_THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE._
* * * * *
[Illustration:
_Lascelles & Co., Photographers._
A LITTLE MAID FROM SPAIN.]
* * * * *
THE
HARMSWORTH
MONTHLY PICTORIAL
MAGAZINE
VOLUME I.
1898-9.
[Illustration]
_PUBLISHED BY_
HARMSWORTH BROS., LIMITED, LONDON, E.C.
[pointing hand: _WHEN BOUND, THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE WILL MAKE
TWO SUMPTUOUS VOLUMES EVERY YEAR._]
* * * * *
[Illustration: 1,200 EGGS, OR 120 TIMES AS MANY AS REPRESENTED HERE,
CONTAIN ALL THAT IS NECESSARY FOR THE COMPOSITION OF A 150 LB. MAN.]
MAN IS MADE OF--WHAT?
SOME FACTS ABOUT YOURSELF.
BY T. F. MANNING.
It is rarely realised what a queer combination of things exists in
the human body. When the reader glances at these pages he will wonder
whatever matches, candles, balloons, sugar-basins, soap, and all the
other things illustrated have to do with the making of a man. At first
sight the illustrations seem extraordinarily out of place; but when
this article has been read through, he will then understand that the
body is more or less of a chandler's shop in the making, for it is
intended to show, in everyday language, something of its marvellous
construction.
"Dust thou art" is a somewhat erroneous description of the body from a
biological point of view. It would be nearer the mark to say, "You are
mainly--over ninety per cent.--solidified soda-water."
Still nearer was the observation of a witty physiologist, that the
greatest man on earth is only so much white of egg alive. To be
strictly accurate, one should say that a man is an exceedingly complex
mixture of gases, liquids, and solids, into all of which he will
ultimately revert.
[Illustration: HERE IS A POUND OF CANDLES. THE BODY HAS ENOUGH FAT TO
MAKE FROM 3-3/4 TO 7-1/2 LBS.]
At the same time, this wonderful machine that walks, eats, thinks,
talks, laughs, cries, and fights, consists of a very few simple
elements. And, although we get our building materials from a wonderful
variety of substances gathered from the four corners of the earth in
the form of meat, fruits, vegetables, and condiments, they are to be
found, as everyone knows, in any dairyman's shop. If one only knew
how to do it, he could take 1,200 eggs, whisk them up, and build a
complete and perfect man of 150 lbs. weight.
Solid as our body is, it is mostly made up of gases. The five familiar
gases, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine, fluorine, and the
three well-known solids, carbon, phosphorus, and lime--or, rather,
calcium--constitute all but a trifling fraction of our whole bulk.
The mystery of life never does seem so deep as when one reflects that,
by the mixture of these few substances in various proportions, nature
makes kings, poets, warriors, saints, burglars, thieves, and all the
rest of the great human hotch-potch.
To build a one-hundred-and-fifty pound man, only fourteen elements,
altogether, are needed. Five of them are the above-named gases--there
is enough gas in a man to fill a gasometer of 3,649 cubic feet--and
nine are solids, found in almost any handful of clay you might take up
at random; that is to say, carbon, calcium, phosphorus, iron, sulphur,
sodium, potassium, silicon, and magnesium. In most people minute
quantities of a few other things are found, such as copper, aluminium,
manganese, lead, mercury, arsenic, and lithium; but these substances
are probably always trespassers.
[Illustration: THERE IS ENOUGH GAS IN A MAN TO FILL A GASOMETER OF
3,649 CUBIC FEET.]
Far and away the most important element in flesh and bone is oxygen,
and the bulk of that energetic gas which remains tranquilly compressed
within us is something marvellous. In a ten-stone-ten man the weight
of oxygen is no less than 106 lbs., and the natural bulk of it, if it
were set free, would be equal to a beam of wood one foot square and
1,191 feet--nearly a quarter of a mile--long, or several hundred times
the bulk of the body itself. Measured by the gallon it would fill 202
36-gallon barrels.
Even bulkier, though lighter, is the constituent hydrogen. Every man's
body contains sufficient of this lightest of all substances to
inflate a balloon that would lift himself, balloon, and tackle. In the
ten-stone-ten man, for instance, the bulk of hydrogen is over 2,400
cubic feet--equal to the cubic space of a room ten feet high and
15-1/2 feet square, and the weight of it is a trifle short of 13-1/2
lbs.
Of that inexplicable gas, nitrogen, there is about half an ounce to
each pound of body weight, or, approximately, 4-1/2 lbs. altogether,
in a 150 lb. man. It is about twenty times the bulk of the body, and
by no means likes being cramped up in a space of a few cubic inches.
This is the most inert gas known. Its bulk in the body is 58 cubic
feet.
The reason it is said to be lifeless is that it hates every other
element in the world; and, while oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and
the other things, like the Continental Powers, cannot live alone,
nitrogen, like England, will not, if it can possibly avoid it, live in
company. From this trait arises not only all the action of the human
brain and the strength of the muscles, but the terrible force of all
the great explosives. While individually without any energy whatever,
when it does chance to enter into union with other things nitrogen
becomes the most energetic substance in existence.
The great explosive force of nitroglycerine is due to azote. One of
the most frightful explosives known is chloride of nitrogen, which
goes off if the sun shines on it, or if a leaf touches it; and, in
the human body, it is the breaking down of nitrogen compounds which
actually constitutes life. Nothing can be alive without nitrogen,
itself the type of death.
The last of the substances of any bulk in the body is carbon. There
is, as nearly as possible, a sack of 21-1/2 lbs. in a ten-stone-ten
man, sufficient to make some sixty-five gross of lead pencils,
sixty-five times as many as represented in our picture. It is
veritably the fuel of the body, which both keeps us warm and gives us
energy to move.
[Illustration: FIVE TACKS LIKE THESE CAN BE MADE FROM THE 48 GRAINS OF
IRON IN THE BODY.]
Thus it is the mainspring of animal life, which consists altogether
of moving and keeping the body warm; the entire mechanism of the body,
eyes to see, mouth and hands to grasp, stomach to digest, heart to
circulate, and lungs to supply air, being designed to effect these two
simple operations.
Although the above four elements form between 145 and 146 of a man's
150 lbs. of blood, flesh, and bone, the few pounds of the remaining
elements are absolutely essential.
[Illustration:
A MAN CONTAINS ENOUGH HYDROGEN TO FILL A BALLOON THAT WOULD
LIFT HIMSELF--2,400 CUBIC FEET.
]
The erect posture, of which men are so proud, although it makes them
the slowest-moving creatures of their size on earth and exposes them
to all sorts of accidents, is due, primarily, to the two pounds of
calcium and twenty-four ounces of phosphorus in their bodies. Without
these, we should have no arms, legs, skulls, or teeth; we should have
to crawl like worms, and to live on some pap-like food.
It seems very extraordinary, but if anyone works it out he will see
that, if the body had to get on without its two pounds of common lime,
there would be no machinery, ships, or railways, no guns and swords,
no houses and cities, and human life would entirely consist of
crawling out of some hole in the ground at sunrise, chewing berries
and leaves, and crawling under the earth again at night.
Therefore, it is impossible to single out any element and say, "This
is the most important element of the body." For not only the two
pounds of lime, but the pound and a half of phosphorus, and the far
less quantity of iron, are as essential as the 106 lbs. of oxygen.
What is most curious about phosphorus is that, being a powerful
and terrible poison, the body can contain such a lot of it without
suffering injury. Sufficient is scattered among the bones, the
flesh, the nervous system, and the various organs to kill off a whole
village, or to supply it with all the matches it requires. For the
body contains sufficient phosphorus to make 8,064 boxes of matches
containing 60 matches each.
What phosphorus does for the bones is plain enough. With calcium and
oxygen it forms the exceedingly hard phosphate of calcium that gives
the bones their rigidity.
No one appears to be perfectly sure what part it plays in the other
tissues of the body. Something very forcible, certainly, for whenever
sufficient is not present we grow listless; and nothing tones up the
system, in some states of low health, like a course of phosphorus
medication. If phosphorus is not precisely, as many people suppose,
the element that gives man his intellectual power, it is absolutely
essential to a high degree of nervous efficiency.
[Illustration: THE BODY IS A SOAP FACTORY, AND GENERALLY CONTAINS
MATTER SUFFICIENT FOR A CAKE THIS SIZE.]
The amount of other elements may be set down as follows:--Chlorine,
4 ozs.; sodium, 3 ozs.; sulphur, 2-1/2 ozs.; fluorine, 2 ozs.;
potassium, 1 oz.; magnesium, 12 grs.; silicon, 2 grs.
Estimates vary, however, and, as a matter of fact, the quantities of
the elements in different men are by no means the same, nor are they
always from day to day the same in any one individual. But, taking
the whole of these last-named substances, they probably seldom exceed
three-quarters of a pound, yet the machine would come to a dead stop
without them.
Without iron, for instance, the blood could not carry oxygen, as it
does, from the lungs to the remotest parts of the organism. There are
only 48 grains, or one-tenth of an ounce, of iron in the blood; in the
whole body there is only sufficient to make four or five tacks--vital
tacks, for if you took them away from the body of the strongest man he
would drop dead.
Sodium and potassium are equally necessary, and so are sulphur,
chlorine, and fluorine.
But the part these take in the processes of life is better seen by
observing what combinations they form and what ends these combinations
serve. No element exists in the body alone and separate, except,
indeed, some accidental traces of oxygen, nitrogen, and a few
particles of carbon breathed in by the lungs. They are all present
in compounds of extraordinary complexity, mostly put together in the
vegetable world, as everyone knows, by some mysterious power of the
sun.
And, as was said, all the force of the body is derived from breaking
these complex compounds down into simpler combinations. We don't get
all the good possible out of them, for we cannot dissociate them into
separate elements, because elements have a horror of living separate,
and it would take something more powerful than a man's bodily organs
to make them do so.
[Illustration: A PILE OF 144 PENCILS. 65 TIMES AS MANY AS THESE CAN BE
MADE FROM THE 21-1/2 LBS. OF CARBON IN THE BODY.]
Simple water is the most important compound of all--at least, the most
abundant--consisting of hydrogen two parts, and oxygen one part. There
are from 90 to 96 lbs., or say a barrel of 9-1/2 gallons, of pure
water in a ten-stone-ten man. It has a large number of uses, but the
main use is rather curious.
The greater part of bone and fat is what might be called lifeless
tissue. The substance that makes the body alive is protoplasm, which
forms the chief bulk of muscle, brain, nerves, lungs, heart, etc. And
protoplasm exists in the shape of millions of minute globules set side
by side, and more or less welded together. But these could no more
live out of water than could a shoal of herrings. So that, wherever
in the body protoplasm is--and it is almost everywhere--not only is
it submerged in water, but it actually passes its whole existence in
running water.
Nothing could be done in the body without water. It dissolves the
food, carries the blood corpuscles, moistens the lining membranes of
the mouth, nose, throat, and all the inside of the body, forms a sort
of water cushion around the heart, lungs, and organs of the abdomen,
cools us by evaporation as sweat, and does many other useful things.
And the more water in the body the more vigorous the life. Restless
children have more than adults, and the sluggishness of old age is in
great measure due to a sort of bodily drought.
Ordinary table salt, a mixture of solid sodium and gaseous chlorine,
does a lot of work in the human body. It seems necessary to the life
of every organ, and is found in the blood, muscles, and all the
other fluids and solids. It helps the fluids to pass through the thin
membranes, so that as well as promoting the absorption of food from
intestines and stomach into the blood current it also promotes
the percolation of the blood from the minute arteries out into the
tissues.
Experiments show that if salt be withheld from an animal he quickly
languishes and dies. Yet there are only between six and seven ounces
in the whole human fabric, but quite enough to provide a large size
dinner table with it. Singularly the body is rather extravagant with
its small supply of this important constituent, and loses half an
ounce every day.
[Illustration: SALT SUFFICIENT TO FILL THIS CELLAR SIX OR SEVEN TIMES
GOES TO THE MAKING OF A MAN.]
Washing soda, or sodium in union with carbon and oxygen, is another
substance which performs an indispensable duty. Dissolved in the blood
it travels to every part of the body on a mission analogous to that of
the useful dustman. Wherever it finds a particle of carbonic acid it
seizes it, carries it to the lungs, and discharges it into the air.
The quantity of washing soda in the blood is really very small, but
the work it does is immense.
You cannot perform any action without making a given quantity of
poisonous carbonic acid. Every beat of the heart and rise of the
chest, even bending the finger or closing the eyes, gives rise to some
of this waste product. And, if it were not continuously removed, it
would fatally clog the machine in a very few minutes. The washing soda
performs the necessary scavenging duty.
This washing soda is also an important part of bone; mingled with
phosphate of lime, phosphate of magnesia, and fluoride of lime, it
helps to make our bones and teeth.
Smelling salts seems a funny thing to have within you, but it is
there. Sodium, potassium, and ammonium are mixed with hydrogen and
oxygen to make it--the pungent ammonia, as well as the soda and potash
which are the cleansing principles of soap. These are distributed
through all the flesh of the body and are present in the blood.
Together with the phosphates they keep the blood and other fluids
alkaline. This means that they preserve us from another of the many
conditions fatal to life, for if the blood turned acid we should die.
Chloride of ammonium, the familiar inhalement, is another of what
might be called the body's spices; so is chloride of potash, a sort
of cousin of the popular sore throat cure; and so also is hydrochloric
acid.
This last substance is, again, one of those trifles without which
existence would be impossible. In the stomach there is a trifling
quantity of it, manufactured as required, which kills most of the
microbes, we swallow in food, prevents fermentation, and helps
digestion.
There are ever so many other inorganic compounds. Besides these, all
civilised bodies contain a regular laboratory of adulterants, such as
boric acid and salicylic acid taken with milk, butter, and meat, and
kept some time in the body; iron, copper, antimony, arsenic, and many
other things taken in tea, beer, bottled vegetables, and the like.
[Illustration: SUGAR MAKING IS CARRIED ON IN THE BODY--THOUGH THERE IS
NEVER MORE THAN A BOWLFUL OF IT.]
From these comparatively simple bodies we go up to what are called the
organic compounds. There is a whole host of organic acids. Of course
these are present in very small quantities, or else they would
dissolve us like so much sugar.
The salts, the acids, and the elements are still more complexly
associated. One mixture of them forms the proteid or albuminous
substance which scarcely differs from white of egg. It is this alone,
in fact, that lives. It is the chief solid part of muscle, heart,
lung, brain, nerve, blood, and exists in every fluid and solid of
the body (including sweat and saliva), except bile and one other
substance. What distinguishes proteid from everything else is that it
contains the lifeless gas nitrogen.
Perhaps the nearest approach one could give to a definition of life
is that it consists of the separation of the carbon and nitrogen of
proteid substance.
The proteid is taken into the body ready-made, in milk, meat, eggs,
fish, and to a less extent in vegetables.
"Hamlet" and "King Lear," the "Iliad" and "Paradise Lost," every
speech and sermon one hears, and every book one reads, is really for
the most part this dissociation of carbon from nitrogen in another
man's brain, made evident to our eyes or ears. And this dissociation
is nothing more than if you took some white of egg and mixed with it a
quantity of oxygen so as to form urea, carbonic acid, and water.
[Illustration: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE BODY--A BARREL OF 9-1/2
GALLONS OF WATER.]
Starch and fat supply fuel both in reserve and for immediate
consumption. They are only so much carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen
mingled in certain proportions and pretty similar to sugar. But they
go through curious careers in the body. Most of the fat that one
swallows, for instance, meets an alkali in the intestines that has
come there specially from the liver and pancreas to make soap.
In the average man some tons of excellent soap are made in a
life-time, and at times there must be quite a large cake of soap
in the intestines. A quantity of glycerine is also formed as a
by-product, just as in a regular soap factory. The body can itself
make fat. If you give it lean meat, or starch, or sugar, it will take
them as raw material and manufacture good fat.
Starch, a most important constituent, goes through strange
transformations. When you swallow a potato it is chiefly starch; that
is, six atoms of carbon to ten of hydrogen and five of oxygen. In the
intestines a little water is added and it becomes sugar, for sugar
is merely starch and water joined together. It goes into the blood as
sugar, not being able, in fact, to get through as starch, and then it
either burns up in the tissues or goes to the liver, where it drops
the water and becomes a kind of starch.
The moment one feels hungry this glycogen changes into sugar again,
enters the blood, and is burned up, like a candle, into carbonic acid
and water. Sugar in the body is like loose cash in the pocket--it
does not stay long; and there seldom is a bowlful of it. But, in
some extraordinary way, if the body wishes to be saving, it sometimes
converts the sugar into a substance called inosit, which, though
sweet, is insoluble in water, and can, therefore, remain a long time
in the liver, spleen, lungs, and muscle, being very abundant in the
muscle of drunkards.
There are many other compound substances in the body. Alcohol is found
in blood, bile, muscle, and brain; gum in the glands that make saliva,
and in the lungs; pepsin, that digests food, in the stomach; one or
two ferments, like yeast; and the pigments that colour the hair and
the eye. None of these higher compounds is put together by the body.
It never takes the elements and builds them up. It can only break down
complex things into less complex things.
But it does one kind of manufacturing or constructive work, using
complex and ready-made substances, that is amazing. No one who has
eaten a cutlet, a sweet-bread, a kidney, a piece of liver, heart,
tongue, and tripe, need be reminded how various are the different
organs in composition. All this variety, however, the body brings
about itself, marvellously selecting from the one raw material, blood,
the different substances and the appropriate quantities for each kind
of tissue.
Out of the blood the body takes the compounds containing calcium,
phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and some other things, for the
making of the skeleton. The skeleton exists for the sole purpose of
giving support to the other parts, and forms 14 hundredths, or about
one-seventh, of the body-weight in a man, and 13 hundredths, or about
one-eighth, in a woman.
Thus a man of ten-stone-ten would have to carry a skeleton weighing 21
lbs.--that is, while quite fresh. When dry it would weigh only 12-1/2
lbs. In a woman of eight stone the weights would be 14 lbs. and 8-1/2
lbs. respectively.
To make muscle, the body takes other substances in appropriate
quantities from the blood. Whether you are weak and powerless, or
fit to form one of an Oxford eight and to lift weights with Sandow,
depends, to a considerable extent, on the selective skill of your
blood.
The muscular system constitutes three-sevenths of the structure,
contains half the water and half the proteid of the entire body, and
weighs, in a ten-stone-ten man, between 63 and 64 lbs.
Fat is taken from the blood mostly ready-formed, and is stored away
as packing material and reserve food. It is the most inconstant of
all tissues in quantity, and varies with every change of health,
air, diet, work, and with each important life-event. But, usually,
it averages from one-fortieth to one-twentieth of the body weight,
or from 3-3/4 to 7-1/2 lbs. in a ten-stone-ten man, enough to make
several pounds of candles like those we have photographed.
The blood itself is manufactured in the body, one part by certain
organs, another part by other organs. The making of it is still
not fully understood. But the body knows when it has and has not
sufficient. If one loses a pint of blood, the vessels take in a pint
of water from the tissues in a very short period, and soon they
have that water loaded with ingredients to bring it up to standard
strength.
So the actual bulk and weight of blood scarcely ever varies in
the same person, although it may be quite different in different
individuals. For the average man it may be set down at from
one-fourteenth to one-twelfth of the body weight--that is, between
10-3/4 and 12-1/2 lbs. Women and fat men have proportionately less.
The remainder of the body-weight is made up of the heavy liver, the
light lungs, the heart, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, intestines, brain,
nerves, skin, hair, nails. And all these sundries weigh from 45 to 51
lbs.
It will be seen that a man is made on a different principle from that
on which he makes most of the structures of civilised life. He builds
them for long endurance; he builds himself for quick destruction.
Nothing in him is permanent, or intended to be, except the skeleton
and teeth. Westminster Abbey contains all the materials of a man's
body, but it has been made into a compound edifice out of simple lime,
wood, stone, etc., with the intention that it shall remain compound as
long as possible. A man's body is constructed of compound substances
so placed together that, by their interaction, they shall speedily and
without ceasing break each other down into simple substances; and life
is thus, as was said, essentially a process of destruction.
[Illustration: 8,064 BOXES OF MATCHES LIKE THESE CAN BE MADE FROM THE
PHOSPHORUS IN A MAN.]
All these facts will help us to realise the wonders of the human body,
and will substantiate the somewhat startling statement that the body
is something of a chandler's shop.
[Illustration: THE ROGUEY MAN]
At baby boy I fondly peep--
I came to kiss good-night;
But, there, my darling's fast asleep,
Closed are those blue eyes bright.
Wee sturdy arms tired out with play
Are folded and at rest;
The feet that pattered round all day
Are tucked in downy nest.
A stray lock from the curly head
Lies on the snow-white brow;
The smile from merry lips has fled,
No dimple greets me now.
Softly he breathes; sleep on, sweet dear;
May happy dreams be thine,
And guardian-angels hover near,
To bless thee, baby mine.
* * * * *
But what in all the world is this--
The blankets thrown aside,
The rose-bud lips upraised to kiss,
The dancing eyes oped wide?
And loud he crows with baby glee,
His curls with laughter shake.
Why, he has just been fooling me--
The roguey man's awake!
EDMUND MITCHELL.
MY DESTINY.
A WAYSIDE ROMANCE.
BY C. K. BURROW.
_Illustrated by Fred Pegram._
I was travelling southward in no particularly contented mood--at
least, it pleased me to think that I was going against my will, and
solely out of respect to my father's brother, who had summoned me to
his house on a matter which might have stirred my blood a little had I
chosen to give my fancy range.
But youth is the most uncertain thing in the world, and, since the
affair was none of my doing, I chose to assume that I had no interest
in it.
And yet, when half my journey was done, I began to feel some
uneasiness, some excitement even. This was partly due, no doubt, to
the fact that I had never travelled before in my own chaise; it was
an experience that made equal appeal to my pride and to my sense of
responsibility. I was proud of my new importance, and at the same time
a little fearful of making some mistake that should betray me as a
novice to the vigilant eyes of innkeepers or hostlers.
I had recently, by the death of my father, come into a moderate
fortune. I was the only child, and my mother had died long before, so
that, apart from a few legacies, I was sole heir. As I have said, I
was young, being no more than two and twenty, perhaps too young to
have unchecked licence in the use of lands and money. You may be sure
that life shone before me; it seemed to me a field for high adventure,
a thing stuffed with romance. From the empty pockets of a boy I had
suddenly risen to the full purse of a man of substance; and, to be
honest, I think it was somewhat to my honour that I made no evil use
of my new power. I had many faults then, pride being the chief; but
since those days I have learnt wisdom. With the turn of the century
many changes came to me; but I am now only writing of a single episode
that occurred before this century was born.
Well, then, some three-fourths of the way between Worcester, from
which I started, and Dorking, in Surrey, to which I was journeying, I
stopped to change horses, and for my own and my servants' refreshment.
During the last hour I had been thinking a good deal of what awaited
me at my uncle's, and my pulse began to have the better of my will. In
a word, I was going to see the girl whom I was destined to marry.
[Illustration: "I STOPPED TO CHANGE HORSES, AND SAW THE LANDLORD
STANDING AT THE DOOR."]
My father and his brother had not been on the best of terms for many
years; but that had not prevented them from arranging that their
children should wed--an arrangement in which I had never been
consulted or, so far as I knew, the lady either. To add to the
uncertainty of the whole affair, I had never seen her; I did not even
know whether she were ugly or beautiful, short or tall. I might be
going to assume a bondage of roses or of steel.
However, I was determined that if the damsel did not please me, or I
her, there should be no marriage. I had no taste for martyrdom, and
had too delicate a stomach to take a wife without love.
I forget the name of the village at which this halt was made, but I
remember that the sign of the inn was the "George and Dragon." The
place had a long white front, with green shutters to the windows, and
over the door a great lamp hung from stanchions let into the wall. I
judged that trade was slack, for as I descended from my carriage I saw
the landlord standing at the door, smoking a pipe, and winking in the
sunlight like a sleepy dog.
I told him to have fresh horses ready in an hour, and to attend to my
servants' appetites, and also bade him send me a meal as quickly as
he could; I intended to end my journey before sunset, and sleep that
night in my uncle's house. He took my orders placidly (I never saw
a host who was less awake), and conducted me to the parlour. It was
empty, and I sat down by an open window to look out upon the village
street. It was very warm and still, a day of perfect early summer
weather, and before long, as though the mere air of the place inclined
to rest, I began to nod in my chair.
And with this nodding came a pleasant dream, and, of course, it was
about her whom I was on my way to meet. It seemed that I saw her
standing in a sunny orchard, with ripening apples over her head, and
her face and dress were flecked with the moving shadows of leaves. The
grass was high about her feet, reaching, indeed, almost to her knees;
her brown hair floated free about her shoulders; and there was such a
sweet smile on her lips, and so inviting a glance in her eyes, that I
made forward as though to clasp her.
"Nay, Cousin Nigel," she said; "wait, Cousin Nigel," and stepped back.
All my thought at once became how to win this fair creature of the
orchard; but with that I awoke, and found myself in the parlour of the
"George and Dragon," and there was a maid setting out my meal.
As I turned to the table there was a great noise of wheels and
shouting, and I stood up to see what sort of traveller came with such
a tumult of arrival. A chaise drew up before the door, the horses
all of a foam, and the postillions smeared with dust. One of the men
jumped down and had the door open before the landlord was awake. A
very elegantly-dressed man stepped out and handed forth a lady after
him; she took his hand timidly, without looking into his face, and I
saw that she would have freed it again long before he had a mind to
let it go.
She held her head so low that I could not get a clear sight of her
face at that moment, but her figure (and I already held myself to be a
judge in such matters) was so graceful and slim, and, as it were, with
such a force of youth in it, that I felt myself happy only to have
looked upon it. "Come, come," said I to myself, "remember Cousin
Audrey and the errand you are on"; but the difficulty was that I had
nothing of Cousin Audrey to remember except her name. I did not like
the look of the girl's companion, and I liked it less when I saw him
at close quarters, later on.
I sat down to the table while my gentleman was giving his orders,
which he did with small courtesy and great noise, and had already
made good way with an excellent cold capon before the new guests were
ushered into the room. The man hesitated for a moment when he saw that
the place was already occupied, but after looking me up and down in
a manner that made the blood tingle in my cheeks, and, I suppose
concluding that I was harmless, he came in without more ado and drew
the girl after him. She had been crying; the tears even then were wet
upon her lashes, and her breast shook with half-spent sobs.
She threw me a timid, wistful glance, and then dropped her eyes; if
she had gone down on her knees and begged for my consideration it
could not have made me more her servant than that glance. She was most
tenderly pretty, and the more I stole furtive looks at her the more
pleased I was with the message my eyes carried to my heart. As to her
age, it could not have been beyond eighteen, so that I felt old by
comparison, and I was infinitely touched by the redness of her eyes
and cheeks where she had rubbed them with the tiny handkerchief still
tight-clasped in her hand. I was sure she would have spoken to me had
she dared, and I was resolved that, at any rate, we should not part
unacquainted.
[Illustration: "A VERY ELEGANTLY DRESSED MAN STEPPED OUT OF THE COACH
AND HANDED FORTH A LADY."]
As for the child's companion, the mere sight of him, added to her
tears, made me sick. He was not altogether an ill-looking man, and
might by some have been accounted handsome; but he had a brutal mouth,
a shifty, restless eye, and was of a swarthy, insolent complexion that
I did not love. As for dress, he put my outfit, although I had rather
prided myself upon it, completely out of countenance. He had more silk
about him than all my wardrobe contained, and his ruffles were of the
finest lace; he was also decked with gold chains and rare jewels--at
least, to me the jewels appeared rare, but I doubt, after all, whether
they were more than paste. He seated himself close to the lady, and
would have ventured some tendernesses with her, but she gave him no
encouragement; at which, smiling grimly to himself, he watched her as
a cat watches a frightened bird.
I went on eating for some time, and applied myself with great
attention to the wine, in order to spur a somewhat tardy tongue. In
half an hour I knew my carriage would be ready, and that was but
short time to succour beauty in distress, for that was what my heart
conjectured the scene before me to represent. At last, leaning back in
my chair and uttering a sigh of satisfaction, I found my voice.
"I give you good day, sir. This inn serves fair refreshment, and is
better than it looks."
"I've known worse," he said, glancing at the table; then he turned his
back on me again.
"You travel fast," I said, "as though upon some pleasant errand."
"Or as though the runners were behind," he said.
"No, no; even they, surely, would respect your company. The errand
must be pleasant."
"Your conjecture, sir," he said, "may be right or it may be wrong. I
imagine that to be my business."
"Come," said I, "don't be angry, but drink a glass with me. We meet
only to part, and good liquor will dwell better in the memory than
curt words."
"Sir," he answered, eyeing me savagely, "I desire neither your liquor
nor your acquaintance, and you may drink your wine yourself."
Now, although he was perfectly within his right in refusing my
tendered courtesy, I did not at all like the manner of his refusal,
and my blood began to warm, the more particularly as the girl had
fallen again to quiet weeping.
"I thank you," I said, "for so gracious a permission, and may you
learn better manners before you grow too old."
"The devil!" he said. "What ails the pair of you? The boy is impudent
and deserves a whipping, and you," turning to the lady, "not much
less. For God's sake stop snivelling and be done with this nonsense."
"As for the whipping," said I, dropping a hand on my sword, "I take
and give only whippings with steel."
"Bravo!" he sneered, "and a pretty hand you make at the game, I'll be
bound."
"I'm at your service, sir," I said, draining my glass.
The fellow was terribly put out, but I could see that he had good
reason to avoid a quarrel; he looked from me to the window and from
the window to the lady, and bit his lip with rage. After a pause, he
said, more quietly--
"I fight only with men, and then with such as can show beards."
"For the lack of the beard," said I, "you have to thank my razor."
"Indeed," he said; "then the razor must be like my Lord Chancellor,
and do little work."
"You have a pretty wit, sir!"
"I have often been commended for it."
"Doubtless by men, then," said I, "for it bites too sharply for
women."
"Nay, you mistake, for women are my greatest flatterers." He smiled so
grossly at the girl that if my life had had to answer for it I could
not have held my tongue.
"Is it a woman's way to flatter by tears?" I asked.
"You young dog! If I had time and were unencumbered, I'd slit that
saucy tongue of yours," he cried.
"I asked for information, sir, not for threats. I thought that in
your charming society, which I enjoy immensely, women might find their
pleasure in tears."
"You think too much, boy," he said; and then, with an oath, he left
the room, and I heard him cursing the landlord for his delay in
serving him, calling him more foul names than were proper for a girl
to listen to. That was my opportunity, and I was quick to take it, the
more readily as the lady's imploring eyes met mine again in full gaze.
"Madam," said I, "if you are in any trouble, and need a protector, my
sword and life are at your service. I ask no questions--it is yours to
command."
"Oh! sir," she answered, "I have been wicked, and 'tis now too late,"
and she fell to weeping afresh.
"Dry your eyes, dear lady. Foolish you may have been, but never
wicked. Anyway, this is no time for repenting. Do you travel willingly
with this gentleman, or do you wish to be rid of his company?"
"Yes, yes, to be rid of him--and to forget."
"His name is?"
"Northfield," she murmured, as his step sounded outside the door.
He entered, scowling, and glanced suspiciously at us; but as I had not
moved and the lady was still trying to dry her tears, he said nothing,
and sat down again at her side. A moment later food and wine were
brought, and as they took their places at the table I rose and
occupied my old station by the window.
My blood was up, and by this time I had forgotten all about the object
of my journey; the lady's youth and beauty had made so subtle and at
the same time so strong an appeal to me, that I stopped to consider
nothing more. I have never, in all my life, been able to stand against
a woman's weeping, and at the age at which I then was, just in the
first flush of freedom, I was in no humour to reason with myself.
I stood at the window, but in such a way that I missed nothing that
passed at the table, and the more I saw the more I itched for battle.
Northfield ate largely and drank deeply, but the girl hardly carried
a morsel to her mouth, and when she did the quivering of her lips was
pitiful to see. He urged her to take more, but, she only shook her
head, and at last put down her knife and fork altogether.
[Illustration:
"'MADAM,' SAID I, 'IF YOU ARE IN ANY TROUBLE AND NEED A
PROTECTOR, MY SWORD AND LIFE ARE AT YOUR SERVICE.'"
]
"Come, child," he said, "I begin to weary of this nonsense; I don't
want a crying baby on my hands."
"I can't help crying," she said.
"You must help it, my lady; people will think strange things to see
your red eyes, and perhaps spoil the sport."
My carriage was being brought round, and the sound of it made the man
prick up his ears. At the same moment an idea shot into my head.
"The chaise is ready," Northfield said; "quick, drink something at
least, if you cannot eat."
He filled a glass with wine, and I could have sworn he adroitly
dropped some accursed powder into it.
"Drink," he said, pushing it towards her.
"You are mistaken," said I: "that carriage is mine."
The girl had put out her hand to take the glass, but as I spoke I
moved towards the door and purposely stumbled against her arm; the
glass was overset, and as the liquor soaked into the cloth, there the
powder lay upon the surface, like fine grey sand.
"A thousand pardons!" I said.
"You clumsy fool!" cried Northfield, rising as though to strike me.
But he thought better of it, and took the lady roughly by the arm.
"Come, we will leave this gentleman to play the fool alone," he said.
"I'm going back," she said. "I will--go--no further with you."
"Come!" he said, and tightened his hold upon her arm until she cried
out.
"Sir," said I, staring at the stained cloth, "did you ever know red
wine to have grey dregs before?"
He turned pale, and the girl cried out again; she tried to free
herself, and called in terror that she would not go. He clapped a
heavy hand over her mouth.
"Mr. Northfield, if that is your true name," I said, "you're a rogue,
and the lady shall not stir a step."
He released her suddenly to confront me, and in answer to a signal she
ran round and stood trembling by my side.
"You see, she puts herself under my protection," I said. "It is not
nice for a gentleman to drug a lady's wine; indeed, the law might have
something to say."
"By God!" he cried, his face white with passion, "you shall pay for
this. She is my wife."
He loosened his sword; I glanced out of the window and saw that my
carriage was almost ready.
"No, no!" cried the girl.
"Keep close to me," I whispered to her, and we moved towards the door.
But Northfield was there before us, and stood with his back against
it, sword in hand. I drew, and, begging my companion not to spoil the
chances of her escape by crying out, faced him with steadier nerves
than I could have given myself credit for.
"Stand aside!" I cried.
"Fool, do you want your lungs pricked?"
"They are a fair target--try, if it pleases you." He made a pass at
me, and in a wink we had engaged. I was a fair swordsman, but he was a
better; I, however, had the advantage in cooler nerves and the better
position, for so long as I could keep him to the door he could not
fall back. I was fearful, every second, that the ring of steel would
bring the servants about us, and therefore, at great risk, I tried to
end the matter quickly.
My chance came--he overreached himself, my point entered his breast
just below the neck, and he fell forward, swooning, upon his face.
In a moment I had him on his back and his shirt open; the wound was
nasty, but, I gladly thought, not serious; I had no fancy to have the
man's death on my conscience.
The lady was so weak from terror that I had almost carry her out, but
when we reached the door she plucked up courage to lean upon my arm.
The landlord was blinking in the sun, as usual, and my chaise was
ready. I put five pounds into his hand, bade him not disturb his other
guest for half an hour, that we might have a good start in case the
fellow was hot for a pursuit, and then, opening the carriage door,
handed the girl in and bade the postillions ride for an extra guinea.
Directly I was seated, off we went, at such a terrific pace and in
such a cloud of dust that you would have thought a royal embassy was
on the road to court.
[Illustration: "I PURPOSELY STUMBLED AGAINST HER ARM AND UPSET THE
GLASS INTO WHICH HE HAD PUT THE POWDER."]
I leaned back against the cushions at my companion's side, and looked
at her cautiously. The tears had ceased, her eyes were closed, and
though her mouth still quivered from time to time, her breathing
gradually grew quieter and her breast still. I felt extraordinarily
lifted up at the sight of her; she was so young, so sweet, so tenderly
fashioned. Her left hand lay in her lap, and I saw that there was no
wedding ring upon it; I had been certain before that the man had lied.
I was so moved by her nearness to me that I could not refrain from
touching her fingers. They closed upon mine for a happy second.
"My protector," she murmured.
In half an hour, when my heat had had time to cool, I began to
reflect upon the strangeness of my situation, and it was certainly
sufficiently awkward to make me serious. Here was I, a young bachelor,
on my way to my uncle's house, whose daughter I was to marry, and
in my carriage was a girl, young and pretty, and of a most engaging
person, whose name I did not know, whose gallant, or abductor, or
whatever he was, I had incontinently wounded, and whose simplicity,
apparently, was so profound that she was as contented in my hands as
she might have been in her mother's.
By this time she appeared to be asleep, and I had not the heart to
call her back to knowledge of the speeding carriage and her world of
sorrows. But at last, when we were some dozen miles or so upon our
way, I thought it best to try to bring matters to an issue. I touched
her hand again, and again her fingers answered mine; she had not been
asleep after all!
"Madam," I said, "we are now travelling southward, and if your home
lies in this direction I will bid my men drive you there."
"Oh, no, no; not home!" she cried.
"Where, then, if not home?"
"Anywhere but home," she said; "my father will never forgive me."
"He could not, surely, withstand your pleading."
She opened her eyes and shook her head.
"He would never forgive a runaway," she said.
"Not even when the runaway thinks better of it, and returns?"
"Ah, but that is not all. If you only knew how naughty I've been!"
[Illustration: "MY POINT ENTERED HIS BREAST JUST BELOW THE NECK, AND
HE FELL FORWARD SWOONING UPON HIS FACE."]
"Dear lady, you make much of little; I dare take my oath you have no
heavy sin upon your conscience. Suppose you did run away with this
rascal Northfield, there's no great harm done, and you've stopped in
time."
"I believed he loved me; he said he loved me, and I was so unhappy.
But he was, oh! so rough, so cruel. I hated him then!"
She stamped her foot and set her little teeth together, which made
the heat rise in me again. I was sorry that my sword had not pricked
deeper; the man who could plot evil against so fair a life as this
deserved no pity.
"Think no more of him," I said. "You are now with me, and as safe in
my keeping, if you will trust me, as in a nursery."
"I trust you--yes," she said; "you saved me."
"Ah," said I, "if I had such a sweet maid as you for sister!"
"I will be your sister," she said, smiling into my eyes.
"Then, dear sister, you will have a brother whose life is at your
command."
"You have already risked it once."
"That was nothing, child; even my groom would have done as much."
She shook her curls in pretty disbelief, and my responsibility began
to weigh upon me again. For, although all this was very pretty, and
a game at which I could have spent hours, yet the carriage was still
flying at top speed towards my destination, and if the lady would
not tell me where she lived, what was I to do? In all my uncertainty,
however, and in spite of the talk of sister, I was sure of one thing,
and that was, that I would not marry my Cousin Audrey.
After a time I drew to my companion again, and could not but observe
how, with returning security, her loveliness grew; it seemed to expand
and open, like a blossom shyly turning sunwards after a storm. The
thought that if I insisted on taking her home I might have little
opportunity to cultivate an acquaintance already dear to me, put
another notion into my head; and although it was wild enough I was in
no mood to reject it on that score.
"I am going," said I, "to a relative in Surrey, and if you like
to come with me, I can promise you a courteous, if not a cordial,
welcome. You will be safe there, at least, and to-morrow, or at any
time you wish, I will see your father and plead for your forgiveness.
It already grows towards evening, and we cannot now be far from my
uncle's house."
"I will go with you," she said, "and, oh! thank you for the thought."
When it was settled, I began to see to what a pretty complication I
was working, and, indeed, it seemed doubtful whether my own reception
would be even courteous. The circumstances in which I met the lady
would of course explain something; but I had no reason to suppose my
uncle either blind or a fool, and I was determined, from the first, to
let him see where my preference lay. As to my Cousin Audrey, since she
had never seen me, she could not love me, so there would be no hearts
broken. The probability was that she disliked the prospect of my visit
as much as I did.
It was a beautiful, clear evening, wonderfully gracious and serene,
and in the long silence that fell between us I turned to the carriage
window and looked out at the country through which we sped.
My companion, during all the time we had been together, had never
taken any account of the country--an omission I have observed in many
girls. Presently we passed over the base of a noble hill, with white
shining through the green, and all astir, as it seemed, with little
winds.
"That must be Box Hill!" I cried.
She started and laid a hand on my arm, leaning to my side of the
chaise to look.
"Box Hill!" she repeated, and her face paled and her voice shook.
"Why not Box Hill?" I said. "We're close to Dorking now."
"Dorking!"
The poor child shook with fright, and hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, you're taking me home," she cried, "and I did so trust you!"
"Dear lady," I said, "if your home is here, 'tis no fault of mine that
you are back again. Remember, I beseech you, that you never told me
where you lived, nor did I question you."
She took no heed of me, but wrung her hands and cast herself back
against the cushions in despair.
"To come back after all!" she cried. "I was wicked to run away, I
know, I know; but to come back the same day like a child-truant! I
never really loved Mr. Northfield, but he persuaded, and persuaded,
and flattered me, and at last I promised. I was to marry my cousin,
whom I'd never seen, and I couldn't bear the thought of it. He was
coming to-to-day, and he'll be at h-home n-now, and I shall h-have to
m-marry him!"
I listened to this speech in blank amazement; but when it was ended I
laughed aloud for joy of the light that broke upon me.
"You're un-k-kind to l-laugh," she sobbed.
"Unkind to you?" I cried, catching her hand. "What is your name, sweet
mistress?"
"Audrey M-Mortimer," she said.
"And mine," cried I, "is Nigel Gray, your Cousin Nigel, very much at
your service, and very much in love with Cousin Audrey!"
For a moment we gazed into each other's eyes in a kind of transport,
and then, without more ado, I took the little lady in my arms, and
kissed her. At first she tried to be a little prim and coy, but,
later, she sat upon my knee, although the chaise was narrow, and
clasped her arms about my neck.