from all parts of the county to see it. It remained under the care of the chosen dairywoman until it was pronounced sufficiently firm to be moved; the price of admission for each visitor, in the mean time, being fixed at a shilling. At this point, one of the donors kindly offered to give up his parlour, a large and convenient room, to ripen it in, and this offer being accepted, it was removed to its new quarters, carefully bound up in its former mahogany casing to secure it from injury. The weight and size of the giant rendered it impossible to "turn" it without the aid of machinery, and an apparatus was constructed which brought this very necessary operation in cheese-making within the power of one person. Notwithstanding this invention, the rest of the farmers could not trust the handling of so valuable a prize to one man, and they assembled nearly every after noon at the house of the keeper to watch the development of their property. As a want of hospitality is not a West Pennard failing, the host was very liberal with his best cider, and by the time the process of "ripening" was considered complete (a period of several months), the whole of his previous year's making of ciderfrom twenty to thirty hogsheads-had thoroughly disappeared. The number of nights on which late sounds of conviviality were heard roaring round this giant cheese are tenaciously remembered by many goodwives in West Pennard. The cheese being now fit for presentation to her Majesty, a great meeting of shareholders was held, and a deputation chosen, consisting of three of the principal proprietors. To give this deputation greater importance, the parish factotum was elected to accompany it. That nothing might be wanting to render it worthy of the occasion, the four delegates were arrayed in new suits of clothes, made under general advice by a fashionable tailor. tempts were made to get possession of the Leviathan Cheese. A considerable reward was even offered to any one who would cut or damage it, and its trustees became so alarmed, that, at the cost of twelve pounds, they had a strong iron cage constructed for its safe-keeping, with a brilliant crown upon the top, to warn of all treasonable enemies. Not feeling secure even with this stronghold, and this emblem of authority, they caused heavy iron bars to be affixed to the windows of the room in which the caged giant was deposited; also to the mantelpiece, as some daring, disloyal chimneysweep from Bath had undertaken to get down the chimney at night and basely earn the reward. The three members of the deputation, omitting the factotum, resided at Sticklings, Woodlands, and East-street, and the united parish, fearing that, from the excitement and ill-feeling, the honour which seemed likely to fall upon it might be lost for ever, very wisely took the power of conferring the expected patents of nobility into its own hands; and the three farmers, under the action of the parochial will, became respectively the Marquis of Sticklings, the Duke of Woodlands, and Lord East-street. This proceeding rather increased the jealousy and activity of the opposition; and, by some means, they obtained possession of the mahogany vat and follower. Making a plaster of Paris imitation of the Leviathan Cheese, they started an exhibition in London, and kept it open for some months with considerable success. Upon this the Marquis of Sticklings, the Duke of Woodlands, and Lord East-street, having asked and gained the permission of her gracious Majesty to exhibit the real, original giant, they took a room, as all passing exhibitors used to do some ten years ago, at the Egyptian Hall. It was now the turn of the plaster of Paris party to make another move, and flying to Chancery, they obtained an The Leviathan Cheese, duly launched, was injunction prohibiting the exhibition, in Lontaken to London by this imposing guard of don, of the original Leviathan. Driven from honour, and laid at the feet of her gracious the metropolis, the giant and its trustees went Majesty. Its reception by royalty was every- to the country, and pitched their tents, to some thing that West Pennard could have wished, the purpose, in several of the largest towns in only objection to the giant being its extreme Somersetshire. If the Marquis of Sticklings, youth. As it was not considered old enough to the Duke of Woodlands, and Lord East-street cut, her Majesty requested the delegates to take had been ordinary showmen, with no recently it back, and present it again at a more mature acquired and extraordinary dignity to maintain age, when she promised a donation of one hun- a fair amount might have been realised by the dred pounds to the poor of the giant's parish. exhibition of the giant; but, as they were very When the delegates returned to West Pen-careful not to disgrace their titles by any display nard, they gave a highly glowing account-in fact, many highly glowing accounts-of their reception at the palace. They spoke particularly of his Royal Highness Prince Albert in terms of the warmest admiration, and remarked, almost familiarly, that " they had never met a nicer fellow." So much did they dwell upon The Leviathan Cheese was ultimately taken to this portion of their narrative, that the origi- its old abode, the residence of the Marquis of nal curiosity of their listeners and fellow Sticklings, where it remained until the death of shareholders soon changed to jealousy. Knight- that esteemed nobleman. It was then removed hood was the least honour expected to follow to the house of the Duke of Woodlands, where such a reception; a prospect not at all pleasing it rested, an unfortunate, worn-out, neglected to the general body of contributors. This feel-giant, until his grace gave up farming, and took ing grew at last into open rebellion, and at- upon himself the management of the Old Down of meanness or economy, they spent. all the money they received, neglected their farms, and were several hundred pounds out of pocket besides. The plaster of Paris party were also losers by the contest, their law and other expenses amounting to a nearly equal sum. Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. think his creed, one of the severest as regards Inn, on the Mendip Hills. The history of the Though dead, and consumed in every material verse. WRITTEN IN MY CELL. I never loved my stepfather. His relation to me had, I believe, no share in influencing my feelings; they would have been the same had he been my real father: indeed I always considered him as such. I may have taken advantage of the fact of my paternity in disobeying him in after life, but I certainly dared not do it then. Ours was a dull household: mine was a sombre boyhood. I had plenty of repression, little love; that little bestowed timidly by my mother, the instincts of whose heart were wiser than the dictates of her husband's head. I believe her child stood paramount in her affections, and that she had given him a stepfather for his sake, I SUPPOSE I write this in the desperate hope rather than her own, being left very poor at her of awakening sympathy in some human heart, husband's decease. But she never exhibited albeit I shall never know it. It is a dreadful this partiality so openly as to excite his succesthing to go to the gallows abhorred by every- sor's suspicion or jealousy. He might have body: it is a more dreadful thing to have de-grown kinder if he had had children of his own; served it. but, with the exception of a baby which died in its infancy, my mother brought him none. I have heard that he seemed sorry and disappointed at this. Not the gallows! it is not that I am afraid of. When I heard the words, "To be hanged by the neck till you are dead," I could have blessed We lived in London, but saw little or no the judge for that righteous and most merciful sentence. Anything to escape from the intole- company, went to no parties, balls, theatres, or rable loathing of my fellow-creatures! Yet entertainments, my stepfather's creed and inthere is not one of them who, in detestation clination disposing him against all such inof my crime, has less of pity for me than I my-dulgences. He sent me to a good day-school, self. The thought of pain, of suffering by way kept me to my tasks at home, allowed me no "A pack of of expiation, is a relief to me; I would have it more play that could be prevented, and hated No all books, except "serious" ones. crueler, more shameful, if it might be. horror that could be inflicted, would compare lies and nonsense," was his ordinary denunciawith the tremendous agony of living on, after tion of works of fiction. I read them secretly, such a deed. I must hope, as I suppose we all when the opportunity offered; they afford me do, that death will bring some change involving, almost the only pleasant retrospection I retain if not pardon and peace, some oblivion of the of my boy-days. I mention these things but unendurable present. At times, I fancy it will in illustration of the circumstances amid which my character was formed. all prove a dreadful dream; that I never did it. Passionate, impulsive, and shy, these, I reI set out to relate how it happened. As no eye will read this until the hand which writes it, peat, were its predominant features; the latter is mouldering in the grave, I can have no object resulting from my comparative isolation from to serve but the avowed one of soliciting a grain youth of my own age, and from a consciousness of compassion, which, I know, can never be ac-of awkwardness and plainness of feature. I was joked on both subjects by my schoolfelcorded while I live. From my childhood, as far back as I can re-lows until I became angrily sensitive to them, member, I was of an eager, passionate nature, impulsive to a degree which would often have covered me with confusion and ridicule, but for the check of an unconquerable shyness, partly inherent, partly the result of circumstances. A plain-featured, awkward boy, a posthumous son by my mother's first marriage (she wedded again of her widowhood), my surin the second year roundings might have been happier. I was brought up strictly rather than affectionately, under the care of a stepfather. He ruled his family absolutely, but with as much justice as was consonant with a certain narrowmindedness common to men of his stamp. and painfully confirmed in my shame-facedness. This, and the repressive influences at home, induced a morbid habit of reserve, which my apany indiprobativeness often burst through, to my subsequent chagrin and mortification. As cation of temper brought correction or sharp comment from my stepfather, I had additional reason for self-control, but, until manhood, I never attained much more than the semblance of it. Then it deceived people, and in some degree myself, with respect to my disposition. If none of this had been forced upon me, if my eager, ardent nature had been allowed healthy Ivent; if what was good within me had ripened in the sunshine of affection, what bad, firmly but tenderly repressed, I might, at this hour, be an honoured and happy man, instead of a condemned murderer. But God knows, and He only. School-days over, I entered my stepfather's office. He was a solicitor in good practice. I had no inclination towards the profession, but his suggestion carried its weight of authority, my mother considered it " very respectable,' and I had hardly turned my thoughts in any definite direction. It answered indifferently well, and in due time I was articled. the craft, I had earned money by it. Besides which, I presently began to write for magazines and periodicals, at first poorly enough, and with proportionate remuneration. Long ago, perhaps in consequence of my stepfather's prohibition, I had become an eager reader of fiction, and this, germinating in a feverish, though diseased, temperament, produced fruit of a sort which yet commanded a certain price. Years passed, and I prospered, leading a very different life from that endured in my former home, but not a better one. My stepfather's example had disgusted me with professions of religion; I had no check of kindred or friends to restrain me from vicious indulgence, for my disposition was not calculated to attract those who could have helped me to purer pleasures, nor was it improved by pecuniary success. Coming manhood did little towards emancipating me from the restraints of home. I had scarcely any command of money; and this, with a standing requisition that I should be in-doors every night by ten o'clock, virtually debarred me from amusement abroad. Naturally, I mutinied; That accursed shame-facedness, always my and, after a struggle, effected the abolition of enemy, now deepened by a sense of impurity-I the latter privation, and some, but no consider- never went far enough to confound evil with able, improvement in the former. Both were good-impelled me to reject kindly advances conceded unwillingly and after pertinacious op- made by the better sort of my own class; position, originating a series of quarrels which, among the worst, I had companions, but no after my mother's death, terminated in the total friends. My employers respected my intellect, estrangement of myself and stepfather. but disliked me. Not to exaggerate my proShe was always weak, I think constitution-fligacy, let me state that it was rather spasmodic ally inclined to consumption, and died in my than habitual, nor ever openly defiant of the twenty-first year. Her loss affected me ex- decencies of society. I lived this life for ten travagantly, but temporarily. My stepfather's years. When, at times, I longed for a wife, a sorrow was, like himself, grave and undemon-home, the recollection of past mortification, of present unfitness, of my ugliness, deterred me from seeking them. And, self-indulgence palling upon my appetite, I presently devoted myself exclusively to literary ambition. strative. I forgot my loss the more rapidly from a youthful passion which then occupied me for the first time. It is my intention to speak only of circumstances which had a direct influence Four years of persistence produced their reon my character, and this boy-love may be dis-sults. I come now to the train of circumstances missed in a few sentences. which brought me here. I fell in love with a sister of one of my ac- It was at Scarborough, whither I had gone in quaintances: a handsome, merry girl, my senior consequence of indisposition, that chance made by a year, a coquette by nature. I submitted me acquainted with her uncle. You know whom to her whims for twelve months, when we quar- I mean by her-there is no need to mention relled our last quarrel and parted. The impe- names. A watering-place intimacy sprang up betuosity with which I urged my suit had over-tween us, renewed at the uncle's request on our borne her original distaste for my ugliness-it return to the metropolis. He was an old bawas no longer mere plainness-and my earnest-chelor, fond of books and curious about authors. ness frightened her. She broke off, in spite of miserable humiliation on my part, leaving me to digest the pain and mortification of it. When she hears of my deed (she married and went to India) she will think she had a happy escape. Perhaps she had. I suffered more than common from so common an experience. It made me doubly sensitive to my defects, natural and acquired. I brooded retrospectively, nursed my wounded self-esteem into embittered egotism, yet despised myself for my recent failure. I laboured to attain selfcontrol, and, as aforesaid, achieved at least the mask of it. At this period the alienation between myself and stepfather reached a crisis, and terminated in my withdrawal both from his office and home. I was able to keep myself, having acquired, with a world of pains and at the exercise of an amount of patience foreign to my nature, the art of stenography; though not a proficient in He invited me to his house, introduced me to his brother's family. I went there idly, out of courtesy to him, or out of curiosity. I wish I had fallen dead on the threshold ! They were hospitable people, dwelling in a pleasant house in a London suburb, with a garden and conservatory; its owner had retired from business on something more than competence. His family consisted of a son and two daughters. She was the youngest. What did I see in her that it should light up such a fire in my heart? A girl of sixteen, with kind, thoughtful, brown eyes; soft, smooth, fair hair; and rosy cheeks. That was all. A mere girl, less than half my age, pretty, very pretty, but neither clever nor beautiful. I had looked upon scores of faces more perfect in feature, brighter in intellect, without any quickening of the pulse or more than transient admiration. Yet I saw and loved her. If I could tell how imperiously the passion took possession of me, how it enthralled my whole nature to the exclusion of everything but that one tyrannic idea, the crowning horror that grew out of it might be understood, if not pitied. It began innocently enough, God knows. I went to the house, as I have said, at first in company with her uncle, then with or without him, always obtaining a cordial welcome. There was a goodness, an unaffected kindness in the little family, manifest in its mutual relations, its behaviour to friends and visitors, which won upon me in spite of my distrust of myself and others. I had never seen anything like it, never known how much of affection, of unconscious self-sacrifice, of mutual esteem and forbearance might be comprised in the one word home. They were not brilliant people, nor more highly bred or educated than thousands of their class. They read books, went occasionally to the theatre, loved music, dancing, and innocent pleasures, and were glad to admit their friends to a share of them. The father, a cheery, hospitable man, liked company, and his wife saw only through his eyes. For a time, my shyness kept me in the background, but the unvarying kindness with which I was received gradually dissipated my reserve. I loved the family and felt better and happier for knowing them. The girls often sang to us of evenings. I wonder whether I am unusually sensitive to sweet voices, that hers should have affected me as it did, waking up some unearthly responsive longing in my soul as for something I had never known, something I should never attain, which was delicious, yet exquisitely painful. Her girlish ways, her manner as she went about her household duties or performed the little rites of hospitality, possessed an indescribable fascination for me, totally irrecon cilable with reason or with my colder judgment; for, strange as it may seem, I knew her as she was, even when most under the influence of the passion which controlled me. I knew it, but had no power to break the enchantment. She never suspected it as how should she? I was so much her elder that she regarded me as out of the pale of those who might be attracted by her girlish beauty. To her, a girl of sixteen, I was an odd-looking man, a visitor, a friend of the family, nothing more. My intellectual superiority made her timid. She never dreamed of her power over me. The touch of her hand, accidental contact with her dress, the upturned glance of her kind calm eyes, filled me with tremor; my whole nature became resonant to her presence. When I conversed, it was always with a secret hope that she would listen or reply. I never spoke to her, without a miserable desire to interest her, and a wretched sense of failure. I revolved, over and over again in my mind, the trivial words that passed between us, pondering on the tones in which she had spoken, and nursing the unrest which devoured me like a burning fever. So it went on, day by day, week after week, for six months. There was a handsome lad of fifteen, a schoolfellow of her brother, who came to the house, and whose fancy selected her as the object of a boyish passion: one rife with day-dreams and romance, but of no more depth or consequence than such fancies ordinarily are. I noticed it at the outset. I believe I discovered it before he himself had any distinct consciousness of the feeling. When evident to all, and something of a joke in the family, she was secretly pleased, though she affected to look down upon him as her junior-a year is a great gap in a girl's estimation. Too simple-hearted to comprehend coquetry, she yet knew she was pretty, and her admirer's passion flattered and amused her innocent vanity. I think she had no idea that anything serious would come of it, but she certainly liked and listened to him. That tortured me. The boy was in earnest. I have said he was handsome, and the contrast between his fresh youthful face, his buoyant spirits and healthy nature, with mine, filled me with gall and wormwood. He, in spite of his bashfulness and blushing modesty, could find topics enough to talk about, and could interest her. There were no awkward intervals of silence between them. She smiled or laughed when he entered the room, and called him "Harry.” I have sat, time after time, and watched them with unutterable envy and unutterable misery in my heart. I wonder now, that I restrained myself so well, but nobody suspected me-not till the dreadful end. The family went out of town, in the month of June, to a village, eastward of London, on the border of a forest. They had humble friends there, and generally stayed at the cottage of a woman who had been her and her sister's nurse. And I and the uncle were invited to visit them at pleasure-it was barely a three hours' coach journey. In August, I did so, as it happened, alone. I met the father in the footpath across the meadow which led to the village, on his way to town, and he God help him! I was never again to see his face turned towards me in friendship and confidence-gave me a cheery greeting, and bade me go on and enjoy myself, promising to return at nightfall. The girls are starting for a pic-nic in the forest,” he said; "you'll be just in time." I saw her at the window in the cottage gable, with a garland of summer flowers in her hair, laughing through the honeysuckle at those below. She smiled and nodded a welcome to me. There were not many present: her brother, sister, two cousins (girls), a country friend, and Harry. I knew he was stopping with them, yet his presence gave me a pang as if my heart had been suddenly gripped by a cruel human hand. They all seemed glad to see me, and, my respects paid to the mother, who did not care to be of the party, we set out for the forest together. In spite of his sisters' objections, their brother took with him a foolish pistol which he had, for the purpose of shooting at a mark. Throughout that sultry summer's day, the sun of which was not to set without leaving on my forehead the brand of Cain, by dusty lane and green hedgerow, among the trees in the forest, Harry kept by her side, driving me mad. He was happy, very happy, for the occasion increased her natural good-humour and good spirits, perhaps her liking for her boyish lover. A fortnight of daily, almost hourly, intimacy in that idle holiday time, had naturally brought them closer together, and he, at once intoxicated by his passion and the sweet influences surrounding him, was more enamoured than ever. So he kept by her side, nobody challenging his right to that position. I see them now: he with his youthful, glowing face, all admiration and enjoyment: she, in her light dress and straw hat, her sweet eyes just raised in answer to him and a smile on her lips. One of the party jestingly called my attention to them once as if that were needed. We rambled about in the forest until noontide, and for an hour longer, presently dining in an open space where were some fallen trees and a little spring. He sat at her feet, and as much as possible engrossed her conversation. Her brother joked him on it, and I joined in the laugh. We were all very merry together, and my conduct excited no suspicion. I talked gaily, and observed her looking at me more than once in quiet surprise. Fury and despair were raging in my heart, yet I talked lightly and merrily; and, when the brother proposed that we should try our skill in shooting at an extemporised target, I bore my part like a boy amongst boys. Tiring of this and of other sports, we rambled hither and thither. Then, I feigned drowsiness, and they left me, to come back in an hour or so, bidding me take care of our dinner baskets. The brother left his pistol; it was heavy, and he tired of his plaything. When they had all gone off among the bushes, I sat up, on a fallen tree, and loaded the weapon. I declare before Heaven, I had no thought then of the dreadful use to which I was soon to put it; I had an inclination to play with the idea of suicide. It was fascinating, in my maddened morbid state, to put the muzzle between my teeth, and fancy what pulling the trigger would effect. I imagined it in detail. A horrible crash and a great darkness. I should be found on their return, lying beside the log, dead. How shocked they would be, how horrified! What would she say? Would she be sorry? How little she or any one in the world would suspect the cause of it! I should carry my secret with me into the next world; perhaps I should be at rest, and people would pity me. The thought grew upon me, so that I rose to dissipate it rose and strolled off among the trees, with the accursed pistol in my pocket. My hands behind me, my head bowed, my eyes on the grass, I went, walking slowly, thinking of her. It might have been five minutes, it might have been an hour, when I heard a girl's voice, carolling merrily-a voice and song I knew well. A dizziness was in my ears, my heart throbbed tumultuously and painfully. I raised my eyes and saw her alone, coming towards me, down footpath into which I had wandered. a She had never looked prettier or kinder. There was a rosy flush of health and exercise upon her cheek, a sweet light of love in her eyes, and a glory of afternoon sunshine streaming through the boughs upon her fair brown hair. Something told me that the boy's ardour had won, if not a reciprocation of his passion, at least an unusually favourable hearing. I turned, and we walked side by side. "Where were the others?" I asked. "Oh, coming, but a long way behind. She had run away from them." And she laughed. "Why ?" They had teased her. She was glad to have met me, as I would take her part." "And Harry?" She blushed, and, returning an evasive answer, stole a sidelong glance behind. I looked behind, too. There was no one visible. 66 He loves you," I said. She blushed deeper than before, and turned her face away, and we walked on in silence for a few seconds. Then it came. "I love you!" I said. "Do you know what a man's love is?" And I poured forth a flood of passionate, incoherent words, such as cannot be recalled or written down, such as men sometimes utter once in a lifetime. She listened, amazed-affrighted. There was more than that in her face. As I seized her hand and told her of my hopelessness and agony, I saw, distinctly, in the girlish countenance, a look of repugnance and aversion. She broke from me, and attempted to run away. The next moment, I stood with the discharged pistol in my hand, a little smoke curling upwards from its muzzle. * What need to narrate how I fled from the spot, the long red bars of sunset streaming after me through the wood, like the fires of Hell? How I longed for death, yet had not the courage to slay myself? How I gave myself up to justice for that murder, was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death? The Seventh Journey of A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS, Will appear Next Week. Now ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in cloth, THE SECOND VOLUME, Including Nos. 27 to 50, and the Christmas Double Number, of ALL THE YEAR ROUND. The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors. Published at the Office, No. 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand. |