 CHAPTER XI It was felt at the time, more especially by the latest additions to the party, that this would have been a great calamity. Habits long acquired of stopping by the roadside, and minutely examining weeds or bits of stone, are not to be eradicated in a night's journey by rail. Accordingly, wherever the train stopped, the naturalist was, at the last moment, discovered to be absent, and search parties were organised with a promptness that, before we reached Dijon, had become quite creditable. But the success achieved begat a condition of confidence that nearly proved fatal. In travelling on a French line there is only one thing more remarkable than the leisurely way in which an express train gets under way after having stopped at a station. And that is the excitement that pervades the neighbourhood ten minutes before the train starts. Men in uniform go about shrieking, in a manner that suggests to the English traveller that the train is actually in motion, and that his passage is all but lost. It was this habitue that led to our excitement at Mélain. We had, after superhuman efforts, got the naturalist into the carriage, and had breathlessly fallen back in the seat expecting the train to move forthwith. Ten minutes later it slowly steamed out of the station, accompanied by the sound of the tootling horn, and enveloped in thick clouds of poisonous smoke. This sort of thing happening at one or two other stations, we were induced to give our naturalist an extra five minutes to gather some fresh specimen of a rare grass growing between the rails, or some curious insect embedded in the bookstore. It was at sens that growing bolder with success we nearly did lose him, dragging him in at the last moment amid a scene of excitement, that could be equaled elsewhere, only on the supposition that the station was on fire, and that five kegs of gunpowder were in the booking-office. Shortly after leaving Dijon, a conviction began to spread that perhaps if the fates had proved adverse, and we had lost him somewhere, under circumstances that would have permitted him to come on by a morning train, we might have borne up against the calamity. Amongst the miscellaneous and imposing collection of scientific instruments, he was the pleased possessor of an aneroid. This, I am sure, is an excellent and even indispensable instrument at certain crises. But when you have been so lucky as to get to sleep in a railway carriage on a long night journey, to be awakened every quarter of an hour, to be informed how high you are now, grows wearisome before morning. It was the chancery barrister who was partly responsible for this. He found it impossible to sleep, and our naturalist, fastening upon him, kept him carefully posted up, in particulars of the increasing altitude. This was the kind of thing that broke in upon our slumbers all through the night. Our naturalist, twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea, the chancery barrister in provokingly sleepy tone. Ah! Then we turn over and fall asleep again. A quarter of an hour later our naturalist, fifteen hundred feet now, chancery barrister. Really? Another fitful slumber broken by a strong presentiment that the demoniacal aneroid is being again produced. Our naturalist exultantly, as if he had privately arranged the incline and was justly boastful of his success. Twenty-one hundred feet! Chancery barrister evidently feeling that something extra is expected of him. No, really, no. This kind of thing through what should be the silent watches of the night is to be deprecated, as tending to bring silence into disrepute. There was a good deal of excitement about the baggage. We were a personally conducted party to the extent that the honourable member who had suggested the trip had undertaken the general direction, or had had the office thrust upon him. Feeling his responsibility, he had, immediately on arriving at Calais, changed some English money. This was found very convenient. Nobody had any francs except the member, so we freely borrowed from him to meet trifling exigences. With the object of arriving at the best possible means of dealing with the vexed question of luggage, a variety of expedients had been tried. The chancery barrister, having read many moving narratives of raids made upon registered luggage in the secrecy of the luggage van, had adopted a course which displayed a profound knowledge of human nature. He had argued with himself, as if he were a judge in chambers, that what proved an irresistible temptation to foreign guards and other railway officials was the appearance of boxes and portmanteau, iron clasped, leather-strapped, and double-locked. The inference naturally was that they contained much that was valuable. Now, he had pointed out to himself, if you take a directly opposite course, and as it were, invite the gentleman in charge of your luggage to open your portmanteau, he will think you have nothing in it worth his attention, and will pass on to others more jealously guarded. You can't very well leave your box open, as the things might tumble out, so as a happy compromise he had duly locked and strapped his portmanteau, and then tied the key to the handle. As he observes with the shrewd perception that will inevitably lead him to the woolsack, you are really helpless and can do nothing to prevent these gentlemen from helping themselves. If you leave the key there, there is a fair chance of their treating your property, as their Levite treated the Good Samaritan. If not, your box will be decently opened, instead of having a lock broken or the hinges wrenched off. That was a good idea, and proved triumphantly successful, for on arrival at Montreux the chancery barrister's portmanteau turned up all right, the key innocently reposing on the handle, and, as subsequent investigation showed, the contents untouched. Our manufacturer had a still better way, though, as was urged, he comes from Yorkshire, and we of the southern part of the island have no chance in competition with the race. He lost his luggage somewhere between Dover and Paris, and has ever since been free from all care on the subject. Perhaps it was the influence of these varied incidents that led to a scene of some excitement on our arrival at Montreux station. There, what was left of our luggage was disgorged, and of fourteen packages registered, only nine were visible to the naked eye. It was then the patriarch came to the front, and displayed some of those qualities which subsequently found a fuller field amid the solitude of the Alps. We call him the patriarch because he is a grandfather. In other respects he is the youngest of the party, the first on the highest peak, the first down in the afternoon with his ready order for tea for ten, of which, if the party is late in arriving and he finds time hang heavy on his hands, he will genially drink five cups himself. With the care of half a dozen colossal commercial undertakings upon his mind, he is as merry as a boy, and as playful as a kitten. But, when once aroused, his anger is terrible. His thunder and lightning played around the stationmaster at Montreux on the discovery of the absence of five packages. The patriarch has a wholesome faith in the all sufficiency of the English language. The stationmaster's sole lingual accomplishment was French. This concatenation of circumstances might with ordinary persons have led to some diminution of the force of adoration. But probably the stationmaster lost little of the meaning the patriarch desired to convey. This tended in the direction of showing the utter incapacity of the Swiss or French nature to manage a railway, and the discreditable incompetency of the officials of whatever grade. The stationmaster was properly abashed before the torrent of indignant speech. But he had his turn presently. Carmer inspection disclosed the fact that all the fourteen packets were delivered. It was delightful to see how the stationmaster, immediately assuming the offensive, followed the patriarch about with gesticulation indicative of the presence of the baggage, and with taunting speech designed to make the patriarch withdraw his remarks, whatever they might have been. On this point the stationmaster was not clear, but he had a shrewd suspicion that they were not complementary. The patriarch, however, now retired upon his dignity. It was, as he said, no use arguing with fellows like this. Les avants sit high up among the mountains at the back of Montreur. It seems madness to go there at a time when fires are still cheerful, and when the leaves have not yet put forth their greenness. But as was made apparent in due time, les avants, at no time inconveniently cold, would be but for the winds that blow over the snow-clad hills, surprisingly hot. To build a hotel here seems a perilously bold undertaking. It is not on the way to anywhere, and people going from the outer world must march up the hill, and when they are tired of it, must needs like the Duke of York in his famous military expedition march down again. None but a Swiss would build a hotel here, and few but English would frequent it. Yet the shrewdness of the proprietor has been amply justified, and les avants is becoming, in increasing degree, a favourite pilgrimage. The hotel was built nearly twenty years ago. Previously the little valley it dominates had been planted with one or two chalets, which, for more than half a century, have looked out upon the deathless snows of the Dandu midi. There is one which has rudely carved over the lintel of its door the date 1816. Noting which, the chancery barrister, with characteristic accuracy, observed that five centuries looked down upon us. Our landlord is an enterprising man. His business in life is to keep an hotel, and the height of his ambition is to keep it well. Only a fortnight ago he returned from a grand tour of the winter watering-places, from the Bay of Biscay to the Bay of Genoa. The ordinary attractions of the show-places, from Biarritz to Portiguera, had no lure for him. What he studied were the hotels and their various modes of management. He told us, with a flush of pride on his suntanned cheek, that he travelled as an ordinary tourist. There was no hint of his condition or the object of his journey, no appeal to confraternity with a view to getting bed and breakfast at trade prices, or some reduction on the tabledoat charges. He travelled as a sort of Harun al-Rashid among innkeepers, hortily paying his bills, and possibly feeing the waiters. He is a very good sort of fellow, attentive and obliging. And it is odd how we all agree in the hope that he was, from time to time, overcharged. It is a fair prospect, looked out upon, from the bedroom window on our arrival. Almost at our feet, it seems, is the Lake of Geneva, though we remember the wearer some climb up the hill, and know it must be miles away. On the other side are the snow-clad hills that reach down to Savoy on the east, and are crowned by the heights of the Dendu Midi on the west. On the left, flanking our own place of abode, rise up the grim heights of the Roche-de-Nay, and still farther back, the Dendu Jamon, a terrible tooth this, which draws attention from all the country round, and excites the wildest ambition of the tourist. The man or woman, resting within a circuit of ten miles of Montreux, who has not touched the topmost heights of the Dendu Jamon, goes home a crushed person. A very small proportion do it, but every one talks of doing it, which, unless the weather be favourable, is perhaps the wiser thing to do. It fills a large place in the conversation, as well as in the landscape, and it will be a bad thing for the Lake of Geneva, if this tooth should ever be drawn. Lovely as was the scene in the fresh morning air, with the glistening snow, the dark pines on the lower hills, the blue lake, and the grayish upland, they did but serve to frame the picture of the patriarch, as he sat upon the bench in the front of the hotel. A short jacket of blue surge, knicker-bockers of the same material, displaying the proportions of a notable pair of legs, the whole crowned by a chimney-pot hat, went to make up a remarkable figure. The patriarch had in his hand a blue net for catching butterflies. The naturalist had excited his imagination by stories of the presence of the Camberwell Beauty, a rare and beautiful species of butterfly, of which he was determined to take home a specimen. In later days he was fair to see, with his hat thrown back on his brow, his net in his hand, and his stout legs twinkling in their haste to come up with a butterfly. The Alps have witnessed many strange sites since first they uplifted their heads to heaven, but it is calculated that the patriarch was the first who brought under their notice the chimney-pot hat of the civilised Englishman. This haste to be up on the first morning was a faithful precursor of the indomitable vitality of the patriarch. He was always first up and first off, and amongst many charming peculiarities was his indifference as to which way the road lay. We generally had a guide with us, and nothing was more common in toiling up a mountainside than to discover the guide half a mile to the left, and the patriarch half a mile to the right, something after the fashion of the letter Y, we being at the stem. We saw a good deal more of the country than we otherwise should have done, owing to the constant necessity of going after the patriarch and bringing him back. Sometimes he got away by himself, and others he deluded some hapless member of the company into following him. One young man, just called to the bar, had a promising career almost cut short on the second day. In the innocence of his heart he had followed the patriarch, who led him through an apparently impassable pine forest onto the crest of a remote hill, whence he crawled down an hour late for luncheon, the patriarch having arrived ten minutes before him, and having already had his knife into every receptacle for food that was spread out, from the loaf of bread to the box of sardines, from the preserved peaches to the cup without a handle that held the butter. Walking up the hill behind the hotel on the way to the jamon the member had a happy idea. Why, he asked, should not the parliamentary session be movable like a reading party? Say the bankruptcy bill is referred to a grand committee. What is to prevent them coming right off here and settling down for a fortnight or three weeks, or in fact whatever time might be necessary thoroughly to discuss the measure? They might do worse, we agreed, as we walked on carefully selecting the shady side of the road and thinking of dear friends shivering in England. The blue haze under which we know the lake lies, the alps all around, their green sides laced with snow and their heads covered with it, the fleckless blue sky, the brown rocks, and over all and through all the murmuring music of the invisible stream as it trickles on its way down the gorge, would be better accompaniments to a good grind at a difficult bill than any to be found within the precincts of Westminster. You will remember what Virgil says. The Chancery Barrister strikes in. Divers things of diverse character we have discovered invariably remind the Chancery Barrister of Virgil or Horace, occasionally a chance of an English poet. This is very pleasant, and none the less so because the reminiscences come slowly, gathering strength as they advance, like the Chancery Barrister's laugh, which begins like the pattering of rain on leaves and ends in the roar of a thunderstorm. The Chancery Barrister takes his jokes gently to begin with, he sees them afar off, and closing one eye begins to smile. The smile broadens to a grin, the grin becomes a cacination, then as he hugs the fun the cacination deepens to a roar of laughter and the thing is complete. It is thus with his quotations, though these are not always completed, at least not in accordance with recognised authorities. As one of the ladies says with that kindness peculiar to the sex, the Chancery Barrister is most original when he is making a quotation. What that Woolsey says about the pumps and vanities of this world? Vain pumps and vanities of this world. The Chancery Barrister begins, and we know we are in for a quotation. No, no, not pumps and vanities. Vain pumps and glories of this world. That's it. Vain pumps and glories of this world. I hate ye. I feel my heart new opened. Oh, how wretched is the poor man that hangs on princes favours. There is, betwixt the smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes and their ruin more pangs and fears than wars or women have. It's odd how one thing leads to another. By the time the Chancery Barrister has got his quotation right, the patriarch is half a mile ahead in the wrong direction and we all have to go and look for him. The coal de Jamon is the salvation of many tourists. Not being regular alpine climbers, they start over the don and get as far as the coal, rest a while just under the great mountain molar and come down. We had a splendid day for our expedition. It had been freezing hard in the night and when we reached the snow region we found the pines frosted. On the coal a beneficent commune has built some chalets furnished with plentiful supply of firewood. Out of the sun it was bitterly cold and we were glad to light a fire which crackled and roared up the broad chimney and made a pretty accompaniment to the Chancery Barrister's song about the jolly young waterman. He sang it all in one key and the wrong one, but it was a well-meant effort and we all joined in the chorus. There's some talk today of a startling episode at a hotel up their own valley. A Russian gentleman was sitting sipping his tea when there approached him a lady who addressed him in three languages. His reply is not being satisfactory. She shot him! This is cited by the Chancery Barrister as showing the advantage of an earlier acquaintance with foreign languages and the desirableness of a pure accent. It is quite agreed that if our naturalist had been in the Russian's place he would have been shot after the first question. This morning, on ringing for his bath, he was answered by a chambermaid with a bazon corps. Why not just yet? Our naturalist did not know. He was not unusually early, but he had done his duty. He had tried to get up and have his bath. It was not ready, so he might go back to bed with a quiet conscience. Presently came another knock, and our naturalist, carefully robing himself, opened the door and discovered the chambermaid standing there with a plate, a knife, and a breakfast roll. What the dev—I mean— C'est, c'est, c'est! he asked. Monsieur a demander le petit pas? The girl replied, astonished at his astonishment. With great presence of mind he accepted the situation, took in the bread, and did without his bath. The member says that coming upon him suddenly amid the silence of the snow, he heard him practising the slightly different sounds of paing and bain. Nothing but snow between the coal and the dents du jamon, but snow at its very best, hard and dry. Just before we reach the top, we come upon a huge drift frozen hard and slippery. We might have gone round, but we decided to try and climb. The patriarch, of course, was first, and achieved the task triumphantly. Others followed, and then came the chancery barrister. Another step, and he would have safely landed, but unhappily a quotation occurred to him. This is jolly, he said, turning half round, with the proud consciousness that he was at the crest, and that with another stride all would be well. What's that horror says about enjoying what you have? Here, the most terrible contortion appeared on the generally pleasant countenance of the chancery barrister. He clutched desperately at the ice, but his suspicion was too true. He had begun to move downwards. When he got to come he came, the member who makes bad jokes says, and with increasing impetus he slid down the bank. His face during the terrible moments when he was not quite certain where he would stop, or indeed whether he would ever stop, passed through a series of contortions highly interesting to those on the bank above. May pass, gondolive, eh? cried the member. Olives are evidently no uses of support in a case like yours, and Diakilan would be more used to you now than soft mallows. The chancery barrister, who had happily reached the bottom, walked round by a more accessible path, and nothing further either from Horace or Virgil occurred to him for more than an hour. Perhaps the difference in the weather had something to do with it, but we found the dent du jamon not nearly so difficult to climb as the Roche-de-Nay. After the scamper across the snow and the climb over this little ice-collar, done which the chancery barrister had slipped, there is no more snow. We'd climb up by steps worn by the feet of many adventurers. The top is a level cone, with an area not much greater than that of a moderate-sized dining-room. There was not a breath of wind, and the sun beat down with a warmth made all the more delicious by the recollection of the frozen region through which we had passed. The dent is only a trifle above six thousand feet high, but the prospect has seen from it stretches far. Below is the canton de Vaux, a portion of the Jura chain of mountains, the far-reaching Alps of the Savoye, a bit of the lake gleaming like an emerald under the white tops of the mountains, a cloud on the southern horizon that the guide tells us of the mountains of the valley, and still to the south just touched by the sun, glitter the snow summits of the great St. Bernard. Coming down we bivouac in the chalet, lighting up the fire again. Here, twelve hundred feet lower down it is bitterly cold, in spite of, perhaps because of, the fire. The chalet is built with commendable deference to the necessity for ventilation. The wind-smelling fire comes rushing over the snow, and we are glad to put on coat and caps. The conversation turns to legal topics, and certain eminent personages are discussed with great severity. Of one it is roundly asserted that he is mad. I am quite sure of it," said the chancery barrister who has recovered his spirits with his footing, and I'll tell you why. He seconded me for the reform-club, and— We all agree that this is quite enough. But the chancery barrister insists on proceeding with his narrative, of which it seems this was merely the introduction. We found our naturalist of very little use. We had expected he would mount with us whatever heights we sought, and had pleasing views of his explaining the flora as we went along. But he always had some excuse that kept him on lower levels. One morning he declared he had passed a sleepless night owing to the efforts of two scotch lads who occupied the room next to him. They had some taste for carpentering, and were addicted to getting up in the dead of the night and doing odd jobs about the room. At half-past five a.m. they left their couch and began playing Cain and Abel. Only the naturalist protested there is no authority in scripture for the fearful row Abel made when Cain got him down on his back. At other times our naturalist had heard of a Camberwell beauty in the neighbourhood and must-needs go and catch it, which, by the way, he never did. On the whole we conclude our naturalist is an impostor. We reserved the Roche-de-Nay till the last day. It was rather a stupendous undertaking, the landlord assuring us that four guides were necessary. One led a horse that no one would ride, one carried the indispensable luncheon basket, and two fared forth at early morn to cut steps in the snow. The sun was shining when we started on this desperate enterprise, and it was hot enough as we toiled along the lower heights. But when we reached the snow level the sun had gone in, having just shone long enough to make the snow wet. Then a cold, bleak wind set in, and we began to think that after all there was more in the naturalist than met the eye. Whilst we were toiling along, sometimes temporarily despairing, and generally up to our wastes in snow, he was enjoying the comforts of the hotel, or strolling about in languid search of fabulous butterflies. Picking our way round a hill in which had been cut in the snow a ledge about two feet wide, we came in face of the slope we were to climb. Up at the top, looking like black ants, were the guides cutting a zigzag path in the snow. The member observed that if anyone were to offer him a sovereign and his board on condition of his climbing up this slope, he would prefer to remain in indigent circumstances. As we were getting nothing for the labour, were indeed paying for the privilege of undertaking it, and we stuck at it, and after a steady climb reached the top, when the wind was worse than ever. It was past lunch and time, and every one was ferociously hungry, but it was agreed that if we camped here and lunched we should never get to the top. So on we went through the sloppy snow, pursued by the keen blast that cut through all possible clothing. It was a hard pull and not much to see for it since clouds had rolled up from the west and hid the promised panorama. The wind was terrible and there was no shelter, but we could hold out no longer, and the luncheon being laid upon the sloppy grass the patriarch, with his accustomed impartiality, went round with his knife. By this time we had induced him to take the sardines last, which he obligingly did. We ran most of the way back to the side of the hill where the snow had been cut. The exercise made us a little warmer, and the genial influence of the cold fowl, the hard-boiled eggs, the sardines, and the thin red wine beginning to work, we were able to enjoy the spectacle of the patriarch leading the first party down the perilous incline. We had ropes, but didn't think it worthwhile to be tied. The party was divided into two sections, half a dozen holding onto a rope. It must have been a beautiful sight for many a near mountain height to watch the patriarch's chimney-pot hat slowly move downwards on the zigzag path. What that Virgil says about ranging mountain tops, said the chancery barrister. He had got in the centre of the second party, and with two before him, three behind, and a firm grip on the rope, he thought it safe to quote poetry. We had eight days at Les Avants, of which this, devoted to the ascent of the roche, was the only one the sun did not shine upon. Whether on mountain or in valley, what time the sun was shining, it was delightfully warm. The Narcissae were not yet out, but the fields were thick with their buds. How the place would look when their glory had burst forth on all the green alps, we could only imagine. But already everywhere bloomed the abundant marigolds, the hepaticae, the violets, the oxlips, the gentions, the primroses, and the forget-minots. CHAPTER 12 The Battle of Murther Well, sir, it is, as you say, a long time ago. But it was one of those things, look you, that a man meets with only once in his lifetime. And that being so, I might call it all to mind, if I began slowly, and went on, so as to keep my pipe alight to the end. The speaker was a little white-haired miner, who had been employed for fifty years by the crochets of Kovatva. We were sitting in the sanctum of his kitchen, the beautifully sanded floor of which smoked me with remorse, for I had walked up from Murther, and was painfully conscious of two muddy footprints in the doorway. Mrs. Morgan Griffiths, engaged upon the task of repairing Mr. Morgan Griffith's hose, was seated in the middle of the room opposite the fireplace, having against the wall on either side of her a mahogany chest of draws, in resplendent state of polish. Mr. Morgan Griffiths sat beside the fireplace with his pipe in one hand, the other resting affectionately upon another mahogany chest of draws, also resplendently polished, standing in a recess at his left. The other side of the fireplace was occupied by the visitor, who, if he had turned his head a little to the right, might have seen his face reflected in the resplendent polish of a third mahogany chest of draws, which somewhat inconveniently projected from the recess on the side of the fireplace. Apparently every well-to-do Welsh collier marks his status in society by the possession of a mahogany chest of draws, if mounted in brass so much the better, which it is the pride and privilege of his wife to keep in a state of resplendent polish. Mr. Morgan Griffiths, having had a long run of prosperity and being of a frugal mind, had launched out largely in the purchase of mahogany chests of draws, and his kitchen may be said to bristle with them. Each had its history, and it was to the patient listening to the repetition thereof, and to the expenditure of much appreciative criticism upon the varied styles of architecture displayed in their construction, that I completely won Mr. Morgan Griffiths' confidence, and overcame the cautious fencing with which he met my first inquiries touching his recollection of the memorable Mercer Riots of 1831. Perfect confidence reigned between us now. And I discovered that, though it is exceedingly hard to get a Welsh miner to talk freely to a Saxon, when he opens his heart and can look back for a period of fifty years, he is a very interesting companion. Yes, it's a long time ago. Mr. Morgan Griffiths repeated, in short clipping intonation of the English language, I will not attempt to reproduce. But I've talked it over with Mrs. Morgan Griffiths, and I can see it all now. Times was so bad, and there was a deal of poverty about. Bread was dear, and iron was cheap. At least so, Mr. Crochet said, when we went up to ask him if he couldn't give us miners a trifle over the twelve or thirteen shillings a week we was earning. Everybody I knowed was in debt, and had been in debt for some time, and was getting further in every week. The shopkeepers up at Mercer were getting uneasy about their money, and besides saying plump out to many of us that we couldn't have any more bread, or that without money down on the nail, they served out all round summonses to what was called the Court of Requests. That was all very well, but as we couldn't get enough to eat from day to day upon our wages, it was pretty certain we couldn't go and pay up arrears, but the summonses came all the same, and it was a black look-out, I can tell you. One day, in the middle of the summer of this year, 1831, there was a great meeting out on Wine Hill of all the miners of the country. I can't rightly tell you the day of the month, but it was about three weeks after we rescued Thomas Llewelyn, who had been sent to jail on account of the row at Mr. Stevens's. We talked over our grievances together, and we made up our minds that we couldn't stand them any longer. Though we meant no more mischief than our little Morgan, who wasn't born then, me and Mrs. Morgan Griffiths not being married at the time, nor indeed set eyes on each other. After the row opposite the bush in, I went back to my work, till such time as the petition we had agreed to send to the King was written out by Owen Evans, and had come round to be signed by us all. For there was others not so peaceably minded, and a lot of them, meeting outside Murther, marched over the hill to Aberdea, where they went to Mr. Fothergill's, and treated him pretty roughly. They ate up all the vitals in the house, and finished up all the beer, and then took a turn round the town, collecting all the bread and cheese they could lay their hands on. A lad, sent by Mr. Fothergill, came running over the mountain with a letter to the magistrates, telling them what was happening in Aberdea, and pressing them to send off for the soldiers. It was said the magistrates did this pretty quick, but we had no railways or telegraphs then, and ride as quick as you might the soldiers could not get here before morning. The men from Aberdea were back here the same night, and marched straight for the court of requests, where they made poor coffin the clerk give up every scrap of book or paper he had about the court's business, and they made a bonfire of them in the middle of the street. Then they came over here, and swore we should all turn out and join them. I remember it well. I was just coming up from the pit to go to my tea, and they came bursting over the tips, shouting and waving their sticks, and wearing in their hats little bits of burnt paper from the bonfire opposite Coffin's house. They were most of them drunk, but they were very friendly with us, and only wanted us to leave off work and go along with them. I was a young fellow then, up to any lark, and didn't make much fuss about it. So off we went to Dowlice, freed the men there, and we all had a good drink together. Next day the soldiers came in earnest, scotchmen with petticoats on, and nasty-looking guns on their shoulders. I stood in a passage whilst they marched down High Street from Cavalfer Way, and didn't like the look of things at all. But close upon their heels came all our fellows, with bludgeoned in their hands, and one of them, a man from Dowlice, had tied a red pocket handkerchief on a stick, and waved it over his head like a flag. The soldiers tramped steadily along till they got just above the castle in, and there they halted, our men pressing on till they filled the open place below the castle, as well as crowding the street behind the soldiers, who looked to me, as I hung on by the hands and legs to a lamppost, just like a patch of red in the centre of a great mass of black. The soldiers had some bread and cheese and beer served out to them, but they were a long time getting it, for as soon as anyone came out of the castle with a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese some of our men snatched it out of their hands and ate it, jeering at the soldiers and offering them bits. The soldiers never said a word or budged an inch till the sheriff looked out of the window and asked the little fellow who was their commander in chief to draw them up on the pavement close before the hotel. The little fellow said something to them, and they turned round their guns so as the buttons were presented, and marched straight forward, as if our fellows were not on the pavement as thick as ants. There was a little stoppage owing to the men not being able to clear off, because of the crowd on the right and left, but the thick ends of the guns went steadily on, with the bare-legged silent soldiers after them, and in a few strides the pavement was clear, and the soldiers were eating their bread and cheese with their faces to the crowd, and a tight right-handed grip on their muskets. The sheriff got on a chair in the door of the castle, with the soldiers well placed between him and us, and made a rigmaroling speech about law and order and the king, but he said nothing about giving us more wages. Our master, Mr. Crochet, was in the hotel too, and so was Mr. Guest of Dauleis. Evan Jones, a man who had come over from Aberdea, got up on the shoulders of his mates, and made a rattling speech all about our poor wages. Law and order is all very well, he said, but can you live on twelve shillings a week, Mr. Sheriff, and bring up a lot of little sheriffs? Then we all shouted. An old Crochet, coming up to the doorway, I got down from the lamppost, not wishing to let him see me there, though I was only standing on my rights. But Mr. William had a voice which, something like an old file at work, could go through any crowd, and I heard him in his quiet stern way, just as if he was talking to his men on a payday. Say it was no use them crowding there with sticks and stones to talk to him about wages. Go home, all of you, he said. Go to bed, and when you are sober and in your senses, send us a deputation from each mine, and we'll see what can be done. But he won't be sensible for a fortnight after this mad acting, so let us say on this day fortnight you'll come with your deputation. Now go home, and don't make fools of yourselves any more. We always listen to what Mr. Crochet said, though it might be a little hard sometimes, and this made us waver. But just then, Louis R. Helor, shouting out in Welsh, we asked for more wages, and they give us soldiers, leapt at the throat of the Scotsman nearest to him, and snatching the musket out of his hand, stuck the bayonet into him. In the twinkling of an eye the great black mass jumped upon the little red patch I told you of, and a fearful struggle began. The attack was so sudden, and the soldiers were at the moment so earnest with their bread and cheese, that nearly all the front-rank men lost their muskets, and pressed backward on their comrades behind. These levelled their pieces over the front-rank shoulders, and fired straight into the thick of us. The little officer had hardly given the word to fire when he was knocked down by a blow on the head, and a bayonet stuck into him. Our men pressed stoutly forward, and tumbling over the dead fell upon the soldiers, who could move neither arm nor leg. The rear-rank were as fast as they could bustle, filing into the hotel, but not before they had managed to pass over their heads the little officer, who looked very sick, with the blood streaming down his face. At last the soldiers all got inside the doorway of the hotel, where they stood fast, like a wedge, two kneeling down shoulder to shoulder with their bayonets fixed, three others firing over their heads, and others behind, handing up loaded guns as fast as they fired. There was a lane speedily made amongst us in front of the doorway, but we had won the fight for all that, and cheered like mad when the soldiers turned tail. In a few minutes we shouted on the other side of our mouths. Without any notice the windows of every room in the hotel suddenly flew up, and out came from each the muzzles of a pair of muskets, which flashed death down upon us at the rate of two men a minute. For as soon as the first couple of soldiers fired, they retired and reloaded, whilst two others took their places and blazed away. A rush was made to the back of the hotel, and we had got into the passage when the bearded faces of the Scotsman showed through the smoke with which the house was filled, and the leaders of our lot were shoved back at the point of the bayonet. At the same time the windows at the back of the house flew up, as they had done in the front, and the muzzles of the muskets peeped out as they had done before. This was getting rather hot for me. Men dead or dying were lying about everywhere around the castle in. If I had been asked that night how many were killed, I think I should have said two hundred. But when the accounts came to be made up it was found that not more than sixty or seventy were shot dead, though many more were wounded. I was neither hurt nor dead as yet, and I thought I had better go home if I wanted to keep so. I was below the castle in at the time, and not caring to pass the windows with those deadly barrels peeping out, I turned down High Street and walked through the town. It was raining in torrents, and I never saw Mercer look so wretched. Every shop was closed, and barricades placed across some of the windows of the private houses. And as I walked along, trying to look as if I hadn't been up at the castle, I saw white faces peeping over window blinds. Mercer was trembling in its shoes that day, I can tell you. And it came out afterwards that every tradesman in the place had got together all the bread, cheese, meat, pies and beer he could put his hands on, ready to throw out to the mob if they came knocking at his door. It was late at night when I got home, having gone a long way round, and I saw nothing more of our fellows. But I heard that the wounded soldiers had been taken up to Penadaran House, which was fortified by their comrades and held all night against our men. Somehow the word got passed round that we were to meet the next morning in a quiet place on the Brecken Road. And when I got there I found our gallant fellows in great force. I, having neither sword nor gun, was told off with a lot of others to get up on the heights that banked the Turnpike Road near Koida Kummer, and rolled down big stones so that the fresh troops expected up from Brecken could not pass. This we did with a will. And when in the afternoon a lot of cavalry came up, we made it so hot for them what with the stones rolled down from above, and the musketry that came rattling up from our men who had guns, that they cleared off pretty smartly. This cheered us greatly, and another lot of ours who had been posted on the Swansea Road to intercept troops coming up in that direction soon after joined us with news of a great victory by which they had routed the soldiers and taken their swords and muskets. We thought Mercer was ours, though I'm not sure that we quite knew what we were going to do with it. When somebody shouted, Let's go to Mercer, we all shouted with him, and ran along the road intending to take Penadaran House by storm. On the way we met Evan Price and some others who had been to see Mr. Guest, and had been promised fine things for the men if they would give up their arms and go peaceably to work. Some jumped at this offer and sneaked off, but I had got a sabre now and was in for death or glory. There was a good many in the same boat, and on we went towards Penadaran House, enough of us to eat it up if the walls had been built of boiled potatoes instead of bricks. When we got in sight of the house we found they were ready for us, and had got a lot of those soldiers drawn up in battle array. There was a deal of disputing amongst our leaders how the attack was to commence, and whilst they were chattering the men were dropping off in twos and threes, and in about an hour we were all gone, so nothing more was done that night. We lay quietly in our own homes on Sunday, and on Monday had a great meeting on Wine Hill again, colliers coming up by thousands to join us from all parts around. Early in the forenoon we began to move down towards Mercer, everybody in high spirits, shouting, waving caps and brandishing swords. I saw one man get an awful backhanded cut on the cheek from an abadare collier who was waving his sword about like a madman. Nobody knew exactly where we were going or what we were going to do, but when we got as far as Daolais we were saved the trouble of deciding for there was Mr. Guest, with a great army of soldiers drawn up across the road. Mr. Guest was as cool as myself, and rode forward to meet us as if we were the best friends in the world. He made a good speech, begging us to think of our wives and families, and go quietly home whilst we had the chance. Nothing came of that, however, and he pulled out a paper and read an act of Parliament, after which he turned to the commander in chief of the soldiers, and said he had done all a magistrate could do, and the soldiers were stewed to the rest. Get ready, shouts out to the commander in chief, and the soldiers brought their muskets down with a flashlight lightning, and a clash that made me feel uncomfortable, remembering what I had seen on the Friday. Present! There were ten murderous barrels looking straight at us. Another word, and we should have their contents amongst our clothes. It was an awful moment. I saw one black-bearded fellow had covered me as if I were a round target, and I said to myself, as well as I could speak, for my lips were like parched peas, Morgan Griffith, twelve shillings a week, and an allowance of coal is better than this. And I'm not ashamed to own that I turned round and made my way through the crush of our men, which was getting less inconveniently pressing at the end nearest to the leveled barrels. There was, to tell the truth, a good deal of movement towards the rear amongst our men, and when Mr. Guest saw this he rode up again, and standing right between the guns and the front rank of our men said something which I could not rightly hear, and then our men began running off faster than ever, so that in about half an hour the soldiers had the road to themselves. That was not the last of the riots, but it is all I can tell you about them, for I had had quite enough of the business. There is something about the look of a row of muskets pointed at you with ball inside the barrels and a steady finger on the triggers, which you don't care to see too often. Anyhow, I went home, and there heard Tellath Moore fighting all that week on the Brecken Road, of Murther in a state of panic, and at last of Dick Penderin and Louis the Huntsman being taken, and the whole of our men scattered about the country and hunted as if they were rats. It was a bad business, sir, a very bad business, and I know no more than them as was shot down in the front of the Castle Hotel how it came about, or what we meant to do. We were like a barrel of gunpowder that had been broken up and scattered about the road. A spark came and we went off with a bang and couldn't stop ourselves. Yes, this is a bad business too, this strike of today, and there's a good many thousand men going about idle and hungry who were busy and full a month ago. I don't feel the bitterness of it myself so much, because I have a little store in the house. I've been saving it to buy another chest of drawers, to stand there opposite the door. But it's going out now in bread and meat, and I don't know whether I shall live to save up enough after the trouble's over. For I'm getting old now, look you. Perhaps it is the noise of the city that scares them. The people live in the street as much as possible and they're in conduct their converse in highly pitched notes. I have a strong suspicion that like the habitation jointly rented by Mrs. Box and Cox, Genoa is tenanted by two distinct populations. One fills the place by day and throughout the evening up to about ten o'clock. After this hour it disappears, and there is a brief interval of rare repose. About two a.m. the Cox of this joint tenancy appears on the scene, and by four there is a full tide of bustle that murders sleep as effectually as was ever done by Macbeth. I do not wonder that the mosquitoes, who I have the best reason to know, are insects of the finest discrimination and the most exacting good taste. Quit Genoa at the earliest possible moment. The most delightful spot in or near the city is, to my mind, Campo Santo, the place where rich Genoese go when they die. The burial ground is a large plot of ill-kept land where weeds grow and mean little crosses rear their heads. Round this run colonnades adorned with statuary, generally life-size, and frequently of striking merit. Originally it is presumable that the sculptor's art was invoked in order to perpetuate the memory of the dead. There are, in some of the recesses, either in the form of medallions or busts, lifelike representations of those who have gone before. But the fashion of the day is improving upon this. In the newest sculptures there is exceedingly little of the dead and as much as possible of the living. About half-way down the colonnade, entering from the right, there is a memorable group. A woman of middle age, portly presence, and expansive dress is discovered in the centre on her knees, with hands clasped. The figure is life-size, and every detail of adornment, from the heavy bracelet on her wrist to the fine lace of her collar, is wrought from the imperishable marble. On her face is an expression of profound grief, tempered by the consciousness that her large earrings have been done justice to. Standing at a respectful distance behind her is a youths with bared head drooped, and a tear delicately chiselled in the eye nearest to the spectator. He carries his hat in his hand, displays much shirt-cuff, and the bell-shaped cut of the trouser lying over his dainty boot makes his foot look preciously small. These figures, both life-size, stand in an arched recess, and show to the best advantage. Just above the arch the more observant visitor will catch sight of a small medallion, modestly displaying, about half life-size, the face of an ordinary-looking man, who may have been a prosperous linen draper or a cheese-factor with whom the markets had gone well. This is presumably the deceased, and it is difficult to imagine anything more soothing to the feelings of his widow and son than to come here in the quiet evenings or peaceful mornings and contemplate their own life-sized figures so becomingly bereaved. Mosquitoes do not meddle with woes so sacred as this, but at San Remo, for example, which has no Campo Santo, they are having what is known in the American language as a high old time. Along the Riviera the shutters of the hotels are taken down in the first week of October, then arrives the proprietor with the advance guard of servants and the third cook. The chef and his first lieutenant will not come till a month later. In the meantime the third cook can prepare the meals for the establishment, and for any chance visitor whom evil fate may have led untimously into these parts. Then begins the scrubbing down and the dusting, the bringing out of stored carpets, and the muffling of echoing corridors in brown matting. The season does not commence till November, coincidental with the departure of the mosquitoes, but there is enough to occupy the interval, and there are not wanting casual travellers whose bills suffice to cover current expenses. On these wayfarers the faithful Mosquito prays with the desperate determination born of the conviction that time is getting a little short with him, and that his pleasant evenings are numbered. There are several ways of dealing with the Mosquito, all more or less unsatisfactory. The commonest is to make careful examination before blowing out the candle, with intent to see that none of the enemy lingers within the curtains of the bed. This is good, as far as it goes. But having spent half an hour with candle in hand inside the curtains to the imminent danger of setting the premises on fire, and having convinced yourself that there is not a Mosquito in the enclosure, and so blown out the candle and prepared to sleep, it requires a mind of singular equanimity forthwith to hear without emotion the two familiar whiz. At Bordeguera the Mosquito's disdaining strategic movements openly flutter round the lamps on the dinner table, and ladies sit at meet with blue gore's veils obscuring their charms. Half measures were evidently of no use in these circumstances, and I tried a whole one. Having shut the windows of the bedroom, I smoked several cigars, tobacco fumes being understood to have a dreamy influence on the Mosquito. At Bordeguera they had none. I next made a fire of a box of matches, and burnt on the embers a quantity of insect powder. This filled the chamber with an intolerable stench, which, whatever may be the case elsewhere, is much enjoyed by the Bordeguera Mosquito. These operations serve a useful purpose in occupying the mind, and helping the night to pass away, but as direct deterrents they cannot conscientiously be recommended. There is one place along the Riviera where the Mosquito is defied. Monaco has special attractions of its own, which triumphantly withstand all countervailing influences. Other places along the coast are deserted from the end of June to the beginning of November, but Monaco, or rather the suburb of it situated on Monte Carlo, remains in full receipt of custom. In late October the place is enchanting. The wind, blowing across the sea from Africa, making the atmosphere heavy and sultry, has changed, coming now from the east and anon from the west. The heavy clouds that cast shadows of purple and reddish-brown on the sea have descended in a thunderstorm, lasting continuously for eight hours. Sky and sea vie in the production of larger expanse of undimmed blue. The well-ordered garden by the casino is sweet with the breath of roses and heliotrope. The lawns have the fresh green look that we islanders associate with earliest summer. The palm trees are at their best, and along the road leading down to the bathing-place one walks under the shadow of oleanders in full and fragrant blossom. The warmth of the summer day is tempered by a delicious breeze which falls at night, lest per adventure visitors should be incommodated by undue measure of cold. If there is an easily accessible paradise on earth, it seems to be fixed at Monaco. Yet all these things are as nothing in the eyes of the people who have created and now maintain the place. It seems at first sight a marvel that the administration should go to the expense of providing the costly appointments which crown its natural advantages. But the administration know very well what they are about. When man or woman has been drawn into the feverish vortex that sweeps around the gaming tables, the fair scene outside the walls is not of the slightest consequence. It would be all the same to them if the gaming tables, instead of being set in a handsome apartment in a palace surrounded by one of the most beautiful scenes in Europe, were made of deal and spread in a hoffle. But game-sters are literally soon played out at Monaco, and it is necessary to attract fresh moths to the gaudily glittering candle. Moreover, the tenure of the place is held by slender threads. What is thought of Monaco and its doings by those who have the fullest opportunity of studying them, is shown by the fact that the administration are pledged to refuse admission to the tables, to any subject of the Prince of Monaco, or to any French subject of Nice, or the Department of the Maritime Alps. The proclamation of this fact cynically stares in the face all who enter the casino. The local authorities will not have any of their own neighbours ruined, let foreigners, or even Frenchmen of other departments, care for themselves. In face of this sentiment, the administration find it politic to propitiate the local authorities and the people who, if they were aroused to a feeling of honest indignation at what daily passes beneath their notice, might sweep the pestilence out of their midst. Accordingly, whilst keeping the gaming rooms closed against natives' resident in the department, the administration throw open all the other pleasures of Monte Carlo, inviting the people of Monaco to stroll in their beautiful gardens, to listen to the concerts played twice a day by a superb band, and to make unfettered use of what is perhaps the best reading-room on the continent. Monaco gets a good deal of pleasure out of Monte Carlo, which, moreover, brings much good money into the place. The casino will surely, at no distant day, share the fate of the German gambling places, but as surely the initiative of this most desirable consummation will not come from Monaco. In the meanwhile, Monte Carlo, like the mosquitos, is having a high good time. Night and day the tables are crowded, beginning briskly at eleven in the morning, and closing wearily on the stroke of midnight. There are a good many English about, but they do not contribute largely to the funds of the amiable and enterprising administration. English girls, favoured by an indulgent father or a good-natured brother, put down their five-franc pieces, and, having lost them, go away smiling. Sometimes the father or the brother may be discovered seated at the tables later in the day, looking a little flushed, and poorer by some sovereigns. But Great Britain and Ireland chiefly contribute spectators to the melancholy and monotonous scene. As usual, women are among the most reckless players. Looking in at two o'clock one afternoon, I saw at one of the tables a well-dressed lady of about thirty, with a purse full of gold before her, and a bundle of notes under her elbow. She was playing furiously, disdaining the mild excitement of the five-franc piece, always staking gold. She was losing, and boldly played on with an apparent composure belied by her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. I saw her again at ten o'clock in the evening. She was playing at another table, having probably tried to retrieve her luck at each in succession. The bank notes were gone, and she had put away her purse, for it was easy to hold in her prettily gloved hand her remaining store of gold. It was only eight hours since I had last seen her, but in the meantime she had aged by at least ten years. She sat, looking fixedly on the table, from time to time moistening her dry lips with scarcely less dry tongue. Her face wore a look of infinite sadness, which might have been best relieved by a burst of tears, but her eyes were as dry as her lips, and she stared stonily, staking her napoleons till the last was gone. In ten minutes she had lost all but a single gold piece. Leaving the table again, she held this up between her finger and thumb, and showed it to her friend with a hysterical little laugh. It was her last coin, and she evidently devised it for some such matter-of-fact purpose as paying her hotel bill. If she had turned her back on the table and walked straight out, she might have kept her purpose, but the ball was still rolling, and there remained a chance. She threw down the napoleon, and the croupier raked it in amid a heap of coin that might be better or even worse spared. This is one of the little dramas that take place every hour in this gilded hall, and I describe it in detail only because I chance to be present at the first scene and the last. Sometimes the dramas become tragedies, and the administration, who do all things handsomely, pay the funeral expenses, and beg as a slight acknowledgment of their considerate generosity that as little noise as possible may follow the echo of the pistol shot. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Faces and Places by Henry W. Lucy Chapter 14 A Wreck in the North Sea One December afternoon in the year 1875, just as night was closing in, the steam-tug Liverpool, which had left Harwich at six o'clock in the morning, was seen steaming into the harbour with flag half-mast high. It was quite dark when she reached the quay, but there was light enough for the crowd collected to see rows of figures laid in the stern of the little steamer. The faces covered with blankets. These figures, as it presently was made known, were twelve dead bodies, the flotsam of the wreck of the Deutschland. When the tug arrived at the wreck, she found her much as she had been left when the survivors had been brought off the previous day. The two masts and the funnel were all standing, the sails bellied out with the wind that blustered across the sandbank. The wind was so high and the sea so rough that Captain Corrington could not bring his tug alongside, but a boat was launched under the charge of the Chief Mate and Captain Brickersstein of the Deutschland. The Chief Officer and the Engineer, with some sailors from the tug, rode out and made fast to the wreck. It was low water and the deck was dry. There were no bodies lying about the deck or near the ship, but on going below, in the saloon cabin there were found floating about eight women, a man and two children. These were taken on board the boat, and further search in the forecabin led to the discovery of the dead body of a man, making twelve in all. One of the bodies was that of a lady who, when the wreck was first boarded, had been seen lying in her berth. She had since been washed out, and had she floated out by the companion way or through the skylight, might have drifted out to sea with others. Like all the bodies found, she was fully dressed. Indeed, as fuller information showed, there was an interval between the striking of the ship and her becoming waterlogged, sufficiently long to enable all to prepare for what might follow. According to the Captain's narrative, the ill-fated vessel steamed out of Bremenhaven on Sunday morning, with a strong east wind blowing and snow falling thickly. This continued throughout Sunday. All Sunday night the lead was thrown every half hour, the last record showing seventeen fathoms of water. At four o'clock on Monday morning a light was seen, which the Captain believed to be that of the North Hindafire ship, a supposition which tallied with the reckoning. The vessel was forging slowly ahead, when at half-past five a slight shock was felt. This was immediately succeeded by others, and the Captain knew he had run on a bank. The order was passed to back the engines. This was immediately done, but before any way could be made the screw broke, and the ship lay at the mercy of wind and waves. She was bumping heavily, and it was thought if sail were set she might be carried over the bank. This was tried, but without effect. The Captain then ordered rockets to be sent up, and a gun fired. In the meantime the boats were ordered to be swung out, but the sea was running so high that it was felt it would be madness to launch them. Two boats were, however, lowered without orders, one being immediately swamped, and six people who had got into her swept into the sea. Life-preservers were served out to each passenger. The women were ordered to keep below in the saloon, and the men marshaled on deck to take turns at the pumps. At night, when the tide rose, the women were brought up out of the cabin. Some placed in the wheel-house, some on the bridge, and some on the rigging, where they remained till they were taken off by the tug that first came to the rescue of the hopeless folk. The whole of the mail was saved, the purser bringing it into the cabin, whence it was fished out and taken on board the tug. The passengers were all in bed when the ship struck, and were roused first by the bumping of the hull, and next by the cry that rang fore and aft for every man and woman to put on life-belts, of which there was a plentiful store in hand. The women jumped up and swarmed in the companion way of the saloon, making for the deck, where they were met by the stewardess, who stood in the way, and half-forced, half-persuaded them to go back, telling them there was no danger. After the screw had broken, the engines also failed, and the sails proved useless. The mail-passengers then cheerfully formed themselves into gangs and worked at the pumps, but as one said they were pumping at the North Sea, and as it was obviously impossible to make a clearance of that, the task was abandoned, and officers, crew, and passengers relaxed into a state of passive expectancy of sucker from without. That this could not long becoming happily seemed certain. The rockets which had been sent up had been answered from the shore. The light ship which had helped to mislead the captain was plainly visible, and at least two ships sailed by so near, that till they began hopelessly to fade away, one to the Northwood and the other to the Southwood, the passengers were sure those on board had seen the wreck, and were coming to their assistance. Perhaps it was this certainty of the nearness of sucker that kept off either the shrieking or the stupor of despair. However, that be, it is one of the most notable features about this fearful scene, that with a few exceptions, after the first shock, everybody was throughout the first day wonderfully cool, patient, and self-possessed. There was no regular meal on Monday, but there was plenty to eat and drink, and the opportunity seems to have been generally, though moderately improved. The women kept below all day, and while the fires were going, were served with hot soup, meat, bread, and wine, and seemed to have been inclined to make the best of a bad job. Towards night, the horror of the situation increased in a measure far beyond that marked by the darkness. All day long the sea had been washing over the ship, but by taking refuge in the berths, and on the tables and benches in the saloon, it had been possible to keep comparatively dry. As night fell the tide rose, and at midnight the water came rushing over the deck in huge volumes, filling the saloon and making the cabins floating coffins. The women were ordered up and instructed to take to the rigging, but many of them cowed by the wildness of the sea that now swept the deck for and aft, and shuddering before the fury of the pitiless, sleep-laden gale refused to leave the saloon. Then happened horrible scenes, which the pen refuses to portray in their fullness. One woman, driven mad with fear and despair, deliberately hung herself from the roof of the saloon. A man, taking out his pen-knife, dug it into his wrist, and worked it about as long as he had strength, dying where he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand, frantically shouting for paper and pencil. Somebody gave him both, and scribbling a note he corked it down in a bottle, and threw it overboard, following it himself a moment later, as a great wave came and swept him out of sight. There were five nuns on board, who, by their terror-stricken conduct, seemed to have added greatly to the weirdness of the scene. They were deaf to all entreaties to leave the saloon, and when, almost by main force, the stewardess, whose conduct throughout was plucky, managed to get them onto the companion ladder, they sank down on the steps, and stubbornly refused to go another step. They seemed to have returned to the saloon again shortly, for somewhere in the dead of the night, when the greater part of the crew and passengers were in the rigging, one was seen, with her body half through the skylight, crying aloud in a voice heard above the storm. Oh, my God! Make it quick! Make it quick! At daylight, when the tide had ebbed, leaving the deck clear, someone from the rigging went down, and looking into the cabin, saw the nuns floating about face upwards, all dead. There seems to have been a wonderful amount of unselfishness displayed, every body cheering and trying to help every other body. One of the passengers, a cheery tootin named Adolf Howman, took a young American lady under his special charge. He helped her up the rigging, and held her on there all through the night, and says she was as brave and as self-possessed as if they had been comfortably on shore. Some time during the night, an unknown friend passed down to him a bottle of whiskey. The cork was in the bottle, and as he was holding on to the rigging with one hand, and had the other round the lady, there was some difficulty in getting at the contents of the bottle. This he finally solved by knocking the neck off, and then found himself in the dilemma of not being able to get the bottle to the lady's mouth. You were pouring it down my neck, was her quiet response to his first essay. In the end he succeeded in aiming the whiskey in the right direction, and after taking some himself passed it on, feeling much refreshed. Just before a terrible accident occurred which threatened death to one or both. The purser, who had fixed himself in the rigging some yards above them, getting numbed, loosed his hold, and falling headlong struck against the lady, and bounded off into the sea. But Herrmann kept his hold, and the shock was scarcely noticed. On such a night all the obligations were not, as Herrmann gratefully acknowledges on the one side, for when one of his feet got numbed, his companion, following his direction, stamped on it till circulation was restored. From their perilous post, with waves occasionally dashing up and blinding them with spray, they saw some terrible scenes below. A man tied to the mast nearer the deck had his head cut off by the waves, as Herrmann says, though probably a rope or a loose spar was the agent. Not far off a little boy had his leg broken in the same manner. They could hear and see one of the nuns shrieking through the skylight, and when she was silenced the cry was taken up by a woman wailing from the wheelhouse. My child is drowned, my little one, Adam! At daylight a sailor running nimbly down the rigging reached the poop, and bending over attempted to seize some of the half-drowned people who were floating about. Once he caught a little child by the clothes, but before he could secure it a wave carried it out of his grasp, and its shrieks were hushed in the roar of the waters. At nine o'clock on the second morning of the wreck the tide had so far ebbed that the deck was clear, and coming down from the rigging the battered and shivering survivors began to think of getting breakfast. A provident sailor had, whilst it was possible, taken up a loft a couple of loaves of black bread, a ham, and some cheese. These were now brought out and fairly distributed. An hour and a half later all peril was over, and the gallant survivors were steaming for Harwich in the tugboat to Liverpool.