be introduced with picturesque advantage. It will be acknowledged that
very often, while the front of a house may look on a well-kept garden,
or form part of the side of a spacious and beautiful square or public
garden, the back may very likely look out on equally spacious but not
equally beautiful or savoury mews. We know it may be contended that
most back-rooms are bedrooms, and only used at night. This is true
enough. But in nine cases out of ten, in houses of this class, there is
a staircase window on the first landing, which, as a rule, looks out on
the back, and is continually calling the attention of those passing up
or down the stairs to the interesting spectacle of an equine toilet,
or some similarly delectable operation. In this case, a window, though
consisting of only two or three tints of rolled cathedral glass, and
leaded in geometric or ornamentally flowing lines, would completely
shut out the offensive prospect, while in no way interfering with
the necessary lighting of the stair, nor the opening or shutting
of the window-frame; and the expense would be scarcely if any more
than glazing the sashes with plate-glass, which, moreover, to look
commonly decent, requires infinitely more frequent cleaning than the
other. This, of course, is almost the simplest form of treatment; but,
according to the length of purse of the householder, the window may
be more or less ornate in its design. The owner’s arms, or monogram;
floral painted devices, heads, or figures representing the four
seasons, field-sports, fables, nursery rhymes, and numberless kindred
subjects, are all most appropriate for delineation, and can be obtained
at far less cost than a doubtful ‘old master,’ or piece of Brummagem
bric-à-brac. A very pretty effect is obtained at night by filling the
sides of a hall-lamp, or any large conspicuous lamp, with painted glass
of design according to the owner’s fancy; the old-fashioned clumsy
window-blinds are now frequently superseded by leaded glass screens,
more or less ornamental in their details; and a great objection to the
use of stationary firescreens hitherto—that while they screen, they
also hide the fire, is removed by the use of screens of glass, leaded
and painted according to the taste and purse of the buyer.
A great and most important consideration in the adoption of stained
glass is the great variety of design of which it is susceptible, its
range of artistic production being so extensive and pecuniarily elastic
as to bring it, in one form or another, within the reach of almost any
one occupying a house; while for cleanliness, durability, and pleasing
effect, whether in the comfortable dwelling of the thriving tradesman,
or adorning the noblest monuments of private munificence or national
philanthropy, it cannot fail to charm the eye by its intrinsic beauty;
while from the artist’s practised hand, the jewels of design shed their
lustre on the illuminated walls.
SILAS MONK.
A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.
One evening—a pitch-dark evening in autumn—a girl stood at one of the
doors in a row of old houses in the neighbourhood of Crutched Friars,
watching. It was difficult to see many yards up or down the street,
for it was only lighted by three widely-separated gas-lamps. Under one
of these lamps, at a corner of the street, there presently appeared
a little old man. He came along slowly, but with a jerky step like a
trot; his head was bent and his shoulders raised; and he seemed to be
rubbing his hands together cheerfully and hugging himself from time to
time, as though his thoughts were of a congratulatory nature.
‘Why, grandfather,’ said the girl, descending into the street as soon
as she caught sight of this figure—‘why, grandfather, how late you are!’
The old man came jogging on, still in his jerky manner, though faster,
at the sound of her voice. ‘Ay, ay!’ said he, shaking out his words,
‘ay, Rachel, my dear. Always late. Don’t you take any notice of that.
It has been so for years—fifty years; ay, more than fifty.’
‘Fifty years, grandfather, is a long time,’ remarked the girl as they
passed in at the doorway together, her arms placed protectingly around
him—‘a very long time.’
‘Ay, Rachel; so it is, my dear,’ continued the old man—‘so it is.’
They entered a small front-room on the ground-floor. An oil-lamp was
burning on the mantel-shelf; it threw a dim light upon bare and dingy
walls, upon an old deal table, two wooden seats without backs, and a
well-worn leathern armchair near the fire. Towards this chair the girl
now led the old man as one might lead a child. Then she began to lay
the cloth for the evening meal. She was a pretty, homely-looking girl
of about eighteen; perhaps a little too pale; and with eyes, though
large and lustrous, somewhat sad and weary for one so young. But as she
busied herself about the room preparing the supper, her eyes gradually
brightened; and her face, growing more animated, gained colour, as
though to match the better with her red lips.
The old man, crouching in his armchair before the fire, took no notice
of the girl. His look had become deeply thoughtful, and he seemed to be
gaining a year in age with every minute that was passing. The wrinkles
increased, and covered his face like the intersecting lines in cobwebs;
the white eyebrows drooped thick as a fringe, and meeting over the
brow, seemed to be helping to hide some secret, vaguely expressed in
the small gray eyes. His head was bald, except at the sides, where
scanty locks of snowy white hair hung about his neck. His long lean
fingers were occasionally spread out upon his knees, though sometimes
the hands grew restless when an incoherent word escaped his lips. The
workings of the mind indeed were expressed in the nervously shaped
figure as much as in the face. There were moments when the fingers
clawed and clutched perplexedly; then there came into the eyes a look
of avarice, and the whole form would seem busily engaged in solving
mysterious problems. There was something almost repellent in the
workings of the mind and body of this strange old man.
‘Come, grandfather!’ cried the girl, when the meal was presently
spread. ‘The supper is ready now; and I hope,’ she added, assisting him
to a place at the table—‘I hope you have a better appetite than usual.’
She spoke in a cheerful tone, though looking doubtfully the while at
what she had spread on the board. There was a small piece of cheese,
part of a loaf, and a stone pitcher filled with water—nothing more.
The old man eyed the food keenly. ‘No, Rachel, no,’ said he; ‘not much
appetite, my dear.’
The girl sighed, and took her place opposite to the old man. ‘I wish,’
said she, ‘that I could provide something more tempting. You must be
almost famished, after all these hours of work. But’——
‘Eh?’
‘But we cannot afford it. Can we?’
‘No, my dear, no,’ said the old man, very shaky in voice; ‘we can
hardly afford what we have.’
Rachel cut her grandfather a slice of bread.
‘Too much, my dear!’ cried he, with a wave of his hand—‘too much! I’ve
no appetite at all.’
The girl divided the bread, a painful look passing over her face. The
old man, although there was a ravenous glance in his eyes strangely
contradictory to his words, began to eat his bread slowly.
Presently the girl, as though expressing her thought impulsively,
cried: ‘Grandfather! why are we so poor?’
The old man, who was munching his crust, and staring abstractedly at
the morsel of cheese, looked up with bewilderment at Rachel.
‘I cannot understand why,’ she continued, forcing out the words—‘why we
are so very, very poor! I cannot understand why such a wealthy House as
Armytage and Company, where you have been a clerk for more than fifty
years, should pay you such a small salary.’
‘Small, Rachel?’ asked her grandfather. ‘Fifteen shillings a week,
small?’
‘Well, it does seem so to me,’ the girl replied in a modest tone.
The old man rubbed his knees nervously and bent his head, and deep
furrows gathered on his brow. ‘Small, eh? Fifteen shillings a week,
small? Why, Rachel, you talk as though you knew nothing of this
hard-working world. How many clerks are there in this old city who
would go down on their knees and thank Armytage and Company for fifteen
shillings a week!’
‘Many—very many,’ said the girl sorrowfully. ‘I know that too well.
But, grandfather, not one like you—not one who has served a great House
for more than fifty years.’ She placed her hand upon the long lean hand
of her grandfather. ‘No,’ she continued; ‘not so long as you have.
And,’ she added, ‘surely not so faithfully? The House of Armytage and
Company—I have often heard you say—place every confidence in you as
their head-cashier. Thousands and thousands of pounds in the course of
the year pass through your hands: piles of bank-notes, bags and bags of
bright sovereigns, have been paid by you into the bank’——
‘Ay, ay!’ cried the old man, looking straight before him, as though at
a vision—‘ay, ay! Bright sovereigns—bags and bags of them—bags and bags
of bright sovereigns!—ah! how they shine!’ While speaking, he rose from
his seat, rubbing his hands slowly together and hugging himself, as he
had done on his way through the dark street. He began to pace the room,
still staring at the vision, and muttering: ‘Ay, ay! how they shine!’
Rachel, watching him with a wondering expression, said in a low
voice, as if speaking aloud her thoughts rather than addressing her
grandfather: ‘What a blessing, if only some of those shining sovereigns
were ours!’
The old man stopped suddenly, staggering as though he had received a
blow, and looked fixedly at the girl. ‘What can have put that idea into
your head?’
Rachel hung her pretty head as she replied: ‘I want them, grandfather,
for you! I want to see you placed at your ease.’
The old man was silent. His eyes remained for a moment bent upon the
girl’s face; then he sat down before the fire, and gradually seemed to
fall back into his thoughtful mood, his face wrinkling more deeply, and
the nervous movements of his hands answering to the constant plodding
of his brain.
Rachel now rose from her seat to clear the table, moving silently
about the room. When she had finished, she seated herself at her
grandfather’s feet, upon the threadbare patch of carpet before the
hearth, and raising her eyes to his face, she said: ‘You are not angry
with me, grandfather, for speaking my mind?’
The old man placed his hand tenderly upon the girl’s head. ‘No, my
child—no. There is nothing in your words to make me angry. But you
know little of the world. You think that we are poor. You do not know,
Rachel, what poverty is. Does,’ he added, with a sudden glance at the
girl’s face—‘does starvation threaten us?’
‘Why, no, grandfather.’
‘Is there any danger,’ he demanded, ‘that we shall be turned out of our
old home?’
‘None, grandfather, that I know of.’
‘Then, my dear, do not let us say that we are poor. It sounds as though
we were in sight of the workhouse; and that, you know,’ he concluded,
‘that is not true: no, no—not true.’
These words seemed to pacify the girl; and the two remained silent for
a while. Rachel retained her place at the old man’s feet, her head
drooping on his knee, his hand laid protectingly around her shoulder.
‘You are tired, Rachel,’ said the old man presently, noticing that her
eyes were half-closed with sleep. ‘Go, my dear, get to bed. I shall
find my way to my room soon. Don’t mind me.’
‘Shall you stay up, grandfather?’ asked Rachel, looking at him with
surprise.
‘A little while, Rachel—a little while.’
The girl lingered, and looked reluctantly around the room. ‘Are you
sure you would not like me to stay with you?’
‘Quite sure, my dear.—Good-night.’
The girl kissed her grandfather. Deep affection was expressed in her
whole demeanour as she bent over him to say good-night. Then she placed
a very ancient-looking candlestick on the table and left the room.
When she was gone, a striking change came over the old man—his face
became more animated; he was younger in look and manner. Presently, he
rose from his seat with surprising ease for one so old. He stood for a
moment in the middle of the room, leaning forward and listening, with
keenness and cunning expressed in his eyes. There was not a sound. The
street outside, little frequented even during daylight, was silent.
The old man lit the candle, blew out the lamp, and went up the old
staircase noiselessly. On one side of the landing above there were two
rooms—the first the bedchamber of the grandfather, the second that of
the girl. Reaching the landing, he entered his room and closed the door
very cautiously, and always listening.
The room was grotesquely furnished. In one corner was a large bed, with
four black, bare, oaken posts, with spikes, nearly touching the low
ceiling. The bed-coverings were neat and clean; and beside the bed was
a strip of carpet. But here all appearance of comfort began and ended.
The contrast gave to the rest of the room a dreary aspect: the sombre
walls, the patched-up window-panes, the uneven floor, suggested nothing
beyond abject poverty and decay.
Still in a listening attitude, and frequently glancing keenly about,
as though the fear of being taken by surprise amounted almost to
terror, the old man placed the candle on the drawers, and taking a
bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a cupboard in the wall and took
out sundry articles. Firstly, a thick long overcoat, into which he
disappeared, leaving only his head visible; secondly, a large fur-cap,
which he drew down to his eyebrows and over his ears; thirdly, he
brought forth a dark-lantern; this he carefully trimmed, lighted, and
closed. These strange proceedings completed, he threw the bedclothes,
with evident intention, into some disorder, put out the candle, and
left the room. For a moment he stood on the landing, listening at his
grand-daughter’s half-open door. It was dark within her room, and a
soft regular breathing, as from one who sleeps, fell upon the old
man’s ear. Apparently satisfied, he nodded his head slowly; and then
he began to descend the dark staircase. Step by step he crept down,
casting at intervals a trembling ray of light before him from the
lantern which he held in his shaky hand. When he reached the passage,
he opened the front-door and went into the night, closing the portal
without a sound. As he had come, when his grand-daughter stood waiting
for him on the doorstep, so he went, hugging himself, and moving with
a jerky trot along the silent, lonely way, under the dim lamps fixed
in the walls over his head. So he went, like a mysterious, restless
shadow. Where? The old city clocks are striking midnight; they awaken
echoes in tranquil courts and alleys; their droning tones die out, and
break forth again upon the night, as though demanding in their deep
monotonous voices—‘Where?’
* * * * *
When Rachel arose at an early hour on the following morning, her pretty
face expressed no surprise when she found that her grandfather was up
and away without awakening her. The same thing had occurred so often
in her young life, that although she felt regret at not seeing him at
the breakfast-table, she took for granted that the important affairs
of the great firm of Armytage and Company had called him away to the
counting-house; so she made herself as happy and contented as might
be under the circumstances. She lit the fire, breakfasted, and then
busied herself about the old house until towards noon, when she sat
down by the window in the sitting-room with her work, looking out upon
the dismal row. A dismal place, even upon a bright autumn morning.
The row faced a plot of waste ground. On this plot there had once
stood, in all probability, a row of houses similar to the row in which
Rachel and her grandfather lived; but nothing now remained except the
foundations of houses, filled with rubbish of every description in the
midst of broken bricks. In the centre of the place there was planted a
wooden beam with a crossbar, like a gibbet, from which was suspended a
lantern, broken and covered with dust. Whether this lantern had ever
been lighted, may be doubtful; but that some one had placed it there
with the intention of warning people who had some regard for their
shins against trespassing after dark, and had afterwards forgotten to
light it, is the probable explanation of the matter. Be this as it may,
Rachel sat regarding this scarecrow-looking lamp dreamily, as she had
often done, without being conscious that it was there, with the piles
of dark houses in the background, when the figure and, more especially,
the handsome face of a young man on the opposite side of the street,
somehow got in front of the lantern and blotted it out.
As Rachel’s eyes met the eyes of the young man, a smile of recognition
crossed the girl’s face. She threw open the window. ‘Good-morning, Mr
Tiltcroft.’
To which the young man answered, as he stepped across the road:
‘Good-morning, Miss Rachel.’
‘Have you come from the counting-house?’
‘Yes; I’m on my “rounds,” you know, as usual,’ replied the young man;
‘and happening by mere accident to be passing this way on matters of
business for Armytage and Company, I thought it would scarcely be
polite to go by the house of Silas Monk without inquiring after the
health of Miss Monk, his grand-daughter.’
‘You are very kind. Won’t you come in?’
The young man willingly assented. The girl opened the front-door, and
they went in together, and sat down side by side near the fire.
‘You have always been such a kind friend to my grandfather and to me,
Walter,’ said the girl, ‘that although it may seem strange to you that
I should put the question I am going to ask, still I am sure you will
believe I have a good reason for doing so. Tell me, if you can, why
it is that my grandfather, who has served the House of Armytage and
Company so many years—so many, many years,’ she repeated with emphasis,
‘and so faithfully too, should receive so paltry a salary? Can you
explain it?’
The young man looked up with some surprise expressed in his frank eyes.
‘Paltry, Rachel?’ asked he. ‘I call it princely!’
A look of disappointment, even of regret, came into the girl’s face.
‘That is what grandfather says. He talks as though he thought it
princely too. He always reminds me, when I mention the subject, that
there are hundreds of poor clerks in this old city of London who would
be only too glad if they could make sure of a like remuneration.’
‘So _I_ should think,’ cried the young man, laughing. ‘Why, Rachel, if
I had a salary half as large as your grandfather, I’d ask you to marry
me to-morrow!’
‘Be serious, please.’
‘So I am serious! What astonishes me is, that Silas Monk, with the fine
salary—in my opinion, very fine salary—which he draws from Armytage
and Company, should live in a back street like this. It’s downright
incomprehensible!’
‘What can you mean?’ The girl uttered the words in a hurried voice, as
though a sudden thought had crossed her mind. She placed her hand upon
Walter’s arm and said: ‘Don’t speak!’
What troubled her was the discovery that her grandfather had deceived
her. There was no truth in what he had led her to believe about their
intense poverty. They were perhaps rich, and had been for years, while
she had remained in ignorance of the fact. What was his object in
concealing this from her? She could not doubt that it was a good one.
He knew the world and all the horrors of poverty; how often he had
spoken of that! He wished to leave her in a position of independence;
and doubtless he had the intention of telling her this secret as an
agreeable surprise.
‘Walter,’ said she, looking up into the youth’s face after this pause,
‘you must think me strangely discontented to speak as I have just done
of Armytage and Company. I value my grandfather’s services to the firm
perhaps far too high. But he was a clerk in the House before the oldest
living partner was born. No salary, not even the offer of a share in
the business, would seem to me more than he merits.’
‘Exactly what we all say in the office,’ replied Walter. ‘But then, you
know, five hundred a year is not so bad. I shall think myself lucky if
I ever get within two hundred of it—I shall indeed.’
Could she be dreaming? Five hundred pounds a year! Ever since her
earliest childhood, she had implicitly believed that fifteen shillings
a week was the amount her grandfather earned—not a farthing more.
Rachel rose from her seat and went to the window. Her perplexity was
too great to allow her, without betraying it, to utter a word. Yet
she wished to speak; she wanted to question Walter in a hundred ways.
There were perhaps other mysteries—at least so she began to think—which
he might assist her to solve. Calming herself as best she could, she
turned to him, and said: ‘Can you stay a moment longer? There is
something I should like to know about my grandfather.’
‘There are many things, Rachel, that I should like to know,’ said the
young man, laughing. ‘Many things that most of us at the office would
like to know about the dear, eccentric, old fellow!—Well, Rachel, what
is it?’
The girl, hesitating a moment, replied: ‘One thing puzzles me
greatly—why is grandfather kept so very late every evening at the
office?’
Walter Tiltcroft looked round quickly. ‘What do you call late, Rachel?’
‘Ten o’clock, eleven, sometimes midnight.’
‘No one remains after six.’
‘No one?’ asked the girl—‘not even grandfather?’
‘That,’ replied the young man, ‘no one knows. He is always the last. He
locks up the place. He is First Lord of the Treasury. He looks after
the cash: he stays to see that all is safe in the strong-room. That has
been his office for years. He is, some of them think, getting too old
for the post. But that’s a matter for the partners to settle. He is
still hale and hearty. There is, therefore, no reason why he should be
superseded—at least, none that I can see.’
‘But surely, Walter, the mere matter of locking up the strong-room
cannot occupy grandfather from six o’clock until even ten, much, less
until midnight.’
‘That’s the mystery,’ said the young man thoughtfully.
Rachel clasped her hands and turned her pale face towards Walter. ‘What
you tell me, makes me very anxious,’ said she. ‘Indeed, I know not why,
but I begin to be seriously alarmed. What can all this mean?’
‘What, indeed? That’s the mystery,’ repeated the young man, in a still
more meditative tone.
‘Then again, Walter, I cannot understand why grandfather leaves home
for the counting-house, as he tells me, at five o’clock in the morning.
Can that be necessary?’
‘Oh, no, no! The hours are from nine till six,’ cried Walter. ‘But at
what hour Silas Monk arrives, no one knows, or ever did know. We always
find him seated at his desk in the morning when we come, just as we
leave him there when we go in the evening.—Do you know, Rachel,’ added
Walter, ‘if I was ignorant of the fact that he had his home and this
little housekeeper, I should be disposed to agree with the fellows at
the office who declare Silas Monk haunts the counting-house all night
long.’
Rachel started. These words, uttered by the young man half in jest,
brought thoughts into the girl’s head which had never entered there
before.
‘Good-bye, Rachel,’ said Walter. ‘Armytage and Company will be
wondering what has become of me.’
The lovers went together to the front-door, where Walter hastily took
his leave. He looked back, however, more than once, as he went down the
street, and saw Rachel standing on the doorstep watching him. So, when
he reached the corner, he waved his hand to her, and then plunged into
the busy thoroughfare.
SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN SHETLAND.
BY A SHETLANDER.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART I.
There are but two species of seal permanently resident on our
coasts—the Common Seal (_Phoca vitulina_) and the Great Seal (_Phoca
barbata_). The Greenland seal has occasionally been seen in Shetland,
and even shot; but these were only stragglers, not improbably floated
far southward on small icebergs or floes of ice from the Arctic
regions. The two species named, the common and the great seal, are
very much alike in appearance, and not easily distinguished by a
casual observer; but a Shetlander who has frequent, if not constant,
opportunities of seeing them, is never at a loss to recognise them.
In many respects, especially in their habits, they are distinguished
by well-marked characteristics. The common seal is called in
Shetland _Tang-fish_—that is, shore or bay seal; and the great
seal is vernacularly the _Haff-fish_, or ocean seal. The male and
female of both species are distinguished by the prefix ‘Bull’ and
‘She’—_Bull-fish_, _She-fish_.