Studies in Animal Life.

“Authentic tidings of invisible things;--

Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,

And central peace subsisting at the heart

Of endless agitation.”--THE EXCURSION.

CHAPTER II.

Ponds and rock-pools--Our necessary tackle--Wimbledon Common--Early

memories--Gnat larvæ--Entomostraca and their paradoxes--Races

of animals dispensing with the sterner sex--Insignificance of

males--Volvox globator: is it an animal?--Plants swimming like

animals--Animal retrogressions--The Dytiscus and its larva--The

dragon-fly larva--Molluscs and their eggs--Polypes, and how

to find them--A new polype, _Hydra rubra_--Nest-building

fish--Contempt replaced by reverence.

The day is bright with a late autumn sun; the sky is clear with a keen

autumn wind, which lashes our blood into a canter as we press against

it, and the cantering blood sets the thoughts into hurrying excitement.

Wimbledon Common is not far off; its five thousand acres of undulating

heather, furze, and fern tempt us across it, health streaming in at

every step as we snuff the keen breeze. We are tempted also to bring

net and wide-mouthed jar, to ransack its many ponds for visible and

invisible wonders.

Ponds, indeed, are not so rich and lovely as rock-pools; the heath is

less alluring than the coast--our dear-loved coast, with its gleaming

mystery, the sea, and its sweeps of sand, its reefs, its dripping

boulders. I admit the comparative inferiority of ponds; but, you see,

we are not near the coast, and the heath is close at hand. Nay, if

the case were otherwise, I should object to dwarfing comparisons. It

argues a pitiful thinness of nature (and the majority in this respect

are lean) when present excellence is depreciated because some greater

excellence is to be found elsewhere. We are not elsewhere; we must do

the best we can with what is here. Because ours is not the Elizabethan

age, shall we express no reverence for our great men, but reserve it

for Shakspeare, Bacon, and Raleigh, whose traditional renown must

overshadow our contemporaries? Not so. To each age its honour. Let

us be thankful for all greatness, past or present, and never speak

slightingly of noble work, or honest endeavour, because it is not, or

we choose to say it is not, equal to something else. No comparisons

then, I beg. If I said ponds were finer than rock-pools, you might

demur; but I only say ponds are excellent things, let us dabble in

them; ponds are rich in wonders, let us enjoy them.

And first we must look to our tackle. It is extremely simple. A

landing-net, lined with muslin; a wide-mouthed glass jar, say a foot

high and six inches in diameter, but the size optional, with a bit of

string tied under the lip, and forming a loop over the top, to serve

as a handle which will let the jar swing without spilling the water;

a camel-hair brush; a quinine bottle, or any wide-mouthed phial, for

worms and tiny animals which you desire to keep separated from the

dangers and confusions of the larger jar; and when to these a pocket

lens is added, our equipment is complete.

As we emerge upon the common, and tread its springy heather, what

a wild wind dashes the hair into our eyes, and the blood into our

cheeks! and what a fine sweep of horizon lies before us! The lingering

splendours and the beautiful decays of autumn vary the scene, and

touch it with a certain pensive charm. The ferns mingle harmoniously

their rich browns with the dark green of the furze, now robbed of its

golden summer-glory, but still pleasant to the eye, and exquisite to

memory. The gaunt windmill on the rising ground is stretching its

stiff, starred arms into the silent air: a landmark for the wanderer,

a landmark, too, for the wandering mind, since it serves to recall the

dim early feelings and sweet broken associations of a childhood when we

gazed at it with awe, and listened to the rushing of its mighty arms.

Ah! well may the mind with the sweet insistance of sadness linger on

those scenes of the irrecoverable past, and try, by lingering there,

to feel that it is not wholly lost, wholly irrecoverable, vanished for

ever from the Life which, as these decays of autumn and these changing

trees too feelingly remind us, is gliding away, leaving our cherished

ambitions still unfulfilled, and our deeper affections still but half

expressed. The vanishing visions of elapsing life bring with them

thoughts which lie too deep for tears; and this windmill recalls such

visions by the subtle laws of association. Let us go towards it, and

stand once more under its shadow. See the intelligent and tailless

sheep-dog which bounds out at our approach, eager and minatory; now his

quick eye at once recognizes that we are neither tramps, nor thieves,

and he ceases barking to commence a lively interchange of sniffs and

amenities with our Pug, who seems also glad of a passing interchange of

commonplace remarks. While these dogs travel over each other’s minds,

let us sun ourselves upon this bench, and look down on the embrowned

valley, with its gipsy encampment,--or abroad on the purple Surrey

hills, or the varied-tinted trees of Combe Wood and Richmond Park.

There are not many such prospects so near London. But, in spite of the

sun, we must not linger here: the wind is much too analytical in its

remarks; and, moreover, we came out to hunt.

Here is a pond with a mantling surface of green promise. Dip the

jar into the water. Hold it now up to the light, and you will see

an immense variety of tiny animals swimming about. Some are large

enough to be recognized at once; others require a pocket-lens, unless

familiarity has already enabled you to _infer_ the forms you cannot

distinctly _see_. Here (Fig. 7) are two larvæ (or grubs) of the

common gnat. That large-headed fellow (A) bobbing about with such

grotesque movements, is very near the last stage of his metamorphosis;

and to-morrow, or the next day, you may see him cast aside this mask

(_larva_ means a mask), and emerge a perfect insect. The other (B) is

in a much less matured condition, but leads an active predatory life,

jerking through the water, and fastening to the stems of weed or sides

of the jar by means of the tiny hooks at the end of its tail. The

hairy appendage forming the angle is not another tail, but a breathing

apparatus.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.

LARVÆ OF THE GNAT in two different stages of development (Magnified).]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.

CYCLOPS

_a_ large antennæ; _b_ smaller do.; _c_ egg-sacs (Magnified).]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.

DAPHNIA: _a_ pulsatile sac, or heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube

(Magnified).]

Observe, also, those grotesque _Entomostraca_,[17] popularly called

“water-fleas,” although, as you perceive, they have little resemblance

in form or manners to our familiar (somewhat _too_ familiar)

bedfellows. This (Fig. 8) is a _Cyclops_, with only one eye in the

centre of its forehead, and carrying two sacs, filled with eggs,

like panniers. You observe he has no legs; or, rather, legs and arms

are hoisted up to the head, and become antennæ (or feelers). Here

(Fig. 9) is a _Daphnia_, grotesque enough, throwing up his arms in

astonished awkwardness, and keeping his legs actively at work inside

the shell--as respirators, in fact. Here (Fig. 10) is an _Eurycercus_,

less grotesque, and with a much smaller eye. Talking of eyes, there is

one of these Entomostraca named _Polyphemus_, whose head is all eye;

and another, named _Caligus_, who has no head at all. Other paradoxes

and wonders are presented by this interesting group of animals;[18] but

they all sink into insignificance beside the paradox of the amazonian

entomostracon, the _Apus_--a race which dispenses with masculine

services altogether, a race of which there are no males!

[Illustration: Fig. 10.

EURYCERCUS: _a_ heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube (Magnified).]

I well remember the pleasant evening on which I first made the personal

acquaintance of this amazing amazon. It was at Munich, and in the house

of a celebrated naturalist, in whose garden an agreeable assemblage

of poets, professors, and their wives, sauntered in the light of a

setting sun, breaking up into groups and _têtes-à-têtes_, to re-form

into larger groups. We had taken coffee under the branching coolness of

trees, and were now loitering through the brief interval till supper.

Our host had just returned from an expedition of some fifty miles to a

particular pond, known to be inhabited by the Apus. He had made this

journey because the race, although prolific, is rare, and is not to be

found in every spot. For three successive years had he gone to the same

pond, in quest of the male: but no male was to be found among thousands

of egg-bearing females, some of which he had brought away with him, and

was showing us. We were amused to see them swimming about, sometimes

on their backs, using their long oars, sometimes floating, but always

incessantly agitating the water with their ten pairs of breathing legs;

and the ladies, gathered round the jar, were hugely elated at the idea

of animals getting rid altogether of the sterner sex--clearly a useless

incumbrance in the scheme of things!

The fact that no male Apus has yet been found is not without precedent.

Léon Dufour, the celebrated entomologist, declares that he never found

the male of the gall insect (_Diplolepis gallæ tinctoriæ_), though he

has examined thousands: they were all females, and bore well-developed

eggs on emerging from the gall-nut in which their infancy had passed.

In two other species of gall insect--_Cynips divisa_ and _Cynips

folii_--Hartig says he was unable to find a male; and he examined

about thirteen thousand. Brogniart never found the male of another

entomostracon (_Limnadia gigas_), nor could Jurine find that of our

_Polyphemus_. These negatives prove, at least, that if the males

exist at all, they must be excessively rare, and their services can be

dispensed with; a conclusion which becomes acceptable when we learn

that bees, moths, plant-lice (_Aphides_), and our grotesque friend

_Daphnia_ (Fig. 9) lay eggs which may be reared apart, will develop

into females, and these will produce eggs which will in turn produce

other females, and so on, generation after generation, although each

animal be reared in a vessel apart from all others.

While on this subject, I cannot forbear making a reflection. It must be

confessed that our sex cuts but a poor figure in some great families.

If the male is in some families grander, fiercer, more splendid, and

more highly endowed than the female, this occasional superiority is

more than counterbalanced by the still greater inferiority of the sex

in other families. The male is often but a contemptible partner, puny

in size, insignificant in powers, stinted even of a due allowance of

organs. If the peacock and the pheasant swagger in greater splendour,

what a pitiful creature is the male falcon--no falconer will look at

him. And what is the drone compared with the queen bee, or even with

the workers? What figure does the male spider make beside his large

and irascible female,--who not unfrequently eats him? Nay, worse than

this, what can be said for the male Rotifer, the male Barnacle, the

male Lernæa--gentlemen who cannot even boast of a perfect digestive

apparatus, sometimes not of a digestive organ at all? Nor is this

meagreness confined to the digestive system only. In some cases, as

in some male Rotifers, the usual organs of sense and locomotion are

wanting;[19] and in a parasitic Lernæa, the degradation is moral as

well as physical: the female lives in the gills of a fish, sucking its

juices, and the ignoble husband lives as a parasite upon her!

[Illustration: Fig. 11.

VOLVOX GLOBATOR, with eight volvoces enclosed (Magnified).]

But this digression is becoming humiliating, and meanwhile our hands

are getting benumbed with cold. In spite of that, I hold the jar up

to the light, and make a background of my forefingers, to throw into

relief some of the transparent animals. Look at those light green

crystal spheres sailing along with slow revolving motion, like planets

revolving through space, except that their orbits are more eccentric.

Each of these spheres is a _Volvox globator_. Under the microscope

it looks like a crystalline sphere, studded with bright green specs,

from each of which arise two cilia (hairs), serving as oars to row the

animal through the water. The specs are united by a delicate network,

which is not always visible, however. Inside this sphere is a fluid,

in which several dark-green smaller spheres are seen revolving, as the

parent-sphere revolved in the water. Press this Volvox gently under

your compressorium, or between the two pieces of glass, and you will

see these internal spheres, when duly magnified, disclose themselves

as identical with their parent; and inside them, smaller Volvoces are

seen. This is one of the many illustrations of Life within Life, of

which something was said in the last chapter.

Nor is this all. Those bright green specs which stud the surface,

if examined with high powers, will turn out to be not specs, but

animals,[20] and as Ehrenberg believes (though the belief is little

shared), highly organized animals, possessing a mouth, many stomachs,

and an eye. It is right to add that not only are microscopists at

variance with Ehrenberg on the supposed organization of these specs,

but the majority deny that the Volvox itself is an animal. Von Siebold

in Germany, and Professor George Busk and Professor Williamson in

England, have argued with so much force against the animal nature of

the Volvox, which they call a plant, that in most modern works you will

find this opinion adopted. But the latest of the eminent authorities

on the subject of Infusoria, in his magnificent work just published,

returns to the old idea that the Volvox is an animal after all,

although of very simple organization.[21]

The dispute may perhaps excite your surprise. You are perplexed at the

idea of a plant (if plant it be) moving about, swimming with all the

vigour and dexterity of an animal, and swimming by means of animal

organs, the cilia. But this difficulty is one of our own creation.

We first employ the word Plant to designate a vast group of objects

which have no powers of locomotion, and then ask, with triumph,

How can a plant move? But we have only to enlarge our knowledge of

plant-life to see that locomotion is not absolutely excluded from it;

for many of the simpler plants--Confervæ and Algæ:--can, and do, move

spontaneously in the early stages of their existence: they escape from

their parents as free swimming rovers, and do not settle into solid

and sober respectability till later in life. In their roving condition

they are called, improperly enough, “zoospores,”[22] and once gave rise

to the opinion that they were animals in infancy, and became degraded

into plants as their growth went on. But locomotion is no true mark

of animal-nature, neither is fixture to one spot the true mark of

plant-nature. Many animals (Polypes, Polyzoa, Barnacles, Mussels, &c.),

after passing a vagabond youth, “settle” once and for ever in maturer

age, and then become as fixed as plants. Nay, human animals not

unfrequently exhibit a somewhat similar metempsychosis, and make up for

the fitful capriciousness of wandering youth, by the steady severity of

their application to business, when width of waistcoat and smoothness

of cranium suggest a sense of their responsibilities.

Whether this loss of locomotion is to be regarded as a retrogression

on the part of the plant, or animal, which becomes fixed, may be

questioned; but there are curious indications of positive retrogression

from a higher standard in the metamorphoses of some animals. Thus the

beautiful marine worm, _Terebella_, which secretes a tube for itself,

and lives in it, fixed to the rock, or oyster-shell, has in early

life a distinct head, eyes, and feelers; but in growing to maturity,

it loses all trace of head, eyes, and even of feelers, unless the

beautiful tuft of streaming threads which it waves in the water be

considered as replacing the feelers. There are the Barnacles, too,

which in the first stage of their existence have three pairs of legs, a

very simple single eye, and a mouth furnished with a proboscis. In the

second stage they have six pairs of legs, two compound eyes, complex in

structure, two feelers, but _no mouth_. In the third, or final stage,

their legs are transformed into prehensile organs, they have recovered

a mouth, but have lost their feelers, and their two complex eyes are

degraded to a single and very simple eye-spot.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.

WATER BEETLE and its larva.]

But to break up these digressions, let us try a sweep with our net. We

skim it along the surface, and draw up a quantity of duckweed, dead

leaves, bits of stick, and masses of green thread, of great fineness,

called Conferva by botanists. The water runs away, and we turn over

the mass. Here is a fine water-beetle, Dytiscus, and a larva of the

same beetle, called the “Water-tiger,” from its ferocity (Fig. 12). You

would hardly suspect that the slim, big-headed, long-tailed Water-tiger

would grow into the squat, small-headed, tailless beetle: nor would

you imagine that this Water-tiger would be so “high fantastical” as to

breathe by his tail. Yet he does both, as you will find if you watch

him in your aquarium.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.

DRAGON-FLY LARVÆ: A ordinary aspect; B with the huge nipper-like jaw

extended.]

[Illustration: Fig. 14.

A LIMNÆCA STAGNALIS, or water snail.

B PLANORBIS.]

[Illustration: Fig. 15.

PALUDINA VIVIPARA.]

Continuing our search, we light upon the fat, sluggish, ungraceful

larva of the graceful and brilliant Dragon-fly, the falcon of

insects (Fig. 13). He is useful for dissection, so pop him in. Among

the dead leaves you perceive several small leeches, and flat oval

_Planariæ_, white and brown; and here also is a jelly-like mass, of

pale yellow colour, which we know to be a mass of eggs deposited by

some shell-fish; and as there are few objects of greater interest

than an egg in course of development, we pop the mass in. Here (Fig.

14) are two molluscs, _Limnæus_ and _Planorbis_, one of which is

probably the parent of those eggs. And here is one which lays no

eggs, but brings forth its young alive: it is the _Paludina vivipara_

(Fig. 15), of which we learned some interesting details last month.

Scattered over the surface of the net and dead leaves, are little

dabs of dirty-looking jelly--some of them, instead of the dirty hue,

are almost blood-red. Experience makes me aware that these dirty

dabs are certainly Polypes--the _Hydra fusca_ of systematists. I

can’t tell how it is I know them, nor how you may know them again.

The power of recognition must be acquired by familiarity: and it is

because men can’t _begin_ with familiarity, and can’t recognize these

Polypes without it, that so few persons really ever see them. But the

familiarity may be acquired by a very simple method. Make it a rule to

pop every unknown object into your wide-mouthed phial. In the water

it will probably at once reveal its nature: if it be a Polype, it

will expand its tentacles; if not, you can identify it at leisure on

reaching home, by the aid of pictures and descriptions. See, as I drop

one of these into the water, it at once assumes the well-known shape

of the Polype. And now we will see what these blood-red dabs may be;

in spite of their unusual colour, I cannot help suspecting them to be

Polypes also. Give me the camel-hair brush. Gently the dab is removed,

and transferred to the phial. Shade of Trembley! it _is_ a Polype![23]

Is it possible that this discovery leaves you imperturbable, even when

I assure you it is of a species hitherto undescribed in text-books?

Now, don’t be provokingly indifferent! rouse yourself to a little

enthusiasm, and prove that you have something of the naturalist in

you by delighting in the detection of a new species. “You didn’t know

that it was new?” _That_ explains your calmness. There must be a basis

of knowledge before wonder can be felt--wonder being, as Bacon says,

“broken knowledge.” Learn, then, that hitherto only three species

of fresh-water Polypes have been described: _Hydra viridis_, _Hydra

fusca_, and _Hydra grisea_. We have now a fourth to swell the list; we

will christen it _Hydra rubra_, and be as modest in our glory as we

can. If any one puts it to us, whether we seriously attach importance

to such trivialities as specific distinctions resting solely upon

colour, or size, we can look profound, you know, and repudiate the

charge. But this is a public and official attitude. In private, we can

despise the distinctions established by others, but keep a corner of

favouritism for our own.[24]

I remember once showing a bottle containing Polypes to a philosopher,

who beheld them with great calmness. They appeared to him as

insignificant as so many stems of duckweed; and lest you should be

equally indifferent, I will at once inform you that these creatures

will interest you as much as any that can be found in ponds, if you

take the trouble of studying them. They can be cut into many pieces,

and each piece will grow into a perfect Polype; they may be pricked,

or irritated, and the irritated spot will bud a young Polype, as a

plant buds; they may be turned inside out, and their skin will become

a stomach, their stomach a skin. They have acute sensibility to light

(towards which they always move), and to the slightest touch; yet not

a trace of a nervous tissue is to be found in them. They have powers of

motion, and locomotion, yet their muscles are simply a network of large

contractile cells. If the water in which they are kept be not very

pure, they will be found infested with parasites; and quite recently I

have noticed an animal, or vegetal, parasite--I know not which--forming

an elegant sort of fringe to the tentacles: clusters of skittle-shaped

bodies, too entirely transparent for any structure whatever to be made

out, in active agitation, like leaves fluttering on a twig. Some day or

other we may have occasion to treat of the Polypes in detail, and to

narrate the amusing story of their discovery; but what has already been

said will serve to sharpen your attention and awaken some curiosity in

them.

Again and again the net sweeps among the weed, or dredges the

bottom of the pond, bringing up mud, stones, sticks, with a fish,

worms, molluscs, and tritons. The fish we must secure, for it is a

stickleback--a pretty and interesting inhabitant of an aquarium, on

account of its nest-building propensities. We are surprised at a fish

building a nest, and caring for its young, like the tenderest of birds

(and there are two other fishes, the Goramy and the Hassar, which have

this instinct); but why not a fish, as well as a bird? The cat-fish

swims about in company with her young, like a proud hen with her

chickens; and the sun-fish hovers for weeks over her eggs, protecting

them against danger.

The wind is so piercing, and _my_ fingers are so benumbed, I can

scarcely hold the brush. Moreover, continual stooping over the net

makes the muscles ache unpleasantly, and suggests that each cast shall

be the final one. But somehow I have made this resolution and broken

it twenty times: either the cast has been unsuccessful, and one is

provoked to try again, or it is so successful that, as _l’appétit

vient en mangeant_, one is seduced again. Very unintelligible this

would be to the passers-by, who generally cast contemptuous glances at

us, when they find we are not fishing, but are only removing Nothings

into a glass jar. One day an Irish labourer stopped and asked me if I

were fishing for salmon. I quietly answered, “Yes.” He drew near. I

continued turning over the weed, occasionally dropping an invisible

thing into the water. At last, a large yellow-bellied Triton was

dropped in. He begged to see it; and seeing at the same time how

alive the water was with tiny animals, became curious, and asked

many questions. I went on with my work; his interest and curiosity

increased; his questions multiplied; he volunteered assistance; and

remained beside me till I prepared to go away, when he said seriously:

“Och! then, and it’s a fine thing to be able to name all God’s

creatures.” Contempt had given place to reverence; and so it would be

with others, could they check the first rising of scorn at what they do

not understand, and patiently learn what even a roadside pond has of

Nature’s wonders.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] _Entomostraca_ (from _entomos_, an insect, and _ostracon_, a

shell) are not really insects, but belong to the same large group of

animals as the lobster, the crab, or the shrimp, _i.e._ crustaceans.

[18] The student will find ample information in BAIRD’S _British

Entomostraca_, published by the Ray Society.

[19] Compare GEGENBAUR: _Grundzüge der vergleichende Anatomie_, 1859,

pp. 229 _und_ 269; also LEYDIG _über Hydatina senta_, in _Müller’s

Archiv_, 1857, p. 411.

[20] To avoid the equivoque of calling the parts of an animal, which

are capable of independent existence, by the same term as the whole

mass, we may adopt HUXLEY’S suggestion, and call all such individual

parts _zöoids_, instead of animals. DUGE’S suggested _zöonites_ in the

same sense.--_Sur la Conformité Organigue_, p. 13.

[21] STEIN: _Der Organismus der Infusionsthiere_, 1859, pp. 36–38.

[22] Zoospores, from _zoon_, an animal, and _sporos_, a seed.

[23] TREMBLEY in his admirable work. _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire

d’une genre de Polypes d’eau douce_, 1744, furnished science with the

fullest and most accurate account of fresh-water Polypes; but it is a

mistake to suppose that he was the original discoverer of this genus:

old LEUWENHOEK had been before him.

[24] The editors of the _Annals of Natural History_ append a note to

the account I sent them of this new Polype, from which it appears that

Dr. Gray found this very species and apparently in the same spot nearly

thirty years ago. But the latest work of authority, VAN DER HOEVEN’S

_Handbook of Zoology_, only enumerates the three species.

Curious, if True.

(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.)

You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that

sister of Calvin’s, who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I

doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished

relation, that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and

archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral

descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I

shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you

are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befell me one

evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was

wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream.

For the purpose I have named it was necessary that I should make Tours

my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin

family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was

necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese

before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the

possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at

Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de ----, at

that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very

few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings.

The _table d’hôte_ was at five o’clock; I did not wish to go to the

expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere

of the _salle à manger_, could not play either at pool or billiards,

and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make

me unwilling to enter into any _tête-à-tête_ gamblings with them.

So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of

the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to

explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot

for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the

Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing with

equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.

One Thursday evening, the 18th of August it was, I think, I had gone

farther than usual in my walk, and I found that it was later than I had

imagined when I paused to turn back. I fancied I could make a round;

I had enough notion of the direction in which I was, to see that by

turning up a narrow straight lane to my left I should shorten my way

back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, could I have found

an outlet at the right place, but field-paths are almost unknown in

that part of France, and my lane, stiff and straight as any street,

and marked into terrible vanishing perspective by the regular row of

poplars on each side, seemed interminable. Of course night came on, and

I was in darkness. In England I might have had a chance of seeing a

light in some cottage only a field or two off, and asking my way from

the inhabitants; but here I could see no such welcome sight; indeed, I

believe French peasants go to bed with the summer daylight, so if there

were any habitations in the neighbourhood I never saw them. At last--I

believe I must have walked two hours in the darkness,--I saw the dusky

outline of a wood on one side of the weariful lane, and, impatiently

careless of all forest laws and penalties for trespassers, I made my

way to it, thinking that if the worst came to the worst, I could find

some covert--some shelter where I could lie down and rest, until the

morning light gave me a chance of finding my way back to Tours. But

the plantation, on the outskirts of what appeared to me a dense wood,

was of young trees, too closely planted to be more than slender stems

growing up to a good height, with scanty foliage on their summits.

On I went towards the thicker forest, and once there I slackened my

pace, and began to look about me for a good lair. I was as dainty as

Lochiel’s grandchild, who made his grandsire indignant at the luxury of

his pillow of snow: this brake was too full of brambles, that felt damp

with dew; there was no hurry, since I had given up all hope of passing

the night between four walls; and I went leisurely groping about, and

trusting that there were no wolves to be poked up out of their summer

drowsiness by my stick, when all at once I saw a château before me, not

a quarter of a mile off, at the end of what seemed to be an ancient

avenue (now overgrown and irregular), which I happened to be crossing,

when I looked to my right, and saw the welcome sight. Large, stately,

and dark was its outline against the dusky night-sky; there were

pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the

dim starlight. And more to the purpose still, though I could not see

the details of the building that I was now facing, it was plain enough

that there were lights in many windows, as if some great entertainment

was going on.

“They are hospitable people at any rate,” thought I. “Perhaps they will

give me a bed. I don’t suppose French propriétaires have traps and

horses quite as plentiful as English gentlemen; but they are evidently

having a large party, and some of their guests may be from Tours, and

will give me a cast back to the Lion d’Or. I am not proud, and I am

dog-tired. I am not above hanging on behind, if need be.”

So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to

the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large

lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c.,

the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood

on the threshold a huge porter appeared, in a strange, old-fashioned

dress, a kind of livery which well befitted the general appearance

of the house. He asked me, in French (so curiously pronounced that I

thought I had hit upon a new kind of _patois_), my name, and whence I

came. I thought he would not be much the wiser, still it was but civil

to give it before I made my request for assistance; so in reply I said--

“My name is Whittingham--Richard Whittingham, an English gentleman,

staying at ----.” To my infinite surprise a light of pleased

intelligence came over the giant’s face; he made me a low bow, and

said (still in the same curious dialect) that I was welcome, that I was

long expected.

“Long expected!” What could the fellow mean? Had I stumbled on a nest

of relations by John Calvin’s side, who had heard of my genealogical

inquiries, and were gratified and interested by them? But I was too

much pleased to be under shelter for the night to think it necessary to

account for my agreeable reception before I enjoyed it. Just as he was

opening the great heavy _battants_ of the door that led from the hall

to the interior, he turned round and said,--

“Apparently Monsieur le Géanquilleur is not come with you.”

“No! I am all alone; I have lost my way,”--and I was going on with my

explanation, when he, as if quite indifferent to it, led the way up

a great stone staircase, as wide as many rooms, and having on each

landing-place massive iron wickets, in a heavy framework; these the

porter unlocked with the solemn slowness of age. Indeed, a strange,

mysterious awe of the centuries that had passed away since this château

was built came over me as I waited for the turning of the ponderous

keys in the ancient locks. I could almost have fancied that I heard

a mighty rushing murmur (like the ceaseless sound of a distant sea,

ebbing and flowing for ever and for ever), coming forth from the great

vacant galleries that opened out on each side of the broad staircase,

and were to be dimly perceived in the darkness above us. It was as if

the voices of generations of men yet echoed and eddied in the silent

air. It was strange, too, that my friend the porter going before me,

ponderously infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep

the tall flambeau he held steadily before him,--strange, I say, that he

was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and passages, or met with

on the grand staircase. At length we stood before the gilded doors that

led into the saloon where the family--or it might be the company, so

great was the buzz of voices--was assembled. I would have remonstrated

when I found he was going to introduce me, dusty and travel-smeared, in

a morning costume that was not even my best, into this grand _salon_,

with nobody knew how many ladies and gentlemen assembled; but the

obstinate old man was evidently bent upon taking me straight to his

master, and paid no heed to my words.

The doors flew open, and I was ushered into a saloon curiously full of

pale light, which did not culminate on any spot, nor proceed from any

centre, nor flicker with any motion of the air, but filled every nook

and corner, making all things deliciously distinct; different from our

light of gas or candle, as is the difference between a clear southern

atmosphere and that of our misty England.

At the first moment my arrival excited no attention, the apartment

was so full of people, all intent on their own conversation. But my

friend the porter went up to a handsome lady of middle age, richly

attired in that antique manner which fashion has brought round again

of late years, and, waiting first in an attitude of deep respect till

her attention fell upon him, told her my name and something about me,

as far as I could guess from the gestures of the one and the sudden

glance of the eye of the other.

She immediately came towards me with the most friendly actions of

greeting, even before she had advanced near enough to speak. Then,--and

was it not strange?--her words and accent were that of the commonest

peasant of the country. Yet she herself looked high-bred, and would

have been dignified had she been a shade less restless, had her

countenance worn a little less lively and inquisitive expression. I

had been poking a good deal about the old parts of Tours, and had had

to understand the dialect of the people who dwelt in the Marché an

Vendredi and similar places, or I really should not have understood

my handsome hostess, as she offered to present me to her husband, a

henpecked, gentlemanly man, who was more quaintly attired than she in

the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself that in

France, as in England, it is the provincials who carry fashion to such

an excess as to become ridiculous.

However, he spoke (still in the _patois_) of his pleasure in making

my acquaintance, and led me to a strange uneasy easy-chair, much of a

piece with the rest of the furniture, which might have taken its place

without any anachronism by the side of that in the Hôtel Cluny. Then

again began the clatter of French voices, which my arrival had for an

instant interrupted, and I had leisure to look about me. Opposite to

me sat a very sweet-looking lady, who must have been a great beauty in

her youth I should think, and would be charming in old age, from the

sweetness of her countenance. She was, however, extremely fat, and on

seeing her feet laid up before her on a cushion, I at once perceived

that they were so swollen as to render her incapable of walking, which

probably brought on her excessive _embonpoint_. Her hands were plump

and small, but rather coarse-grained in texture, not quite so clean as

they might have been, and altogether not so aristocratic-looking as the

charming face. Her dress was of superb black velvet, ermine-trimmed,

with diamonds thrown all abroad over it.

Not far from her stood the least little man I had ever seen; of such

admirable proportions no one could call him a dwarf, because with that

word we usually associate something of deformity; but yet with an

elfin look of shrewd, hard, worldly wisdom in his face that marred the

impression which his delicate regular little features would otherwise

have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of equal rank

with the rest of the company, for his dress was inappropriate to the

occasion (and he apparently was an invited, while I was an involuntary

guest); and one or two of his gestures and actions were more like

the tricks of an uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain

what I mean: his boots had evidently seen much service, and had been

re-topped, re-heeled, re-soled to the extent of cobbler’s powers. Why

should he have come in them if they were not his best--his only pair?

And what can be more ungenteel than poverty? Then again he had an

uneasy trick of putting his hand up to his throat, as if he expected to

find something the matter with it; and he had the awkward habit--which

I do not think he could have copied from Dr. Johnson, because most

probably he had never heard of him--of trying always to retrace his

steps on the exact boards on which he had trodden to arrive at any

particular part of the room. Besides, to settle the question, I once

heard him addressed as Monsieur Poucet, without any aristocratic “de”

for a prefix; and nearly every one else in the room was a marquis at

any rate.

I say, “nearly every one;” for some strange people had the entrée;

unless indeed they were like me benighted. One of the guests I should

have taken for a servant, but for the extraordinary influence he

seemed to have over the man I took for his master, and who never did

anything without, apparently, being urged thereto by this follower.

The master, magnificently dressed, but ill at ease in his clothes, as

if they had been made for some one else, was a weak-looking, handsome

man, continually sauntering about, and I almost guessed an object of

suspicion to some of the gentlemen present, which, perhaps, drove him

on the companionship of his follower, who was dressed something in the

style of an ambassador’s chasseur; yet it was not a chasseur’s dress

after all; it was something more thoroughly old-world; boots half way

up his ridiculously small legs, which clattered as he walked along, as

if they were too large for his little feet; and a great quantity of

grey fur, as trimming to coat, court-mantle, boots, cap--everything.

You know the way in which certain countenances remind you perpetually

of some animal, be it bird or beast! Well, this chasseur (as I will

call him for want of a better name) was exceedingly like the great

Tom-cat that you have seen so often in my chambers, and laughed at

almost as often for his uncanny gravity of demeanour. Grey whiskers has

my Tom--grey whiskers had the chasseur: grey hair overshadows the upper

lip of my Tom--grey mustachios hid that of the chasseur. The pupils of

Tom’s eyes dilate and contract as I had thought cats’ pupils only could

do, until I saw those of the chasseur. To be sure, canny as Tom is,

the chasseur had the advantage in the more intelligent expression. He

seemed to have obtained most complete sway over his master or patron,

whose looks he watched, and whose steps he followed with a kind of

distrustful interest that puzzled me greatly.

There were several other groups in the more distant part of the saloon,

all of the stately old school, all grand and noble, I conjectured from

their bearing. They seemed perfectly well acquainted with each other,

as if they were in the habit of meeting. But I was interrupted in my

observations by the tiny little gentleman on the opposite side of the

room coming across to take a place beside me. It is no difficult matter

to a Frenchman to slide into conversation, and so gracefully did my

pigmy friend keep up the character of the nation, that we were almost

confidential before ten minutes had elapsed.

Now I was quite aware that the welcome which all had extended to me,

from the porter up to the vivacious lady and meek lord of the castle,

was intended for some other person. But it required either a degree

of moral courage, of which I cannot boast, or the self-reliance and

conversational powers of a bolder and cleverer man than I, to undeceive

people who had fallen into so fortunate a mistake for me. Yet the

little man by my side insinuated himself so much into my confidence,

that I had half a mind to tell him of my exact situation and to turn

him into a friend and an ally.

“Madame is perceptibly growing older,” said he, in the midst of my

perplexity, glancing at our hostess.

“Madame is still a very fine woman,” replied I.

“Now, is it not strange,” continued he, lowering his voice, “how

women almost invariably praise the absent, or departed, as if they

were angels of light, while as for the present, or the living”--here

he shrugged up his little shoulders, and made an expressive pause.

“Would you believe it! Madame is always praising her late husband to

monsieur’s face; till, in fact, we guests are quite perplexed how

to look: for you know, the late M. de Retz’s character was quite

notorious,--everybody has heard of him.” All the world of Touraine,

thought I, but I made an assenting noise.

At this instant, monsieur our host came up to me, and with a civil

look of tender interest (such as some people put on when they inquire

after your mother, about whom they do not care one straw) asked if I

had heard lately how my cat was? “How my cat was!” What could the man

mean? My cat! Could he mean the tailless Tom, born in the Isle of Man,

and now supposed to be keeping guard against the incursions of rats

and mice into my chambers in London? Tom is, as you know, on pretty

good terms with some of my friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts

without scruple, and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of

demeanour, and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame have

reached across the Channel? However, an answer must be returned to the

inquiry, as monsieur’s face was bent down to mine with a look of polite

anxiety; so I, in my turn, assumed an expression of gratitude, and

assured him that, to the best of my belief, my cat was in remarkably

good health.

“And the climate agrees with her?”

“Perfectly,” said I, in a maze of wonder at this deep solicitude in a

tailless cat who had lost one foot and half an ear in some cruel trap.

My host smiled a sweet smile, and, addressing a few words to my little

neighbour, passed on.

“How wearisome these aristocrats are!” quoth my neighbour with a

slight sneer. “Monsieur’s conversation rarely extends to more than two

sentences to any one. By that time his faculties are exhausted, and he

needs the refreshment of silence. You and I, monsieur, are at any rate

indebted to our own wits for our rise in the world!”

Here again I was bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my

descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to

nobility,--and as to my “rise in the world”--if I had risen, it would

have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to

being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets.

However, it was my cue to agree: so I smiled again.

“For my part,” said he, “if a man does not stick at trifles, if

he knows how to judiciously add to, or withhold facts, and is not

sentimental in his parade of humanity, he is sure to do well; sure to

affix a _de_ or _von_ to his name, and end his days in comfort. There

is an example of what I am saying”--and he glanced furtively at the

weak-looking master of the sharp, intelligent servant, whom I have

called the chasseur.

“Monsieur le Marquis would never have been anything but a miller’s son,

if it had not been for the talents of his servant. Of course you know

his antecedents?”

I was going to make some remarks on the changes in the order of the

peerage since the days of Louis XVI.--going, in fact, to be very

sensible and historical--when there was a slight commotion among the

people at the other end of the room. Lacqueys in quaint liveries

must have come in from behind the tapestry, I suppose (for I never

saw them enter, though I sate right opposite to the doors), and were

handing about the slight beverages and slighter viands which are

considered sufficient refreshments, but which looked rather meagre

to my hungry appetite. These footmen were standing solemnly opposite

to a lady,--beautiful, splendid as the dawn, but--sound asleep in a

magnificent settee. A gentleman who showed so much irritation at her

ill-timed slumbers, that I think he must have been her husband, was

trying to awaken her with actions not far removed from shakings. All

in vain; she was quite unconscious of his annoyance, or the smiles of

the company, or the automatic solemnity of the waiting footmen, or the

perplexed anxiety of monsieur and madame.

My little friend sat down with a sneer as if his curiosity was quenched

in contempt.

“Moralists would make an infinity of wise remarks on that scene,” said

he. “In the first place note the ridiculous position into which their

superstitious reverence for rank and title puts all these people.

Because monsieur is a reigning prince over some minute principality

the exact situation of which no one has as yet discovered, no one must

venture to take their glass of eau sucré till Madame la Princesse

awakens; and, judging from past experience, those poor lacqueys may

have to stand for a century before that happens. Next--always speaking

as a moralist, you will observe--note how difficult it is to break off

bad habits acquired in youth!”

Just then the prince succeeded, by what means I did not see, in awaking

the beautiful sleeper. But at first she did not remember where she was,

and looking up at her husband with loving eyes, she smiled and said:

“Is it you, my prince!”

But he was too conscious of the suppressed amusement of the spectators

and his own consequent annoyance, to be reciprocally tender, and

turned away with some little French expression best rendered into

English by “Pooh pooh, my dear!”

After I had had a glass of delicious wine of some unknown quality, my

courage was in rather better plight than before, and I told my cynical

little neighbour--whom I must say I was beginning to dislike--that I

had lost my way in the wood, and had arrived at the château quite by

mistake.

He seemed mightily amused at my story; said that the same thing had

happened to himself more than once; and told me that I had better luck

than he had had on one of these occasions, when, from his account,

he must have been in considerable danger of his life. He ended his

story by making me admire his boots, which he said he still wore,

patched though they were, and all their excellent quality lost by

patching,--because they were of such a first-rate make for long

pedestrian excursions. “Though indeed,” he wound up by saying, “the new

fashion of railroads would seem to supersede the necessity for this

description of boots.”

When I consulted him as to whether I ought to make myself known to

my host and hostess as a benighted traveller, instead of the guest

whom they had taken me for, he exclaimed, “By no means! I hate such

squeamish morality.” And he seemed much offended by my innocent

question, as if it seemed by implication to condemn something in

himself. He was offended and silent; and just at this moment I caught

the sweet, attractive eyes of the lady opposite,--that lady whom I

named at first as being no longer in the bloom of youth, but as being

somewhat infirm about the feet, which were supported on a raised

cushion before her. Her looks seemed to say, “Come here, and let us

have some conversation together;” and with a bow of silent excuse to my

little companion, I went across to the lame old lady. She acknowledged

my coming with the prettiest gesture of thanks possible; and half

apologetically said, “It is a little dull to be unable to move about

on such evenings as this; but it is a just punishment to me for my

early vanities. My poor feet, that were by nature so small, are now

taking their revenge for my cruelty in forcing them into such little

slippers.... Besides, monsieur,” with a pleasant smile, “I thought it

was possible you might be weary of the malicious sayings of your little

neighbour. He has not borne the best character in his youth, and such

men are sure to be cynical in their old age.”

“Who is he?” asked I, with English abruptness.

“His name is Poucet, and his father was, I believe, a wood-cutter, or

charcoal-burner, or something of the sort. They do tell sad stories

of connivance at murder, ingratitude, and obtaining money on false

pretences--but you will think me as bad as he if I go on with my

slanders. Rather let us admire the lovely lady coming up towards us,

with the roses in her hand--I never see her without roses, they are so

closely connected with her past history, as you are doubtless aware.

Ah beauty!” said my companion to the lady drawing near to us, “it is

like you to come to me, now that I can no longer go to you.” Then

turning to me, and gracefully drawing me into the conversation, she

said, “You must know that although we never met until we were both

married, we have been almost like sisters ever since. There have been

so many points of resemblance in our circumstances, and I think I may

say in our characters. We had each two elder sisters--mine were but

half-sisters, though--who were not so kind to us as they might have

been.”

“But have been sorry for it since,” put in the other lady.

“Since we have married princes,” continued the same lady, with an arch

smile that had nothing of unkindness in it, “for we both have married

far above our original stations in life; we are both unpunctual in our

habits, and in consequence of this failing of ours we have both had to

suffer mortification and pain.”

“And both are charming,” said a whisper close behind me. “My lord the

marquis, say it--say, ‘And both are charming.’”

“And both are charming,” was spoken aloud by another voice. I turned,

and saw the wily cat-like chasseur, prompting his master to make civil

speeches.

The ladies bowed with that kind of haughty acknowledgment which shows

that compliments from such a source are distasteful. But our trio of

conversation was broken up, and I was sorry for it. The marquis looked

as if he had been stirred up to make that one speech, and hoped that he

would not be expected to say more; while behind him stood the chasseur,

half impertinent and half servile in his ways and attitudes. The

ladies, who were real ladies, seemed to be sorry for the awkwardness

of the marquis, and addressed some trifling questions to him, adapting

themselves to the subjects on which he could have no trouble in

answering. The chasseur, meanwhile, was talking to himself in a

growling tone of voice. I had fallen a little into the background at

this interruption in a conversation which promised to be so pleasant,

and I could not help hearing his words.

“Really, De Carabas grows more stupid every day. I have a great mind to

throw off his boots, and leave him to his fate. I was intended for a

court, and to a court I will go, and make my own fortune as I have made

his. The emperor will appreciate my talents.”

And such are the habits of the French, or such his forgetfulness

of good manners in his anger, that he spat right and left on the

parquetted floor.

Just then a very ugly, very pleasant-looking man, came towards the

two ladies to whom I had lately been speaking, leading up to them a

delicate fair woman dressed all in the softest white, as if she were

_vouée au blanc_. I do not think there was a bit of colour about her.

I thought I heard her making, as she came along, a little noise of

pleasure, not exactly like the singing of a tea-kettle, nor yet like

the cooing of a dove, but reminding me of each sound.

“Madame de Mioumiou was anxious to see you,” said he, addressing

the lady with the roses, “so I have brought her across to give you

a pleasure!” What an honest good face! but oh! how ugly! And yet I

liked his ugliness better than most persons’ beauty. There was a look

of pathetic acknowledgment of his ugliness, and a deprecation of your

too hasty judgment, in his countenance that was positively winning.

The soft white lady kept glancing at my neighbour the chasseur, as if

they had had some former acquaintance, which puzzled me very much,

as they were of such different rank. However, their nerves were

evidently strung to the same tune, for at a sound behind the tapestry,

which was more like the scuttering of rats and mice than anything

else, both Madame de Mioumiou and the chasseur started with the most

eager look of anxiety on their countenances, and by their restless

movements--madame’s panting, and the fiery dilation of his eyes--one

might see that commonplace sounds affected them both in a manner very

different to the rest of the company. The ugly husband of the lovely

lady with the roses now addressed himself to me.

“We are much disappointed,” he said, “in finding that monsieur is not

accompanied by his countryman--le grand Jean d’Angleterre; I cannot

pronounce his name rightly”--and he looked at me to help him out.

“Le grand Jean d’Angleterre!” now who was le grand Jean d’Angleterre?

John Bull? John Russell? John Bright?

“Jean--Jean”--continued the gentleman, seeing my embarrassment. “Ah,

these terrible English names--‘Jean de Géanquilleur!’”

I was as wise as ever. And yet the name struck me as familiar, but

slightly disguised. I repeated it to myself. It was mighty like John

the Giant-killer, only his friends always call that worthy “Jack.” I

said the name aloud.

“Ah, that is it!” said he. “But why has he not accompanied you to our

little reunion to-night?”

I had been rather puzzled once or twice before, but this serious

question added considerably to my perplexity. Jack the Giant-killer had

once, it is true, been rather an intimate friend of mine, as far as

(printer’s) ink and paper can keep up a friendship, but I had not heard

his name mentioned for years; and for aught I knew he lay enchanted

with King Arthur’s knights, who lie entranced until the blast of the

trumpets of four mighty kings shall call them to help at England’s

need. But the question had been asked in serious earnest by that

gentleman, whom I more wished to think well of me than I did any other

person in the room. So I answered respectfully that it was long since I

had heard anything of my countryman; but that I was sure it would have

given him as much pleasure as it was doing myself to have been present

at such an agreeable gathering of friends. He bowed, and then the lame

lady took up the word.

“To-night is the night when, of all the year, this great old forest

surrounding the castle is said to be haunted by the phantom of a little

peasant girl who once lived hereabouts; the tradition is that she was

devoured by a wolf. In former days I have seen her on this night out

of yonder window at the end of the gallery. Will you, ma belle, take

monsieur to see the view outside by the moonlight (you may possibly see

the phantom-child); and leave me to a little _tête-à-tête_ with your

husband?”

With a gentle movement the lady with the roses complied with the

other’s request, and we went to a great window, looking down on the

forest, in which I had lost my way. The tops of the far-spreading and

leafy trees lay motionless beneath us in that pale, wan light, which

shows objects almost as distinct in form, though not in colour, as by

day. We looked down on the countless avenues, which seemed to converge

from all quarters to the great old castle; and suddenly across one,

quite near to us, there passed the figure of a little girl, with the

“capuchon” on, that takes the place of a peasant girl’s bonnet in

France. She had a basket on one arm, and by her, on the side to which

her head was turned, there went a wolf. I could almost have said it was

licking her hand, as if in penitent love, if either penitence or love

had ever been a quality of wolves,--but though not of living, perhaps

it may be of phantom wolves.

“There, we have seen her!” exclaimed my beautiful companion. “Though

so long dead, her simple story of household goodness and trustful

simplicity still lingers in the hearts of all who have ever heard

of her; and the country-people about here say that seeing that

phantom-child on this anniversary brings good luck for the year. Let us

hope that we shall share in the traditionary good fortune. Ah! here is

Madame de Retz--she retains the name of her first husband, you know, as

he was of higher rank than the present.” We were joined by our hostess.

“If monsieur is fond of the beauties of nature and art,” said she,

perceiving that I had been looking at the view from the great window,

“he will perhaps take pleasure in seeing the picture.” Here she sighed,

with a little affectation of grief. “You know the picture I allude

to,” addressing my companion, who bowed assent, and smiled a little

maliciously, as I followed the lead of madame.

I went after her to the other end of the saloon, noting by the way

with what keen curiosity she caught up what was passing either in

word or action on each side of her. When we stood opposite to the end

wall, I perceived a full-length picture of a handsome peculiar-looking

man, with--in spite of his good looks--a very fierce and scowling

expression. My hostess clasped her hands together as her arms hung down

in front, and sighed once more. Then, half in soliloquy, she said--

“He was the love of my youth; his stern yet manly character first

touched this heart of mine. When--when shall I cease to deplore his

loss!”

Not being acquainted with her enough to answer this question (if,

indeed, it were not sufficiently answered by the fact of her second

marriage), I felt awkward; and, by way of saying something, I

remarked,--

“The countenance strikes me as resembling something I have seen

before--in an engraving from an historical picture, I think; only, it

is there the principal figure in a group: he is holding a lady by her

hair, and threatening her with his scimitar, while two cavaliers are

rushing up the stairs, apparently only just in time to save her life.”

“Alas, alas!” said she, “you too accurately describe a miserable

passage in my life, which has often been represented in a false

light. The best of husbands”--here she sobbed, and became slightly

inarticulate with her grief--“will sometimes be displeased. I was young

and curious, he was justly angry with my disobedience--my brothers were

too hasty--the consequence is, I became a widow!”

After due respect for her tears, I ventured to suggest some commonplace

consolation. She turned round sharply:--

“No, monsieur: my only comfort is that I have never forgiven the

brothers who interfered so cruelly, in such an uncalled-for manner,

between my dear husband and myself. To quote my friend Monsieur

Sganarelle--‘Ce sont petites choses qui sont de temps en temps

nécessaires dans l’amitié; et cinq ou six coups d’épée entre gens

qui s’aiment ne font que ragaillardir l’affection.’ You observe the

colouring is not quite what it should be?”

“In this light the beard is of rather a peculiar tint,” said I.

“Yes: the painter did not do it justice. It was most lovely, and gave

him such a distinguished air, quite different from the common herd.

Stay, I will show you the exact colour, if you will come near this

flambeau!” And going near the light, she took off a bracelet of hair,

with a magnificent clasp of pearls. It was peculiar, certainly. I did

not know what to say. “His precious lovely beard!” said she. “And the

pearls go so well with the delicate blue!”

Her husband, who had come up to us, and waited till her eye fell upon

him before venturing to speak, now said, “It is strange Monsieur Ogre

is not yet arrived!”

“Not at all strange,” said she tartly. “He was always very stupid,

and constantly falls into mistakes, in which he comes worse off; and

it is very well he does, for he is a credulous and cowardly fellow.

Not at all strange! If you will”--turning to her husband, so that I

hardly heard her words, until I caught--“Then everybody would have

their rights, and we should have no more trouble. Is it not, monsieur?”

addressing me.

“If I were in England, I should imagine madame was speaking of the

reform bill, or the millennium,--but I am in ignorance.”

And just as I spoke, the great folding-doors were thrown open wide, and

every one started to their feet to greet a little old lady, leaning on

a thin black wand--and--

“Madame la Féemarraine,” was announced by a chorus of sweet shrill

voices.

And in a moment I was lying in the grass close by a hollow oak tree,

with the slanting glory of the dawning day shining full in my face, and

thousands of little birds and delicate insects piping and warbling out

their welcome to the ruddy splendour.

Life among the Lighthouses.

A minister of state, whose duties brought him into constant attendance

upon royalty, once made a memorandum in his diary to watch the king

into a good humour, _that he might ask him for a Lighthouse_. It is

probable that the wish of Lord Grenville (for it was he) was not to

learn what living in a lighthouse would be like, but rather to realize

the very considerable living to be got out of one.

Whether his lordship ever got what he desired, we do not know; but

could he have foreseen the serious penalties the nation would have

to pay for having the “well-beloved cousins and councillors” of its

kings quartered in this free and easy way upon its mercantile marine,

surely he would have been too generous to seek it. Henry VIII. and his

daughter Elizabeth were alive to the true policy in such matters, for

he put the custody of such things into the charge of a chartered body,

whose interests were made identical with the public welfare; and she,

making her Lord High Admiral Howard surrender his authority in regard

to beacons, buoys, marks and signs for the sea to their custody, gave

the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House their first Act of Parliament,

and set them forward upon an ever-widening career of usefulness, which

has resulted in our channels being almost as well lighted as our

streets.

Not but what among the proprietors of “private lights,” as those not

under the control of the Trinity House were called, there were men

of sagacity, energy, and self-devotion. Men who were proud of the

means whereby they lived, and took the same pleasure in having their

lighthouse a credit to them that an opulent manufacturer does in having

his mills up to the mark with all the most recent improvements. But

the same motive did not exist in the one case as does in the other. If

a manufacturer does not keep in the front rank as regards machinery,

the character of his goods is degraded in the market. He must choose

between spinning well or not at all. But with the private manufacturers

of light for bewildered sailors the case was different: they were

authorized to levy tolls on all vessels passing, using, or deriving

benefit from the light in question; a certain range of distance

appears to have been assumed within which the vessel was liable; and

although at one lighthouse the oil might be bad, at another the candles

unsnuffed, whilst at a third the coal fire would be reeking in its

embers, still so long as the light was there the dues were chargeable.

Things came to a crisis at last. In districts where at the time when

the king’s good-humour had been availed of vessels from fishing-village

to fishing-village crept round by twos and threes, the waters got

crowded daily and hourly with ships of mighty tonnage, and every

ton had to pay. It was difficult to tell what the recipients of the

royal benevolence were making; but from the style in which their mere

collectors throve, it was evidently something far too good to be

talked about. It must have been very hard to have been insulted with

an offer of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a barren rock

in the ocean, nothing like that number of feet square, subjecting the

proprietor to the necessity of making a pathetic rejoinder to the

effect “that if he must sell, it must be for five hundred and fifty

thousand pounds, and that would not pay him;” but a jury was appealed

to, and four hundred and forty-five thousand pounds was carried off as

the vested right in one lighthouse, with a heavy sigh that it was so

little. Another leviathan of the deep realized three hundred thousand

pounds; and if these were whales among the tritons, the tritons and the

minnows too, all plethoric of their kind, fared well. The scale was

freighted heavily with compulsory purchase-money before they were all

bought out, and the shipping interest had to pay surplus light dues for

many years before the official custodians of the lighthouse fund had

got quit of their huge debt.

Even on these terms it was the right thing to do. When the lighthouse

on the Smalls rock in the Bristol Channel was in private hands, the

annual consumption of oil, which is another way of stating the annual

amount of light produced, was as little as two hundred gallons; at this

present time fifteen hundred gallons are burnt within the year. The

dues payable in those days were twopence per ton, whilst now vessels

pay at the rate of one halfpenny per ton over-sea, and one-sixteenth

part of a penny per ton for coasting voyages, less an abatement in

the latter cases of thirty-five per cent. But bad lighting, private

proprietorship, public debt, and, to a great extent, even surplus light

dues, have gone for ever, and lighthouses have got back to what Queen

Elizabeth meant them to be--public trusts in public hands for public

uses.

And yet it was private enterprise that built and rebuilt, and again

rebuilt the Eddystone, and it was private courage that established

that which will soon be a thing of the past, the strange wooden-legged

Malay-looking barracoon of a lighthouse in the Bristol Channel, on a

rock called the “Smalls.”

The wooden structure at the Smalls was conceived originally by a Mr.

Phillips, of Liverpool, a member of the Society of Friends. He set

himself to establish “a great holy good to serve and save humanity,”

and even in this world he had his reward; for sixty years afterwards,

when his representatives had to surrender it to the Trinity House, they

got one hundred and seventy thousand pounds by way of compensation for

it.

Like most sagacious men, he knew how to choose his instruments. At that

time there resided in Liverpool a young man of the name of Whiteside,

a maker of “violins, spinettes, and upright harpsichords,” with a

strongly marked mechanical genius.

In the summer of 1772, this young fiddle-maker found himself at Solva,

twenty miles from the rock, with a gang of Cornish miners, who were to

quarry sockets into the stone, into which it was originally intended

that iron pillars should be soldered. The first essay was sufficiently

appalling. The surface of the rock is called twelve feet above the

level of high water, that is, in smooth weather; but in tempestuous

seas, and when the waves are rolling in from the south-west, it is as

many feet below it. The party had landed from their cutter, and had

got a long iron rod worked a few feet into the rock, when the weather

suddenly got “dirty.” The wind and the sea rose together, and the

cutter had to sheer off lest she should be wrecked. The men on the rock

clung, as best they might, to the half-fastened shaft, and a desperate

struggle ensued between brute nature and that passive fortitude which

is greater than brute nature,--all through the night into the morning,

all through the day into the night again, until the third day, when the

storm abated and they were saved.

Nothing daunted, it was agreed that it was just as well to know the

worst. One hint was immediately taken, and rings and holding bars

were let into various parts of the rock, to which the men could lash

themselves and each other on similar occasions. It was soon found that

iron pillars would not do, that they were not sufficiently elastic;

and great pains were taken to find heart of oak that would be equal to

resist the angry forces of the waters. That the present structure would

stand for ever, may be doubted, except by a process analogous to the

repair of the Irishman’s stocking,--first a new foot, and then a fresh

leg. Anyhow, it has been recently thought better to build a granite

tower, which, once well done, may be said, humanly speaking, to be done

for ever. The light will be exhibited at a greater elevation, which

gives it an extended range, and the size of the lantern will admit of a

larger and more powerful apparatus. The mode of procedure is of course

very different from that adopted by Mr. Whiteside. Where formerly there

was a poor fiddle-maker, with half-a-dozen Cornish miners, and a ship’s

carpenter or two, there is now a civil engineer, a clerk, thirty-eight

granite masons, four carpenters, eight smiths, thirteen seamen, four

bargemen, two miners and eight labourers; a commodious wharf, a steam

vessel, a tender, and some barges. There may be nothing so pathetic or

so heroic as that long cling of nine forlorn human creatures round the

first iron bar; it would be shame to the engineer if it should be so;

but there is real work to do, and it is being thoroughly well done.

The story of the present structure at the Eddystone has been told

with quaint simplicity by the man who raised it. Smeaton had this

advantage over Whiteside, that he had precursors in his work: but

then the work was harder, and was done more enduringly. Whiteside’s

work at the Smalls is coming away in the course of a season or two;

Smeaton’s, at the Eddystone, is to remain the pattern lighthouse

of the world for ever. The first Eddystone, built in 1696, was a

strange affair--something like a Chinese pagoda, or a belvedere in

some suburban tea-gardens, with open galleries and projecting cranes.

The architect was Henry Winstanley, and he has depicted himself

complacently fishing out of his kitchen window; but how he ever

expected his queer mansion to stand the winter storms is simply a

marvel. It was completed in 1699, and it was destroyed in 1703. The

necessity for repairs had taken him to the rock at the time, a dreadful

storm set in on the 26th November, and the next morning there was

nothing left of the lighthouse or its occupants but some of the large

irons whereby the work had been fixed in the rock. A narrative of

the occurrence, printed in the following year, states:--“It was very

remarkable that, as we are informed, at the same time the lighthouse

abovesaid was blown down, the model of it, in Mr. Winstanley’s house at

Littlebury, in Essex, above 200 miles from the lighthouse, fell down

and was broke to pieces.” Upon which, Smeaton shrewdly remarks: “This,

however, may not appear extraordinary, if we consider, that the same

general wind that blew down the lighthouse near Plymouth might blow

down the model at Littlebury.”

The next structure at the Eddystone, commenced in 1706, was a very

different thing. Mr. John Rudyerd was doomed by fortune to be a silk

mercer, and keep a shop on Ludgate Hill; but Nature had made him

an engineer. Smeaton speaks with great admiration of many of his

arrangements; and if the lighthouse had not been destroyed by fire,

about forty-six years after its erection, there appears no reason why

it should not have been standing to this day. While Winstanley’s was

all external ornament, with numberless nooks and angles for the wind

and sea to gripe it by, Rudyerd’s was a snug, smooth, solid cone,

round which the sea might rage, but on which it could hardly fasten.

But fire conquered what the water could not. Luckily for the keepers,

it broke out in the very top of the lantern, and burnt downwards, and

there was time to save the men, although one of them, looking upwards

at the burning mass, not only got burnt on the shoulders and head

with some molten lead, but while gazing upwards with his mouth open,

received some of the liquid metal down his throat, and yet survived, to

the incredulity of all Plymouth, for twelve days, when seven ounces of

lead, “of a flat, oval form,” was taken from his stomach.

The lessees of the Eddystone, in those days, seem to have been

liberal-minded people. The tolls ceased with the extinction of the

light, and could not be renewed until it was again exhibited. It was

their apparent interest, therefore, to get a structure run up on the

old model as quickly as possible. It was true it had been destroyed by

fire, but a little modification of the old arrangements would probably

have prevented such a calamity recurring, and it had proved itself

stable and seaworthy. Nevertheless, they not only consulted the ablest

engineer of the day, but submitted to the delay and extra cost involved

in the adoption of his advice to build of stone and granite.

The point of most enduring interest connected with the present

Eddystone is the peculiarity of its form, which is familiar, probably,

to everybody in the kingdom, from the child, who has seen it in a

magic-lantern, to the civil engineer who knows Smeaton’s stately folio

by heart. Until he built so, the form was almost unknown to us; and

since he built so, all the ocean lighthouses have been modifications of

it. It is interesting to contrast the reasoning of Mr. Alan Stevenson,

the builder of the “Skerryvore,” another of these deep-sea lamp-posts,

as they have been called, off the western coast of Scotland,--with

the _instincts_ of Smeaton, so to speak, on the same subject. It may

not be very edifying to the general reader to learn “that, as the

stability of a sea-tower depends, _cæteris paribus_, on the lowness

of its centre of gravity, the general notion of its form is that of a

cone; but that, as the forces to which its several horizontal sections

are opposed decrease towards its top in a rapid ratio, the solid should

be generated by the revolution of some curve line convex to the axis

of the tower, and gradually approaching to parallelism with it; and

that this, in fact, is a general description of the Eddystone Tower,

devised by Smeaton.” Neither is it a thing likely to be remembered,

without saying it over a good many times to oneself, that “the shaft

of the Skerryvore pillar is a solid, generated by the revolution of

a rectangular hyperbola about its asymptote as a vertical axis.”

But if we understand the respective narratives of the constructors

rightly, Smeaton worked from analogy, and Stevenson from mathematical

calculation. Smeaton tells us of his desire to make his lighthouse

resemble the trunk of a stately tree, and he gives drawings both of a

trunk and of a branch, to show how they start, the one from the ground,

and the other from the main stem. He is also constantly recurring to

the idea of the elasticity of stone, and he quotes a report from one of

the keepers, that on one occasion “the house did shake as if a man had

been up in a great tree.” Certainly, the effect to the eye in looking

at the Eddystone, corroborates the conception with which his mind was

evidently possessed; it emerges from the sea; the curve of the natural

rock is continued in a singularly felicitous manner; the Skerryvore is

a fine shaft, but one sees that it has been stuck in a hole, thoroughly

well fastened in, and (relying on its weight and coherence) likely to

remain there till doomsday; but the Eddystone is homogeneous to the

rock, as well as to itself; and gazing on it, one gets into the same

train of contemplation as Topsy did upon her wickedness, and supposes

it grew there. Nevertheless the Skerryvore is a noble structure, and

the memoir of its construction by Mr. Stevenson is almost exhaustive

of all that is at present known about lighthouses and lighthouse

illumination.

And if these be the lighthouses, and the mode of life among those by

whom they are builded, let us try to realize the daily work of those by

whom the structures are inhabited. “You are to light the lamps every

evening at sun-setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and

clear, till sun-rising.” That is the first article of instructions to

light-keepers, as may be seen by any visitors to a station. Whatever

else happens, you are to do that. It may be you are isolated, through

the long night-watches, twenty miles from land, fifty or a hundred feet

above the level of the sea, with the winds and waves howling round you,

and the sea-birds dashing themselves to death against the gleaming

lantern, like giant-moths against a candle; or it may be a calm,

voluptuous, moonlight night, the soft landairs laden with the perfumes

of the highland heather or the Cornish gorse, tempting you to keep your

watch outside the lantern, in the open gallery, instead of in your

watch-room chair within; the Channel may be full of stately ships, each

guided by your light, or the horizon may be bare of all sign of life,

except, remote and far beneath you, the lantern of some fishing-boat at

sea,--but, whatever may be going on outside, there is within for you

the duty, simple and easy, by virtue of your moral method and orderly

training, “to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep

them constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.” You shall

be helped to do this easily and well by abundant discipline, first,

on probation, at head-quarters, where you shall gain familiarity with

all your materials--lamps, oil, wicks, lighting apparatus, revolving

machinery, and cleaning stores; you shall be looked at, and over, and

through, by keen medical eyes, before you can be admitted to this

service, lest, under the exceptional nature of your future life, you,

not being a sound man, should break down, to the public detriment and

your own; you shall be enjoined “to the constant habit of cleanliness

and good order in your own person, and to the invariable exercise

of temperance and morality in your habits and proceedings, so that,

by your example, you may enforce, as far as lies in your power, the

observance of the same laudable conduct by your wife and family.” You

shall be well paid while you are hale and active, and well pensioned

when you are past work; you shall be ennobled, by compulsion, into

provident consideration for your helpmate and your children by an

insurance on your life; but when all this is done for you, and the

highest and completest satisfaction that can fall to the best of us

on this side the grave--the sense of being useful to our fellows--is

ordered for you in abundant measure, it all recurs to what, as regards

the specialty of your life, is the be-all and the end-all of your

existence, and this is the burden to the ballad of your story:--“You

are to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep them

constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.”

To do this implies a perpetual watch. “He whose watch is about to end

is to trim the lamps and leave them burning in perfect order before he

quits the lantern and calls the succeeding watch, and he who has the

watch at sun-rise, when he has extinguished the lamps, is to commence

all necessary preparations for the exhibition of the light at the

ensuing sunset;” and, moreover, “no bed, sofa, or other article on

which to recline, can be permitted, either in the lantern, or in the

apartment under the lantern, known as the watch-room.”

Thus far we have a common denominator to the life of every

light-keeper; but in other respects it varies much. At such stations

as the Forelands or Harwich, where there are gardens to cultivate and

plenty of land room for the men to stretch their legs and renovate

themselves after the night watches; where visitors from neighbouring

watering-places are constantly coming and going, to talk, to praise,

to listen, and, perhaps, to fee, it is all very well; but there are

also places “remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,” where the walk is

limited to the circle of the gallery-railing, or the diameter of the

lighthouse column; where the only incidents are the inspections of the

committee, the visits of the district superintendent, or the monthly

relief which takes the men back to shore. At these stations, when the

sea is making fun of them, it sweeps up clean over the roof, and makes

the lantern-glasses ring again, and in calmer weather the men may creep

carefully out upon the rock to solace themselves with a little fishing;

or if of more nervous temperament, may do it, as Winstanley did, with

greater security from the kitchen window.

Not but what some people like that sort of life. Smeaton tells a story

of a shoemaker who went out as light-keeper to the Eddystone because

he did not like confinement, having found himself in effect a greater

prisoner at his lapstone than he would be at the rock; but then Smeaton

confesses a few pages farther on that at times the keepers have been so

short of provisions as to be compelled to eat the candles.

In the old days of private proprietorship, when every owner had his

system of management, and when the desire to make a profit set the aims

of efficiency and economy into antagonism, exceptional cases of very

terrible tragic significance occasionally occurred. For instance, here

is a letter from the heroic fiddle-maker himself, dated “Smalls, 1st

February, 1777,” written in triplicate, put into a corked bottle, and

that into a cask inscribed, “Open this, and you will find a letter:”--

“TO MR. WILLIAMS.

“_Smalls, February 1st, 1777._

“SIR,--Being now in a most dangerous and distressed condition

upon the Smalls, do hereby trust Providence will bring to your

hand this, which prayeth for your immediate assistance to fetch

us off the Smalls before the next spring, or we fear we shall

perish; our water near all gone, our fire quite gone, and our

house in a most melancholy manner. I doubt not but you will fetch

us from here as fast as possible; we can be got off at some part

of the tide almost any weather. I need say no more, but remain

your distressed,

“Humble servant,

“HY. WHITESIDE.

“We were distressed in a gale of wind upon the 13th of January,

since which have not been able to keep any light; but we could

not have kept any light above sixteen nights longer for want of

oil and candles, which make us murmur and think we are forgotten.

“ED. EDWARDES.

“GEO. ADAMS.

“JNO. PRICE.

“We doubt not but that whoever takes up this will be so merciful

as to cause it to be sent to Thos. Williams, Esq., Trelethin,

near St. David’s, Wales.”

Again, a quarter of a century later, the watch was kept by two keepers;

and for four months the weather shut them off from all communication

with the land. The method of talking by signals was not developed

anywhere into the complete system it has now become, and does not

appear to have been in use at all among the lighthouse people; but in

the course of a week or two after the storm had set in, it was rumoured

at several of the western ports that something was wrong at the Smalls.

Passing vessels reported that a signal of distress was out, but that

was all they knew. Many attempts to approach the rock were made, but

fruitlessly. The boats could not get near enough to hail, they could

only return to make the bewildered agent and the anxious relatives of

the keepers more bewildered and more anxious by the statement that

there was always what seemed to be the dim figure of a man in one

corner of the outside gallery, but whether he spoke or moved, or not,

they could not tell. Night after night the light was watched for with

great misgiving whether it would ever show again. But the light failed

not. Punctually as the sun set it seemed to leave a fragment of its

fire gleaming in the lantern glasses, which burnt there till it rose

again, showing this much at least, that some one was alive at the

Smalls; but whether both the men, or which, no anxious mother or loving

wife could tell. Four months of this, and then, in calmer weather, a

Milford boat brought into the agency at Solva one light-keeper and one

dead man.