Read Ebook: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature Science and Art fifth series no. 129 vol. III June 19 1886 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 123 lines and 20781 words, and 3 pages

'But, my lass,' continued the old man, who was evidently moved by the earnest manner in which the girl spoke, 'Jasper Rodley is a man of a thousand--good-looking, of respectable birth, and doing well. He would make you happy, and another important thing--he would not take you from me.'

'Oh, it is not that, father--no, no!' exclaimed the girl.

'But you must have some reason for not liking him?'

'Well, lass, well?'

'In the third place, I am betrothed to another.'

'Betrothed to another!' exclaimed her father in amazement. 'Why, that is impossible! You never see any one; no one ever comes here; and I cannot believe that all this time you have been deceiving me by carrying on a secret acquaintance, when you have so often protested that you live for me, and me only.'

'I have never dared tell you, father,' cried the girl. 'But it is a weight off my mind, now that you know. And, father, remember that I am not a child, and that, fond as I am of you and the old home, I could not go through life without some love of another kind than that I feel for you.'

Bertha had never spoken to her father in this style before, and the old man looked at her with mingled astonishment and reproach. Then he said: 'Bertha, I have particular reasons for wishing you to marry Jasper Rodley: I am in his power.'

The girl recalled what Rodley had said to her on the previous Wednesday, and knew now that there was a mystery in which her father and Rodley were involved, a mystery which instinctively filled her with dread that, during all these years of peace and quiet, something had been enacted between them which had been carefully kept from her, and that the interview of the previous evening was but the climax of a long-gathering storm. Many little changes in her father's manner and habits during the past four years had mystified her; now they were partially accounted for, and yet, to her recollection, she had never seen Jasper Rodley before the present month.

'In his power, father!' she exclaimed. 'How can you be in his power?'

'That I cannot even tell you, my loved one.'

'If you went out into the world, and had business dealings with other men, I could perhaps understand that you, being so simple and good-minded, might be drawn into the power of bad men, father,' cried Bertha. 'But you see none but me; you get no letters; you never go even into Saint Quinians, and yet you are in the power of a stranger!'

The old man shook his head, and continued: 'It is kind of you, Bertha, to say that I am good-minded; but I am a rogue.'

'Yet, it is true, lass,' said the old man sadly; 'and it is to save me from the consequences of being a rogue, that I ask you to accept Jasper Rodley's offer of marriage. You have a week in which to decide.'

'A week! Seven short days!' cried his daughter, springing from her seat. 'But there is time. I must go, father, now; don't keep me, for every minute is of value.'

The old man would have said something; but she hurried from the room, and in a few minutes had started.

Never before had the four miles between home and Saint Quinians seemed so long to Bertha; never before had she trod the familiar road unmindful of the beauties of nature around her, and on this April morning nature was very beautiful; but she had no eyes for the majestic green waves splintering into clouds of spray on the shining rocks, for the white-winged birds riding on the swell, for the sweet-scented herbage, or the blue sky glimmering between the dark branches of the pines. Simply she gazed on the gray-walled, red-roofed old town ahead of her, at the entrance of which some one would be waiting to greet her with open arms and glad smile. And her heart felt a little sinking as she gained the sandy eminence whence she generally got a first sight of his figure coming to meet her, and saw no one! She was later than usual, certainly; but he would have waited for her, she felt assured. He was not under the archway, nor coming up the street from the market-place; nor, when she arrived at the market-place, could she descry him anywhere.

'Ah, Miss Bertha!' said one of her market-friends. 'And how's the poor young gentleman gettin' on?'

'The poor young gentleman!' repeated Bertha. 'Why, Mrs Hardingson, who do you mean?'

Bertha almost dropped her baskets, and her blood ran cold within her; then, without waiting to hear further details, she hurried away to the office in which Harry was. The head partner received her with the utmost urbanity, and corroborated what the market-woman had said, stating, that when Harry did not appear at the office at the usual hour, a messenger was sent to his lodgings, who returned with the answer that nothing was known about him. Later in the day he was found lying insensible in the Old Town Ditch. The gentleman added, that although Harry had had a narrow escape, he was out of danger.

From the office, Bertha went to her lover's lodgings. The servant told her that Harry was in bed, very weak and excitable, but that the doctor spoke hopefully.

She sent him up a long written message, reproaching him with having kept the facts from her, and bidding him lose no precautions for getting better, as she had urgent need of him, but avoiding all direct allusion to what had taken place at home. A painfully scrawled answer came back to her to the effect that the doctor had assured him that within a week he ought to be able to get out, and sending her all sorts of loving messages.

Brief as all this is to tell, Bertha found that she had spent nearly two hours since her arrival in the town in finding out about Harry, so that, when she turned again into the market-place to begin her purchases, it was the usual hour when she was due at home; and by the time she had finished, the church bells were chiming three o'clock. As she turned out of the arch on to the homeward road, she felt bewildered and upset by the events of the past few hours as she had never felt before, and the central figure in the midst of her mental confusion was that of Jasper Rodley. Instinctively, she associated him with what had happened to Harry. All the circumstances pointed to him as being the author of the harm--the anger in which the two young men had parted, Harry's avowed intention of getting an explanation from Rodley, and the discovery of the former in the Town Ditch a few hours later. To such an extent were her feelings worked up, that she dreaded arriving at home, for fear that Jasper Rodley should be there to meet her and to push his suit; and so, resolving to linger as long as possible, she turned from the direct road over the sandhills, and struck into a more devious path, which led amongst the rocks on the edge of the sea.

So busy was she communing with herself that she did not observe the tide, which she imagined was receding, to be rising fast, and had proceeded for two miles before she noticed that she was cut off from the sandhills by a broad, deep, rapidly increasing sheet of troubled water. For a moment she hesitated, yet not from fear, for familiarity since early childhood with rocks and tides had saved her more than once from a similar predicament, and had made her an expert in rock-scrambling; but from the fact that her absence of mind had caused her to miss the right path. However, she quickly decided; and in spite of being heavily handicapped by the burden of two baskets, struck straight up a ledge of fantastic rock which, she seemed to remember, communicated even at high tide with the shore. But, to her horror and dismay, when she arrived at the summit, she beheld a fast running, angry current separating her from the sand, upon which, not a quarter of a mile away, stood her father's house. There was nothing to be done but to make for the rocks which towered above her on her right hand, and which she could see were never touched by the waves. Once up there, and she was safe; but the getting there was a problem even for her with her youthful strength and activity. As the rising water was already lapping at her heels and would advance to a level some inches above her head, there was no time for delay. Before starting, she shouted, in order to attract the attention of some one in the house; but the wind was blowing in her teeth, and she knew that she would need all her breath for the climb before her.

It was a quarter of an hour's race with the tide. At each one of Bertha's upward steps, the green water seemed to make a step. More than once she slipped back, and was over her ankles in water; but at length she reached her haven, and sank down on a table of dry rock, utterly exhausted, her hands torn and bleeding, her dress in tatters and drenched with water, safe from a fearful death, but face to face with the prospect of having to pass long dark hours in a wild desolate spot, and at the risk of being discovered by some of the lawless characters who made the rocks their homes, their castles, and their storehouses.

It was some time before she was sufficiently recovered to examine her place of refuge. When she did so, she found that she was on the very edge of one steep cliff, and at the foot of another as high, but not so inaccessible. She was well above the water, for, clinging to the sides of the cliff and springing up between the clefts of the rocks, were thick stunted bushes, and even here and there the tinted head of a hardy flower. But suddenly her attention was drawn from the geography of her surroundings to the mark of a boot on the patch of bright sand behind the rock. A tremor seized her at first, for she imagined that she must have chosen a smugglers' haunt as her place of refuge; but her fear turned into joy when she noticed that there was but the impression of a left foot, and that the spot the right foot would have occupied was marked by a hole such as the ferrule of a thick stick would make, and she knew that the traces were those of her father. The marks came up from below, and stopped abruptly at a thick bush. Something prompted the girl to stir this bush with her foot, and, to her surprise, it came away in a mass, and displayed an orifice in the rock just large enough to admit of one man passing. Her curiosity was now aroused, and overruling all considerations concerning her personal safety, and the advisability of getting home as soon as possible, she entered the opening, and found herself in a tolerably large cavern, the sandy floor of which was covered with marks corresponding to those outside, but which were especially numerous about a large round stone which, from its dissimilarity to the material of the cavern, seemed to have been brought from the beach below. Exerting all her strength, she moved the stone, and staggered back with an expression of amazement. On a wooden shelf placed in a hollow she beheld a dozen canvas bags, which, when she lifted them, clinked with the unmistakable sound of coin. But what startled her even more than the discovery itself was that each bag bore upon it, in half-effaced letters, the words, 'Faraday & Co., Saint Quinians.'

A terrible light now broke upon her. Faraday & Co. were the bankers in whose employ Harry Symonds had been when they were robbed four years previously of three thousand pounds in sovereigns; and she too well understood now what her father meant when he called himself a rogue, and what was the nature of the influence which Jasper Rodley had over him. She stood for some moments irresolute, sick at heart, her brain in a whirl, and every limb trembling. How should she act? Nothing that she could do would remove the fact that during the past four years her father had been making use of coin which belonged to other people, although, by taking the money away, she could screen him from the public shame of having it in his possession. Oh! she thought, if Harry could be with her but for five minutes to decide for her!

Daylight was fast fading away, so that every moment was of value. She decided that she would get home as soon as possible, tell her father of her discovery, persuade him to return the money to the bankers, making up the deficit which he had used, and informing them how and where he had found it. If this could be done without attracting the notice of Jasper Rodley, she might defy him to do his worst, and clear her father of all suspicion. So she replaced the stone, covered up the entrance to the cave with the bush, and followed the marks on the thin sand-path, which, to her joy led, over a ridge of rocks hitherto invisible to her, to the shore. Scarcely had she passed along, when the figure of Jasper Rodley rose from behind a rock close by the cavern entrance, his eyes bright with malignant satisfaction at having watched all her movements unseen.

Bertha found her father in a terrible state of anxiety, and she had to explain how she had been overtaken by the tide on her homeward journey, before she could broach the topic uppermost in her mind; and then, just as she was about to tell the captain of her discovery, Mr Jasper Rodley walked into the room, and announced his intention of staying the night, so that she would have no opportunity of speaking to her father in private until the next day.

WONDERS OF MEMORY.

The same may be said of scores of men whose one rich gift of memory has brought them into prominence. No one has claimed any high intellectual rank for the renowned 'Memory Corner Thompson,' who drew from actual memory, in twenty-two hours, at two sittings, in the presence of two well-known gentlemen, a correct plan of the parish of St James, Westminster, with parts of the parishes of St Marylebone, St Ann, and St Martin; which plan contained every square, street, lane, court, alley, market, church, chapel, and all public buildings, with all stable and other yards, also every public-house in the parish, and the corners of all streets, with all minutiae, as pumps, posts, trees, houses that project and inject, bow-windows, Carlton House, St James's Palace, and the interior of the markets, without scale or reference to any plan, book, or paper whatever; who undertook to do the same for the parishes of St Andrew, Holborn, St Giles-in-the-Fields, St Paul's, Covent Garden, St Mary-le-Strand, St Clement's, and St George's; who could tell the corner of any great leading thoroughfare from Hyde Park corner or Oxford Street to St Paul's; who could 'take an inventory of a gentleman's house from attic to ground-floor and write it out afterwards. He did this at Lord Nelson's at Merton, and at the Duke of Kent's, in the presence of two noblemen.'

The verbal memory displayed by the old Greek rhapsodists and bards, or the Icelandic scalds, was undoubtedly remarkable, and is often held up to the envy of these degenerate days. Yet the modern Shah-nama-Khans, Koran Khans, and other singers and reciters of Persia, who 'will recite for hours together without stammering,' and the Calmuck national bards, whose songs and recitations 'sometimes last a whole day,' cannot surely be a whit behind, if indeed they do not far surpass the prodigies of early ages. We are often reminded of Greek gentlemen who knew their Homer by heart, in the days when Homer occupied the field almost alone and there was little else to learn. But what are their exploits by the side of men like Joseph Justus Scaliger, who 'committed Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole Greek poets in three months?' Casaubon says of Scaliger: 'There was no subject on which any one could desire instruction which he was not capable of giving. He had read nothing which he did not forthwith remember. So extensive and accurate was his acquaintance with languages, that if during his lifetime he had made but this single acquisition, it would have appeared miraculous.'

Ease in learning foreign languages is sometimes regarded as a mere matter of memory; while, however, this is not exactly true, it must be allowed, of course, that skilful linguists are endowed with powers of memory beyond the average. Here, also, we find that there are no examples in ancient times that will stand comparison with our great modern linguists. Our modern facilities for travel and study place us at an immense advantage. Crassus, when praetor in Asia, was so familiar with the dialects of Greek, that he was able to try cases and pronounce judgment in any dialect that might chance to be spoken in his presence. 'Mithridates, king of twenty-two nations, administered their laws in as many languages,' and could harangue each division of his motley array of soldiers in its own language or dialect.

Viscount Strangford may be placed in the same category with these; and the 'learned blacksmith' Elihu Burritt, whose friends claim for him that he knew all the languages of Europe and most of those of Asia, must not be left out of sight. But even these do not touch the highest limit of linguistic skill and power of memory. The most scientific linguist we have to name, and one of the most remarkable for the extent of his acquisitions, is Von der Gabelentz, who seems to have been equally at home with the Suahilis, the Samoyeds, the Hazaras, the Aimaks, the Dyaks, the Dakotas, and the Kiriris; who could translate from Chinese into Manchu, compile a grammar or correct the speech of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, or New Caledonia. When we come to Cardinal Mezzofanti and Sir John Bowring, we find the 'highest record' as regards the mere number and variety of tongues that men have been known to acquire. No one can speak with absolute certainty as to the number of languages Mezzofanti could converse in with ease. Mrs Somerville says that he professed only fifty-two.

This brief review of the subject necessarily leaves out of account a vast number of the most extraordinary and interesting examples. Artists like Horace Vernet; mathematicians and calculators like Dr Wallis and Leonard Euler, or G. P. Bidder and young Colburn; musicians like Mozart; newspaper reporters like the unequalled 'Memory Woodfall;' literary men like Lord Macaulay and T. H. Buckle; chess-players like Paul Morphy and J. H. Blackbourne, have accomplished feats of memory as marvellous as any of those which have been mentioned.

A TRICK AT THE HELM.

JACK HETHERINGTON.

'It is awfully good of you to come down, old chap,' he said; 'but I'm afraid it's a wild-goose chase after all, for I'm sorry to say that I can't possibly sail to-morrow. It's a dreadful nuisance,' he added, 'and a disgusting piece of roguery to boot.'

'Then why should he boast so loudly about beating you?'

'Oh, that's just to carry it off with a high hand, and appear to be ignorant of the fact.'

'Well, no; she isn't; but she's entered for the race, and she is sure to be here, bar accidents.'

'Oh, by all means,' replied Hetherington eagerly. 'I had thought of that. I can't lie in harbour and see all the craft going out to race; and I don't think I could bear to see the racing going on without being able to join in it. I vote for getting under way early in the morning, and making tracks to the eastwards. I mean to lay her up with Camper and Nicholson, and there is nothing more to keep me out now, confound it!'

'Capital! that will suit me first-rate. What time do you start?'

'Oh, any time in the early morning will do. The tide will be flowing about four A.M. But I daresay you won't like to turn out as early as that.--Tell you what--you'd better choose your own time to come on board, and then you can rouse me out, if I'm not already up.'

'All right! But what about Phipps?'

'Oh, he won't come with us. I've told him about Brewster, and, of course, he's very sorry; but the Carmichael girls are here in a big family schooner with an uncle of theirs; and you may be sure Phipps wouldn't let that chance slip. So it will be just you and I, that's all. And now, let's jump into the punt, and go on board for ten minutes, just to show you the little craft.'

They dined; but their quiet game of billiards at the club was rudely broken in upon by the appearance of the objectionable Brewster himself, with a couple of friends of similar kidney, who had also most unmistakably been dining, and who, in addition to their natural bluster and vulgarity, made themselves more than usually disagreeable by half-facetious and wholly offensive observations as to the victory which they intended to score on the morrow, and the humiliation which they would inflict on those who imagined that they could sail against them; while 'my friend O'Gorman' was frequently referred to by Brewster himself, evidently for Hetherington's benefit; and whispered personalities were greeted by the precious trio with loud bursts of drunken laughter.

'I'd like to punch the fellow's head,' growled Hetherington to his friend, chafing angrily at the covert insults.

'Better let him alone,' said the other. 'There's no glory to be got out of a row with a drunken sweep like that. He knows he's an arrant cad, and it is that very knowledge which makes him carry on like this. Let's leave them to enjoy themselves in their own way; and we'll go and turn in, as we shall be up early to-morrow.'

So each went his way: Hetherington to his tiny yacht, the other to the hotel close by.

Mervyne was an ardent yachtsman, as has been said; and perhaps it was the anticipations of the morrow which made it impossible for him to take the rest which he had himself advised. Whatever the reason was, after tossing about for some hours in troubled and unrestful sleep, he finally found himself wide awake, and likely to remain so; and at last, jumping out of bed, he threw open his window and keenly inspected the weather. There was every prospect of a glorious day. He looked at his watch--it was about four o'clock. The sun had not yet risen; but the sky was clear and luminous with stars, and, as far as he could tell, there was a light breeze from the westward. He looked over the water. The riding lights of the crowded yachts were twinkling away, as if a town had sprung up in the night on the calm silent waters of the river. The hoarse hoot of a steamer caught his ear, and he could see her green eye winking at him as she made her cautious way in mid-stream to the expectant coal-hulk beyond. He could hear even the tinkle of her engine-room bell and the husky cry of 'Starboard!' from the pilot who was bringing her in; and as he leaned out of the window to follow her track, a man-of-war brig struck 'eight bells' with a clear musical ring, an example which was followed a second or two after by her consorts in the harbour, and by some few large yachts who conformed to naval fashion in this matter. He turned from the window and glanced into the dim room. At the other end was his bed, looking tumbled and unpromising, even in the gloom. He was too wide awake to turn in again. His mind was made up. The tide would be flowing; the wind seemed fair; he would dress and rouse up Hetherington, and they would get under way at once.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet