Chapter I: Part 1

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 11.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]

‘HAPPY EVER AFTER.’

By firelight, the children had heard a traveller’s tale about the mirage of the desert—the distant vision of tufted palms and green herbage, the promise of water, and shade, and rest. They had heard how the delusion flies, baffling pursuit, always seeming to stand at an attainable distance across the hot sands, always infinitely far, till it fades, because on their path it has no tangible existence. It is the delusive image of something existing elsewhere, and elsewhere perhaps unasked and uncared for by others, who reckon the oasis worth but little when their ambition is restless for the object of their journey.

‘That story won’t do!’ piped a little voice from the hearthrug, where golden hair was glistening full in the light like a heavenly aureola about an earthly dissatisfied face.

From within a cluster of boys and girls clinging to the armchair, the victim had of course to tell a fairy tale instead, down to the inevitable ending, ‘And they were happy ever after.’

‘Perkly happy?’ asked the small voice from the hearthrug.

‘Perfectly happy.’

‘Was there _never a wet day_?’

‘No; there was never a wet day in their part of the world.’

(Immediate flank attack and strategic surprise:) ‘Then their seeds wouldn’t come up. How did they manage?’

‘They were perfectly happy all the same.’

‘Maybe they didn’t care much for their seeds and things,’ said the golden-haired mortal of the real world, pensively. ‘One can’t care much for one’s “Tom Thumbs,” and be perkly happy when the “Tom Thumbs” don’t come up after setting ’em.’

There was a whole philosophy in these hearthrug speeches. Six years old in the cosy homelight, and the world was already incomplete! Even fairyland did not bear close inspection. If one asked questions about it, one found out that it had its drawbacks. Of course, fairy princes and princesses were perfectly happy, but only under conditions of existence that put them out of our sympathy. Carrying one’s human heart along with one, Fairyland wouldn’t do. This, in much simpler words, and no words at all, was the course of the firelight reflections on the rug. The victim, who had succumbed, followed out in another way his own idea of the problem of happiness in this complex world.

In disguise, most of the stories told to the world’s grown-up children have the same ending as the nursery tales—happy ever after. One wonders whether the ending is imaginable, or would it fall to pieces in detail; one wonders, too, whether this is an unfair delusion, saddening real mortals, suggesting impossible hopes and contrasts that have no lawful standing, because one side is only the ‘baseless fabric of a vision.’ Lastly, one wonders if the modern stories that insinuate happiness ever after, suggest that their hero and heroine are no longer meant for human sympathy, because they belong henceforth to fairy nature—or, shall we say, to the mangold-wurzel tribe?—and are not, like us, small creatures of hope and love, who ‘care much for our seeds and things.’

If we have skimmed many times the course of love that refuses to run smooth till it has got through three volumes, we have foreseen the marriage, and pinned our faith to what _would_ come out at the end of volume three. Our confidence was unshaken, though occasionally it suffered twinges. The future bridegroom was reported dead abroad: instinctively our hope strengthened. He was said to be drowned at sea: our mind was easy—the marriage was as good as promised. Even when the bride was engaged to somebody else, it did not make the least difference in her feelings or ours. Of course that marriage was to be; it would leave us content, and the hero and heroine happy. For Bella Millefleurs and that distinguished Italian, the Count del Cucchiajo, there was certainly a future like the melodist’s Vale of Avoca, where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, and their hearts, like its waters, be mingled in peace. Their life before had been shifting, rugged, uncertain; they attain their life’s object early, and there they rest.

Most of the after-marriage novels are histories of lives that go down a few steps or altogether into a upas valley. In healthy air, we are given to understand that the most natural end of the story is the marriage-day. We must not ask to follow through the golden gates; beyond these is a bright level of peace—that region where, as we have been reading, the Count del Cucchiajo and Bella—who had the violet eyes, you remember—are gone. They have found the _summum bonum_; their marriage has made them perfectly happy; and so the story ends.

Happy ever after! As much delusion implied at the end of three volumes, as told in words at the end of a nursery tale. Given the conditions of our life, it is impossible. Not that a happy marriage is impossible—the Fates forbid we should teach such heresy! But the happiest marriage is not a rounded sphere of contentment; it is not ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite.’ Experience answers for itself that the sweetest wife and the most devoted husband are not always in the same position which—as the book and our own minds told us—the Count del Cucchiajo and his violet-eyed bride had secured, when they drove away from the imaginary St George’s, Hanover Square, a while ago; or from the country church, whose imaginary gateway we saw so plainly at the imaginary roadside, among the golden-green branches of that spring-time that never was.

‘Ah! well,’ says some one wiser than the rest, piling up the three volumes, and thinking about an afternoon reviver of tea as a stimulant to the dreary return to this unsatisfactory sort of a world, ‘you can’t expect a story to go on into all about everything. One reads for pleasure; it should end happily. We don’t want a fourth volume about lawsuits and income tax, bursting water-pipes, or kitchen chimney on fire on the day of the dinner-party. We don’t want to read on to the measles and the boy’s tin trumpet, and the lady’s first gray hairs, and perhaps the Count crusty with the gout—his family’s fault, and not his. You must flavour with all those minor matters according to taste.’

But nobody flavours, nobody mars the feast with prosaic troubles. And precisely there the mischief lies. The impression given by the climax of the story, and the idea left in the reader’s mind, is life’s object attained, and perfect happiness henceforth. The characters that point the moral and adorn the tale do not pass away from it into the married life of this commonplace world. Like the Prince and the awakened Beauty of the Laureate’s verses, they go forth independent of occupation, and where the Directory-makers cease from troubling. Their future is exquisitely beautiful, vague as a dream; we only know that

Across the hills and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy Princess followed him.

Now, what is the effect of this custom of ending the story with the old clap-trap ‘happy ever after?’ Poor Polly Brown, who has had the three soiled loose-leaved volumes from the village library, looks out at our poor familiar world in fading wintry light, and decides that the one prize worth winning is her wedding-day. The world’s winters, the wild black boughs and barren fields, will then be seen no more; it will be a romantic existence, with no dull relations to be civil to, no tiresome household work, no dusting of that shut-up drawing-room with its faint smell of carpet and fire-grate and musty roses. She has dreamed her dream; all her efforts are turned towards attaining it. In a certain sense, she is selfish already. Poor Polly, impatient to escape from the homely parlour and the sanctum of dried roses! Bella Millefleurs, who never lived, will yet cause her real pain in the days of disillusion. She will shed real tears, not as heroines do, but with the prosaic human sorrow of red eyes.

Somebody else, two seasons ago, held the same book with dainty white hand, when, from a great London lending library it came in its first freshness, with stainless cover, and pages smelling deliciously of ‘new book.’ This pretty girl had danced till three that morning, and had a new ring on her finger, which she kissed when she was sure nobody would see her. Of course she was only resting in curtained firelight in a gem of a boudoir; it would be cruel to expect so graceful and fragile a creature to do anything after such a night; and idle to expect her to do more than skim and skip the chapters, when her own real tale was so much sweeter. She had dreamed her dream from fifty other stories of the same ending. She had attained her life’s object in securing a lover with a coronet; and the happy marriage is the coming rest without sorrow or change. If poor Polly Brown could have seen her, she would have been ready to cry for envy; and yet two seasons after, when we saw the homely girl devouring that same story from the same pages, perhaps my lady with the coronet was beginning to feel the heartbreak of disillusion, the unfitness for a life that was misunderstood.

Smith, Brown, and Jones, who are good fellows in their way, and untroubled by romance, are not likely to have new opinions formed by a tired hour of fiction with an after-dinner cigar. But Mrs Smith, Mrs Brown, and Mrs Jones are not so lucky. They may yet have their moments of mental pain, their hidden anguish about imaginary contrasts, their secret storms in a teacup. Their marriage, with its thousand cares, did not raise them to transcendent bliss, as it seems other people’s marriages do. Smith, or Brown, or Jones, has not been to them what that man with a soul, the Count del Cucchiajo, was to his wife. Inferred regretful verdict on Jones who is innocently puffing, and reading through the second volume! The love and good-fortune of the violet-eyed heroine would not by itself have left this sad impression; it has come from the insinuation of happy ever after, which the history of heroines with eyes of all colours has gradually completed. It has given a false impression of life, leading through the magic of the happy marriage into a state of complete contentment and rest, a satisfaction of the insatiable power of loving, a rest from the almost infinite capacity for suffering. All this the real life has not found. Nor could it have been found, for it belongs to another world. Had that felicity been reached, it would have proved, in such a world as this, a heart neither capable of much love nor of much suffering, and therefore ignoble, because unfeeling. We can fancy a mangold-wurzel with such an experience, but not a human being.

Closely associated with the false view of life is that mirage of the heart—the complete happiness that seems attainable if only life had advanced to some change of circumstance. This vision leads on many a one in the straining of hope from the cradle to the grave. We know that others have precisely what we want; it exists somewhere, and they hardly care for it. The shadow only is ours. We forget that another and a greater mirage has risen before them farther on; and that if we stood where they stand, we too would be straining onward. Only, let not the mirage of nine-tenths of the novels delude us. The hero and the heroine have reached no land of perfect happiness, if they are still in this world of patience and of effort. If we believe they have found an El Dorado, we shall follow with selfish steps, with a false ideal of the winning of the prize, and with a morrow of disillusion yet to come. By all means let them show us the bravery and the mutual faith that make at last of love the crown of life; but let them not tell us that it is ever in this world a tearless diadem. Nor can it be likened to a secure rest, an imperishable home; it is rather the tent on the battle-plain, and the dwellers there have not the prospect of court and feast, but the joy of brave natures, blithe as soldier-comrades in the strength of union.

And now, after finding, like the child on the hearthrug, that ‘happy ever after’ is an untrue ending, what are we to do with our human thirst for rest? Where are we to look, if the vision of happiness farther on is only a mirage? And a mirage it is in many cases. There is but one true answer. This is not the world of perfect happiness.

Our plans for abiding happiness in the future must be laid, in a far different sense from the fairy poem, beyond the world’s ‘utmost purple rim, and deep into the dying day.’ Meanwhile, the best thing we can do for our contentment is to seize upon the golden Present. Oh, that golden Present! how despised it is; yet there is no El Dorado of this world’s future that can compare with it. Mingled with the wear and tear of every day, it is perhaps this day and hour the time that we shall look back to in future years as a bright vanished dream. We shall be at too great a distance then to see its small anxieties, its commonplace imperfections; why should we see them now? Again, the golden Present is the time full of the affections that may be cut off before the future has become a sadder present. Let us take the every-day love that we already have, though it be gold roughly wrought. Our treasures may pass away, while we are weaving dreams and following shadows.

BY MEAD AND STREAM.

CHAPTER XVII.—A TURNING-POINT.

The task which Madge had undertaken would have been simple enough, if she had not heard that sad story about the old time when her mother and Philip’s uncle stood in the same relationship to each other as she and Philip now. Then she would have had nothing to do but to write a letter according to her instructions.

Knowing, however, what painful recollections her name would suggest to Mr Shield, the task became a little complicated. Old wounds would be uncovered, old passions roused again, and who could tell what might be the consequences to Philip? She had formed her idea of Mr Shield from Aunt Hessy’s account of the manner in which he had received the tidings of her mother’s marriage, and from Philip’s account of the feud between his father and him. And the idea was that of a man who never forgot an offence, even if he forgave it. His years of exile and of silence to those friends and relatives showed how implacable his nature must be.

She had thought of this the moment Philip told her what she was to do; but in his present condition she could not venture to explain it to him. Fortunately, there was one to whom she could express her doubts, and fortunately Aunt Hessy always saw the best in everything: if she had been thrown to the bottom of a pit, she would have lifted her eyes to the disc of sky above and taken comfort. She was endowed with that boundless faith which makes one happy in one’s self and the cause of happiness in others.

‘Do not trouble thyself, child. We make more worries for ourselves than are made for us. Like enough the two great troubles of Austin’s life may be redeemed in thee and Philip. That would be great joy to me. Send thy letter as it is; and I’ll put a few words to him in the same envelope, so that he may understand thou art no stranger.’

It was only a few words Aunt Hessy wrote: ‘This is to tell thee that after many years thou art still kindly borne in mind. It is our fervent hope that time hath brought thee peace as well as riches. The letter which this short greeting goes with is from our Lucy’s child, Madge. If all go well with them, Madge and thy nephew Philip Hadleigh will one day marry. I think it well that thou shouldst know this, and trust that it may please thee. I would be glad to tell thee more if any sign be given me that thou carest to hear it.’

Madge wrote a succinct account of the accident which had befallen Philip and a clear statement of all that she had been directed to say. Before this letter was closed, Dr Joy called, and a postscript became necessary.

‘The doctor who is attending Mr Philip Hadleigh has been here. He says that it would be positively dangerous for him to move from his room for two or three weeks; and that to undertake a journey to Griqualand in less than three or even four months would be “positively suicidal.” The doctor also says that Mr Hadleigh’s anxiety to keep his engagement with you is likely to retard his recovery very much. My fear is that he will attempt to travel before he is fit to do so safely. Could you not assure him that the delay will cause you no inconvenience?’

She did not hear what Dr Joy said to Aunt Hessy, or her fear that Philip in his impulsive way might act without due heed to the voice of medical wisdom would have been greatly increased.

‘The fact is, Mrs Crawshay, there is no great danger in the case itself, although two ribs are broken. The real danger lies in his impatience to be away and home again. I think your niece has something to do with that. He let it out to me to-day when he told me that he was not so impatient to go as he was impatient to be back. You must persuade Miss Heathcote to use her influence to keep him quiet.’

Madge went to the village post-office herself. Even the posting of this letter had obtained what at the moment appeared to be a somewhat undue importance. However, it was safely placed in the box by her own hand, and she experienced a sense of relief as if she had got rid of a burden. There were so many things she might have said, and had not, so many phrases she might have altered or modified to suit the peculiar associations which it revived, that so long as it remained in her possession there seemed a probability of being constrained to go back and write it all over again. If on the contents of this letter had depended the most fateful turning-point in her life, and she had been aware of it, she could not have been more exercised in mind about them, or more relieved when the die was cast into the post-box.

Now she turned with lightened steps towards Ringsford. In the fields on every side the ploughs and harrows were at work; occasionally there was the crack of a gun, and in the distance she could see the blue smoke wreathing up into the air and the sportsmen following their dogs. A soft russet tinge like a great brown cobweb lay upon the Forest, and leaves were fluttering hesitatingly to the ground, as if uncertain whether or not it was yet time to quit the branches. These were the tokens that the harvest-time was over, and the fat ricks in the farmyards told that there had been a goodly ingathering.

When she reached the Manor, the young ladies had barely finished breakfast. They had been dancing until daylight shamed the lamps in the marquee, and consequently they were still at their first meal long after the forenoon dinner had been finished at Willowmere.

‘Why did you not tell us about poor Philip last night, Madge?’ was Miss Hadleigh’s salutation, adding, with a shrug of the shoulders which might represent a shudder: ‘It is so dreadful to think of us all enjoying ourselves while our brother was lying at death’s door.’

‘Not so bad as that, unless there has been some great change since the doctor was here,’ said Madge.

‘There will be such scandal about it all over the country,’ exclaimed Caroline.

‘Everybody will know that you were purposely kept in ignorance of the accident.’

‘I am sure I wouldn’t have laughed or danced at all, if I had only known,’ half-sobbed the conscience-stricken Bertha.

‘That is exactly why he insisted you should not be told about it until after your party.’

‘But it wasn’t our party: it was his party; and everybody will think we are such unfeeling creatures,’ was the petulant comment of Caroline, who appeared to be more occupied about what ‘everybody’ would say than about her brother’s injuries.

And everybody did say a great deal, of course—particularly everybody who had not been invited to the festival. The explanation satisfied those who had shared in the night’s merriment and those who had not pretended to be satisfied. So all was well, and the Misses Hadleigh found a doleful interest in receiving the numerous callers and answering their inquiries. They felt a little chagrin at first that Madge should have the privilege of seeing their brother, whilst they were forbidden access to his room for several days. But this was speedily overcome, for none of them had a partiality for a sick-room, and their visitors kept them fully occupied.

The most regular inquirer was Wrentham, who not only presented himself daily at the Manor, but also contrived to see Dr Joy and obtain from him precise accounts of the progress of the case.

The progress was all that could be expected under the circumstances. Philip had a strong constitution; he was soothed into a degree of calmness, as soon as he learned that Madge had carried out his wishes; he ‘kept his head’ all the time; but his strength rendered his unavoidable restraint the more tantalising, and the sailing of the _Hertford Castle_ without him the more vexatious.

Then Madge said, with a make-believe look of reproach:

‘Are you so _very_ sorry, then, that we are together for a month or two longer than you expected?’

‘You know I am not; but then they have to be tacked on to the other end; and by so much delay my return.’

She was obliged to own that it was irksome for a man of active spirit to be bound down to his bed for weeks, when he had so much to do, and his spirit felt strong enough to do it. Besides, as he put it:

‘We had screwed our courage to the sailing-point, and now, when we have to wind ourselves up again, how do you know but I may fail? Maybe I shall give it up altogether, and take that little trip to the church we spoke about, and my father wants us to make.’

Then she spoke very decisively:

‘No, Philip, you will not fail; and in any case, we shall not take that trip until next harvest is over.’

‘Next harvest!’ ejaculated the invalid, pretending to groan. ‘How old shall we be then?—or rather, how old shall I be? for I don’t believe you will ever grow old.’

‘We shall both have added exactly one year to our experience,’ she said cheerfully, ‘and we shall begin life so much the more wisely.’

‘Shall we? Well, you can have the experience and the wisdom. I should like to have a Rip van Winkle sleep till then, and waken up just in time to give the necessary answers to the vicar. I say: have you been studying _the_ service?’

‘What a question!’ she answered, blushing.

Of course she had gone over The Service more than once, with that sweet tremulous wonder—compound of curiosity, timid, only half-acknowledged anticipation and awe—which is inspired by those mysterious words that have the power of making two lives one. Was there ever a maiden passed her teens without doing and feeling so? Was there ever a maiden who has not strained her eyes into the misty future that overhangs the altar, and speculated upon the shape in which her fate was to appear? And what maiden was ever ready to make frank confession to her lover of those vague day-dreams in which he has had no definite existence?

‘To be sure you have,’ says Philip gaily, notwithstanding the feebleness of his voice; ‘but I have not. So you will have to coach me for the exam.—I mean the occasion.’

The sunshine of youth was still in their hearts, and they could talk with gay fearlessness of the responsibilities they were to take upon themselves by-and-by. That ‘By-and-by’ makes such a difference in our views of things: even the coward is brave whilst the battle is to be fought by-and-by.

In spite of broken bones and disappointment and restraint, they were pleasant days those to the lovers. Pleasanter still when Philip was declared out of danger, and was permitted to spend two of the sunny hours daily in the garden, which was still brilliant with flowers. ‘Nature and me to keep the place bonnie all the year round,’ Sam Culver used to say, and in the autumn especially, the combined forces produced marvellous effects.

Madge was with Philip in these little outings, wheeling his chair herself, in order that they might escape the tyranny of a servant’s attendance.

A dense high hedge of ancient boxwood, trimmed into the shape of a castle’s rampart, screened the kitchen-garden from the pleasure-grounds. A wide gravel-path divided this screen from a thicket of variegated evergreens. In the centre of the thicket was an open space where stood two silver beeches, and beneath them was a circular rustic seat.

This was a favourite resting-place of Philip and Madge—to read, to dream of the golden future; and it was here he first rebelled against the restraint of his wheel-chair. Autumn had faded into winter, when upon a certain day the lovers were seated together busily reading the letters which had been received that morning from Austin Shield.

The first was to her, and the coldness of its tone tended to confirm the impression she felt of the man’s nature:

‘I am obliged to you for the information contained in your letter to hand. I trust that my nephew’s accident may not entail any permanent injury. Again thanking you, &c.’

‘That’s dry enough,’ muttered Philip, annoyed by this curt acknowledgment of Madge’s service.

‘But he had nothing more to say, and he does not know me,’ was her generous comment. ‘What more could he say than thank you?’

‘I don’t know—but there are different ways of saying thank you; and Uncle Shield does not seem to understand the most gracious way. Some people never do understand it, although they may try all their lives. But he does not mean any harm. I should say the wilds of Griqualand do not afford many opportunities for the cultivation of sweetness and light. Here is what he says to me:

‘“I have received Miss Heathcote’s letter. I regret what has befallen you, and hope you will speedily recover. The attention you have given to my business is satisfactory. Meanwhile, your inability to sail on the date fixed does not cause me so much disappointment as it might have done a few days ago.

‘“It was my determination never to visit England again. Circumstances, however, have recently come to my knowledge which induce me to alter that determination. As soon as my affairs here can be put in order I shall start for London. You need not write again here. Place Mr Wrentham’s papers in the hands of my solicitors for safe custody till my arrival. I shall communicate with you when I reach London, and shall expect to see you as soon afterwards as you may be able to get about.

‘“One thing I must ask you to bear in mind—that I do not wish to meet any of the family except yourself. A meeting would not be agreeable to me, and it could not be pleasing to them. It was about you my sister wrote to me, and my pledge to her concerned you alone.”’

This was subscribed with the most formal of all subscribing phrases—‘Yours truly;’ and even that he seemed to consider of so little importance, that it was only suggested by a series of strokes, which would have been absolutely meaningless to any one not acquainted with the form. Yet those two words ought to mean a great deal.

After the message had been read twice, Madge sat thoughtfully gazing at the paper. Philip’s cheeks had flushed, and his eyes became bright with satisfaction.

‘Well!’ he exclaimed at length, ‘this disposes of the whole bother. I can do what my mother wished without having to run away from you. Are you not glad?’

‘Yes, I am glad,’ she answered slowly; ‘but, do you know, I am almost afraid of your uncle.’

‘Nonsense. He is an odd fish, and dry as a roasted coffee-bean in his letters. But he must be the right sort at bottom, or _she_ would never have cared so much for him, or have asked him to take an interest in me.’

Philip was thinking of his mother; Madge was thinking of hers; and she also came to the conclusion that Austin Shield must be a good man at heart, or he could not have won so much affection, and he would not have been so faithful to the pledge he had given his sister years ago. The vision of the hard unforgiving man vanished from her mind, but no new conception took its place. Some instinct impels us to create a mental portrait of any person about whom we hear much or with whom we correspond. As a rule, the portrait is entirely erroneous; and we are disappointed, agreeably or the reverse, as may be, when we meet the original in the flesh. Yet these portraits of the imagination often exercise a permanent influence on our conduct towards the unconscious sitters.

‘Have you ever formed any notion of what he can be like personally?’ she asked by-and-by.

‘Well, no.... I cannot say that I have—that is, any particular notion of him. There is no portrait of him anywhere about the house, and my father never spoke about him till that evening when he tried to persuade me not to go to him. I should say he is a big chap, with a thin face and a keen eye to business, but good-natured in the main. What is your idea?’

‘I cannot say now. I _had_ my idea; but something has driven it quite out of my head within the last few minutes.’

‘Well, we shall soon see what he is like without cudgelling our brains about it. He will be here in a week or two, if he is as sharp about coming as he was about my going. Of course he will meet you, even if he persists in refusing to see anybody else; and I hope he won’t do that. Our plan must be to bring him to reason somehow; and I am ready to submit to a good deal in order to bring that about.... But I say, Madge, now that we have had just as much worry as if I had really gone away for ever so long, you are not going to stick to that stupid idea of putting off till next harvest?’

‘We are to wait till then—at least,’ she answered, shaking her head and laughing.

But Philip did not regard this decision as irrevocable.

THE SHADY SIDE OF MONEY-BORROWING.

A short time ago, an English County Court judge made some remarks on money-lending, which apparently were listened to by those who heard him with considerable interest, and perhaps with a certain amount of surprise. The case upon which he was adjudicating was one of those money-lending bills-of-sale transactions that so frequently come before County Court judges, and with which the public are unfortunately only too familiar. The judge said that he would take that opportunity of making some observations on the general question of money-lending, suggested by the particular case before him.

There was, he said, one important matter forgotten by persons who indiscriminately denounced money-lenders, which was, that ‘poor people must have loans.’ He did not see how, in special circumstances, they could get on without loans. Nor did he believe that borrowers were the innocent, ignorant victims—the deceived, foolish, and unsuspecting ‘flies’ lured into the ‘spider’s web’—that they generally were represented to be. He would say there what he had already said to the Government. The Board of Trade had requested all County Court judges to give their experience relative to usury, loan societies, and bills of sale. The object of the President of the Board of Trade in applying to County Court judges was of course to obtain guidance in some prospective and promised legislation on the above subjects, intended more effectually to protect inoffensive and worthy men from the wolves and Shylocks of society. The judge of whom we are speaking gave as his answer, that borrowers of money were quite competent to look after their own interests. His experience had led him to the conclusion that in bills-of-sale transactions there were as many knaves among the borrowers as there were among the lenders. For if the money-lender was often unscrupulous, extortionate, and ready to take every undue advantage of his needy clientèle; the borrower was as frequently a tricky, lying rogue, who misrepresented his circumstances, who rarely intended to repay the loan, and who thought there was nothing very far wrong in cheating and defrauding the Society or the person who lent him money.

He knew that his opinion was different from that of some of his brother-judges. But his experience in a large circuit, and extending over many years, had compelled him to come to this conclusion. In these most disagreeable trials, he had generally found that it was ‘diamond cut diamond.’ Often the borrower, by various means, got the money advanced on securities of insufficient value, occasionally on goods belonging to other persons; and the usurer never saw more than a small portion of his money again.

Being asked by counsel if he would give an opinion on newspapers inserting money-lending advertisements which were calculated to entrap the unwary, the judge declined, remarking that he did not feel it to be his duty to lecture the proprietors of newspapers on commercial morality.

Coming as these remarks do from a gentleman whose official position and long experience entitle him to speak with authority on this subject, they possess considerable weight. If they do not exactly throw entirely fresh light on this social evil, yet they reveal and emphasise a deplorable state of morality, or rather immorality, among a class of persons who perhaps hitherto have been considered fitter objects for pity than for blame. Many people who are always ready to hurl the fiercest anathemas at the head of a money-lender, have only words of sympathy and commiseration for the money-borrower. We think that usurers deserve all the severe censure which they get—they are the vampires and the vultures of society; at the same time, it seems indisputable that a certain class of borrowers are men of the loosest principles. They will resort to the meanest devices—to wilful misrepresentation, to fraud, to perjury, and even to forgery, in order to obtain loans of money, which they never can, and which in many cases they never intend to repay.

One common device of borrowers is to feign ignorance. Both principals and sureties do this. When pressed for payment in the court, they go into the witness-box and swear that they did not know the meaning of the document which they signed. The promissory-note or the bill of sale was not read over or explained to them. If this were true, their position would be strong; for the law directs that a bill of sale shall be explained to the person who gives it. Sometimes, of course, it is true that the holder of the bill of sale has taken a mean advantage of his client’s ignorance. But often it is untrue; for the Loan Office brings forward two or three witnesses who declare that the document was read over and explained to the defendant in their presence. The verdict in such cases is given against the borrower; and he is moreover liable to be indicted for perjury.

While on this point, we may express our astonishment that there are so many people foolish enough to sign documents which they do not fully understand; that there are so many persons who are constantly making themselves surety for sums of money, which, if called upon, they could not pay. Without going so far as to say that such people deserve all the punishment they get, when they have to suffer for their folly, we would earnestly warn everybody against these ruinous practices. No man should be bond for money which, if required to pay, he could not pay. Some men, acute enough on other subjects, are very simple in money matters. But simplicity and ignorance are not a sufficient excuse for acts of reckless stupidity. If persons do not know the purport of a document which they are asked to sign, they ought to know before signing it. In reference to sureties for loans of money, very often the explanation is patent enough. The pre-arrangement or stipulation between the persons is that the borrower shall give the surety a part of the money for signing the bond.

Another device of money-borrowers is to go in cliques, and for the different members of the same clique to become sureties for each other. For this scheme to be successful, of course the borrowers must apply to several Loan Societies. It does not always succeed; for money-lenders are usually very particular in making inquiries about their customers. But the probability is that if a clique of men apply for half-a-dozen loans, they will effect at least one or two. A plan almost identical with this is called ‘kite-flying.’ A few needy men, acquaintances, in position above the lowest classes, put their heads together to ‘raise the wind’ by manufacturing fictitious bills of exchange. As its name signifies, a bill of exchange represents a trade transaction. It is not a genuine bill unless there is exchange of some kind between two persons; work done, services rendered, or goods sold, by one person to another. Usually, the acceptor gives a two or three months’ bill for goods bought from the drawer. This simply means that it will be more convenient at the end of three months to pay for the articles purchased than to pay cash. But with those ‘kites’ there is no transaction of trade whatever; it is only a scheme to borrow money. The _modus operandi_ is for one to ‘accept,’ another to ‘draw,’ and for the other members of the party to indorse the bill. They then issue, circulate, or discount this bit of blue paper, which has cost them one shilling, as a genuine trade bill, given in payment for goods bought by the acceptor from the drawer, worth, say, one hundred pounds. Of course respectable bankers will not discount these ‘kites;’ but money-lenders will, as they frequently take some collateral security.

Another very common practice among money-borrowers is for one man to be surety for a whole party. This is done in the following manner. Number one takes and furnishes a house in a respectable locality, representing himself as carrying on a thriving business in some specified trade. Number two applies for a loan, giving the name of number one for his surety. The agent of the money-lender goes to the house of number one. He sees that his house is well furnished, and that he seems to be doing a good business; so, either with, or sometimes without, a bill of sale, he advances the sum of money asked for. In large towns, this process is repeated with several Loan Societies whose offices are at a long distance from each other. If his clients come from another part of the city, the money-lender does not object; for he knows that some of his best customers do not like to borrow money in the neighbourhood of their homes. When those who got the money fail to pay one of their monthly instalments, the agent of the Loan Office goes again to number one, when he finds the house shut up, and the furniture and the surety missing. Or if any of the furniture be left, probably the landlord claims it for rent.

Borrowers of money, too, are frequently guilty of the most perverse and wilful misrepresentation. They misrepresent their circumstances, their salaries, the profits of their business, their property, their furniture, stock-in-trade, &c., in the most barefaced manner. Not unfrequently they make themselves liable to a criminal prosecution for obtaining money under false pretences. A case was recently reported of a farmer and son who got a heavy loan on the security of the live-stock on their farm. But it was proved that they had sold two fields of turnips to some neighbouring farmers, which turnips were to be eaten in the fields by the sheep belonging to the farmers who had bought the turnips. The father and son told the money-lender that the sheep were their own property. They were apprehended, convicted, and sent to jail. Sometimes, however, the Loan Office will not prosecute, so the fraudulent borrower entirely escapes. Knowing this, a few borrowers of money will even run the risk of forgery. They forge promissory-notes, trusting to make good their escape out of the country; or if caught, they conclude that the money-lender will not prosecute; for money-lenders know very well that their business is condemned by public opinion, and they avoid as much as possible the expense, the trouble, and the publicity of a criminal prosecution.

Occasionally, the members of this needy fraternity of borrowers perform some very smart tricks. We have heard of an audacious knave who went to an auctioneer, and in a few minutes succeeded in effecting a loan of thirty pounds by depositing as security a picture not worth a guinea. He represented it as a valuable work of art by a painter of repute, whose name he had painted on one corner of the picture. The price of the miserable daub, he said, was fifty guineas; but he did not want to sell it—he only wanted a loan of thirty pounds for a month, when he would redeem his art treasure. By the end of the month he was in America; and the auctioneer still has the picture, unless he has thrown it on the fire through vexation of spirit.

THE MINER’S PARTNER.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.

Showle and Bynnes—dry goods and general store—were well known for a hundred miles around Cincinnati, in which city they were located, no house standing higher for solvency, promptness, and for that indefinable but yet easily understood quality, smartness. With the tenacity with which business men in the United States cling to their work, never contemplating the luxury of retirement and ease, which to them would be penance, Mr Bynnes, who was much advanced in years, would probably have continued in the store as long as he lived, but for his purchase of some land fully a thousand miles away. He had never seen this property, having bought it upon the representation of an agent in whom he had confidence; but believing that its value would be much enhanced by his personal supervision, he at once decided to go out and reside upon it. Mr Bynnes was near seventy years of age; his new acquisition was in a wild, bleak, unsettled part of the country; but such considerations did not weigh with him for a moment; the property required his presence, so he resolved to go there, ‘right away.’

This change involved the taking of a fresh partner by Mr Showle, as the business was too large for one person to manage; while, as a new warehouse, apart from the original store, was being built, it was clear that in time a third partner must be added, or a manager employed. As Mr Showle had a decided aversion to managers, or to the allowing any one to have potential authority in the business who was not vitally interested in it, there was no doubt that the addition would be in the form of a partner. For the present, however, but one was taken in, although there was a rumour that Mr Bynnes had recommended a relative of his own, who would appear shortly as a third in the firm.

The new partner, Mr Ben Creelock, was a brusque, somewhat hot-tempered man, although he must have been approaching fifty years of age; but he was well enough liked by the employees of the firm, when once they were used to him. (The reader will please to notice that in United States’ matters of business, ‘employees’ is the proper word.) The new partner was a very liberal master, considerate and kindly where he saw any anxiety to please, though apt to be passionate when he thought he detected a skulker or ‘loafer.’ He had not been used to a store, as he frankly owned; but he was naturally quick and shrewd, and devoted himself to the business with so much zeal, that in a few months Mr Showle declared himself highly satisfied with the new partner. Consequently, the business went on smoothly; and while Mr Creelock made no secret of the fact that for years past he had been a miner, he gave promise of making a first-rate storekeeper.

It would be affectation to suppose that the reader has not identified the new partner as Ben, the miner of Fandango Gulch. They were the same. The gold-hunter, carrying out an idea he had long entertained, had left his wild life, and had settled in Cincinnati, with a determination to spend the remainder of his days among peaceful, law-abiding people. His bankers had introduced him to Mr Showle; and as he was only anxious to find a permanent, respectable employment for himself and his capital, the business preliminaries did not occupy much time.

He was a bachelor; but from certain indications, which are as quickly observed in transatlantic society as they are nearer home, it seemed probable that he did not intend to remain so. The governess at the nearest school to the store—the ‘schoolmarm,’ as she would be regularly and quite respectfully called there—was a woman who when young must have been more than pretty; and although her bloom had somewhat faded now, and her eyes were more pensive than brilliant, she yet was by many persons thought to be more than pretty still. The years that had brought her to mature thirty-five, and had robbed her of her freshness, had brought also a quiet thoughtfulness which to some was not less beautiful. So, among others, thought Mr Benjamin Creelock.

He had first noticed her as she went, quiet and solitary, to and from her duties; and on inquiring who she was, heard comments in her favour, which increased the interest he had felt when he first saw her. But Ben, rough hardy miner as he had been, was timid in the presence of women, as is not uncommon with rough hardy men of any grade; and although he continued to meet Miss Ruth Alken every day, he might have gone on so long without mustering up sufficient courage or ingenuity to effect an introduction, that his old bachelorship would have become irremediable; but a happy chance befriended him.

Having no acquaintances in Cincinnati, he was glad to vary his somewhat scanty evening resources by frequent visits at Mr Showle’s house. The senior partner was a married man with a family, and kept up an old-fashioned habit of quiet social gatherings at home. Here Mr Ben was always welcome, not only as being a partner in the store, but because his tales of the mines, the mountains, the prairies—of Indians, buffaloes, and Vigilance Committees, were interesting, not only to the seniors of the party, but to the younger members also; and Ben was often surrounded by a circle of bright-eyed girls and active striplings, who hung on his words as to a new series of _Arabian Nights_. To the dwellers in orderly cities in the States, stories which interest us in England, of life and adventure in the Far West, are positively fascinating—more so indeed than are such narratives to the residents of London.

One night, on his arrival at Mr Showle’s, his host, who was speaking to a lady as Ben entered, turned and said: ‘I don’t think, Mr Creelock, you have met Miss Alken before. She is our schoolmarm, and a very esteemed friend.’

So then, without a moment’s notice, without having a single idea prepared, he found himself face to face with, and holding the hand of the lady he had been secretly watching and admiring for months. Perhaps Ben did better by blundering into a conversation with Miss Alken, than he would have done by preparing an elaborate speech after _his_ standard of eloquence. At all events, the lady was pleased with his narratives, and took a special interest—or so Ben thought—in the details of mining life.

She left early; and as soon as possible after her departure, Ben asked Mr Showle what he knew of her, where she was ‘raised,’ and so forth, after the style in fashion in the West. Mr Showle did not give much information in reply to these queries, merely saying that his late partner, Mr Bynnes, had taken a great interest in her, and by his influence, had procured for her the situation she now held. Her friends, he believed, had resided in one of the New England States.

This was about all Mr Creelock learned in reference to the ‘schoolmarm.’ It was quite enough, however; for in the States, people do not make needlessly minute inquiries about the relatives, and still less about the ancestors of those they come in contact or fall in love with.

Feeling that a man who is a long way on in the ‘forties’ has not much time to spare, Ben soon made his admiration of Miss Ruth known to that lady, who, timid and retiring as she was always, was even shyer—more frightened, it seemed to Ben—on the revelation being made, than he had expected. But a middle-aged man, who had served a long apprenticeship in the mines of California and Colorado, was not likely to be easily checked when once he had broken the ice; and so Ben persevered, until it became at last an understood thing that he was engaged to the schoolmarm, and that as soon as the new partner arrived, and was fairly initiated in the business, so that Mr Showle might have some assistance, the pair were to be married, and take a trip east, to see Ruth’s native village and what friends she had remaining.

Miss Alken had expressed a great wish not to live in Cincinnati after they were married; and Ben, who had been so long used to a far wilder and lonelier life than any Ohio or Kentucky village could furnish, cared not how quiet his home might be. So he entered into treaty for purchasing and enlarging a pretty little homestead at a village some eight or ten miles from the city—an hour’s drive for the fast trotter he meant to buy. He sometimes wondered at this whim on Miss Alken’s part, as not in accordance with her usual manner, so calm, and so easily pleased. There was another little odd way she had, too, which attracted his notice; for several times he fancied she was about to say something to him of special importance; but nothing had ever come of it, so he decided at last that it was only her manner.

Just now, it was announced that the new partner—the distant relation of Mr Bynnes, previously mentioned—was really coming, the delay in his joining the firm having arisen from a severe illness under which he had been labouring. In brief, he did come; and the new warehouse having just been completed, he was put in charge of it. It so happened that his arrival in Cincinnati took place during the temporary absence on business of Mr Ben Creelock. Ben returned later-on on the very day of the other’s arrival, but missed him at the time; and as he had much to do on his return, while the new-comer was immersed in his duties, they did not meet on the first day.