consequences, so easy to effect in these days of phosphoric

appliances, and so entirely out of the pale of ordinary temptations.

Whether any other offence should be punished with death should be

decided by a reference to the character of the offender, and the

circumstances under which it is committed. There are a great many crimes

which, though slight in themselves, are evidences of a dangerous and

hopeless brutality of character, and are even more so when committed in

a state of intoxication, because it is in such a state that the real

nature shows itself most strongly. I would cite as an example some

furious assault on a wife by a drunken husband, who had starved her

first to gratify his selfish appetites. Society might surely do without

such a character, in a state of things where even the innocent have such

a hard fight for existence. Again, it is difficult to decide on

incorrigibility, and we are expressly forbidden by a higher law to judge

the heart of man; but when incorrigibility is for ever declaring itself,

and declaring war against society in the devil’s name, I think we should

be justified, even if each overt offence were small in itself, and

again, considering the difficulty of feeding our population, in putting

it quietly out of the way. When Babylon was besieged, the government

adopted the ungallant expedient of killing all the women except enough

to bake bread for the fighting garrison; and as our modern Babylon is at

present in a normal state of siege from the legions of darkness, perhaps

the question is worth entertaining whether its incorrigible male

population might not be abated by some short and summary method, even

after our one great imaginary sweeping. Still, I will not insist on this

point, for I fear to shock your feelings, Irenæus, and the prejudices

which you imbibed in your early intercourse with the Society of Friends.

And I cannot help imagining the reverend Celsus at my elbow with a face

of unusual severity, admonishing me on religious grounds that we ought

not to cut off from the wicked the hope of repentance, for we can never

tell whether there be still room for it or not. Of course this argument

would be tantamount to advocating the entire abolition of capital

punishment. But what would you substitute? Solitary confinement? Would

you convert a man by making him infallibly insane? Perpetual

imprisonment and hard labour in company with others? Is he likely to

think of his latter end in the company of those like himself? He is much

more likely to laugh to scorn with them everything connected with it.

What makes most of us so careless in these matters is, not that we

believe we shall live for ever in this life, but that we do not know,

for the next half-century or less, exactly when we shall die. But place

certain death before our eyes at the distance of a month or so, and we

should think it time, one and all, to make some arrangement of our

affairs both for this world and the next. A prisoner confined in

solitude or condemned to penal servitude for life is not likely to do

himself any good, neither can he do good to the State, for keeping him

and guarding him probably cost more than his hopeless labour. I forbear

the deduction. It is a stern one, but I believe it to be true. The

prisoner may ask for “a long day,” and have it, and benefit of clergy

ought to be denied to none by those who have the thief on the cross

before their eyes; nor ought the services of a national church, which

buries all, as she baptises all, in charitable hope. Secondary

punishments are of course a question of much detail and arrangement, and

many plans have been proposed with regard to them, more or less

sensible. It seems to me that means must be taken to banish from the

country all criminals but the young and those convicted of trifling

offences, or under great temptation, and to banish them for ever. First,

they ought, properly classified and supervised, to be set to useful

public works, and work out at home the term of their punishment, and

then granted a passage to certain stated regions of the earth, not

necessarily colonies, where the people would not object to receive them,

if there were inhabitants already, and where they might, as it were,

begin a new life under fairer auspices. Return to this country, under

any circumstances whatever, should be punished by another and a very

long lease of penal servitude. Nor should that penal servitude be too

light, else it would be resorted to in some cases in order to effect an

ultimate emigration. It should be very severe, but not untempered by

relaxation both of mind and body; nor should the chaplain be the only

reformer. I would have the musician, and even the actor of Shakespeare,

to aid his efforts. Reparation and reformation are the two main objects

of secondary punishments; nor is the more selfish protection of society,

although important, to be weighed in the balance with them. If a crime

is committed, according to divine law, it has to be expiated, sooner or

later, in the person of the offender; and it can be no harm for human

law to endeavour to be in harmony with the divine. After expiation,

forgiveness may come, but not without it, both from man and God. God may

forgive in any case, even the worst; but in the worst cases, man,

conscious of his weakness, must submit to be unforgiving. As to lesser

punishments, I have often wondered why that excellent summary process of

flogging has fallen into such disrepute. Why should we have mercy on the

skin of a man who has no mercy on the skin of his wife, and invest it

with sacerdotal sanctity? And ought not cruelty to animals to be

punished in kind, by scourging the animal that is cruel? As for the

noble _Stocks_, which has become in most villages a significant ruin, it

is a machine which seems to have been created expressly to curb the

national vice of drunkenness. Put your silly Helot by all means in the

stocks, and let all our young village Spartans have a good stare at him,

especially at the time when he is beginning to get sick and sorry. No

rotten eggs, if you please, far less a stone in a snowball! The poor

fellow cannot run after you, and is sufficiently punished by the

degrading exposure. I have no more time or paper, or I would say even

more, Irenæus, on this subject of punishments; but I think you can see

my general drift. After all, prevention is better than cure; and I would

rather put another strain on our British freedom, and take away by force

from their parents all the children who are being brought up under

notoriously evil auspices; beginning by transporting them to be out of

the way, and then bringing them back in ten or fifteen years’ time, if

they wished to come back, to some other spot at home, far from the

habitat of their parents, and not this till the death of their parents

had been ascertained. But even they would perhaps do better in a new

country, as would some of us, who have but a sort of struggle to live

here, and yet very little of a moral nature the matter with us.

Farewell,

Your ever

TLEPOLEMUS.

THE ATHELINGS; OR, THE THREE GIFTS.

BOOK III.—PART IX.

CHAPTER I.—AN OLD STORY.

“Now, mother,” said Charlie, “I’m in real earnest. My father would tell

me himself if he were here. I want to understand the whole concern.”

Mrs Atheling and her son were in Charlie’s little room, with its one

small lattice-window, overshadowed and embowered in leaves—its plain

uncurtained bed, its small table, and solitary chair. Upon this chair,

with a palpitating heart, sat Mrs Atheling, and before her stood the

resolute boy.

And she began immediately, yet with visible faltering and hesitation, to

tell him the story she had told the girls of the early connection

between the present Lord Winterbourne and the Atheling family. But

Charlie’s mind was excited and preoccupied. He listened, almost with

impatience, to the sad little romance of his father’s young sister, of

whom he had never heard before. It did not move him at all as it had

moved Agnes and Marian. Broken hearts and disappointed loves were very

far out of Charlie’s way; something entirely different occupied his own

imagination. He broke forth with a little effusion of impatience when

the story came to an end. “And is this all? Do you mean to say this is

the whole, mother? And my father had never anything to do with him but

through a girl!”

“You are very unfeeling, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, who wiped her eyes

with real emotion, yet with a little policy too, and to gain time. “She

was a dear innocent girl, and your father was very fond of her—reason

enough to give him a dislike, if it were not sinful, to the very name of

Lord Winterbourne.”

“I had better go on with my packing, then,” said Charlie. “So, that was

all? I suppose any scamp in existence might do the same. Do you really

mean to tell me, mother, that there was nothing but this?”

Mrs Atheling faltered still more under the steady observation of her

son. “Charlie,” said his mother, with agitation, “your father never

would mention it to any one. I may be doing very wrong. If he only were

here himself to decide! But if I tell you, you must give me your word

never so much as to hint at it again.”

Charlie did not give the necessary pledge, but Mrs Atheling made no

pause. She did not even give him time to speak, however he might have

been inclined, but hastened on in her own disclosure with agitation and

excitement. “You have heard Papa tell of the young gentleman—he whom you

all used to be so curious about—whom your father did a great benefit

to,” said Mrs Atheling, in a breathless hurried whisper. “Charlie, my

dear, I never said it before to any creature—that was _him_.”

She paused only a moment to take breath. “It was before we knew how he

had behaved to dear little Bride,” she continued, still in haste, and in

an undertone. “What he did was a forgery—a forgery! people were hanged

for it then. It was either a bill, or a cheque, or something, and Mr

Reginald had written to it another man’s name. It happened when Papa was

in the bank, and before old Mr Lombard died—old Mr Lombard had a great

kindness for your father, and we had great hopes then—and by good

fortune the thing was brought to Papa. Your father was always very

quick, Charlie, he found it out in a moment. So he told old Mr Lombard

of it in a quiet way, and Mr Lombard consented he should take it back to

Mr Reginald, and tell him it was found out, and hush all the business

up. If your Papa had not been so quick, Charlie, but had paid the money

at once, as almost any one else would have done, it all must have been

found out, and he would have been hanged, as certain as anything—he, a

haughty young gentleman, and a lord’s son!”

“And a very good thing, too,” exclaimed Charlie; “saved him from doing

any more mischief. So, I suppose now, it’s all my father’s blame.”

“This Lord Winterbourne is a bad man,” said Mrs Atheling, taking no

notice of her son’s interruption—“first he was furious to William, and

then he cringed and fawned to him; and of course he had it on his

conscience then about poor little Bride, though we did not know—and then

he raved, and said he was desperate, and did not know what to do for

money. Your father came home to me, quite unhappy about him; for he

belonged to the same country, and everybody tried to make excuses for Mr

Reginald, being a young man, and the heir. So William made it up in his

own mind to go and tell the old lord, who was in London then. The old

lord was a just man, but very proud. He did not take it kind of William,

and he had no regard for Mr Reginald; but for the honour of the family

he sent him away. Then we lost sight of him long, and Aunt Bridget took

a dislike to us, and poor little Bride was dead, and we never heard

anything of the Lodge or the Hall for many a year; but the old lord died

abroad, and Mr Reginald came home Lord Winterbourne. That was all we

ever knew. I thought your father had quite forgiven him, Charlie—we had

other things to think of than keeping up old grudges—when all at once it

came to be in the newspapers that Lord Winterbourne was a political man,

that he was making speeches everywhere, and that he was to be one of the

ministry. When your father saw that, he blazed up into such an anger! I

said all I could, but William never minded me. He never was so bitter

before, not even when we heard of little Bride. He said, Such a man to

govern us and all the people!—a forger! a liar!—and sometimes, I think,

he thought he would expose the whole story, and let everybody know.”

“Time enough for that,” said Charlie, who had listened to all this

without comment, but with the closest attention. “What he did once he’ll

do again, mother; but we’re close at his heels this time, and he won’t

get off now. I’m going to Oxford now to get some books. I say, mother,

you’ll be sure, upon your honour, not to tell the girls?”

“No, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, with a somewhat faint affirmation;

“but, my dear, I can’t believe in it. It can’t be true. Charlie, boy! if

this was coming true, our Marian—your sister, Charlie!—why, Marian would

be Lady Winterbourne!”

Charlie did not say a word in return; he only took down his little

travelling-bag, laid it at his mother’s feet to be packed, and left her

to that business and her own meditations; but after he had left the

room, the lad returned again and thrust in his shaggy head at the door.

“Take care of Marian, mother,” said Charlie, in a parting adjuration;

“remember my father’s little sister Bride.”

So he went away, leaving Mrs Atheling a good deal disquieted. She had

got over the first excitement of Miss Anastasia’s great intelligence and

the sudden preparations of Charlie. She had scarcely time enough,

indeed, to give a thought to these things, when her son demanded this

history from her, and sent her mind away into quite a different channel.

Now she sat still in Charlie’s room, pondering painfully, with the

travelling-bag lying quite unheeded at her feet. At one moment she

pronounced the whole matter perfectly impossible—at the next,

triumphantly inconsequent, she leaped to the full consummation of the

hope, and saw her own pretty Marian—dazzling vision!—the lady of

Winterbourne! and again the heart of the good mother fell, and she

remembered little Bride. Louis, as he was now, having no greater friends

than their own simple family, and no pretensions whatever either to

birth or fortune, was a very different person from that other Louis who

might be heir of lands and lordship and the family pride of the

Riverses. Much perplexed, in great uncertainty and pain, mused Mrs

Atheling, half-resentful of that grand discovery of Miss Anastasia,

which might plunge them all into renewed trouble; while Charlie trudged

into Oxford for his Italian grammar—and Louis and Marian wandered

through the enchanted wood, drawing homeward—and Rachel sang to the

children—and Agnes wondered by herself over the secret which was to be

confided only to mamma.