"I tell you," he was saying, "I left a lady in your confounded
theatre, and she hasn't come out. I've had a cab waiting ten minutes."
"It's Tom," Connie whispered, "I forgot all about him. Poor Tom!"
"Miss Bolitho's quite safe," said Annesley, "we've just been settling
a little matter of great importance to both of us."
Captain Bolitho peered into the face of each in the uncertain light
and seemed to understand.
"The devil you have!" he murmured under his breath. Then he said
aloud, "Anyhow, Connie, I can't keep the cab waiting any longer. I
congratulate you, Mr. Annesley Howe, on your 'Golden Circlet.' That
was a deuced neat little surprise you'd hatched for us. I like your
play, and I daresay I shall like you when I know more of you. Dine
with me next Thursday, will you? Good-night."
[Illustration: A MOTHER OF TWO.
_Photo by Landon, Ealing_]
MODERN FAMILY SKELETONS.
BY BEATRICE KNOLLYS.
_Illustrated by A. S. Hartrick._
A family ghost is a possession almost as respectable as a patent of
nobility, and happy is the house reputed, on satisfactory evidence, to
be haunted by one. There are still a few hereditary ghosts left, and
a few leasehold and freehold ghosts; but these last are often the
property of retired manufacturers and American millionaires who have
bought house and lands, pedigrees, portraits, and family ghosts all
together as they stood.
In this article it is my intention to be the biographer of a few
ancient and well-born ghosts only, as space will not permit me to
condescend to mere one-generation ghosts, pedigreeless spirits.
[Illustration: THIS DRUMMER APPEARS WHENEVER A MEMBER OF THE OGILVY
FAMILY IS GOING TO DIE.]
A. was an Airlie who killed a poor drummer, whose spirit plays a drum
at Cortachy Castle, Kirriemuir, Scotland, whenever any member of the
Ogilvy family is going to die. The origin of this tradition is that
the drummer, for some reason or other, in his lifetime so enraged a
former Lord Airlie that he had him thrust into his own drum and flung
from the window of a tower of Cortachy Castle, though the drummer
threatened to haunt the family ever after if his life were taken.
He has seemingly kept his word, for in 1849, before the decease of a
Lord Airlie, and again in 1884, before the death of a Lady Airlie, the
beat of the drum was on each occasion distinctly heard by different
guests of the family. One of these guests was a lady staying in the
castle, who was so ignorant of the tradition that, having heard the
beating of a drum while dressing for dinner, she innocently asked her
host--Lord Airlie--at the table who his drummer was. The question made
the peer turn quite white, for the sound had preceded the loss of his
first wife, and it was only a few months after this ominous dinner
party that the second wife died.
The Combermere family have two ghosts in their record. In Combermere
Abbey there is an old room, once a nursery, and here has been seen the
spirit-figure of a little girl fourteen years old, dressed in a very
quaint frock with an odd little ruff round its neck. It appeared to
a niece of the late Lord Cotton as she was dressing for a very late
dinner one evening in this former nursery, now used as a bedroom. She
had just risen from her toilet-glass to get some article of dress when
she saw the child standing near her bed--a little iron one which stood
out in the room away from the wall--and presently the figure began
running round the bed in a wild, distressed way, with a look of
suffering in its little face, which the lady could see quite plainly
as the full light of her candles fell upon it.
On mentioning this apparition, her widowed aunt, Lady Cotton, called
to remembrance that the late Lord Cotton had told her of the sudden
death years ago of a favourite little sister of his, with whom he had
been playing, he being also a child then, by running round and round
the bed with her, just the night before--indeed, only a few hours
before, her decease.
[Illustration: THE COMBERMERE GHOST--A YOUNG GIRL WHO APPEARS TO
FORETELL DEATH.]
A stranger story still, and one that has not yet, I believe, appeared
in print, is that where quite recently a lady took an amateur
photograph of the drawing-room of a house once inhabited by the late
Lord Combermere--at Brighton I think it was. The lady in question saw,
to her horror and astonishment, visible on the plate, the ghost of
the old peer--a tall man with rather stout face and a
moustache--reproduced sitting in one of the easy chairs of this
drawing-room, though not apparent to the naked eye.
The Drake ghost--the spirit of Sir Francis Drake--might be termed a
sporting spirit, as it has been frequently seen in different parts of
Devonshire and Cornwall--notably Plymouth--driving a hearse drawn by
headless horses and followed by a pack of headless hounds.
Two Gordon ghosts live at Fyvie Castle in Scotland. One is a lady
dressed in a magnificent costume of green brocade, who is seen, candle
in hand, passing through a tapestried room of the old castle when any
important event is going to happen to the family.
The other spirit is by profession a trumpeter, who tradition affirms
haunts the castle in revenge for having during his lifetime been
seized by the press-gang at the instigation of the then Gordon of
Fyvie Castle, who wished to get rid of a rival in the affections of a
pretty daughter of his factor or bailiff.
The girl, however, remained faithful to the trumpeter, the separation
from him making her die of a broken heart; and now, like the drum of
Cortachy Castle, a trumpet is heard whenever misfortune is in store
for the unlucky Gordons. Ill-fated they certainly are, as beside
being the hereditary owners of unlucky ghosts, they are also under a
hereditary curse--the curse of a "Thomas the Rhymester"--who, when the
gates of the castle long years ago were churlishly closed against him
in the days of wandering minstrelsy, declared that the property should
never descend in a direct line till three "weeping" stones were found;
but up to twenty years ago, when a relative of the writer was staying
at the castle, only one weeping stone had been discovered.
In Fyvie Castle there is also a sealed room, which is always kept
religiously closed; for the saying is, should the door be ever opened,
the master would die and his wife go blind. Faith and fear have
prevented the saying being proved, as the room has never been opened;
but as regards the curse of "Thomas the Rhymester," it is certainly a
fact that the Gordons have never inherited in a direct line.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE FYVIE CASTLE GHOSTS IS A TRUMPETER BY
PROFESSION.]
[Illustration: ONE OF GLAMIS CASTLE'S GHOSTLY INHABITANTS--A TALL,
BEARDED VISITANT IN ARMOUR.]
There is a perfect spirit vault of ghosts at Glamis Castle, the
ancestral residence of another old and celebrated Scotch family, the
Lyons, the head being the Earl of Strathmore. They also possess a
secret chamber, which is supposed to be connected with some
terrible mystery known only to each owner, the next heir, and the
house-bailiff, of the time being. Even the exact locality of the room
is never revealed to others than those three, and though more than one
heir-apparent has promised to tell the secret to his bosom friends as
soon as the attainment of his twenty-first year entitled him to learn
it; yet after he has known it, a solemn silence on the subject has
been maintained, and beyond the fact that a stonemason is supposed to
be secretly employed to close the approach to this chamber after each
visit, nothing more definite is known. The strangest part of it all
is the evident necessity that each successive house steward should
be made acquainted with this mystery, which looks as if to him
was intrusted the duty of providing food for some person or thing
imprisoned in those walls of fifteen feet thickness. Whether the
mystery is in any way connected with the apparition of a bearded man,
who flits about the castle at night, and hovers over the couches of
children, is not known; perhaps it has something to do with a figure
which appeared at a window to a guest staying at Glamis Castle, and
sitting up late one moonlight night. The owner of the pale face, lit
up with great sorrowful eyes, seemed to wish to attract attention, but
it was suddenly pulled away as if by some superior power. Presently,
horrible shrieks rent the night air, and an hour or so later, the
guest, gazing horror-stricken from the window of the room, saw a dark
huddled figure, like that of an old decrepit woman, carrying a bundle,
pass across the waning moonlight outside, and vanish.
Perhaps the most interesting legend attached to this magnificent old
castle is the historical tradition that in one of its rooms Duncan was
murdered by Macbeth, "Thane of Glamis," and this Duncan is perchance
the tall bearded ghost in armour who haunts the old square tower,
and on one occasion nearly frightened to death a child who, with
its mother, was on a visit to the castle. The child was asleep in a
dressing-room off its mother's bedroom. She herself was lying awake,
when a cold blast extinguished her light suddenly, but not the
night-light in the dressing-room, from whence, immediately after,
proceeded a shriek. The mother rushed in and found her child awake,
and in an agony of fear, because the tall mailed figure she herself
had seen pass into the dressing-room had come to the side of the cot
and leant over the face of the child. As a matter of fact, tradition
and truth are so mixed up with all the stories connected with
this very ancient fortress-palace, that it is difficult, in fact
impossible, to know what to believe and what to disbelieve.
[Illustration: "WHILE SHE PRAYED THE SPIRIT APPEARED AND SAID, 'TAKE
UP THE CANDLE AND FOLLOW ME.'"]
A more peaceable spirit is the Townshend ghost of Rainham, in Norfolk,
commonly known as the "Brown Lady." She is described as tall and
stately, dressed in a rich brown brocade, with a sort of coif on her
head. The features are clearly defined, but where the eyes should be
are nothing but hollows. She is seen walking about the old mansion
every now and then, though no reason can be discovered to account for
her restlessness. Lord Charles Townshend, on being asked by a lady if
he also believed in the apparition, replied, "I cannot but believe,
for she ushered me into my room last night."
The Lonsdale spirit seems to have been as rowdy in death as it was
during life when it inhabited the body of Jemmy Lowther, well known as
the "bad Lord Lonsdale." For years after his decease the inhabitants
of Lowther Hall and the neighbourhood were kept in a constant state
of excitement by continual disturbances in the house, noises in the
stables, and the galloping across country of Lord Lonsdale's phantom
"coach and six."
The Powys Castle ghost was a much more amiable spirit, and of quite a
superior character to the devil-may-care spirit of Jemmy Lowther. His
object was benevolent, and his manners were well-bred and gracious
when he appeared. His last visit was to a poor pious workwoman, who,
in the absence of the Herberts from Powys Castle, was purposely put by
the servants in the haunted bedroom, a handsomely furnished apartment
with a boarded floor, a big bedstead in one corner, and two sash
windows. A good fire was made up in the room, and a chair and a table
with a large lighted candle on it was placed in front of the fire.
She had just sat down in the chair to read her Bible, when to her
astonishment in walked a gentleman. He wore a gold-laced hat and
waistcoat, with coat and the rest of his attire to correspond. He went
over to one of the sash windows, and putting an elbow on the sill,
rested his face on the palm of his hand. She supposed afterwards
that he stood quietly thus to encourage her to speak, but she was too
frightened. Then he walked out of the room, and the poor woman, rising
from her chair, fell on her knees and began to pray. Whilst praying,
the spirit appeared again, walked round the room, and came close
behind her. He again departed, and again appeared behind her as she
still knelt. She said, "Pray, sir, who are you, and what do you want?"
It lifted its finger and said--
"Take up the candle and follow me, and I will tell you."
She did as she was bid, and followed him into a very small room,
where, tearing up a board, he pointed to an iron box underneath,
and then to a crevice in the wall where lay hidden a key. These he
commanded were to be sent to the Earl of Powys, then in London. This
was done, though history does not relate what the box contained; but
it was known that this poor Welsh spinning woman was provided for
liberally by the Powys family till she died about the beginning of
this century.
Though one does not associate ghosts with such a city of excitement,
life, and renovation as London, yet it does possess several haunted
houses. One belonging to a present-day peer, and situated in Park
Lane, is said to be haunted by fashionable spirits having a dance.
Some people can only hear the buzz of their voices and the swish
of dresses and the tap of feet, while others can see the figures
themselves talking and dancing.
Yes, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in
our philosophy.
[Illustration: LETTING THE FAMILY SKELETONS OUT OF THE CUPBOARD.]
A ROSE AT LAST
BY
CLIFTON BINGHAM
[Illustration]
It was only a rosetree slender
On a dingy window sill,
In the heart of the busy City,
With its mingled good and ill.
And the Angels must have seen it,
Unwilling to let it die,
For it thrived and bore a rose-bud
Under that darksome sky!
A white face watched it daily
With joy in its childish eyes,
As she played alone in the garret
Under the city skies:
It brightened the dingy windows,
Each night as she crept to bed,
Though hungry and loveless and lonely,
"It will soon be a rose," she said.
There at the window one morning,
The bud was a rose so fair,
But the garret was still and silent,
There was no little white face there!
It was smiling in happy slumber,
Its pain and loneliness past,
For the Angels who loved her were saying,
That the bud was a rose at last!
HOW SANDOW MADE ME STRONG
A REMARKABLE PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION.
It was a question of going to South Africa or running the risk of a
short life in England; health dictated the question, and the answer
depended on many things. Someone suggested Sandow's School of Physical
Culture as a compromise; and finally England, backed up by financial
and other reasoning, carried the day.
I was a puny youth, weak of spirit and frail of frame, when I first
visited Sandow's muscle factory in St. James's Street, London,
and said that I had come to be made into a strong and healthy
Englishman--to obtain a fresh lease of life if possible.
Sandow fingered my arms and chest as he might a prize ox, and remarked
that I should make an admirable subject for his purpose; he liked
pulling folks out of their graves. Whereupon I imagined I should be
passed into the gymnasium to swing a dumb-bell for an hour or so,
and be invited to drop in again when I was next that way. But I was
mistaken. Had my object been to enlist in Her Majesty's forces, the
examinations and tests I was subjected to could not have been more
extensive or peculiar. I was sounded, measured, weighed, pounded and
questioned, the results being solemnly entered into a big ledger, as
though it might all be used as evidence against me should the need
ever arise. Weight 120 lbs., chest measurement 32 in., height 5 ft.
6-1/2 in., though the latter is immaterial, as Sandow does not bargain
to make one grow in that direction when nature considers her duty
done.
[Illustration: ON ENTERING SANDOW'S SCHOOL.]
[Illustration: TEN MONTHS AFTER.
(_From Photographs._)]
Though I felt ashamed of the figures myself, they did not seem
to affect my burly interrogators in any way, and the examination
proceeded. Had I indigestion, and did I smoke? I confessed to a little
of either weakness of the flesh. Was there any particular ailment in
the family, and would I take a full breath and blow down this tube?
As I did so, a little clock-like machine ticked merrily away, till it
registered that my pair of lungs--or "one and a decimal," as a blunt
old doctor had once informed me--could contain at full pressure 185
cubic inches of air--a poor record, be it said.
[Illustration: BEING SOUNDED.]
[Illustration: "THE LITTLE MACHINE TICKED MERRILY AWAY."]
[Illustration: HEIGHT AND WEIGHT.]
Next came dumb-bell and weight tests, careful note being made of the
exact number of pounds I could lift with one hand, two hands, hold
at arm's length, and support above my head. The record ran thus:--One
hand lift, 65 lbs.; at arm's length, 18 lbs.; raised from shoulders
(1) 40 lbs., (2) 35 lbs. each. Bar-bell raised above head, 85 lbs. So
the examination ended, and when my photograph had been taken as a
sort of example "before trying," I was free to join the little army of
health-and-muscle seekers whenever I chose.
A very mixed army it was. Stern-visaged men were there going through
the exercises as seriously as if life itself depended on them;
sprightly veterans taking again to regular exercise, so much missed
since they joined the half-pays; middle-aged men making up for the
negligences of earlier days; clerks and students of all kinds going
into strict training in order to be in form for the cricket and
running season; and finally a goodly sprinkling of puny youths working
hard to attain the weight and chest measurement necessary to give
them another chance at Sandhurst or Woolwich, where they had just been
declined "for physical reasons."
The display was not without its humour. A plump stockbroker is a
common and natural enough sight in the city, but he forms a different
spectacle as, minus the glossy hat and black coat of his calling, he
energetically whirls a pair of dumb-bells in the frantic endeavour to
exchange his superfluous avoirdupois for sinew and muscle, especially
when his immediate neighbour, a very lean littérateur, is performing
the same evolutions with the secret hope of putting on flesh.
It would require a keen eye, supported by a good imagination, to
discover any outward visible sign of the "strong man" about the
various instructors of Sandow's school, dressed as they are in
ordinary attire, to say nothing of fashionable collars and the latest
thing in neckties. Any one of them might have strolled in from Bond
Street, mistaking the place for the club, yet any one of them would
think nothing of snatching up a 100 lb. dumb-bell and raising it aloft
with the ease with which most people might perform a similar feat with
an umbrella.
When I presented myself at the gymnasium for my first course of
instruction I was handed a pair of dumb-bells weighing not more than
3 lbs. each. I protested that I had been in the habit of using bells
three times as heavy. It did not matter, I was informed,--lead pencils
would be almost as serviceable, providing I concentrated my whole
attention on each exercise in turn.
It must not be supposed, however, that dumb-bells do not play an
important part in Sandow's system. On the contrary, as will be seen
from the photographs herewith, they figure in numerous exercises, but
their weight is practically immaterial. They usually vary according to
the physical condition of those using them.
Having grasped his "three-pounders," the student is made to stand in
an attitude of ease, the inner side of his arms fronting outwards. His
very first step on the road to muscular development is to alternately
bend each arm at the elbow, bringing the dumb-bell close to the
shoulder. This has to be repeated some twenty or thirty times, to the
measured "One, two, three," of the instructor.
The same thing is then gone through with the arms turned the other
way, so that the knuckles instead of the finger-tips are brought up to
the shoulders. Next the arms are extended outwards in a straight
line, each being bent in turn at the elbow, and the dumb-bell brought
immediately above the shoulder. And here comes the student's first
difficulty; for in extending the arms each time it is necessary
to keep them straight and rigid in order that the muscles may be
benefited by the strain. It is amusing to watch various pairs of arms
gradually drooping as this exercise proceeds.
Altogether the dumb-bells are used in about twenty different
positions, each affecting a different set of muscles. There is the
lunge, for instance, exercising both arms and legs. First standing
at ease, the pupil takes a stride forward and strikes out alternately
with his left and right, as though an adversary awaited the blow.
Some twenty-five or thirty such lunges, however, are calculated to
transform the most bellicose among Sandow's disciples into members of
the Peace Society.
[Illustration: LIFTING 70 LBS. WITH TWO HANDS.]
The wrists are strengthened in this fashion: once more extending the
arms in a line with the shoulders the pupil now holds the dumb-bells
by the ends, instead of in the usual way, and with a circular motion
of the wrists revolves the bells first from right to left, then from
left to right.
[Illustration: THE BAR-BELL TEST--SUPPORTING 85 LBS.]
Next comes what the flippant call the "see-saw" motion. With the
inevitable dumb-bell in each hand the student stands erect; the
see-saw consists of nothing more remarkable than bending the upper
portion of the body from side to side, without moving the lower limbs.
These are cared for in the next exercise. Lying at full length on the
ground, the pupil actually proceeds to kick his legs in the air! Not
particularly graceful, perhaps, but highly beneficial, it is claimed,
to the "hinges" at the knees and hips. What this motion does for the
lower limbs, the next does for the upper part of the body. Lying at
full length on the ground as before, and keeping the legs perfectly
stiff, the student raises his head and shoulders from the ground, and
with a quick movement swings forward until his body is bent almost
double, then returning slowly to the former position. The dumb-bells
are now forsaken for a time. The lesson to be learned is to support
the body on the hands and toes, and to alternately lower and raise it
by respectively bending the elbows and straightening the arms, taking
care not to touch the ground with any part of the body. It looks and
sounds easy enough; so it is, to do it once, but quite another thing
to keep it up in quick succession until the instructor sees fit to cry
"halt!" which is timed, it seems to the student, specially to remind
him of the penultimate straw and the camel's back.
[Illustration: RAISING 40 LBS. WITH ONE HAND.]
Dumb-bells are now resumed, this time attached to stout elastic
strands, these in turn being fixed to the wall. Exercises of much the
same kind as before are gone through, except that the strain on the
muscles is now greater, seeing that almost every movement involves
stretching the rubber bands to their fullest extent, and allowing them
to return to their natural state slowly, not with a snap. The
same principle is applied to the development of the legs and neck,
ingenious devices in the shape of "harness"--forming an interesting
branch of the system--being requisitioned for the purpose. In each
case the elastics have to be stretched as much as possible, the strain
being in turn centred on sets of muscles that could be reached by no
other method.
[Illustration: THE LUNGE.]
If after having gone through all these exercises the pupil should pine
to develop his knowledge of Physiology as well as his frame, he may
learn that this little action affects the latissimus dorsi, that that
tiny movement seeks out the neglected deltoid, that another bend
of the body, insignificant though it may seem, means much to the
pectoralis major, and so forth. But the gentle student usually prefers
not to burden his brain with these things, and in this respect he is
perhaps not unlike the gentle reader. So no more shall be inflicted.
[Illustration: THE FIRST STEP.]