sir. He is, indeed. He has sent his work everywhere, and can't get it
accepted. I posted that poem for him. I hoped it would bring him good
luck."
[Illustration: "HE'S STARVING!"]
"And so it shall!" cried the editor. "You send this young man to me.
What does he do in his spare time?"
"He's a sandwich-man, sir," faltered Madge; "and I think, if you don't
mind," she added, "perhaps it would be better for you to write to him.
He's had so many disappointments, that he'll hardly believe his luck."
"Very good," agreed the editor, "I'll write."
So Paul received his first cheque by the morning's post, "With the
Editor's compliments, and thanks for the contribution entitled 'Love's
Handicraft,'" and a request that he would call at the office.
V.
The sacristan was putting out the lights in St. Ethelreda's after
evening service. The church was cool and still now that the people had
gone. A restful gloaming fell upon the deserted aisles. One sunset
shaft crept aslant the pictured walls, on the Virgin Mother and her
Holy Child. Before the altars, the perpetual lamps swung solemnly. In
this sanctuary of hushed repose, Madge Barberry lingered late and last
of all the worshippers. She was never lonely here. The lines of statued
saints looked down upon her from their niches with tender reminder that
they, too, of old had fought her wars. Victorious, they were no less
her fellow-soldiers. They were still one with that brave world-army of
heroic men and women battling with high tides of poverty and misfortune.
She went regretfully down the shadowy nave. Paul Vespan was waiting for
her in the dark porch.
"I came to meet you," he said; "Mrs. Xerxes told me you were here."
She smiled gratefully as they went out into the dusty street together.
Soon she would have him no more to walk beside her. Great changes had
come to Paul Vespan since that dark night when Madge Barberry's brave
hand snatched him from death to life. The editor, once his friend,
had remained so. After a pleasant probation in his own office, he was
sending him to take charge of a small provincial paper in a cathedral
town.
"You have heard the good news, Madge?" said Paul, thinking of this.
Yes, she had heard it. But to her, it was not good news, though she was
glad for him.
"I hope you will be very happy," she faltered.
"I shall be very lonely. Unless--Madge, will you come with me?"
"I? Oh! no! I should be standing in your light."
"You? What are you saying, Madge? Why, didn't you bring me back to
light? My life will be dark, indeed, without you."
"Then," she said, as they entered Marigold Place, "I will go with you."
Paul Vespan's after-history bears tender witness to the wisdom of his
choice. In the light of his wife's unswerving love, he works bravely.
The rewards which are sure to come will be sweeter because shared by
her. She is his "lady with the lamp," standing no more beside the weary
craven in his hour of tragic necessity, but shoulder to shoulder, heart
to heart, with the valiant world-soldier in the thick of his battle for
fame and fortune.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
ZIG-ZAGS AT THE ZOO
By Arthur Morrison & J.A. Shepherd]
XXIV.--ZIG-ZAG RODOPORCINE.
"Rodoporcine" is a portmanteau-word. It is not a regular scientific
term, although, as I may claim with modest pride (being its inventor),
it is almost ugly enough to be one. I have invented it largely for the
benefit of the building (it is only one building) which the Zoological
Society numbers six and seven, and divides arbitrarily into "The Swine
House" and "The Rodents' House"; but chiefly I have invented it because
I wanted a title for this Zig-zag. _Rodo_ I gnaw, _porcus_ a pig.
[Illustration]
The Society have old authority for any amount of confusion between
the swine and the rodents. The guinea-pig has long ago established
its right to its name, on the indisputable grounds of being entirely
unconnected with Guinea, and not a pig, but a rodent. The capybara is
also called a water-pig (even in its Greek name) in virtue, doubtless,
of being a rodent. "Porcupine" means a thorny pig; the name being again
found convenient for a rodent, and enunciated with peculiar emphasis by
the wag who wrote:--
Each hair will stand on end upon thy wig,
Like quills upon the frightful porcupig.
Then, by way of pleasant variation, the hedgehog derives its title
from the fact of being neither a hog nor a rodent, but only a prickly
kind of mole. So that confusion among pigs and rodents is an ancient,
time-honoured, and respectable state of affairs, only feebly deferred
to by the Zoological Society in placing the two side by side. Let us
consider them, therefore, in a proper derangement and with a due regard
to confusion.
[Illustration: BOHEMIAN.]
The thoughtless world is disrespectful to the pig. It even uses its
name as a term of reproach. Nobody likes to be called a pig, and yet if
some were to accept the epithet with a good grace, and conscientiously
act up to the character, there would be a deal of improvement in their
manners. Proverbs abuse and slight the pig. "Pigs may whistle, but
they have an ill mouth for it," says one; "Drunk as David's sow,"
says another; "What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?" asks a
third, totally ignoring the existence of such products as bacon, lard,
bristles, and saddle-leather. But then proverbs are always perpetrating
injustices somewhere, until abuse from a proverb has become a sort
of testimonial to the worth of anything--animal, vegetable, or
mineral. The pig eats all it can get, certainly, but that is only a
manifestation of what we are apt to call, in ourselves, prudence and
business acumen. Once thoroughly fed it regards the world with serene
apathy, but that is merely broadmindedness and toleration. The nearest
relatives here to the familiar porker of our native agricultural show
are the wild swine--European and Asiatic--well set-up creatures, of
form and manner not to be considered with disrespect, and carrying with
them no more of traditional piggishness than a certain easy Bohemianism
of manner and irregularity of bristle.
[Illustration: WELL GROOMED.]
[Illustration: SERENE APATHY.]
It is plain to see that whatever may be found of ill account in the pig
is due to the contaminating influence of man. A wiry, well-groomed wild
pig is a decent citizen of the animal community, unpleasantly ready
with his tusks, of course, but clearly dignified and with intelligence.
To me the wart-hog always seems the precise militarist among pigs. His
neat, well-fitting feet, his closely-clad legs, and his high carriage
of head are alone enough, to say nothing of his warlike tusks, and his
mutton-chop side-whiskers, which indeed are only a sort of warts, but
look as much like the real thing as they can manage. But, for all the
other qualities of the grizzled old soldier, it cannot be concealed
that he has a drunken eye.
[Illustration: "IMPROVED."]
From the comparatively noble wild swine (who cannot open his mouth
without an invariable appearance of being about to sneeze) man has, by
long selection and careful breeding, evolved a preposterous cylinder
of locomotive pork. This he calls an "improved" pig--as who should
speak of improving the heavens by casting advertisements thereon from a
magic-lantern. It is a quaint paradox in the pig-fancier's system that
the pig with the greatest number of excellent points is, as a matter of
fact, the pig whose rotundity presents no point anywhere, nor anything
like a point.
[Illustration: MAJOR WART-HOG.]
There is a deal of catholicity of taste in a pig. He is quite prepared
to devour the whole animal and vegetable kingdom, and very little
hunger would persuade him to admit the mineral kingdom, too. Almost
anything will "please the pigs"--which may be the origin of the
proverb, although origin-mongers say differently; and yet the pig's
senses of taste and smell are particularly acute; witness his use as a
beast of chase for the truffle. He has also an acute weather-wisdom, if
countrymen's weather-lore be accepted; for if pigs carry straw in their
mouths it will inevitably rain. Wherefore picnic parties will do well
to remove all straw from the reach of pigs.
[Illustration: GOING TO SNEEZE.]
The capybara--the water-pig which is no pig--is a rudimentary sort of
structure. He presents a kind of rough outline or experimental draft of
a quadruped in its preliminary stages of invention. All the materials
are there--more than enough, in fact--and the rough plan of their
arrangement is sketched out, but there is no detail--nor, indeed, any
other kind of tail--and no finish. The body (and a very liberal body,
too), the hair (also liberal, and thick), the head and legs, have been
put together tentatively with a shovel, and all the fine work has been
omitted; indeed, the operations have never even arrived at the stage at
which the tail is stuck on. The capybara's ideals, notions of life,
wants and aspirations are of the rudimentary character appropriate to
his figure. He has no particular objection to being tame and docile--so
long as he is fed--nor any particular repugnance to being otherwise. He
will eat a piece of cabbage if it is there; otherwise he gets on very
well with a lump of firewood. He has a drink when the idea occurs to
him, and takes it in the ordinary way as a rule, but, sometimes, under
the unwonted stimulus of a brilliantly new conception, he sits in his
drink as he takes it. This would appear to be his notion of humour; it
is the capybara's only joke, and he never varies it in form or spirit.
He is not a communicative beast, and never offers a remark to any human
creature but Church, his keeper, and then it is by way of extracting
something to eat. The remark is a sort of purring rattle--the
rudimentary speech of an animal whose vocal organs have not been tuned.
The redeeming feature in the capybara, in these days of hysteric fad,
is his utter absence of "views" on any subject in the world. And he has
no enthusiasms.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE RUDIMENTARY CAPYBARA.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE GIDDY MALAYAN.]
The tapir is nothing but an ambitious pig--a pig trying to be an
elephant. But the most careful cultivation has not succeeded in
elongating his trunk beyond a few inches, and the biggest of the tapirs
can get no nearer the stature of the elephant than a small donkey.
It is probably this that makes the tapir a melancholy animal, silent
and despondent. There is no gaiety in the composition of the tapir.
In a fatefully unlucky moment he began to try to be an elephant, and
thenceforward happiness forsook him. Like the king in the history-book,
he never smiled again. His life is one cheerless, hopeless, dreary
struggle to be what he can never become. Being a pig, he is obstinate,
or he would have given up the attempt long ago. Elephantine ambition
in particular is not born in the tapir, though ambition of a vague
sort is. The young tapir always begins by trying to be a tiger or a
zebra; breaking out in brilliant stripes and spots; but in due time he
regularly settles down, after the manner of his kind, to achieve rank
as an elephant. He is a melancholy example of discontent in humble
circumstances.
[Illustration: PRUDENT FINANCE.]
[Illustration: RECIPROCAL CONTEMPT.]
Still, there is a deal of human nature in the tapir. Plainly it is
largely Hebrew human nature, notwithstanding his porcine connections.
The ordinary tapir is a grave, respectable, and judicious Israelitish
financier, prudent and careful; but the Malayan tapir here is a giddy
young person who makes the money fly. See his short white covert coat,
with the little black bob-tail visible below it, and note his vacant
eye. How badly he wants a crook-handled stick and a high collar! But
you may despise the tapir, his restless ambition, and his immature
trunk as you please--all your contempt will be reciprocated, and with
interest. He is almost the only animal here who knows that sightseers
don't usually carry about with them his particular sort of food, and
he is, therefore, loftily indifferent to the tenderest blandishments.
He despises you for having neither trunk nor tusks; in his matured
philosophy, only an elephant is admirable; as a baby, he admires the
zebra and tries to be one of them. And so he lives here, in house
number sixty, equidistant between the zebras and the elephants, and as
likely to become one as the other. Though he could ensure his juvenile
stripes being fast colours (which he cannot), the tapir would fail
as a zebra in the hinder end. The docility of the zebra's head he
might easily attain to--indeed, he has it now--but the inconsistent
friskiness of his heels would be beyond him.
[Illustration: THE DOCILE FORE.]
[Illustration: THE FRISKY HIND.]
[Illustration: A GALE.]
[Illustration: WILDELY TAME.]
There are a good many fine points about the porcupine. Church, the
keeper, once got half-a-dozen of them in his calf, and went to bed for
a week to celebrate the occasion. The porcupine is one of those animals
that look pleasantest from the front. There his bristles all lie back
smoothly from his forehead, giving him an aspect as æsthetically and
Wildely tame as may be. But behind--well, you get a view of all his
fine points. A little irritation--a very little--brings up his fine
points in spiky array, as though he were caught from behind in a gale
of wind. There are no Irish porcupines, which is remarkable when you
consider that, in a fight, the porcupine invariably advances backward,
most valorously retreating to the front in pursuit of the enemy to
which he turns his back, and pressing forward courageously to the rear.
That is to say, in a manner less mixed, that the porcupine always
attacks an enemy by springing backward at him, with spines extended.
He has a tremendous set of teeth, like chisels, but these he never
uses except to chew up timber with. He will never fight with his
teeth, being apprehensive of a punch on the nose, where he is tender.
But in his advance to the rear he is formidable, and wonderfully
quick. I have already mentioned Church's experience. The night is the
time of the porcupines' greatest activity, and then they are apt to
fight, springing backward at one another, losing quills and tearing
out specimen lumps of anatomy at a terrific rate. In the daytime the
porcupine is not an active creature. He drags himself clumsily along
with his armament rattling behind him, taking no more trouble than to
glance at Church on the chance of a donation of the adamantine biscuits
and similarly inflexible food that most delights him, and receiving
disappointment or the refreshment with equal equanimity.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_Stories from the Diary of a Doctor._
_By the Authors of_ "THE MEDICINE LADY."
XII.--THE PONSONBY DIAMONDS.
Few cases in their day interested me more than that of Beryl Temple,
and this, not so much from the medical point of view as from the
character of this strong-minded and brave girl.
It was on the occasion of her mother's death that I first became
acquainted with Beryl. She suffered keenly at the time, but her courage
and presence of mind and fine self-suppression aroused my interest,
and when, a month afterwards, she came to me and told me in the simple
manner which always characterized her that she was not only friendless
but without means of support, I eagerly asked in what way I could help
her.
She replied with a blush, and something like tears in her eyes.
"Of all things in the world," she said, "I should like best to
be trained as a hospital nurse--do you think I am suited to the
profession?"
"Admirably," I replied. "You have nerve and self-control; you have also
good health and, although I am sure that you have plenty of heart, you
would never be mawkishly sentimental."
"Oh, no," she answered; "I am glad you approve."
"I cordially approve," I replied. "In many cases the profession of
nursing is best undertaken by women who are not too highly cultivated,
and whose position is below that of the supposed lady--but you, Miss
Temple, will make an admirable nurse. Your peculiar characteristics fit
you for this calling."
[Illustration: "I CORDIALLY APPROVE."]
I saw by the expression on her face that my words pleased her. I helped
her to take the necessary steps to become a probationer at one of the
large hospitals. She entered on her profession with enthusiasm--her
time of training passed without hitch, and in due course I placed her
on my own special staff of nurses.
I had been by no means mistaken in Miss Temple's qualifications--her
nerve was wonderful, her tact perfect. Although slight and rather
delicate looking, she had a great reserve of strength, and I never knew
her to break down or fail in any way, even when the case she had to
attend to was involved in serious difficulties.
For nervous cases in especial, I found Miss Temple invaluable, and it
so happened that she was the first person I applied to in the case of a
very peculiar patient, Lady Violet Dalrymple.
I was sent for to the country to see Lady Violet in the autumn of the
year 1889.
I remember the night when the telegram came to me from her mother,
the Countess of Erstfield. Lady Violet was the only child--a girl of
seventeen. Lady Erstfield had once brought her to see me in town. I
then considered her an overgrown, somewhat nervous girl, had ordered
change, a quiet life, plenty of fresh air, plenty of nourishment,
plenty of congenial occupation, and had felt assured that if these
remedies were systematically followed out, the young girl would quickly
recover from the nervous derangements which were just then interfering
with her health and happiness.
By the tenor of Lady Erstfield's telegram, however, I feared that this
was not the case.
"I am very anxious about Violet. Come without delay," she wired.
I replied by telegram that I would arrive at Beeches by a late train
that evening. I did so. Lady Erstfield was up. I had a long interview
with her, and got all possible information with regard to my patient's
state of health. I did not see Lady Violet herself, however, until the
following morning.
At an early hour that day, I was taken into the pretty boudoir, where
I found my patient lying on a sofa. It was a room furnished with all
that taste, money, and love could suggest. Books, flowers, pictures,
birds in cages, all that was gay and bright, surrounded the lovely girl
who lay pale and languid on a sofa drawn close to the open window.
This window commanded a perfect view of river, wood, and meadow, with
a distant peep of low-lying hills against the horizon. To my eyes,
accustomed to London bustle and noise, this view alone was restful and
delightful.
Drawing a chair forward, I sat down by my patient and entered into a
common-place talk with her. I had purposely asked Lady Erstfield to
leave us, for I knew by experience that in nervous cases the patient
was far more inclined to be confidential and to reply truthfully to
questions when alone with the physician.
Having carefully examined Lady Violet, and made certain that she
was suffering from no organic disease, it only remained for me to
conclude that she was a victim to one of those many ill-defined
and misunderstood nervous disorders, which, by their variety and
complexity, present the greatest difficulty in medical practice.
The treatment I saw at once must be moral, not medical.
"I don't find much the matter with you," I said, cheerfully; "your
disease is more fancy than reality--instead of lying here, you ought to
be having a gallop across those moors yonder."
Lady Violet gazed at me with a look of surprise and even faint
displeasure in her large brown eyes.
"I love riding," she said, in a gentle voice, "but it is long since I
have had the pleasure of a canter over the moors or anywhere else."
"You should not give up riding," I said; "it is a most healthful
exercise and a splendid tonic for the nerves."
"I don't think you can realize how very weak I am," she answered,
something like tears dimming her eyes. "Did not mother explain to you
the strange symptoms from which I suffer?"
[Illustration: "DRAWING A CHAIR FORWARD, I SAT DOWN BY MY PATIENT."]
"The symptoms of which you complain are clearly due to an over-wrought
imagination," I replied. "You must try to curb it by every means in
your power. I assure you I am only telling you the true state of the
case when I say that there is nothing serious the matter with you."
She sighed and looked away from me.
I took her slim hand in mine and felt her pulse. It was weak,
fluttering, and uneven. I bent forward and looked into her eyes--the
pupils were slightly dilated. Still I held firmly to my opinion that
nervous derangement, that most convenient phrase, was at the bottom of
all that was wrong.
"Now," I said, rising as I spoke, "I will prescribe a drive for you
this afternoon, and in a day or two, I have no doubt, you will be
strong enough to get on horseback again. Take no medicines; eat plenty,
and amuse yourself in every way in your power."
Soon afterwards I left the room, and saw Lady Erstfield alone.
"Your daughter is an instance of that all too common condition which we
call neurasthenia," I said. "Although, unlike the name, the disease is
not a coinage of the nineteenth century, still it has greatly increased
of late, and claims for its victims those who have fallen out of the
ranks of the marching army of women, in the advancing education and
culture of their sex."
"I don't understand your placing Violet in that position," said Lady
Erstfield, with reddening cheeks.
"My dear madam," I replied, "your daughter is the undoubted victim of
over-culture and little to do. Were she a farmer's daughter, or were
she obliged in any other way to work for her living, she would be
quite well. The treatment which I prescribe is simply this--healthy
occupation of every muscle and every faculty. Do all in your power to
turn her thoughts outwards, and to arouse an active interest in her
mind for something or someone. I assure you that although I am not
anxious about her present state, yet cases like hers, if allowed to
drift, frequently end in impairment of intellect in some degree, either
small or great."
Lady Erstfield looked intensely unhappy. "Violet is our only child,"
she said; "her father and I are wrapped up in her. Although you seem to
apprehend no danger to her life----"
"There is none," I interrupted.
"Yet you allude to other troubles which fill me with terror. There
is nothing Lord Erstfield and I would not do for our child. Will
you kindly tell me how we are to provide her with the interests and
occupations which are to restore her mind to a healthy condition?"
I thought for a moment.
"Lady Violet is very weak just now," I said, "her whole constitution
has been so enfeebled with imaginary fears and nervous disorders that a
little good nursing would not come amiss for her. I propose, therefore,
to send a nurse to look after your daughter."
Lady Erstfield uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"A hospital nurse!" she exclaimed; "the mere word will terrify Violet
into hysterics."
"Nothing of the kind," I answered. "The nurse I propose to send here
is not an ordinary one. She is a lady--well born and well educated.
She is extremely clever, and is remarkable both for her tact and
gentleness. She thoroughly understands her duties--in this case they
will consist mainly in amusing Lady Violet in the most strengthening
and invigorating manner. Her name is Temple. I will ask you to call
her Miss Temple, and never to speak of her or to her as nurse. She
will soon win her own way with your daughter, and I shall be greatly
surprised if she does not become more or less indispensable to her. She
is just as healthy-minded, as bright, as strong as Lady Violet is the
reverse."
After a little more conversation with Lady Erstfield, it was arranged
that Miss Temple was to be telegraphed for at once.
I wrote her a long letter, giving her full directions with regard to
the patient. This letter I left with Lady Erstfield, and asked her to
deliver it to Miss Temple as soon as ever she arrived. I then went to
bid Lady Violet good-bye.