THE DEGRADATION OF THE REGIMENT OF ABO.

In all armies corps have frequently been punished _en masse_, by

being sent on foreign service or hazardous duty out of their turn,

for the crimes of individuals, for general discontent, or for mutiny.

Some have been exterminated, like the Janizzaries and the Mamelukes;

decimated, like the Chapelgorris, or Red Caps, a battalion, of 800

Guipuzcoan Volunteers, famous in the army of the Queen of Spain; or,

like that Carlist Regiment, which, for sundry acts of sacrilege, was

formed in line, and had every tenth file, with his coverer, taken out

and shot.

In the "Art of War, 1720," we are told that during the campaign in

Holland, a captain, and his entire company, belonging to an Italian

regiment, were hanged in line for desertion at Emerich, in the Duchy

of Cleves; and in later times, in our own service, the 6th Royal

Irish Dragoons, a fine old corps, consisting originally of nine

troops, embodied under Colonel James Wynne, in the winter of 1688,

with the Harp and Garter on their colours,--a corps that was brigaded

with the Greys on the extreme right in the campaigns of Marlborough,

and which, after serving with characteristic bravery in all our wars

till those of the French Revolution, was disbanded in 1798 (for

alleged sympathy with the Irish Insurgents), when General Lord

Rossmore was their colonel; and since when, as a mark of the royal

displeasure, their place and number remained vacant in the Army List

for sixty years, until the present 5th Royal Irish Lancers were

embodied in 1858; but in no instance was there ever a wholesale

disgrace inflicted on a corps such as that to which the King of

Sweden, Gustavus III., subjected the unfortunate Regiment of Abo.

When in the year 1788 he suddenly attacked Russia, victory remained

undecided in a naval engagement between his fleet under the Duke of

Sudermania and that of the Empress under the Scoto-Russian Admiral

Greig, and his nobles who served in the Marine refused to act further

in a war, which seemed to have no cause but the will of the King.

Gustavus was inflamed by this opposition; he wished an object on

which to vent his wrath and pride, and soon found one in the Regiment

of Abo.

A brief armistice had ensued, during which he summoned a diet at

Stockholm, where, on the 22nd February, 1789, by a preponderance of

three inferior states, a declaration placed in his hands unlimited

power, and he still resolved to prosecute the hopeless war against

Russia.

In the army, at the head of which he placed himself, was this

Regiment of Finlanders from Abo, a province which comprehends a part

of Eastern Bothnia and the Aland Isles, whose inhabitants are a hardy

and industrious race. The regiment fought with all the hereditary

bravery of the old Finns, and served at the capture of several small

towns; but the arms of Gustavus were unsuccessful by land, where his

measures were disconcerted by an event which he could not have

foreseen.

After making all his preparations to storm the strong fort and town

of Fredericksham, which had been ceded to the Empress Elizabeth in

1743, and the repossession of which would have opened to him the

gates of the Russian capital, his officers, and chiefly those of the

Finnish Regiment of Abo, flatly refused to pass the frontier,

alleging as a reason, "that the constitution of the Swedish kingdom

would not permit them to be accessory to foreign war which the nation

had not sanctioned."

This put an end to what was named the Finland Expedition; it gave the

enemy time to put themselves in a perfect state of defence, and

filled Gustavus with fresh fury; but despite the attempts of the

Russians to intercept him, he reached Borgo, an old seaport in the

district of Nyeland, where he established his headquarters, and where

his first act was to assemble the whole Swedish Army, under arms, on

the 8th of June, 1789, in front of the town, and along the margin of

the river, which there flows into the Gulf of Finland.

A hollow square of contiguous close columns of Horse, Dragoons and

Infantry was then formed; the whole were ordered to prime and load

with ball-cartridge. The Artillery were unlimbered and loaded with

round and cannister shot, in case of resistance, though none, save a

very few, knew precisely what was about to ensue.

Then the fated Regiment of Abo, which had taken so marked a part in

the defection before Fredericksham, was marched in a solid close

column of companies into the centre of this vast hollow square, with

its colours flying; and a hum of expectation and surprise, not

unmixed with dismay, pervaded the whole assembled masses.

By Gustavus, a king whose ruling passions were heroism and

selfishness, vanity and ambition, they were ordered to "ground their

arms," which were at once taken away, with all their swords,

bayonets, and accoutrements.

They were then ordered to strip off their regimental coats, and

appear in their shirts and breeches. The officers were deprived of

their epaulettes and commissions, and were cashiered on the spot.

Their colours were then rent from the poles and torn to pieces, the

poles being broken under foot, while the drums were defaced by

persons appointed to do so.

The whole battalion then passed from the right of companies out of

the hollow square by single files, while a general hiss was

maintained by the whole army until the last man had quitted it; and

the united sound of this unpleasant expression of contempt rising

into the still air, by the sea-shore, is said to have had a very

singular and remarkable effect on those who heard it.

Though thus broken up and disbanded, the Corps was not set adrift;

for the whole of the privates were drafted into the different

battalions of the Artillery, and long after the fiery Gustavus had

perished by the hand of the regicide Ankerström, it was a bitter

taunt in the Swedish army to have belonged to "the degraded Regiment

of Abo."

CHAPTER III.

FAMOUS AND ANCIENT BANNERS.

In all ages and in all armies, the greatest veneration has ever been

manifested by soldiers for their ensigns and standards, as being the

veritable representation and embodiment of the national glory and

honour, or it might be of a righteous cause. In the ages of

classical antiquity, the religious care taken of these emblems was

extraordinary. The soldiers worshipped them, and swore by them, as

some European troops still do. The Roman Legionaries incurred

certain death if they lost them in battle; and Livy tells us, that to

animate them, the standards were sometimes thrown among the enemy,

that they might be recaptured at all hazards.

In all armies at the present day, regimental standards are

consecrated by a religious ceremony, have the highest military

honours paid to them, and when too old for use, are solemnly

deposited in a church, or sometimes burned, or buried with all the

honours of war; and by the Queen's Regulations (Section VII.) are

finally marched from their last parade, to the air of "Auld lang

Syne."

Among the most famous banners of antiquity, may be enumerated the

Labaram of Constantine, the Oriflamme of France, those of Otho IV.,

of Philip Augustus, of Bayard, Joan of Arc, and Mahomet.

Like most ancient banners, the origin of the Labaram was alleged to

be miraculous, and surrounded by fables, though the reign of

Constantine was so glorious, that it required not the meretricious

aid of prodigy. When on his march against Maxentius, he is said to

have seen in the heavens a cross of flame like the Greek letter X

inverted in the form of a square cross, and in Greek around it, the

words _Conquer by this_. Eusebius further relates, that next night,

the Saviour appeared to him, and ordered him to make a military

standard, in the form of the cross he had seen, which he did, and was

always successful in war. Its name has not unfrequently been written

Laborum, to signify that the cross should put an end to the _labours_

and persecutions of the Christians; and it was supposed the guards to

whom this miraculous banner was intrusted, were always invulnerable

in battle.

At the battle of Bouvines, the imperial standard of Otho IV., like

that of the English--the banner of St. John of Beverley on the field

of Northallerton--was hoisted from a frame, raised on four wheels.

Upon it was painted a dragon, above which was a gilded eagle. On

that day the royal standard of France was a gilded staff, with a

white silk colour, powdered with fleurs-de-lis, which had become the

national arms. "The old crowns of the kings of Lombardy," says

Voltaire, "of which there are very exact prints in Muratori, are

mounted with this ornament, which is nothing more than the head of a

spear, tied with two other pieces of crooked iron."

The banner used by the Chevalier Bayard, when he gallantly took

command of Mézieres, and defended it against 40,000 Spaniards under

Charles V., is still preserved in the Hôtel de Ville of that place.

Joan of Arc, bore with her in all her battles and sieges a

consecrated banner, which was believed to be miraculous, and was

revered as holy. It was white silk, and bore a figure representing

the Supreme Being, grasping the world, and surrounded by

fleurs-de-lis. Clad in white armour, with this standard in her

hands, she entered Orleans on the 29th of April, 1429, in the face of

a vastly superior English force, and lodged it with herself, in the

house of Jacques Bouchier. She had previously declared, at the

moment when Dunois, repulsed, was sounding the retreat, that when her

standard touched the city wall, the assailants should enter. "It was

touched. The assailants burst in. On the next day the siege was

abandoned and the force which had conducted it withdrew in good order

to the north." Joan bore this standard, also, at the capture of

Jargeau, when Suffolk was taken prisoner and his garrison put to the

sword, and it was in her hand, at her crowning glory, the coronation

of Charles VII. at Rheims. She stood with it before the high altar,

says Lord Mahon. "It had shared the danger," she observed, "and it

had a right to share the honour."--(Monstrelet, &c.)

When tried as a witch and heretic by the Bishop of Beauvais and other

tools of the English, they asked her "why she put trust in her

standard, which had been consecrated by magical incantation?" But

she replied that she put trust alone in the Supreme Being, whose

image was impressed upon it. Then they demanded why she carried in

her hand that standard at the anointment and coronation of Charles at

Rheims; and again she answered, that the person who shared the danger

was entitled to share the glory.

But the most famous banner in Europe or Asia at one time was

undoubtedly that of the Knights of the Temple. It was formed of

cloth, striped black and white, called in old French _Bauseant_, a

word which became the battle cry of the Templars. It bore on it the

red cross of the order, with the humble and pious inscription, _Non

nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo, da gloriam_ (Not unto us, O Lord, not

unto us, but to Thy name give the glory!)

_Bauseant_ was in old French the name for a piebald horse, or a horse

marked black and white (Roquefort-Ducange, &c.); and the word is

still preserved and used in its original sense in Scotland as

_bawsent_, as any reader of Burns's poems may remember. At the

commencement of a battle the Marshal took the standard of the order

from the sub-marshal, and unfurled it in the name of God. He then

named from five to ten of the brotherhood to surround and guard it;

one of these he made a knight-preceptor, who was to keep close by him

with another banner furled on a spear, to be instantly displayed if

any mishap befell the _Bauseant_. In the event of the Christians

being defeated, the Templar, under penalty of expulsion from the

order, was not to quit the field so long as the banner of the order

was flying; should no other red-cross flag be seen, he was at liberty

to join that of the Hospitallers, and was only to retire, as well as

he could, when the _Bauseant_ and every other Christian banner should

have disappeared.

In "Ivanhoe" Scott spells the name of the banner _Beauseant_.

In referring to the banner of the Templars, it is impossible to

forget that one so often displayed against the Christians, the

standard of the Prophet Mahomet, the unfurling of which was so

frequently threatened at the commencement of the Russo-Turkish war, a

ceremony which only takes place on gravest emergencies or occasions

of state.

The origin of this standard is remarkable. When the Prophet lay on

his death-bed at Medina, while his mind was full of his projected

conquest of Syria, he summoned the chiefs of his host around him to

hear his last orders and wishes. While listening to his dying

utterances in silence and awe, Ayesha, the most beautiful and best

beloved of his wives, rushed into the room, and, tearing down a green

curtain which screened one end thereof, threw it before the chiefs,

and desired them to display it as the holy banner of Islam, and this

was actually done in many subsequent wars against the Christians and

others. By some it was said to have been the curtain that hung

before the apartments of Ayesha; and it has been permanently lodged

in the Seraglio at Constantinople, and is generally brought forth on

the occasion of a new sultan being girt with the sword of Osman, or

Othman; but it may shrewdly be doubted whether this banner--the

present _Tanjak-Sherif_--is the same that was unfurled at Bedr, and

which was upheld by nine hundred and fifty of Mahomet's disciples

against the whole power of Mecca, at Ohod, a mountain northward of

Medina, when Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet, fell.

Though unvarying faith and tradition carry it back to the days of

Mahomet, there can be little doubt that it is the identical banner

which, in 1683, Kara Mustapha, nephew of the great Cuprogli, hoisted

on the walls of Vienna, though that city was not completely

conquered. Its display is always attended with much pomp and

ceremony. When unfurled it is always handed to the Scheik-ul-Islam,

or Grand Mufti, who combines in his own person the supreme power of

the law with the highest office of religion, who mounted on a

caparisoned steed, and, attended by the Sultan, bearing a drawn

scimitar, rides in procession through the streets of Constantinople,

escorted by the _Ulemas_, whose duty it is to proclaim that war has

been declared against the unbelievers. The scheik then assigns it to

the Commander-in-chief, whose duty it is to see that it is always

borne in front in battle.

It is a veritable banner of blood, denying mercy to man, woman, and

child, on the display of which, as the Koran has it, "the earth will

shake, the mountains sink into dust, the seas blaze with fire, and

the hair of children grow white with anguish;" but for more than

three generations it has never been brought forth in hostility--at

least, not since the Empress Catharine sought to reinstate the

Christian Empire at Constantinople. Upon it is the dubious motto,

"All who draw the sword in the cause of Faith shall be rewarded with

temporal advantages."

The Turks and Tartars were wont to make use of horses' tails for

their ensigns, and the number of these denoted the rank of their

commanders--the Sultan having seven, and the grand vizier only three,

&c.

The alleged origin of the holy banner of Persia is curious. It is

said that during a battle which lasted three days between Saade and

Rustam, the usurper--the same who assassinated the reforming Sophi in

1499--the standard of the monarchy was captured, a circumstance that

caused excess of grief on one side and of joy on the other--one party

feeling that their _prestige_ had departed, and the other--that of

the usurper--deeming it a sure presage of future victory. This

war-like relic was simply the leathern apron of a blacksmith, who in

some remote time had been the William Wallace of Persia, for the

mastery of which the Saracens so long contended with the Turks; but

the badge of heroic poverty was disguised, and almost concealed, by

the profusion of gems which covered it.

Undoubtedly, the banner which had the most distinct and glorious

history was the Oriflamme of France, first adopted in person by Louis

VI. in 1110, and which continued to be borne by the French

sovereigns, in addition to the Royal Standard, down to the time of

Charles VII., and the accounts of which have been entirely overlooked

by British historians and antiquaries. Before the time of Louis VI.,

the Comtes de Vexin were bound by the charter of their lands, which

they held of the Abbey of St. Denis, to protect the domains of the

latter, and accordingly, on the approach of any danger or invasion,

they assembled their vassals and appeared before the Abbey, where

they received its banner, or gonfanon, which was borne before them in

battle in defence of the lands of the church. At a later period the

county of Vexin having been annexed to the crown, the kings of France

followed the pious example of the ancient counts, to whom they had

succeeded, and thus, in time, the oriflamme, as a royal standard of

France, supplanted that which had been hitherto borne, the alleged

cloak of St. Martin, of Tours--or rather the half thereof, as,

according to the Bollandists, he gave the other portion to a

shivering beggar at the gate of Amiens.

He to whom the care of the banner was confided at the head of the

army, had the title of _Porte-Oriflamme_, and had the command of its

chosen guard, noble chevaliers and men-at-arms. He was ever a man of

prudence and approved valour, and his post led to higher honours. We

find in history, under Charles V. of France, a gentleman styled

Marshal of France, who was its bearer. It was an office for life,

and for death too, as his oath obliged him to perish, rather than

abandon the _Oriflamme_.

Louis IX. lost it on his expedition to Egypt, as it fell, for a time,

into the hands of the infidels; and "the Oriflamme has not been in

use in our armies," says the _Dictionnaire Militaire_, 1758, "since

the English were absolute masters of Paris, after the death of

Charles VI."

The Oriflamme was of flame-coloured silk--hence its name--uncharged,

and divided at the lower extremity into three portions ending in

green tassels. It was hung from a cross-yard, with two cords of silk

and gold to keep it from swinging in the wind, on the march, or when

in battle.

The first _named_ in history as its bearer is Anscieu Seigneur de

Chevreuse, in 1294, under Philip le Bel. He had predecessors in the

time of Louis le Gros; but René Moreau is the last who, in 1450, was

commissioned with the real dignity of _Porte-Oriflamme_. Though

usually, till the first Revolution, lodged at St. Denis, it was

occasionally left for a time in the custody of its bearers; hence the

families of D'Harcourt and Beavron long affirmed that they were in

possession of the real Oriflamme, as successors of Pierre de Villiers

de Lisle Adam, who had been its bearer, and whose daughter married

the brave Jean Garencière.

Louis VII. took it with him in his voyage to the Bosphorus and his

march through Hungary and Thrace. Philip Augustus had it displayed

in 1183, in the war against Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders;

Galois, Seigneur de Montigne, bore it at the battle of Bouvines, and

Louis VIII. unfurled it in the war against the Albigeois in 1226.

Louis IX. had it with him in the war against Henry III. of England in

1262, and, as stated, in his crusade against the infidels in Egypt;

De Chevreuse bore it under Philip in 1304; and the bearers were

successively, Raoul, surnamed _Herpin_, Seigneur d'Erquery in 1315;

Miles de Noyers de Vilbertin in 1328; Geoffry Lord of Charny in 1355;

Arnoul d'Andrehon in 1388; the Seigneur de L'Isle Adam in 1372; Sire

de la Trimoille and Guillaume de Bordes in 1383; Pierre d'Aumont,

surnamed _Hutin_, in 1397; and Guillaume Martel de Bocqueville in

1414.

Louis XI. received the banner from the hands of Cardinal d'Alby in

1465, in the ancient church of St. Catharine _du Val des Écoliers_ at

Paris, prior to the war against the Burgundians, and after that, we

hear no more of the famous Oriflamme, which must have perished at the

sack of St. Denis in 1793; but a modern red-flag supplies its place

behind the altar there, at the present day.

The so-called Raven-banner of Hubba the Dane, which was captured near

Northam in Devonshire, when he was slain in battle by the Saxons, in

869, and where his tomb is still shown, was simply a stuffed black

bird, probably of the raven species, which remained quiet when defeat

was at hand, but clapped its wings vigorously before a victory.

The royal ensign of the West Saxons was a golden dragon; and thus we

hear often of the Dragon of Wessex in the fierce old fights during

the time of the Heptarchy.

It was not until after the Synod of Oxford, in 1220, that the Red

Cross of St. George supplanted the martlets of St. Edward, up to that

date the patron of England. The Scottish Cross of St. Andrew has a

fabulous history exactly similar to that of the _Labaram_ of

Constantine, and dating back to the ninth century; but in neither

England nor Scotland has a banner of any antiquity been preserved,

unless we may enumerate as such the banner given to the citizens of

Edinburgh by Margaret of Oldenburg, Queen of James III., in 1482, and

still preserved there, under the local name of the Blue Blanket, or

Banner of the Holy Ghost, on the displaying of which, not only the

craftsmen of Edinburgh, but those of all Scotland, were bound to

appear in arms, under the Convener of the Trades. The fragment of it

that remains, shows that its colour was blue, crossed by the white

saltire of St. Andrew.

CHAPTER IV.

FAMOUS AND ANCIENT CANNON.

History shows us that in past ages there has ever and anon been in

most countries a fancy for forging or casting ponderous cannon, even

as there has been often in a spirit of rivalry, a fancy for building

great ships; and the result has very generally been that, in both

instances, there has been a mistake; for the great ships have been

almost invariably cast away, and the great guns have proved useless,

even for battery purpose; and it is not improbable that such may be

the result eventually with our "Woolwich Infants" and our eighty-one

ton guns.

Though cannon are mentioned as having been used in a sea fight

between a Moorish King of Seville and a King of Tunis in the 13th

century, they first marked the inauguration of a new era in war when

Edward III. of England brought with him to the field of Cressi in

1346, five small pieces, made by whom is quite unknown; but there can

be little doubt that they were constructed in the mode of all early

cannon, of iron bars fitted together, hooped with rings and charged

with stone shot--not iron balls.

Prior to Cressi, however, cannon had undoubtedly been used in sieges.

In 1338 there was one used at Cambrai from which cross-bows were

discharged, and several small guns of the same kind were used in the

following year at the investment of Quesnoy; again at the siege of

the then Moorish town of Algesiras, near Gibraltar, in 1342; and old

annals tell us of the overwhelming terror their explosion excited

among the enemy.

Iron balls were first cast in the reign of Louis XI. in 1461; but

stone were in common use for a hundred years later.

As time went on, cannon, though primitively formed as described,

increased in size that prodigious balls might be expelled from them

against walled places, in imitation of the ancient machine which they

had superseded; thus they soon became of enormous bore, until they

attained the dignity of bombardes, like Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle;

but the difficulty of managing these pieces, and the growing

knowledge that iron shot of much less weight could be impelled

further by the use of better powder, gradually introduced the cast

metal cannon used at the present day.

The five little cannon used at Cressi, to the wonder of the French

who had _none_, were doubtless the same that Edward used at the siege

of Calais in the following year.

In 1366 the Venetians, when besieging a town now named Chioggia in

Lombardy, had with them two small pieces of artillery having leaden

balls, worked by Germans, according to Le Blond's "Elements of War,"

dedicated to Louis of Lorraine; and battering guns were used by the

Turks against the Christians at Constantinople in 1394; but the great

bombardes were at their zenith when, in 1451, Mahomet II. began his

march against the same city, with fourteen gigantic guns, which threw

stone shot seventy-eight inches in circumference, weighing 800 lbs.

In the siege, traces of which remain to this day, the Christians are

supposed to have been without cannon, as they omitted to demolish the

great bridge of boats which was constructed by the Turks and conduced

so much to the reduction of the city.

For more than four centuries the guns of Mahomet II. protected the

Dardanelles--the gate of the Eastern Empire; and, as an old traveller

relates, that as they were shotted when fired on holidays, land was

usually to be had very cheap on the opposite side of the straits.

Though practically these great pieces of artillery have given place

to Krupp and other guns, they still remain on their old sites; but

cannon of this description can only be discharged with effect when

the object passes their line of fire, as they are not mounted on

carriages but built into a wall. Some of those at the Dardanelles

carry balls 26½ inches in diameter, and lie flat on a paved terrace

near the level of the water, where they opened on our fleet in 1808,

when Admiral Sir John Duckworth forced the passage of the Straits.

By a granite shot from one of these, when the fleet returned, _H.M.S.

Royal George_ had her whole cutwater carried away; by another, the

mainmast of the Windsor Castle was cut in two like a fishing-rod;

another carried away the wheel of the _Repulse_, at the same moment

killing and wounding twenty-four men, and rendering the ship so

unmanageable, that but for the noble seamanship of her crew, she must

have gone on shore.

A granite ball burst through the bows of the _Active_, and rolling

aft destroyed all in its career, till it was brought up abreast of

the main hatchway; a second tore away the whole barricade of her

forecastle and fell into the sea to starboard; a third lodged in the

bends abreast of the main-chains, and then tumbled overboard.

("Duckworth's Dispatches," &c.)

Baron de Tott tells us that he had seen one of these guns, which had

been cast in the reign of Amurath, fired. Its ball weighed eleven

hundredweight, and required a charge of powder amounting to 330

pounds. At the distance of 800 fathoms he saw this enormous globe

divide into three pieces, which crossed the strait and rebounded from

the rocks opposite.

One of these guns was sent to Woolwich, in exchange for an Armstrong

breech-loader, and bears the inscription--

"_Help o Allah! Mahomet Khan, the son of Murad!_"

Louis XII. of France had a bombarde cast which is said to have thrown

a ball of 500 lbs. from the Bastile to Charenton; but the guns of

these times were destitute of trunnions, dolphin-rings, or

breech-buttons.

Another enormous cannon of Mahomet II. is still to be seen, at

Negroponte, used at its capture by him from the Venetians in 1470.

It defends the south side of Kastro, and is the most remarkable

monument there.

There is now preserved in the Castle of San Juliao da Barra, ten

miles from Lisbon, a gun that was captured at the siege of Diu, on

the southern coast of Gujirat, in 1546, by a gallant Portugese

cavalier, Dom John de Castro, which is destitute of the appliances

named, and is of some remarkable metal. It bears upon it a Hindoo

inscription, to the effect that it was cast in 1400. It is 20 feet 7

inches long; its external diameter at the centre is 6 feet 3 inches,

and it discharges a ball one hundredweight.

In ancient times there was a fondness for bestowing upon these great

guns some peculiar and dignified name. Twelve brass cannon cast in

1503 for Louis XII., being all of remarkable size, he named after the

greatest peers of France. The Spaniards and Portuguese named them

after certain saints; thus, when the Emperor Charles V. departed to

attack Tunis, his bombardes were named after the Twelve Apostles.

In the Malaga there is still an 80-pounder of great antiquity named

the "Terrible." Two very curious 60-pounders in the arsenal at

Bremen are each named "The Messenger of Bad News;" an 80-pounder at

Berlin, now in the Royal Arsenal, is named "The Thunderer;" at Milan

there is a 70-pounder called the "Pimontelle" (or the little spicer);

and another at Bois le Duc is styled _Le Diable_. A third in the

Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, made of the nails which fastened the

copper-plates composing the roof of the ancient Pantheon, bears upon

it this inscription--

"_Ex clavis trabalibus porticus Agrippæ._"

Many of the cannon of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were

remarkable for their beautiful and ornate character. A decorated

Spanish cannon now preserved in the Paris Museum, is a fine example

of these florid pieces, which were always cast of brass or mixed

metal.

Diego Ufano, in his treatise on Artillery, published in 1614, shows

us the metallic mixtures of copper, tin, and brass, and the

proportions of these, then used for cast pieces of cannon.

The Russian arsenals are very rich in great and ancient cannon and

others of historical interest.

In front of the first arsenal at the Kremlin, are ranged a wonderful

memorial of Napoleon's terrible retreat from Moscow, in the shape of

no less than 875 pieces of captured ordnance; of these 365 are

French, 189 are Austrian, 123 are Prussian, and the remainder bear

the royal insignia of Italy, Naples, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia,

Hanover, Spain, Würtemberg, Holland, and Poland. Many of these (says

Sutherland Edwards) are inscribed with pretentious names that

contrast strongly with their present humble position, such as the

"Invincible," the "Conqueror," the "Eagle," and so forth. In front

of the second arsenal is a wonderful collection of colossal cannon,

ranged in a long line, with the shortest in the centre; thus their

muzzles present a complete arc. The largest of these is a

4800-pounder, weighing, however, only forty tons! It has never been

fired, and is only remarkable as a piece of casting.

An inscription on it tells that it was cast by the Russian

master-founder named Chokoff, in 1586, by order of the Czar Feodor,

who in that year conquered Siberia (the way to which was discovered

by the Cossack warrior Jermack), and of whom a clever representation,

on horseback, with crown and sceptre, appears close to the muzzle.

Beside it are six other large pieces, the smallest of which weighs

nearly four tons.--("The Russians at Home.")

About the end of the fifteenth century the following guns were in

universal use:--

The Cannon-Royal . . . . . 48 pounder.

" Bastard-Cannon . . . . 36 "

" Half-Carthoun . . . . 24 "

" Culverin . . . . . . . 18 "

" Demi-Culverin . . . . 9 "

" Falcon . . . . . . . . 6 "

" Saker . . . . . . 6, 5, 8 "

" Basilisk (also). . . . 48 "

" Serpentine . . . . . . 4 "

" Aspik . . . . . . . . 2 "

" Dragon . . . . . . . . 6 "

" Syren . . . . . . . . 60 "

" Falconet . . . . . 3, 2, 1 "

" Moyenne . . . . . . . 12 ounces

By the middle of the seventeenth century, the largest cannon

generally used in the field were 24-pounders, or others like the

culverins of Nancy (18-pounders), so called from being first cast in

that city; while the smallest were 6 and 3-pounders.

Mortars were first used to expel red-hot balls and large stones, long

ere shells were known. They are believed to have been of German

origin, and were used at the siege of Naples by Charles VIII. in

1435; but shells were first thrown out of them at the siege of

Wachtendonk in Gueldres, by the Count of Mansfield. Shells were

first invented by a citizen of Venloo, who, at a festival in honour

of the Duke of Cleves, contrived, unfortunately, by the explosion of

them, to reduce nearly the whole city to ashes. Maltus, an English

engineer, first taught the French how to use them at the siege of La

Motte in 1634. (Le Blond.)

The howitzer differs from the mortar, being mounted on a field

carriage, like a gun; the chief difference being that the trunnions

of the first are at the end, and of the other in the middle. The

invention of the howitzer is subsequent to that of the mortar, as

from the latter it originated.

The first man who invented the spiking of artillery was Gaspar

Vimercalus of Bremen, who thus nailed up the artillery of Sigismund

Malatesta.

Rifled cannon are by no means a modern invention, and can be traced

far back into antiquity, as the _arquebuse-rayée_ of the French.

No kind of gun has been more universally known and used all over

Europe and America than the carronade, or "smasher," as it was

called. Cast at the Carron Works in Scotland (hence their name),

they were the invention of General Robert Melville, an officer who

served under Lord Rollo of Duncrub, at the capture of Dominica in the

West Indies. Peculiarly constructed, and having a chamber for powder

like a mortar, they were shorter and lighter than ordinary cannon.

Cast in mighty numbers for more than seventy years at Carron, they

were employed by the fighting and mercantile marine of all Europe and

America, till the time of the Crimean War. The first of them was

presented by the Carron Company to the family of General Melville,

with an inscription on the carriage, which records that the guns were

cast "for solid, ship, shell or carcase shot, and were first used

against the French fleet in 1799."

Mr. Smiles, in his "Industrial Biography," tells us that when cannon

came to be employed in war, the vicinity of Sussex to the Cinque

Ports gave it an advantage over the iron districts of the north and

west of England, and for a long time the iron works of that county

had a monopoly in the manufacture of guns. The stone balls were hewn

from quarries at Maidstone Heath. An old mortar, which lay on Bridge

Green, near Frant, is said to have been the _first_ used in England.

The chamber was cast, but the tube consisted of hooped bars.

In the Tower are some old hooped guns of the date of Henry VI. The

first cast-iron cannon of English make were made at Buxtead in

Sussex, in 1543, by Ralph Hogge, master founder, whose principal

assistant was Pierre Baude, a Frenchman. About the same time, Hogge

employed Peter Van Collet, a Flemish gunsmith, who, according to

Stowe, "caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth

from eleven to nine inches wide, for the use whereof the said Peter

caused to be made certain hollow shot of cast iron, stuffed with

fyrwork, whereof the bigger sort has screws of iron to receive a

match to carry fire, to break in small pieces the said _hollow shot_,

whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him."

This is undoubtedly the parent of the explosive shell which has been

brought to such terrible perfection in the present day. Many of

Baude's brass and iron guns are still preserved in the Tower; and

perhaps from his foundry came that very beautiful gun which bears the

name of Henry VIII., 1541, and is preserved now at Southampton.

Two old English guns are at present in the ducal castle of Blair,

whither they had been brought by the Athole family when Lords of the

Isle of Man.

One is inscribed thus:--

"Henricus Octavus; Thomas Scymoure Knighte, Receyvour of the Peel,

was Master of the King's Ordynans, when John and Robert Owyn made

this pese. Anno dni., 1544."

The other has the legend:--

"Henry, Earle of Derbye, Lord of this Isle of Man, being here in May,

1577; named _Dorothe_. Henry Halsall, Receyvour of the Peele, bought

this pese, 1574."

This was the fourth Earl of Derby, a K.G., and he had named the gun

from his mother Dorothy, who was daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of

Norfolk.

The old brass gun, popularly known as Queen Anne's Pocket Pistol, was

once called Queen Elizabeth's, according to Colonel James. It was

cast at Utrecht in 1544, and is a 12-pounder, twenty feet long,

finely ornamented with figures in bas-relief.

Scotland, which is rich in military and historical antiquities of all

kinds, can also boast of several ancient cannon, extant or in her

annals.

In 1430, James I. had cast for him in Flanders a cannon of brass,

called the Lion of Scotland, bearing this inscription:--

"Illustri Jacobo Scottorum principe digno,

Regni magnified, dum fulmine castra reduco

Factus sum sub eo, nuncupar ego Leo."

"This," says Balfour in his _Annales_, "was the first canon or

bombard of any strength or bignes, that ever was in Scotland." Among

several ancient guns in the armory of the Grants of Grant in

Strathspey, is one of singular beauty, covered with figures of men on

horseback, and animals of the chase. It is four feet two inches

long, and seems to have been a Moyenne or wall piece, and is

inscribed:--

"Dominus . Johannes . Grant . Miles . Vicecomes de Invernes . Me

fecit . in Germania, 1434."

The most ancient gun made in Britain is undoubtedly that bombarde

known as Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle. An inscription on the _new_

stock, cast at Woolwich in 1835, states that the gun "is _believed_

to have been forged at _Mons_, in 1486." But this is proved now to

have been a gross mistake, an assertion which is utterly without

warrant, as an elaborate "History of Galloway" shows from proofs

indisputable that it was made by a smith of that county, in 1455, for

the service of James II. (then besieging the Castle of Threave), at a

place still named Knockcannon. It weighs six tons and a half, is

composed of malleable iron bars hooped together, and its balls, which

are all of Galloway granite, are twenty-one inches in diameter.

Two of these shots fired from it compelled the castle to surrender in

the summer of 1455, and _both_ were found in 1841 amid the ruins--one

in the wall, the other in the draw-well; and both lay in a _direct

line_ from Knockcannon to the breach in the huge donjon tower. For

his work, M'Kim received the forfeited lands of Mollance, pronounced

in Scottish parlance, _Mowance_, and hence the tradition of "Meg"

being forged at _Mons_. In 1497, it accompanied the Scottish army

into England in the cause of Perkin Warbeck; to the siege of

Dumbarton in 1489, and many other scenes of strife. In 1681, the gun

burst, when firing a royal salute for James Duke of Albany, as two of

the fractured hoops still show. On these occasions, like the old

bombardes of the Dardanelles, it was generally _shotted_, as the

Royal Treasurer's Accounts contain many entries of payments, for

"finding and carrying _her_ bullet from Wardie Mure to the Castell."

In 1509--thirty-four years before Ralph Hogge began to cast guns in

Sussex--James IV. employed Robert Borthwick, his master gunner, to

_cast_ a set of brass ordnance for Edinburgh Castle. Seven of these

were named by the king the _sisters_ of Borthwick--being all alike in

size and beauty. They were inscribed---

"_Machina sum, Stoto Borthweick Fabricata Roberto._"

With ten other brass field-pieces, these guns were all taken by the

English at the battle of Flodden, where Borthwick was killed, and the

Earl of Surrey, who saw them, asserted that there were none finer in

the arsenals of King Henry. Several of these guns were retaken by

the Scots from the Earl of Hereford's army in 1544, and were long

preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh, on the walls of which, in the

siege of 1573, were a number of guns that bore the crowned

salamander, the badge of Francis I., and had perhaps been brought

from France by the Regent Duke of Chatelherault.

An old cannon named _Dundee_, which had been used in war by the

Viscount of that name, was long preserved in the Castle of Kilchurn;

but has now disappeared.

In the heart of British India there was, singular to say, found an

antique Scottish cannon, which is now shown in Edinburgh, and the

story of which is remarkable. At the siege of Bhurtpore in 1826,

among the guns on the ramparts was one of great calibre and

destructive power, popularly known among our soldiers by the absurd

name of "Sweet-lips," which was taken at the point of the bayonet by

H.M. 14th Foot.

Beside it was found a Scottish brass cannon, an 18-pounder,

inscribed:--

"_Jacobus Menteith me fecit, Edinburgh, Anno Dom.,_ 1642."

It at once attracted the attention of Captain (afterwards Colonel)

Lewis Carmichael, an old Peninsular officer, then aide-de-camp to Sir

Jasper Nicolls. On the day before the storm, with six grenadiers of

the 59th and four Ghoorkas, he had made a gallant dash into one of

the breaches, to reconnoitre it for the desperate work that was to

come, and he asked for the old Scottish cannon as a reward. It was

at once given, by order of the Governor-General, and he brought it

with him to Edinburgh, where it is preserved in the Museum of

Antiquities, with several other ancient guns, some of which belonged

to Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, Admiral of James III., and captain of

_the Yellow Frigate_; but how it came to be so far up country in

India, among the Jauts, it is difficult to conjecture, unless it had

belonged to one of the ships of the old and ill-fated Scottish East

India Company, which was ruined by the enmity and treachery of

William of Orange.

British India has produced many pieces of ordnance, great in calibre

and remarkable in history; among them may be enumerated the great gun

of Hyder and Tippo, and the enormous cannon found at Agra, when that

place was captured by Lord Lake in 1803. It had trunnions, and was

furnished with four rings, two at the breech and two at the muzzle.

It was of brass, says Thorne, "and for magnitude and beauty stands

unrivalled. Its length was 14 feet 2 inches; its calibre 23 inches;

the weight of its ball, when of cast iron, 1500 lbs.; and its whole

weight 86,600 lbs., or a little above 38 tons."

Though called brass, it was, according to common report, composed of

a mixture of precious metals. The _Shroffs_, or native bankers, were

of that opinion, as they offered £12,000 for it, merely to melt down.

Lord Lake preferred to send it as a trophy to Britain, and proceeded

to have it transported to Calcutta on a raft. It proved too heavy

for the latter, and capsizing sunk in the waters of the Ganges.

Another curious piece of ordnance, locally known as _Jubbar Jung_,

fell into our hands at Ghuzuee in 1842. It was of brass and

beautifully ornamented; it carried 64-pound shot, and these being of

hammered iron whizzed as they passed through the air. It made some

havoc among the tents of our 40th Regiment, and the Huzarehs,

followers of Ali, who joined General Nott at the siege, implored him

to destroy "Jubbar Jung," for which they appeared to entertain a deep

religious horror.

There are at this hour cannon at Bejapore, beside which our "Woolwich

Infants" and Armstrong 100-ton guns sink into insignificance. One of

these, called the _Mulk-e-Meidan_, or "Sovereign of the Plains," cast

by Roomi Khan, "the Turk of Roumelia," or first Monarch of Bejapore,

an Ottoman of Constantinople, weighs forty tons; and, to crown all,

Major Rennell mentions an old iron cannon at Dacca, which threw a

shot 465 pounds in weight!

The last great gun actually used was King Theodore's huge bombarde at

Magdala in 1868, for which he had an enormous number of stone balls

made, and which he believed to be the Palladium of Abyssinia. It was

shattered to pieces among his troops, on their first attempt to use

it.

The last and most remarkable invention in artillery is a much needed

fire-arm, which may supersede our boasted steel mountain ordnance,

"the jointed gun" of Sir William Armstrong, which can be unscrewed

into three separate pieces, each of which is light enough for

conveyance on the back of a horse, and when put together form a

powerful and long-range cannon, similar to the present field-piece.

Such a gun would have been invaluable in Ashantee, or among the

mountains of Abyssinia; and the want of some such fire-arm was sorely

felt at times during the Indian mutiny, especially about its close,

when our moveable columns pursued the rebels in the deserts of

Bekaneer, where the gun carriages of even the flying artillery at

times sunk axle deep in the dry heavy sand, rendering them almost

useless for service.

In Europe, this is peculiarly the age of enormous cannon. "Armour of

two feet in thickness," says a recent writer, "and guns of one

hundred tons in weight being now accomplished facts, and ships

already bigger than the _Inflexible_ being already in hand, we may

well ask ourselves, _What will be the next step?_"

STORY OF A MERCHANT CAPTAIN.

About the time of the accession of George III. to the throne, few

domestic events made a greater sensation in the papers and

periodicals of the day than the adventures and fate of a sea-captain

named George Glass, especially in connection with a mutiny on board

the brig _Earl of Sandwich_. This remarkable man, who was one of the

fifteen children of John Glass, noted as the originator of the

Scottish sect known as the Glassites, was born at Dundee in 1725.

After graduating in the medical profession, he made several voyages,

as surgeon of a merchant-ship (belonging to London), to the Brazils

and the coast of Guinea; and in 1764, he published, by Dodsley, an

interesting work in one volume quarto, entitled _The History of the

Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands, translated from a

Spanish manuscript_.

He obtained command of a Guinea trader, and made several successful

voyages, till the war with Spain broke out in January, 1762. Having

saved a good round sum, he equipped a privateer, and took command of

her as captain, to cruise against the French and Spaniards; but he

had not been three days at sea, when his crew mutinied, and sent him

that which is called in sea-phraseology a round-robin (a corruption

of an old French military term, the _ruban rond_, or round ribbon),

in which they wrote their names in a circle; hence none could know

who was the leader.

Arming himself with his cutlass and pistols, Glass came on deck, and

offered to fight, hand to hand, any man who conceived himself to be

wronged in any way. But the crew, knowing his personal strength, his

skill and resolution, declined the challenge. He succeeded in

pacifying them by fair words; and the capture of a valuable French

merchantman a few days after put them all in excellent humour. This

gleam of good fortune was soon after clouded by an encounter with an

enemy's frigate, which, though twice the size of his privateer, Glass

resolved to engage; and for two hours they fought broadside to

broadside, till another French vessel bore down on him, and he was

compelled to strike his colours, after half his crew had been killed

and he had received a musket-shot in the shoulder.

He remained for some time a French prisoner of war in the Antilles,

where he was treated with excessive severity; but upon being

exchanged, he resolved to embark the remainder of his fortune in

another privateer and "have it out," as he said, with the French and

Dons. But he was again taken in action, and lost everything he had

in the world.

On being released a second time, he was employed by London merchants

in several voyages to the West Indies, in command of ships that

fought their way without convoy; and according to a statement in the

_Annual Register_, he was captured no less than _seven_ times. But

after various fluctuations of fortune, when the general peace took

place in 1763, he found himself possessed of two thousand guineas

prize-money, and the reputation of being one of the best merchant

captains in the Port of London.

About that time a Company there resolved to make an attempt to form a

settlement on the west coast of Africa, by founding a harbour and

town midway between the Cape de Verd and the river Senegal. In the

London and other papers of the day we find many statements urging the

advantage of opening up the Guinea-trade; among others, a strange

letter from a merchant, who tells us he was taken prisoner in a

battle on that coast, and that when escaping he "crossed a forest

within view of the sea, where there lay elephants' teeth in

quantities sufficient to load one hundred ships."

In the interests of this new Company Glass sailed in a ship of his

own to the coast of Guinea, and selected and surveyed a harbour at a

place which he was certain might become the centre of a great trade

in teak and cam woods, spices, palm oil and ivory, wax and gold.

Elated with his success, he returned to England, and laid his scheme

before the ministry, among whom were John Earl of Sandwich, Secretary

of State, and the Earl of Hillsborough, Commissioner of Trade and

Plantations.

With truly national patience and perseverance he underwent all the

procrastinations and delays of office, but ultimately obtained an

exclusive right of trading to his own harbour for twenty years.

Assisted by two merchants--the Company would seem to have failed--he

fitted out his ship anew, and sailed for the intended harbour; and

sent on shore a man who knew the country well, to make propositions

of trade with the natives, who put him to death the moment they saw

him.

Undiscouraged by this event, Captain Glass found means to open up a

communication with the king of the country, to lay before him the

wrong that had been done, and the advantages that were certain to

accrue from mutual trade and barter. The sable potentate affected to

be pleased with the proposal, but only to the end that he might get

Glass completely into his power; but the Scotsman was on his guard,

and foiled him.

The king then attempted to poison the whole crew by provisions which

he sent on board impregnated by some deadly drug. Glass, by his

previous medical knowledge, perhaps, discovered this in time; but so

scarce had food become in his vessel, that he was compelled to go

with a few hands in an open boat to the Canaries, where he hoped to

purchase what he wanted from the Spaniards.

In his absence the savages were encouraged to attack the ship in

their war-canoes; but were repulsed by a sharp musketry-fire opened

upon them by the remainder of the crew, who, losing heart by the

protracted absence of the captain, quitted his fatal harbour, and

sailed for the Thames, which they reached in safety.

Meanwhile the unfortunate captain, after landing on one of the

Canaries, presented a petition to the Spanish governor to the effect

that he might be permitted to purchase food; but that officer,

inflamed by national animosity, cruelly threw him into a dark and

damp dungeon, and kept him there without pen, ink, or paper, on the

accusation that he was a spy. Being thus utterly without means of

making his case known, he contrived another way of communicating with

the external world. One account has it that he concealed a pencilled

note in a loaf of bread which fell into the hands of the British

consul; another states that he wrote with a piece of charcoal on a

ship-biscuit and sent it to the captain of a British man-of-war that

was lying off the island, and who with much difficulty, and after

being imprisoned himself, effected the release of Glass. The latter,

on being joined by his wife and daughter, who had come in search of

him, set sail for England in 1765, on board the merchant brig _Earl

of Sandwich_, Captain Cochrane.

Glass doubtless supposed his troubles were now over; but the

knowledge that much of his property and a great amount of specie, one

hundred thousand pounds, belonging to others, was on board, induced

four of the crew to form a conspiracy to murder every one else and

seize the ship. These mutineers were respectively George Gidly, the

cook, a native of the west of England; Peter M'Kulie, an Irishman;

Andrew Zekerman, a Hollander; and Richard H. Quintin, a Londoner. On

three different nights they are stated to have made the attempt, but

were baffled by the vigilance of Captain Glass, rather than that of

his country man, Captain Cochrane; but at eleven o'clock at night on

the 30th of September, 1765, it chanced, as shown at their trial,

that these four miscreants had together the watch on deck, when the

_Sandwich_ was already in sight of the coast of Ireland; and when

Captain Cochrane, after taking a survey aloft, was about to return to

the cabin, Peter M'Kulie brained him with "an iron bar" (probably a

marline-spike), and threw him overboard.

A cry that had escaped Cochrane alarmed the rest of the crew, who

were all dispatched in the same manner as they rushed on deck in

succession. This slaughter and the din it occasioned, roused Captain

Glass, who was below in bed; but he soon discovered what was

occurring, and, after giving one glance on deck, hurried away to get

his sword. M'Kulie, imagining the cause of his going back, went down

the steps leading to the cabin, and stood in the dark, expecting

Glass's return, and suddenly seized his arms from behind; but the

captain, being a man of great strength, wrenched his sword-arm free,

and on being assailed by the three other assassins, plunged his

weapon into the arm of Zekerman, when the blade became wedged or

entangled. It was at length wrenched forth, and Glass was slain by

repeated stabs of his own weapon, while his dying cries were heard by

his wife and daughter--two unhappy beings who were ruthlessly thrown

overboard and drowned.

Besides these four victims, James Pincent, the mate, and three

others, lost their lives. The mutineers now loaded one of the boats

with the money, chests, and so forth, and then scuttled the

_Sandwich_, and landed at Ross on the coast of Ireland. But

suspicion speedily attached to them; they were apprehended, and,

confessing the crimes of which they had been guilty, were tried

before the Court of King's Bench, Dublin, and sentenced to death.

They were accordingly executed in St. Stephen's Green, on the 10th of

October, 1765.

THE STORY OF RENÉE OF ANGERS.

Though it occurred so long ago as the time of Henry IV. of France,

the story we are about to relate formed one of the most remarkable

_causes célèbres_ before the Parliament of Paris, when Renée Corbeau,

a young demoiselle of Angers, in Normandy, by her eloquence in a

court of justice, and by her singular self-sacrifice, saved the life

of a false and dastardly lover, to whom she was devotedly attached.

In the year 1594, when Henry IV., justly surnamed the Great (though

his passions betrayed him into errors and involved him in

difficulties), was on the throne of France, a young man named M.

Pousset, a native of Tees, an old episcopal city of Normandy, was

studying the Civil and Canon Law at the University of Angers, in

those days a famous seat of learning. While thus engaged, M. Pousset

was introduced to Mademoiselle Renée Corbeau, the daughter of a

citizen. She is described as having been a girl of great beauty of

person and with great modesty of manner, though witty and lively in

spirit, _folatré et caressante_, and full of nameless graces.

Everyone loved and admired Renée, and when but a youth Pousset sighed

for her. He soon learned to love her passionately, and we are told

"that he no longer lived but to see and converse with her."

She in turn became deeply attached to Pousset, who proposed marriage,

and gave her, in writing, a document to that effect, though her

parents were in circumstances so limited that he dared not consult

his own (who were people of wealth, rank, and ambition) on this

important subject. So the lovers dreamed on, and on the faith of the

written promise, Renée, it would appear, yielded too far, and fell,

as her mother Eve fell before her; and then repentance came when too

late.

The unfortunate Renée had, in time, to make a confidante of her

mother, who in her grief and anger revealed all to M. Corbeau. He

heaped the most bitter reproaches on their daughter, but agreed that

some plan should be adopted to bring Pousset, who was now studiously

absenting himself, to reason and a sense of justice. It was arranged

that he and Madame Corbeau should feign a journey to a little country

mansion they possessed not far from Angers, and that Renée should

press Pousset to visit her, when they should take advantage of the

occasion to surprise him; a project which was executed with complete

success.

Thrown completely off his guard by this unexpected stratagem, the

lover said with much apparent candour:

"Monsieur Corbeau, be not alarmed for the error which our love for

each other has led us into; but pardon us, I beseech you. My

intentions are still most honourable, and I shall be but too happy to

espouse your daughter."

The incensed Corbeau was somewhat comforted by this prompt promise of

reparation, and sent immediately for a notary, his friend, who lived

close by. The latter drew up a formal contract of marriage in legal

form, and to this, with Renée, M. Pousset appended his signature and

seal, after which he took a tender farewell of the weeping girl, and

retired with the view of, reluctantly, breaking the matter to his

family; but so true is it that "affection is the root of love in

woman, and passion is the root of love in man," that from the hour in

which he signed the--to him--fatal contract, all his regard for Renée

evaporated.

Her beauty and her sorrow alike failed to impress him now, and the

faithless Pousset repented him so bitterly of what he angrily deemed

a legal entanglement, that he hastened to Tees and unfolded the whole

of the affair to his father in a story artfully coloured and

fashioned to suit himself.

M. Pousset the senior, who possessed a magnificent estate, never

doubted but that his amiable and facile _son_ had been entrapped by

an artful girl and her parents, and sternly told him that he could

never approve of his marriage with one whose portion was so small,

and desired him to commit her, the contract, and the whole affair, to

oblivion. While the document, signed and sealed existed, this,

however, proved impossible; so young Pousset, either by his father's

advice or his own inclination, took refuge in the bosom of the

Church, and was somewhat too speedily ordained sub-deacon, and then

deacon, thinking thereby to vitiate the power of the contract, and to

create for life an invincible barrier between himself and Renée.

With all the grief and horror a tender and affectionate heart could

feel when love is so repaid by black perfidy, she heard these

tidings, and her soul seemed to die within her; but her old father,

who was filled with just indignation, and whose sword the ordination

of Pousset kept in its scabbard, raised a civil action against him

before the principal court at Angers for having deluded, and then

declined, to marry his daughter in the face of the notary's contract.

The recreant was compelled to appear; but he appealed against the

order, and denied the jurisdiction of the court; hence the cause was

brought before the Parliament of Paris. Before this tribunal, then,

were brought the wrongs of Renée Corbeau, and the whole affair seemed

so cruel and odious to the judges--especially the fact of Pousset

having taken holy orders (and thereby degraded them) to evade the

contract of marriage--that they condemned him to espouse Renée or

lose his head by the sword of the executioner.

He urged that the sanctity of holy orders utterly precluded the

former reparation. On this the court unanimously declared that he

must undergo the latter. He was accordingly replaced in the Bastile;

the priest who was to attend in his last moments came to prepare him

for death, and as all sentences were summarily executed in those

days, already the headsman awaited him.

The heart of the poor girl, who loved him still, was now wrung with

new anguish and pity, and she accused herself of being the cause of

his approaching doom. Crushed by that dreadful conviction, in her

anxiety to save him, or at least have his sentence mitigated in some

manner, she conceived the idea of taking all the guilt of his

position upon _herself_.

Hastening to the old Palais de Justice, she entered the great hall,

the centre of which was then occupied by the famous marble table

which Victor Hugo describes as being of a single piece, so long, and

so broad and thick, that it was doubtful if in the world there was

such another block of marble. Imploring the astonished judges to

hear her, she knelt before them, and while scarcely daring to raise

her eyes from the floor, she told them in trembling accents that in

condemning her lover-husband, for such she deemed him, they had

forgotten that she too was culpable; that by his death she would be

sunk into sorrow and covered with ignominy; and that while seeking to

avenge her, or repair her honour, they would bring upon her the

opprobrium of all France!

The judges listened in bewildered silence, while in a low and still

more tremulous voice, Renée continued thus:

"Messieurs--I will no longer conceal my crime. Remorse of conscience

now forces me to declare that, thinking you might compel M. Pousset

to marry me, I concealed the fact that I snared him into loving

me--that I loved him first, and was thus the source of all my own

sorrow! You deem it a crime that he took refuge in holy orders to

avoid the fulfilment of his contract; yet, messieurs, that was not

_his_ doing, but resulted from the will of a proud and avaricious

father, who is, in that matter, the real criminal. Spare him then, I

implore you--spare him to the world, if not to me! He has declared

that his orders preclude his marrying me; and for that declaration

you ordain that he must die. Oh, what matters his asserting that he

would formally espouse me if he could; and because he cannot, you

condemn him to die, after giving him _a choice_. Who here can doubt

that he would marry me in spite of his deacon's orders? Though I am

but a weak and foolish girl, I know that we may yet be wedded, could

we but obtain the dispensation of his Holiness Clement VIII. Daily

we expect in Paris his Legate, who possesses sovereign powers. At

his feet I will solicit that dispensation; and oh, be assured,

messieurs, that my love and my prayers will obtain it. Suspend your

terrible sentence, then, till he arrives."

After a pause, during which she was overcome with agitation, she

spoke again:

"Think of all he has endured since his sentence has been delivered,

and of all that I am enduring now! Should I have among you but a few

voices for me, ought these not to win me some favour of humanity over

the rest, though they be more in number! but alas! should all be

inflexible, permit me, in mercy at least, to die with him I love, and

by the same weapon."

It is recorded that the unhappy Renée's prayer met with a very

favourable reception, and that the remarkable tone of her

self-accusation, of having "ensnared" M. Pousset, gave a new colour

to his alleged crime. "The judges," we are told, "lost not a word of

her oration, which was pronounced with a clear sweet voice, and her

words found a ready echo in their hearts, while the wonderful charms

of her person, her tears and her eloquence, were too powerful not to

melt, if they failed to persuade, men of humanity."

She was requested to withdraw while they consulted, and the First

President, M. Villeroy, after collecting their votes, found himself

enabled to grant a _respite_ for six months, that a dispensation

might be obtained if possible; and on this being announced, the

plaudits of assembled thousands made the roof of the Palais de

Justice ring in honour of Pousset's best advocate, Renée Corbeau.

Ere long the Roman Legate (Cardinal de Pellevé) came to Paris; but,

on hearing the ugly story of Pousset, he conceived such indignation

against him, for the whole tenor of his conduct, that he constantly

turned a deaf ear to every application in his favour. Soon the last

month of the respite drew to a close, and the fatal day was near when

Pousset must be brought forth to die!

The unexpected hostility of the Legate cast Renée once more into

despair, an emotion all the more terrible that the announcement of M.

Villeroy had given her brilliant, perhaps happy, hopes. These,

however, did not die. She obtained an audience of Henry IV. soon

after he had stormed the town of Dreux and made his public entry into

Paris, and, as he was cognisant of her miserable story, on her knees

at his feet she once more sought an intercession for her doomed

lover, if he could be termed so still.

Henry had too often felt the passion of love not to be moved by the

singular beauty of the suppliant, by her sorrow, and the eloquence

with which affection endowed her. He raised her from the floor and

besought her to take courage, as he would now be her friend and

advocate.

The Cardinal de Pellevé could not decline the prayer of such an

intercessor as Henry the Great, and, as the luckless Pousset had not

received the higher orders of the priesthood, his Eminence granted a

dispensation in the name of Clement VIII. The marriage ceremony was

duly performed, in fulfilment of the contract signed at Angers, and

Renée Corbeau and the lover she had rescued "lived ever after in the

most perfect union; the husband ever regarding his wife as his

guardian angel, who had saved his life and honour."

ANNA SCHONLEBEN.

THE BAVARIAN POISONER.

This singular wretch, a woman of a nature so fiendish, and with whom

the destruction of human life by secret poisoning became a veritable

passion, was beheaded in the ancient city of Nuremberg, in Bavaria,

in April, 1810, after a protracted trial, that brought to light the

long catalogue of her iniquities.

It would appear that she was born in Nuremberg in 1760, during the

reign of Maximilian Joseph--the same who concluded the famous treaty

with Maria Theresa--and was left an orphan by the death of both her

parents in 1765; but, as she was the heiress to some property, she

remained under guardianship, and was carefully educated till her

nineteenth year, when she was married--against her inclination, it is

asserted--to a notary named Zwanziger.

Young, pretty, and accustomed to much gaiety in the house of her

wealthy guardian, the lonely life she felt herself condemned to pass

in the house of her husband formed an unpleasant contrast, all the

more so, as Zwanziger, when not absent on business, devoted his whole

time to the bottle and became a confirmed bibber.

Anna meanwhile strove to forget her gloom and her griefs by novel

reading, her favourite works being the "Sorrows of Werter" and those

of Pamela; but the dissipation of Zwanziger, his neglect of his

profession, on one hand, and his lavish extravagance on the other,

soon brought them to wretchedness and ruin; and she, having

considerable personal attractions, though she appeared hideous and

repulsive at the time of her arraignment, "now attempted to prop the

falling establishment by making the best use of them;" and amid this

miserable state of affairs, Zwanziger died suddenly, leaving her to

continue her life, which was now one of deception and licentiousness,

alone.

Her fortune wasted, her prospects blasted, she became filled with a

hatred of mankind, and with rage and bitterness at her fate. All the

better sympathies which her nature may have possessed in girlhood

faded out, and their place was taken by a stern and grim resolution

to better her now destitute condition at all risks and hazards.

It does not seem to be clearly known when the idea of systematic

poisoning occurred to her, but it was eventually suspected that she

had disposed of her husband by this means, and before she was

received as housekeeper into the family of Herr Justiz-Amptman

Glaser. She had then spent many years as a wanderer, was fifty years

of age, and without a trace of her former charms.

This was in 1808, when Glaser was residing at Pegnitz in Upper

Franconia, but was living apart from his wife. Anna Schonleben (for

she seldom seems to have taken her husband's name), having her own

ends in view, adopting the rôle of friendship, effected a

reconciliation between Glaser and his wife, who returned to his home,

and within a month after was seized by a sudden and mysterious

illness, of which she died in the greatest agony.

As there was no appearance of Glaser wishing her to take the place of

the deceased, Anna quitted his service for that of the Herr

Justiz-Amptmann Grohmann, who was unmarried and only in his

thirty-eighth year. He was in delicate health; thus she had every

opportunity for studying to please him, by care, attention, and an

affectionate regard for his comforts; but age was against her; her

apparently unremitting attention won her no favour from Herr

Grohmann, who received all his medicines from her own hands, and

among them some dose, suggested by revenge, as he died on the 8th of

May, 1809, "his disease being accompanied by violent internal pains

of the stomach, dryness of the skin, _erbrechen_," &c.

She acted her part so well, she appeared so inconsolable for his

loss, and won among his friends a character so high and valuable as a

careful and gentle sick-nurse, that she was almost immediately

received into the household of the Kammer-Amptmann Gebhard, in that

capacity. On the 13th of May, only five days after the death of

Grohmann, Madame Gebhard was delivered of a baby. Both mother and

child were doing well till the 16th, when the former was seized with

precisely the same symptoms before named, and after seven days of

agony--during which she frequently asserted that she had been

poisoned--she expired.

The funeral over, the widower found himself unable to manage his

household and family, and not unnaturally thought he could not do

better than retain in his service, for that purpose, Anna Schonleben,

who had nursed his wife, as she had done his deceased friend, in

their last hours; so she remained in his house invested with all the

authority of _haushalterin_, though some of his friends hinted at the

inexpediency of having as an inmate one whom some fatality seemed to

attend.

Gebhard laughed at this as superstitious; but there was one friend,

in particular, who recurred to this matter again and again so

pertinaciously--though upon what grounds he never precisely

explained--that he came to the resolution of acting upon his advice,

and to Anna he broke the subject of her impending dismissal, but as

gently as possible, for she had acquired a certain ascendancy over

him.

She merely expressed her surprise and regret, and the subsequent day

was fixed for her departure to Bayreuth; but prior to that event she

resolved on a terrible revenge. She arranged all the rooms as usual,

and filled the _salzfasten_ in the kitchen, saying the while, that

"it was always the custom for those who left to fill it with salt for

those who came in their place;" and when the droski for her

conveyance came to the door, she took in her arms the infant child of

Gebhard--the infant whose mother she had poisoned, and which was now

five months old--and while feigning to caress it, she placed between

"its boneless gums" a soft biscuit soaked in milk.

Then she drove away, but she had not been gone an hour, when the

child and every servant in the house became seized with spasms,

pains, and violent sickness. In this instance none, however, died;

but Gebhard, recalling the advice of his friend, now became full of

alarm and suspicion. The _salzfasten_, which Anna Schonleben had

been seen so fussily to fill, was examined, and a great quantity of

arsenic was found to be mixed with the salt. The barrel from which

the latter was taken was also submitted to chemical analysis, and

arsenic was found therein.

It now came suddenly to the knowledge or memory of the simple and

confiding Kammer-Amptmann, that on one occasion, in the August of

1809, two gentlemen who had dined with him, were seized by the same

symptoms as his servants ere the cloth was well off the table; that

one of the servants, named Barbara Waldmann, with whom she had

frequent quarrels, was seized in the same fashion after taking a cup

of coffee from her hands; that she had once offered a lad named

Johann Kraus a glass of brandy in the cellar, which he declined on

seeing something white permeating through it; that on another

occasion, the deliverer of a message to whom she had given a glass of

white Rosenhourr, was sick and ill for days after, barely escaping

death; and, though last not least, Herr Gebhard remembered that on

the occasion of a dinner party, given on the 1st of September, after

partaking of the wine which _she_ brought from the cellar, he and all

his guests, five in number, were seized by the usual spasms and

sickness.

Gebhard and others were astonished now, that the series of sudden

deaths and violent illnesses occurring to all who took anything from

the hand of the woman Schonleben, had not excited their suspicions

before. The bodies of those who had died were quietly exhumed; the

contents of the stomach of each were subjected to chemical analysis,

and the conclusion come to was that two of them at least had been

poisoned by arsenic; and reports were drawn up and depositions made,

while the culprit, all unaware of the Nemesis that was about to

overtake her, was living at Bayreuth, from whence she had the

hardihood to write to the Kammer-Amptmann more than one letter, in

which she bitterly reproached him for his base ingratitude in

dismissing from his service one who had been as a mother to his

motherless child.

It is supposed that the object of these epistles was to procure her

reinstatement in his household, but on the 19th of October, to her

consternation, she was suddenly arrested, and on being searched,

three packets of poison--two being arsenic--were found upon her

person. After being brought to trial, she protested her innocence,

and acted with singular obstinacy and ingenuity combined, till the

16th of April, 1810, when she fairly broke down, and admitted having

murdered Madame Glaser by two doses of poison; but the moment the

confession left her lips, according to Feuerbach, she fell as if

struck by a thunderbolt, and in strong convulsions was removed to her

dungeon, under sentence of death.

It is stated, that she had committed and attempted so many murders,

that they had lost all character of horror to her; that she merely

viewed them as petty indiscretions, or the punishing of those who

offended her or who stood in her way, till at last, to poison became

almost a pastime or a passion; hence, when the poison taken from her

at Bayreuth was shown to her some weeks afterwards, in the old castle

of Plassenburg at Culmbach, her eyes sparkled and her whole frame

seemed to vibrate with delight, as if she saw again, in that deadly

white drug, an old and valued friend or servant; but she admitted,

that fly-powder was what she chiefly used to revenge herself upon her

fellow-servants by mixing it with their beer; and that prior to

quitting the house of Gebhard she had frequently poisoned the coffee,

wine, and beer of such guests as she chose to dislike. She declared

openly, that her death was a fortunate thing for many people, as she

felt certain she could not have left off poisoning as long as she

lived.

She steadily ascended the scaffold, bowed to the people, with a smile

on her old, wrinkled, and, then, hideous face, laid her head on the

block, and without shrinking or moving a muscle, had it struck off by

the axe of the public _scharfrichter_, or executioner; and so ended

this German _cause célèbre_.

LAURA WENLOCK'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

CHAPTER I.

"It cannot be that you are about to be married!" exclaimed Jack

Westbrook passionately as he held the girl's hands half forcibly and

gazed into her shrinking eyes; "I will not believe it--even from your

own lips."

But the girl, silent and sad, hesitated to reply.

The glory of an April sunset lay over all the sweet Kentish

landscape; a little tarn between two white chalk cliffs shone like

molten gold, with black coots swimming, and the pearly clouds

reflected on its surface; the emerald green buds were bursting in

their beauty in the coppice and hedgerows, where the linnet and the

speckled thrush were preparing their nests; the unclosing crocus and

the drooping daffodil were making the cottage gardens gay; and every

where, there were coming "fresh flowers and leaves to deck the dead

season's bier."

It was a period of the opened year when unconsciously the human heart

feels hopeful and happy, even the hearts of the old and the ailing;

but the souls of those two who lingered, near the old Saxon lichgate,

roofed with ancient thatch and velvet moss, and by the old worn stile

that led to the village church of Craybourne, were sad indeed; they

were on the eve of parting, and--for ever!

"It cannot be, Laura, that you are about to be married, after all,"

repeated Jack Westbrook, a soldier-like young fellow, not much over

five and twenty, dark, handsome and clad in that kind of grey tweed

suit, which looks so gentlemanly when worn by one of good bearing and

style, and such Jack certainly was.

"It is but too true--too true, Jack," replied Laura, while her tears

fell fast, and she strove to release her trembling hands from her

lover's passionate clasp.

Laura Wenlock was more than merely handsome; in her soft face there

was a singular and piquante charm, a loveliness that was more

penetrating and of a higher order than mere regularity of feature, as

its expression varied so much--a charm that would have delighted an

artist, while it would have baffled his powers to reproduce it. Her

eyes were violet blue; her hair was auburn, shot with gold, and ruddy

golden it seemed ever in the sunshine.

"You don't mean to say that you are about to marry _for_ money?" said

Westbrook impetuously.

"Far from it, Jack--oh! don't think so meanly--so basely of me,"

urged Laura piteously.

"What then?"

"_With_ money--sounds different, doesn't it, Jack, dear?" said the

girl with a sob and a sickly smile.

Westbrook gnawed his thick brown moustache, and eyed her gloomily,

then almost malevolently and, anon; pleadingly, for his fate was in

her hands.

"From all I have heard," said he, "I feared it would come to this;

but oh, no, no, surely it cannot be--that I am now to lose you!"

"It must be; the fatal papers have already been prepared."

"The settlements!"

"Yes; debts beyond what we could ever have anticipated, have

overtaken my father, and you know that his vicarage here at

Craybourne is a poor one, Jack, a very poor one, and his poverty

would be the ruin of my two brothers. My marriage will be the saving

of them all--the Colonel is so rich."

"Philip Daubeny, of Craybourne Hall?"

"Yes," replied Laura, with averted eyes

"I saw him struck down by the sun on the march between Jehanumbad and

Shetanpore; and I would, with all my heart, he were there still!"

"Don't say so, Jack," urged the girl; "Colonel Daubeny is good, and

brave, and generous--oh, most generous! God knows, Jack, if you

would take me as I am, without a shilling, I would become your wedded

wife to-night," added Laura, blinded with tears; "but you want me to

wait for you, Jack, and I cannot wait, for the fate of those over

there--at home--is in my power," continued Laura, turning towards the

old thatched vicarage, the lozenged casements of which were

glittering in the sunshine between the stems of the trees.

"To wait, of course," said he, huskily, and relinquishing her hands

in a species of sullen despair; "I have but little to live on just

yet, since I had to sell out of the Hussars after that infernal loss

on the Oaks, and, of course, I cannot supply you with equipages and

luxuries as Daubeny can do. But do have patience with me, Laura."

"I cannot--I cannot!" wailed the girl; "the dreadful _why_ I have

told you a thousand times."

"You never loved me truly."

"You wrong me; no one has ever been more dear to me than you, Jack."

He laughed bitterly.

"Yet you will marry Philip Daubeny? Have you thought how shameful is

a mercenary marriage?"

"I have, indeed, God knows how deeply, how bitterly and prayerfully,

in the silent night, when none could see my tears, save Him! Take

back your ring, dear Jack, and let us part friends;" and drawing the

emblem from her tiny finger, she touched it with her trembling lips,

and restored it to him.

"Friends!" he exclaimed, bitterly and scornfully, while in his fine

dark eyes there shone a flash of light, where evil seemed to rival

love and sorrow, as he flung the golden hoop, with its pearl cluster,

into the tarn, and left her without another word or glance! He

strode away down the sequestered path that led to the churchyard

stile, crushing, as if vengefully, under his feet the wayside

flowers, the tender blossoms and sprays of spring; and the girl

watched him till his retreating figure disappeared in the shady vista

of the lane.

Then she interlaced her slender fingers over her auburn hair and cast

her eyes upwards, full of sorrow and intense compunction for the pain

she had been compelled to inflict; but there was no despair in her

expression, nor was there in her heart, we hope.

"God bless you, dear--dear Jack; you will forget me in time. All is

over now!" she murmured.

But the memory of Westbrook's harassed face, and the winning sound of

his voice haunted her in the hours of the night as she lay feverish,

restless, in a passion of bitter weeping; and full of sad and

terrible thoughts, tossing from side to side, sleepless on her pillow.

CHAPTER II.

The marriage day came, and the chimes were ringing merrily in the old

square tower of the little vicarage church, scaring the swallows from

their nests amid the leaves and the clustering ivy, and, aware of the

event, numbers of the parishioners and of Colonel Daubeny's tenantry,

in their holiday attire, were toiling up the steep and picturesque

pathway that led through shady dingles to the quaint edifice which

overlooked the Cray. The humble old-fashioned organ gave forth its

most joyous notes; and what was wanting in splendour or decoration in

a church so old and rural, was amply made up by the masses of

flowers, many of them the rarest exotics from the conservatories of

Colonel Daubeny, and these garlanded the round chancel arch and the

short dumpy Saxon pillars, while the altar in its deep recess was gay

with them; when Laura, leaning on the arm of her father, the old

thin-faced and silver-haired Vicar, and followed by her six

bridesmaids, all lovely little girls, relatives of both families,

dressed alike, and attended closely, too, by her two brothers, the

thoughtless lads, whom she had sacrificed herself to serve and

advance in life, was led slowly up the church, the cynosure and

admiration of every eye, for all the people knew and loved her.

The gift of the bridegroom--a handsome, grave, and manly-looking

fellow, whose hair, though only in his fortieth year, Indian service

had slightly streaked with grey, and whose best man was his old chum

and comrade, Charlie Fane--her bridal dress, priceless with satin and

lace, shone in the successive rays of sunlight as she passed the

painted windows, her bridal veil floated gracefully and gloriously

around her, by its folds hiding the ashy pallor of her charming face,

and her eyes that were aflame with unshed tears, and trembled to look

up, lest they should encounter those of Jack Westbrook, full of

upbraiding and bitterness; but Jack was at that moment miles away

occupying his mind with very different matters, though he well knew

what was then being enacted at Craybourne Church.

She stood and knelt as one in a dream side by side with Philip

Daubeny at the altar rail before her father, and it certainly _did_

strike the former with something of alarm rather than surprise, that

when she was ungloved by a fussy and blushing little bridesmaid, and

when she placed her hand steadily and without a tremor in his, it was

icy and cold, as that of Lucy Ashton on her ill-omened bridal morn.

She uttered all the words of the service in a low and distinct voice,

yet never once were her dark blue eyes raised to those of the earnest

and generous Philip Daubeny, whose glances, moderated of course by

the knowledge that they were so closely observed, were full of love

and tenderness; and, in truth, even at that solemn moment, Laura felt

that though he had her highest respect and her genuine esteem, she

did not love him, and could only pray to Heaven, in her silent heart,

that the time might come when she should do so as a wedded wife.

Laura bore up nobly. If she clung to her husband's arm, and thus

sent a thrill to his heart as they quitted the gloomy fane, with its

earthy odour, for the sunshine of the churchyard, where the cheers of

assembled hundreds greeted them, it was only because she felt weak,

and wondered when the time would come that would see her laid in

yonder vault, where all the Daubenys of past ages lay--the vault,

with its ponderous door, mildewed and rusty, and half-hidden by huge

fern leaves and churchyard nettles--and on reaching the Vicarage she

nearly fainted, greatly to the terror of Daubeny and the anxiety of

all.

Avoiding the former, she clung to her father.

"Kiss me, papa," she said again and again. "Kiss me, papa; are you

pleased with me--pleased with your poor Laura now?"

"Yes, my darling, yes," replied the old Vicar, folding her in his

arms. He had heard much of Jack Westbrook: but thought that, so far

as himself and his family were concerned, "matters were now, indeed,

ordered for the best" in her marriage with the Squire of Craybourne.

A man of the world--one who had seen twenty years of dangerous

military service in the East--Phil Daubeny was one of whom any woman

might be proud, handsome, wealthy, and well-born, and all thought

that Laura was as happy in her choice as in her heart; but the image

of Jack Westbrook, of whom he knew _nothing_, stood--and was for a

time fated to stand--as a barrier between her and the man she had

vowed to "love, honour, and obey;" and most earnestly in her soul did

she pray, as the carriage bore her from her beloved home for ever,

that never more in this world might Westbrook's path cross hers; but

not that she feared evil would come of it, for Laura was too wifely,

too pure, and too good for such an idea to occur to her.

CHAPTER III.

Amid the congratulations of friends, under the radiant smiles of her

husband, even when her head nestled on his shoulder and his strong

arm went lovingly round her; amid all the innumerable gaieties of

Paris, of Brussels--a new world to her--this ghost seemed morbidly to

haunt her; yet the honeymoon glided away, and the second month found

them, amid all the charms of midsummer, located in their luxurious

home at Craybourne Hall, from the upper oriels of which she could see

the smoke, from the old clustered chimneys of the Vicarage, curling

about the leafy coppice.

Daubeny had missed something responsive, he knew not what, in his

wife, whose general listlessness, with a certain far-seeing

expression of eye, began to pain and bewilder him. He kept his

thoughts to himself; yet his brave and loving nature craved ever for

some secret sympathy which Laura failed to accord him, and so there

gradually began to yawn between them a chasm which neither could

define, and the existence of which they would stoutly have denied.

To Daubeny it became a source of keen and growing misery. But one

night the scales fell from his eyes.

Finding himself alone and idle in London, he turned into the back

stalls of the opera. The piece had not commenced; the orchestra were

at the overture; the gas was somewhat low; and by some heedless

fellows who were sitting in front of him he heard _his own name_

mentioned once or twice in conversation, and was compelled to listen,

thereto.

"Jack Westbrook has got over it all now," one said. "Of course the

_sting_ of wounded self-esteem, at being thrown over for rich old

Phil Daubeny, rankled for a time. The fair Laura was his first

love--never saw such a pair of spoons in all my life, don't you

know--privately engaged, and all that sort of thing."

"And now I have no doubt she will flirt with any man who will flirt

with her. Of course, it is always the way--and she don't care for

Daubeny, poor devil!"

"I don't think she _will_ flirt," said the first speaker.

"Bah! every woman has some weak point, if you can only find it out."

"Most men, too, I suspect; but the fair Laura is clad in the armour

of virtue."

"Jack Westbrook might find some weak points in that armour, too; and

he won't drop out of the hunt, perhaps."

Then followed a reckless laugh that stung the soul of Daubeny to

madness. The Opera stalls were no place for that which is so

abhorrent in "society"--a scene; so instead of dashing their heads

together, as he felt inclined to do, he softly left the place just as

the overture ceased and the act-drop rose; and he went forth in a

tempest of that kind of rage which always becomes the more bitter for

having no immediate object to expend itself on; and even the speed of

the night express seemed a thousand degrees too slow as it bore him

homeward to Craybourne Hall. She had been engaged, had a lover--her

first lover, too--and all unknown to him!

He had both seen and heard of Westbrook; but not in this character.

Her first love--her only love! How many uncounted kisses had, of

course, been exchanged, of which he knew naught (and had no business

with then)? How much of the bloom had been worn off the peach ere it

became his? He was full of black wrath, and saw much now that he saw

not before, and could quite account for all her coldness. Yet,

although he knew it not, the girl who had always esteemed was now

learning to _love_ him as she had never even loved Jack Westbrook!

Late though the hour--the first of morning--he proceeded at once to

his wife's dressing-room, where she was awaiting his return in a

charming blue robe that made her fair beauty look more charming

still, for there were colour and brightness in her face and a

love-light in her eyes at his approach, till the abruptness of his

entrance and the set sternness of his white visage startled her.

"Philip!"

"Can it be true what I have heard to-night, Laura, that you loved

Westbrook, of the Hussars," he demanded, "and, while loving him,

married me for my money, and what I might do for the old Vicar and

his sons? Is it truth that, when he gave you to me at the altar of

yonder church, your marriage vow was a black lie and your false heart

teemed with love for another? Speak!" he thundered out; but she

could only lift her timid eyes to him imploringly, and spread her

little white hands in deprecation of the coming malediction. Her

voice was gone. "Your silence affirms all I have heard," he

continued, in accents that trembled with jealousy and sorrow. "Oh,

God, what a fool and dupe I have been!"

"I know not what you have heard, Philip; but, as He hears me, I have

been a true and faithful wife to you."

"In playing a part you did not feel," he cried scornfully, "but I

will aid your play no more. From this hour we meet never again on

earth. Here, in this house, for which you sold yourself, I shall

leave you, with all its luxuries, till such time as a more regular

separation can be brought about; and the sole sorrow of my heart is

now, that I cannot leave you free to wed this fellow Westbrook, the

cause of all your incompatibility and coldness to me."

He flung away, and left her in a gust of fury.

"Philip, Philip!" she exclaimed, but she heard the hall door close;

and then, as his steps died away in the distance, she fell on the

floor, overcome by her sudden and terrible emotions--startled,

shocked, and conscience-stricken.

CHAPTER IV.

Days passed on--days of sorrow, anxiety, and futile watching for a

footfall that came no more. Whither he had gone she knew not, nor

could she discover, and she was left to her tears and unavailing

grief, amid the splendour of Craybourne Hall. She saw now how erring

she had been; that, while nursing a mere fancy, she had lost the true

love of a good and generous man, whose last words had been the first

harsh ones he had ever addressed to her.

Gone! gone! She felt how much she really loved him now, and all the

more that a secret tie was coming, and must come ere Christmas, to

bind them stronger together. She must let him know of this dear

hope; but how? _Where_ had he gone? To death, perhaps, and she

might have a child in her bosom that Philip could never, never see!

The weeks became months, and the heart of the strangely-widowed wife

grew sick and heavy as lead with hopeless waiting, watching, and

agonising yearning--dead even to the speculations of those around

her, to whom the absence of her husband seemed, of course, most

unaccountable, if not unkind and cruel.

But for the sake of her child she wished that she might die when it

saw the light. Surely, then, Philip would forgive her when he saw

its little face, and she was laid within the vault, the mildewed and

rusted door of which she had regarded with a shudder on her marriage

morning--the vault where all the dead Daubenys lay.

So in the fulness of time her baby was born--a little fairy boy--and

her father named it Philip, for him who was still so strangely

absent, and hot and burning were the tears with which Laura bedewed

its tiny face as it nestled in her bosom; and amid the new emotions

awakened by maternity she prayed God to forgive her for having longed

to die; for no baby in the world could be like hers, that lay so

round and soft and warm in her white bosom, and was fast growing so

like papa!

But where was he wandering? Why was he not with her? Surely he

would return _now_? Yet the days still rolled monotonously on, and

winter drew nigh. The trees in Craybourne Chase were leafless; the

fern, amid which the deer made their lair, was turning red, and the

uplands became powdered with snow.

"To what a dreary and dreadful Christmas do I look forward, papa!"

she exclaimed to the sorrowing old Vicar, "and I do so love him!

Philip, Philip, come back to me, and do not leave me thus to die!"

she would wail, ever and anon, in her helplessness.

And now there came a day which she was fated never, never to forget!

Her husband's firm friend and old comrade, who had been his

groomsman, the stout-hearted and gallant Charlie Fane, arrived at

Craybourne with a face as white as the snow in the Weald of Kent--the

bearer of terrible tidings, which he had heard that morning at the

club, and these he had to break--he knew not _how_--to Laura, though

they had been broken abruptly enough to himself.

Jack Westbrook had raised his head from the morning paper just as

Fane entered the room,

"By Jove! look here, Charlie!" exclaimed Westbrook in an excited

tone, "there has been a dreadful accident to the train between Paris

and Calais, and among the killed--mangled out of all shape--the

report says, is Colonel Philip Daubeny, a British officer. His

card-case was found in his pocket."

"My God! Poor Laura, poor Phil!" exclaimed Fane, as he took the

paper in his trembling hands, and in ten minutes after was _en route_

for Craybourne Hall.

"Poor devil!" thought Westbrook, as he lit a cigar; "who knows but I

may get the reversion of the widow, with her tin, after all?"

CHAPTER V.

It was Christmas Eve at Craybourne Hall, as elsewhere all over the

Christian world; but the stillness as of death reigned there, and

Laura, a widow now in heart indeed, lay tossing restlessly on her

laced pillow, fighting, as it were, with the grim King, and forgetful

even of her infant. Never had that old hall, ever since the Tudor

days, seen a more sorrowful Christmas Eve. All the landscape around

it wore a shroud of ghastly white. The Cray was frozen in its bed,

and all the shrubs and trees seemed turned to crystal, that sparkled

with diamond lustre in the light of the moon and stars. Over the

snowy waste the Christmas bells in the old Vicarage church rang out

"Peace on Earth--Peace on Earth, and goodwill towards men;" but there

was no peace--peace of the heart, at least--in the stately hall; yet

such a winter had not been seen for years, and great things, the old

Kentish folks said, were sure to occur, for never had the holly been

so covered with scarlet berries. What a Christmas for Laura!

In her chamber, dimly-lit and closely watched, she lay helpless and

stunned by the depth of her woe, and honest Charlie Fane, who had

seen much of human suffering in his time, watched her like a brother;

and, in that chamber, there was no sound heard but the sighs of the

sufferer and the chimes of the distant bells.

Suddenly there was a noise of feet and voices in the corridor

without. A figure entered--was it the phantom of Philip Daubeny?

No! the strong grasp that tightened on the hand of Fane forbade that

idea; and, in a moment more, the husband, looking pale and rather

worn, was bending over the wife who had fainted in his arms. In

Philip's face there was no sternness now, but passionate love, pity,

and tears, and agony, too, till Laura revived.

"Not killed--not even injured, Philip?" exclaimed Fane.

"No, thank Heaven! but a poor fellow was to whom I lent my Ulster

when hurrying homeward. Do you forgive me, darling Laura--forgive my

cruel desertion?"

"Oh, yes, my love--my own Philip--all--all! And is the little fellow

not a darling too--and so like you, Philip?" said the broken,

half-hushed voice.

And as Philip, with a bursting heart, hung over his wife and child,

he could hear more merrily than ever the joyous bells that told of

the promise given 1800 years ago to the Chaldean shepherds as they

watched their flocks by night in Judæa.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LIMD., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.