[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. 42.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]
UNDER THE ACORNS.
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES.
AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,’ ETC.
Coming along a woodland lane, a small round and glittering object in
the brushwood caught my attention. The ground was but just hidden in
that part of the wood with a thin growth of brambles, low, and more
like creepers than anything else. These scarcely hid the surface, which
was brown with the remnants of oak-leaves; there seemed so little
cover, indeed, that a mouse might have been seen. But at that spot
some great spurge-plants hung this way and that, leaning aside, as if
the stems were too weak to uphold the heads of dark-green leaves. Thin
grasses, perfectly white, bleached by sun and dew, stood in a bunch by
the spurge; their seeds had fallen, the last dregs of sap had dried
within them, there was nothing left but the bare stalks. A creeper of
bramble fenced round one side of the spurge and white grass bunch, and
brown leaves were visible on the surface of the ground through the
interstices of the spray. It was in the midst of this little thicket
that a small, dark, and glittering object caught my attention. I knew
it was the eye of some creature at once, but, supposing it nothing more
than a young rabbit, was passing on, thinking of other matters, when it
occurred to me, before I could finish the step I had taken, so quick is
thought, that the eye was not large enough to be that of a rabbit. I
stopped; the black glittering eye had gone—the creature had lowered its
neck, but immediately noticing that I was looking in that direction,
it cautiously raised itself a little, and I saw at once that the eye
was the eye of a bird. This I knew first by its size, and next by its
position in relation to the head, which was invisible—for had it been
a rabbit or hare, its ears would have projected. The moment after, the
eye itself confirmed this—the nictitating membrane was rapidly drawn
over it, and as rapidly removed. This membrane is the distinguishing
mark of a bird’s eye. But what bird? Although I was within two yards,
I could not even see its head, nothing but the black glittering
eyeball, on which the light of the sun glinted. The sunbeams came over
my shoulder straight into the bird’s face.
Without moving—which I did not wish to do, as it would disturb the
bird—I could not see its plumage; the bramble spray in front, the
spurge behind, and the bleached grasses at the side, perfectly
concealed it. Only two birds I considered would be likely to squat
and remain quiescent like this—partridge or pheasant; but I could not
contrive to view the least portion of the neck. A moment afterwards
the eye came up again, and the bird slightly moved its head, when I
saw its beak, and knew it was a pheasant immediately. I then stepped
forward—almost on the bird—and a young pheasant rose, and flew between
the tree-trunks to a deep dry watercourse, where it disappeared under
some withering, yellow ferns.
Of course I could easily have solved the problem long before, merely
by startling the bird; but what would have been the pleasure of
that? Any plough-lad could have forced the bird to rise, and would
have recognised it as a pheasant; to me, the pleasure consisted in
discovering it under every difficulty. That was woodcraft; to kick the
bird up would have been simply nothing at all. Now I found why I could
not see the pheasant’s neck or body; it was not really concealed, but
shaded out by the mingled hues of the white grasses, the brown leaves
of the surface, and the general gray-brown tints. Now it was gone,
there was a vacant space—its plumage had filled up that vacant space
with hues so similar, that at no farther distance than two yards, I
did not recognise it by colour. Had the bird fully carried out its
instinct of concealment, and kept its head down as well as its body, I
should have passed it. Nor should I have seen its head if it had looked
the other way; the eye betrayed its presence. The dark glittering
eye, which the sunlight touched, caught my attention instantly. There
is nothing like an eye in inanimate nature; no flower, no speck on a
bough, no gleaming stone wet with dew, nothing, indeed, to which it
can be compared. The eye betrayed it; I could not overlook an eye.
Neither nature nor inherited experience had taught the pheasant to hide
its eye; the bird not only wished to conceal itself, but to watch my
motions, and looking up from its cover, was immediately observed.
At a turn of the lane there was a great heap of oak ‘chumps,’ crooked
logs, sawn in lengths, and piled together. They were so crooked, it
was difficult to find a seat, till I hit on one larger than the rest.
The pile of ‘chunks’ rose half-way up the stem of an oak-tree, and
formed a wall of wood at my back; the oak-boughs reached over and made
a pleasant shade. The sun was warm enough to render resting in the
open air delicious, the wind cool enough to prevent the heat becoming
too great; the pile of timber kept off the draught, so that I could
stay and listen to the gentle ‘hush, rush’ of the breeze in the oak
above me; ‘hush’ as it came slowly, ‘rush’ as it came fast, and a low
undertone as it nearly ceased. So thick were the haws on a bush of
thorn opposite, that they tinted the hedge, a red colour among the
yellowing hawthorn leaves. To this red hue the blackberries that were
not ripe, the thick dry red sorrel stalks, a bright canker on a brier,
almost as bright as a rose, added their colours. Already the foliage
of the bushes had been thinned, and it was possible to see through the
upper parts of the boughs. The sunlight, therefore, not only touched
their outer surfaces, but passed through and lit up the branches
within, and the wild-fruit upon them. Though the sky was clear and
blue between the clouds, that is, without mist or haze, the sunbeams
were coloured the faintest yellow, as they always are on a ripe autumn
day. This yellow shone back from grass and leaves, from bough and
tree-trunk, and seemed to stain the ground. It is very pleasant to
the eyes, a soft, delicate light, that gives another beauty to the
atmosphere. Some roan cows were wandering down the lane, feeding on
the herbage at the side; their colour, too, was lit up by the peculiar
light, which gave a singular softness to the large shadows of the trees
upon the sward. In a meadow by the wood the oaks cast broad shadows on
the short velvety sward, not so sharp and definite as those of summer,
but tender, and as it were drawn with a loving hand. They were large
shadows, though it was mid-day—a sign that the sun was no longer at
his greatest height, but declining; in July, they would scarcely have
extended beyond the rim of the boughs; the rays would have dropped
perpendicularly, now they slanted. Pleasant as it was, there was regret
in the thought that the summer was going fast. Another sign—the grass
by the gateway, an acre of it, was brightly yellow with hawkweeds,
and under these were the last faded brown heads of meadow clover; the
brown, the bright yellow disks, the green grass, the tinted sunlight
falling upon it, caused a wavering colour that fleeted before the
glance.
All things brown, and yellow, and red, are brought out by the autumn
sun; the brown furrows freshly turned where the stubble was yesterday,
the brown bark of trees, the brown fallen leaves, the brown stalks of
plants; the red haws, the red unripe blackberries, red bryony berries,
reddish-yellow fungus; yellow hawkweed, yellow ragwort, yellow hazel
leaves, elms, spots in lime or beech; not a speck of yellow, red, or
brown, the yellow sunlight does not find out. And these make autumn,
with the caw of rooks, the peculiar autumn caw of laziness and full
feeding, the sky blue as March between the great masses of dry cloud
floating over, the mist in the distant valleys, the tinkle of traces
as the plough turns, and the silence of the woodland birds. The lark
calls as he rises from the earth, the swallows still wheeling call as
they go over, but the woodland birds are mostly still, and the restless
sparrows gone forth in a cloud to the stubble. Dry clouds, because they
evidently contain no moisture that will fall as rain here; thick mists,
condensed haze only, floating on before the wind. The oaks were not yet
yellow, their leaves were half green, half brown; Time had begun to
invade them, but had not yet indented his full mark.
Of the year there are two most pleasurable seasons: the spring, when
the oak-leaves come russet brown on the great oaks; the autumn, when
the oak-leaves begin to turn. At the one, I enjoy the summer that is
coming; at the other, the summer that is going. At either, there is a
freshness in the atmosphere, a colour everywhere, a depth of blue in
the sky, a welcome in the woods. The redwings had not yet come; the
acorns were full, but still green; the greedy rooks longed to see them
riper. They were very numerous, the oaks covered with them, a crop for
the greedy rooks, the greedier pigeons, the pheasants, and the jays.
One thing I missed—the corn. So quickly was the harvest gathered, that
those who delight in the colour of the wheat had no time to enjoy it.
If any painter had been looking forward to August to enable him to
paint the corn, he must have been disappointed. There was no time;
the sun came, saw, and conquered, and the sheaves were swept from the
field. Before yet the reapers had entered one field of ripe wheat, I
did indeed for a brief evening obtain a glimpse of the richness and
still beauty of an English harvest. The sun was down, and in the west,
a pearly gray light spread widely, with a little scarlet drawn along
its lower border. Heavy shadows hung in the foliage of the elms; the
clover had closed, and the quiet moths had taken the place of the
humming bees. Southwards, the full moon, a red-yellow disk, shone over
the wheat, which appeared the finest pale amber. A quiver of colour—an
undulation—seemed to stay in the air, left from the heated day; the
sunset hues and those of the red-tinted moon fell as it were into the
remnant of day, and filled the wheat; they were poured into it, so that
it grew in their colours. Still heavier the shadows deepened in the
elms; all was silence, save for the sound of the reapers on the other
side of the hedge, ‘slash—rustle,’ ‘slash—rustle,’ and the drowsy night
came down as softly as an eyelid.
While I sat on the log under the oak, every now and then wasps came
to the crooked pieces of sawn timber, which had been barked. They did
not appear to be biting it—they can easily snip off fragments of the
hardest oak—they merely alighted and examined it, and went on again.
Looking at them, I did not notice the lane till something moved, and
two young pheasants ran by along the middle of the track and into the
cover at the side. The grass at the edge which they pushed through
closed behind them, and feeble as it was—grass only—it shut off the
interior of the cover as firmly as iron bars. The pheasant is a strong
lock upon the woods; like one of Chubb’s patent locks, he closes the
woods as firmly as an iron safe can be shut. Wherever the pheasant is
artificially reared, and a great ‘head’ kept up for battue-shooting,
there the woods are sealed. No matter if the wanderer approach with the
most harmless of intentions, it is exactly the same as if he were a
species of burglar. The botanist, the painter, the student of nature,
all are met with the high-barred gate and the threat of law. Of course,
the pheasant-lock can be opened by the silver key; still, there is the
fact, that since pheasants have been bred on so large a scale, half the
beautiful woodlands of England have been fastened up. Where there is
no artificial rearing there is much more freedom; those who love the
forest can roam at their pleasure, for it is not the fear of damage
that locks the gate, but the pheasant. In every sense, the so-called
sport of battue-shooting is injurious—injurious to the sportsman,
to the poorer class, to the community. Every true sportsman should
discourage it, and indeed does. I was talking with a thorough sportsman
recently, who told me, to my delight, that he never reared birds by
hand; yet he had a fair supply, and could always give a good day’s
sport, judged as any reasonable man would judge sport. Nothing must
enter the domains of the hand-reared pheasant; even the nightingale is
not safe. A naturalist has recorded that in a district he visited, the
nightingales were always shot by the keepers and their eggs smashed,
because the singing of these birds at night disturbed the repose of the
pheasants! They also always stepped on the eggs of the fern-owl, which
are laid on the ground, and shot the bird if they saw it, for the same
reason, as it makes a jarring sound at dusk. The fern-owl or goatsucker
is one of the most harmless of birds—a sort of evening swallow—living
on moths, chafers, and similar night-flying insects. Thus the man in
velveteens plays ‘fantastic tricks’ before high heaven!
Continuing my walk, still under the oaks and green acorns, I wondered
why I did not meet any one. There was a man cutting fern in the wood—a
labourer—and another cutting up thistles in a field; but with the
exception of men actually employed and paid, I did not meet a single
person, though the lane I was following is close to several well-to-do
places. I call that a well-to-do place where there are hundreds of
large villas inhabited by wealthy people. It is true that the great
majority of persons have to attend to business, even if they enjoy
a good income; still, making every allowance for such a necessity,
it is singular how few, how very few, seem to appreciate the quiet
beauty of this lovely country. Somehow, they do not seem to see it—to
look over it; there is no excitement in it, for one thing. They can
see a great deal in Paris, but nothing in an English meadow. I have
often wondered at the rarity of meeting any one in the fields, and
yet—curious anomaly—if you point out anything, or describe it, the
interest exhibited is marked. Every one takes an interest, but no
one goes to see for himself. For instance, since the natural history
collection was removed from the British Museum to a separate building
at South Kensington, it is stated that the visitors to the Museum have
fallen from an average of twenty-five hundred a day to one thousand;
the inference is, that out of every twenty-five, fifteen came to see
the natural history cases. Indeed, it is difficult to find a person who
does not take an interest in some department of natural history, and
yet I scarcely ever meet any one in the fields. You may meet many in
the autumn far away in places famous for scenery, but almost none in
the meadows at home. On the other hand, if the labouring classes have a
holiday, they immediately go out into the country.
I stayed by a large pond to look at the shadows of the trees on the
green surface of duckweed. The soft green of the smooth weed received
the shadows as if specially prepared to show them to advantage. The
more the tree was divided—the more interlaced its branches and less
laden with foliage, the more it ‘came out’ on the green surface; each
slender twig was reproduced, and sometimes even the leaves. From an
oak, brown, and from a lime, orange leaves had fallen, and remained
on the green weed; the flags by the shore were turning brown; a tint
of yellow was creeping up the rushes, and the great trunk of a fir
shone reddish brown in the sunlight. There was colour even about the
still pool, where the weeds grew so thickly that the moorhens could
scarcely swim through them. In a recent paper in _Chambers’s Journal_
(No. 25) I mentioned some of the points of interest that might be found
about roofs. Since then, a correspondent has told me that in Wales
he found a cottage perfectly roofed with fern—it grew so thickly as
to conceal the roof. Had a painter put this in a picture, many would
have exclaimed: ‘How fanciful! He must have made it up; it could never
have grown like that!’ Not long after receiving my correspondent’s
kind letter, I chanced to find a roof near London upon which the same
fern was growing in lines along the tiles. It grew plentifully, but
was not in so flourishing a condition as that found in Wales. Painters
are sometimes accused of calling upon their imagination when they
are really depicting fact, for the ways of nature vary very much in
different localities, and that which may seem impossible in one place
is common enough in another.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER LII.—HOW IT WAS DONE.
Coutts was for an instant dumb with surprise and chagrin. That smart
stroke of business on which he had been priding himself was completely
spoiled, and all possibility of ingratiating himself with Mr Shield was
at an end.
When the bill was produced by Coutts, Wrentham had become white, and
his lips, dry and feverish, closed tightly. When the signatures were
calmly acknowledged by Philip and Shield, he gazed at them with a
bewildered expression, then grasped the back of a chair and pretended
to be looking through the window at something opposite. Sergeant Dier
gave a slight jerk of his body as if lifting his heel from the floor.
He darted a suspicious glance at his employer and at Wrentham. Then he
turned to Tuppit and gazed at him with a bland admiring smile. Shield,
Beecham, Philip, and Tuppit were unmoved.
Coutts took the bill from Tuppit, and after deliberate examination
replaced it in his pocket-book.
‘I am delighted to find that it is all right, and that it will be
duly honoured,’ he said; but cool as he was, the acrimony of his tone
contradicted the words. ‘The fact that it is so takes me out of a very
awkward corner. I must say, however, Mr Shield, that you would have
saved yourself and me a great deal of unnecessary trouble and waste of
time if you had told me when I first came that the thing was correct.’
‘Have a lot of things on my mind. Forget sometimes,’ Shield jerked out
carelessly.
‘Ah, it’s a misfortune to have a bad memory in business. I trust you
will not forget to do justice to the motives which brought me to you.’
‘Oh, I’ll do your motives full justice,’ answered Shield with a grunt
which would have developed into a coarse guffaw but for a strong effort
of self-restraint.
Coutts felt this indignity, although he did not feel the contemptible
position in which he was placed, because he still believed that he
had perfectly concealed the ulterior objects he had in bringing the
supposed forgery directly under Shield’s notice.
‘That is all I ask, and I may say good-morning. I hope our next meeting
will be on more agreeable business.—Good-day, Phil. I thought you had
got yourself into a particularly nasty mess, and was doing my best to
save you from the consequences.’
‘Thank you,’ said Philip, but there was none of his usual cordiality in
voice or look.
‘Well, there has been a mistake—somewhere. I suppose it must be put
down to me. However, we can afford to let it drop now.’
‘Best thing you can do,’ growled Shield.
Coutts paid no attention to the remark.
‘You’ll find bad news when you get to your chambers, Phil. There was a
bonfire at Ringsford last night, and the guv’nor has got hurt.’
Philip was prevented from questioning him by Mr Shield.
‘A word in your wise ear before you go, Mr Coutts Hadleigh. I promised
that your motives in coming to me should have justice done them. They
shall. I know what they were. You have been useful to us, and that will
be taken into account.’
‘It is a satisfaction to have served you in any way,’ rejoined Coutts,
unabashed, although he understood the meaning of that parting address,
and knew that somehow he had overreached himself, which was even more
disagreeable than being overreached by others.
He left the room with as much composure as if he had satisfactorily
completed an ordinary piece of business.
Sergeant Dier gave a cheery ‘Good-day, gentlemen—come along, Mr
Tuppit,’ as he went out. Tuppit had continued to edge his way round
the table to where Wrentham stood, and slipped a scrap of paper into
his hand. He bowed as if taking leave of an audience, and followed the
detective.
A hansom was already at the door, and Coutts was about to get into it;
before doing so he spoke with injudicious abruptness to his agent.
‘Arrange with your friend about his expenses, and call at the office
to-morrow at eleven.’
‘Then I am to consider the job finished?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Glad of it,’ said Dier, smiling to himself as the cab wheeled away.
‘Come along, Bob, there’s something I want you to show me, and we must
have a refreshment.’
As they were about to move away, a servant informed Dier that he was
wanted by a gentleman inside, and he was taken back to Mr Beecham.
From him he received instructions which appeared to give him much
satisfaction.
‘Come along, Bob,’ he said on rejoining that personage; ‘I am put
on to a decent sort of thing this time. Off with one thing, on with
another—that’s the way to do it, my boy.’
He lit a cigar, and linking his arm in that of his companion, he
led the way to a small tavern situated in a by-street in convenient
proximity to the mews. Although the bar was crowded with coachmen and
ostlers, the tap-room was at this time of day little frequented, and at
present was unoccupied.
‘Ah, this is cosy,’ said Dier, seating himself with his back to the
window. ‘Now we can have a rest and a chat. Won’t you smoke?’
He gave Tuppit a cigar, ordered sherry for himself, and beer ‘in the
pewter’ for his companion. The little conjurer drank as if he had
been parched with thirst. Then he smoked and presently began to feel
comfortable. Dier, meanwhile, entertained him with various amusing
professional experiences; ordered more beer, and Bob felt more
comfortable. When the sergeant saw him at ease, he approached the
subject in which he was interested.
‘I was forgetting that trick I wanted you to explain to me, Tuppit.
When I saw it done, it fairly puzzled me, and you know I am up to a few
tricks of your trade.’
‘You’d have been a first-rate hand if you had only taken to it. But
what was it puzzled you?’
‘Well, the fellow who was doing it was handed a card, as it might be.
He looked at it—gave it back to us, and it wasn’t the same.’
‘One of the easiest tricks in the whole art,’ said Bob with
professional contempt for the amateur. ‘I thought you would have known
how _that_ is done.’
‘Explain, Bob, explain. We haven’t got cards, but here is a bit of
note-paper, and we’ll cut it in two, so that the parts will be exactly
alike. So. Now this is the one I am to hand to you; this is the one
you are to give me back in its place’ (unperceived by Tuppit, Dier
deftly pricked the second piece with a pin which he held concealed
between his forefinger and thumb). ‘There, go ahead; I’ll shut my eyes
until you are ready.’
The conjurer took the marked paper and almost immediately gave the
word ‘ready.’ Dier gave him the second paper, and Tuppit, laughing,
talked about the absurd simplicity of the trick, his astonishment that
his friend should not know it, refused to believe in his ignorance,
and gave him back the paper. The detective held it up between him and
the light: the pin-pricks were there—the papers had been changed. He
whistled softly, smiled, and emitted two clouds of smoke.
‘I believe I understand it now,’ he said, nodding familiarly; ‘that’s
how you changed the bills up there.’
Tuppit was silent.
‘Well, I won’t ask any questions,’ the detective went on; ‘it is a
family affair and to be settled on the quiet, and if the thing is
genuine, it is no business of mine how it comes to be so. But that
fellow who sent for me first meant mischief, although he fancied he
humbugged me with his gammon about not going the entire length.’
‘He did mean mischief,’ said Tuppit, huskily.
‘He can’t manage it though. Now, what _you_ have got to do is to let
Mr Wrentham understand that if he doesn’t make a clean breast of it by
to-morrow, I’m down on him, and you won’t have another chance of saving
him.’
This information was given with good humour, but Tuppit was aware of
the pleasant way Sergeant Dier had of conducting his business, and,
having unconsciously betrayed himself, understood that further disguise
was useless. So, looking uneasily at his pewter pot, he said:
‘I suppose you mean that if he gives up everything, he won’t be brought
to trial.’
‘It is not for me to say that. You have had dealings with the people,
and ought to know what they are likely to do. Of course, if there is no
charge, there will be no trial.’
There was considerable significance in the smile and nod which
accompanied the words, and it was clear to Tuppit that Sergeant Dier
was now in the confidence of Mr Shield and Mr Beecham.
‘I have written on a bit of paper that I want him to meet me as soon
as he can. He knows the place, and if he refuses to make things square
after all the mercy that has been shown him, I will have nothing more
to do with him.’
‘That’s right, Bob; and you may give him a hint that if he tries to
bolt, or to play any pranks with us, he’ll be in limbo in less than no
time, and if _I_ am not mistaken, it will mean fifteen years at least.’
Bob Tuppit hung his head dejectedly, muttering to himself: ‘What will
become of the poor kid and the helpless little woman who thinks him
such a pink of perfection.’
The detective slapped him encouragingly on the shoulder.
‘Cheer up, Bob; you’re the right sort, and I’ll help you if I can. Off
with you to your meeting-place. Wrentham is no fool and will see that
the game is up.... But, I say’—detaining him—‘you will tell me some
day how you managed to get the right bit of paper?’
‘Yes, yes, some day—when no harm can come of it.’
The anxious and affectionate brother of the swindler got on to the top
of an omnibus and smoked moodily, his reflections being to this effect:
‘I suppose it’s in our natures. I took to juggling in an honest way,
and he took to juggling the other way. Ah, education was the ruin of
him—Dad said it would be as soon as he saw what a beautiful hand Martin
wrote. Lucky he’s in his grave; this business would have cut him up
awful.’
At Camberwell Green Tuppit left the omnibus and trudged moodily up to
the _Masons’ Arms_, a comfortable-looking old-fashioned inn, which
had once been a favourite halting-place of travellers between London
and the village of Dulwich, the town of Croydon, and other places in
Surrey. It had also been a summer resort of Cockneys in the days when
there were meadows and dairy-farms in the neighbourhood of the Green.
Although the fields were now covered with houses forming long yellow
rows with gaudy gin palaces lifting their heads on the most prominent
sites, the _Masons’ Arms_ retained most of its ancient characteristics
and the survivors of its ancient customers.
The stout white post with its faded swinging signboard, stood boldly
out at the kerb, having at its base a long horse-trough, with a
constant supply of water. The lower part of the building was cased in
wood which had been painted oak colour and varnished, but the gloss had
been long since rubbed off. The lower windows with their small panes of
glass stretched from wall to wall, but from top to bottom they measured
little more than three feet. Above was a broad balcony set in a rustic
framework and railing. A huge earthen flower-pot stood at each end,
while tables and benches were conveniently placed round about.
Tuppit did not enter the house; he walked up and down, disconsolately
watching every approaching vehicle in expectation of seeing his brother
alight from it. He had to wait long; but he was a patient little man,
and the business he had in hand was too grave for him to think of
quitting his post so long as there was a shred of hope that Wrentham
would be wise for once and keep the appointment.
It was somewhat late in the afternoon when he came walking leisurely
up from the Green as if he had no reason for haste. Tuppit led the
way into the inn, nodded to the burly landlord as he passed the bar,
ascended a narrow staircase and entered the room behind the balcony.
Wrentham at first affected an air of indifference, but the affectation
was instantly laid aside when his brother sharply repeated the
detective’s warning and told him that the forged bill was in the hands
of those who would make prompt use of it if he did not repay their
generosity by a frank revelation of the schemes by which he had ruined
Philip Hadleigh.
They were interrupted by the entrance of a little old man who was
mumbling complainingly that he must and would have his beer and his
pipe before he went home. This was spoken to a modestly dressed young
woman who was gently remonstrating with him. The old man shuffled
across the floor to a seat. Tuppit opened the door of the balcony
quickly and went out with his brother. In the dusk they could not
be observed from the street. Wrentham had not quite closed the door
when he followed his brother. There was more hurried conversation and
argument on Tuppit’s part.
‘What is it they want me to do?’ asked Wrentham sullenly.
‘This is it,’ answered Tuppit eagerly. ‘The real bill was given to me
for your child’s and wife’s sake on the appeal of Mr Philip—Coutts
Hadleigh would have sent you to penal servitude. The first thing you
have to do is to let Mr Philip know that your insinuations about Miss
Heathcote were made for the purpose of distracting his mind from the
business, so that you might be free to play your own game.’
‘Well?’
‘The next thing is, that as you have been dealing with firms whose
clerks have given you invoices for double the amounts you paid them,
you have to refund the money.’
Wrentham with elbows on his knees rested his brow on his hands.
‘I didn’t say anything about Madge Heathcote that wasn’t true.’
‘But you hinted a great deal that wasn’t true, and you must own up to
your purpose for doing it, or as I live, I shall bear witness against
you myself.’
* * * * *
The young woman and the old man quitted the _Masons’ Arms_. That same
evening Pansy Culver arrived unexpectedly at Willowmere.
FALSE DAUPHINS.
Whether the boy who died in the arms of M. Lasne, and whose body was
wrapped in a sheet, put into a deal coffin, and buried in the cemetery
of St-Marguerite, was a poor waif of Paris, or the lad who cleaned
the shoes of his jailer’s wife and should have been Louis XVII. of
France, is, judicial judgments notwithstanding, a question never likely
to be satisfactorily settled. Those who have taken the most pains to
elucidate the mystery agree to differ in their conclusions; M. de
Beauchesne being certain that the Dauphin[1] was done to death in the
Temple; M. Louis Blanc as strongly inclining to the opinion that he
was rescued from durance. The wish being father to the thought, many
royalists believed that the Prince had escaped his enemies, and would
some day claim his own; and pretenders, as a natural consequence, have
never been wanting.
The first of the sham Dauphins appeared in the days of the Consulate,
in the person of Jean Marie Hervagault, a tailor by trade, who
contrived to make some at least among the adherents of the ancient
monarchy believe in himself and his pretensions. Notable for her
enthusiastic espousal of his cause was Madame de Recambour. She lodged
the impostor right royally at her mansion at Vitry-la-Française, and
gloried in seeing her husband do a lackey’s duties for her protégé.
Balls, concerts, and fêtes followed hard upon each other in honour of
‘Mon Prince,’ until Fouché intervened, and the ambitious tailor was
condemned to four years’ imprisonment; finding his way, eventually,
not to the throne of his supposititious sire, but to the Hospital for
Incurables at Bicêtre, to die there in 1812.
In 1817, the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ informed its readers that on the
17th of September, a young man who called himself Louis XVII. had
been apprehended at Rouen. Some twenty years before, he had presented
himself to a lady of La Vendée as the orphan child of a noble family
of the name of Desin. She took him in; but five months later, sent
him about his business for some flagrant misconduct; and never saw
him again until confronted with him at Rouen. This was Mathurin
Brunneau, the son of a shoemaker of Vezins, Maine-et-Loire; who, having
learned all that Madame Simon knew of the lost Louis, went about the
country proclaiming himself the only lawful king of France, until his
profitable peregrinations were stopped by his arrest and that of four
or five of his deluded friends. In the following February, Brunneau
was arraigned at Rouen, and behaved in a most unprincely fashion;
challenging the president of the court to fight, and calling that
dignitary a beast; his many insolent exclamations and observations
being ‘couched in ungrammatical language and most vulgar terms.’ He
was pronounced guilty of vagabondage; of publicly assuming royal
titles; of fraudulently obtaining deeds, clothes, and considerable sums
of money from divers persons; and finally, of insulting the members
of a public tribunal in the exercise of their functions. For these
offences, Brunneau was sentenced to pay a fine of three thousand francs
and three-fourths of the costs of the inquiry, and condemned besides
to suffer seven years’ imprisonment—two of the seven being given him
expressly for outraging the court—his person to be at the disposal of
the government when the sentence had expired. ‘I am none the less what
I am,’ was the only comment of the cobbler-prince. Of his accomplices,
one only was punished, by being mulcted in a fourth of the costs of the
trial and sent to durance for a couple of months. Brunneau served his
term, and was then set at liberty, only to die soon afterwards.
While Brunneau’s trial was yet in progress, a well-dressed man, of
tall stature and goodly mien, walked into the Tuileries, followed
the servants who were carrying in the king’s dinner, and reached the
dining-hall before his uninvited presence was discovered. He said he
was Charles de Navarre, and insisted upon seeing the king. His desire
was not gratified. He was handed over to the police, recognised as the
mad nephew of an exchange broker, and relegated to Charenton for the
remainder of his days.
Fifteen years later, one Richemont, a baron of his own creation,
was found guilty of having, by a resolution concerted and decided
between two or more persons unknown, formed a plan for destroying the
government and fomenting civil war. For this he was sentenced to a term
of imprisonment; but his real offence lay in putting himself forward
as a claimant of the throne, as the legitimate representative of the
elder branch of the Bourbon family. Richemont managed to get out of
prison and out of France too. He soon, however, returned to his native
land, and lived there unmolested long enough to see the second Empire
established. In 1853, he died at the house of the Countess d’Apchier,
wife of a whilom page at the court of Louis XVI. All the papers he left
behind him were seized by the authorities and sealed up. Determined his
claims should not be abrogated by death, the pseudo-Dauphin’s friends
inscribed on his tombstone: ‘Here lies LOUIS CHARLES DE FRANCE, born
at Versailles, March 27, 1785. Died at Gleizé, August 10, 1853’—an
inscription erased five years afterwards, by order of M. de Persigny,
only to be replaced by the equally assertive one:
1785.
No one will say over my tomb:
‘Poor LOUIS,
How sad was thy fate!
Pray for him!’
A gentleman bearing the name of Eleazar Williams died at Hogansburg,
in the United States, in August 1858, after spending the best portion
of his life in converting the Indians to Wesleyanism; the fact that
he was the long-lost son of Louis XVI. being apparently unknown to
any but his most intimate friends, until one of them published a book
to enlighten the world on the matter. From this we learn as follows:
That in the year 1795, a French family of the name of De Jourdin came
to live in Albany, in the state of New York; Madame giving out that
she had been a lady-in-waiting to Marie-Antoinette, a statement not
belied by her appearance; while Monsieur looked and acted more like
a servant than the husband of Madame, and the father of Mademoiselle
Louise and Monsieur Louis, as the children of the establishment were
designated. That, some little while afterwards, two Frenchmen appeared
at Ticonderoga with a sickly and seemingly idiotic boy, who with his
belongings—two large boxes, one of which contained a gold, a silver,
and a copper coronation medal of Louis XVI.—was confided to the charge
of an Indian chief known as Thomas Williams, to be brought up as one of
the family. That, tumbling from a high rock into St George’s Lake, made
Eleazar—as he had been named—as sensible as his red-skinned brothers by
adoption. That, one day a French gentleman called him _pauvre garçon_,
and gave him a gold-piece. That, going to Long Meadow with one of
Thomas Williams’s sons, to be educated by a Congregational minister,
somebody told him he must be of a higher grade of birth than the son of
an Iroquois chief. That, after he became a missionary, one Colonel de
Ferriere, before leaving Oneida, with several Indians, to visit Paris,
obtained Eleazar’s signature, thrice over, to a legal document; and
that the said colonel returned to America a rich man, and was known to
be in correspondence with the royal family of France. Each and every
one of the foregoing statements may be true, and yet Eleazar Williams
no true prince.
Much more to the point was Eleazar’s extraordinary story of making
the acquaintance of the Prince de Joinville on board a steamer, and
afterwards, at his request, calling upon him at his hotel; when the
Prince laid a document in French and English on the table, which the
missionary found to be a deed whereby Charles Louis, son of Louis XVI.,
solemnly abdicated the throne of France in favour of Louis-Philippe.
If he would sign this, the Prince promised to stand godfather to his
daughter, take his son to Paris to be educated, provide him with
a princely establishment in France or America, at his choice, and
transfer to him all the private property belonging to the supposed
defunct Dauphin. Mr Williams was not to be tempted, and his tempter
returned to France unsatisfied. Unfortunately, the Prince de Joinville
emphatically declared the story to be a pure invention; and it remains
as unsupported as Williams’s other statement, that a gentleman in Baton
Rouge wrote to him in 1848 to inform him that an aged Frenchman had
upon his deathbed declared that he had assisted in the escape of the
Dauphin from the Temple, and carried him off to North America, where he
had been adopted by the Indians, concluding with avowing that Eleazar
Williams was the man.
While that worthy was labouring at his vocation in the backwoods, a
Prussian Pole, named Charles William Naundorff, weary of clockmaking,
was getting into trouble by calling himself Louis XVII., for which
piece of presumption a Prussian tribunal sent him to prison for three
years. This was in 1822. At the expiration of a year, Naundorff was
set at liberty, conditionally upon taking up his residence in the
town of Crossen. In 1833, however, he appeared in Paris, and applied
to the Civil Tribunal of the Seine to be recognised as Louis XVII.;
an application resulting in his speedy expulsion from France, and
subsequent retirement to Holland, in which country he died, on the 10th
of August 1845. The official certificate of his death described him as,
‘Charles Louis Bourbon, Duke of Normandy (Louis XVII.), known under the
name of Charles William Naundorff, born at the château of Versailles,
in France, March 27, 1785, and consequently more than sixty years old;
son of his late Majesty Louis XVI., king of France, and of her Imperial
and Royal Highness Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, queen of
France, who both died at Paris; husband of Jane Einert of this town.’
Those responsible for his burial inscribed on his tomb: ‘CHARLES LOUIS,
Duke of Normandy, son of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette of Austria.’
Naundorff left behind him a son, Albert, born in England, and four
other children; on whose behalf, his widow, Jane Einert, in 1851,
brought an action before the Tribunal of the Seine; but despite the
advocacy of Jules Favre, failed in prevailing upon that court to
recognise their claims.
In 1863 Albert, the English-born Naundorff, was naturalised as a
Dutchman by a vote of the Dutch Chamber; and in 1874 he appealed
against the adverse decision of the Tribunal of the Seine, in a suit
against the Count de Chambord, demanding that he, Captain Albert
de Bourbon, of the Dutch army, should be declared the rightful
representative of the royal Bourbon family. M. Favre again upheld his
pretensions. He contended that the son of Louis XVI. had not died in
the Temple. Inspired and paid by the Count de Montmorin and Josephine
de Beauharnais, certain devoted royalists had drugged the Dauphin,
placed him in a basket, and carried him into an upper room, leaving
a lay-figure in his bed. Discovering that their prisoner had been
spirited away, the government substituted a deaf-and-dumb child in
his place, and employed a doctor to poison him; but the apothecary
administering an antidote, and so frustrating the plan, a sickly lad
was obtained from a hospital, and soon dying, was duly coffined. ‘The
coffin was taken up-stairs, where the Dauphin had passed eight or ten
months; the dead body was taken out and placed in a basket, and the
living Louis XVII. put in the coffin. On the way to the cemetery,
the Dauphin was slipped out of the coffin, and some bundles of paper
slipped in.’ The hero of this series of substitutions was then confided
to the care of some trusty friends, and all the European courts
notified of his escape; of which Barras, Hoche, Pichegru, and several
other public men were also advised.
By way of supporting this extraordinary story, M. Favre made some
strange assertions; namely, that shortly after Bonaparte’s marriage
with Josephine, the Dauphin’s coffin was opened in the presence
of Fouché and Savary, and found to be empty; that Josephine told
the secret to the Emperor of Russia in 1814, although the Count de
Provence—that is to say, Louis XVIII.—tried to buy her silence with a
marshal’s baton for her son Eugène; that in the secret treaty of Paris
the high contracting powers stated that there was no proof of the death
of Louis XVII.; and lastly, that Louis XVIII. when dying, directed M.
Tronchet to examine the contents of a certain chest, which proved of
such a nature that, but for the obstinacy of one member of the Council,
the ministers would have proclaimed the Duke of Normandy, king of
France. Of course, the Duke of Normandy was the elder Naundorff, whose
life had been twice attempted, once at Prague, and once in London; and,
said the advocate, ‘people do not assassinate impostors, but they do
assassinate kings.’
Causes are not to be won by bare assertions and smart sayings. The
court pronounced the story of the twofold substitution too fantastic
to be entertained; the simultaneous residence within the Temple of
the child that did die, the child that would not die, and the hidden
Dauphin, too unlikely to be believed; while the evidence before it
placed the death of that prince beyond all doubt. The documents
produced by the appellant could have been easily forged by any one
conversant with the events they sought to distort; and as for the
elder Naundorff’s claims being admitted by many people, that went
for nothing, since no sham Dauphin had ever wanted adherents. It is
needless to say that Captain Albert de Bourbon was dissatisfied; but
he held his peace until the death of the Count de Chambord, when he
publicly protested against the succession of the Count de Paris, and
once more proclaimed himself king of France. Two months afterwards, he
died at Breda.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The eldest son of a French king was termed the Dauphin.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
CHAPTER III.
A pleasant and novel feature of the _Palatine Hotel_ is its wing or
_annexe_, which consists of a long, low, semi-detached building, in
which are comprised a dozen or more commodious private sitting-rooms.
Each of these rooms opens by means of a French-window on to a spacious
veranda, from which two steps lead down to the lawn and the shrubberies
beyond. A glass-covered passage lined with shrubs and flowering plants
leads from the _annexe_ to the hotel proper. One of the largest of
these private sitting-rooms had been engaged by our worthy vicar for
himself and party.
Not many minutes had elapsed after the departure of Mr Richard
Dulcimer, otherwise Mr Golightly, in search of a quiet nook where he
could smoke his pipe without being observed, when Madame De Vigne
stepped out through the open window on to the veranda, and sat down on
a low wicker chair opposite a tiny work-table. She had rung the bell a
moment before leaving the room, and Jules, the waiter, now appeared in
answer to the summons.
‘Madame rang?’
‘I want to know at what hour the next train from Scotland is due at the
station.’
Jules bowed and retired.
At this time Mora De Vigne had touched her thirtieth year. She was
taller than the ordinary run of women, with a quiet, Juno-like
stateliness in her every gesture and movement. She had dark-brown hair,
and large, dark, luminous eyes, that to many people seemed like eyes
they had seen somewhere long ago in a picture. Her complexion was still
as clear and delicate as that of Clarice her sister, who was a dozen
years younger; but there were lines of care about her eyes, and a touch
of melancholy in the curve of her lips. In her expression there was
something which told you instinctively that in years gone by she had
confronted trouble and sorrow of no ordinary kind, and that if peace
and quiet days were her portion now, there was that in the past which
could never be forgotten.
Jules returned. ‘The next train from Scotland is due at half-past
seven, madame.’
‘Thank you. That is all.’ She looked at her watch, and then she said to
herself with a little thrill: ‘Two hours, and he will be here!’
Jules was still lingering, and Madame De Vigne regarded him with a
little surprise.
‘Pardon, but madame does not remember me?’ said Jules, addressing her
in French.
‘No; I have no recollection of having ever seen you before I came to
this place,’ she answered, after regarding him attentively for a moment
or two.
‘Yet I remembered madame the moment I saw her again.’
She could not repress a start. ‘Again! Where and when have you seen me
before?’
‘In Paris, during the terrible days of the Commune.’
‘Ah!’ was the only answer, with a little air of relief.
‘It was my fate, madame, to be shot down in one of the many street
fights that took place from house to house. I was carried to the
hospital. The doctors said I should be a dead man in less than a week,
but I am alive and here to-day. No thanks to the doctors for that, but
to you, madame—to you!’
‘To me!’
‘You were there, madame, at the hospital to which I was taken, nursing
day and night, like an angel from heaven, among the sick and wounded.
You nursed me, madame, ah! so carefully, so tenderly! But for you I
should have died.’
‘I am very glad to see you again; but I am afraid you make far too much
of any little service I was able to render you.’
‘No, no, madame! Pardon. It was to you I owed my life, not to the
doctors. I was but a poor soldier then, I am but a poor garçon now; I
have nothing, nothing in the world to offer you but my thanks.’
‘I am amply repaid by them.’
‘Ah, if Jules Decroze could but show his gratitude in some other way!’
‘No other way is necessary or possible. Be satisfied to know that your
thanks will dwell pleasantly in my memory for a long time to come.’
She rose and held out her hand. Jules took it as if it were the hand of
a queen, bent over it, touched it respectfully with his lips, placed
a hand on his heart, bowed again, then turned and went away without
another word. He was only a garçon, as he had remarked, but then he was
a Frenchman as well.