Part 4

‘I am quite satisfied that it is a mistake,’ she interrupted. ‘Pray, do not feel any uneasiness on that account, and do not bother about the letter. But, concerning the lady, I should like to know something, and you promise here to tell me.’ She held the unlucky letter open in her hand.

‘MY DEAR FRIEND,’ it ran—‘That is the most appropriate form of address for me to use on the present occasion, which is in my eyes an important one. I beseech you to give no heed whatever to any nonsense you may hear about our “mutual friend” and a certain lady. There is not the slightest foundation for it, and of that I shall convince you immediately after my arrival at Todhurst.—Believe me, your most faithful servant,

ALFRED DAWKINS.’

‘You were never intended to receive that letter,’ ejaculated the Major with a resolute effort to pull himself together.

‘I am sure my husband did not intend it,’ she rejoined, smiling confidentially; ‘but I thank you for putting me on my guard against idle rumours. It was your duty to do so, as the friend of the family, and I for one am grateful. But it was scarcely necessary; for although John is peculiar in some ways, I have perfect confidence in his discretion, and know that he is incapable of entangling himself with any lady, except through others misunderstanding one of his philanthropic crazes.—Ah, I see what it is,’ and here her expression changed from that of half-indifferent curiosity to one of serious interest. ‘He has been kind to some wretched creature, and she is trying to take advantage of him. That is what you mean by warning me not to heed any nonsense I might hear. Thanks, thanks! I must go at once and relieve his mind of any uneasiness as to my views of the case.’

The Major had endeavoured several times to interrupt her without avail. Now, when he saw her turning quickly away, he cried vehemently: ‘Stop, my dear madam; you are quite wrong—you misunderstand the whole affair. Do give me time to tell you exactly what is the matter.’

‘I know enough, Major; thank you very much. I must learn the rest from John himself. Here are some friends coming—I do not wish them to see me in this anxious state. We can have a chat in the afternoon.’ With a bow she walked quickly away.

He would have followed, but was arrested by a musical voice calling: ‘Major Dawkins, I wish particularly to speak to you.’

He turned, and beheld Nellie Carroll advancing hurriedly towards him. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with indignation, and her sharp firm step betokened that she was in a temper. Behind her was Stanley Maynard, looking troubled, and evidently trying to persuade her to refrain from some rash action.

CHILDREN’S PLAY.

‘O papa, when will you die?’ asked one of the youngest of my children. A strange question, thought I.

‘Why do you ask, my dear?’

‘Oh, because it will be such fun burying you.’

This little experience of the author of _Olla Podrida_ originated in the death of a pet canary which caused the young people great tribulation. ‘To amuse them,’ he says, ‘we made them a paper coffin, put the defunct therein, and sewed on the lid, dug a grave in the garden, and dressing them out in any remnants of black we could find for weepers, made a procession to the grave where it was buried.’ This little divertissement quite took their fancy, and led them to wish for a repetition on a larger scale.

The memory of a back-garden little cemetery of pet birds and kittens, over whose graves the writer had erected head-slates with appropriate epitaphs, occurs to him after hearing of the late obsequies of a pet rabbit at Southport. Little Amy’s bunnie went the way of all rabbits, and her playmates, sympathising with her affliction, determined to give it an appropriate funeral. They arranged a catafalque out of a soap-box, and with great solemnity dragged it in procession to the grave. The children, feeling that a service of some kind ought to be performed, but instinctively recognising the unfitness of the ordinary religious ritual, joined hands around the bier, and sang with dignified pathos the well-known old song, _Oh, bring back my Bunnie to me_. They did it so seriously, and with such child-like good faith, that even the grown-up listeners behind the blinds forgot the bathos of the situation, and involuntarily sympathised with the young mourners in their grief. A ‘stepping-stone,’ as one of the pall-bearers afterwards described it, was placed over the grave, and the ceremony was over; but even the gorgeousness of the funeral pageant and the impressive burial service could not wholly console the owner for the loss of her rabbit.

A little girl who witnessed the capture of a rat in a trap, exclaimed, with the relentless thoughtlessness of childhood: ‘Me wants you to dead him, so me can see him all buried in the seminary’—this playing at funerals being evidently a fascinating amusement with many little folks.

Much has been said about the power of imagination in the young; but their knowledge and experience being so incomplete, is it not rather the imitative faculty that makes a boy with a wooden gun act the hero or hunter, and a girl with a rag doll, an affectionate though rather capricious mother? On their Lilliput stage children imitate the doings of adults, who are mainly interesting to them as furnishing subjects for representation. They value the reproduction more highly than the realities of life, on which they look callously, and will parody a funeral, an execution, or a prayer-meeting with remarkable cheerfulness. One of the writer’s schoolfellows, by way of appropriate ‘Sunday play,’ once raised an altar of books, placed lighted candles thereon, and tried to persuade some of his companions to join him in further mummeries, which, however, partook much less of levity than earnestness on his part.

A famous American author, who makes some observations which are very apposite, says: ‘During a walk from St Nicholas in the shadow of the majestic Alps, we came across some little children amusing themselves in what seemed at first a most odd and original way; but it wasn’t; it was in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped together with a string; they had mimic Alpenstocks and ice-axes; and were climbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amount of care and caution. The “guide” at the head of the line cut imaginary steps in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged till the step above him was vacated. If we had waited, we should have witnessed an imaginary accident, no doubt, and we should have heard the intrepid band hurrah! when they made the summit, and looked around upon the magnificent view, and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for a rest in that commanding situation.’ The same writer says: ‘In Nevada, I used to see the children play at silver-mining. Of course the great thing was an accident in a mine; and there were two “star” parts—that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft; and that of the daring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew one small chap who always insisted on playing both these parts—and he carried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die; and then come to the surface and go back after his own remains.’

If half the accounts of American children are true, they must be intolerable little precocities, hard to manage and difficult to please. Japan appears to be the children’s paradise, from recent accounts. In no other country, we are told, are the young people treated with such consideration. The third day of the month is the girls’ festival. In every family you will find dolls in large numbers arranged in one of the rooms reserved for that purpose. The boys’ holiday is the fifth day of the fifth month. After passing under the barber’s hands, the boys, dressed in their best clothes, first go to the temple and offer a prayer, after which the fun of the day begins.

The ways of children are, it seems, beginning to be studied from a scientific standpoint. An American lady has elicited from two hundred and twenty-seven Boston schoolboys particulars of their tastes in collecting. Out of the entire number, only nineteen had abstained from making collections. Stamps were the most popular objects; then marbles, business cards, minerals, woods, leaves or flowers, autographs, buttons, birds’ nests, and many other articles.

There is often a great contrast between the ways in which boys and girls try to amuse themselves. Games which demand small exertions are generally girls’ favourites, though the more active take kindly to rounders, whiptop, and even cricket. But as a rule they are soon tired; everything ‘isn’t fair,’ and they ‘won’t play.’ Boys’ games are more successful. Boys stick much more to rules, and are less careful of their clothes. Their games are often accompanied by loud threats and fierce recriminations, threats which if executed would speedily make the playground present the appearance of a battle-field.

It is the grown-up people who write the stories, and the children carefully preserve the text. What boy has not had his Crusoe raft or cave, or has not attempted to build a log-hut? The business, pleasures, misfortunes, and adventures of life are all rehearsed by the romantic little people. There is a story of Michael Angelo making a statue of snow in a garden, the beauty and proportion of which delighted his companions and gave promise of the genius he was afterwards to display. Charles Dickens tells us of wandering through rooms when a child, armed with a club, in the make-belief that he was an African traveller expecting to be attacked at any moment by wild beasts or savages, and therefore holding himself ready to sell his life as dearly as possible.

This innate tendency to mimicry is sometimes even displayed amongst the melancholy surroundings of a hospital. It must, indeed, be sadly dull for the poor little patients in a children’s hospital, but there are rays of sunshine that gleam upon the scene. A kind-hearted visitor to one of these institutions says: ‘Among the boys, I saw one merry little fellow gravely putting out his tongue, while another felt his pulse. Playing at doctors seemed a fit game for a children’s hospital, and I could picture to myself how mock prescriptions were made up with sham solemnity of manner, and how fanciful experiments with imaginary stethoscopes were attempted by young actors, to beguile the weary time. One little girl I spoke to seemed quite proud of her acquaintance with the ailments of her neighbours, and seriously took me to a bed to see a bad case of “broncheetus;” and to a cot contiguous, where what she called “new-money-here” was waiting to be cured. To lisp out big words like “toobercoolcrosus” appeared to give great pleasure to the solemn little doctress, and I fancied the patients felt some pride in being pointed out as victims of such fine-sounding complaints.’

Children who have few toys are thrown on their own resources for amusement, and frequently develop great ingenuity and cleverness in their play. We have examples in the young Brontës, busy at their desks and playing at being editors, like the girls in _Little Women_ when producing their weekly paper _The Pickwick Portfolio_. But when our little actors, in their eagerness to secure properties, develop the bump of destructiveness, the results are not so amusing. Captain Marryat remarks that children are a great blessing when they are kept in the nursery; but they certainly do interfere with the papa who has the misfortune to be an author. He little thought, when his youngest girl brought him a whole string of paper dolls, hanging together by the arms, that they had been cut off his memoranda. But so it was; and when he had satisfactorily established the fact, and insisted upon an _inquisition_ to recover his invaluables, he found that they had had an _auto da fé_, and that the whole string of dolls, which contained on their petticoats his whole string of bewitching ideas, had been burnt like so many witches.

The monkey-like propensity for imitation which makes an infant try to shave himself on getting hold of papa’s razors, when developed in boyhood, takes the form of surreptitious smoking and swaggering, more for the purpose of acting the man than for anything else. The same idea of acting the woman is shown when little girls improvise a long train out of a newspaper or shawl, and sweeping in a dignified way about the room, exclaim, ‘I’m mamma!’

The importance of a child when lent any article of dress, a stick, or an umbrella to play with, is very noticeable. ‘Little boy,’ said a gentleman, ‘why do you hold that umbrella over your head? It’s not raining.’ ‘No.’—‘And the sun is not shining.’ ‘No.’—‘Then why do you carry it?’ ‘’Cause when it rains, father wants it; and when the sun shines, mother wants it; and it’s only when it’s this sort of weather that I can get to use it at all.’

Children possessed of mimetic qualities are happier without any playthings than are their opposites, even when possessed of the costliest scientific toys. Town boys are fond of imagining themselves to be trains and horses, the noise of the former and motions of the latter being often very amusingly represented. Mark Twain has given a lively description of an American lad imitating a river steamer with all proper accompaniments of bell-ringing, going ahead and astern, and whirling one arm round for an imaginary forty-feet side-wheel coming alongside the wharf. The same humorist’s description of some boys camping out on an island, and covering their bare bodies with mud to represent Indian war-paint, will probably occur to our readers.

Any one who has ever watched street boys at play, must have been struck with the power of mimicry many of them possess. The writer was once greatly amused by the antics of a London lad, who along the kerbstone was ‘taking off’ the motions of a tight-rope performer, with most ludicrous attempts at balancing, and a perfect burlesque of reality, that elicited roars of laughter from his admiring companions, some of whom whistled an appropriate accompaniment. Stage struggles and combats, and the ways of heavy tragedians, clowns, nigger minstrels, and acrobats, are often travestied by these youngsters in a way that denotes remarkable cleverness and keen observation. A Volunteer review which the writer witnessed in Cheshire was almost turned into ridicule by the absurd antics of some scores of the street arab genus. As a long line of riflemen advanced, firing, clouds of young ragamuffins kept retreating at some distance in front, and at every volley threw themselves on the ground into all kinds of grotesque attitudes, representing the killed and wounded. Boys’ sham-fights amongst themselves sometimes become rather serious, through the actors waxing too earnest in their enthusiasm. It is not long since a boy was wounded by a pistol-shot when enacting one of the Soudan battles with his companions. Newspaper readers are familiar with accounts of the lamentable results of children playing at hanging not wisely, but too well.

AFTER AN EXPLOSION.

An opportunity was recently afforded us of exploring the workings of a colliery in which, a day or two previously, an explosion had occurred. Commonly, the results of these catastrophes are so widespread, and the havoc they cause is so tremendous, that it is impossible to take a calm survey of the separate effects of fire and concussion: all is mere ruin and confusion. But in this particular instance the area affected had been very limited; and so little damage had been done to the roofs and roads, that it was safe and easy to investigate the way in which the imprisoned forces had effected their deadly purpose; for nearly half the men at work in the vein of coal had been killed, and, of the rest, several narrowly escaped with their lives. And yet the mine had always been considered a perfectly safe one; no death from fire-damp had ever before happened; and, with the full approval of the government inspectors, naked lights had always been used. All at once, without any warning, the lightning-swift flame darted forth, none knew whence, and many a miner’s home was filled with desolation and sorrow.

We were, of course, provided with safety-lamps before we reached the branch road which leads to the workings where so lately such awful scenes had been enacted. Even here, nearly two hundred yards away, we were shown a hole which had been blown through eighteen inches of solid masonry; and were told that two men who were at the _outside_ of this wall had been severely burned, one of them, after lingering for a week, having succumbed to the injuries received. Just round the corner, only a few yards away, we saw the ghastliest sight of all that met our eyes in this memorable round. A dark stain on one of the upright supports of the roof marked the place where a man’s head had been crushed by a loaded tram, which the concussion of air had lifted off the rails and dashed against the hapless trammer. Nothing could give one a more vivid conception of the terrific force of these gaseous explosions, and of the enormous expansion of air which they occasion.

But we proceed along the level road through which so recently that fiery blast rushed, and reach the door which opens into the actual scene of the disaster. It was from this point that the gallant band of rescuers—who in such emergencies are always ready to risk their lives in helping others—carried on their operations. Outside this door, all was safe after that one momentary onrush of flame was over. Inside lay the deadly choke-damp, hardly less fatal than the fire itself. Yet, for all that, one by one the injured colliers were carried hither and placed in the freer air. Then the heroic searchers bore out also the bodies of the dead; and not till then, yielded to the numbing, stifling influence of the poisonous vapours, which left them aching and ill for days.

What a contrast to all this was the quietude of these deserted workings as we saw them! Save for such repairs as were needed to restore proper ventilation, nothing had been touched; and, strewn on the ground, as they had been taken off by their owners—since dead, or, it might be, struggling for life—lay the coats and other garments discarded as too cumbersome to work in; while from the roof hung the miners’ ‘tommy-bags,’ containing their day’s food. One had fallen on to the ground, and the mice had got at it. After biting a hole through the covering, they had gnawed away all the crumb out of a huge hunch of bread. Where, one wondered, could these tiny creatures have taken refuge from fire and suffocation? Mysterious indeed! Not a singe, not even the smell of fire, on these trivial things; and yet, hereabouts, a man was found fearfully scorched, his clothes literally torn off him by a tornado of flame!

Passing on to a heading where several men met their death, we noticed one larch-post out of which the resin had been drawn by the intensity of the heat; while everywhere, _one_ side of the props was coked over by the rush of burning coal-dust, which had been driven furiously along, now in one direction, now in another; and yet, among it all was a pale-green shoot sprouting from an ash-pole in the roof, turning upwards, as if some instinct taught it _that_ that way shone the sunlight—even though a quarter of a mile of rock lay between!

Another example of the incomprehensible manner in which these fatal forces act. A door which opened inwards, and so offered full resistance to the concussion, was smashed into splinters; and yet, twenty yards farther on, a miner was at work with a candle in his cap; and this was not blown out, nor was the man at all hurt! This particular doorway, the door being fortunately demolished, let in a quantity of pure air, and so the lives of a number of men who were in that level were saved. One specially touching incident occurred here. Two men and a boy started to crawl to a place of safety, following, with their hands, the rails as a guide in the darkness. The road they took is in the shape of a Y. When they reached the fork, two of them took the right turning, and escaped unscathed. The third man went to the left, and wandered on till, in the very thickest of the afterdamp, he sank down and died. There he was found, as soon as it was possible to penetrate through the smoke and heavy fumes, with that placid look on his face which all those wear who are suffocated by carbonic acid gas. One of the explorers explained that, in this poisonous atmosphere, he felt himself failing, and yet, though he knew perfectly what was in store for him if he sank down, _could_ not resist the pleasant stupor that was creeping over him. He was dragged away to pure air just in time.

Our guide tried, with his testing-lamp, all round the place for gas; but only once, in a hole in the roof of the highest level, did a tiny blue cap within the wire-gauze demonstrate the lingering presence of that explosive vapour. This fact may to some extent explain the unwillingness of the workmen to use safety-lamps. Such is the ignorant prejudice which prevails among them, and so true is it of them, as of all people engaged in hazardous occupations, that familiarity breeds contempt for danger. They were perfectly ready to go down with candles, but _not_ with lamps, to which they had never been accustomed. But we owe too much to these toilers underground, to indulge in harsh criticism of their conduct. As the poor fishwife described her herrings, so we may call the coals which blaze upon our hearths, ‘the lives of men.’

From this account of what, after all, was but a slight explosion, one may perhaps more readily realise the awfulness of those more extensive disasters, which, with equal suddenness and mystery, plunge whole districts into bitterest grief and direst want. If any stimulus to sympathy and practical charity were required, it would but be needful to stand, as we did, among that eager crowd which, at the tidings of evil, thronged round the pit top; and to see those agonised women who were weeping for their sons or husbands, and ‘would not be comforted, because they were not.’ But the hearts of Englishmen ever beat fast, and their hands are always open, when they are asked to help the ill-fated colliers’ widows and orphans—‘after an explosion.’

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

INTERESTING DISCOVERIES.