Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846

Bonaparte has taken the first step to a throne: he has established nobility. The Republic having abolished all titles, a peerage was, for a while, impossible. But he has formed a military Caste, which, without hazarding his popularity with the Parisians, increases his popularity with the troops, and has all the advantages of a noblesse, with all the dependency of its members on the head of the State. He has named this Institution the Legion of Honour. It is to consist of several classes, the first comprehending the great officers of state, generals who have distinguished themselves, and ancient men of science. It has sixteen Cohorts, with palaces allotted to them in Paris and the provinces, for the headquarters of the cohorts. Grants of land are also proposed for the support of these officers and their residences, with distributions and pensions for the lower ranks of the soldiery, to whom the "croix d'honneur" is given.

Thus the old reign of titles, orders, crosses, and an established Class of society, has begun once more; a large portion of the most influential personages of France are thus bound to the head of the government, the hopes of every man, however humble in soldiership or in science, are pointed to the attainment of this public honour, as well as personal provision, and the general purchase of power is virtually declared, with the general consent of this versatile nation.

Ten thousand pounds have just been voted to Jenner, for his discovery of the vaccine inoculation. The liberality of parliament was never more rationally employed. The history of the man, and the discovery, have been long before the public. But the most curious circumstance of the whole is, that the facts of the disease, and the remedy, should have remained for any one to discover in the nineteenth century. They were known to the peasantry of Gloucestershire probably from the first days of cow milking. That the most disfiguring of all diseases, in every country of Europe and Asia, and the most pestilential in a large portion of the globe, could be arrested by a disease from the udders of a cow, seems never to have entered into human thoughts, though the fact that those who had the vaccine disease never suffered from the smallpox, was known to the country physicians.

But Jenner's chief merit was his fortunate conjecture, that the infection might be propagated from one human subject to another. This was the greatest medical discovery since that of the Circulation of the Blood.

IT'S ALL FOR THE BEST

Chapter I

"It's all for the best, you may depend upon it," said Frank Trevelyan, addressing his companion, Vernon Wycherley, as those two young men were pursuing a beaten track across one of those wild wastes that form so prevalent a feature in most of the mining districts of Cornwall.

"All for the best, indeed?" repeated Vernon interrogatively. "Can it be all for the best to have a whole batch of poems I've been racking my brains about for the last year and a half – and which even you yourself, hard as you are to please, admitted were worthy of praise – to have all these, not only rejected by every publisher I offered them to, but to be actually returned with a recommendation to give up all idea of ever offering them to public notice?"

"But which convinces me still more that matters have turned out for the best; and that if your poetical effusions had been published, they would have brought you far more ridicule than praise," thought Frank. But at the same time, not wishing to hurt his companion's feelings, he said – "Yet, probably, when you have again revised the manuscripts, and bestowed some of your masterly finishing touches here and there, you will, after all, congratulate yourself upon the source of your present disappointment."

"That's an impossibility – an utter impossibility," returned Vernon Wycherley – "for were I to look through them a hundred times, I should never alter a word. – But stay – Look! look! – what is that I see? Two ladies on horseback, I declare! who could have anticipated meeting with such an occurrence in so outlandish a place?"

The place was by no means undeserving of the remark, being devoid of any kind of vegetation, except some straggling heath and a few patches of stunted gorse, which here and there sprung up amidst the rugged spar-stones that, intermixed with rude crags of granite, were thickly scattered over this wide waste, which, throughout its vast extent, afforded as perfect a picture of sterility as can be well conceived. With this brief outline of the scenery, we must next attempt to describe the parties who were wandering over it.

Frank Trevelyan was about two-and-twenty. In figure he was rather below the middle height, and being slightly made and with the proportions of a tall man, he looked much less than he actually was. His features were not handsome, but he possessed what in a man is far more important – a highly intelligent and intellectual cast of countenance. He wore his hair, which was light and curly, cut very close, and incipient whiskers adorned the outline of his lower jaw. He was dressed in a gray tweed wrapper, with trousers of the Brougham pattern, and he sported a hat – black, but whether beaver or gossamer we are uninformed – high in the crown, but very narrow in the brim, bearing altogether no very remote resemblance to an inverted flower-pot.

His companion was about the same age, but the latter had made so much better use of his growing years, as to have shot up to something more than six feet in height; yet his figure, though slender, exhibited no appearance of weakness. His features were passably good – the nose perhaps rather too projecting; but his teeth were unexceptionable. He had a clear complexion, with a good fresh colour in his cheeks, which were still covered with the down of youth, but without imparting the slightest appearance of effeminacy. A foraging-cap of gray woven horse-hair, with a preposterous shade projecting out in front, covered his head; a loose blouse enveloped the upper, whilst checkered inexpressibles enclosed the lower man. Unlike his companion, he wore his hair, which was rather dark, very long, both at the sides and behind; and the rudiments of mustaches were perceptible upon his upper lip; but whether they were to be allowed to attain a more luxuriant maturity, or their brief existence was to be prematurely cut short by the destroying razor, was, at the time we speak of, involved in doubt, that being a subject which, though it engrossed much of his thoughts, the proprietor had hitherto been unable to make up his mind upon. Each of our two heroes bore a light kind of knapsack upon his back; their general appearance marked them to be gentlemen, whilst their attire and accoutrements denoted they were pursuing a pedestrian tour.

But softly! the ladies approach. See how elegantly they canter their steeds over the only smooth piece of turf our travellers had met with throughout the whole extent of gloomy commons they had that morning traversed.

"Ay, that's right! Pull up in time, my lovely ones, ere you get amongst the rascally mole-hills; and then you'll not only ride the safer, but afford us at the same time a chance of obtaining a view of your pretty faces," thought friend Frank; whilst similar thoughts, although perhaps arranged in more elegant terms, were passing through the mind of his companion. But if the curiosity of the two pedestrians was great, their admiration proved far greater when the objects which excited those feelings, on a nearer approach, proved to be two as lovely young women as the most fastidious admirer of beauty could wish to gaze upon. One of them, indeed, displayed such matchless charms to the youthful poet's eyes, as at the very first glance to form to his excited fancy the beau-ideal of perfect loveliness.

"What an angel!" he mentally exclaimed; "upon such a form I could continue to gaze enraptured for" —

How long he never said, for ere he had time to give utterance to the thought, he stumbled over one of the surrounding mole-hills, and staggering forward several paces with extended arms, he ultimately fell prostrate on the ground, close by the side of the innocent yet moving cause of his misadventure, and with such force, as to bury the whole of his countenance in the soft heavings of a similar hillock to the one he had so inadvertently tripped over.

Luckily for him, the place his physiognomy alighted upon was of so soft and yielding a nature, that though he stamped a perfect model of his features in the clay, the features themselves were unimpaired, otherwise than by the earthy colouring communicated to them by so pressing a contact, which perfectly satisfied the fair equestrians (who had the kindness to pull up and express their hopes that he was not seriously hurt) that the actual damage sustained was of a very superficial nature.

"And I suppose you intend to say that this is all for the best?" observed Vernon in rather a rueful tone, as, the ladies having ridden on, he was attempting to rub off the dirt from his face with his pocket handkerchief – the first wipe of which was sufficient to show him how much the effects of his tumble had changed the natural hue of his complexion.

"To be sure I do," answered Frank "and any man less unreasonable than yourself would say so too."

"What! say it was all for the best for him, like an awkward booby, to fall sprawling in the dirt, thereby making himself a laughing-stock to that beautiful, angelic creature? Oh! only look, my dear Frank, only look – see her – see both of them! Why, as I live, they are almost ready to fall off the very backs of their horses from the laughter my blundering awkwardness has excited. Oh, it's really dreadful – I must turn my head another way. I can bear the sight of it no longer!"

"But only think how much worse it would have been if your phiz, instead of the soft earth, had encountered one of the hard spar-stones that are so plentifully strewed about here?"

"And supposing it had – wouldn't it have been better, at the cost of little pain and suffering, to have excited the compassion, instead of the laughter of that heavenly creature?"

"But hardly at the sacrifice of your nose, I should say," rejoined Frank, "which, from the deep impression it has made in the clay, must have been smashed flat as a pancake had it battled out the matter with the stones."

The young poet had a great regard for his nose, and his companion's remarks upon the subject were so palpable, that he was not only silenced but convinced.

"I say here, my man. Here, Jan, Jan, I say," bawled out our friend Frank, to what he was pleased to style a straw-yard savage in the disguise of a gentleman's servant on horseback, who, whilst engaged in the pleasant employment of munching an apple, had allowed the ladies he was attending to canter off some distance a-head, and was then in the act of passing, at a very moderate pace, close by our two heroes, but pulled up his nag at the summons, and, touching his hat, replied, in the singing accent of the western Cornishmen – " Your sarvant, gen'lmen both; what 'ud ye plaze to have, sir? – though my name b'aint Jan, plaze yer honours."

"What is it then? – Bill, Dick, Tom, Harry, Ben, Jim, Nic, Mike, Mathey, or Peter?"

"Neither, maester, plaze your honour, sir," said the man, with a grin that denoted he was entering into the humour of the thing, and who, as well as Frank, was a bit of a wag in his way. "Timothy's my name, at your sarvice, gen'lmen – what 'ud your honours plaze to have of I?"

"What I would have, Timothy," answered Frank, "is for you to tell me who those two young ladies are that you are in attendance upon?"

"Maester's two dafters," replied Timothy.

"And who's maester?" asked Frank.

"The squire, to be sure," answered his man.

"And what's squire's name?" inquired Frank.

"Potts – Squire Potts," replied Timothy – at which announcement Vernon Wycherley lifted up both eyes and hands in unfeigned amazement.

"And the young ladies?" resumed the questioner.

"Lor, sir! I ha'n't a got time to bide and tell'ee no more. See they be 'most out of sight a'ready, and I shall have to ride a brave pace to catch mun again – and most dead wi' thest, too, I be's a'ready."

Frank, who plainly saw Timothy's drift, dived his hand into the deep recesses of his trousers' pockets. – Timothy, who witnessed the act, not altogether an unexpected one, drew nearer and nearer, and when close alongside of Frank, cramming the remainder of the apple into his mouth, he dropped the hand that had conveyed it there, as if by the merest accident in the world, within easy reach of the interrogator's, who, slipping into it a coin of sufficient importance, small as it was, to raise a grin of delight in the groom's countenance, again asked him the names of the two young ladies.

"Heerken, and I'll tell'ee," he answered. "She with the light hair and eyes, she's Miss Bessie; and she with the dark hair and eyes, she's called Miss Molly – that's she's name." And having so said, Timothy rode off at a rapid pace.

"Can it be possible!" exclaimed Vernon Wycherley – "can it be possible that so lovely a being – one who seems too beautiful to tread the earth" —

"And so rides on horseback over it; is that what you mean?" interrupted Frank.

"No, you know very well it is not what I mean," answered Vernon petulantly. "My wonder is, how one so elegant could be called by such a name as that knave uttered."

"What! Molly Potts, eh? that I believe was the name he mentioned?" interposed Frank.

"Pshaw, nonsense!" retorted his companion; "it can't be her name. The idea's too preposterous to be true. That insolent clown has dared to try to hoax us; for which I promise him, if I were his master, I'd break every bone in his good-for-nothing body. Molly Potts! It never can be so. The thing's quite out of the question – utterly impossible!"

"Impossible or not, I don't see that it's likely to make much difference either to you or me," observed Frank; "for the chances are, we never set eyes upon either of them again."

"Then," said Vernon, "I almost wish that I, at least, had never set eyes upon one of them at all. To know that such an angel moves about on earth, and to think that I may never see her more, must ever form a source of deep regret; and yet it seems strange – very strange – that I – I – who have ever looked upon the fairest of the sex unmoved, should be so struck as I was here by a mere glance."

"A very hard hit, certainly," said Frank: "I never saw a fellow more completely floored."

"Better book that to tell again," retorted vernon; "it really is so seldom you do say a witty thing, that it's a pity it should be lost upon these dull moors."

"Then, unless we intend to follow the fate of my wit," resumed Frank, "we must step out a little faster to get out of them; which we sha'n't do under a couple of miles' walk more, I promise you."

Chapter II

Frank Trevelyan's statement proved tolerably correct as to distance, for little more than two miles brought our travellers clear of the rugged moorlands; when, after ascending the brow of a steep hill, a sight broke suddenly upon them, which, though unlike the scenery they had previously passed over, presented if possible a more dreary picture. As far as the eye could reach, nothing could be discerned but one vast wilderness of undulating sandy hillocks, totally devoid of vegetation, except a kind of coarse rush, which, in spite of the shifting nature of the soil, had here and there contrived to spring up and take root; and now to add to this cheerless aspect, the sky, which hitherto had been bright and clear, began to lower with those dark threatening clouds which form the sure forerunner of a heavy squall of wind and rain – no pleasant thing for two lightly-clad pedestrians to be overtaken with in a bleak open country on a chill November day. Even Frank, who, with his merry chat, had latterly kept his companion's spirits alive, the latter of whom had begun to complain both of hunger and fatigue – even Frank felt disconcerted at the desolate prospect before him, as well as disappointed at not discovering the mining village, containing the snug little public-house, which he had been informed he should fall in with at the termination of the stony moorlands. Resolved however to put the best face he could upon the matter, our little hero assured his tall comrade that another half hour would be sure to bring them to the desired spot, where he was certain they would obtain both rest and refreshment – two things they much needed – having walked on unceasingly for several hours since their early morning's meal without having eaten or drunk any thing, and the sun by this time had begun to sink low in the horizon. Scarcely, however, had they crossed the narrow valley that divided these two barren wastes from each other, and had commenced ascending the steep beaten path that passed through the sandy desert, than the storm, which had been previously brewing, burst forth with relentless fury, the rain descending in torrents, accompanied by fierce gusts of wind, that, whirling aloft the loose drifting sands, swept them onwards in dense clouds before the gale, forming an overpowering and blinding deluge that perplexed our tourists exceedingly.

"This is all for the best, I suppose," suggested Vernon Wycherley, who, uncomfortable as he was, couldn't help enjoying the luxury of having a hit at his fellow-traveller, and thus proving himself for once at any rate to have been on the right side of the argument.

"All for the best, did you say?" replied Frank. "All for the best? – ay, to be sure it is – though we ourselves may perhaps be too short-sighted to see the drift of it."

"See the drift!" interposed Vernon – "See the drift! Why, we not only see it, but feel it. The benefit to be derived from it is what I want you to convince me of, Master Frank."

The truth of Vernon's observation was too palpable to be denied; for both he and his companion were half-choked and nearly blinded by the clouds of sand that, in the course they were pursuing, blew directly in their faces, and which even the rain seemed to have no effect in allaying; till as last the peppering became so severe, that our travellers were actually compelled to turn their backs upon the enemy. Hardly, however, had they done this, ere Frank joyfully exclaimed – "It is all for the best after all, and that I'll soon convince you of, Master Vernon. Cast your piercing peepers through the thick of it, and you'll see the very place we want to find, which, if the storm hadn't compelled us to face to the right about, we should have passed by without discovering, concealed as it is in the narrow gorge we have just crossed. So cheer up, I say, old fellow, and let us both put our best foot foremost, and see how soon we can get there."

Vernon required no further persuasion, and the desired house of entertainment was soon reached. Here our wet and weary travellers had the good fortune to meet with that comfort of all comforts to persons so situated – a blazing kitchen-fire, which afforded them an opportunity of drying their wet clothes, and at the same time to enjoy the sight of the cookery of some tempting rashers and eggs, which, with the unequalled accompaniment of fried potatoes, was soon after duly set out for them in the sole parlour the house afforded, where they found a good fire had been prepared for their reception.

"Would you like a bottle of Guinness's porter with your dinners, gen'lmen?" asked a very pretty and tidily dressed young woman, who waited upon them.

"To be sure we would, my pretty Mary," replied Mr Vernon Wycherley, "and thank you for the hint into the bargain; I'm sure I should never have dreamt of meeting with Dublin stout amidst the wilds of Cornwall."

"Us do always kip it," observed Mary.

"Then a bottle of it, if you please, my pretty girl," resumed the poet. "Ay, that's right, out with the cork – never mind the froth, Mary – never mind the froth."

"It is indeed prime stuff!" he added, replacing his empty glass upon the table; "and upon my life, Frank, this is a perfect feast; and never did I enjoy one more. Things really have turned out a great deal better than I expected."

"Or, in other words, have turned out all for the best," observed Frank, looking up for a moment from his plate, the contents of which had previously absorbed his whole attention; and elevating his glass as a signal for Mary to fill it with the tempting beverage, which she, well understanding, instantly obeyed; and having drained every drop of it, he resumed – "So you see, Master Vernon, you stand convicted by your own confession, that your former doubts and misgivings were without foundation; added to which, you can't help agreeing with me, that our present gratification is still further enhanced by the few trivial difficulties we just before met with."

Vernon was not inclined to concede to all his companion had just said, and, in fact, was mentally arranging the proper language in which to express his dissent, when a fresh arrival of piping-hot rashers turned the current of his thoughts towards the eggs and bacon, about which, instead of saying any thing, he quietly helped himself to, and then handed over the dish to his friend.

"I feel rather tired with my walk to-day," observed Mr Vernon Wycherley, who, having at last eaten to his heart's content, had pressed an extra chair into his service, for the purpose of resting his long and wearied legs thereupon. "Every thing here," he continued, glancing his eye around the tidily furnished little room – "every thing here looks clean and comfortable. I wonder if we could get accommodated with beds, instead of having to tramp it three miles further over the sandbanks in this uncertain weather, in order to reach our original destination at the next village?"

"I wish we could, with all my heart," answered Frank; "and here comes Mary with some more stout, who can tell us all about it." And so the handmaiden was questioned accordingly, who replied, in a tone of evident disappointment, "Lar bless ee, sir, there b'aint a bed to be had in the whole place; fay there b'aint, I can assure ee not, if ye'd offer pounds o' gold for 'un; for ever since Wheal Costly, just handy by here, has turned out so rich, there's no quarters to be had for the sight of folks that be employed about her. There's only seven beds in all this here housen; and, besides the family, there be no less than sex-and-thirty miners a quartering here; they takes sex out o' the seven beds, and mistus and I and all the childer do fill the t'othern all night, and when us do turn out, then maister and his comarade do turn in – and 'tis the same all through town38– an' by ma fath an' troth, I zem there b'aint, at this very moment, a bed without a pair in 'un for miles round."

"But how do the folks here contrive to pig it away together six in a bed?" inquired Mr Vernon Wycherley. "Your beds must be very large, otherwise I should fancy such close stowage to be hardly possible."

"O na, sir, you don't onderstand," replied the maid, hardly able to restrain herself from laughing outright at the stranger's gross ignorance of mining habits; "not pair39 o' six all to bed together to one time; you da see miners do work to bal40 eight hours to a spell, and has sexteen to stay 'bove ground; so one and his comarade sleeps their first eight hours 'bove ground, and then turns out for the next pair; and so they goes on, one pair in and t'other pair out, so that between sex on 'um, the bed's never to say quite empty."

"And can never, of course, require a warming-pan," remarked Frank.

"Lar! tha b'est a queer little chap," thought Mary; but being too polite to say as much, she merely smiled pleasantly at the remark, as she tripped out of the room.

"Well, as we must toddle further, it's of little use to put so grave a face upon it, old fellow," observed Frank to his poetical friend, who was indulging in a reverie, with his eyes fixed in vacancy towards the burning embers in the grate.

"Eh! what?" demanded Vernon, with the usual start of an absent literary man, whose attention is suddenly awakened. Frank repeated his previous remark.

"My thoughts were far, far away from hence," said Mr Vernon Wycherley; "the subject of them was my comedy, which, as you know, I intend to offer for the prize at the Haymarket."

"Your comedy be hanged!" interrupted Frank.

"I fear that even a direr fate than that awaits it," resumed its author. "Oh! if I had but seen her before I arranged my female characters – have carried her beauteous image in my mind, as now I mentally behold her" —