The Cackle Episode

Author Unknown

People have been talking a good deal about detectives of late; here is a story of one of these heroes who was attached to a Private Inquiry Office.

One morning there walked—or rather tumbled—into an office of the West-End a middle aged, lanky gentleman with disordered hair and a wrinkled forehead, much flushed. He dropped into a chair, and, fanning himself with his hat, exclaimed in a broken voice, "My name is Cackle... I have come about a domestic calamity."

The agent did not require to be told the nature of the calamity. He muttered a word of common place condolence, and inquired whether Mrs. Cackle was aware of her husband's suspicions. The answer was in the negative. At the moment when the scales had fallen from his eyes surprise and consternation had stricken Mr. Cackle dumb. He had not yet recovered from his stupefaction; Mrs. Cackle was, of all women in the world, the one whom he should have suspected last; and what made the whole thing more infamous, was that the villain of the domestic drama was his own best friend—a caitiff named Thompson.

The agent nodded, as though to say that this was a usual feature in such cases. He begged that photographs of Mrs. Cackle and Mr. Thompson might be sent him, then put questions as to the ages, characters, and habits of the two parties. Finally, he requested a £10 note for preliminaries, and promised that in a few days Mr. Cackle should have the consolation of seeing all his doubts made certainties. "Above all," said he, "don't let the lady suspect by word or look."

"Very well. I think I had better go out of town," sighed Mr. Cackle. "I couldn't bear to stay with her under these harrowing circumstances."

"If you could get out of town for a few days, leaving the lady alone, it would much expedite matters," remarked the agent.

"I will go down to Brighton this afternoon then," said Mr. Cackle, and away he went, in a perturbed condition altogether.

The agent called his most trusted detective—a person named Spicer—and put the case of Mrs. Cackle into his hands. Mr. Spicer was a tallish fellow, with military moustache and whiskers turning grey, who looked like a discharged cavalry-sergeant in shabby civilian clothes. In the course of the day he received the photographs promised, and at five o'clock was standing at the Victoria station to see where Mrs. Cackle would go after taking leave of her husband on the platform.

The unfortunate Mr. Cackle soon appeared, with a rug on one arm and a natty little woman on the other. Nothing could have been more tender than the manner in which the sprightly lady embraced her consort at the door of the railway carriage. She saw him comfortably installed, with the rug over his knees, and an evening newspaper in his hands, bade him be careful about draughts, and when the train had started stood among the porters waving her hand quite affectionately till he was out of sight. Then she glanced at her watch, walked out of the station with quick steps, and jumped into a four-wheeled cab. Mr. Spicer followed, at a discreet distance, in a hansom.

Mrs. Cackle first went home; but, as her cab remained at the door, Mr. Spicer waited in his at the corner of the street. The lady was not long before she reappeared, more smartly dressed than before, and the cab again drove away with her. It was a bright, warm evening in July, and the streets of Belgravia, where the Cackles resided, were crowded with showy carriages returned from the Park. The four-wheeler crawled its way to Piccadilly, and in due time reached the St. James' Restaurant. Here, on the pavement, stood a burly gentleman of about five-and-forty, with pepper-and-salt whiskers, a broad white waistcoat, and an eyeglass. Mr. Spicer, as he descended from his hansom, had just time to see him assist Mrs. Cackle from the cab, tuck her under his arm, and conduct her up the staircase.

"Hullo, though!" soliloquised the dectective, as he drew a photograph from his pocket, "this man isn't Mr. Thompson!" He looked intently at the carte and saw the features of a middle-aged gentleman, with a great deal of face-hair, thick lips, and a droll expression of the eyes, like the funny fellows who haunt artists' studios. He had been warned that Mr. Thompson, though not an artist, had the air of a jolly dog, and was one; further, that his beard glowed with the resplendent tints of furbished copper. The gentleman who had invited Mrs. Cackle to dinner was grey, as we have said, and of a demeanour portly and sedate. Mr. Spicer rubbed his left ear, and foresaw that his investigations were going to be more complicated than he had imagined.

As he had taken his tea, he confined himself to drinking a glass of beer at the buffet, and then sauntered up and down the pavement, waiting for the pair to come out. At length the gentleman in the white waistcoat emerged with Mrs. Cackle on his arm, put her into a cab, and shook hands with her through the window. Mr. Spicer left the lady to go her ways, and followed the gentleman, who, lightning a cigar, strolled off towards Pall Mall. Not to waste time in details, it may be said that the portly gentleman repaired to a club, spent two hours there, and, towards midnight, walked off to a house in a street adjoining Berkeley Square, where he let himself in with a latchkey. In the meantime, by feeing a page who loitered on the club stops, the detective had ascertained that this friend of Mrs. Cackle's was a Mr. Jackson, a merchant. Mr. Spicer remembered that Mr. Cackle was also a merchant, and on returning to his lodgings in Bloomsbury, he consulted a Post Office Directory, where he found in the commercial part the firm of "Cackle, Thompson, Jackson and Johnson." This was a revelation, indeed.

Next morning he was up betimes. However, he spent a day in profitless waiting, as Mrs. Cackle did not come out till four o'clock. She was still better dressed than the day before, and had herself driven to the Aquarium, were a gentleman in a flaming red beard met her at the turnstile. This time there could he no doubt that the cavalier was Mr. Thompson. He had a jocular sort of wink, and had Mrs. Cackle laughing even before he had paid their admission shillings. The detective followed them, and every time they crossed him in the galleries, he saw Mrs. Cackle lowering her head and putting her handkerchief to her mouth, in convulsions at Mir. Thompson's facetious sayings.

The merry pair dined at the Aquarium, and as with Mr. Jackson, so with Mr. Thompson, the leave-taking took place at the restaurant, but, knowing Mr. Thompson's address, Mr. Spicer followed the lady. Mrs. Cackle went home, and thereupon Mr. Spicer did the same, wondering, as he went, whether it would be Mr. Johnson's turn to-morrow.

Mr. Spicer had not his equal for conducting the preliminaries of a case, but he sometimes made mistakes; and did so on the third day's watching by not going to Belgravia till nearly one o'clock. He had inferred too hastily that Mrs. Cackle was not addicted to matutinal sittings; but, perceiving a footman lolling up the steps of the house, as these creatures seldom do when their mistresses are at home, he guessed that his bird had flown. This was very vexing; but as Mr. Spicer had put on a decent suit of clothes, he presented himself boldly as a visitor, and struck an attitude of surprise on being told that the lady had gone out of town and would not he back till the day after to-morrow—that is Monday.

"Dear me!" said he, looking annoyed, "but I had an appointment. Has Mrs. Cackle gone to join her husband at Brighton?"

"No—o," answered the servant, without addressing him as "Sir," for Mr. Spicer never succeeded in playing the gentleman. "Pray, what sort of an appointment might it be that you had?"

"Well, the truth is I've a bill that wants paying," said the detective, producing half-a-crown, which he had always found the shortest way of extracting information.

"Ah, exactly; well, you had better come again a-Monday," rejoined the footman, with prolonged civility, as he pocketed the coin. "Missus has gone to spend two nights with her aunt at Taplow."

"You are sure it's Taplow?"

"Oh, yes; she told her maid so; and I heard Mr. Johnson allude to it when he came to fetch her."

"Is that Mr. Johnson of the firm?"

"Yes, but he don't attend to the business."

Two hours after this Mr. Spicer was standing on the lawn of Skindle's hotel, at Taplow.

He sat on the grass watching the stream flow under the arches of the bridge, the swans glide by with their broods of grey cygnets, and the skiffs flash about in great numbers, as they wont to do upon a Saturday afternoon.. Presently, as he had expected, a gig came along with Mrs. Cackle in it, seated under an awning and steering. A good-looking young gentleman, in a straw hat and flannels, was quietly sculling and chatting at the same time. Evidently this was poor Mr. Cackle's partner, but of Mrs. Cackle's aunt there was no sign in the boat. Nor was there in the hotel. The detective remained on the lawn till the gig drew up alongside, and the partner gave Mrs. Cackle his hand to help her trip over the seats as she alighted. They betook themselves in company to one of the ground-floor private rooms, and soon were installed at a cosy dinner, with the window-door wide open, so that Mr. Spicer could see Mr. Johnson whispering gallant words into his charmer's ears as she moistened her pretty lips with champagne and laughed in pure gaiety of heart.

This romantic sight recalled Mr. Spicer to the fact that he himself had not dined. After freighting himself with duck and peas in the coffee room, he returned to the garden, and now, the moon being up, the pair were nestling by the railings, and gazing at the river as it hurried by in ripples, sparkling with the silver beams. Mr. Johnson's cigarette filled the air with a mild aroma, and Mrs. Cackle's voice was low and soft as the murmuring waters. Thus they remained side by side till, the night beginning to grow chilly, they returned slowly indoors, and were soon lost to view, for a waiter, who brought them some tea, closed the windows and drew the blinds. Mr. Spicer, having seen enough, bent his steps towards Taplow station, and hied back to town by the last train.

He saw no reason for visiting Taplow again on Sunday, but Monday morning found him waiting at Paddington to meet the up trains. It was that due at eleven which brought Mrs. Cackle and the partner. Mr. Johnson, who had a rose in his button-hole, carried a lady's cloak and dressing-bag; and he picked out her box from the luggage, ordering its removal to a cab. When he had done this and put her into the vehicle, he wished her goodbye with a gentle squeeze of the hand, and went about his business. Now, it so happened that, owing to a little delay in hoisting the box on to the cab-roof, Mr. Johnson, who had struck across the road to find a hansom for himself, was out of sight before the four-wheeler had started, and this appeared to please Mr. Spicer, for, seeing the coast clear, he suddenly acted in a way for which the reader is doubtless not prepared.

"Mrs. Cackle, I believe?" he said, touching his hat, and accosting that astonished lady; and while she stared at him with the grave air of women when surprised, he added, "I am a detective, and should like to say a few words to you in private."

"It must be a mistake," she answered, with the heroic coolness of her sex, though her pink features had turned to wax color.

"No mistake at all; you'll see. Mr. Cackle has employed me to watch you, and I know about Mr. Thompson, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Johnson..." All this was said in a whisper.

"Mr. Johnson! ...It is not true..." faltered Mrs. Cackle, her fortitude giving way for a moment.

"Isn't it. Hear me or not, as you like; but make up your mind quick, for Mr. Cackle will be back from Brighton to-morrow, and I must send in my report."

Mrs. Cackle was out of the cab in a moment, all in a flutter, and walking beside the detective without knowing what she was about.

"It's a question whether you will give me a thousand pounds, ma'am," he said, hard as a nail, and looking her straight in the eyes.

"A thousand pounds!" murmured Mrs. Cackle, as she subsided on to a settee. "Why should I give you that? I've done nothing wrong. My aunt is staying at Skindle's hotel, and I went down to see her. Mr. Johnson accompanied me, because he is one of my husband's friends. If he rowed me on the river, and accepted my invitation to dine, it was because my aunt was confined to her room by a bad headache."

"A frequent complaint with her, that headache, eh, ma'am?" said the detective, with the grin of a churl.

"Well, but I wish you would let me explain," rejoined Mrs. Cackle, recovering boldness and dignity from her very fright. "It is most odious to bring false accusations against me."

"I have nothing to do with accusing you, ma'am. The point is simply whether you wish me to report to your husband how you have spent your time since he left for Brighton?"

Mrs. Cackle heaved a sigh full of agitation. "I cannot give you a thousand pounds," she said. "I haven't the money."

"Oh, but I dare say Mr. Thompson, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Johnson will be happy to lend it to you between them. Think of their feelings when they're brought up in the Divorce Court! What a surprise it will be to them to find they're all in the same boat!" and Mr. Spicer laughed again.

"I will try to get you five hundred pounds," stammered Mrs. Cackle, as if to cut the dispute short. She looked like a hunted animal caught in a trap, and gazed distractedly hither and thither.

"Meet me here at four o'clock," said Mrs. Cackle, in a low voice, and without looking at him; "but if I manage to get you some money, what will you do for me?"

"Anything you order, ma'am. I'll furnish Mr. Cackle with a report which you yourself shall dictate, and we'll put him so completely in a fog that he'll never see clear again."

"Mind you are punctual," was the reply with which Mrs. Cackle dismissed Mr. Spicer, and, slipping through the door which he held open, she returned to her cab. It never occurred to her, so great was her confusion of mind, to glance round and see if she were followed.

The detective followed her, nevertheless, partly because his conscience may have been uneasy, partly because he felt curious to see how Mrs. Cackle would raise his hush-money. He had spent the whole of Sunday in contriving his little plot, and had collected information about Messrs. Thompson, Jackson, and Johnson, so that he knew the social position of each, and how much they were likely to yield under fear of scandal. Grey-whiskered Mr. Jackson was a widower with grown-up children, and could on no account afford to lose his character. It was almost certain that Mrs. Cackle would tap him first. Mr. Thompson had been married five years to a comely but straight-laced wife, and he, too, would doubtless part with his boots sooner than be cited in the D.C.; but, on the other hand, he was a comical fellow, and would probably only be requested to make up as much as Mr. Jackson had been unable to pay. Mr. Johnson was a bachelor, and richer than either of the two others; but then, he was young, handsome, and sentimental, so that it was dubious whether he would be asked for a penny, except under desperate pressure. Thus had Mr. Spicer reasoned, and his conjectures were apparently realised, for Mrs. Cackle proceeded straight to the city office of the firm, and after remaining there an hour, came out with a calmer expression than when she had entered. She drove home, and went nowhere else that day. The detective watched her house till, at half-past three, he saw the footman come out to hail a cab, and a few minutes later Mrs. Cackle issued with her veil down. Mr. Spicer sprang into the hansom which he had kept waiting round the corner, and was whirled off to his rendezvous at Paddington, where he arrived ten minutes before the lady.

Mrs. Cackle had made up her face into a piteous expression, and when she encountered Mr. Spicer she said dolefully: "I am very sorry, I have only been able to obtain five hundred pounds. I have been trying all day to raise the money."

Now this would have been very well if Mr. Spicer had not known that she had only tried in one direction.. Feeling sure that she had obtained the whole amount from Mr. Jackson, and was acting on that astute merchant's advice, he shook his head and said that he could not abate his claim by a sixpence. Mrs. Cackle flushed with anger, and drawing a couple of cheques, one from her purse the other from under her glove, thrust them into his hand, and said, peevishly:—"Well, then, there; but you are ruining me; I consider your conduct most extortionate."

"Thank you, ma'am; business is business," said the detective, coolly, and, unfolding the pink slips, he noticed that they were made payable eight days after date. "H'm, ma'am, they're not payable at sight, I see!"

"Certainly not. I am not going to let you have the money until you have executed my instructions. Here is the account of my doings, which I desire you to insert in your report."

"Exactly, I'll take it home and copy it."

"No; you must copy it here, please, while I hold it."

Mr. Spicer bowed, and, with a secret admiration for so much prudence, began to transcribe into his notebook a minute record extending over eight closely-written sheets of mauve paper. Mrs. Cackle never quailed or reddened while she submitted for inspection this manuscript, which would have done honor to the most skilful writer of fiction—for truth and the contrary were so adroitly mixed up in it as to show that the art of making black look white was one of essentially feminine ken. Mrs. Cackle had taken thought for the morrow as well as for the day, for she had added details of what she meant to do that evening and the next morning. Altogether the document was one which the most sensitive husband would have been happy and proud to peruse.

But one thing both surprised Mr. Spicer, and transported him with respect for the authoress; and this was that Mrs. Cackle had frankly entered the relation of her trip to Taplow, and even mentioned that Mr. Johnson had accompanied her thither. "Why, ma'am," said he, looking up, as he wetted the tip of his pencil, "it cannot be true that you have an aunt at Taplow?"

"Why, of course it is," replied she, opening wide her eyes with a look of childish innocency. "Didn't I tell you so from the first. I repeat that I am the victim of appearances."

"That's what the cat said, ma'am, when they found him with his nose in the cream jug," remarked the detective, who could not help laughing. "However, let me give you a bit of advice, to show that I mean you well—just you turn the tables on Mr. Cackle!"

"On my husband!" muttered the innocent lady, while sparks flashed out of her eyes as from flints.

"Yes, ma'am; and you had better do it for your own sake," observed the detective, in a whisper. "Once a husband's suspicions have been excited, it isn't a report such as this that can allay them for good and all... But if you could catch him tripping, you see, why 'mum' is the word he'll have to stick to as long as he breathes."

"But have you any suspicions of Mr. Cackle?" asked this gentleman's wife, all her features lighting up like those of a lynx going to spring.

"Supposing I have something more than suspicions, eh? Suppose that whilst he leaves you here, in town, Mr. Cackle is cutting his jinks at Brighton?"

"Oh, but that would be abominable!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Cackle, forgetting her own peril in the thought of her outraged affections, and, starting up, she gazed at Mr. Spicer with a countenance on which amazement, ardour for revenge, righteous indignation, and revolt were depicted. Mr. Spicer contented himself with performing a slow wink, and motioned to Mrs. Cackle to be seated. She complied as if the settee were a hot plate, and greatly did she fidget during the next half hour, while she and the detective held an animated colloquy. At length they parted, and Mrs. Cackle stepped away with the air which Judith must have worn when she went off to fetch the sword that was to execute justice on Holofernes.

As for Mr. Spicer, he departed for Brighton by a six o'clock train. But do not infer from that that he had any serious thoughts of finding Mrs. Cackle's husband engaged in anti-conjugal pursuits. In accusing that unfortunate gentleman of cutting his jinks at Brighton, the detective had merely acted in pursuance of a crafty scheme of his own, which had a twofold object—first, to arrest for ever all measures which Mr. Cackle might be disposed to take against Mrs. Cackle; second, to obtain, if possible, another lump of money for himself.

Mr. Spicer had reasoned in this way:—Mr. Cackle's suspicions having begun to march in black hosts, the only way to route them was to arm Mrs. C. with weapons for carrying the war into the enemy's country. This might be done either by convicting Mr. Cackle of some peccadillo against nuptial faith, or, if the man were blameless, by entangling him in the semblance of a peccadillo. Mr. Spicer, being a rogue, took a roguish view of the world, and did not believe much in marital blamelessness; at all events, he thought that most men, when actively spied upon, may be found doing things which they would not care to hear proclaimed from the housetops; and the simplest piece of imprudence on Mr. Cackle's part would be enough to serve his purpose. He lad no intention of exposing the husband to the wife, but he would send some confederate to Mr. Cackle, who would say (as had been said to Mrs. C—), "Your fond partner suspects you, and has had you watched. We have found out this and that; now, if you don't want madam to hear of it, just pay such and such a sum." The payment having been made, the detective would report to Mrs. Cackle that his suspicious of her lord turned out to be groundless; and, meanwhile, the Inquiry Office, having reported to Mr. Cackle that he also had been hunting shadows, the attached couple would live at peace, thenceforth absolved in each other's sight, but yet kept in good behaviour by the consciousness that each would feel of having once incurred the other's suspicions. On the whole, this arrangement, while serving Mr. Spicer's pecuniary ends would undoubtedly conduce to matrimonial harmony.

So, building queer castles in the air, and thinking with much satisfaction of the thousand pounds he had already gotten, the detective arrived at Brighton. It was not yet sunset, and he walked quickly down the platform, intending to go and watch at the Grand Hotel, where he had been told that Mr. Cackle was staying. But Fortune was in love with Mr. Spicer that day, for, as he passed through the ticket office, whom should he behold but Mr. Cackle himself, airily dressed in white summer clothing and engaged in purchasing a ticket for a very personable lady who stood beside him in muslin costume with pink spots. Mr. Cackle stooped to address the ticket clerk, and was saying: "This lady wants to book for St. Leonard; at what station must she change?"

"Heaven and earth!" thought the detective, with excusable ecstasy. "Why St. Leonards is the place where strait-laced Mrs. Thompson is supposed to be staying with her grandmother! The housemaid at Thompson's told me so," and lowering his glance to a coquettish portmanteau, which a porter beside Mr. Cackle was holding, the, detective read on the label: "Mrs. Thompson."

"Well, this is a go!" muttered he, and the smile on his face was a thing to see.

It must be explained here that although Mr. Spicer knew Mr. Cackle by sight, Mr. Cackle did not know Mr. Spicer. The latter had caught sight of the afflicted husband as he left the Inquiry Office, and had subsequently seen him leisurely at the Victoria Station; but Mr. Cackle, having negotiated with the inquiry agent, had not asked to see the detective who was to be employed in his service. Consequently, Mr. Spicer put himself this question: "Shall I tackle the old boy myself as soon as Mrs. Thompson has started, or shall I let the work be done by a 'pal,' with whom I shall have to go 'snags'?" The thoughts of surrendering half his profits to a pal induced Mr. Spicer to do his work for himself, resolving that he would contrive not to let Mr Cackle see him at the Inquiry Office. So when Mrs. Thompson's train had departed, and Mr. Cackle was about to step into a fly with the jaunty air of a husband whose wife is miles and miles away, Mr. Spicer checked him by a dozen words whispered in his ear, and which made Mr. Cackle leap as if he had trod upon the wire of an electric battery.

"It's a foul slander," stuttered he, whilst his eyes stood out like gooseberries. "Why... Why Mrs. Thompson came over from St. Leonards to consult me about... about... important business. She's the purest creature alive..."

"Very strait-laced, I know," responded Mr. Spicer, drily. "That's why she brought her luggage here, and has been staying three days?"

"Who told you, sir, that Mrs. Thompson has been staying here three days?"

"Oh, I know all about you and her, for I've been watching you both for more than three months," said Mr. Spicer, archly. "You're not done a thing since the 1st of April without my knowing it!"

At this Mr. Cackle looked like a man who feels himself lost. A little more and he would have sat down on the fly step and cried. "Why, why, it's infamous that my wife should suspect me," he whimpered, shambling along beside the detective and mopping the moisture from his brow. "It's I who had every reason to suspect her, and I've actually paid to have her watched!"

"Ah, that's what you went to an Inquiry Office about on Thursday. You see I am correctly informed as to your movements. However, I've nothing to do with Mrs. Cackle's conduct—my only business is to tell you that if you don't give me five hundred pounds, Mr. Cackle, I shall be under the painful necessity of telling your good lady what a nice jovial fellow you are when left to yourself."

"Five hundred pounds!" gasped Mr. Cackle. "You expect me to give you that, man? Never, I haven't got it!"

"Very well, then, Sir... It don't matter much to me. I'll go back to town by the next train and see Mr. Thompson..."

"Stop... you shall have the money," muttered Mr. Cackle, faintly. "But mind, I don't give it because I am guilty. Mrs. Thompson and I are innocent as the day. I am only the victim of appearances!"

* * *

The rest of this veracious history is soon told. Mr. Spicer made his report to his employers, and that document, which so honorably acquitted Mrs. Cackle, was duly forwarded to her husband, along with a bill for £20 or so. The lady, on her side, had the gratification of learning that Mr. Cackle's character had triumphantly withstood the ordeal of a searching overhaul, and whatever ulterior proceedings the astute Jackson may have contemplated against Mr. Spicer were abandoned. The result was a perfect domestic reconciliation; and we have much pleasure in adding that both husband and wife steered clear in future of those awkward appearances which may give so much trouble to the pure in heart. As for Mr. Spicer, enriched by his two strokes, he set up a business of his own, and is much consulted to this day by those in matrimonial misfortune. 

Warragul Guardian, Thursday 21 April 1881, supplement page 2.

For Better or for Worse

Author Unknown

Content Warning: #2 (explanation)

The Runaway Ship

Author Unknown

A SALT YARN

One afternoon watch, two seamen were seated face to face astride the fore-topmast cross-trees of a large Australian homeward-bound, which had all her canvas, studding-sails included, spread to the south-east trade wind that slants upward from the Cape towards the equator. The breeze was freshening, and the sails which, about noon, were murmuring and rustling, now slept full; everything drew, as the wind had been hauled a little on the ship's starboard quarter; her head lying about west-by-north, and she going about eight knots through the water; just bending now and then enough to give the lee yardarms a pleasant slope to port, and over the blue surface, which already looked darker and brisker, with little tops of white in our shadow to windward. With the privilege of a watch below, I was lying over the topsail-yard, in the bunt by the mast, my feet upon the foot-rope, and a spyglass in my hand, through which I took an occasional glance at a vessel on the horizon, supposed to be a frigate. It was so hot and close in my berth on the half-deck, that this employment was no small luxury, joined to that of seeing others kept at work, feeling the air out of the foot of the top-gallantsail, and looking down into the water, where the shape of every fish that came near the surface was clearly defined in a greenish light, and the convoys of glittering flying fish sprang ever and anon like swallows from one wave to another in the distance. The white ducks stretched below, with the boys knotting their yarns on the forecastle, the sailmaker at his canvas in the waist, and the quarterdeck out of sight, where the first and second mates were busy getting the mizen backstays set up. Before me lay half the ocean circle, beautifully azure-tinted, where a long line of white clouds were gathered, in contrast to the clear region of the breeze astern. Up above my head shot the white swell of top-gallant, royal, and sky-sails, the former of which half concealed me from the two sailors, although their legs dangled from the cross trees over my back, while its shadow secured them from the hot sun. One was passing the ball of spun-yarn for his companion, who was twisting it with his sewing-mallet round the shrouds of the royal-mast, which had been pretty well chafed bare by seven months' work and weather. The easy conversation with which this task was beguiled, found a ready eavesdropper in me, since it smacked of the brine, and was in no respect checked by the neighborhood of a youngster from the other watch. In the present case it fell insensibly to a yarn, which I took care to log as correctly as possible soon after: a yarn in the day time only happening in such a sequestered situation as this, and being more valuable from its unpremeditated nature.

'Hold in there with the ball, Bob,' said the one parenthetically, and at intervals; 'and give us a dip of the tar. Now pass away, and take the turn out o' that yarn. 'Well ye see, boy,' he continued, 'Jim Taylor an' me—you know Jim!— that voy'ge we'd been having a good cruise ashore after the South Sea trip, and the shot-lockers was beginnin' to turn rather low; but still, as we'd seen so much together, we made it up to go chums for another spell. I'd two or three offers of a berth myself, but short trips wouldn't go down with me at no time, after I knocked off apprentice; there's somethin' low an' humbuggin' about 'em, to my state, as keeps a man neither green or blue, neither seein' life nor the world, an' tarnally ready to get sick over a yard; so I've managed to keep a midship helm atwixt the two tacks of a coaster and a man-o'-war's-man. Jim, too, he was rather down in the mouth about a love consarn, so we stuck together like a pair o' purchase-blocks bowsed chock on end. Every forenoon we stands round Liv'pool Docks in company, under easy sail, twigging all the craft, as you may suppose, an' overhaulin' the good and bad points on 'em, like a couple of bo'suns. Berths at that time was plenty, and hands scare; so was the more hard to please Jim an' I. We wanted to see some'ere as we hadn't seen afore, with a smart craft under us, a reg'lar true-blue for skipper, good living, and a fok'sle full of jolly dogs. We spells out all the tickets in the rigging of the passage-craft, with the port, and time of sailing; and says Jim, just as I was stepping on the gangway plank, "Hold on, Harry, bo', let's go round the China berth first." And, says I, at sight o' their heavy poops, an' Dutch bows, and tumble home topsides, all reg'lar-going and holy-stone, "None o' yer loo'ardly tea-canister affairs for me. Don't ye twig that there lubberly splice in the forerigging?" Again we'd fancy Badoes, or Lima, or Rio, or Valparaiso; but speakin' truth, my notion was for some sort of out-o'-the-way-come-venture or another, where we'd see life once in a while, and turn to again on the sober tack. So all said an' done, we fought shy of an offer; as the "old man" hauled close on us, we squared away, tops our boom, an' was off with a touch of our tarpaulins, an' "I doesn't think as how I'm a goin' for to ship this voy'age, yer honour," for which we got curses enough to split the main-taups'l, ye know.

'Hows'ever, one forenoon watch, as we was both backing and filling alongside of the Queen's Dock, full of bluff-bowed Danish timberers, Norway logs the colour of rosin, and yer wall-sided, kettle-bottomed American cotton-wagons, I seed as fine a barque-rigged craft as I ever clapped eyes upon moored out in the middle to a Swedish brig. She was clipper-cut about the bows; level bowsprit in a line with her run; a long sheer, but plenty of beam before the waist; high topsides, black out, but painted yellow within, and a yellow streak on her. Her sticks had a bit of a rake aft, with short lower-masts, and the yards black; but such a pair o' slapping tall topmasts as she had, I never see in a craft of her size, an' I could see with half an eye, though both lower an' taups'l yards was cock-billed up an' down dock-fashion, they'd the weather-arm of any ship in the dock. "That chap's Boston-built, Jim," says I, "for five guineas —reg'lar go-ahead, and no mistake. Why, she'll spread near half the cloths in her main taups'l of a twenty eight sloop o'-war!" "My eyes!" says Jim, with a shiver like, "how she'd dive into a head sea though! She'd cut through the comb of a Cape swell afore it 'ad time to rise." "That's neither here nor there," I says; "but I'd like to know the ropes o' what she's after; I've a notion it'e some'at of a taut bowline. She wants a third of bein' down to her bearings, though they go

clearing for out a'ready, ye see." Accordin'ly, Jim an' me uses the freedom to sheer round, and step over two or three other craft, to get a near look at the Yankee. Her mate was roaring like a young bull to a handalof that was sendin' up to'-gallant and royal-yards; and "Well," says I to Jim, 'it's clear they doesn't savvey sendin' up a gallant yard here, like they did in the old Pacific. Twig the lubber; he's taken the line wrong side o' that backstay. So look out; here goes!" I makes one spring into her rigging, up to the fore top, bears off the yard, fists the tackle, and clears it, and had the spar rigged out in no time. Down I comed to the rail by a topmast backstay, but no sooner nor the ill-looked customer of a mate opened on me with his jaw.

"Who told you to shove your oar in?" says he, "you tarnation British 'loper! I guess you want to book yourself pretty slick; but you don't enter this voy'ge, so be off!" "Axes your parding, sir," says I, winking to my chum; "an' hopes no offence, sir; but I thou't ye wanted a lift that time. You doesn't begrudge a poor fellow's flippers a little tar, sir, after fisting the blankets so long ashore?" "Top yer boom in the twinkling of a handspike," says he; "that's all I've got to say to ye." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, though I hung in the wind notwithstanding; for just then I twigs a big beamed fellow come aboard astarn of him, as I took to be the skipper —a hook-nose gentleman, clean-shaved, an' black i' the jaw, with two fists like leading blocks, and rigged out in a long-togged coat three cloths under his size; but he didn't look afeared on a gale o' wind.

"Well, Mr. Fisher," says he, overhaulin' me all the time out of his weather eye, "be so good as get them two new taups'ls out o' the half deck, and bend them. You don't seem but a smartish hand," says he to me when the mate was gone aft—"you don't my lad, for British growed. Been 'down east,' I reckon, now?" "Yes, sir," said I; "I sailed out with the Garrick liner, out an' home." "Thought so," says he. "Well, now, if I was short handed, I don't know but I might a shipped you this trip." "No harm done, sir," says I.

'Well, ye see, Bob, the short yarn of it was, the Yankee skipper ships us both at eighteen dollars a month, bound to Noo Orlaing, with a cargo of what they called "notions." The barque's name was the "Declaration," Eikabode Tappan, master; we didn't know till after she'd only eight of a crew before the mast when we fell aboard of him. Fact, we heard from an old shipmate next day, as Ike Tappan, they called him, very well known in the Gibraltar waters for a sharp hand, that knew precious little of lunars, an' never was heard on with a full-manned ship; she was 'tarnally runnin' away with 'em, and missing her port, like one of "God's ships," as they used to christen the Yankees. Never an underwriter of 'em all would insure the Declaration; but bein' one o' the owners himself, an' always somehow fallin' on his feet, no man overhauled the craft. "She's a slap-up boat," says Jim to me; "an' he's a prime seaman, I onderstand; but I'll bet next voy'age, Ike Tappan's arter some'at new, an' spicy to the bargain. I never knowed her Liverpool-away a-fore."

'Well, Bob, a night or two after, as we was going into the Hothouse Tavern, as they calls that big skylight affair by the docks, who does we meet comin' out but our new skipper, yard-arm with a long-togged shore-goin' chap, as I fancied, under a false rig, and steerin' shy. Hard-a-port it was, and we sights the two down street, bein' a blowy night, making stiff tack for the door of a Jew slop-shop to wind'ard. "Somethin's i' the wind, Jim," says I, "sure enough." The next day we goes down to hoist our dunnage abroad, where we finds no un but the shipkeeper, and a Boston boy washin' decks, ontil the skipper him'self come up the companion, with one we took for a new hand, in a red shirt, canvas togs, and a sou'-wester on his head for all the world like a Lunnun dustman's. "My eye, Harry," says Jim, "twig the green; mark them hands o' his. That fellow's sarved his time with ould Noah, I'm thinking, an' slept the watches ever since." "Well, I'm blessed," says I, "if that aint the same chap he had in tow last night, an' rigged out a cloth over strong to begin with."

"Now, my man," says the skipper to him, "tarn to aloft, and tar down them hfs an' backstays." "Ay, ay, sir," says he, quite ready like, though I wish you see what a long face he pulled at first dip into the tar can. A smart, knowing-like chap he was, though he put his feet into the ratlins like a post-boy, an' went up a bit at a time, smearin' all in his way, instead of from the mast-head down, till of a sudden smash comes the can on deck out o' the maintop, without, "Stand from under." The whole forenoon I do b'lieve, if the skipper didn't keep that poor devil going aloft, out on the yards, an' gettin' the ropes by heart, in a drizzle of rain, and after every one else was gone. I couldn't make it out at all, ontil we hears the day after, just afore haulin' through the dockway at flood, as how there was a reg'lar bobbery kickin' up about docks: a dozen outbound craft boarded by p'lice and gov'ment officers, all about some quill-driving don that had cut his stick with a sight o' money. As soon as I caught the hand in the red shirt lookin' over his shoulder, I smoked the rig in a moment, an' says the skipper, "You, Smith, up to the fore-taups'l yard, an' overhaul the gear." There was only Jim an' me, and the two mates, an' some dock-wallopers on deck, hard tailing of to the warp-ropes, an' a couple o' ships boys aloft; the other hands came out in a boat as we dropped down. Just as we sheers round into the river, there was a large New York steamer, paddles backed and 'scape-pipe roaring, and full passengers, as was being searched from stem to starn, where they found the gentleman's traps aboard sure enough, without hi'self. Nor no sooner was we abeam of her, but a boat pulls alongside, and three officers jumps up the gangway.

"Got any passengers aboard, captain?" says they. "Not as long as my name's Eikabode Tappan," says he; "'taint a payin' consarn, I expect." "Look sharp aloft there, and loose that fore-taups'l," sings out the skipper; and I couldn't help grinning when I squaints up, an' sees the chap with the red shirt bent over the yard, after havin' to hail, "Ay, ay, sir," as gruff as a bo'sun. "Bear a hand there, ye lubber; overhaul the reef-tackles and cluelins—d'ye hear? Forrud there, sheet home fore-taups'l." "Must look into your cabins, sir," says the officers. "Well, if it's law," says the skipper, "I can't go ag'in it; but a fair wind can't wait, you know, gents," says he, "an' I shouldn't like to break my rule ag'in passengers. I reckon we're gettin' a good deal o' way upon her." By the time they comed on deck again, we had the two taups'ls, fores'l, and spanker set up-on her, and I was at the wheel, the hands aboard rigging out the jib-boom; and, "Well," thinks I, as they got down the side to pull back, "if it had been but a a frigate's reefer instead, he'd have hauled on a different rope, Captain Tappan." Hows'ever, we soon caught a good sand; and by the way the windmills along the heights went whirling round, we expected a staggering breeze past the Point. How she did take it, too, on them wo whipping taups'ls o' hers, the moment she got the full weather, blue out o' the Irish Channel, with a smart swell? Hard work it was grinding her wheel down; but she came to in a twinkling, ready to fly into it. I saw how it 'ud be at wonst; with that spread of canvas, and them heavy spars, with the hands we had, in a gale and on a wind, we'd no more be able to reef or hand the two taups'ls or courses nor as many schoolboys. Hows'ever, we was scare well out from the land, when somethin' more came on our lookout: surging over it with a flash up the bows, all hands busy gettin' ship-shape, I hears the skipper sing out to his black stoo'ard below, to hand him up the glass. There was telegraph goin' upon the head-land, which the drift on it couldn't be seen, until the smoke of a large steamer was sighted to win'ward, through the haze, headin' for us from up Channel.

"Well," says the old man, "what's this? I ain't"—"She's double-funnled," puts in the grumpy mate, lookin' through the glass—"a steam-frigate, I calc'late." "No!" says the captain; "you don't —whew—ew!" And he gives a long whistle, seein' as just at that moment comes out a gleam behind one o' the big Channel swells, then the sound of a heavy gun. "That's a long un," says the mate. "Clap on the jib, there," sings out Captain Tappan. "Set the gaff-taups' and royals, Mr. Fisher," says he; "and keep her up a point, lad," to me. Away we cracks, with the craft on her best foot, bolling off eleven knots pleasantly. We had the heels of the steamer; but if that wasn't enough, what does we see her do shortly, but stand across the New Yorker's course, to overhaul her the second turn. By the second dog-watch, it bein' late season and soon dark, we'd lost sight of 'em both. Our Yankee skipper's fashion was to close-reef all afore turning in, man-o'-war style, if the weather was fickle in narrow waters, otherways there was no keeping the craft in hand; it took all on us to one yard at a turn, so yo may fancy what it would a' been in a blow! All the next day, having stood well to the east'ard, we sees nought o' the smoke flag, "Admiral Jones's pennant," as we used to call it in the old Pacific; so cracks on everything that would draw till morning when it fell a pretty dead calm, with a swell off the mouth of the British Channel. About four bells i' the arternoon we sees our queer customer from the fok'sle come 'pon deck out o' the cabin, in a pilot-coat; all at onst the fellow hails the skipper through the skylight, and there, sure enough, was a smoke to west'ard of us, just over the smooth o' the water-line, when we rolled. By five bells you could see the two funnels quite plain, the steamer seemin'ly havin' cruized the two days to win'ward of our course, for an airin' to her hands; an' then come back to pick us up. The captain looks at his chap and then at the steamer. "Yes," says he, taking the cigar out of his teeth, "that's considerable nasty, I expect!" An' I did feel for the other fellow from his looks. "Well," says the skipper, "there's a cloud brewin' to win'ward though. We'll have it hot an' heavy from the nor'west directly. Lay aloft there, all hands, to reef taups'ls!" And he takes the wheel from the hand aft. "Close reef," he sings out, as soon as we'd got hold on the earrings. The yards was braced round, and the swell rose in no time; the cloud was all round the weather-side in a quarter of an hour, as black-blue as you please, and the red sun goin' down through it, till the tops of the heavy swells was as red as blood. It was quite dark in that quarter, when we hears the thud, thud o' the steamer's paddles, and her engine clanking, and over out o' the cloud she comes as black as night, right upon the comb of the sea; and all in a moment it was white foam, pouring down the watersides and her full jib and gaffs'ls jibing as she went round. Up we went above her, looking on to her deck over the smoke; the men at stations, and a gun ran out to loo'ard. 'Port, port,' sings out our skipper, 'keep full.' The steamer's pipe roared like thunder, and she kept givin' a stroke now and then; the captain and a leeftenant stood up on the poddle-box, holding on by a rail.

"What barque's that?" screams out the captain through his speaking trumpet; and afore there was to hail—"Round to, and keep under my quarter till the squalls over—her Majesty's ship Salamander." "Daresn't do it, captain," sings out the skipper. "I'll dismast you then, by —!" The wind took us just then on the top of a sea, main-taups'l swung full, and away we went, with no time to rise on the swell, shipping a tremendous horsehead, that washed everyone off his feet holding on. Our last sight of the steam frigate, she was plunging off one green comber to another, half her length, out against the light, and her weather-flipper whirling around, feeling for the water, an' the next minute buried up to the grating in a foam. She'd her wrong side to us, or I don't doubt she'd had let drive off the top of the wave with that infarnal long eighteen.

'When the Declaration rose again, however, it was pitch dark; nothin' to be seen but the foam gleaming, and a white line 'twixt sky and sea to win'ward, or the binnacle lamp in-board. It took two of us at the wheel, hard up an' hard down, to hold her; runnin' as straight suth'ard as might be, under nothin' 'but spanker close taups'ls, and foretopmast stays'l; wind blowing strong abeam, and a blast o' rain. About three bells morning watch the weather cleared a little, with a break to starnward. All of a sudden the lookout on the foreyard hails out, "Light, ho! two lights hard on the lee-bow." And the captain goes aloft to overhaul them. Down he comes—"Cape Youshant right ahead, Mr. Fisher," says he; "we'll never weather it under this canvas, an' we can't go about neither. Up there! shake out reefs! swig up taups'l-halyards!" says he. And up goes the high cloth against the scud to loo'ard, till we made out the two lights from the wheel, drawing end on low down betwixt the swells as she pitched aloft. "Split them two lights," says he to the wheel, "or we're ashore in an hour. Press her well up, my lads," says he, "loose away the mains'l there." "She'll never bear it," says the mate. "Don't know the Declaration yet, Mr. Fisher, I guess," says he. "Board maintack there, ride him down with a will, men. Haul aft the sheet." Well how she pitched, an' drove right under, shippin' green seas over the weather chains! She hove a fellow over the wheel without, 'By your leave;' an' the maintack surged like a capstan-fall, every strand with a purchase on it. "It's blowing harder," says the mate. "Half an hour, and we're off," says the skipper. But sure enough, by that time we was reeling through—down head and up again, like a Dutchman's cow—first a howl through the rigging, and then a a calm in the trough, things lookin' black for the mast of her. "Ease off the main-tack," sings out the skipper; "an' stand by to brail up and frail." Ticklish work it was to do as much as the first; but hand the sail we couldn't, with the captain and his passenger at the wheel to free all hands; so out in the brails we let it blow, like a fisherman's bladders, and got up to reef taups'ls coaster-fashion. As soon as the halyards was let go, cluelins an' reef-tackles chock up, the sail drove into the lee-rigging, jammed through the shrouds, every square a bag o'wind; ship careening right down to loo'ard; the yard like to slide us off, if it didn't shake us; an' not a hand on deck to touch a rope. We couldn't compass it nohow; an' the mate sings out to the wheel to luff a little, and shake the sail. "Furl it!" roars out the captain, giving her a weather spoke or two; an' sartingly we did get up the head-leeches of the sail, and the gaskets passed round one yardarm when up slap comes the foot of it in the blast, with a noise like thunder, hammering our heads. an' blindin' us till the whole was free again. Not having her jib neither, she was just broaching to with that bit of a luff, when the fo'tops'l saved her, snap went the martingale-stay as it was, and she carried away her jib-boom in the first pitch. The skipper filled away in a moment, grinding the helm hard, and singing out to us to leave the sail, an sheet it half home again; so off she stood, squaring yards before the wind, easying off sheets, flying over it with at roll. We couldn't take another stitch off her, an' if ever I seed a craft running away with her masters that was it. Hows'ever, the morning was broke, and straight down the Bay of Biscay for the two mortal watches we goes, before the stiffest nor'-caster I remembers, without lying to. She made easier weather, the skipper al'ays said, on a drive as with the helm lashed. At night I didn't like the looks of it no-way; the sea was gettin' tremendous; the wind pinned ye to the rigging; and as cowld as a man could stand, though 'twas as dry as oakum; 'cept for the spray.

"Them sticks won't stand it, cap'en," says the mate, lookin' aloft like a stargazer, an' as gloomy as the bowsprit end. "You don't know them sticks, Mr. Fisher," says the skipper. "I may say I raised'em and smoked 'em myself. They're as tough as whalebone. They'll stand it, if the cloth don't." "True enough, sir," says the mate, an' a little after, just as she rose out of a lull, away doesn't the fo'taups'l go, with such a crack, out o' the belt rope clean away to loo'ard, like a puff of smoke. "Set the mainstays'l," sings out the skipper, "and keep her up a bit, my lad."

'I thinks I sees that passenger-fellow's face by the mizen-rigging, as he held on like death, and the barque hung over the black surge, up an' down, like looking for her shadow in the troughs, and climbing the hill for fear on it, shipping the grim seas in her waist as he came up. Blessed if he didn't show the white rag that time! an' I thou't myself as he'd done somethin' bad. The men said he looked like a chap would have been glad of the gallows; and one swore his next trick at the helm to luff up into a sea, an' lend a hand to sweep clear of him. Hows'ever, by the mornin' watch our wind was laid a bit, an' we driving as bare as we could to sou'-west, maintaups'l-yard still half down to the cap, with the sail set. The craft took it better nor ever I seed a craft do with the same sea on; but the mate said we'd run three degrees out of our course. By eight bells noon, what does the captain do but call all hands aft, to say as she'd never lie her course, he was goin' to bear up and run due south, a three months' trip for Monte Video. "I expect," says he, "to make somethin' of it thereaway, an' a sight better market. So, my lads," says he, "if you'll ship, an' no words, why I'll make it two dollars ahead warmer by the month." Every one looks at his neighbour, and grins as he walks forrud, seein' as it was no use to growl, if we'd wanted. For one, I'd ha' been ready cheer ship. 'Mr. Fisher,' says the skipper, 'square away the yards, and swing up that maintaups'l-yard. Down maintack, too, I see the wind's moderatin' pretty fast. Full an' by, my man,' says he to the wheel; so away we cracked on her, with a starn sea running, for the Canaries.

'Long yarn, Bob, if I took you the rig our skipper played with the blockhead at Monte Video, an' them lubberly Brazil cruisers. All I've got to say now is, as it's hard on eight bells, my chum an' I heard, on getting to Liverp'l a couple of year after, as how that there chase of ours from the steam frigate warn't about the passenger at all, but a concern of our sharp sailin' skipper's, as only an Admiralty clerk could take the turns out on. I never knowed the rights on it; but I don't doubt he kept clear o' both the Channel and Boston for a good spell.'

'Well, mate,' said Bob, as he passed the ball for the last time, 'give us the other yarn in the first watch.'

Whether Harry did so or not, I, belonging to the larboard watch, had no opportunity of hearing it.

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 17 March 1881, supplement page 2.

A Really Good Case

Author Unknown

A LEGEND OF ST MICHAEL'S HOSPITAL

Every one knows that St. Michael's, as we shall take the liberty of calling it, is the largest and most celebrated of the London hospitals. It is situated quite in the heart of the city, and is about equidistant from London Bridge, Westminster, Gower street, Smithfield and Whitechapel. I was a student there, and there the happiest days of my life were passed. And now to my story.

A large number of the students had gone down for the short Christmas vacation, and I should have gone also, but was just then "dresser" to Carver Smith, and could not leave town; moreover, it was my week of residence. I must beg you to remember, what is perhaps but little understood by the general public, that a large part of the watching and care, and a certain proportion also of the treatment of hospital patients, devolve upon assistants selected from the senior students. Some of the less important appointments, such as the "dresserships," are held by every student in turn; but the more responsible offices, some of which require twelve months'. residence in the hospital, can only be gained by a few men each year. And for these appointments, which are esteemed positions of great trust and honor, and which are exceedingly valuable as stepping-stones to professional success, there is very keen competition. On the surgical side of the hospital each of the four visiting surgeons had a resident house-surgeon, and to be Sir Carver Smith's "H.S." was one of the highest ambitions of a "St. Mike," for Sir Carver was at that time one of the leading English surgeons.

A man named George Adams held the post at this time, and as he is the hero of my story, so far as I have a hero, I will just say a word about him. He was one of those men that we occasionally meet with, who seem to stand head and shoulders among their fellows—very quiet and reserved, and when he chose quite inscrutable. No one knew where he came from. But his very great ability, his calmness in all emergencies—I never saw him discomposed except once—his mature judgement, and his great kindness, won him the respect alike of the students, the nursing staff and the surgeons. Under him were four dressers, junior men, who assisted in the hospital under his direction. I was one of them. Each week, one of us in turn resided in the hospital, and, as I said, Christmas week fell to my turn, and that is how I cam to spend Christmas in St. Michael's. I ought to add that there were four assistant surgeons to the hospital, but their care was over the out-patient department, and it was only in the absence of the visiting surgeons that they had any duty in the wards.

Well, it was Christmas night, and our work for the day was done, except some late visits to the wards by-and-bye, and of course any casualties that might turn up. But Christmas day is usually pretty slack in that respect. It is medical rather than surgical casualties that Christmas day produces. We had got up in honor of the day a little entertainment in an empty ward, for any of the hospital inmates who cared to attend and were able to do so.

We had a famous little programme. One or two of our residents could play and sing well; another had a curious facility in whistling to the piano; another was an amateur ventriloquist and prestidigitateur; and I fancy there were also some recitations and tableaux to come off. Also, there was one of the patients, an old sailor, who could sing in a grand, rich stentorian baritone and bring down the house. Our chairman—Adams, of course—had just begun, and was delivering himself in a semi-serious way of some very eloquent remarks, amidst great applause—for nothing pleases the lower classes better than a few oratorical flourishes—when "tinkle tinkle, tinkle" went a small, high-pitched, imperious bell. It was the accident bell!

Oh, ye lay mortals, ye little know how the social and domestic joys of a medical man are at the mercy of a bell! We invite our friends to tea, we welcome them, and anticipate a pleasant evening, and—there goes the bell! We come home tired and wet, change boots for slippers, and get comfortably by the fireside, and—there goes the bell! We turn into bed on a cold night, and just get warm and snug when—there goes the bell! My bell experiences began that night at St. Michael's, and I shall not soon forget it.

It was Sir Carver's "taking-in week," and his assistants had to attend to the accidents. Adams nodded to me, and off I went to investigate, knowing that it might be anything from a cut finger to a railway smash. I found a scene of considerable excitement in the accident room. Two policemen, aided by a crossing sweeper and a cabman, had just brought in a patient, and some other spectators had pushed their way in out of curiosity.

"Just happened outside, sir; knocked down by a runaway cab, sir."

"Lost a lot of blood; fraid it's a bad case, sir." Thus the policemen.

"Ask Mr. Adams to come down at once, and clear the room," I said.

It was a young, fair haired girl of eighteen or nineteen, perfectly pale, unconsious and almost pulseless—a strange contrast to her tough, swarthy, weather-beaten bearers. A deep wound in the neck was bleeding profusely; but, on tearing open the dress, I found I could stop the hemorrhage almost entirely with my finger.

Adams was there immediately; in a minute he knew all about it, and had settled his course of action. Quietly he said: "Send for Sir Carver. Take her to the theatre [the operating room] at once. Ask the other men to come and get everything ready for operation." And then to me: "Keep up steady pressure, and don't take your finger away for an instant."

Nothing could be found out concerning her. No one was with her when she was struck down. She was very tastefully though not expensively dressed. Her features were exceedingly regular and pretty, and when the color was in her face she must have possessed a very considerable share of good looks. Nothing but a purse and a handkerchief were found in her pocket. The former was well filled and the latter was marked "E. Stead." Adams said at once that she was a lady.

I do not know whether it ever happened before at St. Michael's that, on the occurrence of a sudden emergency, no one of the surgical staff was at hand. Strange to say, it happened so to-night. Sir Carver Smith and three of the assistant surgeons lived close to the hospital; but in five minutes the messenger returned with the news that Sir Carver had been called to some aristocratic celebrity at the West End, who had met with an accident, and had taken one of the assistant surgeons with him. The second was out of town; and the third, who had been left to act in emergencies, had been taken suddenly ill.

We had been discussing the case, and offering advice upon it with all that calm assurance which characterises embryo surgeons. But matters now became serious. Half an hour would suffice to summon one of the other surgeons; but it was plain that something must be done at once. We all looked at Adams, who had said very little hitherto, but had gone on making everything ready. He simply said: "Begin to give chloroform; I am going to operate."

"What are you going to do?" we asked.

He told us; but I will not inflict any details upon my readers, but will simply say that the sharp end of a broken shaft had made a narrow, deep gash in the root of the neck, and had wounded a large artery. The operation contemplated afforded almost the only chance of life; and to delay it any longer, Adams said, would be throwing that chance away. It was an operation of the highest difficulty and danger under the present condition of the parts; and could its performance have been anticipated, the theatre would have been crowded with spectators from all the hospitals in London. And there was a young surgeon of 25, called upon at a few minutes' notice to undertake what many a long-experienced surgeon might hesitate to attempt, for it was impossible to perform it without additional loss of blood; and it was not at all improbable that the patient might not survive the operation, to say nothing of after dangers.

Adams carefully explained to the other house surgeons what assistance they would have to give him; and when the patient was ready, commenced at once. Perfect silence reigned, broken only at intervals by a word from the operator, but indeed he had little need to speak, for we were well drilled at St. Michael's, and everything he needed was put into his hands almost before he asked for it. I think I can still see that quiet, eager group of young men under the brilliant gaslight, standing around the pallid, slumbering, unconscious girl; and in the centre the young surgeon, cool, collected, with steady hand, without hurry, without hesitation, doing his work. I have witnessed many of the most brilliant operators in England, and of course have seen Adams himself many times in that theatre in later years; but I think I never saw that night's operation surpassed either by himself or any one else. A special demand sometimes calls forth special powers, and acts almost like an inspiration; and so it seemed now.

In a short time it was done, and successfully done, and the patient was carried away to a quiet ward, where she was duly cared for by the nurse in charge, Adams, and Sir Carver Smith, who came on later. Our miscellaneous entertainment did not come off; but we scarcely regretted the change of the programme. In a place where accidents are of hourly, and operations daily occurrence, one more or less seldom creates much excitement; and when I go on to say that this case excited more interest among residents and non-residents than almost any other case I ever saw in the hospital, I wish you to clearly understand that this fact was due entirely to the extreme professional interest in the case and the great enthusiasm of St. Michael's men for the study of surgery. At the same time, I may state, although not particularly bearing on the question, that the patient was an uncommonly pretty girl; and day after day passed without any light being shed on the question as to who she was and whence she came—circumstances quite sufficient to excite in a mind not preoccupied with such matters as burden the intellect of the average medical student, the liveliest interest and curiosity.

After the operation she was at first too ill to be interrogated, and when she got a little better she declined to give any information; at any rate none could be obtained from her. Perhaps she was a little "queer" with feverish or hysterical excitement.

At the expiration of two days I went in to help with the dressing. She was very grateful for everything done to her, and bore her pain very well. For a long time she was in a very critical state. As the euphonious phrase of the young profession went, "She had a very close shave for it." At the end of three weeks, however, she was in fairly smooth water, and for the first time some of the clinical class went in with Sir Carver Smith to see the case. He had hitherto said nothing on the subject of the operation. He was a man of few words; but one word of praise or blame from him was never forgotten by any of us. Turning to us from the patient, he said, "This, gentlemen, is a case of so-and-so," and he briefly explained it. Then he added: "Nothing but the most exceptional circumstances could justify a house surgeon in this hospital in undertaking an operation of such importance. In this case those exceptional circumstances existed. The operation is one of great difficulty and rarity. I have once, may years ago, performed it myself, and the patient died. Had my patient recovered, such a recovery would then, I believe, have been without precedent. But the gratification to myself of having performed the first successful operation would not have been greater than is my gratification now at having under my care a case which will, I believe, recover, and whose recovery will be due, without doubt, to the prompt and skilful action of a St. Michael's student, my own house surgeon, Mr. Adams."

"Strong for Carvy, and good for Adams," was the general comment. Adams pretended to be writing notes; but there was not one of us who would not readily have suffered "plowing" in our "final college" to gain such a word from Carver Smith.

And now, my fair readers, if you will turn to the clinical report of the celebrated case in the pages of the Lancet, somewhere about March, 18--, you will find it stated that "after this point the case presents no features of special interest; convalescence was rapid, and the patient was discharged cured on the forty-seventh day after admission." I therefore give you fair notice that you may lay down this record her and not read any farther unless you like.

Yes; she recovered rapidly; and prettier and prettier she grew as she got better. She talked very little, and said nothing at all to help her identification. Inquiry was fruitless, even though the case got into the newspapers. The interest among the students increased daily. It was reported that she was an heiress who had quarrelled with her guardian; that Adams was madly in love with her; that she was waiting for him to propose, and then would marry off-handed; that Adams knew all about her, but kept is snug. And then men got to chaffing him in a mild sort of a way, wanting to know the "state of the heart" and the chances of "union by first intention." But Adams was impenetrable. Personally, I am inclined to think that whatever the condition of his patient's heart might be, he was a little affected in that region. She was evidently very fond of him, and liked no one but him to dress the wound. Still the mystery increased.

At last one afternoon I was sitting in Adams' room in a leisure interval, when a lady's card was brought in. It had a deep black border, and bore the inspection: "Mrs. Stead, The Cedars." She wished to see Mr. Adams. Immediately afterwards the lady was shown in. Adams motioned me to stay. She was a fine, tall woman of fifty, dressed in deep mourning, with hair just turning grey, a firm mouth, soft, keen grey eyes and a face combining intellect and kindness.

"Have I the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Adams?" she said. He bowed. She then produced a paper which gave an account of our famous case and of the part Adams had played in it.

"May I inquire whether this patient is still in the hospital? Can I see her?"

"Yes, certainly. Would the lady be able to identify her? Would it not be better for the patient to see the card first, to avoid sudden excitement; that is, if the lady's visit were likely to cause excitement?"

"'Perhaps it would be better to take up the card and say that Mrs. Stead desires to see her."

Wonderfully calm and self possessed the lady seemed to us, and yet she could not entirely suppress some signs of emotion or excitement. She said that illness in her family had prevented her from seeing the papers for some time, or she would probably have been here before.

I took the card up and showed it to the patient. She turned very pale, then buried her face in her pillow and burst into tears.

"Shall the lady come up?" I said.

I thought she sobbed out "Yes."

The visitor came up. Slowly and calmly she walked up the ward. The news had somehow got about, and several of the men found that part of the hospital just then. The lady stood by the bed and said softly, "Elizabeth."

The girl looked up and their eyes met. One glance at that face was enough.

"Yes," said the lady; "I can identify her."

"Is it your daughter?" asked Adams.

"It is my cook," said the lady. "Elizabeth Saunders."

I think I said that I only once saw Adams considerably decomposed, and that was on the present occasion.

"I—I—thought her name was Stead," he said, and his eyes rested on a pocket-handkerchief lying on the pillow.

The lady's eyes followed his, and a slight smile played on her features.

Yes, it was even so. The acute scientific observer, the far-sighted young surgeon, famed for his diagnostic acumen, had seen through his case, but not through his patient. It turned out that the girl being remarkably good-looking, and having acquired in a previous situation, in a nobleman's family, a very correct way of speaking and some very ladyish manners, was fond of dressing up in her holidays, and frequenting places of amusement, where she usually attracted a good deal of attention. Her mistress having been called away from home to nurse a sick relative, had allowed her servant to go, as she thought, to visit her parents in the country; but the girl, having her wages in her pocket, had preferred to remain with an acquaintance in London, where she enjoyed her Christmas holidays very much to her own satisfaction, until her accident put a stop to her manoeuvres, or rather changed her field of action. Finding, as she recovered, that she was being addressed as "Miss Stead," and that she was the object of much interest and attention, it seems to me—judging by what experience of human nature on its female side I have since acquired—not very remarkable that she preferred to keep up the delusion, golden silence being her main line of tactics. And, fair readers, do you think it very contrary to your experience of human nature on its male side, that an otherwise exceedingly acute young man should be he the subject of a delusion of this particular kind?

The lady spoke very kindly to the girl, and guessing, I fancy, how matters stood, said some very graceful things to Adams. Subsequently, you will perhaps be glad to hear, she proved a very kind friend to him, and her influence was of no small assistance to him in his future professional advancement. She became, in fact, quite a mother to him, though not a mother-in-law.

I really do not know what befell the girl, except that at her own desire the lady obtained for her "a situation in the country, "out of the way of temptation," and she proved to be a faithful servant.

I am sorry to state that public interest in the case at St. Michael's somewhat rapidly declined after Mrs. Stead's visit; perhaps because, as the Lancet said, the interesting symptom had all disappeared. But I said then, say now, and always will say, that it was, from all points of view, "a really good case."

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 24 February 1881, supplement page 2.

The Duel

Author Unknown

In the year 1807, when the peace of Tilsit put a stop to the conquest of Napoleon in Germany, the king of Prussia, exhausted by his astonishing efforts to maintain the war against France, reduced his army to the peace establishment. Consequently many officers who were stationed at Hamburg received a furlough, or were dismissed from the service for a short time, and a life of military danger and activity gave place to habits of idleness and dissipation.

In the early part of the summer, several of these officers, having dined together and sacrificed rather freely at the shrine of the jolly god, adjourned toward evening to the Exchange Coffee-house, the most noted hotel in the city. They entered singing and shouting in a most tumultuous manner, setting at defiance the rules of propriety and decorum. The youngest of the joyous band, the Baron de V—, who bore the commission of a lieutenant in the army, was about 25 years of age, wealthy, handsome, and elegantly formed. But his mind did not correspond with his person; he was vain, insolent, and self-conceited and presuming. When they entered the public room, they observed an individual of small stature, in a dark suit, seated alone at a table. He held in his left hand the journal of the day, while his right hand supported a pipe. He paid but little attention to the entrance of this formidable host of blackguards, scarcely deigning to raise his eyes from the paper he was perusing. The young baron, doubtlessly offended at an appearance of indifference which he though bordered on contempt, approached the man in black and said, with a smile of bitter irony, "Ah, my friend, good evening. From your appearance, I should take you to be a schoolmaster, or, perhaps, a tailor. Am I right? Where is your goose?"

The citizen raised his eyes and fixed them for a moment on the countenance of his interrogator, and then resumed the perusal of the journal.

"God forgive my sins," continued the baron, "he will not answer me. Come, my little fellow, we must be more sociable. Ah, I perceive the reason of your silence; the pipe incommodes you. As I must hear the sound of your voice, allow me to relieve you." So saying he snatched the pipe from the hands of the stranger, and dashed it to pieces on the floor, a piece of wit which his companions applauded with shouts of loud laughter.

Without laying down the journal, the insulted individual turned towards the entrance of the inner room, and coolly said: "Waiter, another pipe."

"Well done," replied the young impertinent. "I have gained something, however; I made him open his mouth."

The pipe was brought, filled and lighted, and the citizen continued to peruse the journal as if nothing had happened.

"My little man," said the baron, "where do you belong? In what village do you exercise your talents? What, no answer? Have you resolved not to enter into conversation with me?"

Here the insulted person again raised his head and looked the young officer in the face, at the same time puffing out an immense volume of smoke; he then deliberately resumed his former occupation.

"Perhaps I was mistaken in your character," interrupted the baron; "you may be the quid nunc of a village, and perhaps endeavoring to commit to memory the news which that paper contains, to impart it correctly to your friends and neighbors. But you smoke like a Swiss. That pipe causes yon much inconvenience." It was a second time broken.

Without evincing by a gesture, or any visible sign of countenance, the least appearance of anger, the man in black coolly repeated the first demand. "Waiter, another pipe."

"What a melodious voice!" resumed the baron. "Such patience must be the attribute of an angel or a devil. I would give a thousand florins to see you in a passion; it would be delicious sport.

An old major, whose embroidered coat was decorated with military orders, and on whose German physiognomy was depicted frankness, true courage and loyalty, who entered the coffee-house with the hair-brained youths, now addressed the baron in a low voice, but which notwithstanding could be heard in all parts of the room:

"My young friend, you are insulting a stranger without provocation; you are foolishly guilty of a great impertinence, and your conduct, with that of your applauding comrades, begins to disgust me. I beg you will pursue this foolish joke no farther."

The baron, with his companions, accordingly adjourned to a neighboring room, and commenced playing cards. To judge from their numerous jokes, followed by loud peals of laughter, it would seem that the young officers folly and imprudence was already forgotten. An hour passed away, all was mirth and jollity, the baron had gained a considerable sum, and his spirits were proportionately buoyant, when the little man in black entered the room, and slowly approached his chair, tapped him gently on the shoulder, and requested to speak to him in another apartment. The baron regarded him with a look of disdain over his shoulder, uttered an ill-timed jest and laughed in his face.

"Sir," said the man in black, in a decided and manly tone, "you labor under a trifling mistake, which I must take the liberty to correct. I am neither a tailor nor a schoolmaster. I have the honor to be a post-captain in the English navy, very much at your service. You have insulted me, and I demand satisfaction. To-morrow morning, at 7 o'clock, I shall await you here. Bring pistols with you."

The astonished baron, who during this address had risen from his chair, changed countenance more than once, and then answered only by a low bow of acquiescence; he dared not trust himself to speak, lest his tongue should betray his terror. The captain politely saluted the rest of the company and left the house.

With him departed all the gaiety of the lieutenant. He became thoughtful and taciturn; his mind wandered from the game, and he soon lost more than he had gained. He was unnerved with terror, while reflecting on the consequences of his folly. What an advantage must an adversary possess over him, who could bear with so much calmness a series of degrading insults, and who could propose a duel with such imperturbable sang froid! Such an antagonist must be singularly endowed with courage and skill. Such were the ideas that continually passed through his mind.

When the company separated they all agreed to meet at the same place at the appointed hour. But it is not supposed that all slept equally well during the night. When they assembled next morning at the coffee-house they found the Englishman before them at the rendezvous; but he was now dressed in a splendid suit of the naval uniform of his nation. He was attended by a valet, who carried a case under his arm.

He requested the officers to accept of some refreshments, and they entered into conversation, when the Englishman gave indications of possessing a cultivated mind and good breeding.

About 8 o'clock he rose from his chair and begged the Prussian officer to select the spot where the quarrel must be decided, adding that he was a stranger in the city and that all places were alike to him. The baron named the open pasture between Hamburg and Altona.

When they arrived on the ground the Englishman asked the Prussian what distance he would prefer; he answered "Fifteen paces." "The distance is too great," resumed the Englishman, "you will miss me. Call it ten, if you please." And his proposition was accepted.

The major now made the observation that the captain had no seconds. "That is of little consequence," said the Englishman. "If I fall my valet has my orders." The major represented that such a proceeding was contrary to the usage in affairs of this kind, and that if such a formality was neglected the duel could not take place, but he politely offered to assist in that capacity.

When the ground was marked out and each of the principals had taken his station, the captain asked his antagonist significantly if he had good pistols; "for," said he, "I have a pair which I often use and which never miss their man. I will give you a proof of their excellence."

He then called his servant and ordered him to throw something in the air. The man took a handkerchief from his pocket.

"This is too large," said the captain; "find something else." He took from his pocket a dried prune. "That will do," exclaimed his master. The fruit was thrown into the air, the pistol was fired, and the prune was battered into pieces. At this extraordinary proof of address, the spectators were struck with astonishment. As to the poor lieutenant, he was more dead than alive.

The captain then resumed his station, and requested his antagonist to fire; but the major interposed, stating that it was contrary to the custom of their country: that the offended party had an undoubted right to make the first essay, and after his fire was returned, the rest should be decided by chance.

''My friend," replied the captain, "if I should suffer myself to be influenced by your opinion, this young gentleman would never have an opportunity to test the quality of his pistols. I must have my own way in this particular, and after I have settled the affair with this gentleman, each of his companions who amused themselves last evening at my expense, and who, instead of restraining the impertinence of their friend, laughed at his ridiculous follies, must one after another front the muzzle of my pistol. Now, sir, I am ready. Take good aim, for if you miss me you are a dead man."

The lieutenant presented his weapon, drew the trigger, and the ball passed through the Englishman's hat.

"Now, sir, it is my turn," said the captain. "I was last night a butt for your railleries and your sarcasms. Without provocation you insulted me, covered me with humiliation. I was a schoolmaster, a tailor, a village babbler. What am I now? A man. And what are you? A miserable wretch; a poltroon, trembling with fear. That death which in a few minutes you will receive from my hand already surrounds you with shadows. The grim tyrant's icy hand is already extended over you. Your lips are livid, your eyes are glazed, and your visage is as pale as the winding-sheet which in a few hours will envelope your body. Your feeble limbs can hardly support you; insolence and cowardice go hand in hand together. But before my bullet pierces your heart, tell me have you any arrangements to make? Have you a last adieu to send a father, a mother, or sister, or any other person who is dear to you? I have here the materials for writing: and willingly grant you time to make any arrangements which you may think necessary."

The young man muttered something, of which a humble "I thank you" was all that was intelligible.

"In that case," replied the Englishman, "since reconciliation between us is absolutely. impossible and it is necessary that your blood should wash out the affronts which I have received, I beg you to implore, by a fervent but brief prayer, the mercy of the Eternal Power."

Then, taking off his hat, he looked round upon the mute, terrified spectators of this closing scene, who, by a spontaneous impulse, uncovered themselves in like manner. For a minute or two there reigned among the group a religious and solemn silence, which was only interrupted by the hard breathings of the suffering lieutenant.

At length, seizing his pistol and pointing it towards the lieutenant, he kept him for a minute in the state of the most horrible suspense; then, suddenly raising the weapon, he turned toward the valet, who stood near him, and handed him the pistol. "Take it," said he; "this officer is not worthy the honor of dying by the hand of an Englishman."

The next day the Baron de V— quitted that part of the country, and never resumed his station in the regiment.

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 20 January 1881, supplement page 2

The Captive of Gippsland

by Henry Gyles Turner

The following story contains extremely racist portrayals of indigenous Australians. It is included here as a record of the violent prejudice white immigrants felt and expressed towards the original inhabitants of the land they invaded and as an early fictional take on the story of the captive white woman of Victoria, whose posited existence lead to massacres of the Gunai-Kurna people of Gippsland.


The story is also missing one section of chapter three, as this appears not to have been published in The Warragul Guardian with the rest of the serialised novella.

Forging the Chain

by Em. Quad

It had been raining all the afternoon—a steady, summer rain, which came down softly and warmly, and soaked everything with its refreshing drops. Our house overlooked the Bay, and I had been standing in the balcony for more than an hour, gazing moodily at the waves coming sullenly in with their foam-capped crests, subdued by the steady downpour, standing in the dusky twilight, quite unconscious of how the time passed. We had a picnic in the paddock, which stretched down to the sea, about a mile from the house, and when the rain came on they came home to mamma's to finish the day, and go away when the rain stopped. Of course we didn't want much preparation; we were all full of fun, and it was no trouble to clear out the big sitting room far a dance. I could hear their merry voices at intervals, but I did not pay much attention to them or their amusements. The air was hot and quiet, and the wind seemed filled with the sad voices of the night. It cleared up a little just as darkness set in, and I could see right across to Fort Denison, which is a deal more than I could ever since I had been out on the balcony.

I ought to have been happy with all the good things of the world that I had—good looks, a good education, good health, and plenty of admirers. But I wasn't though. I believe I was the most miserable girl in Sydney at that minute. It seemed strangely out of place for a fair young woman, scarcely more than a girl, to be standing in the gloom, with the drip of the rain, and the sullen moaning of the wind in her ears, waging a bitter fight with Destiny; her first bitter fight, because of all in the world that she desired the most she could not have—the love of a man whose heart was given to another. For he was engaged to be married, and could never be anything to me; and yet, womanlike, that fact served but to heighten my passion.

He had begged to be allowed to go back to the city that night, pleading business as his excuse; but we would not let him, because he was such good company, and we all liked him. If he had gone it would have been been better for us both.

As I stood on the balcony, I could hear the gay laughter of the revellers in the sitting-room, and the applause which followed a comic song one of the gentlemen has just been singing. I was turning to go to them, and no loaner neglect my duties as hostess, when a group of the idlers came up, and laughingly told me they had arranged for "a grand denouement."

"A grand what?" I asked, trying to laugh.

"Oh! you'll see. Were going to marry you!"

My heart gave a great jump and stood still. The proposition came so close to the tenor of my own dreamy thoughts, that, for a moment I was startled.

"There, don't look so frightened. We don't mean it for good, you know," said one of them. "Oh yes, of course; and besides, its only to Bella's other half! See, I can make you a veil and things with the mosquito curtains!" which practical remark drew a roar from at least a dozen, as they scampered off.

Only to Bella's "other half!" That was all. But if he had not been Bella's second half he might—

"I hope you will not stand here any longer, Miss Todd. There is really nothing to look at over there," said a deep voice close to me, a voice with a forced ring of gaiety in it. My heart gave another little leap. It always did when he came near me; but I controlled myself with an effort and answered him in a light manner and turned to go.

"They have decided on marrying us," he continued in the same tone and voice, "and Dick is going to do the parson. We have rigged him out in the grandest style you ever saw; not a high church minister, you know, because we haven't got a gown. Dick wanted to be the bridegroom, but we agreed it was not safe, and so they took me as—as I belonged to—someone else."

For my life I could not keep my eyes down. I struggled hard, but the quivering lids rose slowly and I looked straight into his face. What I read there sent the blood in a torrent to my heart that nearly stopped its beating. But I only said: "Very well, Mr. Bruce; anything to oblige and pas the time, you know. I will go and get ready."

And that was the way the first link was forged.

Everything was arranged, and I returned to the window to collect myself and go through the farce that was to amuse the giddy company—returned and found him there, looking out upon the black and stormy night. I tried to go, but it was too late. How it came about I could not tell, and do not know to this day, but I saw his face was flushed and his eyes were glowing with light.

"I did not dare to speak, but I cannot keep silent longer—I cannot, though I call heaven to witness I have struggled like a man—man, did I say?—like a lunatic! struggled to keep back the love I—"

He caught me before I could move away, before I could comprehend his meaning almost. I could only say piteously: "Oh! no, no! you must be quiet—be calm—you will kill her else!"

He would have spoken again, but I broke from him, and, pale and excited, walked bravely amongst the guests.

We went through the mock ceremony somehow, I could not tell how, the necessity for duplicity alone keeping me calm. Roars of laughter and applause greeted me as I replied to the questions of the evening—laughter that jarred into my very soul and seemed to me to be the mockery of fiends. The service seemed so awful to me that I felt I was trifling with a Holy and Heavenly thing. Actress! Could a woman act as I acted then, the world would ring with her praises. The next hour seemed an oblivion to me. We had the supper, the usual speeches at the table, and then finished up with a dance. I could detect a painful, frightened look in her eyes, which seemed to me that she partly guessed the truth, and that look chilled my heart and made me feel as though I were a guilty and a wicked thing. At length I could not bear it any longer. I was sick of the miserable farce that was enacted; I felt a mad desire to rush out into the rain, to get out under the sky and try and think. The rain had stopped now. The wind still sighed in fitful gusts across the bay and moaned in the shrubberies of the garden. I stood upon the gravel path holding my throbbing temples with my hands, trying to beat down the pain that racked them. It was so hot and black and gloomy, that I thought the very sky lowered upon me and called me "guilty!"

A hand was placed upon my arm. I knew it was his, but I did not move. I was not strong enough to confront him yet. His voice was low, and thrilled me strangely, and I could hear that he spoke with an effort.

"Say you will not turn from me. Tell me that you do not scorn me for a weak and foolish thing. It was my fate. I could not keep back my love—love which has grown within me ever since I saw your face—ever since that eventful night when I—I made a fool of myself—."

I put out my hand deprecatingly. "Hush!" I said, "you must not talk of love to me."

"Must not?" he cried wildly. "Must not? By Heaven! I will! I swear I cannot live if you will not love me! I tell you that I will take my life! My God! do you?—can you call yourself a woman, with all a woman's heart, and all a woman's passions—a woman such as you are—can you—do you mean to stand there and tell me—say to me that in your heart, on your soul, you do not love me?"

He paused.

The wind which murmured fitfully in wintry gusts against the trees fell into silence. All the very world seemed dead and nature hushed as though listening for his reply. With a great sob of agony I hid my face in my hands.

"God help me—I cannot!"

And that is the way the second link in the chain was forged.

If there was ever a woman in this world suffered it was I upon that dreadful night. How I faced my guests again—answered their questions about my somewhat pallid appearance—I cannot tell; but I only remember, after it was all over, Bella, his in= tended bride, coming to me in a state of nervous excitement, to tell me she knew all. She had stood upon the balcony and listened to every word we had uttered in the garden, and now she came to me to tell me she was not sorry to be rid of a man whose mind appeared to be as fickle as his business habits, and he was as likely to acquire an estate as he was to concentrate his mind upon the one object of his thoughts and affections. It was all very well for him to talk to me as he had done. It was his passion, not his love, which spoke. He was excited with my beauty, and, although he swore so strongly that he loved me, he had sworn so to her before.

This I did not believe. I knew her to be a cold-hearted woman of the world, with all a worldly woman's thoughts and instincts; and the false position in which she was placed naturally made her speak with some bitterness of feeling.

She spoke to me a great deal upon the same subject, and advised me that she was not the least bit concerned, and then we kissed and made friends. But all that long night I lay awake thinking over what had occurred, over my madness—for madness it must have been—and the following day I left home and went on a visit to Parramatta.

However I managed to pass the following week I never knew. I did not go out, saw no one, but passed the time in such a state of abject desolation that it is wonderful I did not fall ill and die. But I had made up my mind, and as long as I did not see him again I could be strong, and live upon the dear memories of a past love. But if I met him again I felt that I might not be able to bear up against the passions that racked my heart, and then I should despise myself again.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these—"it might hays been." 

"It might have been!" How those words seemed to haunt my very life! They were with me awake and asleep, and seemed burned into my brain with letters of fire; and as often as the bitter memories of that night came to me, I felt as though I should be unable to bear up against it. In the hope that a change of scene might help me to forget, I asked my mother to take me to Melbourne.

And the night before we left he came to me and begged my heart again.

My heart! It was not mine to give. It was his already, and he knew it. That interview ended the same as before. I promised to marry him. I was to go to Melbourne as arranged, remaining there—a year it might be—until it should be all forgotten, and then return to him and to happiness.

And that is how another link was forged.

After I got to Melbourne we corresponded with each other regularly, and some months afterwards I received a note from Bella. She told me that she was glad the match had been broken off, as she fully intended to be married at the end of that year.

Married! How strange it seemed! I wrote back, and we corresponded after that at intervals. Towards the close of the year his letters seemed to be of a different tone to that which he began them in, but I scarcely noticed that. His business seemed to fail him, and he, as he told me, was a poor man. This fact seemed to lie heavier with him than anything else he had yet mentioned, even our separation. I own I had some slight bitterness of feeling at this, but when I thought of his struggles for a position, and how adversity must have forced him to the conviction that as long as he was obliged to work against poverty our wedding would be delayed, I softened towards him, and felt for his plight. But then I had money enough for both of us and more. I fully made up my mind, and about a month before Bella's wedding day I wrote her a long letter, explaining all, and announcing my intention to come back and see if the obstacle could not be removed, and his discontentment set aside For he had not written to me for a considerable time now, and the last letter sent my own.

Bella's answer to me was kind and sympathetic, full of womanly feeling and goodness of heart. "My dear Julia," she wrote. "I was afraid to break to you before what had I hinted at for many months; but you never seem to understand. Melbourne, once you are used to it, you will find as pleasant a place to live in as Sydney and I am moving over there soon after my wedding. Do not come back here, for the man on whom you have bestowed your love is to be married to-morrow, and before you get this the ceremony will have been concluded."

And that was the last link the the chain of my fate.

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 30 December 1880, holiday supplement page 2.