shoulder.—‘Mr Jones, you here! What does it mean?’
Mr Jones rose from his chair and held out his hand. ‘Shake hands,
Frank,’ he said. ‘It means this. I told you you’d have to take
something from me, proud as you were. You’ve taken my daughter, at
anyrate.’
‘But’——
‘Yes; I know. I’m Keene, not Jones. That girl of mine is a romantic,
obstinate child. I’m an old fool, and ought to be ashamed of myself;
but it did me good to find she was going to marry a man who thought she
hadn’t a penny-piece to her name. Shake hands, Frank.’
‘But—here!’ ejaculated Frank.
‘Yes, here. In my house; or rather, in yours and Millicent’s. The
truth is, when we landed in England, the first paper Milly saw held an
advertisement, saying this place was for sale. She made me go the next
day and buy it, stock, lock, and barrel. Now you know all.’
‘O Frank!’ interposed Millicent, ‘forgive me—I had been in England four
months before I wrote to you! Do forgive me, Frank! They were very long
months.’
As Frank gave her a passionate kiss, she supposed herself forgiven. Mr
Keene drew out his cigar-case.
‘Now all’s settled,’ he said, ‘I’ll send and tell your carriage to go
back. You can drive into Clifton this evening and fetch your luggage.’
‘Stop a moment!’ said Frank. ‘Mr Keene, I am too bewildered to say all
I want to; but it must be clearly understood that I am not going to be
a dependent on your bounty.’
‘I always told you, you were absurdly proud,’ growled Mr Keene.
‘I will not. Had I known that you had purchased my father’s estate, I
could not have married Millicent. I would not have let the world call
me a fortune-hunter.’
Mrs Frank Abbot glanced at her father. ‘I told you what he was, papa,’
she said. Then turning to Frank: ‘Will you kindly look at me, sir, and
tell me how I have changed so greatly that people will think I am only
worth marrying for my money?’
To this challenge Frank made no reply, in words. Then he took his
wife’s hand. ‘Millicent,’ he said, ‘shall it be clearly understood that
you are the wife of a poor man—that you will be happy when I ask you to
leave this and come to London with me, while I work at my profession as
before?’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ growled Mr Keene. But Millicent looked into her
husband’s face and whispered: ‘My darling love, your wishes shall be
mine!’
Then Mr Keene went out and sent the carriage away.
It is a great temptation to describe the meeting between Mrs Abbot
and her daughter-in-law. The elder lady’s surprise and joy simply
beggar description. Loving her son as she really did, the reversionary
restoration was as much a satisfaction to her as if her own husband had
been reinstated. The meeting between the two ladies was embarrassing
for both to look forward to; but it went off to perfection. Mrs Abbot,
all smiles and sweetness, embraced her daughter-in-law, and said: ‘My
dear, I told you that under other circumstances we should be great
friends. We shall be so now—shall we not?’ It was a graceful, if not
an unworldly apology; and as Millicent returned her kiss and begged
her to forget what had happened, Mrs Abbot hung round the girl’s neck
a diamond cross, which, being her own personal property, had survived
the wreck; and after this, a peace was established which as yet has not
been broken.
* * * * *
Did Frank Abbot continue to work as hard at his profession as he had
resolved to do? The events above recorded are of comparatively recent
date. So I can say with truth that he is still a working member of the
bar, and is supposed to be making a fair income. As Mr Keene had not
the least intention of allowing his daughter to go empty-handed to a
husband, however quixotic he might be, the young couple have always
been far away from the poverty which one of them was continually
harping upon. The last I heard about them is that Mr Keene, who, since
his daughter’s marriage, has spent most of his time in London, told
Frank roundly, that unless he would bring Millicent back to Chewton,
throw his pride to the winds, and live at the Hall as his forefathers
had lived—acting, if he liked, for conscience’ sake, as bailiff or
manager of the estate—he, Mr Keene, would at once sell the place, and
invest the proceeds in something more profitable than a large house in
which he could not live alone, or acres about which he cared nothing.
Millicent, who thinks Frank looking pale and fagged, and is quite sure
that London air does not suit the baby, seconds her father’s appeals
with eloquent looks; and Frank, who has formed an affectionate regard
for Mr Keene, and who finds that, with such attractions at home,
circuit-going is dreary work, certainly wavers in his determination; so
it is more than likely that one day the bar will lose what might have
been a distinguished ornament to it, and that Chewton Hall will once
more have a proper master and mistress.
ACROBATS.
The following sketch of a certain gymnast’s professional origin and
career may not be without interest to the reader, since it presents
an entire departure from the usually recognised methods of training
athletes—a departure which, though exceptional, is by no means unique.
The performer who furnished me with the narration is one of the best
flying trapezists of the day, and has invented several novel and clever
specialities of a ‘lofty’ character, in which he takes part with his
wife and a female apprentice. Taking the liberty of excising much
collateral, not to say irrelevant, detail, with which the history was
interspersed throughout, I will allow the gymnast to tell his own tale.
‘I was the best gymnast in the school when I was a boy. Horizontal bar,
parallel bars, pole, ladder, rope, swinging-bar—anything that could be
done on the rough bit of a gymnasium that we had in the playground, I
could do. All the coppers I got—and they weren’t many, for my parents
were hard-working people who had enough to do to make both ends meet—I
used to save up until they made a sixpence. Cakes and apples never drew
a halfpenny out of my pocket. Then I used to treat myself to a visit
to whatever circus or theatre gave most tumbling for the money; and
when I got back to school next day, I used to begin to practise all the
new tricks I’d seen the night before. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my
neck at it! As it was, I used to be black and blue and grazed all over
sometimes—got caned for it too, now and then; but nothing stopped me.
Born in me, I suppose. Anyhow, I always liked exercises on the bar a
good deal better than exercises on a slate or copy-book, even if I got
black marks for one and good marks for the other; for I wasn’t so bad
at school-work as you might think, and could show you a writing prize
now that I got over seventy other boys.
‘When I left school, I joined a gymnastic club, and soon took the lead
there too. But then my father died, and mother fell ill. I had to put
my shoulder to the wheel in earnest to get bread for myself and help
her all I could, and I had enough to think of without gymnastics. I was
a shop-boy, but through writing a good hand was promoted to keeping
the books. In a short time I left that, and got a regular clerkship at
a very fair salary. I seemed to be in luck’s way; but before I’d been
in the berth a month, my master failed, and I found myself out of a
situation.
‘They were rough times after that for a long while. Try as I would, I
could get nothing; and at last I started off, and worked my passage
over to America. There I got a job, something between a junior clerk
and a porter, in a merchant’s office in New York.
‘One summer’s evening, I was passing the entrance to one of the minor
entertainment gardens, when a flaming poster with a picture of some
acrobats caught my eye. I hadn’t quite lost my old taste; so, as the
price of admission wasn’t very high, I went in and saw the performance.
Why, thinks I to myself, _I_ used to be able to do better than that in
the old playground at Hoxton! Why shouldn’t I turn a few dollars that
way now? I liked the idea so much, that, going home to my lodgings, I
bought a few yards of rope; and that very night, without ever going to
bed, I fixed up a bit of apparatus among the beams of the attic where
I slept, making the foot-rail of the bedstead do duty for a trapeze
bar. I had lost a lot of the neatness; but all the old tricks came back
one by one before morning; for I practised all that blessed night, and
never slept a wink. Before the week was out, I had an engagement at
that same garden; the salary wasn’t a big one, certainly, but it was
three times what I was getting in the office. In less than a month I
made my first appearance in fleshings and spangles.
‘For a little while I managed to keep on the office-work and this too;
then it got to the chief clerk’s ears, and I was dismissed. “Of course
you were,” says everybody, though I have never been able to see why
exactly. However, it didn’t matter much, for just afterwards I was
wanted for two turns a day instead of one, which more than made up the
lost money.
‘Well, I had several engagements after this at small halls and gardens;
for I wasn’t a big “draw” at that time, and could only do what a score
of other gymnasts were doing in the city; but the style I worked in
gave satisfaction; and I kept on improving on the old tricks and
practising new ones, for my heart and soul was in the business. It
wasn’t all smooth sailing, either; for sometimes I was out of an
engagement for a good while, and began to think it would have been
better to have stuck to the quill-driving. All the spare cash I had
went home to the mother, and—flush or hard up—I still slept in the same
attic, though I had put the bed-rail back in its place.
‘At last I joined a circus and came to England. I learnt fancy riding,
and took a turn at clowning and the rope at times; but the low bar
and single trapeze or rings was what I was wanted for most. You see,
I had been nearly three years regularly at it by that time, and was
beginning to make a mark. We started on a provincial tour, and pitched
for a week at Norwich. I don’t notice the public much; but there was a
girl there that came two or three nights’ running and sat close to the
ring, that somehow struck my fancy. The last night but one, I caught
myself looking round for her, as I sat on the bar before swinging off;
and sure enough, there she was, just alongside the outer upright of my
apparatus. Whether it was that that made me miss my tip or not, I can’t
say, but that night I had a slip—nothing of any consequence; it marked
my knee and shoulder next day; but I was able to finish my performance
as if nothing had happened. In fact, the public would hardly have
noticed it, but for the girl’s screeching out, “Oh, he’s killed!” and
fainting. It made a bit of a fuss; but I liked her for it. Two days
afterwards, when we were on the march at five o’clock in the morning,
there she stood at the door of her father’s cottage, an old farm-place
just out of the town, to see us go by. That’s my wife, sir!
‘Eighteen she was, when she married me, and I was twenty-two. But she
didn’t begin to train till a year later; and six months after that
we got our first double engagement. It was her idea, not mine. She
suggested it. I said it was impossible. She insisted; and it was done.
I get as many pounds weekly now in some places as I did quarter-dollars
at starting. I’ve got a snug little bit of money in the bank, and I’ve
got a snug little place of my own out at Wood Green; and soon, maybe,
we shall give up business, and go in for agency or catering. And it’s
all through her idea and pluck. And am I going to risk her life for the
want of a few yards of safety-netting and the trouble of setting it, to
please a manager or the public either?
‘It was her idea, too, to take an apprentice for the same business, as
she had got on so well herself. So we looked about, not for a young
child, but for a grown girl; and at last we found one of sixteen years
of age, small and half-starved, helping her mother at the wash-tub.
I hope to train a good many more, but I shall always look out for
one that’s been half-starved. The first thing we did was to feed her
up—beefsteaks and porter, strong broth, essence of meat, and eggs
beaten up in port wine. Now, all that would have turned to fat and done
her no good, only I made her take exercise with it. I hung up a pair of
rings about seven feet high in a doorway, and used to keep her drawing
herself up and down by the arms all day long, on and off. We used to
sit in the room to watch her and tell her when to leave off; and my
wife would promise her a new tie or a hat or a pair of earrings as soon
as she could pull up a certain number of times. For the first month,
she used to complain of pains at the back of the shoulder-blades, but a
little embrocation soon eased it. That’s all the work she did for three
months, and by that time she had arms nearly as big as mine! Then we
took her up on the bars with us. She’s been with us three years now,
and won’t be out of her time for another two; and then I shall take her
into the firm as a partner, or engage her at a good salary; for she’s
as strong as a man, and yet light enough for my wife to catch. I have
paid her mother five shillings a week ever since we have had her, and
we have made her presents, besides feeding and clothing her. When she
is perfect in the business we are practising now, I am going to give
her a five-pound note.’
Mrs Gymnast was a graceful, slender woman of exquisite symmetry, some
seven-and-twenty years old. Miss Apprentice, though nineteen, was no
taller than many girls five years her junior, but had the limbs and
muscles of a young giantess.
THE ABANDONMENT OF WIND-POWER.
Sir William Fairbairn, in his well-known book _Mills and Millwork_,
dismisses the subject of windmills in thirteen pages, and much of this
scant notice is occupied with an antiquarian rather than an engineering
inquiry into the history and birthplace of windmills; proving that
even ere he wrote, the ‘Wind’ age had merged and lost itself in its
all-powerful successor the ‘Steam’ age. The gist of the matter is thus
summed up by Sir William: ‘It is more probable that we are indebted
to the Dutch for our improved knowledge of windmills, and wind as a
motive-power; and it is within my own recollection that the whole of
the eastern coasts of England and Scotland were studded with windmills,
and that for a considerable distance into the interior of the country.
Half a century ago, nearly the whole of the grinding, stamping, sawing,
and draining was done by wind in the flat counties; and no one could
enter any of the towns in Northumberland, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or
Norfolk but must have remarked the numerous windmills spreading their
sails to catch the breeze. Such was the state of our windmills sixty
years ago; and nearly the whole of our machinery depended on wind, or
on water where the necessary fall could be secured. These sources of
power have nearly been abandoned in this country, having been replaced
by the all-pervading power of steam. This being the case, wind as a
motive-power may be considered as a thing of the past, and a short
notice will therefore suffice.’ Thus Sir William Fairbairn dismisses
the subject.
The ‘English Windmill Epoch,’ as it may be termed, reached its zenith
between the middle of the last century and the close of the first
quarter of our own. During this period, Andrew Meikle, John Smeaton,
and Sir William Cubitt lived and worked; and to this period belong all
the experiments and literature concerning windmills which we possess;
for since this period, the introduction of steam has resulted in an
almost entire abandonment of wind-power, save in certain cases, to
which we shall presently refer. The advantages undoubtedly possessed
by wind over steam as a prime mover—economy in first cost, very low
working expenses, and great simplicity in construction—are more than
counterbalanced by the uncertainty experienced in its employment.
Cases, however, there now are in which wind-power is employed, and with
appreciable advantage, or it would, as elsewhere, have been superseded.
From Guernsey, a large export trade is carried on in granite, from
quarries situated in the northern and eastern parts of the island.
These quarries, sunk in some places to great depths, are invariably
drained by small four-armed windmills, erected on timber uprights, and
actuating bucket-pumps. Driven by the constant sea and land breezes,
these little mills, dotted about over the landscape, have small
difficulty in draining the quarries of the accumulated rainfall, which,
owing to the comparative absence of springs and streams, is the only
source of flooding. Should a calm render the pumps idle, a few weeks’
accumulation of rain does not hinder the quarrymen; whilst a cessation
of wind for even a week is a very rare occurrence.
Turning to the flat eastern counties of England, the visitor to
Lowestoft, Yarmouth, or Lincoln will find windmills largely employed in
the drainage of the fen districts. The main drain through the fields
is carried between high banks, and is at a higher level than the
fields themselves. The flood-water on the fields is raised into these
drains by large scoop-wheels, actuated by windmills. Here, however,
steam begins to make its appearance, and an occasional tall chimney
marks the presence of a small beam-engine, whose owner wishes to be
independent of Boreas in draining the fields around. The advantages
to be derived from a combination of wind and steam have frequently
been urged, on the ground that a saving of fuel is effected by using
wind-power when possible, steam-power being available in case of calm.
This arrangement, though undoubtedly possessing the advantages claimed
for it, involves a larger outlay of capital, together with augmented
complication in construction, and has in consequence never met with
much favour.
To those who delight to indulge in prophetic engineering speculation,
the future of wind-power in connection with electricity will afford an
ample field. The power developed during storms might be stored in an
accumulator, to be used during calms; by this means eliminating the
element of ‘uncertainty,’ the prime cause of the disfavour into which
wind as a motive-power has fallen. In conclusion, though it is not
unfrequently the custom to declaim against the neglect of wind as a
prime motor, there are, as has been shown, many cases where it can be
and is advantageously employed; and though it is undoubtedly certain
that its more extended use would be accompanied by results of economic
value, it is yet equally certain that a return to wind as a chief prime
mover would be as retrogressive as a return to sailing-vessels, to the
exclusion of our modern steam-driven craft.
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
OLD-FASHIONED FURNITURE.
Quaint ‘bits’ of old-fashioned furniture have for a long time past
been much sought after, and pretty examples are now to be met with in
almost every house of refinement and taste. One occasionally meets
with old-fashioned things which from change of circumstances can no
longer be used for their original purpose. The silver-handled steel
knives and double-pronged or tined forks—which most members of the
present generation have never even seen—were, when not in use, stored
away in a specially made satin-wood or mahogany box, often beautifully
decorated with inlaid marquetrie-work, and in the better examples the
mountings were of chased silver. The interior of the box was apparently
solid, with a separate slit for each knife and fork, which, handle
uppermost, stood upright. Until recently, these beautiful specimens
of the cabinet-work of a bygone age could be purchased for a very few
shillings each. Some one has lately discovered that by removing the
interior false top and adding divisions for paper and envelopes, these
old knife-boxes can easily be transformed into choice and covetable
stationery cabinets; and dealers are now buying them up, and when
transformed, are asking almost as many pounds as they gave shillings.
Another ingenious person—a lady well known in society—has discovered
that the highly polished, old-fashioned double-handled plethoric copper
or brass tea-urn wherewith our great-grandmothers delighted to adorn
the table when their friends assembled to discuss a dish of tea, can
easily be transformed into a noble table-lamp of striking proportions.
The urn proper forms the body; and a paraffine lamp, with its ordinary
glass receptacle for oil, is fitted into the space formerly occupied
by the heater, which, with the lid, is of course discarded. The
projecting spout is likewise banished, and a simple metal boss, with a
corresponding one for uniformity on the other side, takes its place. To
complete, an extra large shade is fitted over an octagon-shaped wire
framework of ordinary construction.
AN ELECTRICAL TRICYCLE.
A very clever and most ingeniously constructed tricycle has lately
been brought forward by Messrs Ayrton and Perry, the great peculiarity
of which consists in the fact that it is driven, not by the feet,
but by electricity, thereby saving all labour. It is described as
an open-fronted machine of the usual pattern, but with its ordinary
driving-gear removed. The driving-wheel is forty-four inches in
diameter, and close to it is a large spur-wheel containing two hundred
and forty-two teeth. The motor is placed beneath the seat, and the
armature spindle carries a spindle of twelve teeth, gearing into the
spur-wheel, by which both motion and speed are regulated. The battery
is composed of Faure, Sellon, Volknar cells, and is so placed as to act
direct upon the spur-wheel, so that there is no loss of power. When
fully charged, the battery is said to contain a store of electricity
equal to what is understood as two horse-power. The engine is entirely
under the control of the rider, and pace can be regulated to a nicety.
Such a machine will be found invaluable to invalids, and persons who
do not care for driving horses or travelling at a very high rate of
speed; and, as neither fire nor water is required, there is no fear of
explosion, smoke, or mess.
QUITS!
Indeed, they have not grieved me sore,
Your faithlessness and your deceit;
The truth is, I was troubled more
How I should make a good retreat:
Another way my heart now tends;
We can cry quits, and be good friends.
I found you far more lovable,
Because your fickleness I saw,
For I myself am changeable,
And like, you know, to like doth draw:
Thus neither needs to make amends;
We can cry quits, and be good friends.
While I was monarch of your heart,
My heart from you did never range;
But from my vassal did I part,
When you your lady-love did change:
No penalty the change attends;
We can cry quits, and be good friends.
Farewell! We’ll meet again some day,
And all our fortunes we’ll relate;
Of love let’s have no more to say,
’Tis clear we’re not each other’s fate.
Our game in pleasant fashion ends;
We can cry quits, and be good friends.
CATHERINE GRANT FURLEY.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._
FOOTNOTES: