[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 26.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]
OUR HEALTH.
BY DR ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E.
III. SOME FOOD-DANGERS, AND HOW TO AVOID THEM.
In connection with the subject of food and health, an important topic
naturally intervenes in the course of such discussion, in the shape
of the relation which impure foods bear to the production of illness
and disease. Pure air and pure water are required by natural and
common consent as necessities of existence; but the purity of the food
we consume is no less a paramount condition of physical well-being.
Food-impurities may be ranked under diverse heads. Adulteration
of foods is thus a common cause of illness. The food, rendered of
poor quality, does not contain the necessary amount of nutritious
material; or it may impart disease from its being impregnated with
matters foreign to its composition, and which have been added thereto
for purposes of unfair trade-profit. For example, when one hears
of alum and sulphate of copper being added to bread, it is evident
that a serious form of adulteration is thus practised; while equally
reprehensible modes of procedure are known to be in vogue when flour is
treated so as to yield more than its legitimate quantity of bread; when
rice, potatoes, and other starchy matters are added to the bread in the
course of manufacture; or when flour of damaged or inferior quality
is used. Similarly, when milk is adulterated with water, treacle,
turmeric, and so forth, a cause of ill-health is clearly discovered. If
tea be ‘faced’ with black-lead, or with Prussian-blue, turmeric, and
China clay, there can be no question of the fraudulent and dangerous
nature of such a practice; and when we read of preserved green peas
being largely adulterated with sulphate of copper, and that a one-pound
tin of green peas has been found to contain two and a half grains of
this poisonous compound, it becomes evident that legislation directed
against this worst of frauds—food-adulteration—is both necessary and
highly requisite as an active feature of social law.
Into questions connected with the adulteration of food, we need not
enter. Such topics necessarily belong to the sphere of the analytical
chemist and of the sanitary inspector. Where adulteration is suspected,
the wisest course for the public to pursue is carefully to note the
place and date of purchase of the suspected article—full evidence on
this head is necessary—and to supply the sanitary authorities of the
town or district with a sample of the substance in question. This
clue will be followed up independently by the authorities; and if
adulteration be present, means will be taken to substantiate the charge
and to prosecute offenders. There should be no leniency shown where
cases of food-adulteration can be satisfactorily proved. Such practices
form the worst of all frauds; they involve not merely commercial
dishonesty, but include fraud against the health and well-being of the
community and nation at large.
Other forms of food-impurity are well known, and demand attention
from the public; inasmuch as, by the exercise of ordinary knowledge,
many of these latter dangers to health may be avoided. Of impurities
in water, we shall treat hereafter; hence nothing need be said at
present regarding this class of food-dangers. Our milk-supply and
our meat-supply, however, are matters over which every householder
may and should exercise supervision. Special dangers attach, for
example, to the incautious treatment of milk. If milk is suspected to
be adulterated, or of poor quality, the determination of the error or
fraud is a matter of scientific examination; and with regard to the
detection of milk-dangers, arising from disease-contagion, the same
remark holds good. It is indeed unfortunate that the first information
we usually receive regarding a milk-supply which is thoroughly impure
or hurtful, is derived from the effects of such diseased matter on
the human frame. In this case, we are unfortunately able only to
prevent the spread of an epidemic of disease—the prevention of the
epidemic itself is impossible, save, indeed, by the vigilance of the
dairyman or farmer in keeping the milk he sells free from all source
of contamination. Epidemics of typhoid fever, for instance, are, as
a rule, only made known by the occurrence of a series of cases in a
given district. On being traced out, these cases are usually found to
have been supplied with milk from one and the same source. When the
surroundings of the dairy or farm are inspected, sewage-contamination
is usually found. Leakage of drains into a water-supply is a common
occurrence; and as this infected water is used in cleansing the
milk-vessels, the origin of the epidemic is clearly enough accounted
for. In some cases, dairies have been found to be constructed in a
thoroughly insanitary manner, and cleanliness—the first condition
where milk is concerned—is by no means always observed. The remedy for
these errors and negligences in connection with this all-important
article of diet, lies in one direction only—namely, a system of rigid
and continuous dairy inspection. Such inspection is never complained
of by those tradesmen who take a pride in their occupation, and who
endeavour, by ordinary attention to business, to secure the purity of
the milk they sell. It might be added also, that if other articles
of food are duly liable to official examination, and if the articles
sold by grocer and butcher are duly supervised and examined, there is
no reason why the premises of the dairyman should not be similarly
inspected. We do not, as a rule, contract serious illness from impure
coffee, or even from a poor quality of butcher-meat; but a dirty dairy
and an infected milk-supply may, in a single day, sow the germs of a
fever which may prostrate a village or community, and entail all the
misery and hardship which serious illness inevitably carries in its
train.
The domestic care of milk is a second topic to which the attention of
the householder should be directed. It cannot be too clearly borne in
mind that milk, of all fluids, is singularly apt to absorb deleterious
matters. Sewage-emanations and other gases, paint, metallic matters,
&c., are all readily taken up by milk. Hence the absolute necessity
for seeing that when milk is received into our homes, it is stored in
a safe and sanitary position. Milk should never be stored in metallic
vessels in the first place; and it should not be kept in cupboards or
other receptacles which are situated in the neighbourhood of sinks,
closets, or open drains. Too frequently, such carelessness in the
home-treatment of the milk-supply leads to illness, which is all the
more serious, because its origin is unsuspected.
With regard to the liability of milk, taken from cows suffering from
various diseases, to produce illness in man, many and varied opinions
exist. A general rule, and one in the observance of which great safety
exists, is, that milk from an animal in any way affected with disease
should never be sold to the public. Where uncertainty exists, it is a
matter of sheer common-sense to err on the safe side, and to incur no
risk whatever. It is only fair to add, that milk from cows suffering
from ‘foot-and-mouth’ disease has been consumed in many cases without
injury resulting. But opposed to this fact, we find cases in which
the use of such milk has been followed by throat-ailments and other
troubles in man. The milk of over-driven cows—‘heated milk,’ as it is
called—has been known to produce colic and diarrhœa in children. It
is also probable that while some persons in robust health may escape,
others are liable to be affected by milk taken from diseased animals.
Pigs to which the milk of cows, ill with ‘foot-and-mouth’ disease,
has been given, are seized with that disease in a few hours. The safe
rule, therefore, appears to be that already mentioned. If a cow is
affected with any disorder or disease, the milk of the animal should
not be consumed by man. Only by attention to this rule can outbreaks of
disease in man be avoided, and the public safety fully secured.
The flesh of animals is liable to acquire under certain conditions
diseased properties. Hence, it is necessary that we should be on our
guard against such sources of illness. Thus, certain fevers to which
pigs, sheep, and cattle are subject render their flesh unfit for human
food; and there are certain parasites inhabiting the flesh of fish
which may also be productive of disease when the meat in question has
been eaten by man.
Good meat in a fresh state should be firm and elastic to the touch.
The characteristic odour of fresh meat should be present, and the
meat-tissue should be dry, or at the most merely moist. The appearance
of good meat is marbled, and its action on blue litmus-paper is
acid—that is, it turns the blue paper to a red colour. Bad meat, on the
other hand, is usually extremely moist, or even wet; it has a sodden
feel, and the presence of dark spots in the fat is a suspicious sign.
The marrow of the bones, instead of being light red in colour, as in
fresh meat, is brown-tinted, and often shows black spots. Tested by
litmus-paper, bad meat is either neutral or alkaline, and turns red
litmus-paper to blue, or does not alter either red or blue test papers.
The odour of bad meat is highly distinctive; and its colour, as a rule,
is suspiciously dark.
Regarding those animal-diseases which are believed to unfit the flesh
for human use, considerable diversity of opinion exists. For example,
the flesh of animals suffering from _pleuro-pneumonia_ is regarded,
almost universally, as unfit for consumption; although opinions exist
which regard such flesh as harmless. Here, as in the case of milk,
already alluded to, it is probable diversity of opinion arises from the
different conditions under which the results of eating such flesh have
been studied. In some cases, it is true, no evil results have accrued
from this practice; Loiset showing that during nineteen years, at least
eighteen thousand oxen suffering from pleuro-pneumonia were killed and
used in Lyons, as food, without any known evil results. But it should
be remembered that the disease has its advanced as well as its initial
stages; and in any case the opinions expressed with regard to the
harmless character of the flesh, can only apply to cases in which the
animals have been killed in an early phase of the disorder. The disease
known as ‘braxy’ in sheep presents a similar conflict of opinions. Over
fifty per cent. of young sheep in Scotland are stated by Mr Cowan in
his Essay (1863) to perish from this disease. The disorder is a fever,
attended by very characteristic symptoms; but ‘braxy mutton’ is eaten
nevertheless by Scottish shepherds with impunity—although an important
precaution is observed in this case by steeping the mutton in brine for
six or eight weeks, and then drying it. The chief danger which appears
to arise in man from the use of diseased meat is the development of
blood-disorders and of blood-poisoning. ‘Carbuncular disease’ has
increased in Scotland since 1842, when pleuro-pneumonia first appeared;
and this affection has apparently increased since lung-diseases in
animals have become common. On the whole, then, it may be urged that
even with opinions of weight which allege the harmless character,
in certain cases, of the flesh of diseased animals, there are risks
involved which make the rule, that meat under such circumstances should
be rejected, a highly safe and commendable practice both for public and
trade attention.
In the case of the _parasites_ which may affect meat under certain
circumstances, there is fortunately no diversity of opinion to be
encountered. The question of ‘braxy mutton’ may be debatable; in that
of meat infested with parasites, no argument is permissible. All
parasitic animals are liable to induce disease of more or less serious
character in man; hence, if meat can be proved to be so infested, it
should be summarily rejected.
The most common parasites which man is liable to acquire from flesh of
various kinds are certainly _tapeworms_, which have been frequently
described, and the dangers from which are well known. More serious in
its nature is the _Trichina spiralis_, a minute worm, found chiefly in
the muscles of the pig. This worm, if eaten by man with pork, develops
with great rapidity within the human digestive system, and produces
enormous numbers of young, which, boring their way through the tissues
to the muscles of the patient, cause serious and often fatal illness.
Once in the muscles, no further change ensues to the worms, which
simply degenerate into mere specks of lime. It is this _trichina_
which produces the disease known as _trichinosis_. Fatal epidemics of
this disease are not uncommon on the continent, especially where the
unsanitary practice of eating uncooked or dried sausages is greatly in
vogue.
Regarding the prevention of the diseases caused by parasites, one
stringent rule should be invariably kept in mind—namely, that all
flesh-meat should be _thoroughly cooked_ before it is consumed. The
practice of eating underdone meat and smoked provisions is attended
with great danger. A degree of heat sufficient to cook meat thoroughly,
may, as a rule, be trusted to destroy parasitic life which the flesh
may contain—although, of course, no one would sanction the employment
as food of any meat known to be parasitically infested. To this
necessary precaution may be added the advice, that drinking-water
should never be taken from ponds, lakes, canals, or rivers in which
vegetable matter grows freely, as such water is liable to contain
parasitic germs; and all vegetables used for food, and especially
those used raw—as in the case of salads—should be thoroughly washed
before use. Our dogs being liable to harbour certain forms of internal
parasites highly injurious to man, should also have their health and
feeding inspected and supervised. And it may be lastly mentioned, by
way of encouragement in sanitary reform, and in the care and selection
of our flesh-foods, that as far back as the reign of Henry III. the
desirability of securing meat free from parasites was clearly known.
In the reign of that monarch, butchers who were convicted of selling
‘measly pork’ were sentenced to exposure in the pillory as a punishment
for their misdeeds.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER XXXV.—THE MAID WAS IN THE GARDEN.
Madge was glad that it was in her power to comfort Philip, most glad,
because, in spite of the relief which he found in her presence, a vague
fear was beginning to creep into her mind that somehow this power was
slowly weakening. Was it his fault or hers? Was it the knowledge that
the confidence which they had desired to keep perfect between them
was no longer perfect? Was it the knowledge that she had accepted a
secret which could not be shared with him that, disturbing her mind,
suggested changes in him which had no existence? Maybe, maybe, and yet
... relieved as he had been for a little while, there was no mistake,
there was no mistake about the weary look in his eyes when he was going
away, or about his nervously lingering manner of saying ‘Good-night,’
as if he were afraid to leave her, lest the bogeys which had arisen in
his path should seize upon him the moment he should be alone.
She had many bitter reflections that night before she went to sleep:
first, about the position in which she was placed against her will; and
next about the customs which allowed a woman so few opportunities to
give practical assistance to the man she loved. If he had been only a
labourer and she a washerwoman, then she could have been of some real
value to him. As it was, she must stay at home, await his coming when
the struggle was over, give him sympathy when he was in difficulty, and
nurse him when he was sick. That was all. She wanted to be by his side
in the heat of the struggle, helping him with hands and head as well as
heart. She wished that his enterprise had assumed some other form than
its present one, so that she might have had a full share in the actual
work of it. To her it was absurd that, because she wore petticoats and
happened to be above the necessity to earn a living, she should be
excluded from his office, or go to it under the penalty of bringing
ridicule upon him. She knew how many times in those weary chambers, and
in that weary office during this period of worry and disappointment, he
must long for her to cheer and steady him as only she could do.
As for Wrentham, she had not much faith in him, although, having no
specific charge to make against him, and aware of Philip’s confidence
in him, she remained silent. She could only have said: ‘I do not
like him;’ and Philip would have laughed at her, or chid her for
being ungracious to his friend. She had not forgiven Wrentham for the
accident with the horse; and she was not yet satisfied about it, for
she could not forget what Uncle Dick had said in his passion.
‘If I wanted to kill anybody, do you know what I’d do?—that is,
supposing I could go about it in cold blood. Well, I’d keep a
mettlesome mare in the stable for three or four days, feed her high,
and then ask the man I wanted to hurt to take a ride on her. Five
hundred to one but he’d come back in a worse plight than Philip did.
And that’s what I’d have said the man was trying on, if they hadn’t
been such close friends.’
Uncle Dick did not repeat this angry exclamation; but Madge could not
forget it, and the remembrance of it made her this night the more
discontented that she could not be always with Philip during the ordeal
through which he was passing.
However, there was one way in which she might render him practical
assistance; that was, by setting Caleb Kersey’s mind at ease, and so
enabling him to serve his master with a light heart, which is always a
brave one. She had delayed speaking to Sam Culver until she could tell
him that Caleb was not only working steadily but was successful, and
could offer Pansy a comfortable home. She would not wait any longer:
she would speak to them both in the morning. That thought helped her to
sleep. For the time, the more serious business which she had to do with
Mr Hadleigh held only a distant place in her mind.
* * * * *
Caleb had not been making progress in his wooing, and when he became
aware of that fact, he grew discontented with the nature of things in
general and especially with himself. The discontent with the condition
of his fellow-labourers which had earned for him an ill repute amongst
the farmers, had some grains of reason in it. There was no doubt that
the majority of the labourers had large families and scant fare; that
their cottages were in many instances examples of the deplorable state
of ruin into which roof and walls may fall and still be reckoned fit
for human habitation; whilst in harvest-time, when there was an influx
of labouring men, women, and children from the large towns and from
Ireland, the lodging arrangements were disreputable. But in the present
case, he could discover no reason to justify his discontent, and that
made him feel bad.
He had never been a regular churchgoer, and for some time he had
ceased going altogether; but lately he had become so punctual in his
attendance, that the beadle-sexton, the clerk, with old Jerry and young
Jerry Mogridge, had held more than one consultation on the subject in
the taproom of the _Cherry Tree_. They shook their heads very wisely,
and thought that there must be something wrong about this sudden
conversion. But the vicar, who had as quick an eye for every face in
his congregation as the thorough shepherd has for every sheep in his
flock, was pleased, and concluded that there was some good spirit at
work in the Agitator’s mind. He would not speak to him yet. He knew how
easily a hesitating sheep may be frightened away by over-zeal on the
part of the shepherd. He would wait until the man felt quite at his
ease.
So, in a distant corner of the church, Caleb sat Sunday after Sunday,
his eyes fixed on the back of Pansy’s hat, and brightening when any of
her movements enabled him to catch a glimpse of her face. At first he
merely dawdled along the road in the wake of Pansy and her father on
their way home, until they entered the gates of Ringsford. There it
was Sam’s custom to halt and gossip with the gatekeeper; whilst Pansy
hastened home by a bypath through the trees, in order to have dinner
ready for her father. Then Caleb, by hurrying to the home-field and
crossing it, would catch another glimpse of her before she entered the
cottage.
He was ashamed of dogging their steps in this fashion, and could
not help himself. Several times he made up his mind to speak to the
gardener, and find some excuse for walking along with them; but he
could not yet muster courage to grasp so much joy, although it was well
within his reach. One bright day, however, he was as usual standing in
the porch to see Pansy as she went out, and receive from her as usual a
bashful glance and timid smile, which made the food he lived on for the
week, when he was almost startled by her father speaking to him:
‘Come up the road a bit wi’ us, Kersey, if you have naething better
ado.’
Caleb muttered that he was ready, and muttered still more awkwardly to
Pansy that he hoped he saw her quite well.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ was the demure reply; and there was no further
conversation.
She took her place on one side of her father, Caleb walked on the
other. But she was there quite close to him, and—although decidedly ill
at ease—he began to feel a degree of content which he had not known for
many days.
The gardener had been amongst those who had observed Caleb’s conversion
in the matter of church attendance, and being already sensible of the
young man’s intelligent appreciation of his flowers, he was willing to
credit him with having turned over a new leaf, and had charitably set
aside his doubts of him.
‘Man, Kersey,’ said Sam, as soon as they were free from the crowd, ‘I
have got one of the bonniest geraaniums that ever mortal set een on,
and I want you to see it for yoursel’. I wouldna have asked you to come
on the Sabbath, if it hadna been that I can never get sight of you on a
week-day noo.’
‘I don’t suppose there can be any harm in looking at the flower,’
said Caleb, restraining the much more decided opinion he would have
expressed on the subject if Pansy had not been there, or if he had been
able to guess what she might have thought of it. One strong principle
of his creed was that the more beautiful things men look at, the more
refined their natures will become, and that for this purpose Sunday was
the most appropriate day.
‘That’s just my opinion,’ was the satisfied comment of the gardener;
‘and I wonder you that’s fond o’ flowers, dinna take to studying them
in earnest. Do you know anything at all about botany?’
‘Nothing,’ was the honest and regretful reply, for it was not easy to
confess absolute ignorance in her presence.
‘Then you’ll just have to come whiles to see me, and I’ll learn
you something about it. You will have to come especially in the
spring-time; and it’s wonderful how soon you’ll find a real pleasure in
it—especially in the geraaniums.’
In this way Caleb became a prospective pupil of the gardener, and after
this he walked home with the father and daughter every Sunday. And
Pansy became more and more shy in his presence, and blushed more deeply
at his coming; whilst his heart swelled and throbbed, and the words he
wanted to speak played tantalisingly about his tongue, but found no
voice. By-and-by there was a curious change in Pansy. Her shyness and
her blushes disappeared: she spoke to him in much the same manner as
she did to Jacob Cone or Jerry Mogridge or any of the other men about
the place. At first he was disposed to be pleased with the change,
for it seemed to make him more at home when he visited the cottage.
Presently he began to fancy that she tried to keep out of his way, and
he did not understand it. Then one day she had a basket of flowers to
take up to the house for the young ladies, and Caleb accompanied her.
As they neared the house, he surrendered the basket to her, and he had
only done so when they met Coutts.
‘Ah, early birds!’ he said, with his cynical smile; ‘good-morning.—Will
you give me a flower for my button-hole, Pansy?—Thank you. That is a
very pretty one—it will make me think of you all day.’
He passed on, and Pansy was blushing as she used to do when Caleb spoke
to her.
Caleb drew a long breath, and with it inhaled the poison which
distorted all his thoughts. He spoke no word; but the gloom which fell
upon him spoiled him for work, and checked his visits to the cottage
until he heard that warning cry from Philip:
‘Trust her, man; trust her. That is the way to be worthy of a worthy
woman.’
The words seemed to rouse him from a wretched nightmare and to clear
his eyes and head. The words kept ringing in his ears, and when he
peered through the black span which lay between this day and the one on
which Pansy gave Coutts Hadleigh the flower, he felt that the darkness
was due to films on his own eyes, not to change in the atmosphere.
He straightened his shoulders and raised his head: he was able to look
his future in the face again.
‘I will trust her,’ he said to himself bravely. When he went to Gray’s
Inn in obedience to his master’s instructions, he had only to say:
‘Thank you, sir; you have done me a deal of good, and I’ll do what you
tell me.’
‘Spoken like the sensible fellow I always believed you to be,’ rejoined
Philip, much relieved. He would have rejoiced, but he was at the time
too much distracted by his own affairs to be able to feel elated by
anything. ‘There will be no more sulks, then, no more losing heart and
seeing mountains in molehills?’
‘I hope not.’
‘That’s right; and ... look here, Caleb. I have a notion, from
something you said, that I know the man you have been worrying yourself
about. Take my word for it, if my guess is right, he is much too
cautious a fellow—to put it on no higher ground—and too careful of
himself, to be a poacher. He likes a joke, though; and if I were you,
I would not let him see that he was making me uneasy. You understand—he
might for the fun of the thing get up some hoax.’
Caleb thought he understood, and at anyrate the main point was quite
clear to him—he was to trust her. And he kept faith with himself in
that respect. Whenever she seemed cold to him, he blamed himself for
bothering her at the wrong time. She had other things to take up her
attention—all the work of the cottage, many odd jobs to do for her
father, besides the hens to look after and their eggs to gather for
the breakfast-table of the Manor. When she seemed to be trying to keep
out of his way, he set it down to the fact that she had something
particular to do. He found excuses for every change, real or imaginary,
that had come over her manner of treating him. Come what might of it,
he would trust her.
Then there was a bright forenoon on which Philip sent him out to
Ringsford to fetch a small box, and he had an hour to spare before he
had to start for his return train. So he went over to the cottage. The
sun was gleaming whitely on the little green in front, and the grass
was sparkling with frozen dewdrops. There was Pansy—eyes in their
brightness rivalling the flashing dewdrops, cheeks aglow with healthful
exercise, and sleeves tucked up above the elbows—hanging out the
clothes she had just taken from the tub.
Caleb halted at the corner of the green. He had never in this world
seen anything so graceful as that lithe figure moving actively about in
the clear sunlight casting the clothes over the lines, now reaching up
on tiptoe to place a peg in some high place, and again whipping up her
basket and marching farther along with it.
She had covered one long line and taken a clothes-pole to raise it.
That was a feat of strength, and Caleb sprang to her side.
‘Let me do that for you, Pansy.’
‘Gracious!’ was the startled exclamation; and at the same moment he
planted the pole upright, the clothes thus forming a screen between
them and the vine-house where Sam Culver was at work.
‘You didn’t expect to see me here at this time of day,’ he said,
laughing, but already beginning to feel awkward, and looking everywhere
except where he most desired to look—in her face. ‘I had to come down
for this box; and as there was time enough, I thought I’d come round
this way.’
She laughed a little, too, at her scare, and then began to hang out
more clothes on another line as hastily as if she had not a minute to
spare. He looked on, his eyes glancing away whenever she turned towards
him. She also began to feel a little awkward, and somehow she did not
fasten the pegs on the line with such deft firmness as she had done
before he made his presence known.
‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she said by-and-by, compelled to seek
relief by saying something.
‘I wish you would let me do something for you,’ was his inconsequent
reply.
‘Something for me!’
‘Yes, carry the basket—anything.’
‘The basket is empty, and I have to go back to the washhouse.’
‘I will go with you.’
‘But there is nothing to do except wring out the clothes.’
‘Let me help you with that.’
‘Pretty work it would be for you!’ This with a nervous little laugh,
which she evidently intended to convey an impression of good-natured
ridicule.
‘It doesn’t matter what it is, so being it is for you.’
She stooped quickly, seizing one handle of the basket; he took the
other, and they lifted it between them. He looked straight in her face
now, and he fancied that the colour faded from her cheeks.
‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she repeated, looking in another
direction.
‘I want to tell you something, Pansy.’ He was a little husky, and
unconsciously moved the basket to and fro.
She knew what he wanted to tell her, and she did not want to hear—at
least not then.
‘I can’t stay—I must run in now.’ She tried to take the basket from him.
‘Don’t go yet. I made up my mind to tell you when I was standing over
there looking at you. I was meaning to do it many a time afore, but
just when I was ready, you always got out of my way, and I couldn’t say
it when you came back.’
‘I wish you’d let me go. I don’t want to hear anything—I’m in a hurry.
Won’t father do?’
She was nervous; there were signs even of distress in her manner, and
she could not look at him.
‘Ay, your father will do,’ he answered earnestly, ‘if you say that I
may tell him we have agreed about it.’
‘About what?—No, no, no; you must not tell him that. We are not agreed.
We never will agree about _that_.’
She was frightened, dropped the basket, and would have run away, but he
had caught her hand. He was pale, and although his heart was hammering
at his chest, he was outwardly calm.
‘Don’t say never, Pansy,’ he pleaded in a low voice; and she was
touched by the gentleness of it, which contrasted so strangely with
the manner of the loud-voiced orator when speaking to a crowd on the
village green. ‘I’ve scared you by coming too sudden upon you. But
you’ll think about it, and you’ll give me the right word some other
time.’
‘There is no need to think about it—I cannot think about it,’ she
answered with tears of mingled vexation and regret in her eyes.
‘But you’ll come to think about it after a bit, and I’ll wait—I’ll wait
until you come to it.’
‘I never will—I never can.’
‘You’re vexed with me for being so rough in my way of asking you. I
couldn’t help that, Pansy: but I’ll be patient, and I’ll wait till you
come round to it or ... until you say that you can’t do it because your
head is too full of somebody else.’
Pale and earnest, his lips trembled as these last words passed them.
She uttered a half-stifled ‘Oh!’ and ran into the cottage. He stood
in the bright sunlight looking after her, and the gloom fell upon his
face again. There was something in that cry which seemed to tell him
that her head was already too full of somebody else for him to find the
place he yearned to hold in her thoughts. He knew the somebody.
(_To be continued._)
THE CHARR OF WINDERMERE.
The confined localisation of this delicate fish renders its natural
history somewhat difficult to ascertain. As little, or even less,
is known of its proceedings during a great portion of the year
as of the salmon itself during its sojourn in the sea. There are
several varieties of the charr in the Lake district of Cumberland,
Westmoreland, and Lancashire; but undoubtedly they are merely the same
fish changed by circumstances and general surroundings; just as the
common trout varies in appearance, size, and condition according to the
nature of the water in which it is found and the food obtained there.
Charr are found in many of the Scotch and Irish lochs; whilst in the
English Lake district they are more or less plentiful in Windermere,
Coniston, Buttermere, Hawes-water, Ennerdale, Crummock-water,
Goats-water, and one or two other tarns or meres. In the first-named
lake it is by far the most numerous; and Coniston holds a good supply,
though Sir Humphry Davy, writing thirty years ago, says: ‘The charr
is now scarce in Coniston, and quite extinct in Ullswater.’ Now it is
occasionally found in the latter; whilst in the former it is plentiful,
and, with a comparative discontinuance of the working of the lead
mines, the wash from which polluted the water, is increasing. Large
quantities of very fine fish were taken during last year. It is similar
pollution which has destroyed the fish in Ullswater. For this beautiful
lake, let us hope for a return of the olden times, when charr and trout
and skellies ‘peopled’ its waters, over which the kite and golden eagle
often flew, and down whose slopes the red-deer from Martindale fells
may even now find its way to quaff a morning’s draught. As regards
edible qualities, the Windermere and Coniston charr are the best; those
of Hawes-water and Goats-water being smaller and of inferior quality.
Local history tells us that the love of a dainty dish induced the
monks of Furness to stock Windermere with charr, which were obtained
from some lake in the neighbourhood of the Alps; hence the fish is
still known as _Salmo alpinus_; but the correct nomenclature is _Salmo
umbla_. The same history or tradition tells us that this fish was
placed there only about two centuries ago. Against this, a manuscript
has recently been discovered, bearing date 1535, to the effect that a
certain Jacques Tallour was permitted ‘to catch and tol the fayre fish
charr in Wynandermer, and also his son Gerald.’ There is no reason to
doubt that the charr is as likely to be indigenous to some of our lakes
as our ordinary trout. During a considerable portion of the year, the
charr frequent the deepest parts of the lake, feeding upon and finding
nourishment in the minute crustaceans and larvæ found in such places.
In this respect the nature of this fish is actually the reverse of
that of the trout, which delights in the shallows, and feeds on the
flies and moths hatched on the gravel-beds and elsewhere. Nature would
doubtless ‘people’ Windermere, Coniston, and other lakes with that fish
which could best live in its deepest parts, and this fish is the charr.
Probably, specimens were removed from here to smaller sheets of water,
in some of which, however, it fails to thrive, though breeding and
increasing in numbers. There is a vast difference in appearance between
the charr of Windermere and the charr of Hawes-water: the latter thin
and flabby; the former elegantly shaped, and more graceful in outline
than the trout, not so fat and podgy as many of our spotted beauties
are; a general and a uniform shade of pinkness appears, as it were, to
shine through the skin; in some specimens, as it approaches the belly,
this hue becomes a deep red; hence the ‘red-bellied charr.’ It has, of
course, other distinctive differences, as in the shape of gill covers,
number of fin rays, &c., which have often been described.
Unfortunately, our charr is mostly a bottom or mid-water feeder,
and cannot take high rank as a sporting fish; but on the table it
excels. In size it varies from a pound in weight downwards, though
larger specimens have often been caught. The usual size is about
three fish to the pound of sixteen ounces; though in Hawes-water and
Goats-water, about eight to the pound is considered the usual run. In
both these tarns the charr rises pretty freely at the fly, indicating
an insufficiency of food below the surface; and it is this bottom-food
which gives to them the excellent condition and flavour they attain in
the deeper and larger lakes. The same may be said of the gillaroos,
found in some of the Irish lochs.
It is surprising that more attention has not been given to the
artificial rearing of charr. Some years ago, the Windermere Angling
Association hatched and turned into that lake some thousands of the
young fish; but the earliest note we have of their artificial rearing
was by Dr Davy, then living at Lesketh How, Ambleside. This took place
about thirty years ago, and was done in the most rough-and-ready
fashion. Still the infant fish were produced from the milt-impregnated
ova; and a few days after hatching, and with the ‘sac’ still in
attachment, the delicate ‘infants’ were transferred to Easedale tarn.
Too young to defend themselves, the fry no doubt perished. Yarrell
says that in the autumn of 1839, several charr, of some half-pound
weight each, were placed in Lily Mere, not far from Sedbergh. Twelve
months later, two of these fish, when retaken, were said to have been
two pound-weight each! They were served at the Queen-dowager’s table
at Kirkby-Lonsdale. These reputed large charr were no doubt trout, for
which the mere in question was famous. A few years since, charr were
placed in Potter Fell tarn, which is connected with the river Kent
(Westmoreland) by a small runner. One of these charr was caught with
fly in the river itself, some miles from the tarn. It had increased
in size from about four to some seven ounces in the space of twelve
months. It was kept alive, and in due course returned to the Potter
Fell. This is evidence that charr may live in a stream, and in the
absence of suitable bottom-food, adopt the habits of the trout, and
rise to the fly. On this account, they are worth cultivation; and
their delicacy and fine flavour make them more valuable than the best
trout—a fact which should be an inducement to their propagation. Potted
charr is considered amongst the greatest fish-dainties that can be set
before the gourmet.
The charr is usually taken in nets, though often caught with artificial
baits, trolled at varying depths, after the style of the paternoster
used in perch-fishing. Commencing at the beginning of March, the
fishermen know the water the charr frequent, and soon find at what
depth they lie in shoals or schools. As the season becomes warmer, the
charr approach nearer the surface; and in genial weather, towards the
end of May or beginning of June, are at times seen basking near the
surface of the lake; not feeding, but ‘bobbing’ their noses out of
the water, causing rises or bubbles, which in calm weather are easily
discerned by the fishermen. If possible, the shoal is surrounded by
a net or nets, and a rare capture ensues. Upwards of one hundred and
eighty pound-weight of charr has thus been taken at one haul; and when
one considers they are worth wholesale from sixteen to eighteen pence
per pound, the employment cannot fail to be a lucrative one. We cannot,
however, commend the practice of netting, which is not sport, but
wholesale destruction.
SILAS MONK.
A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.
The streets in the old city are dark and deserted as the detective
and Walter Tiltcroft hasten through them towards Crutched Friars. The
street-lamps cast limited spaces of light upon the fronts of lofty
warehouses and counting-houses, leaving limitless spaces of shadow
about and above. The windows of these mansions have the blankness of
blind eyes; the great, black, massive office-doors are firmly closed;
and the greater doors of the warehouses are fastened with huge padlocks
and chains, like prisons, or places with dead secrets made safe in the
custody of night. Not a word is spoken. The two men, earnestly bent on
their search, walk along with the echoes of their footsteps sounding
loudly in their ears; while the tap on the pavement of Fenwick’s stick
falls with a musical ring, as though it were gifted with the power,
like a magic wand, of chasing the echoes away. When they presently
stop at the entrance to the counting-house of Armytage and Company,
the detective produces a latchkey, opens the door, and leads the way
into the house. As soon as Walter has entered and the door is closed
behind him, Fenwick draws forth a dark-lantern, which he flashes
unceremoniously in the young clerk’s face. ‘I call this light,’ says
Fenwick, ‘my eye.’
Walter stares at it, and blinks.
‘It has peered into and pierced through many a dark deed.—Catch hold!’
Walter, with trembling expectation, takes the lantern.
‘Throw the light upon the keyhole!’ cries Fenwick. ‘I will open the
door.’ He rattles, as he speaks, a bunch of keys.
‘Which keyhole first?’ Walter asks.
‘The strong-room.’
Walter shows the way. They pass through the clerks’ office and reach
the iron-bound door of the strong-room. The keyhole is rusty with age;
and when Fenwick stoops and applies the key, there is a grating sound
inside the lock like the grinding of teeth. As soon as the door is
thrown open, Walter, with quick-beating heart, flings the light forward
into the room; that strange fancy coming over him that his eyes will
encounter the ghostly form of the old miser, as he had imagined him
that afternoon, wrapped in the white shroud, dancing round his heap of
gold. But finding nothing except dark walls, he boldly steps in. The
high stool beside the old desk, where he has so often seen Silas Monk
sitting and poring over large ledgers, is vacant, and the ledgers are
lying about on the desk, closed.
‘Now,’ says Fenwick, ‘give me the lantern.’
Walter complies, and the detective flashes the light about from ceiling
to floor. Suddenly the two men are startled by a stifled cry. Fenwick
casts his lantern angrily upon Walter’s face, as though he suspects him
of having uttered it. The clerk’s eyes are terror-stricken, and his
face deadly pale.
‘What’s that?’ asks the detective.
Walter clutches at Fenwick’s wrist. ‘It is the cry which I heard this
afternoon.’
‘What do you mean?’
The light of the lantern is still on Walter’s face as he answers: ‘I
was seated at my desk. The cry came from this room; but I thought it
was a fancy. At that moment Mr Armytage sent for me, and I was afraid,
if I mentioned it, that the clerks would laugh at me.’
‘Why?’ asks Fenwick, with surprise. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘N—no,’ says Walter with some hesitation. ‘But that cry did seem rather
ghostly too.’
‘Nonsense! It is Silas Monk.’
‘But it sounded,’ continued Walter, ‘as though it were in this room.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Then it must be his ghost; for there is no living being here except
ourselves.’
Fenwick again flashes the light from ceiling to floor, as though to
make sure of this. Then he says: ‘Kneel down, my lad. Place your ear to
the ground, and listen.’
Walter quickly obeys; and for some minutes a dead silence reigns in
the strong-room. The beating of his heart is all that Tiltcroft hears;
and all that he is otherwise conscious of is that Fenwick’s ‘eye’ is
watching the side of his face uppermost on the floor as he lies there
listening. Their patience is presently rewarded. Their ears are filled
with another cry, pitiable and more prolonged.
Walter springs to his feet. ‘It is there!’ he cries.
‘Below?’
‘Yes; directly beneath our feet.’
The detective begins to examine the flooring. Inch by inch the ‘eye’
wanders over the ground. An antique threadbare drugget is moved on
one side; packets of papers, ledgers, and lumber are shifted from one
corner to another. At last Fenwick lights upon a circular hole about
the size of a crown-piece, scarcely an inch deep. ‘Ah!’ cries he, ‘now
we are on the track.’ He takes from his pocket a penknife, scoops
about, and turns up a ring attached to the floor. He puts his large
muscular thumb into this ring, and gives a jerk. A patch three or four
feet square in the boarding is detached. ‘A trap-door!’ cries Fenwick.
‘Stand clear.’
So it proves—a trap-door, which the detective quickly raises, revealing
pitch-darkness in the opening.
‘Go below,’ says Fenwick; ‘I’ll follow.’
Walter looks down, hesitating. But when the light is thrown that way,
and he observes that there are steps leading into the obscurity, he
takes the lead. The descent seems endless; for he moves slowly, as
Fenwick, coming after him, throws the light upon him. Walter hears
the hard breathing of the detective, and it sounds so strange in the
stillness that he holds his own breath to listen. Suddenly the light
from the lantern falls upon something which glitters on the ground on
all sides.
‘Gold!’ cries Walter. His feet touch the ground. He stoops and picks up
a handful of sovereigns. ‘The place is a vault, and it is paved with
gold.—What’s that?’ He points to something in one corner like a human
form.
The detective steps forward and bends down, throwing the light upon
a ghastly wrinkled face. The small eyes glitter like the gold, as
though they had caught the reflection, and the long lean fingers are
clutching sovereigns and raking them up. Fenwick touches the miser on
the shoulder. ‘What is all this?’ asks he. ‘Have you lost your senses?’
The old man utters a cry of distress which has in it a ring of madness.
‘Speak to him, my lad,’ says Fenwick. ‘He will perhaps recognise your
voice.’
Walter kneels and takes the old miser’s hand. ‘Mr Monk,’ says he, ‘do
you know me? I am Walter Tiltcroft, your friend.’
Silas Monk looks up, bursts into a wild fit of laughter, and then falls
back senseless.
The detective lifts the old man in his strong arms as though handling
a child. ‘Ascend the ladder!’ cries he quickly to Walter, ‘and show a
light; not a moment must be lost in getting the old man home.’
* * * * *
Silas Monk was taken back to his tumble-down dwelling in the
dismal row, and was tended with all possible care by his devoted
grand-daughter. His recovery to a certain point was rapid. But the
mental condition was curiously impaired. His brain had lost its force;
no recollection of the past survived. His memory seemed to have fled
into darkness, and to be resting there and sleeping—a darkness into
which it was safer not to admit a single ray of light. This was the
bitter irony displayed by nature when granting to this old miser a
further extension to his lease of life. For time out of mind, Silas
Monk had been governed by a master-passion—his only thought that of
hoarding gold. The glitter, like sunlight, had pierced his cold heart,
and had helped to keep it beating; and it would almost seem as though
the warmth which this gold had driven into his veins still lingered
there, and helped to sustain vitality, even when the memory which had
given birth to all this agitation was dead.
It had been thought advisable by those who study the mysterious
workings of the mind, that gold should be concealed from the sight of
Silas Monk, and, if possible, even the sound of it, in order that his
memory might rest dormant and his life be prolonged.
One evening the old man was seated in his armchair before the fire,
with closed eyes. Rachel sat on a low stool at his feet, holding his
hand. On the other side of the hearth was Walter Tiltcroft.
‘Walter,’ said the girl in a low voice, ‘you hardly know how happy I
am, now that grandfather can give me all his love. He thinks no more
about his’——She stopped, and looked up at her grandfather’s face,
frightened that even the mention of gold should reach his ears.
‘Ah!’ cried Walter with a sigh, ‘how many are there, I wonder, in this
old city whose minds would be less disturbed if that precious word was
forbidden to be uttered in their presence? Does not your grandfather
already look less pale and haggard than he did a few weeks ago?’
‘Indeed, he does,’ replied Rachel. ‘He remembers both of us when we are
near him. He seems to need nothing now except our affection.’