stranger "Duke," so she curtsied again, as Mr. Mowledy pronounced his name. "That be t' neame, zur." "What! Marmaduke ?" exclaimed Mr. Mowledy. "Dear me, it is an uncommon name too. Don't you think so, Miss Margaret?" "Duke, or maybe Dook, be t' neame, zur," persisted the girl, afraid to let the sound leave her ears lest she should lose it. Marmaduke," reiterated Mr. Mowledy, blandly, and, after further explanatory discourse, the reverend gentleman put the information he had received, with his own knowledge of geography and nomenclature, together. The product was no usual thing. Madge took away her letter addressed in a scrupulously careful and legible manner Mr. Marmaduke Walker (Dealer in fermented liquors), near London. When the village was asleep that night, she posted it unseen and unsuspected. Mrs. Jinks, the postmistress, felt sure it was a letter from the parson, and spread a rumour that he kept a bottle or two of spirits in a snug place for private use. So she told Madge, who said, "Lauk-a-daisy me," not knowing whence the scandal came. Who does know when the grim, scoffing thing called rumour first spreads its agile wings, or whence it comes, or whither it speeds so fast? Dr. Porteous, the rector, heard it in the rules of the King's Bench Prison; it was whispered to the bishop of the diocese by the Dean of Dronington's widow. The magistrates laughed about "the curate's sly bottle" when they met at quarter sessions, and one of them, a jolly good fellow who had been in the navy, made a song about it, putting it to rhyme with "throttle," and singing it to a roaring chorus after a dinner at the "Crown," where the worshipful and loyal gentlemen refreshed themselves in company at the termination of their judicial labours. Mr. Mowledy was the only person for twenty miles round who never heard it at all; for rumour has a deal of humour in it, for all its gravity, and keeps prudently out of the way of contradiction. CHAPTER VIII. FOUND DROWNED. DAY after day passed by for nearly a fortnight, but no letter, addressed to the village inn, ever arrived from Mr. Marmaduke Walker. Madge watched for the postman as he passed through Wakefield-inthe-Marsh every morning in his donkey-cart, in hopes that he would stop at the "Chequers;" and once, when she thought he looked her way, she held out her apron, but he only stared at her and jogged along upon his round. She seemed to pine visibly away during this time, and to have no care or pride in herself. The curate watched for her in vain as he walked from the church through the glebe meadows, taking always the same way home to his little cottage with a hope that he might meet her again, almost painful in its intensity; and though he had composed a sermon on a text taken from the thirty-ninth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis, especially to ascertain her views upon the subject nearest his heart, she never came to hear it; nor did she go at all to church any more. When Tom Brown shuffled into the kitchen of an evening, he found nobody there. She got dinner and supper silently ready for John Giles, and set it in order upon the white deal table duly scoured; but she never tasted the good food herself, and her voice was never heard now singing about the house. She passed most of her time locked up in her own room. But nobody, except Tom Brown, took any notice of her. John Giles had his meals and his beer as he was accustomed to have them, and nothing but an earthquake would have roused his fuddled intelligence. Even a convulsion of nature would have found him with a brown jug in his hand, and he would only have set it down, to take it up again after the shock was over. The blacksmith, who had been slowly making up his mind to marry Madge at some time or other, indeed looked about him now and then after he had finished his beer, as if he missed something, but he was not sorry that matters should bide as they were for a bit longer. Tom Brown was the only person who knew that there was anything wrong, and he tried in uncouth ways to serve or comfort her. When she came downstairs, after moaning for hours to herself, she would find the hardest part of her work done. He kept the fire burning, swept the hearth, drew water, and put the kettle on ready for her tea, which she drank eagerly, taking hardly anything else. When one of the old customers called for her, he answered, and made some mumbling excuse which served the purpose well enough. One day he brought her some apples, which he knew she liked, and another he walked to Dronington for an orange. She found them on the table beside her tea things, and left them untasted. She appeared unable to bear the daylight, and never went outside the door as she used to do. She would stand with her face turned from the window, and her arm resting on the high kitchen mantelpiece; if spoken to, she answered without moving. All her clothes hung loosely on her she had become terribly thin and wan. She started at the least noise, and once, when Tom Brown came in unexpectedly and looked her full in the face, she shrunk from him as though she were afraid. She avoided him more resolutely after that; watching with a beating heart and frightened eyes lest he should catch her unawares again. Her favourite occupation when alone was to open a large carved oak work-box which had belonged to her foster-mother, and take out one by one the upper-leathers of a pair of top-boots, a dried rose-bud, and a strip of flimsy paper. She was never tired of looking at these things, but would rock herself in her chair, with her clasped hands on her knees, VOL. XXVIII.-No. 163. and wail over them. If she heard a step on the stairs, or any one called for her, she would hide them hurriedly away, and with trembling limbs and a ghastly face, assure herself that her occupation had not been discovered. It was about the tenth day after the letter to Mr. Marmaduke Walker had remained unanswered, that a great change came over the girl. She rose very early in the morning, and toiled throughout the day without ceasing. She arranged all her cupboards, and the presses where the household linen was kept. She washed and put away all her glass and china, and carefully attended to everything that had been neglected and wanted setting to rights. Before she went to bed she raked out the kitchen fire and laid it afresh, spread the cloth for breakfast, and cut some slices of bread and butter, to be ready for John Giles when he got up. She bade good-night to Tom Brown very kindly, drew some beer for him herself, and opened the door for him when he went out to his hayloft over the stables, closing it loudly after him and bolting it. Then all these things having been done in order, and the whole house thoroughly swept and garnished, she went to her room with a strange, absent air, and opened her work-box once more. But she did not cry over it now there was only a sad, resolute expression in the girl's eyes; and after silently contemplating her worthless treasures for an hour or more, she opened her window and looked down into the road. She could see clearly, for the moon was at her full, and nothing was stirring for a mile around. The bat and the fieldmouse only were abroad; and the low hoot of an owl coming from the ruined rectory was the solitary sound which broke the stillness of the night. Not a dog barked, not a light was seen in a cottage, not a watcher kept vigil at Wakefield-in-the-Marsh. She remained for some ten minutes, looking anxiously from the window, and having satisfied herself that she was unobserved, she threw a shawl over her head, so as to conceal her features, and went quickly and noiselessly downstairs. She had thought of everything. The bolts, which had been cleaned and oiled that day, slid smoothly back at her touch; the door turned easily upon its hinges, her bare feet fell unheard upon the hard ground. She went on walking very fast, turning neither to the right nor to the left, till she came to the mill-stream, at a place where it was very deep and rapid. Then she stopped, and knelt down by the waterside, and prayed with a smothered sob; after which she cast a startled glance hastily round her, and listened like some hunted animal. A fish which leapt out of the stream had disturbed her, and there was a far sound of wheels, but it died away and all was still. It was only the night waggon, slowly passing on its way to Dronington, and when it had gone there was not a human being who could hear her brief cries and her short struggles. She went then to the river's brink, took her shawl from off her head, and tied it closely round the skirt of her dress in a tight knot, so that she could not move her legs or feet, and she let herself fall headlong into the swift-flowing water. A loud plash, one natural effort, with uplifted arms, for life, and all was over. She was borne fast down stream. 27 Some Literary Ramblings about Bath. III. As Bath was considered the most famous and the most fashionable sanitarium in England, of course the medical faculty flourished there. The hero of the New Bath Guide writes As we all came for health, as a body may say, I sent for the doctor the very next day. The doctor advised me to send for a nurse, And the nurse was so willing my health to restore, What happened after this consultation need not be related; the caricature is amusing, if somewhat coarse. Bath, in reality, has been, for more than a century, famous for enlightened medical professors of the best kind, though the wits have been very prone to gird at them. One of Anstey's imitators writes We're doubtless provided with medical men, Not one or two only, nor yet nine or ten: They're twenty M.D.'s, though their names I've forgot them, This writer declares that the famous Dr. Harrington Though gifted by nature and genius to follow Each heavenly art of his patron Apollo; With medicine or music so skilled to controul E'en him they neglected, neglected to hear- But-fortes vixerunt ante Harringtona: some of these I have already mentioned. I have now to speak of another famous contemporary of Nash and Quin. Dr. Cheyne was, for many years, a well-known character in Bath. He practised there for half the year, and for the other half in London, as fashionable physicians have since divided their time between London and Brighton. I have read many medical works, but I know none more gravid with good sense than Cheyne's, and certainly none so amusing. Towards the close of his life he became an advocate-though not to the uncompromising extent sometimes stated-of the vegetarian system of diet, and what he preached he practised upon his own person. It is narrated of him that he recommended Beau Nash to take to it, in his old age, and that Nash asked him whether he wished to persuade half the world to go grazing like Nebuchadnezzar.* Cheyne, in effect, told him that he would soon have to do something worse than that, and called him an "old blasphemer." On another occasion, the Physician having prescribed for the Beau, asked him if he had followed the prescription. "No," said Nash, "for in that case I should have flung myself out of window and broken my neck." It is probable that Nash was not the author of this joke, but I am not learned enough in jest-lore to trace it to its true source. However, the Fop had the advantage of the Physician, after all; for he lived to be eighty-six, whilst Cheyne died at eighty-four. But Dr. Cheyne, like another well-known vegetarian philosopher (Dr. Lambet), had originally a very crazy constitution, and so many ailments that, in the ordinary course of things, one might have expected that he would have only a short life, and a wretched one. Both have given the world their own experiences; but the "Author's case," as written by the elder Physician, is scarcely so convincing as that of the younger. Cheyne, indeed, admits that living on animal food and wine, he had a spell of twenty years of ease and comfort, which does not seem to have been more than he enjoyed under the other system; but he ran rapidly to flesh, so much so that he grew to be thirty-two stone in weight, which made it difficult for him to go upstairs to see his patients. He seems to have reduced himself by a process the very reverse of that recommended by Mr. Banting, and lived upon milk, roots, seeds, &c. for the rest of his life. Whether he made many converts or not, at Bath, is not recorded. But there are many people here who incline to this kind of diet, at the present day, and pronounce authoritatively on its good effects. Certainly upon economical grounds, if on no other, it is to be strongly recommended during the prevalence of the existing high price of butcher's meat. If we could turn our whole families and establishments into vegetarians we * Goldsmith, who tells this story, always calls him Dr. Cheney. Dr. Lambe succeeded to the practice at Warwick long held by the father of Walter Savage Landor. Landor himself was warmly attached to Mrs. Lambe, regarding whom there are several passages in that great writer's correspondence. A very interesting memoir of the great physician has been written by Mr. Edward Hare, C.S.I., who formerly held a distinguished position in the Indian Medical Service, a most accomplished gentleman, who now resides in Beckford's old house, in Lansdowne Crescent. He is an able advocate of the vegetarian system, and an excellent illustration of its good effects both bodily and mental. The book is one of the best examples of brief biography that I have seen, recommending itself equally to the public and the profession. I propounded the question, the other day, to several intelligent gentlemen, as to whether milk is animal or vegetable food. The majority contended that it was the former. Dr. Cheyne says it is "vegetables immediately cooked by animal heat and organs, and directly (without going the circulation) drawn from their chyle, or an emulsion of vegetables in the stomach." Dr. Lambe, however, appears to have described milk as "an animal fluid." The pure vegetarians of his time-the Newton family, and others-seem to have admitted it very reservedly, and to have eschewed cream, butter, and cheese altogether. |