as straight as a die, but there are other creditors of yours here who might make themselves unpleasant. I thought I would put you on your guard.' Richard was well aware that this own peculiar friend of his, Dennis Blake-'Denny,' as he sometimes called him, 'for love and euphony'-was speaking two words for himself, and one for the "other creditors;' yet it would have hardly suited him to say so, since it must needs have provoked an open rupture. Moreover, he wanted to play, and his wish was ever a law to him. 'Oh, thanks,' said he dryly; 'but I think I'll risk it. Whatever happens, I shall settle with everybody to-morrow, you know, yourself included.' Richard Milbank did really intend to 'settle with everybody,' if he found himself mentioned to any considerable figure in his uncle's will: if not, he would also settle with them, in the sense of never entering the doors of the club again, or having a word to say to them. He had still a few hundreds left-for he was not so foolish as to denude himself of ready-money, if it could possibly be avoided-enough to keep himself for a week or two, and afterwards, when he should have persuaded Maggie to marry him, as he felt confident of doing; to defray the expenses of his honeymoon; and beyond that period, it was not his nature to concern himself. 'Well, if you really are going to pay to-morrow, Dick, honour bright, hesitated Blake; 'only, the notion here is' (and the speaker looked about him with a depreciating air) 'that it is all up with your expectations. You can't wonder at fellows looking sharp after their money it's every one for himself, you know, in this room.' Is it?' replied Richard bitterly. 'It seems to me, Blake, that some of you fellows are just a little greedy. You have had a good deal of my money among you.' 'That may be but if they have won of you, they have lost to others.' It was curious to remark how this gentleman would persist in putting 'they' for you:' the thing that he perhaps still called his conscience, dead to ordinary questions of right and wrong, had still some vitality in this particular matter, and taxed him with greed and harshness to his friend. It was still more curious to observe how quietly the other took his interference. Neither advice nor warning would Richard Milbank have submitted to for an instant from lips the most reverend and authoritative; and as for menace, he would have resented it with the most passionate audacity. He was savage with Blake, of course, and would have discharged his obligation to him by pushing him over an alpine precipice had a safe opportunity offered, with a great deal of satisfaction; but the uppermost desire in his mind at present was to have his 'plunge;' and the whim of the moment, as usual with him, was stronger than aught else. Without replying to his friend's last rejoinder, he moved towards the table, and as the rubber chanced to be just then brought to a conclusion, he cut in. It is not necessary to follow his fortunes; suffice it to say that, like the majority of presentiments that occur to us (though we only remember those that are fulfilled), his notion that he was in luck that day was not realised with respect to the possession of good cards. He put on the money-as gamblers (most anomalously) do, with the intention of 'pulling it off' again--but it was always pulled off by his adversaries. In the end, he lost all he had in his pocket, and increased his already considerable debt to Dennis Blake by fifty pounds. This last, it was true, concerned him very little, since, if things went badly for him in the will, he never intended to pay him a shilling. But not daring to play on credit with any one else, he had encroached upon the sum he had designed for the expenses of his honeymoon, which would now have to be curtailed to three weeks at farthest. Even to reckless Richard, the future looked gloomy that evening, as he took his way to the Jew clothier's to furnish himself forth with a suit of 'inconsolables,' as the shopman termed it, against the all-important morrow. AN ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLE ON THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST. FOR the genuine and practical ornithologist, there is no season more favourable for his outdoor observations than the month of October. This, perhaps, is more the case on the eastern side of the kingdom, there is, throughout this month, an almost daily on whose extensive and very diversified seaboard arrival of migratory wanderers to be noted-either winter visitants, on our shores, in our fields, hedgerows and woodlands, or mere travellers, tarrying awhile, for shorter or longer periods, before resuming their flight to milder and less variable climes. The day we had chosen for our purpose (October 21st) was in one respect anything but a fortunate one. As in early morning we drive towards the coast, along the straight and ugly marsh road, fenced in with its parallel lines of dark and sluggish drain, appearances are the reverse of cheerful. To right and left stretches the interminable flat, scarce relieved from utter dreariness by solitary farmsteads, standing at wide intervals apart, each with its attendant line of gigantic ricks-such corn-ricks as we never see out of Lincolnshire or fertile Holderness-looming in the gray morning like the hulls of a stranded Armada; beyond these, the church towers of marsh villages, with their surroundings of trees and houses, grouped closely together, and apparently covering but little space in the great plain-mere oases in this marsh desert. For leagues no other trees did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. Over all, a sky of rolling rain-cloud, broken along the eastern and sea horizon by an angry streak of sunrise, crimson and flaming A fiery dawing wild with wind. The wind is cold and cutting-damp and raw with the coming rain-north-west at present, but backing slowly to southward, and then to south-easta most certain sign of a wet day. The shivering cattle gather in groups at the corners of the big pastures, with their backs turned to the drifting storm; and under the drain-bank, a pair of black two-year-old cart colts, their long sweeping tails pressed closely to their thighs, are endeavouring to gain shelter to leeward of an old gnarled hawthorn: vain attempt, for the wind drives the rain through the bush, thick as it is, scattering the red and yellow leaves, yet making the clusters of bright haws to shine and glisten like bunches of coral. AN ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLE ON THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST. As to birds, as yet, we have seen scarcely any, except the hoodie, Denmark crow, or gray crow, for the rogue boasts many an alias-a very recent arrival, coming from the second week to the end of October-a bird wary and precise in his movements, rarely extending his travels very far inland, but giving preference to the marshy districts of the east coast, and the muddy fore-shores of our great tidal rivers. With a yhit, yhit, yhit, the little brown pipits, birds of the muirland, the mountain, and the marsh, flit before us along the side of the big drains; we notice one much darker than the rest, which we believe is a closely allied species, the shore pipit. The lark tries to soar and sing, but has no heart to lose himself in the clouds on such a morning, and there is no rising sun to greet, so he rapidly descends to join his mates amid the yellow stubble. At this season, immense flocks of larks appear on the east coast, coming from the continent. We have occasionally seen the salt marshes, after a wild night, literally swarming with them. Above, in the gray mist and rain, we hear the chatter of a flock of fieldfares, passing from the coast, to the woods and hedgerows of the inclosed and well timbered district skirting the wold hills; these birds have probably arrived during the night, and are now moving inland. Were it not for their familiar cry, we might easily have mistaken them for a flight of missel thrushes. At last, the long, straight, and wearisome road comes to an end, and we pull up against a huge lock-pit, the main outfall for the marsh district, where the great system of drainage enters the sea: hard by this is a lonely little tavern, the last house on the coast. On such a morning it has a most desolate and dreary aspect. Nor are appearances improved as we gaze inside at the one cheerless, brick-paved, fireless room, the floor a foot or more below the level of the surrounding marsh, with the walls to half their height green and mouldy with exuding damp. There is There is a vault-like smell of decayed wood about the place. Adjoining are some tumble-down, ramshackle outbuildings and stables. The whole place has such a comfortless, forsaken look, that we are not sorry to turn our face coastward, notwithstanding the rain is coming down in a steady persistent manner, which leaves no doubt of its long continuance. Beyond the lock-pit, skirting each side of the big drain, and then bending suddenly both to the right and left, is a long lone grassy mound, which looks not unlike the face of a battery, were it not that it extends as far as we can see in each direction. This is the sea-dike or embankment, without whose protection vain would be the efforts of man to cultivate the rich loam, or graze those lovely green pastures we have for the last half-hour been driving across. Beyond the embankment, but at a great distance, so extensive is the coast, we can just distinguish the masts of more than one hopelessly stranded vessel. In the outfall on our left are lying, halfburied in the ooze, for the tide is out, two keels, for so the vessels are called, which monopolise a considerable portion of the coasting-trade of the Humber. A dark-looking bird, a little larger than a snipe, rises with a loud whistle from a sedge-fringed pool in an adjoining field. It is the green sand-piper, a 109 beautiful, harmless, and highly ornamental bird; but, from its strong aromatic flavour, totally unfitted for the table. It hatches its young in the north of Europe, and the eggs have never, we believe, been found in this country; although we have strong reasons for thinking a pair or two occasionally do remain with us. Indeed, the nidification of the green sandpiper was, till late years, a mystery; it is now known that it deposits its four eggs in old deserted nests of other birds, in trees, and at a considerable altitude, and some distance from the nearest water. How the young are conveyed to the ground by the parent birds, is yet an ornithological puzzle. Perhaps, as with the woodcock, which has been seen to carry its young down at evening from the woods to their feedinggrounds, the young one snugly tucked under the thighs of the parent bird. A heron rises slowly from the next drain, thrusts back his head, stretching downwards at the same time his rudder-like legs, and goes sailing away to windward, with regular beats or pulsations of his rounded concave wings. How slowly and sedately he seems to fly, and yet the Duke of Argyll tells us, in The Reign of Law, that these apparently slowly moving pinions seldom make less than from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty downward strokes in a minute. But here are the 'fitties,' hundreds of acres in extent, running out beyond the embankment till they join the mud and sand of the level coast. They bear a striking contrast to the rich and fertile district we have just left: these have, however, one thing in common, a thick covering of green herbage; but the green of the 'fitties' is not the emerald green of rich feeding-grasses, but the green of such plants as love the salt waves and salt sea-breezes. The uniformity of this otherwise level tract is everywhere broken by many a winding creek and water-course, passable only at low tide pools of salt water, like miniature lakelets, and reflecting the dull sky, everywhere dot the surface-the chosen feeding-grounds of many a wader; even as we step across the embankment, a redshank springs, and with a wild and querulous wail, arousing many a comrade feeding unseen in the muddy hollows, flies off seaward. But where is the sea? for at present it is not visible, although far off in the misty distance we hear its 'melancholy long-withdrawing roar.' Beyond the 'fitties,' a waste of sand stretches, for it is dead low-water, to an immense distance; and along the horizon, under that white haze, which clings pall-like to the damp earth, is the gray sea, moaning and chafing on the yellow beach. brushing the sand in their headlong career; instantly flashing from brown to white, or white to brown, as they exhibit the lighter or darker shades of their plumage; looking, as they have most aptly been compared, like showers of newly coined shillings. Two birds rise quickly from a creek, in the muddy ooze of which they have been feeding; one falls to our shot, a gray plover; the upper plumage speckled with golden drops, such as we see in the familiar golden plover of our marshes; and in this garb, which is peculiar to the young of the year only, by the careless observer, might easily be mistaken for the latter bird. The gray plover may, however, readily be distinguished, at all ages, from its golden congener, by having the axillary plume, as the tuft of feathers under the wing is named, at the junction of that member with the body, black; in the golden plover it is always white, or in young birds slightly marked with gray. The rump and upper tail coverts also in the gray plover are white, and a very conspicuous mark in flight; in the other, they are of the same colour as the back. The hind toe also is absent in the golden plover, but present in the gray. It is a curious fact, that the young of allied species frequently more closely resemble each other than do the adults. We shall see many gray plovers during our walk, as it is an abundant species on this coast; on the wing, we can always pick them out from any other waders, as we catch momentary glances between the beats of the wing of the inky black patch. Our shot has aroused the vigilant redshanks; they are on the wing in parties of five to ten in various directions, their shrill warning cries keeping every other bird within hearing on the alert, and for the time we find it impossible to obtain another chance. Away in the direction of the old wreck we had seen a cluster of dark spots grouped together on a slight elevation on the sands: our small but powerful binocular shews they are some birds not unlike ducks, but we are yet too far off to be able to recognise them. By long manoeuvring, partly assisted by a hollow in the sands, partly by masking our approach with the timbers of the wreck, we succeed in reaching a position within less than three hundred yards of our object; but it is no use: they have already got a notion that something is wrong, and all run together in a clump, sticking out their heads and necks in a most gooselike manner; by this, and their gait, at once betraying their genus-they are geese, small and dark-looking. As they get on the wing, we level, not our gun, but the binocular, and at once make them out-they are Brent geese, and the first we have seen this autumn. The weather may not be all that is quite agreeable. But what sportsman or naturalist minds weather? How the wind and rain come down-blowing, surging; we are already most uncomfortably wet about the legs and knees, partly by wading through so many creeks, partly from the drip from our waterproof. For the next half-hour we stand to leeward of the raking stern-post of the wrecked schooner. She lies half-buried in the shifting sand, which has formed quite a bank around; the black sea-soaked ribs, draped with pink fuci and bladder-wrack, having the scent of the salt sea upon them. The last half hour, although we have been stationary, has not altogether been barren of sea observation. Where the blue drift-clay crops up, Many gulls have gone lazily past in the direction of the Haill Sand. We have identified five of the common species on this coast-namely, the greater and lesser black-backed, the herring, the common, and the brown-headed gulls. Flocks, too, we have seen, of dunlin and ringed dotterel; and amongst the former, a few birds resembling dunlin, and rather longer and with sharper wings. They are curlew sandpipers, and rather rare waders on these shores. Many knots have also gone by, and we have shot half-a-dozen specimens, all young birds of the year, with the under parts tinted a lightish buff colour. These knots are to us always a source of wonder. They appear in the autumn in immense flocks on the sea-coasts of Great Britain and other countries, travelling as far south as the Mediterranean. In the spring, they return northward to their breeding-stations; and we have seen them late in May on the Humber mud-flats in their beautiful nuptial dress, having the under parts a rich ruddy chesnut. In this plumage they are totally unlike the familiar gray bird seen hanging in clusters during the late autumn or early winter months almost in any game-shop in our coast towns. This ruddy summer plumage is peculiar to several of our wading birds; it is assumed by both the bar-tailed and black-tailed godwits, by the sanderling, the curlew sandpiper, and the two phalaropes. Within less than twenty yards of us, on the other side of the wreck, we can watch our feathered friends, by peeping through the black timbers; a pair of bar-tailed godwits are busily looking for their dinner in a salt pool; they keep probing the wet sand with their long, slightly recurved bills, occasionally extracting some species of annelid, which, before swallowing, is carefully washed by shaking it under the water; they are evidently a pair of old birds; the larger of the two, the female, still retaining traces of the ruddy summer dress. Not the least interesting of our visitors is a little family party of sanderlings, which pitch close by, and commence immediately to run to and fro very rapidly over the hard-ribbed sand. Now one, now another, stays to pick up some small substance, and then commences running as rapidly as ever. We readily distinguish them from dunlin by the lighter gray of the upper parts, their snowywhite breasts, and short bills; and a nearer acquaintance would shew that they have no hind toe, as the dunlin has. We walk towards them, and they do not rise, but run on rapidly before us. We walk our best, yet still the little birds, seemingly without any effort, easily keep ahead; at last we break into a run, when the flock rise, and dash round, settling again a few hundred yards to the rear. The more we think of the migratory flights of those small creatures, the more are we impressed ODDS AND ENDS FROM DR ROBERT CHAMBERS'S SCRAP-BOOK 111 with the goodness and watchfulness of God over he could not recover them. Mrs A—— is posHis glorious creation. There's a path in the air, man may not know, sessed with magnificent ideas about Australia. It takes an hour to get a mere outline of her plans. Captain M is all for convict management by the mark system; and to hear him, you would think that if he were to get his idea carried out, For many hours flying against a strong south-crime would soon be banished from the earth. west wind and a driving rain, small parties of hooded crows have been passing in; flying just above the sea, they came heavily and wearily, and never swerved a yard to avoid us. We might have dropped many had they been worth the cost of a cartridge. And now for home again. What a dreary walk it was; not along the shore, for the tide had cut us off; but, as the crow flies, straight for the inn, four miles away across the bleak rain-swept plain. Sometimes we jump the marsh-drains in our course; at others, which are too big, we have to make long detours. The wind has backed into the east, and the rain was coming down in torrents, and before we reach the not-to-be-despised shelter, we had experienced the full force of Kingsley's lines: Dreary east winds howling o'er us; Captain M-[a different man from the foregoing] has a great geographical scheme. Maps are to be made and books written giving the name of every place in the world, even sand-banks at sea, estimated to be three hundred thousand in number; the maps to be managed by having figures of refersometimes extend over twenty degrees of longitude. ence instead of names, which, he justly remarks, Captain K—— is full of new modes of land-tenure in Ireland. Bring these modes into operation, and everything is to go on beautifully. Mr Cis all for sanitary regulations, and can give exact estimates as to what, in certain circumstances of aerial purification, would be the annual saving of soap to the metropolis. T denunciatory of horseracing. B, crazy about temperance. Never loses a chance of pressing upon you the value of cold water. Takes two tumblers regularly before breakfast. [Since the above was written, in 1845, what immense additions to the realms of Boredom by Spiritualism,' 'Evolution,' 'Women's Rights,' And so ended a very wet, but very pleasant ramble. Permissive Bills,' and other speculative topics!] ODDS AND ENDS: FROM DR ROBERT CHAMBERS'S SCRAP-BOOK. BORES.-London swarms with bores-men, and women too, possessed of one idea, to which they devote their whole mind, or such part of it as business allows them to spare. Sometimes the ideas get no further than matter of talk, with which people are at all opportunities bored; but more frequently they assume shape in pamphlets, copies of which are pressed on all with whom they get acquainted. I know one of these geniuses, who carries a stock of pamphlets in a leather reticule, suspended by a belt round his neck, ready for distribution wherever he happens to go. A public meeting which has just broken up, and is in course of dispersal, gives him a splendid opportunity of emptying his wallet. The prevalent ideas of these bores have in some cases a hue of plausibility, but as often they are visionary crotchets. Mr Martist, has a scheme for economising the sewage of London, which has gone through several transformations, and proposes to save the Thames from impurity, and redeem some millions a year at least. Mr P, another artist, has a new idea about perspective. Speak on any other subject, and you find him a rational man; but mention perspective, and you are in for a two hours' lecture. He would represent the pillars of a colonnade bent outwards at the middle, as necessary for rigid truth. It is of no use to tell him that the eye would be offended by it. Your eyes must be educated to see it in the right way.' He once gave a lecture, which went on very well till he broached this idea, and then the audience set off in a fit of merriment, from which At court, A FORTUNE MADE BY A WAISTCOAT.-Some people have a fancy for fine waistcoats. This taste was more common in my young days than it is now. Stirring public events were apt to be celebrated by patterns on waistcoats to meet the I remember that the capture of popular fancy. Mauritius, at the close of 1810, was followed by the fashion of wearing waistcoats speckled over with small figures shaped like that island, and called Isle of France waistcoats. It was a galling thing for the French prisoners of war on parole to be confronted with these demonstrations. highly ornamented waistcoats have been the fashion for generations. George, Prince of Wales, while Regent, was noted for his affection for this rich variety of waistcoats, and thereby hangs a tale. waistcoat of a particular kind, for which he could His Royal Highness had an immense desire for a discover only a piece of stuff insufficient in dimensions. It was a French material, and could not be matched in England. The war was raging, and to procure the requisite quantity of stuff from Paris was declared to be impracticable. At this juncture one of the Prince's attendants interposed. He said he knew a Frenchman, M. Bazalgette, carrying on business in one of the obscure streets of London, who, he was certain, would undertake to proceed to Paris and bring away what was wanted. obliging tailor was forthwith commissioned to do his best to procure the requisite material. Finding that a chance had occurred for distinguishing himself and laying the foundation of his fortune, the Frenchman resolved to make the attempt. It was a hazardous affair, for there was no regular communication with the coast of France, unless for letters under a cartel. Yet, Bazalgette was not daunted. If he could only land safely in a boat, all would be right. This, with some difficulty and manoeuvring, he effected. As a pretended refugee back to his own country, he was allowed to land This and proceed to Paris. Joyfully he was able to procure the quantity of material required for the Prince Regent's waistcoat; and not less joyfully did he manage to return to London with the precious piece of stuff wrapped round his person. The waistcoat was made, and so was the tailor's fortune and that of his family. FATE OF MODEST MEN.-The world generally takes men at their own apparent estimate of themselves. Hence, modest men never attain the same consideration which bustling, forward men do. It has not time or patience to inquire rigidly, and it is partly imposed upon and carried away by the man who vigorously claims its regards. The world, also, never has two leading ideas about any man. There is always a remarkable unity in its conceptions of the characters of individuals. If an historical person has been cruel in a single degree, he is set down as cruel and nothing else, although he may have had many good qualities, all not equally conspicuous. If a literary man is industrious in a remarkable degree, the world speaks of him as only industrious, though he may be also very ingenious. FATE OF A PROHIBITORY LAW. THE success of laws in the United States to prohibit the sale of spirituous liquors has frequently been questioned. Some allege that the laws have worked so well as to offer an example for copying in this country; others as strenuously affirm that they have been altogether a failure. Our own recollections of what we saw in several quarters in the northern states rather tend in this latter direction. Shebeening, or illicit dealing in liquors, seemed far from uncommon; so that the law only drove dram-drinking from public to private resorts. Any controversy on the subject may now be said to be settled by what is reported by an American correspondent in the Times, January 15, 1874. He specially refers to the Massachusetts Prohibitory Law. He states that Mr Martin Griffin, one of the State Police Commission, has resigned office from a conscientious conviction that the law is abortive, cannot be properly put in execution, and, as it stands on the statute-books, is detrimental to the cause of temperance, and that it leads to corruption and inefficiency. A great portion of the time of the commission, he adds, is spent in the investigation of charges of malfeasance against the constables whose duty it is to enforce the law, and he believes firmly that a good license law is the best means of arriving at the result desired by temperance people. In practice the sale of spirituous liquors is almost unrestrained, while the business of the brewers chiefly suffers from the enforcement of the law. Malt liquors being in bulky packages and incapable of clandestine transportation and concealment, are easily seized, while the others are allowed comparatively free movement and sale; and being the ones chiefly obtainable, this accounts for the surprising amount of drunkenness visible in Boston and the other large towns. In defence of the law, General Bates, the chairman of the Police Commission, has written a letter, in which he vigorously argues in favour of the Board, and says they are unable to cope with the violators of the law, because they have not power enough. The leading journal of New England, the Boston Advertiser, in discussing this question, says that the prohibitory law and the agencies appointed for its enforcement have in the cities wholly failed in their work; and that, after nearly twenty years' experience of a prohibitory law, and seven or eight years' trial of a state police specially appointed to enforce it, there are at this time in Boston three, thousand places where liquors are illegally sold. There are sixteen constables in the city to close these places; and what, it asks, can sixteen men do with such an army of offenders, each one of whom has his own clientèle ready to sustain him and set him up in business if any accident befall him? The public and open violation of the enforce it impartially and justly if they would. If law increases every year, and the constables cannot be unable to enforce it, for the difficulties are quite their force were increased tenfold, they still would beyond their control. The Boston Advertiser says the law is an anomaly; that the sentiment of the community does not support it; that its daily and hourly violation has taken from it every atom of appeal from those who have suffered by this unliving force; and that while no complaint or controlled traffic can overstate its injuries and need of restraint, there ought to be provided laws which have some basis in reason and in the sympathies of the communities where they are to be enforced. There is to be a strong effort made at the approaching session of the Massachusetts legislature to procure a change in the prohibitory system.' The foregoing statements are worth the consideration of those who contend for instituting arrangements contrary to public feeling, or which cannot well be enforced by ordinary agencies. LOVE. LOVE is not made of kisses, or of sighs, Love is not made of broken whispers; no! Love is not made of tears, nor yet of smiles; This is Love's language, but this is not Love. If we know aught of Love, how shall we dare As separate streams may, blending, ever roll One heart, one mind, one soul, and one desire, Of thought and passion; these can Love inspire. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGE. Also sold by all Booksellers. All Rights Reserved. |