Chapter V

After his rebuff by Lady Dimsdale, the Baronet made up his mind to set off home as soon as possible. He was stung as he had rarely been stung in his life before, and was in no humour for the company of any one. But before he could get away, an almost incredible rumour reached his ears that Mr Boyd’s long-lost wife had unexpectedly appeared at Rosemount. This was enough to induce Sir Frederick to change his plans, especially when backed up by the Captain’s pressing invitation to stay for dinner, for who could tell what unexpected turn events might now take? So he sent his groom in the dogcart to fetch his dress clothes, and made up his mind to remain where he was till the following morning.

Sir Frederick had easily discovered, by questioning one of the servants, in which particular room Mr Boyd and his wife had located themselves. It was the room next the library. So into the library went Sir Frederick, on the pretext of having some letters to write, and there he sat with the door a little way open—waiting. A certain strange idea was fermenting in his brain, which he could not get rid of till he had satisfied himself whether it had any foundation in fact or otherwise. The moment he saw Boyd pass the library door, he knew that the opportunity for which he had been waiting had come.

Sir Frederick advanced a step or two, and looked round, as if in search of some one. ‘Pardon my intrusion,’ he said with a bow; ‘but—Mr Boyd—is he not here?’

‘Mr Boyd has left the room for a few minutes. He will be back presently.’

The Baronet gave a well-simulated start at the first sound of Mrs Boyd’s voice. Then he seemed to regard her attentively for a moment or two, with his head a little on one side. ‘Pardon me,’ he said with a half-smile of inquiry, ‘but have I not the honour of addressing Mrs Boyd?’

At this question she seemed to freeze suddenly. Her eyes traversed him from head to foot before she answered him; then in cold clear tones she said: ‘I am the wife of Oscar Boyd.’

‘I thought I could not be mistaken,’ replied the Baronet, with his most insinuating smile.—‘I am Sir Frederick Pinkerton. But it is so long since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, that in all probability you have quite forgotten me.’

There was something about him that had evidently aroused her suspicions. She was at a loss to know what ground to take with him. ‘Yes—I cannot quite call you to mind,’ she said hesitatingly, after a little pause. ‘And yet? No. Tell me where I have seen you before.’

‘At New Orleans.’

‘Ha! I have not been at New Orleans for many years.’

‘I met you on two or three occasions in society, a few months after your marriage.’

‘Yes—I think I remember you now. But it is a long time ago, monsieur, and I was introduced to so many people about that time.’

‘I entertain a very distinct recollection of you, madam.’

‘I am indeed flattered, monsieur.’ She smiled a little set smile, which came and went as if it were produced by clockwork. She was evidently far from being at her ease.

‘Your unexpected appearance must have been a great surprise to Mr Boyd—a surprise and a pleasure in one. The return of a wife whom he believed to have been lost to him for ever several years ago! What a unique experience!’

‘An experience, monsieur, which very few husbands, I am afraid, would care to have brought home to themselves. You have an English proverb, “Out of sight, out of mind.” That is a very true proverb.’

‘Fie, fie! Mrs Boyd. You must not be so severe on us poor men. We are not all alike. Take your own case as an instance. You come back, from the tomb as it were, after I know not how many years, and find your husband still faithful to your memory.—Ah no; you must not malign us all.’

Was he mocking her, or what, this smiling, smooth-faced man? She was becoming more vaguely uneasy every minute, she scarcely knew why.

‘The sight of you this morning, Mrs Boyd,’ resumed the Baronet, ‘brings to my memory a certain little incident which I had all but forgotten. In those days, I was something of a traveller. About a year subsequently to my introduction to you, madam, I found myself in Mexico.’

Mrs Boyd could not repress a start, but she did not speak.

‘While there, singular to say, I made the acquaintance of a certain relative of yours, who inquired most particularly concerning your welfare.’

Mrs Boyd’s face might have been seen to pale even under its artificial colouring. She steadied her voice by an effort. ‘Of a relation of mine, monsieur! May I ask his name?’

‘Don Diego Riaz.’ He pronounced the name slowly, looking fixedly at her the while.

‘Ha!’ She fell back a step, as if some one had aimed a blow at her, and then one hand went up quickly to her heart. Both hatred and fear shone out of the eyes with which she stared at him.

‘By heavens! I have hit the mark,’ said the Baronet to himself.

‘Who can this man be? How much does he know?’ was her unspoken thought.

‘I am afraid you are ill, Mrs Boyd,’ remarked the Baronet.

‘A spasm; a mere nothing,’ she answered.—‘To return to what you were saying. I have neither seen nor heard anything of Don Diego Riaz for many years, and I hope neither to see nor hear anything of him in time to come. There was no love lost between him and me.’

‘His was a singular character, and strange tales were told of him. For instance, it was whispered that on one occasion when a certain member of his family left home without his knowledge or consent, he’——

‘Spare me the recital, I pray of you. The mere mention of that man’s name is hateful to me! utterly hateful!’ Her voice was charged with passion, her black eyes seemed to strike fire. She walked across to the window and then came back again.

Sir Frederick felt that he had pursued the topic as far as it was safe to do so. ‘’Tis she; I can no longer doubt,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I have not forgotten what I was told in Mexico.’

‘How much or how little does this man know?’ Estelle kept asking herself. She was seriously uneasy.

‘Do you purpose making a long stay in England, Mrs Boyd?’ asked the Baronet in his most matter-of-fact tone.

‘I think not, Sir Frederick. My husband talks about sailing for South America in a few days. He has lost nearly the whole of his fortune. _N’est ce pas?_’

‘I believe so. I was prodigiously sorry to hear of it.—Do you accompany your husband abroad, Mrs Boyd?’

‘Monsieur! Is it not a wife’s duty to accompany her husband anywhere and everywhere? And consider for how many years Oscar and I have been separated! He would not leave me behind him for the world.’

‘Yours must be a romantic story, Mrs Boyd. I hope we shall have the pleasure of hearing from your lips some particulars of your marvellous escape.’

At this moment Mrs Bowood entered the room. She could contain herself no longer. What was Mr Boyd about, that he did not at once introduce his wife to herself and the Captain? Then she was dying to apologise for her mistake of the morning; besides which, her sense of hospitality was outraged by the fact that Mrs Boyd had been all this time in the house without having been shown to her rooms or asked to partake of refreshments of any kind. Such a state of affairs must be put an end to forthwith.

Mrs Bowood came forward with her most genial smile. ‘I am come to apologise for my absurd mistake of this morning, though it was partly your own fault, my dear Mrs Boyd.’ She had hold of both Estelle’s hands by this time. ‘How do you do? How do you do? Allow me to welcome you to Rosemount.—Ah, Sir Frederick, you here?’ This was said with some surprise.

‘I had the honour of making Mrs Boyd’s acquaintance several years ago.’

‘Wonders will never cease.’ Then turning to Estelle, she went on: ‘Only to think that I mistook you for a French governess! But you ought to have let me know at first who you were, and then matters would have been set right at once.’

‘I wanted to surprise my husband,’ answered Estelle, with downcast eyes. ‘I wanted to see whether he would know me again, after so long a time.’

‘As if he could help knowing you and he your husband! I can imagine how overjoyed he must have been to see you again.’

‘_Cher_ Oscar! He was distracted with joy. He could scarcely speak to me at first for emotion.’

Sir Frederick smiled cynically, but did not speak.

‘No chance for Laura now,’ said Mrs Bowood to herself. ‘How fortunate this woman did not come a day later.’

Mrs Bowood had left the room-door wide open, and at this juncture her eye caught sight of Lady Dimsdale, who was passing along the corridor on her way to the side-door that opened into the grounds. ‘Laura, Laura! come here,’ she called. ‘I want to introduce you to Mrs Boyd.’

‘The woman he kissed!’ muttered Estelle between her teeth.

‘Checkmate for my Lady Disdain,’ remarked Sir Frederick to himself with a shrug.

Lady Dimsdale hearing herself called by name turned back, and entered the room. She looked a little paler than ordinary, but was perfectly composed. Going straight up to Estelle, she held out her hand. ‘Mrs Boyd and I have met already,’ she said in her most matter-of-fact tone.

‘Ah, _oui_,’ answered Estelle with a shrug, as she took the proffered hand for a moment and then let it drop.

‘Met before!’ exclaimed Mrs Bowood in amazement.

‘A couple of hours ago,’ said Lady Dimsdale.

‘For one minute only,’ explained Estelle.

‘Then I must introduce you.—This is Lady Dimsdale, one of my dearest friends.—Laura—Mrs Boyd.’

‘I am enchanted to make the acquaintance of Lady Dimsdale.’

‘’Tis a pity Lady D. cannot return the compliment,’ muttered Sir Frederick to himself.

Mrs Bowood turned to him. ‘By-the-bye, Sir Frederick, have you seen the Captain since luncheon?’ With that the two crossed over to the window and began to talk together.

‘Mrs Boyd, I feel that some explanation is due to you,’ said Lady Dimsdale in a low voice to the other.

‘I have not asked for any explanation, Lady Dimsdale.’

‘I repeat that one is due to you.’

‘As you please,’ answered the other, with a little lifting of her shoulders; and with that she sat down and yawned unmistakably behind her handkerchief.

‘Mr Boyd and I were acquainted many years ago, before he went abroad,’ began Lady Dimsdale. ‘He was a frequent visitor at my father’s vicarage. After he went away, I never saw him again till yesterday. This morning, fully believing that you had been dead for many years, he asked me to become his wife.’

‘You did not say No,’ sneered Estelle.

‘At that moment you entered the room.’

‘It was very bad taste on my part, I confess. Had I known how you were engaged, I would have waited five minutes longer.’

‘With all my heart, I wish that you had come an hour sooner!’

‘I told you that I did not require any explanation. Now that you have chosen to press one on me, what is the value of it? _Absolument rien!_ The world is wide, and one kiss more or less is of little consequence.’ She rose, and crossed to the table and opened a book of photographs.

‘And that woman is Oscar Boyd’s wife!’ said Lady Dimsdale to herself as she looked after her. Her heart was very, very bitter.

Mrs Bowood turned as Estelle crossed to the table. ‘I am afraid you will think us all very inhospitable, Mrs Boyd,’ she said; ‘but it is your husband’s fault that you did not come in to luncheon. However, a tray will be ready for you in a few minutes. By-the-bye, has any one shown you your rooms?’

‘My rooms, madame! We—that is, my husband and I—are going to London by the next train. At least, that is what Oscar says.’

‘Going away by the next train! Mr Boyd had promised to stay a week, and why need he go away because you have arrived?’

‘I only know, madame, that he told me he was going away.’

‘That will never do. I must talk to him; and Captain Bowood must talk to him; and you, Lady Dimsdale, and you, Sir Frederick, must add your persuasions to ours to induce Mr Boyd not to run away from us in this sudden fashion. Next week we have two picnics and an archery meeting—and Mrs Boyd has been so long away from England!’

‘I am sure Mr Boyd can’t be hard-hearted enough to resist all our entreaties,’ said the Baronet. ‘The influence of Lady Dimsdale alone might’——

‘You rate my influence too highly, Sir Frederick,’ interrupted Laura hastily, while a warm flush mounted to her cheek. ‘In a matter like this, Mr Boyd probably knows his own business better than any one.’

The Baronet, in nowise disconcerted, turned to Estelle: ‘To run away from us so soon would be cruel indeed.’ Then to Mrs Bowood: ‘I am sure we are all anxious for the pleasure of Mrs Boyd’s further acquaintance. We want to know her better—we want to hear the story of her adventures, of her wonderful escape from shipwreck.’

‘A dangerous man this—I hate him!’ muttered Estelle between her teeth.

‘Yes—of course—the story of the shipwreck,’ cried impulsive Mrs Bowood. ‘I had forgotten that for the moment. We are all dying to hear it.’

Estelle’s eyes were on Lady Dimsdale. ‘The woman he kissed says nothing,’ was her unspoken comment. Then turning to Mrs Bowood, she said: ‘The shipwreck? O yes, I will tell you all about the shipwreck—but not to-day. I am a little tired.’

‘I am sure you must be, and hungry too. We have all been very remiss,’ replied the mistress of Rosemount. Then putting her arm into that of Estelle, she added: ‘But your tray will be ready by this time, and Mr Boyd must join you when he comes down. Meanwhile, I want to introduce you to Captain Bowood.—Laura, dear, you are coming?’

‘I will join you in a few minutes,’ was Lady Dimsdale’s reply. She wanted to be alone.

Mrs Bowood and Estelle quitted the room together. Sir Frederick lingered behind for a moment.

‘What a happy man our friend Boyd must be to-day.—Don’t you think so, dear Lady Dimsdale?’ he said with a smirk.

‘Very happy, Sir Frederick,’ answered Laura, looking him steadily in the eyes. ‘Who can doubt it?’

‘Lucky dog! lucky dog!’ ejaculated the Baronet as he followed the other ladies from the room.

Lady Dimsdale sank into an easy-chair. ‘His wife! His wife!’ How the words kept ringing in her brain. ‘Thank heaven she came at the moment she did, and not five minutes later! And yet if she had come an hour sooner, that would have been better still. Would it? I don’t know. I cannot tell. His words were so sweet to me! Did I answer him? No. He looked into my eyes and read his answer there. And now I must never see him or think of him more! Oh, my darling—the love of my girlhood—the only love of my life—it is hard to bear, hard to bear!’ She felt as if her heart were surcharged with tears; they glistened in her eyes.

At this moment Oscar Boyd entered the room. He gave a little start when he saw who was in it. He had not expected to find her there. From the head of the staircase, just as he was on the point of coming down, he had seen his wife and Mrs Bowood enter the dining-room, and he guessed what had happened during his absence. The hard set look on his pale face softened inexpressibly as his eyes rested on Lady Dimsdale. ‘Laura!’ he said, pausing for an instant with the handle of the door in his hand.

She neither looked up nor answered him; for a moment or two she was afraid to trust either her eyes or her voice.

He shut the door, and went forward and took one of her hands. ‘Laura!’ he said again, and there was a world of tenderness in the way he pronounced that one little word.

Then she looked up, and he saw the tears shining in her eyes. ‘Oscar!—I may call you so for the last time—we ought to have parted without another word.’

‘I could not have gone away without seeing you again, if only for a few minutes.’

‘You _are_ going away?’

‘By the next train.’

‘It is better so.’

‘Laura! when I spoke to you this morning, it was in the full belief that I was a free man—that no tie existed on earth to debar me from saying the words I said then.’

‘I know it—I know it.’

‘The woman—my wife—whom I had every reason to believe had died long ago, will accompany me when I leave this place. But to-morrow she and I will part for ever. Her future will be duly cared for, and after that I shall never see her again. Laura! you and I may never meet again after to-day. Think of me sometimes when I am far away.’

‘Always—always.’

‘O heavens, when I think how happy we might have been! And now!’ Strong man though he was, it was all he could do to keep himself from breaking down. He was possessed by an almost irresistible impulse to fling his arms round her and press her passionately to his heart.

Love’s fine instinct told Laura something of what was passing in his breast. She stood up and laid one hand softly on his arm. ‘You had better go now,’ she said very gently. ‘No more words are needed between you and me. We know what we know, and no one can deprive us of that knowledge.’

He felt the wisdom of her words. To delay that which was inevitable was merely to prolong her misery and his own. Besides, his wife might enter the room at any moment. And yet—and yet it was so hard to have his treasure torn from him at the very moment he had made it his own!

Laura had a rose in the bosom of her dress. She took it out and fixed it in his button-hole. ‘Now go. Not another word,’ she whispered.

‘I shall write to you once before I sail,’ he said.

‘No—no; better not.’

He did not dispute the point, but took each of her hands in one of his. For the space of a few seconds they stood heart to heart, as it were, gazing into each other’s eyes. Then Oscar lifted first one hand and then the other, and pressed them to his lips with a sort of reverent passionate tenderness. ‘Farewell, my darling, farewell!’

The words struck a chill to her heart. They were the last anguished cry of love and happiness lost for ever.

GLIMPSES OF THE SCOT ABROAD.

A few years ago, I was what is called a ‘globe-trotter,’ by which title, as the reader knows, is meant that distinctively modern personage—the world-tourist. He is the creation of the steamboat and the rail, and of all the Ariel-like capabilities due to recent discoveries and improvements in locomotion by land and sea. The term globe-trotter is suggestive. One conjures up a traveller, knapsack on back, poking his nose into the Himalayas, sauntering across Sahara, brushing past the Pyramids, leaving his card at Calcutta, scampering over the American prairie, lunching at Rome, and dropping in to see the Seven Churches of Asia. The voyager of to-day can buttonhole Old Father Time, and be on familiar terms with his primal relative Space. It was thus that in the course of two or three years I was fortunate enough to visit most of the embryo kingdoms which make up our colonial empire, as well as Britain’s great dependency in the East. As need scarcely be said, I boasted a note-book, for what traveller of this era is without one, wherewith on his return to publish Passages, Reminiscences, Fly-leaves, or Jottings of his unique wanderings? From the memoranda made during this tour round the world, I have compiled several incidents connected with the Scot abroad. These pretend to be nothing more than ripples on the current of colonial life, giving slight hints as to moods and bearing of the Scot abroad, in the varying scenes of his exile.

It is a truism to say that Scotsmen are to be found in every corner of the habitable globe. As I once heard a Melbourne Englishman remark: ‘If there were no Scotchmen, what would the world do for bank-managers?’ They have been noted as enterprising emigrants, and, in a large number of cases, successful colonists. I met with few instances of Scotchmen complaining in respect of their material welfare. One man in Queensland had a somewhat unique grievance, which, however, he set forth with a twinkle in the eye: ‘There’s the government spendin’ pounds upon pounds in bringin’ oot folk to this country, while here’s me wi’ fifteen bairns, maistly a’ born here, an’ I’ve never got a penny for ony o’ them!’

Otago is perhaps the most Scottish of any portion of the colonial empire, though Ontario runs it very close. Dunedin is almost undiluted in its Scottish nationality, and is a city of considerable stir. Sabbatarian questions, as well as the question of instrumental music in the church, are warmly discussed in Otago. At a certain gathering of Presbyterian clergymen, one of them urged that organs should be introduced in order to draw more young people to the church; upon which an old minister remarked that this was acting on the principle of ‘O whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad!’ The Scot abroad has a great love for the institutions of his native country, and endeavours to transplant as many of them as circumstances will allow. Even the winter weather of Scotland induces kindly recollections in the breasts of old settlers. I remember, after a phenomenal fall of snow in Dunedin, the like of which had not been seen for twenty years, an elder of the kirk exclaiming, as he rubbed his hands: ‘Sic glorious snaw-ba’ fechts we had—it mindit me o’ langsyne! Man, I was sorry when the thaw cam’ on.’ Caledonian Societies flourish all over New Zealand as much as does the thistle itself. On the Thames gold-field, in the province of Auckland, there was a corps of Highland Volunteers. Whenever they marched through the town, they were invariably followed by numbers of Maories, who tied blankets round their waists, like kilts, and no doubt imagined themselves sufficiently Celtic.

The national dishes are much in vogue in New Zealand. An English lady in Wellington, the capital of that colony, on one occasion detailed how she had tried to make a haggis in order to please her husband, who hailed from north of the Tweed. With the help of a cookery-book, the numerous ingredients were collected and prepared, and at last inserted in a big pot. Alas! the haggis would not sink, despite renewed efforts. The lady, in despair, called in an experienced neighbour, who pierced the haggis with a fork, and successfully ‘scuttled’ it. I am sorry to add that after all the wife’s trouble and anxiety, the dish proved a total failure. It is to be hoped that her husband was not so difficult to please as the well-to-do tradesman in Auckland, who grumbled sorely as to New Zealand ‘not being fit for a Scotsman to live in.’ ‘How’s that?’ ‘Weel, the fact is I—I—canna get my parritch made to please me!’ Talking of porridge, the dish was a favourite in the Christchurch Hotel, province of Canterbury, where it was cooked by a Frenchman who now and again actually spoke broken Scotch with a Parisian accent; while at Wanganui, in the North Island, the ‘parritch’ was prepared by a Chinese cook.

To say that Scotsmen abroad are still fond of their national music is simply to say that they do not cease to be Scotsmen. If anything, the fondness becomes intensified. I once heard an enthusiast in South Africa observe: ‘_My Ain Fireside_—_Ye Banks and Braes_—_The Land o’ the Leal_—eh! a body could be fit to gang to heaven hearing thae sangs sung!’ At a mission-school connected with the Scotch Church in Cape Town I once listened to _Weel may the Boatie row_, sung as a duet by a Dutch girl and a Malay, a result attained by the enthusiasm of the Scottish schoolmaster. It seemed to me as incongruous as hearing the Old Hundred in the ‘Scots Kirk’ of Calcutta, unwittingly accompanied by the tom-toms of a Hindu festival transpiring in the street. Now that I have taken the reader so far as India, let me note also that in the Church of Scotland College at Calcutta I saw an advanced class of Bengali youths reading Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_ and making marginal notes. Returning to Australia, a pleasant memory is that of an afternoon spent in a school at Sandhurst, the aforetime ‘Bendigo.’ Here, after the ordinary class-duties had been performed, the scholars were initiated into the mysteries of Highland reels and strathspeys, under the tutorship of an Aberdonian dame, the Aberdonian schoolmaster accompanying on the fiddle. I recollect, too, how an Irish grocer in Adelaide, South Australia, was moved to stand outside his door in the bright moonlight evenings and play _Monymusk_ on a tin whistle. A vision of Canada now rises before me, with its host of local bards, each with his wallet of poems on his back, trudging from village to village—the troubadours of the backwoods. Their warblings were not of the snow-laden forest, the subdued glory of the Indian summer, the autumn-gilded maple, or the swift, miraculous dawn of the Columbian spring. Their strains were those of exile; strains of Scotia, of ‘hame,’ of rippling burnies, of the purple heather, of the thousand-and-one historic and sympathetic memories of the dear old land. But hark! what sounds do we hear echoing from a Sabbath school in Sacramento, California? Scottish tunes, but linked to religious words, the children singing a hymn of the church militant to the melody of _Scots wha hae_; while _Ye Banks and Braes_ served as the tender medium for stanzas of a more devotional character.

The farmer is a notable figure in one’s Canadian remembrances, the agricultural class comprising about half the population. In Ontario you will find many old Scotch settlers, and much could be written upon their present and past experiences. The times are considerably altered from the days when the rough pioneering work had to be done. I once met two aged farmers, one of whom had seen eighty-three winters, who had emigrated to Canada together about forty years ago, and might have been taken for typical old settlers. In telling their primitive toils and privations, their weather-beaten faces were lit up with an animation that was almost joyous in its character. One related, as if it were some rare humour, that his first log-hut in the backwoods was at many places open to the heavens, and that frequently he had to dust the snow off his blankets before he went to bed. The wintry theme suggests the story of a Scottish Canadian who, on a voyage to the mother-country, was one day found sleeping on deck, when the captain roused him with a natural caution against sunstroke. ‘Sunstroke!’ scornfully replied the awakened one. ‘It wad tak’ a’ the sun atween here an’ Greenock to thaw the Canada frost oot o’ my head.’

In Salt Lake City there are not a few Scottish Mormons. I chanced to have a brief conversation there with a middle-aged Scotchwoman, who was a follower of Brigham Young, and who did not hesitate to magnify the virtues of polygamy. It turned out, however, that her zeal was largely of a theoretical nature, as the good lady did not seem to believe in the system so far as it might entail any discomfort upon herself. At Omaha I was acquainted with a Highlander who in the first days of Mormonism became converted to polygamy, but who ultimately abjured the faith. Many a time and oft, in Celtic daring, had he stood on the banks of the Missouri River, lifting up his voice in the wilderness like the Baptist of old, denouncing Mormonism to the bands of converts as they passed over the stream to the ostensible Land of Canaan. His life was in daily peril, but he escaped scathless from his self-imposed mission. In San Francisco I saw Elder Stenhouse, who had been until lately a chief among the Utah Saints. He and his wife, both Scotch people, had dedicated themselves honestly to the new faith, but finding out its hollowness, they shook off the dust of the desert—there is plenty of it—from their shoes, and took farewell of Salt Lake.

In travelling about from place to place you make acquaintance with a most interesting type of character—that of the veteran Scotchman. In Christchurch, New Zealand, I met a Waterloo veteran, eighty-four years of age, yet with erect, military carriage. With vivacious garrulity he told that he was born in Fife; that he had lodged at the house of Mrs Grant of Laggan; that he knew ‘Jamie Hogg’ and Nathaniel Gow; that he had been all through the Peninsular War, had fought at Waterloo, and had been on half-pay since 1817. A companion-figure was that of the venerable Highlander of King William’s Town, Cape Colony—a genial-hearted man, of stern brow and with war-worn features—whose talk was a strange blending of pleasant Scottish reminiscence and weird stories of Kaffir campaigns in which he had taken part. Again, while sailing up the Suez Canal, on the voyage home from India, one of my fellow-passengers was an old Scotsman who had fought at Waterloo, and was then engaged making a tour of the world. As he said, with pleasant pathos: ‘I want to see all that’s to be seen before I’m happit up in the mools’—a phrase that can only be inadequately rendered in English as ‘lying snug beneath the sod.’ He left the steamer at Port Saïd, as he was bound on an excursion to the Holy Land, and as the quarter-master offered to carry his portmanteau, the old fellow elbowed him aside, exclaiming: ‘Pooh, pooh; I’m a young man yet!’ Last and not least notable of this class was an old and well-preserved gentleman I met at Wellington, New Zealand. He was an Edinburgh man, and had been educated at the university there. He had been acquainted with friends of Burns, had known the poet’s ‘Chloris’ and ‘Clarinda,’ and in speaking of the Potterrow always seemed to regard it as still a fashionable street. To gossip with him was like shaking hands with the past.

In going round the world, one is sure to find relatives and souvenirs of famous men and women. At Hobart-Town, Tasmania, there resided, when I visited the town, the granddaughter of Neil Gow and daughter of Nathaniel Gow, the composer of _Caller Herrin’_. In the Waikato district of the North Island of New Zealand, about a hundred miles from the city of Auckland, lives, I still trust, old Mrs Nicol, mother of the late Robert Nicol, the celebrated Perthshire poet. During a stormy passage in a small steamer on the New Zealand coast, I had some interesting chats with an Irish gentleman who had met and talked with Sir Walter Scott in a chapel in Italy, during the closing scenes of that busy life. I may add also that at Listowel, in Ontario, I was privileged to meet the brother of Dr Livingstone, and was much struck with the facial resemblance between him and the great traveller. In the University of Dunedin the visitor can see, in a gilt frame, a lock of Burns’s hair, labelled ‘A genuine relic of the Poet, and modicum of a larger lock owned by Jean Armour.’ A certain country hotel in Tasmania lives in my memory from its having distributed through its rooms an extraordinary number of pictures of John Knox, the religious character of the house being increased by the fact that one of the apartments was used as the ‘study’ of the Presbyterian clergyman of the village. The name of John Knox, by association, recalls to my mind the incident of the eccentric Scot of Kaffraria, South Africa, who had a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots hung in his bedroom, and who, every morning on rising, stretched his hands towards it, crying: ‘O my poor murdered queen!’

The visitor fresh from home is certain of meeting with a kind welcome from his countrymen abroad. The welcome need not be on personal grounds. An Edinburgh man in Canada once shook my hand warmly, saying: ‘I dinna ken ye; I never met ye before; but I just want to see a man that’s seen Arthur Seat since I saw it.’ The love of home sometimes reaches an intense pitch, as in the case of the Scotsman at Fort Beaufort, in Cape Colony, who ejaculated: ‘I’d rather gang hame and be hanged, than dee here a natural death!’ Again, an old man in New Zealand remarked: ‘I doot I’ll no get hame to Scotland again; but if onybody said: “Ye shall not go,” I’d be off the morn’s mornin’!’ With which forcible yet touching deliverance let these glimpses conclude.

I am afraid that during our brief bird’s-eye view of colonial life, the reader has been dragged hither and thither in a somewhat erratic course. The irregularity, however, has been more apparent than real. Whether amid Canadian snows, New Zealand mountains, Australian bush, or South African _veldt_, you meet with the same shrewd, persevering Scotsman, steadily moving in his colonial orbit, and moving none the less regularly because of the tender gravitation of his heart towards the central sphere of patriotic affection—dear though distant Scotland.

IS SMOKING INJURIOUS TO HEALTH?

Although the above important question is so frequently asked, more especially of medical men, yet their replies are as a general rule either of a vague or dogmatic nature that is anything but satisfactory. There has been unlimited discussion respecting the injurious effects of smoking, ever since the first introduction of tobacco, and a great deal of nonsense has unfortunately been urged by enthusiasts on both sides. Some have praised tobacco far beyond its merits; while others have so enlarged upon its injurious and poisonous qualities as to make one wonder that anybody who smokes should be left alive at all. Hitherto, however, no satisfactory solution of the problem appears to have been arrived at. Our object in this paper will be to deal as concisely as possible with the subject upon its merits.

In the first place, we may inform our readers that smoking is and is not injurious. This apparently contradictory assertion admits, however, of the following explanation. In New England, it has been with truth alleged that the thirst induced by smoking is an active incentive to alcoholic excess and its attendant evils. Now, on the other hand, amongst Asiatic nations the reverse holds good. Mr Lane—translator of the _Arabian Nights_—when in the East, noticed that smoking appeared to possess a soothing effect, attended with slight exhilaration, and that it supplied the place of alcoholic beverages. Mr Layard, whose knowledge of eastern nations is most extensive, was also of the same opinion. Mr Crawford, again, an authority of high repute as regards Asiatic habits, believes the use of tobacco has contributed to the sobriety both of Asiatic and European nations. Here we have two entirely contradictory results, as, in North America smoking produces dissipation; whilst in the East it not only restrains, but takes its place. It is therefore to climate, temperament, and bodily constitution acting and reacting upon each other, that we may trace so opposite an effect.

The chemical constituents of tobacco are three, the due consideration of which is highly important. They are: (1) A volatile oil; (2) a volatile alkali; (3) an empyreumatic oil. The volatile oil, although in minute quantities, has a most powerful action on the physical system, even in the smallest dose; and when taken internally, gives rise to nausea with giddiness. The volatile alkali is _nicotine_, possessing narcotic and very poisonous qualities; so much so indeed, that a single drop of it is sufficient to kill a dog. The proportion of this substance in the dry tobacco-leaf varies from two to eight per cent., according to Professor Johnston, who states that ‘in smoking a quarter of an ounce of tobacco, two grains or more of one of the most subtle poisons known may be drawn into the smoker’s mouth;’ the reason why he is not poisoned being because this deadly juice is not concentrated. Empyreumatic oil (from Gr. _empyreuo_, I kindle), the third active ingredient of tobacco, is so called to express the burned smell and acrid taste which result from the combustion of the tobacco during smoking. This oil closely resembles in its action that which is produced from poisonous foxglove leaf (_Digitalis purpurea_). A drop of empyreumatic oil when applied to the tongue of a cat has produced convulsions and death in a few minutes. Reptiles are destroyed by it as through an electric shock. It must be borne in mind that these three chemical ingredients are _united_ when smoking, and produce to a greater or less degree their respective effects. A cigar when smoked to the _end_ effectually discharges into the smoker’s mouth everything produced by its combustion. When saliva is retained in the mouth, the effects of tobacco in one sense become more markedly developed on the nervous system. On the other hand, when constant expectoration takes place, digestion becomes impaired, from the diminution of saliva, which plays an important part in this function. We have heard medical men, who were themselves smokers, aver that the former is the least of the two evils; which we hope is the case, as the habit of constant expectoration in which many smokers indulge, is certainly one of the most unpleasant concomitants of the pipe or cigar.

In a purely physiological sense, smoking acts as follows: (1) The heart’s action becomes lowered; (2) the elimination of carbonic acid is diminished, thus interfering with the respiratory power; (3) the waste of the body is checked, and digestion to a certain extent impeded. Excessive smoking disorders digestion, and, where the heart is weak, often induces disease of that organ. It is by no means uncommon to find habitual smokers troubled with dyspepsia. Dr Leared considers excessive smoking decidedly productive of indigestion. Dr Pereira, who was a high authority on such matters, when alluding to habitual smokers in his celebrated _Materia Medica_, observes: ‘The practice, when moderately indulged in, provokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva, and produces that remarkably soothing and tranquillising effect upon the mind which has caused it to be so much admired and adopted by all classes of society, and by all nations civilised and barbarous.’ Later on, the same eminent authority states that ‘when indulged in to excess, and especially by those unaccustomed to its use, smoking causes nausea, trembling, and in some cases paralysis and death.’ Instances are recorded of persons killing themselves by smoking seventeen or eighteen pipes at a sitting!

In his luminous _Treatise on Poisons_, Dr Christison states that ‘no well-ascertained ill effects have been shown to result from the habitual practice of smoking.’ On the other hand, Dr Prout, a late distinguished physician and chemist, was of a different opinion. He observes: ‘Tobacco disorders the assimilating functions in general, but particularly, I believe, the assimilation of saccharine principle. It is the weak and those predisposed to disease who fall victims to its poisonous operation, whilst the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little therefrom.’ So even this learned physician’s opinion is to a certain extent thus modified.

The researches of Dr Richardson, F.R.S., are of immense value with regard to the action of tobacco upon the health. He is of opinion that there are no grounds for believing that smoking—of course, we infer, when indulged in with moderation—can produce organic change. Functional disturbances of the heart, brain, and vision, he tells us, may be traced to its excessive use. It is universally, however, admitted that tobacco, like alcohol—in minute doses—arrests oxidation of living tissues, thus checking their disintegration. Dr Richardson, for this reason, justly considers smoking highly injurious to the young, causing impairment of growth.

In the course of an important discussion which took place between Sir Ranald Martin, Mr Solly, Dr Ranking, and other scientific physicians, the following important results were arrived at respecting smoking: (1) That the habit is only prejudicial when carried to excess; (2) that tobacco is innocuous as compared with alcohol, and in no case worse than tea, and by the side of high living, contrasts most favourably. Whether smoking is or is not injurious to health depends principally upon the following conditions: (1) The kind of tobacco smoked; (2) the manner in which it is consumed; (3) the amount of tobacco smoked; and lastly, when it is indulged in. The great object is to obtain a tobacco which possesses the smallest percentage of nicotine. It was formerly believed that the best varieties of Havana and Turkish tobacco were the most innocuous. According, however, to the recent exhaustive researches of Dr George Harley, F.R.S., it appears that the more delicate the aroma of tobacco, the more poisonous it becomes. Dr Harley is also of opinion that ‘Caporal’ tobacco contains _least nicotine_, and is consequently to be preferred by those desirous of health. Pipes made of clay, and meerschaums—not foul—are, Dr Richardson considers, in a hygienic point of view, superior to cigars and cigarettes. Neither cigars nor cigarettes should ever be smoked near the end, as the nicotine then is discharged into the mouth in larger proportions. M. Melsens, a very distinguished chemist, is of opinion that a plug of cotton-wool saturated with a solution of strong citric or tannic acid should be inserted in the stem of the pipe, cigar, or cigarette holder. By this precaution, the smoke is effectually filtered, ere reaching the mouth, as the nicotine would then be seized by and combined with the acid. Those who object to this plan on account of its trouble, might with advantage place a small piece of plain cotton-wool in the stem of their pipe as a filtering agent. This should on each occasion be removed and replaced by a fresh one. A more convenient, and probably not less effective plug, is a bit of paper crumpled into a soft ball and placed in the bottom of the pipe. It acts as an absorbent of the objectionable juices which might otherwise find their way into the mouth, and can be changed, if the smoker chooses, every time he fills his pipe.

From a review of the scientific testimony and physiological facts bearing upon this subject, we may safely arrive at the following conclusions: (1) That smoking in excess is decidedly an injurious habit, frequently causing dyspepsia, and functional diseases of the heart, brain, and nervous system. (2) That smoking, even when in moderation, is pernicious in early life, also to certain constitutions, and in particular conditions of the body. (3) That in adult life and in ordinary health, no well-ascertained ill effects have been demonstrated as owing their causation to _moderate_ smoking. (4) That the _moderate_ use of tobacco is not only in many cases a harmless luxury, but occasionally, from its soothing and tranquillising influence, a useful adjunct. Smoking, even in the strictest moderation, with some persons of peculiar idiosyncrasies, acts as a poison, and should therefore be avoided, when feelings of discomfort are entailed by its use.

It is impossible to lay down any rule as to the amount of tobacco which may be consumed without a deleterious effect upon the health. What would be moderation to one is often excess to another, according to temperament, habit, and individual peculiarities. Each person ought to be able to judge for himself as to what is moderation. The best time for smoking is undoubtedly after a meal; and the most injurious, on an empty stomach.

In drawing this paper to a close, we cannot do better than by appending the following extract, taken from Mr Dawson’s valuable little work on longevity. On page sixty-nine of _How to Prolong Life_, when speaking of smoking, Mr Dawson observes: ‘All things taken into account, it is evident that tobacco in excess is certainly prejudicial to good health; in moderation, however, it may be indulged in with comparative impunity; but under any circumstances, it should be known that a man in health is much better without it. How much more so in the case of those who are weakly! Lastly, I desire to impress upon all smokers that _moderation_ in this habit is of no small moment, the ill effects being proportioned to indulgence.’

TO A CHILD.

Kathleen of the glad blue eyes,
Elf-locks dark and curling—
Kathleen of the laughing voice,
Like a wild stream whirling:
When I gaze into those eyes,
Deep I read the story
Of a long-lost Paradise
And the young world’s glory.

Many a tale of fairyland
Have we dreamed together,
By the hearth in shadow-time,
Out on wind-swept heather.
Tired, I told of prince and fay,
Court and castle hoary;
Give me, sweet, my turn to-day—
I, too, crave a story.

Blue eyes telling tales to mine
Darkly raise their fringes:
Earth had doors to heaven once,
Wide on golden hinges.
From beyond, the timeless light
Banished time and sorrow;
Child-world had no yesterday,
Heaven was to-morrow.

Nought was there of languid bloom,
Frail and fevered splendour,
Kisses like the daisies thronged,
Love made greensward tender,
Truth was sunny as the sky,
Branching care spread o’er us,
All that warbled ecstasy
Made the garden’s chorus.

O thou Eden of the past—
If I could but find thee,
All I have, for thee, I’d cast,
Worthless, vain, behind me—
When the heaven-gates stood wide,
And all the air was ringing
With mingled voices of our home
And sound of angels singing!

Am I sad? How startled shine
Those blue eyes in wonder!
Child, whose heart beats close to mine,
Far are we asunder.
Yet, if I would follow thee,
Oft I marvel whether
Thou couldst lead me in, to see
Eden-land together.

M. E. ATTERIDGE.

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