ページの画像
PDF
ePub

settle our argument about the exact house occupied by Burns's niece. Harley said he had something better to do than bother about Burns's niece. So I came on alone."

Was mine not foremost nights round the toon o'

"You take quite an unusual interest in this corner of the earth." "Interest in Ayr? Should say I do. Haven't I walked, ridden, driven, or cycled every road in Ayrshire? among the youthful spirits that hovered o' honest men and bonnie lasses; that rowed stiff miles for the uncivilised purpose of gobbling icy indigestion, and honey-masked dyspepsia in the alluring halls of Fleury Meng? My heart warms whenever I see the old landmarks. And here, in this paradise, who could forget it? The stately monument, the inimitable figures of Tam o'Shanter and his crony, the Shell House, and down the blossom-hung paths and green slopes, the moving glass of Doon with its mirrored pictures, arched by the Auld Brig-a land pregnant with memories-an air redolent of him who was so much a poet because so Nature-fired, a man because so weak, a brother because so erring." There was a scraping sound in the room above, followed by a heavy thud. Wingate muttered unconsciously.

"Roping the boxes-what a row! Must keep this up." "Eh? What's that?" said the Colonel.

"I say if there's anywhere a man should be good, it's here; and yet I believe there are men who, even with these surroundings, would sell their soul for money-barter it for, say, five hundred a year and ten thousand slump."

The Colonel lay back, livid. In the next instant he sprang to his feet.

"What do you mean by that? And why are you roaring? And what's that noise?"

"My dear Colonel, you really mustn't. Think of the disastrous effects to your liver, if you had one. Let me explain. There was a fair girl dangerously troubled by her uncle. He was superstitious. She didn't know her danger, but she discovered that when she played upon his weakness he did not trouble her. Thereby hangs a ghosttale."

The Colonel moved nearer the door, and stood scowling. Wingate, right in his path, faced him.

"Colonel, do you remember that night on the frontier, when the Goorkhas were playing tunes on the ribs of the Afghans with their Kukries (bumping the banisters-the idiots !), and the colonel, who was very like you, galloped back to camp to stop young Charteris, who was engaged to his niece, from carrying her off from a

monster? (Tramping like elephants-at the door, too.) Brandis tried to reason with him on the other side of the door, but he wouldn't hear reason."

"Oho! That's your game, is it?" The Colonel sprang to the door.

"So, he took him by the throat-so! and shook him-so! 'You murderous old villain!' he said, 'haven't you done enough?'"

"For God's sake!" gurgled the Colonel, black in the face, "don't choke me."

"And while he held him there, lo! the lovers escaped!"

As Wingate released his hold, there was a sound of carriage wheels without. The Colonel, still panting, threw up the windowsash and thrust his head out. A waggonette was passing from the back of the house into the avenue. From behind a heap of packages

his nephew bowed, grinning; and his niece, smilingly, kissed her hand. The Colonel drew in, red-hot.

"You meddling jackanapes, this is your doing."

"And my glory," returned Wingate, again the imperturbable lawyer, with his back to the door.

"With my carriage and my coachman, too!"

furiously.

"Another man's coachman, now."

He rang the bell

After much ringing, came not the butler, but the housemaid. "Where's Brown?" bellowed her master.

"He's-he's unwell, sir."

Drunk, she means," interjected Wingate. "My arrangement, Colonel."

The Colonel turned purple.

"Tell the groom to saddle Damascus, and bring him round this instant."

"As well tell him to saddle the Alps," said Wingate, his back again to the door. "Firstly, because as the butler is, so is the groom; secondly, because the horses are taking the air, as it were, in the field by the glen. Also my arrangement!"

Yellow to the eyes, the Colonel sat down.

"Harley will pay for this. The scamp will never handle a penny of mine."

Wingate exploded. "Ho! ho! ho! You funny old man! The solemn way you joke! Dry humour that, eh? A man worth seventy thousand pounds handle a penny of yours!"

The Colonel exhausted the rainbow, and began afresh. "Now, Colonel, enough of this.

I'll tell you what you're going

to do. I've had a rather heavy day's work, and you're going to ask me to join you at dinner. After that you're going to ask me to smoke one of your fine Indian cigars, which will really go high." "Indeed! You take affairs into your own hand."

"Precisely. They are mine. I'm a lawyer, and I hunger." "And why should I ask you, pray? Why?"

"Because, while an open window at night may sometimes conduce to sleep everlasting, it doesn't always insure longevity. Sometimes

it insures the reverse. Now, you understand?"

Like a cowed animal, the Colonel sat as white as death. Wingate laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Colonel, this is the second time you've played for Hell; the second time I've made you foozle, and saved you. The first time was on Prestwick links. Both times you've been ungrateful." Hours had passed.

The sun had set, leaving the heavens a glory of purple afterglow that men travel the world to see and come home to find in Ayrshire. The lawyer's instructions had been implicitly obeyed, and the two men were still sitting at the dinnertable smoking in silence, when footsteps were heard on the gravel outside, and a telegram was handed to Wingate. He looked at the Colonel as he opened it.

"No, not from the detective department. Read for yourself." It was from Carlisle, and ran: "Be gentle. God bless you!

Nelly Harley."

The Colonel's voice shook.

"Give me your hand; I'm not ungrateful this time. too. God bless you!"

I say it,

MEMORIES OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.

ELL-authenticated tradition asserts that a familiar line in

WELL

Bishop Heber's prize poem of "Palestine," a line in which he so happily describes the rise of King Solomon's temple at Jerusalem, ran originally thus: "Like the green grass, the noiseless fabric grew." The tradition adds that at the suggestion of Sir Walter Scott, to whom Heber read his poem over in manuscript previously to its public recitation in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, this line was erased, and the more felicitous words "Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung" were substituted. It matters little whether we employ the former or the latter of these two similes. None, we suppose, will deny that it is most instructive, to say the least, to compare the growth of a fine building with that of a product of Nature. But the growth of an historical edifice rich with the spoils of time, like St. Paul's Cathedral, resembles most closely a venerable oak, which, in the words of a great poet, exhibits

The solid trunk, the aged stem,

That rears aloft its glorious diadem ;

That through long years of battle and of storm
Has striven whole fore round it to reform;

That still through lightning flash and thunder stroke

Returns its vital sap and hearts of oak.

Strange as it may sound to some of our readers, it is still incontestably true, that not one Londoner in a thousand knows, or even cares to know, anything concerning the history, be it early or late, of the metropolitan cathedral. Those of a facetious turn of mind will frequently ask a friend from the country, intent on what is commonly termed "doing" the place, that atrocious riddle, "Why is St. Paul's Cathedral like a bird's nest ?" in the hope of favouring him, on receiving a "Give it up," with the answer "Because it was built by a Wren"; but there matters generally end, and of the history, the antiquities of the fane, they in general know nothing and care to know nothing.

It would be an interesting task to trace, with the aid of Dean Milman's scholarly monograph, the history of this church in detail;

but it would exhaust the limits, not of one, but of many papers. We propose, therefore, in this paper to examine only the outline of its history, and to dwell upon only the most salient parts of that history, which, it is almost superfluous to say, disturbs traditions, recalls grievances, touches prejudices, excites deep feelings, and affects momentous religious interests.

The discovery, some sixty years ago (during the progress of excavations for the foundation of Goldsmiths' Hall), of a stone altar adorned with an effigy of Diana, lends considerable weight to the theory that the hill on which St. Paul's Cathedral stands occupies the site of a temple dedicated to the worship of the great goddess of Ephesus. A camp of the Romans, then a temple of the Saxons, next a cathedral church built by Ethelbert, King of Kent, with the sanction of Sebert, King of the East Angles, next a relapse into Paganism, and then the restoration of the Cathedral by the famous St. Erkenwald-these are the chief points in the history of Paul's Church, from the commencement of its history until the beginning of the seventh century.

Why the cathedral church of London when, in the Anglo-Saxon times, the City became an episcopal See under Mellitus, the companion of Augustine, was dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, antiquaries are not agreed. Very ancient tradition preserved by the ecclesiastical historians, however, asserts that this island was, at a very early date, visited by St. Paul, who preached the Christian gospel to its inhabitants, and if so it may probably have ied to the association of his name with the first Christian temple in London, but there is no evidence to warrant the conclusion.

Towards the close of the reign of William the Conqueror, St. Paul's Cathedral was razed to the ground by fire. Shortly afterwards Manutius, Chaplain and Chancellor to William the First, who occupied the See from 1086 to 1107, began a new fabric, which was not finished, however, until two hundred rolling years had run their course. This structure was completed in 1315, during the reign of Edward II., and despite many additions and subtractions, executed through the long ages which are sometimes styled "the dark ages," stood firm until its fate was sealed by the unparalleled conflagration of 1666.

What was the form of old St. Paul's the second? What were its architectural dimensions? To these questions we can supply ready answers. Referring to the pages of William of Malmesbury's

! See Short's History of the Church of England, c. i.; Bright's Chapters on English Church History; Sparrow Simpson's Chapters in the History of Old St.

Paul's.

« 前へ次へ »