Part 4

His heart was too full for words. He turned away from his wife, who was watching him earnestly, turned away, not willing she should see how much he was affected. He opened the door of the conservatory and passed out among the flowers. Even the flowers looked the same. The red stars of taxonia shone from the green clouds above as of old. The large heliotrope against the wall was in full blossom. The great centre tree-palm was still there. The fountain played as of old, and splashed down on the goldfish swimming in the basin. How well he remembered when his great delight was to be lifted up to look at those red and white carp! He could stand these memories no longer. Let him go away—out of the house—never to come near it again. He went back to the room to find Millicent. The room was untenanted. He supposed his wife, taking advantage of the accorded permission, had extended her researches. He looked in the dining-room. As the old family portraits had been bought by his own people, this room did not appeal to him so much. He glanced round; Millicent was not there. He walked across the hall and opened the library door. He did not notice whether this room was changed or not. He had eyes for one thing only, and, perhaps, a more astonishing sight was never seen by a six days’ bridegroom. Here was Millicent—his wife, her hat and mantle thrown off, absolutely sitting on the knee of a gentleman; moreover, with her arms twined round his neck, her cheek resting against his, and so concealing his features from her outraged husband, who no doubt would have rushed to immolate his supposed rival, had not Millicent, without changing her position, looked at him with eyes so full of love, tenderness, and triumph, that Frank Abbot stood rooted to the ground, and wondered why he should be dreaming in broad daylight. Then he grew very pale, all sorts of wild things rushing into his head. He managed to take a step or two forward; and Millicent jumping off her human perch, rushed to meet him, threw her arms round his neck, sobbed and laughed, and all the while ejaculated: ‘My darling—my darling! My own love! To think it should be through me! My own dear husband!’

She kissed him and embraced him in so fervent a manner, that his attention could scarcely be given elsewhere; but the impression grew upon him that over her shoulder, sitting in the chair from which she had sprung, was his chance acquaintance, Mr John Jones.

‘What—does—it all mean?’ gasped Mr Abbot, as his wife subsided on his shoulder.—‘Mr Jones, you here! What does it mean?’

Mr Jones rose from his chair and held out his hand. ‘Shake hands, Frank,’ he said. ‘It means this. I told you you’d have to take something from me, proud as you were. You’ve taken my daughter, at anyrate.’

‘But’——

‘Yes; I know. I’m Keene, not Jones. That girl of mine is a romantic, obstinate child. I’m an old fool, and ought to be ashamed of myself; but it did me good to find she was going to marry a man who thought she hadn’t a penny-piece to her name. Shake hands, Frank.’

‘But—here!’ ejaculated Frank.

‘Yes, here. In my house; or rather, in yours and Millicent’s. The truth is, when we landed in England, the first paper Milly saw held an advertisement, saying this place was for sale. She made me go the next day and buy it, stock, lock, and barrel. Now you know all.’

‘O Frank!’ interposed Millicent, ‘forgive me—I had been in England four months before I wrote to you! Do forgive me, Frank! They were very long months.’

As Frank gave her a passionate kiss, she supposed herself forgiven. Mr Keene drew out his cigar-case.

‘Now all’s settled,’ he said, ‘I’ll send and tell your carriage to go back. You can drive into Clifton this evening and fetch your luggage.’

‘Stop a moment!’ said Frank. ‘Mr Keene, I am too bewildered to say all I want to; but it must be clearly understood that I am not going to be a dependent on your bounty.’

‘I always told you, you were absurdly proud,’ growled Mr Keene.

‘I will not. Had I known that you had purchased my father’s estate, I could not have married Millicent. I would not have let the world call me a fortune-hunter.’

Mrs Frank Abbot glanced at her father. ‘I told you what he was, papa,’ she said. Then turning to Frank: ‘Will you kindly look at me, sir, and tell me how I have changed so greatly that people will think I am only worth marrying for my money?’

To this challenge Frank made no reply, in words. Then he took his wife’s hand. ‘Millicent,’ he said, ‘shall it be clearly understood that you are the wife of a poor man—that you will be happy when I ask you to leave this and come to London with me, while I work at my profession as before?’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ growled Mr Keene. But Millicent looked into her husband’s face and whispered: ‘My darling love, your wishes shall be mine!’

Then Mr Keene went out and sent the carriage away.

It is a great temptation to describe the meeting between Mrs Abbot and her daughter-in-law. The elder lady’s surprise and joy simply beggar description. Loving her son as she really did, the reversionary restoration was as much a satisfaction to her as if her own husband had been reinstated. The meeting between the two ladies was embarrassing for both to look forward to; but it went off to perfection. Mrs Abbot, all smiles and sweetness, embraced her daughter-in-law, and said: ‘My dear, I told you that under other circumstances we should be great friends. We shall be so now—shall we not?’ It was a graceful, if not an unworldly apology; and as Millicent returned her kiss and begged her to forget what had happened, Mrs Abbot hung round the girl’s neck a diamond cross, which, being her own personal property, had survived the wreck; and after this, a peace was established which as yet has not been broken.

* * * * *

Did Frank Abbot continue to work as hard at his profession as he had resolved to do? The events above recorded are of comparatively recent date. So I can say with truth that he is still a working member of the bar, and is supposed to be making a fair income. As Mr Keene had not the least intention of allowing his daughter to go empty-handed to a husband, however quixotic he might be, the young couple have always been far away from the poverty which one of them was continually harping upon. The last I heard about them is that Mr Keene, who, since his daughter’s marriage, has spent most of his time in London, told Frank roundly, that unless he would bring Millicent back to Chewton, throw his pride to the winds, and live at the Hall as his forefathers had lived—acting, if he liked, for conscience’ sake, as bailiff or manager of the estate—he, Mr Keene, would at once sell the place, and invest the proceeds in something more profitable than a large house in which he could not live alone, or acres about which he cared nothing.

Millicent, who thinks Frank looking pale and fagged, and is quite sure that London air does not suit the baby, seconds her father’s appeals with eloquent looks; and Frank, who has formed an affectionate regard for Mr Keene, and who finds that, with such attractions at home, circuit-going is dreary work, certainly wavers in his determination; so it is more than likely that one day the bar will lose what might have been a distinguished ornament to it, and that Chewton Hall will once more have a proper master and mistress.

ACROBATS.

The following sketch of a certain gymnast’s professional origin and career may not be without interest to the reader, since it presents an entire departure from the usually recognised methods of training athletes—a departure which, though exceptional, is by no means unique. The performer who furnished me with the narration is one of the best flying trapezists of the day, and has invented several novel and clever specialities of a ‘lofty’ character, in which he takes part with his wife and a female apprentice. Taking the liberty of excising much collateral, not to say irrelevant, detail, with which the history was interspersed throughout, I will allow the gymnast to tell his own tale.

‘I was the best gymnast in the school when I was a boy. Horizontal bar, parallel bars, pole, ladder, rope, swinging-bar—anything that could be done on the rough bit of a gymnasium that we had in the playground, I could do. All the coppers I got—and they weren’t many, for my parents were hard-working people who had enough to do to make both ends meet—I used to save up until they made a sixpence. Cakes and apples never drew a halfpenny out of my pocket. Then I used to treat myself to a visit to whatever circus or theatre gave most tumbling for the money; and when I got back to school next day, I used to begin to practise all the new tricks I’d seen the night before. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck at it! As it was, I used to be black and blue and grazed all over sometimes—got caned for it too, now and then; but nothing stopped me. Born in me, I suppose. Anyhow, I always liked exercises on the bar a good deal better than exercises on a slate or copy-book, even if I got black marks for one and good marks for the other; for I wasn’t so bad at school-work as you might think, and could show you a writing prize now that I got over seventy other boys.

‘When I left school, I joined a gymnastic club, and soon took the lead there too. But then my father died, and mother fell ill. I had to put my shoulder to the wheel in earnest to get bread for myself and help her all I could, and I had enough to think of without gymnastics. I was a shop-boy, but through writing a good hand was promoted to keeping the books. In a short time I left that, and got a regular clerkship at a very fair salary. I seemed to be in luck’s way; but before I’d been in the berth a month, my master failed, and I found myself out of a situation.

‘They were rough times after that for a long while. Try as I would, I could get nothing; and at last I started off, and worked my passage over to America. There I got a job, something between a junior clerk and a porter, in a merchant’s office in New York.

‘One summer’s evening, I was passing the entrance to one of the minor entertainment gardens, when a flaming poster with a picture of some acrobats caught my eye. I hadn’t quite lost my old taste; so, as the price of admission wasn’t very high, I went in and saw the performance. Why, thinks I to myself, _I_ used to be able to do better than that in the old playground at Hoxton! Why shouldn’t I turn a few dollars that way now? I liked the idea so much, that, going home to my lodgings, I bought a few yards of rope; and that very night, without ever going to bed, I fixed up a bit of apparatus among the beams of the attic where I slept, making the foot-rail of the bedstead do duty for a trapeze bar. I had lost a lot of the neatness; but all the old tricks came back one by one before morning; for I practised all that blessed night, and never slept a wink. Before the week was out, I had an engagement at that same garden; the salary wasn’t a big one, certainly, but it was three times what I was getting in the office. In less than a month I made my first appearance in fleshings and spangles.

‘For a little while I managed to keep on the office-work and this too; then it got to the chief clerk’s ears, and I was dismissed. “Of course you were,” says everybody, though I have never been able to see why exactly. However, it didn’t matter much, for just afterwards I was wanted for two turns a day instead of one, which more than made up the lost money.

‘Well, I had several engagements after this at small halls and gardens; for I wasn’t a big “draw” at that time, and could only do what a score of other gymnasts were doing in the city; but the style I worked in gave satisfaction; and I kept on improving on the old tricks and practising new ones, for my heart and soul was in the business. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, either; for sometimes I was out of an engagement for a good while, and began to think it would have been better to have stuck to the quill-driving. All the spare cash I had went home to the mother, and—flush or hard up—I still slept in the same attic, though I had put the bed-rail back in its place.

‘At last I joined a circus and came to England. I learnt fancy riding, and took a turn at clowning and the rope at times; but the low bar and single trapeze or rings was what I was wanted for most. You see, I had been nearly three years regularly at it by that time, and was beginning to make a mark. We started on a provincial tour, and pitched for a week at Norwich. I don’t notice the public much; but there was a girl there that came two or three nights’ running and sat close to the ring, that somehow struck my fancy. The last night but one, I caught myself looking round for her, as I sat on the bar before swinging off; and sure enough, there she was, just alongside the outer upright of my apparatus. Whether it was that that made me miss my tip or not, I can’t say, but that night I had a slip—nothing of any consequence; it marked my knee and shoulder next day; but I was able to finish my performance as if nothing had happened. In fact, the public would hardly have noticed it, but for the girl’s screeching out, “Oh, he’s killed!” and fainting. It made a bit of a fuss; but I liked her for it. Two days afterwards, when we were on the march at five o’clock in the morning, there she stood at the door of her father’s cottage, an old farm-place just out of the town, to see us go by. That’s my wife, sir!

‘Eighteen she was, when she married me, and I was twenty-two. But she didn’t begin to train till a year later; and six months after that we got our first double engagement. It was her idea, not mine. She suggested it. I said it was impossible. She insisted; and it was done. I get as many pounds weekly now in some places as I did quarter-dollars at starting. I’ve got a snug little bit of money in the bank, and I’ve got a snug little place of my own out at Wood Green; and soon, maybe, we shall give up business, and go in for agency or catering. And it’s all through her idea and pluck. And am I going to risk her life for the want of a few yards of safety-netting and the trouble of setting it, to please a manager or the public either?

‘It was her idea, too, to take an apprentice for the same business, as she had got on so well herself. So we looked about, not for a young child, but for a grown girl; and at last we found one of sixteen years of age, small and half-starved, helping her mother at the wash-tub. I hope to train a good many more, but I shall always look out for one that’s been half-starved. The first thing we did was to feed her up—beefsteaks and porter, strong broth, essence of meat, and eggs beaten up in port wine. Now, all that would have turned to fat and done her no good, only I made her take exercise with it. I hung up a pair of rings about seven feet high in a doorway, and used to keep her drawing herself up and down by the arms all day long, on and off. We used to sit in the room to watch her and tell her when to leave off; and my wife would promise her a new tie or a hat or a pair of earrings as soon as she could pull up a certain number of times. For the first month, she used to complain of pains at the back of the shoulder-blades, but a little embrocation soon eased it. That’s all the work she did for three months, and by that time she had arms nearly as big as mine! Then we took her up on the bars with us. She’s been with us three years now, and won’t be out of her time for another two; and then I shall take her into the firm as a partner, or engage her at a good salary; for she’s as strong as a man, and yet light enough for my wife to catch. I have paid her mother five shillings a week ever since we have had her, and we have made her presents, besides feeding and clothing her. When she is perfect in the business we are practising now, I am going to give her a five-pound note.’

Mrs Gymnast was a graceful, slender woman of exquisite symmetry, some seven-and-twenty years old. Miss Apprentice, though nineteen, was no taller than many girls five years her junior, but had the limbs and muscles of a young giantess.

THE ABANDONMENT OF WIND-POWER.

Sir William Fairbairn, in his well-known book _Mills and Millwork_, dismisses the subject of windmills in thirteen pages, and much of this scant notice is occupied with an antiquarian rather than an engineering inquiry into the history and birthplace of windmills; proving that even ere he wrote, the ‘Wind’ age had merged and lost itself in its all-powerful successor the ‘Steam’ age. The gist of the matter is thus summed up by Sir William: ‘It is more probable that we are indebted to the Dutch for our improved knowledge of windmills, and wind as a motive-power; and it is within my own recollection that the whole of the eastern coasts of England and Scotland were studded with windmills, and that for a considerable distance into the interior of the country. Half a century ago, nearly the whole of the grinding, stamping, sawing, and draining was done by wind in the flat counties; and no one could enter any of the towns in Northumberland, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or Norfolk but must have remarked the numerous windmills spreading their sails to catch the breeze. Such was the state of our windmills sixty years ago; and nearly the whole of our machinery depended on wind, or on water where the necessary fall could be secured. These sources of power have nearly been abandoned in this country, having been replaced by the all-pervading power of steam. This being the case, wind as a motive-power may be considered as a thing of the past, and a short notice will therefore suffice.’ Thus Sir William Fairbairn dismisses the subject.

The ‘English Windmill Epoch,’ as it may be termed, reached its zenith between the middle of the last century and the close of the first quarter of our own. During this period, Andrew Meikle, John Smeaton, and Sir William Cubitt lived and worked; and to this period belong all the experiments and literature concerning windmills which we possess; for since this period, the introduction of steam has resulted in an almost entire abandonment of wind-power, save in certain cases, to which we shall presently refer. The advantages undoubtedly possessed by wind over steam as a prime mover—economy in first cost, very low working expenses, and great simplicity in construction—are more than counterbalanced by the uncertainty experienced in its employment. Cases, however, there now are in which wind-power is employed, and with appreciable advantage, or it would, as elsewhere, have been superseded. From Guernsey, a large export trade is carried on in granite, from quarries situated in the northern and eastern parts of the island. These quarries, sunk in some places to great depths, are invariably drained by small four-armed windmills, erected on timber uprights, and actuating bucket-pumps. Driven by the constant sea and land breezes, these little mills, dotted about over the landscape, have small difficulty in draining the quarries of the accumulated rainfall, which, owing to the comparative absence of springs and streams, is the only source of flooding. Should a calm render the pumps idle, a few weeks’ accumulation of rain does not hinder the quarrymen; whilst a cessation of wind for even a week is a very rare occurrence.

Turning to the flat eastern counties of England, the visitor to Lowestoft, Yarmouth, or Lincoln will find windmills largely employed in the drainage of the fen districts. The main drain through the fields is carried between high banks, and is at a higher level than the fields themselves. The flood-water on the fields is raised into these drains by large scoop-wheels, actuated by windmills. Here, however, steam begins to make its appearance, and an occasional tall chimney marks the presence of a small beam-engine, whose owner wishes to be independent of Boreas in draining the fields around. The advantages to be derived from a combination of wind and steam have frequently been urged, on the ground that a saving of fuel is effected by using wind-power when possible, steam-power being available in case of calm. This arrangement, though undoubtedly possessing the advantages claimed for it, involves a larger outlay of capital, together with augmented complication in construction, and has in consequence never met with much favour.

To those who delight to indulge in prophetic engineering speculation, the future of wind-power in connection with electricity will afford an ample field. The power developed during storms might be stored in an accumulator, to be used during calms; by this means eliminating the element of ‘uncertainty,’ the prime cause of the disfavour into which wind as a motive-power has fallen. In conclusion, though it is not unfrequently the custom to declaim against the neglect of wind as a prime motor, there are, as has been shown, many cases where it can be and is advantageously employed; and though it is undoubtedly certain that its more extended use would be accompanied by results of economic value, it is yet equally certain that a return to wind as a chief prime mover would be as retrogressive as a return to sailing-vessels, to the exclusion of our modern steam-driven craft.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

OLD-FASHIONED FURNITURE.

Quaint ‘bits’ of old-fashioned furniture have for a long time past been much sought after, and pretty examples are now to be met with in almost every house of refinement and taste. One occasionally meets with old-fashioned things which from change of circumstances can no longer be used for their original purpose. The silver-handled steel knives and double-pronged or tined forks—which most members of the present generation have never even seen—were, when not in use, stored away in a specially made satin-wood or mahogany box, often beautifully decorated with inlaid marquetrie-work, and in the better examples the mountings were of chased silver. The interior of the box was apparently solid, with a separate slit for each knife and fork, which, handle uppermost, stood upright. Until recently, these beautiful specimens of the cabinet-work of a bygone age could be purchased for a very few shillings each. Some one has lately discovered that by removing the interior false top and adding divisions for paper and envelopes, these old knife-boxes can easily be transformed into choice and covetable stationery cabinets; and dealers are now buying them up, and when transformed, are asking almost as many pounds as they gave shillings. Another ingenious person—a lady well known in society—has discovered that the highly polished, old-fashioned double-handled plethoric copper or brass tea-urn wherewith our great-grandmothers delighted to adorn the table when their friends assembled to discuss a dish of tea, can easily be transformed into a noble table-lamp of striking proportions. The urn proper forms the body; and a paraffine lamp, with its ordinary glass receptacle for oil, is fitted into the space formerly occupied by the heater, which, with the lid, is of course discarded. The projecting spout is likewise banished, and a simple metal boss, with a corresponding one for uniformity on the other side, takes its place. To complete, an extra large shade is fitted over an octagon-shaped wire framework of ordinary construction.

AN ELECTRICAL TRICYCLE.