Chapter I: Part 1

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 152.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]

SEALSKIN COATS, ALIVE AND DEAD.

The ladies of England, who, living at home at ease, shield themselves from the inclemency of our not very rigorous winters in their elegant sealskin coats, think little, and know less, of the curious animal from which their beautiful garment is taken, and of the peculiar circumstances of its habitat and capture. Nor can their ignorance be deemed much of a reproach, seeing that until recently, even scientists were accustomed to regard the fur-seal as but a variety of the hair-seal, not unknown on the shores of Scotland, and abounding in the North and West Atlantic. But the two are quite dissimilar in their individuality and character, and as Mr H. W. Elliott, of the Smithsonian Institute of the United States—to whom we are chiefly indebted for the substance of this article—says, ‘the truth connected with the life of the fur-seal, as it herds in countless myriads on the islands of Aleutian Alaska, is far stranger than fiction.’ Mr Elliott spent three years in continuous observations on the spot, and is the first to afford us a complete and trustworthy view of the strange eventful history.

The fur-seal formerly abounded in the southern hemisphere on the borders of the Antarctic Circle; but reckless killing has well-nigh exterminated it there, and now, one may say that the only habitat of commercial importance is in that portion of the North Pacific which washes the Aleutian division of Alaska; and even here, the range is practically confined to four comparatively small islands. These islands were discovered by the Russian navigator Pribylov in 1786, and are still called by his name. They lie about two hundred miles due north of the group usually called the Aleutian Islands, off the western extremity of the Alaska peninsula. The Pribylov Islands rest in the very heart of Behring Sea, but far enough south to be free from permanent ice-floes, and thus to escape the ravages of the polar bear; while also far enough from the mainland and inhabited islands to be free from the attacks of the primitive races. Thus the seals had collected and bred there for countless ages, undisturbed by beast or man, until the Russians first broke in upon their preserves. They have been the objects of constant attention and pursuit ever since.

There are three kinds of seals. The _Phoca vitulina_ is the common hair-seal, which may often be seen on our north-western shores, which the fishing-vessels of Dundee, of Hull, of Peterhead, and of Greenock, go out to Greenland and Labrador to catch every season for the sake of the oil—the skin being of little value—and specimens of which, alive or stuffed, we may fairly assume every one of our readers has seen somewhere or other. There is probably not an aquarium of the country which has not a family of them. Then there is the _Eumetopias stelleri_, which the Russians call ‘Seevitchie,’ and which is known to our mariners as the ‘sea-lion.’ This and the walrus, which may be considered akin, are found in all the circumpolar regions. Lastly, there is the _Callorhinus ursinus_, called ‘Kantickie’ by the Russians, which is the true fur-seal, and which is the subject of our sketch. It has no generic affinity with the others, and is of quite different habits. As has been said, it is now found only on four islands of Behring Sea.

Of the fur-seal, it has been said that there is no known animal on land or water which can take higher physical rank, or which exhibits a higher order of instinct, closely approaching human intelligence. The male fur-seal is in his full prime at six or seven years of age, and will then measure from six and a half to seven and a half feet from snout to tail. He will weigh between four hundred and six hundred pounds—the latter weight, however, being found only in older animals, and not very frequently. He has a small head, with a muzzle and jaws not unlike both in size and form to those of a pure Newfoundland dog. The lips, however, are firm, and pressed together like those of man, and the large eyes of blue-gray are capable of expressing both soft and fierce emotions. On the upper lip he has a long moustache of grayish bristles, which are often long enough to extend over his shoulder. He swims with his head high over the water, and on land walks with an undulating carriage and head erect. If frightened, he will run as fast as a man, but not very far—thirty or forty yards sufficing to exhaust his wind. The hind-feet are longer than the fore-feet or flippers, and in shape are very like the human foot elongated to twenty inches or so, and with the instep flattened. There are three toes on the hind-feet; but the fore-flippers are fingerless hands some eight or ten inches broad.

The female fur-seal is from four to four and a half feet in length from snout to tail, lithe in form, without the heavy covering of fat round the shoulders which the male has, and with beautiful, gentle, intelligent, dark-blue eyes. She will weigh from fifty to a hundred pounds, according to her condition. Her manners are as amiable as her eyes, and she never fights with her neighbours, as her quarrelsome lord and master does. The cow-seal has but one voice—a sort of bleating half-way between the cry of a calf and that of an old sheep—and this is used for calling the young, which, curiously enough, are known as ‘pups,’ although the mothers are ‘cows,’ and the fathers ‘bulls.’ The male seal, however, has four voices. One is for battle, and resembles the puffing of a labouring locomotive; another is a hoarse loud roar; a third is a sort of low gurgle or growl; and a fourth, a sort of chuckle, half-hiss, half-whistle. The breeding-grounds are called ‘rookeries,’ and there, during the season, the din of roars, puffs, growls, and whistles from countless thousands of vigorous ‘bulls,’ is ceaseless, and in volume has been compared to the boom of Niagara.

It is odd that the breeding-place of ‘bulls’ and ‘cows’ should be called ‘rookeries,’ but so it is. The first to arrive at these rookeries are the bull-seals, and the season begins about the first of May. As it is ‘First come, first served,’ and as there is an unwritten law among them that a bull requires a clear space of from six to eight feet square for the accommodation of himself and family, there is much scrambling and fighting for plots, and the late arrivals may be driven away without being allowed a landing-place at all. They fight with great strength and courage—only the adult males, however—running at each other with averted heads, and then seizing each other with their teeth. The battles are often long, and the wounds severe; but these soon heal; and an adventurous ‘bull’ thinks nothing of forty or fifty desperate combats in a season. While fighting, they utter both their roar and their whistle, the hair is sent flying in all directions, and the eyes gleam with angry fire. It is said that in a seal-fight there is always an offensive and a defensive party, and that if the latter is beaten, he simply vacates his position to the victor, who does not follow his foe, but lies down on the conquered territory and gives vent to his chuckle.

Although the cows are amiable, they are not particularly demonstrative to their infants, which are born immediately after the females are located in the rookeries. Twins are very rare, and mothers always suckle their own young. The pups do not know their own mothers, and if separated from them, will take with the greatest alacrity to the first kindly cow which will console them with her rich creamy and abundant milk. The pups, for the first three months after birth, are jet black in colour, and bleat in a minor key after the fashion of the cows. At birth, a pup will weigh three or four pounds, and measure twelve or fourteen inches in length. Curiously enough, the pup-seal cannot swim, and even if he is several weeks old, will helplessly sink, if thrown into the water. But about the second week of August begins one of the most curious episodes of seal-life—the education of the young. By the time he has counted six weeks or so of life, the pup-seal begins to feel an inclination to play on the margin of the sea, where, as the waves flow and recede, the shore is alternately covered and uncovered. The baby-seal finds that thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of his fellow-babies have been smitten with the same curiosity about the sea almost simultaneously with himself, and that the beach is swarming with tumbling, floundering, gurgling, whistling, playful, yet nervous young animals. By-and-by, one plucks up courage to try a plunge in the deeper surf; others follow; one gets carried beyond his depth, and in frantic struggles to reach the shore again, discovers that he has a power of locomotion even in the water. It is but feeble; and when a kindly wave chucks him out of harm’s way on to the rocks, he is blown and exhausted. But he takes a short sleep, and then has another go; and after a few more efforts, finds, to his great delight, that he is even more at home in the water than on the land. For the next few weeks the coast-waters of the islands are black with the little fat bodies revelling in their new-found power, and gamboling among the breakers like children on the grass. It used to be believed by the old sailors that the parent seals drove their young ones into the water and taught them forcibly to swim; but more recent and careful observation places it beyond doubt that the parents take no part whatever in the process of education, but leave the young ones to learn the battle of life for themselves.

By the time the breeding season is over, all the young seals have become able-bodied swimmers. By this time, too, the pups have grown to thirty or forty pounds-weight, and have changed the black coat of infancy for the thick, gray, hairy coat of youth. At this age, the coats of both male and female are similar; indeed, not until the third year do they assume their permanent differences. The outer coat of the full-grown bull is of a dark-brown colour, and the hairs are short and crisp; beneath, like the down under the feathers of a bird, is the close, soft, elastic fur, so esteemed by man, or rather woman. The full-grown cows, as they come into the rookeries at the beginning of the season, are of a dull, dirty-gray colour, which, after they have been a short time on land, changes to a rich steely gray on the back, and snow-white on the chest and belly; but after a few weeks the white changes into a dull ruddy colour, and the steel gray into a brownish gray. The breeding season is over by the end of July; the families begin to break up, and the rookeries to be disorganised during August. By the middle of September, all order and distinction is lost, and the young ones have commenced life on their own account. By the end of October, all the mature seals have left the islands; and by the end of November, even the youngest have disappeared.

Whither? That is one of the conundrums of nature, as is also the question, where do the seals die? It is certain that none perish from natural causes on the islands, and all that is known of their doings elsewhere is, that they seem usually to shape a southern course. They are lost in the vast mazes of the Pacific, not to be seen of man again until the following summer. They have natural enemies in sharks and other submarine animals of prey; but it is not thought that their numbers suffer much diminution on this account. Their own food is fish, and Mr Elliott has calculated that an adult male seal will consume forty pounds, and an adult female ten to twelve pounds, per day, of fresh fish. Taking, with the young ones, an average of ten pounds per day each, and the numbers annually frequenting the rookeries of the Pribylov Islands—which have been ascertained by careful measurement and estimate at about four millions and three-quarters—we have a total of six millions of tons of fish consumed every year by the fur-seals! The figures are stupendous, but they seem beyond doubt.

As to the now approximately known number of seals, there is no reason to believe that it is any greater than it was when the islands were first discovered; and while the number will not be decreased by the present method of capture, it is not thought that it will increase. The supply of fur-seals, then, may be taken as a fixed quantity, with a known annual yield to man. That yield is restricted by the law of the United States to one hundred thousand skins per annum. The government holds the islands for the State and leases the right of capture to a Company, who are permitted not to take a larger number than that just mentioned. They employ the natives of the Aleutian Islands, who work in gangs, under their chiefs, and receive forty cents, or one shilling and eightpence, for every ‘pelt’ or hide they hand to the Company’s officials. Government officers, again, keep a separate tally; so there is a double check upon the Company, who cannot easily, even if they wish, exceed their prescribed rights. As the annual birth-rate is about one million, of which one half are males, the number annually abstracted by man can have no appreciable effect in reducing the supply or in affecting the natural increase. The average natural life of the male seal is believed to be from fifteen to twenty years, and that of the female, about ten years, so that deaths by man on the rookeries, and from submarine foes during the winter, suffice to keep the race within the bounds now known.

The men operate only on the haunts of the ‘bachelor’ seals. It is presumed that about two-thirds of the males are not allowed to land on the rookeries by the stronger and abler remanent, so that the wants of man can be supplied without interfering with the operations of the breeding-grounds. When the ‘bachelors’ are dozing about the shores in the early summer, the natives get in quietly between them and the sea. The seals on perceiving the men turn to run inland, and are easily driven to the appointed killing-grounds. Three or four men can easily guide and secure as many thousand seals, and the driving is done leisurely, for if the animals become overheated, the fur is injured. The men therefore allow them to rest from time to time, and renew the drive by clattering and shouting, to startle the seals to fresh exertions. They move with the docility of a flock of sheep, and only the old bulls ever show fight. These last will occasionally make a stand and act on the defensive; but as they are of little value commercially, the bellicose oldsters are allowed to drop out and go their own ways. It is only the animals between one and five years old which are desired, for after the fifth year, the fur deteriorates, the undergrowth becoming shorter and coarser. The thickest and finest pelts are those of the third and fourth years. Beneath the skin is a dense layer of oily blubber, which, unlike the blubber of the hair-seal, has a very offensive odour.

The work of catching and pickling the pelts occupies June and July, by which time the Company will have secured its legal number of one hundred thousand, or as many short of the number as circumstances have confined them to. After July, the seals begin to moult, and the skins become of less and less value as the season advances. Altogether, three hundred and ninety-eight persons are employed annually on the Pribylov Islands in this work.

After the ‘catch’ is ended, the skins are taken in the Company’s steamers to San Francisco, and thence nearly all or about nine-tenths are shipped to London, for London has the monopoly of the preparation of these furs for market. The skins as they come into England are very different in appearance from what we see on the backs of our lady-friends. They are indeed very unattractive; and all the coarse stiff outer hair has to be carefully extracted before the rich under-fur is seen. This last is then dyed and dressed. It is hurried or defective dyeing and dressing which accounts for the variation in prices of the finished furs, for there is little difference in the original quality. The more careful and skilful the work of the furrier, therefore, the dearer becomes the sealskin jacket.

The Alaska Commercial Company’s lease of the islands is for twenty years from the 1st of May 1870, and they pay the government a rental of eleven thousand pounds per annum for the islands, and a tax of eight shillings for each sealskin, ten and sixpence for each fur-seal skin, and fifty-five cents for every gallon of oil, shipped. The Company is also bound to supply the inhabitants with a stipulated quantity of dried fish, firewood, and salt; to maintain a school on each island for the education of the natives; and not to sell or give any ‘distilled spirituous liquors’ to the natives. We believe that the Company has in only one year (1881) taken its full number of skins, the usual number shipped being from ninety to ninety-five thousand. Between 1870 and 1881, the Company had paid the United States Treasury nearly three and a half millions of dollars in rent and royalty.

BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.

CHAPTER XVI.

Consumed by conflicting emotions, and torn by a thousand hopes and fears, Maxwell set out on his journey to Rome. At any hazards, he was determined to commit no crime, and trusted to time and his own native wit to show him a way out of the awful difficulty which lay before him. All the old familiar country he passed through failed to interest him now; he saw nothing but his own fate before his eyes; and the Eternal City, which had once been a place of mystery and delight to him, now looked to his distorted fancy like a tomb, every broken statue an avenging finger, and every fractured column a solemn warning.

It was night when he arrived and secured apartments—the old ones he had occupied in his student days, the happiest time in his life, he thought now, as every ornament recalled this silent voice or that forgotten memory slumbering in some corner of his brain. He could eat nothing; the very air of the place was oppressive to him; so he put on his hat and walked out into the streets, all alive with the citizens taking their evening walk, and gay with light laughter over flirtations and cigarette smoke. He wandered long and far, so far, that it was late when he returned; and there, lying on the table, was a sealed packet, bearing the device of the Order, and in the corner two crossed daggers. He groaned as he opened it, knowing full well the packet contained the hated ‘instructions,’ as they were called. He tore them open, read them hastily, and then looked out of the window up to the silent stars. And it was Visci, his old friend Carlo Visci, he was sent here—to murder! The whole thing seemed like a ghastly dream. Visci, the truest-hearted friend man ever had; Visci, the handsome genius, whose purse was ever ready for a fellow-creature in need; the man who had sat at his table times out of number; the student who was in his secrets; the man who had saved his life, snatched him from the very jaws of death—from the yellow waters of the Tiber. And this was the friend he was going to stab in the back some dark night! A party of noisy, light-hearted students passed down the street, some English voices amongst them, coming vaguely to Maxwell’s ears, as he sat there looking on the fatal documents, staring him in the face from the table.

‘Et tu, Brute!’

Maxwell looked up swiftly. And there, with one trembling forefinger pointing to the open documents, stood the figure of a man with a look of infinite sorrow on his face, as he gazed mournfully down upon the table. He was young—not more than thirty, perhaps, and his aquiline features bore the marks of much physical suffering. There were something like tears in his eyes now.

‘Carlo! is it possible it is you?’ Maxwell cried, springing to his feet.

‘Yes, Fred, it is I, Carlo Visci, who stand before you. We are well met, old friend; you have not far to seek to do your bidding now. Strike! while I look the other way, for it is your task, I know.’

‘As there is a heaven above us, no!’ Maxwell faltered. ‘Never, my friend! Do you think I would have come for this? Listen to me, Visci. You evidently know why I am here; but sure as I am a man, never shall my hand be the one to do you hurt. I have sworn it!’

‘I had expected something like this,’ Visci replied mournfully. ‘Yes, I know why you came. You had best comply with my request. It would be a kindness to me to kill me, as I stand here now.’

‘Visci, I swear to you that when I joined the Brotherhood, I was in the blackest ignorance of its secret workings. When I was chosen for this mission, I did not even comprehend what I had to do. Then they told me Visci was a traitor. Even then, I did not know it was you. Standing there in the room, I swore never to harm a hair of your head; and, heaven help me, I never will!’

‘Yes, I am a traitor, like you,’ Visci smiled mournfully. ‘Like you, I was deceived by claptrap talk of liberty and freedom; like you, I was allotted to take vengeance on a traitor; and like you, I refused. Better the secret dagger than the crime of fratricide upon one’s soul!’

‘Fratricide! I do not understand.’

‘I do not understand either. Frederick, the man I was detailed to murder—for it is nothing else—is my only brother.—You start! But the League does not countenance relationships. Flesh and blood and such paltry ties are nothing to the friends of liberty, who are at heart the sternest tyrants that ever the mouth of man execrated.—But what brings you here? You can have only one object in coming here. I have told you before it would be a kindness to end my existence.’

‘But why? And yet, when I come to look at you again, you have changed.’

‘I have changed,’ Visci echoed mournfully—‘changed in mind and body. My heart is affected, diseased beyond all hope of remedy. I may die now, at any moment; I cannot live four months.’

They sat down together, and fell to discussing old times when they were happy careless students together, and Maxwell did not fail to notice the painful breathing and quick gasping spasms of his friend, altered almost beyond recognition from the gallant Visci of other days.

‘Salvarini advised me to come here. You remember him; he claims to be a true friend of yours,’ Maxwell observed at length. ‘He said it would gain time, and enable me to form my plans.—But tell me how you knew I was in Rome. I have only just arrived.’

‘I had a sure warning. It came from the hand of Isodore herself.’

‘I have heard much of her; she seems all-powerful. But I thought she was too stern a Leaguer to give you such friendly counsel. Have you ever seen her? I hear she is very beautiful.’

‘Beautiful as the stars, I am told, and a noble-hearted woman too. She is a sort of Queen of the League; but she uses her power well, ever erring on the side of mercy. She has a history, report says—the old story of a woman’s trustfulness and a man’s deceit. Poor Isodore! hers is no bed of roses!’

‘And she put you on your guard?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Come, there must be some good in a woman like that, though I cannot say I altogether like your picture. I should like to see her.’

‘I should not be surprised if you did before many days. She is the one to protect you from violence. With her sanction, you could laugh the mandates of the League to scorn. Had I long to live, I should sue for her protection, and wherever she may be, she would come to me. Even now, if she comes to Rome, see her if you can and lay your case before her.’

‘And shield myself behind a woman! That does not sound like the chivalrous Visci of old. She is only a woman, after all.’

‘One in a million,’ Visci answered calmly. ‘If she holds out her right hand to you, cling to it as a drowning desperate man does to a rock; it is your only chance of salvation.—And now it is late. I must go.’

Despite his own better sense, Maxwell began to dwell upon the fact of gaining assistance from the mysterious Isodore. At meetings of the League in London, he had heard her name mentioned, and always with the utmost reverence and affection. If she could not absolutely relieve him from his undertaking, she could at anyrate shield him from non-compliance with the mandate. Full of these cheerful thoughts, he fell asleep.

He found his friend the following morning quite cheerful, but in the daylight the ravages of disease were painfully apparent. The dark rings under the eyes and the thin features bespoke nights of racking pain and broken rest.

Visci noticed this and smiled gently. ‘Yes, I am changed,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, after a bad night, I hardly know myself. It is cruel, weary work lying awake hour after hour fighting with the grim King. But I have been singularly free from pain lately, and I am looking much better than I have been.’

‘There might be a chance yet,’ Maxwell replied with a cheerfulness wholly assumed, and thinking that this ‘looking better’ was the nearest approach to death he had ever seen. ‘An absence from Rome, a change of climate, has done wonders for people before now.’

Visci shook his head. ‘Not when the mainspring of life is broken,’ he said: ‘no human ingenuity, no miracle of surgery can mend that. Maxwell, if they had deferred their vengeance long, they would have been too late. Some inward monitor tells me I shall fail them yet.’

‘You will for me, Visci, you may depend upon that. Time is no object to me.’

‘And if I should die and disappoint you of your revenge, how mad you would be!’ Visci laughed. ‘It is a dreadful tragedy to me; it is a very serious thing for you; and yet there is a comic side to it, as there is in all things. Ah me! I cannot see the droll side of life as I used; but when the bloodthirsty murderer sits down with his victim tête-à-tête, discussing the crime, there is something laughable in it after all.’

‘I daresay there is,’ Maxwell answered grimly, ‘though I am dense enough not to notice it. To me, there is something horribly, repulsively tragic about it, even to hear you discussing death in that light way.’

‘Familiarity breeds contempt. Is not that one of your English proverbs?’ Visci said airily.—‘But, my good Frederick,’ he continued, lowering his voice to a solemn key, ‘the white horseman will not find me unprepared, when he steals upon me, as he might at any moment. I am ready. I do not make a parade of my religion, but I have tried to do what is right and honest and honourable. I have faced death so often, that I treat him lightly at times. But never fear that when he comes to me for the last time’——

Maxwell pressed his friend’s hand in silent sympathy. ‘You always were a good fellow, Visci,’ he said; ‘and if this hour must come so speedily, tell me is there anything I can do for you when—when’——

‘I am dead? No reason to hesitate over the word. No, Maxwell; my house is in order. I have no friends besides my brother; and he, I hope, is far beyond the vengeance of the League now.’

‘Then there is nothing I can do for you in any way?’

‘No, I think not. But you are my principal care now; your life is far more important than mine. I have written to Isodore, laying a statement of all the facts before her; and if she is the woman I take her for, she is sure to lose no time in getting here. Once under her protection, you are safe; there will be no further cause for alarm.’

‘But it seems rather unmanly,’ Maxwell urged.

‘Unmanly!’ echoed Visci scornfully. ‘What has manliness to do with fighting cowardly _vendetti_ in the dark? You must, you shall do it!’ he continued vehemently; but the exertion was too much for him, and he swayed forward over the table as if he would fall. Presently, a little colour crept into the pallid face, and he continued: ‘You see, even that is too much for me. Maxwell, if you contradict me and get me angry, my blood will be upon your head after all. Now, do listen to reason.’

‘If my want of common-sense hurts you as much as that, certainly. But I do not see how this mysterious princess can help me.’

‘Listen to me,’ Visci said solemnly. Then he laid all his schemes before the other—his elaborate plans for his friend’s safety, designs whose pure sacrifice of self were absolutely touching.

Maxwell began to take heart again. ‘You are very good,’ he said gratefully, ‘to take all this infinite pains for me.’

‘In a like strait you would do the same for me, Fred.’

‘Yes,’ Maxwell answered simply. ‘How Salvarini’s words come back to me now! Do you remember, when I wanted to throw my insignia out of the window that evening, the last we all spent together?’

‘I recollect. It was two days before little Genevieve disappeared,’ Visci answered sadly.—‘Do you know, I have never discovered any trace of her or Lucrece. Poor child, poor little girl! I wonder where she is now.’

‘Perhaps you may see her again some day.’

‘It has long been my dearest wish; but it will never be fulfilled now. If ever you do see her once more, say that I’——

‘Visci!’

As the last words fell from the Italian’s lips, his head hung forward, and he fell from his chair. For a moment he lay motionless, then raised his face slightly and smiled. A thin stream of blood trickled down his fair beard, staining it scarlet. He lay quietly on Maxwell’s shoulder.

‘Do not be alarmed,’ he said faintly. ‘It has come at last.—There are tears in your eyes, Fred. Do not weep for me. Do not forget Carlo Visci, when you see old friends; and when you meet little Genevieve, tell her I forgave her, and to the last loved and grieved for her.—Good-bye, old friend. Take hold of my hand. Let me look in your honest face once more. It is not hard to die, Fred. Tell them that my last words——Jesu, mercy!’

‘Speak to me, Carlo—speak to me!’

Never again on this side of the grave. And so the noble-hearted Italian died; and on the third day they buried him in a simple grave under the murmuring pines.

No call to remain longer now. One last solitary evening ramble, Maxwell took outside the city wall ere his departure. As he walked along wrapped in his own sad thoughts, he did not heed that his footsteps were being dogged. Then with a sudden instinct of danger, he turned round. The feet that followed stopped. ‘Who is there?’ he cried.

A muffled figure came towards him, and another stealthily from behind. A crash, a blow, a fierce struggle for a moment, a man’s cry for help borne idly on the breeze, a mist rising before the eyes, a thousand stars dancing and tumbling, then deep, sleepy unconsciousness.

(_To be concluded next month._)

THE PLEASURES OF RUIN.

There must be many people to whom the above heading will be at once suggestive of the famous chapter upon Snakes in Iceland; but to the philosophical mind—and it is marvellous how philosophical one can become under adversity—there are certain compensating advantages in the state of ruin, which, if not quite so intense as the Pleasures of Hope, or Memory, or Imagination, do much to reconcile us to the change in our circumstances. The first feeling is one of extreme relief that the whole thing is over and we are out of suspense. The smash has come; writs and summonses have blossomed into sheriffs’ officers, and the auctioneer, whose fell and inexorable hammer has made short work of our goods and chattels; our wealthy friends have said that they knew it would come to this; and Jones, who used to look dinners and five-pound notes at us whenever he met us formerly, now crosses over to the opposite side of the street. The cheap lodgings in the shady neighbourhood have become hard and ineradicable facts, and we can look about us at last and endeavour to make the best we can of the position.

You now have a newly acquired sense of freedom and independence to which perhaps you have long been a stranger. It is no longer a question of whether you shall dine at the _Bristol_ or the _Blue Posts_, but in all likelihood the choice will lie between the _diner du jour_ in Leicester Square, a chop, or Duke Humphrey. Nor, if you be a married man, need you now vex your soul with the proper precedence of a brigadier-general, an Indian judge, a colonial bishop, and a resident commissioner from the Punjab, as has happened in the days gone by when you gave a dinner. Nor will the varying merits of asparagus soup and turtle, salmon mayonnaise and aspic of lobster, truffled turkey and oyster-stuffed capon, and all the rest of it, come between you and your night’s rest. Again, your circumstances are such that you are no longer harassed by the touters for subscriptions, male and female, and you find it therefore needless to discuss the comparative merits of the claims put forward by the friends of the Cannibal Islanders for French mustard, and by the friends of the Mayor of Little Pedlington for a new pump in the market-place in honour of that excellent cheesemonger and municipal chief.

When you go to the theatre or opera, you are no longer compelled to pay fifty or a hundred per cent. for the privilege of receiving your ticket from an agent, and you go to the pit, where, if the orange peel and ginger beer and nuts are a bit of a nuisance at first, you are not long in getting used to it; and at anyrate you are permitted to hear the piece without being bored by one of Smith’s ‘good stories’ during Patti’s chief _aria_, or while Irving is giving some fine piece of declamation. You discover sources of gratuitous amusement which indifference has hitherto hidden from you. That glorious rotunda in Bloomsbury, the British Museum Reading-room—the mausoleum of the mind of the world—gives you opportunities for study and recreation of which you have never before thought of availing yourself; and the treasures of South Kensington and the National Gallery, which you have hitherto neglected as ‘slow’ and ‘bad form,’ are now a source of delight to you. The only fault that you can now find with the latter institution is, that it spoils you for all the modern galleries about Pall Mall and Piccadilly. You have a feeling of proprietorship now in the royal parks, which you never had when you sauntered in the Row, or attended the meet of the Coaching Club at the Magazine, or dawdled about the Mall in St James’s Park on a Drawing-room day. You don’t attend these ‘functions’ now, for, though they are open to you as to the rest of the world, you feel yourself rather out of the race. But you often enjoy the air in the higher ground of Hyde Park, which you will come to consider as bracing as the Sussex Downs; nor are you to be persuaded that Burnham Beeches has a much finer show of trees than Kensington Gardens.

But the time when you do really and thoroughly enjoy the Pleasures of Ruin is when that delectable moment comes—which it inevitably will, sooner or later—when a temporary, or, let us hope, it may be a permanent, change in your fortunes takes place. Your book has found a publisher; your picture a buyer; some one pays up an old debt; or an unknown relative mentions your name in his will. Whatever it may be, the keen appreciation of the benefits we formerly enjoyed which our vicissitudes have taught us, and the knowledge we have acquired of the dingier side of nature, give a remarkable zest to our return to a brighter life. And if a man has good health and good spirits, he will find that it is as true that ‘hope springs eternal in the human breast,’ as that when things are at their worst they mend; and if he is of an extra-hopeful disposition, he will welcome the increased depression of his fortunes as a sure forerunner of a change of luck.

COUSIN GEORGE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.

All went well in the Smethby circle, indeed things had never before gone so smoothly in that not unprosperous group. Harriet, it is true, did not get more manageable in the Robert Crewe direction; she was perfectly ready to flatter and please the Australian cousin, and had an eye to the main chance as keen as others; but the young doctor was not to be jeopardised. Thus Harriet might be regarded as an exception; so, of course, might Mr Crewe; but after all, as he does not actually appear in our narrative, he need not count for much.

There were frequent indications that the ridiculous disguise, the absurd plea of poverty, at first put forth by Styles was being gradually discarded—was ‘peeling off,’ Mr Joe said, with a happy touch of description. But Mr Smethby would not see all these indications—pretended not to notice any flaws; he would humour his cousin just as long as the latter chose.

The proposed investment was still in favour, was about to be made, indeed; and so earnest was Cousin George in the matter, that when Smethby said he had given notice at the bank for his money, he confidentially told him that if there was any difficulty about getting it, his friend would advance the sum for a week or two—or for a year, if Smethby would like it. The latter thanked him, but declined. Of course he could see through this, as he had seen through the other flimsy screens.

The bank was good enough, he explained, and so it was, for the money was duly paid to him; and it was proposed that they should go up to town together, Smethby and Cousin George, where the latter would see his friend’s broker and arrange for the purchase of this stock.

In a confiding mood, not usual with him, Smethby had proposed that Styles should send a cheque up, or go up with it by himself, if going up were necessary; but the latter declined to do this. He seemed to have a strange dislike to cheques or drafts, and as he said: ‘It was not their way at the diggings; a man liked to look after his own business there.’ So Cousin Nick must go with him.

He, Cousin George, had also asked Harriet what kind of bracelet she preferred; for his friend had desired him to consult some lady’s taste, as he, the friend, was thinking of making a little present. Harriet was not proof against this temptation, so explained that amethyst bracelets with amethyst pendants—or sapphire and diamonds, if she _did_ have her choice—was what she liked. Cousin George, with a highly expressive wink on hearing this, said his friend would be much obliged by her opinion. He should perhaps see him on the next day but one when he, Styles, and her father went to London.

‘All which means, my dear,’ said Smethby, when he had a chance of whispering to his daughter, ‘that this farce is about to end. He means to present me with the whole of these twenty thousand shares, and you will have a present also. Beyond this, you will have an offer in plain language—his language has already been plain enough to show what he means; so, be a sensible girl, and don’t lose a chance the like of which will not occur again, if you live for a hundred years.’

Harriet did not reply; there was indeed a recurrence of the pouting and flouncing; she could not resist the jewelry; but when Robert Crewe was endangered, she exhibited some of the old perverseness.

In the morning, Cousin George took a stroll into the town, as was his habit. Smethby knew quite well that his eccentric relative went to the post-office, whither his letters, as every one knew, were directed. No one, however, pretended to suspect anything like this arrangement, which was just as shallow and easily penetrated as his other schemes. On his return, he was in higher spirits than usual; a little fitful, perhaps, but certainly more jocular and fuller of sly allusions than he had hitherto allowed himself to be. This was evidence enough, to such a man as Smethby, to show that the end of the scheme was approaching. He broached a capital joke—he undoubtedly so considered it—in the way of a question as to what his cousin Nick would have thought of and said to him, Styles, if he had come back from the diggings loaded with shiners—‘Not one or two, Nick, but some scores of thousands, eh!—what then, Nick?’ he exclaimed.

Smethby was of course acute enough to seize such a palpable chance, so replied with the utmost heartiness and frankness, that, delighted as he should have been at such good fortune, it never could have made any difference in his feelings to his old friend and cousin, George Styles. The latter grasped his hand at this, and seemed for the moment almost overcome by his feelings. He was indeed about to say something, which Smethby expected would prove a clearing-up avowal; but he checked himself, and saying abruptly, ‘No; wait a day or two,’ turned the conversation.

Yet, all through the day, there was an uneasiness in Cousin George’s manner which could not escape the attention of those around him; and he took several short strolls in the open air to soothe his nerves, which, he admitted, seemed rather shaky. On the last occasion that he took his saunter, it was in the twilight, and in the glance which he naturally threw around him before entering the house, he could see, standing in relief against the clear summer sky, the figures of two men, who were apparently conversing earnestly as they paused on a knoll not far from Mr Smethby’s residence.

Then Styles went in, and found the lamps were just lighted, the curtains were drawn, while his host and his daughter, evidently in the best of moods, were awaiting him. With a decision which was almost like abruptness, Styles began about the visit to London on the morrow. He explained, as he had done before, that until the transaction was completed, he did not want any one, not even the broker, to know that the stock was not entirely for his friend, who had promised to take over all the disposable shares; and that was why he had asked Mr Smethby to provide money instead of a cheque for the payment.

‘I understand,’ smiled Smethby; ‘and, as you know, I have arranged to get notes in the morning. But here is the cheque, if that would suit you—you can have it to-night, if you like.’

‘No; O no!’ returned Styles; but the response came so slowly, that it seemed as if he had hesitated before deciding. ‘There will be no use in that; so long as I can see the broker alone, that will do.’

‘Just as you please,’ said Mr Smethby. As he paused, a ring at the street door was heard.

‘And now a word or two about that little villa my friend thought of buying at Richmond,’ resumed Styles. ‘I had a letter this morning’——

‘If you please, sir,’ said the maid-servant, appearing at the door, ‘a gentleman wishes to see you.’

‘To see me, or to see Mr Styles?’ asked her master. Another ring was heard at the street door as he said this.

‘I believe I want to see both of you,’ said a voice behind the servant, which voice being deep and harsh in its tone, and coming so unexpectedly, made each person in the room start; ‘so I shall take the liberty of coming in here,’ continued ‘the gentleman;’ then, suiting the action to the word, he pushed past the attendant, and came close to the table which filled the centre of the room.

All looked at him in amazement; while, before any one spoke, Mr Joe and Mr Brooks, who had called just then to have a chat with Mr Styles, also entered, and gazed at the stranger with as much astonishment as was shown by their friends. The stranger was an elderly, grizzled, but powerfully built man, with hard features, high cheek-bones, indented nose, square jaws, hidden by his stiff iron-gray beard, and moustache.

‘You are Mr Smethby—Nicholas Smethby, I believe: in fact, I know it,’ said the man.—‘But may I ask who this is?’ pointing to Cousin George as he spoke.

‘I really do not know what your business here is, or why you make this inquiry,’ returned Smethby, a good deal nettled by the intrusion; ‘but I certainly am Nicholas Smethby, and this gentleman is Mr George Styles. Have you any business with either of us?’

‘Did you ever see George Styles look like a cross between a skittle-sharp and a stage smuggler?’ continued the visitor, ‘which is what this fellow looks like.’

‘Do you mean’—— began Cousin George, but he spoke falteringly; while Mr Joe and Mr Brooks, who stood behind the stranger, could see that the speaker turned pale.

‘Yes; I do mean,’ interrupted the visitor; ‘and I mean a good deal more than that, as you will find.’ He flourished an ugly-looking stick which he carried, as if to give emphasis to these words.—‘As for you, Nick Smethby, I am surprised and ashamed to think you could be such a fool as to mistake a fellow like this for your own cousin—for _me_!’

Here every hearer started in reality; and Smethby, drawing a long breath, looked from one to the other with an expression which clearly showed that he did not mean to contest the announcement.

‘Do you think,’ resumed the new-comer, ‘that a man, after twenty years’ beating about the diggings, which I have had, could look as young as he did when he started? which is pretty nearly what this fellow does, in spite of his make-up.—I have come back with enough to pay you your loan, Nick, but I have been down very low in my time. I have fought two battles in the colonial ring, and I am going to show this fellow, presently, how I won them.’

‘All this is dreadfully mysterious!’ exclaimed Smethby; ‘yet one thing is clear enough: I will swear you are my cousin George Styles. But then, who is this?—Yes, who are you, you impostor?’ he cried, turning sharply upon his guest, who gasped once or twice, as though trying to speak, but was paralysed by the new-comer, from whom he could not remove his eyes.

‘Don’t trouble yourself about him yet,’ pursued the second Styles. ‘I will just say what I have to say, and then I will get it all out of him; you will see that. I fancy, however, I am only just in time. Is it true that you have agreed to go up to London with this person and invest a lot of money among his confederates?’

The ‘first cousin,’ as he may fairly be called, groaned at this; while Mr Smethby uttered, as well he might, an ejaculation of intense astonishment at finding his intentions and plans thus known to a man whom he had not seen for twenty years.

‘I see you are surprised, Nick, and that our customer there feels he is bowled out,’ said the stranger. ‘But after all, there is nothing to wonder at in the matter. I inquired my way at the station—having learnt your address from your old office—and a gentleman who overheard me, kindly offered to show me the place. I told him who I was; and he was just as much as flabbergasted as you are; but he was delighted as well. He told me all about this’—— The speaker paused while he cast a look of utter contempt at his predecessor, and then went on, evidently unable to find an epithet suitably strong. ‘He told me he was a doctor, by name Robert Crewe.’ (It was now Harriet’s turn to start and change colour.) ‘We walked together to a point just below here, where he turned off at the brow of a hill. He not only told me about the impostor who was taking my name, but pointed him out as he slunk in at the gate.’ (The unlucky cousin remembered, and groaned audibly as he did so, the two men whom he had seen in converse on the rise in the road.) ‘So here I am; and the first thing I mean to do is to collar this fellow, and thrash him until he has not a sound inch of skin on his carcase.—But don’t you turn pale, my dear.’ This was said to Harriet, and the speaker raised his cap with a sort of reassuring politeness. ‘Though I have come straight from the mines, I do not forget what is due to a lady; and I shall take the fellow outside to have his thrashing, and he shall have it now.’ With this, he made a stride forward, and thrusting his huge hand inside the man’s collar, clutched him with a grip which might have been of iron, and with a single tug pulled him to his feet; but the victim seemed unable to stand, and sank back on his chair all of a heap.

Harriet uttered a scream as the real Cousin George bent over the man, evidently intent upon dragging him out by main force; while Mr Joe and Mr Brooks seized his arm, and urged him not to be violent—Joe at the same moment briefly introducing himself and his brother-in-law.

‘I am glad to see you again, anyhow, young Joe,’ returned Styles. ‘I remember buying you a drum the last time I was in your company.—But you had better let me settle this fellow at once.’

‘Spare me!’ whined the man. He could not speak comfortably with such a grip on his collar and with such knuckles buried in his neck.

‘Why, what I am going to do is real mercy to you!’ retorted his captor. ‘You will be sore for a week or ten days, and then be as well as ever; but if I give you over to the police—— Well, as you seem to dread a simple licking so much, we will go to the police. Come on!’

Another tremendous tug here dragged up the unfortunate creature, who broke into most despairing petitions, imploring that they would not give him up to the police—_they_ knew him, he said.

‘Why, confound it! you do not suppose you are to be let off scot-free, after such a game as this, do you?’ exclaimed the other, whose astonishment was so clearly genuine, that Joe and Brooks could not repress a smile.

‘I will confess everything; I throw myself on your mercy!’ urged the man; ‘but don’t give me up to the police. I am sure to get it hot, if you do.’

‘So you ought!’ ejaculated Styles.

‘I think if you were to quit your hold on his neck, he could speak freer,’ said Mr Joe; ‘and I should really like to know how all this came about.’

‘Ah! so he might,’ assented Styles, acting on the suggestion. ‘I can easily catch hold of him again when I want him. I’ll bet he does not give us the slip.’