Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427

'Mon Dieu! What do you mean?'

'Ah, restez tranquille, pauvre demoiselle; nous verrons toute-suite.' And with a shrug, he continued his investigation of the contents of the reticule-basket. It contained a great variety of little knick-knacks, which, with much patience, the commissaire turned out and examined, one by one. At length he came to a little parcel, the paper-envelope of which appeared to be part of an old letter, and was thickly covered with writing. It was one of Victor's letters. Julia blushed again.

'What have we here?' demanded the constable.

'I forget what there is inside,' said Julia. 'I hardly knew it was there.'

'Let us see.'

He opened two or three wrappers—the portion of the letter formed the outside one, the others being blank white paper—and there fell out, descending upon the table with a sharp jingle, a pair of gold bracelets, ornamented with pearls and turquoises, a superb coral necklace, and a diamond ring.

'Mademoiselle!' exclaimed the commissaire, whose face appeared to lose all flexibility of expression the moment the discovery was made, presenting now merely the stern, impassible, mechanical look of an officer on duty, 'these are the identical articles for which I have been searching for the last three days. Will you be good enough to change your dress as quickly as possible, and prepare to accompany me to the office of M. Morelle, magistrate of this district?'

At this juncture, the Widow Gostillon was conveyed back to her cottage by some of her neighbours, with little Cecilia by her side. Entering Julia's chamber, her young friends found her in a swoon, from which the commissaire was assiduously endeavouring to recover her. A scene of a most painful character ensued. Without afflicting the reader with a recital of the agonised and indignant protestations of Julia—the anger and affright of Widow Gostillon—the sorrow, sympathy, and amazement of the villagers—suffice it to say, that the commissaire, in the course of the morning, conducted Julia into the presence of the magistrate.

It appears that the articles of bijouterie found in Julia's reticule had been missed from the chamber of M

Antoinette Meurien the very morning after Julia visited Victor's father at the château. The young lady had seen them on her toilette early the preceding evening, and had not worn them for some days, so that she could not have lost them whilst walking or riding. It was evident they had been abstracted. A search was instantly commenced. The domestics were examined, and their rooms and boxes searched, but without either finding the property or fixing suspicion on any one of them. The police were then apprised of the robbery. The servants of the household underwent a second and official examination, but all earnestly declared their innocence. It being ascertained, however, that Julia had visited the house the night on which the property was lost, an order was issued, commanding that her residence be searched, and that she be brought before the authorities. Among the witnesses who proved Julia's visit to the château was Victor Colonne. In mingled affliction and indignation, he answered the questions put to him, and declared that she who had but lately been the object of his ardent affection was the very soul of honour and purity. A lengthened examination elicited from him that he had conducted Julia to the chamber of M

Antoinette, for the purpose of shewing her the superb manner in which it was furnished and decorated. She had stepped up to the toilette, he admitted, and had surveyed herself, as was very natural, in the glass, but it was only for a moment; he was close to her all the time, and indeed they hardly remained in the chamber two minutes: they entered, looked round, and retired, and that was all. It was true, he did not keep his eyes on his companion all the time; but had she taken anything, he could not have failed seeing the act.

A general impression prevailed among the people at the château that Julia was innocent; that it was impossible for one so virtuous and intelligent to commit so disgraceful and rash a theft. Indeed, the tide of suspicion had been fast turning against Victor himself, when it received a new direction by the discovery of the missing articles in Julia's reticule. Another examination ensued, the distracted Julia, as has been stated, being herself brought into the presence of the magistrate. In intense affliction, she declared her innocence: that she knew not how the articles had got into her reticule; she had not put them there; did not know they were there; had, indeed, never touched them at all. The portion of the letter in which they had been wrapped was handed to her, and she was questioned concerning it. 'It was part of a letter,' she said, 'which had been addressed to her by Victor Colonne.' She remembered receiving it; but by what means it came to be applied to its present purpose, she did not at all know. M. Morelle sternly bade her tell the truth, and conceal nothing; it would be better for her. In great agony, she earnestly reiterated what she had said. It was useless; the evidence against her was too strong to be shaken by merely her own denial. Moreover, the commissaire of police, in delivering his evidence, laid much emphasis upon the embarrassment and distress she had evinced whilst he was searching the little basket in which the articles were found.

The case was on the point of being decided against her, when, by what may be termed a providential interposition, the tables were suddenly turned, and she was rescued from the jail, from infamy, and perhaps from death! A young girl, one of the domestics at the château, having examined the portion of the letter which formed a link in the circumstantial evidence, produced from her pocket another fragment, which exactly fitted to the first, and made the letter complete! With much curiosity, and indeed excitement, all listened eagerly to what she had to say. She stated that the fragment she produced, which formed the remainder of the torn letter wrapped round the stolen articles, she had picked up in the garden of the château, where it had been dropped by Victor. Julia's reticule had been left on a seat under a tree; the witness saw Victor open it, and take out a letter. He did not know she was at hand; indeed, could not see her. He tore the letter into two pieces: he appeared agitated. One piece of the letter dropped to the ground, the other he did something with which she could not perceive, and replaced in the reticule. When he was gone, she picked up the fragment which had fallen; and seeing it was part of a love-letter, full of warm protests, &c. she put it into her pocket, intending, she said, to joke him about it. A few minutes more, Julia came by, took up her reticule, and went home, declining Victor's company, though he requested permission to escort her.

Hereupon, Victor was immediately submitted to a severe re-examination. Aghast at the disclosure just made; abashed at the many angry eyes directed towards him; harassed by the searching questions of the magistrate, and the sense of guilt, his assurance and hypocrisy completely deserted him; and, after equivocating and protesting for some time, he sullenly confessed all. Discarded by Julia: he had attempted to effect her ruin!

The good little Julia was almost as much overcome by the overwhelming emotions which now possessed her, as she was at the miserable position in which malignity had so lately placed her. Whilst Victor was being conveyed to the jail, where he was to suffer the punishment due to his villainy, Julia was conducted home to her now rejoicing parent, amidst the congratulations, caresses, and praises, of troops of friends. The day after her acquittal, the throne was again set up in the Grande Allée, and the ovation to her industry and virtues was completed in triumphant fashion. The Meurien family, feeling deeply the injury she had suffered, gave their presence at her inauguration, and afterwards did many a friendly act for her. She is now as industrious and charming, and as much respected as ever, though no more Julia Gostillon, but Madame Vichel—being the wife of a thriving herbalist of that name. As for Victor, he has not been seen at Maisons since.

RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF WILD-FLOWERS

EARLY MONTHS OF THE YEAR

A ramble in search of wild-flowers in January would be pretty much 'labour in vain;' at least so far as that one special object was concerned. I do not mean to say that all nature is dead at that season, for there are mosses, lichens, and fungi to be found in abundance; but flowers, in the ordinary meaning of the word, are not to be found, unless we consider those brilliant frostwork flowers which we sometimes find as such. It was a season unusually cold for Devonshire, when, with a merry party of boys and girls, I sallied forth to see how nature looked decked in her robe of virgin white. Hill and valley were one sheet of 'innocent snow;' and every twig, leaf, and blade of grass; every spray of the furze and heath; and every broad, drooping leaf of that beautiful fern the hart's tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare), was coated with hoar-frost, and sparkling in the rosy sunbeams like the flowers in a magic garden. At Sherbrook Lake, where a rivulet of clear water usually flows along the bottom of the ravine down to the sea, there was now a hard mass of ice, on which our boys rushed for a passing slide; and above, where the deeper water lies under the shadow of the brushwood, the frost had been busy performing its frolic feats—

'And see where it has hung th' embroidered banks
With forms so various that no powers of art,
The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene!
Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high
(Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairyland. The crystal drops,
That trickle down the branches, fast congealed,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorned before.
Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sunbeam; there, embossed and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
The likeness of some object seen before.'

From the beautiful beacon cliff—to which we eagerly toil through the snow, and up and down the slippery hill-sides—we behold the sea as still and smiling as in summer, and as clearly reflecting the exquisite blue of the vault above; but each of the many little rills which the long rains preceding the frost had caused to flow over the face of the red cliffs, is now a stationary thread of silver, spell-bound by the enchaining frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them, aglets, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges, prone to fall to the beach—far, far below—when a thaw releases them from their present stations. But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent our stagnating into 'pellucid pillars' ourselves. So much, then, for our January ramble. The season of which I have now to speak was most different. After unusual cold, especially after snow, it is not uncommon to see an early spring appear, and so it was now, as Spenser says—

'The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
The trees did bud, and early blossoms bore;'

and so warm was it one day towards the end of February, and the air so sweet, that I resolved on having 'Jack' and sallying forth in search of wild-flowers—not flowers of frostwork, but real spring jewels.

On this excursion, I thought it expedient to take Fanny, which, though a somewhat stubborn little beast of burden; yet so bent was I on seeing the sweet spring-like hedges and banks, that I agreed to endure Fanny; and at the given time on her I mounted, and after much persuasion, got her under-weigh: the boy George bringing up the rear.

And now on we go, Fanny rather tiresome, and George rather merciless; for when she will poke her head into the hedge, and stand stock-still to eat, or, worse still, suddenly push up against a stone-wall, to the imminent danger of crushing my foot to pieces, he thumps and pushes her till the echoes in Echo Lane reverberate with the unpoetical sound. However, on we go by degrees, and find the banks everywhere rich with fresh springing grass and deep full beds of moss, with every here and there the pale lemon-tinted petals of the primrose just peeping through the partial openings in their shrouding mantles of green; and there, above us, hangs that which I had hoped to find—the catkins of the hazel, which have been hailed by children for centuries under the names of 'Pussy-cat's tails,' or 'Baa-lamb's tails;' and a more interesting flower for examination as we pass onwards we can scarcely have, for its structure is very peculiar and beautiful. We will gather a good bunch of these pretty pendent tassel-like clusters; and see! as we break off the stems, what a shower of gold-dust is scattered over us, and flies in all directions through the air! So abundant is this yellow pollen beneath the scales of the catkins, that we shall find, if we place them in our moss-basket, that the table below them will be coated with it in the course of an hour or two. The common hazel or nut-tree affords a fine illustration of the structure of that division of plants to which most of our common European trees belong, and which, from its including the oak, is called 'the oak-tribe.' I shall not, however, expatiate on the hazel, the pride of our old copse-banks, but look beneath its long slender branches, and there, lurking modestly, do I see that pretty little yellow flower, the lesser celandine (Ficaria verna.) Every one knows this little early blossom by sight, if not by name. Its root is formed of numerous clustering tubercles, or oblong knobs, with fibres. This root is sometimes washed by the rain until these tubercles appear above ground, when, as Loudon tells us, 'ignorant people have sometimes been led to fancy that it rained wheat.' The celandine has slightly-branched stems, two or three inches in height, on which grow alternate stalked heart-shaped leaves, sheathed at the base, where they sometimes contain one or two knobs like those of the root. The flowers, which are terminal and solitary, are much like a butter-cup—of a golden yellow, and exceedingly shining within, and tinged with green on the outsides. 'After the flowre decays,' says Gerarde, 'there springeth up a little fine knop or headful of seede.' This head of seed alone is left by about May to mark where the plant grew; and even this soon dries up and disappears. Wordsworth has thrown an interest about this plant, which it would not otherwise have possessed, by his elegant little poem called The Lesser Celandine.

Here and there, also, in the more sheltered spots, we find a blossom or two of the pretty pink herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum), with its hairy red stems, and divided leaves, and star-shaped blossoms of bright rose-colour; or an early plant of the ground-ivy (Glechóma hederácea) gemming the ground with its purple, labiate flowers on the sunny bank beneath the underwood, luring one for a moment to believe that the sweet purple violets were already come: vain hope! which not only the season but the place forbids; for though I have found white violets near the scene of these excursions, in the south of England, yet I believe the sweet-scented purple do not grow in that neighbourhood. In a late ramble, there was a spot which I was eager to reach; for there I knew that I should find

'Chaste snow-drop, venturous harbinger of spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years.'

This pretty well-known flower, sometimes called Fair Maid of February (Galanthus Nivalis), belongs to the same natural order as the daffodil and narcissus—the Amaryllideæ. Gerarde calls it 'the timely flouring bulbous violet,' and thus graphically describes it: 'It riseth out of the ground,' says he, 'with two small leaves flat and crested, of an overworne greene colour, betweene the which riseth up a small and tender stalk of two hands high; at the top whereof commeth forth of a skinny hood a small white floure of the bignesse of a violet compact of six leaves, three bigger and three lesser, tipped at the points with a light greene; the smaller one fashioned into the vulgar forme of a heart, and prettily edged about with greene; the other three leaves are longer and sharp-pointed. The whole floure hangeth downe his head by reason of the weak footstalk whereon it groweth. The root is small, white, and bulbous.' It is one of the earliest flowers which appear, and may often be seen bursting through the snow, the virgin white of its petals by no means shamed by the lustrous purity of its cold bed. It has no calyx; six stamens; the filaments short and hair-like; the anthers oblong, with a bristly point, and one pistil, the style being cylindrical, and longer than the stamens. The capsule, which is nearly globular, contains three cells, in which are numerous globular seeds. It is found in orchards, meadows, and the sides of hedges, and named from two Greek words signifying 'milk' and 'a flower.'

And now we reach the orchard: but how am I to get in? There is nothing for it but a scramble up that bank round the root of that old oak, whose gnarled boles will afford me footing, and it will be easy to descend on the other side; and so, with a few slips, I contrived to land in safety among the long, tangled grass, and broken branches of apple-trees, richly clothed with lichens, mosses, and fungi, in a spot which looked as if untrodden by human foot for years. But that could not really have been so, for no doubt the old trees had borne their usual crop of ruddy apples, which had been duly housed. The value of an apple-orchard in Devonshire—that land of delicious cider—is not a trifle, and our farmers do not leave their orchards untrodden and uncared-for. This was, however, sufficiently wild. But now for my snow-drops: there they wave in thousands—

'Like pendent flakes of vegetating snow—
The early heralds of the infant year—'

in every stage of beauty, from the hint that a tiny spot of green and white, bursting through the dark earth, might give, to the fully-developed blossoms, hanging lightly on its graceful stalks, robed in its vestal garb of white, and shedding its own peculiar fragrance on the pure air. I gathered large supplies—enough to make me the envy of all the lovers of spring-flowers whom I met; enough to fill my moss-basket, and vases, and glasses without end for myself; and enough to send a feeling of spring brightness and joy into the hearts of two or three invalids, to whose sick-rooms I sent some of these pretty messengers.

Somewhat draggled with the wet grass, and muddied with the slippery hedge-bank, I at last returned to the lane where I had left Fanny. However, there was no one but George to notice my appearance, and he was too much taken up with the basket of fine roots which he had procured (be sure always to take a trowel and basket with you on such expeditions), to care how I looked; and, besides, as 'no man is a hero to his valet,' so no lady is a fine lady to her donkey-boy; and homewards we turned, threading our way between the overarching trees, not as yet shewing sign of leaf; but their richly-tinted bark, varied by mosses and lichens of different hues, and partly mantled with ivy, now in full berry, looked almost as beautiful, as the sunbeams fell on them, and the blue sky shone between, as they do in their summer verdure.

On we jogged, Fanny well pleased to be on her homeward course; until at last, coming to a cross-way which would have either led us straight home or taken us thither by a little circuit, I, lured by the desire of seeing whether the daffodils began to shew blossom, resolved on the latter road, not duly considering that perhaps she had decided on the former. But so it was; and, notwithstanding sundry stripes, her will remained unsubdued, as she presently evinced. After we had gone a little way up a lovely sunny lane—slowly indeed, for she was evidently as perverse as she could be, yet with much enjoyment on my part—I was gazing upwards at some delicate white clouds, which a light breeze wafted across the face of the sky, or watching some bird in its flight, when suddenly I felt the jogging onwards cease, a slight undulating motion, and found that my feet were on the ground. Fanny had lain down in the dust, and I had but to rise as I would from a low chair to be standing quietly by her side. George dared to grin, and there were two or three country-people who happened to be passing at the time, who were convulsed with laughter at my expense—a laughter in which I could not but heartily join. How much has fancy to do with such things! How grand is the idea of a camel or an elephant meekly kneeling down to receive or deposit its load! how dignified I should have felt had I thus descended from one of those noble animals! whilst this mode of being deposited by a poor little donkey made us all laugh! Truly, 'there is but a step between the sublime and the ridiculous;' and my adventure certainly smacked of the latter. But Fanny had conquered; and, as if with one stroke to confirm her victory, and to rejoice over it, she suddenly turned over on her back, cracked the girths of the old saddle, and rolled over and over in the dust with all four legs up in the air. This was too much for endurance; so, leaving George to readjust the saddle as best he might, and bring home our basket of spoils, I turned back, and sauntered homewards with my bunch of 'timely-flouring bulbous violets' in my hand. At Kersbrook I discovered a new treasure—one which, however, I afterwards found to be common, although it was then unknown to me—and it was some time before I could make out what it was. I took it for a saxifrage, but could find nothing under that head which exactly answered to it. It was, I at last discovered, the golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium) or opposite-leaved sengreen, nearly allied to the saxifrages, and of the natural order saxifrage, but not one of them. I found it fringing the side of the brook between the wall and the water. It grows about four or five inches high, with branched stems bearing very succulent, kidney-shaped leaves opposite each other—the radicle leaves on long foot-stalks, whilst those of the stem-leaves are much shorter. The flowers, which are of a bright greenish-yellow, grow in small umbels; and the whole plant has a yellowish hue. The uppermost flower in general bears ten stamens, whilst the next boasts of but eight each. Its capsules are two-beaked, one-celled, and two-valved, the seeds numerous and roundish. It is named from chrysos, 'gold,' and splen, 'the spleen.' There is another specimen much like this, of which I have spoken, Chrysosplenium alternitifolium; but it is larger, handsomer, and less common. In the Vosges this plant is much used—as our own water-cress is in England—for a salad, under the name of Cresson de Roche. There is a little flower, elegant and singular in appearance, though, as its name indicates, not one of much splendour, which resembles the golden saxifrage, in the peculiarity of having a different number of stamens in its crowning floret from those of the lower ones: this is the green moschatel (Adoxa moschatellina), adoxa signifying 'inglorious.' The flowers are pale-green, in a terminal head of five florets, the upper of which is four-cleft, and has eight stamens, the other being five-cleft, with ten stamens in each. Its fragile stem and delicate compound leaves, and the early season at which it blossoms, give attraction to this little plant, and make it a favourite with me. The butter-cups are not yet in bloom; but the daisies! Oh, what store of daisies is on every bank and in every field, and what troops of baby children, with their little baskets, sitting on the green turf and picking them! I do love the daisy; and indeed I much fear that I should have been found taking part with that 'merry troop' of 'ladies decked with daisies on the plain,' of which we read in Dryden's elegant fable of The Flower and the Leaf, rather than with those wiser and more renowned who 'chose the leaf':—

'A tuft of daisies on a flowery lay
They saw; and thitherward they bent their way;
To this both knights and dames their homage made,
And due obeisance to the daisy paid.
And then the band of flutes began to play,
To which a lady sung a virelay:
And still at every close she would repeat
The burden of the song—"the daisy is so sweet."'

The structure of the daisy has been noticed in a former paper, and its appearance needs no description. But there is one other flower which I meet with that must not escape us, and that is that noble plant, the butter-bur (Tussilago petasites), named from a Greek word signifying a broad covering. Its leaves, the largest produced by any British plant, are sometimes from two to three feet across, and form a shelter for poultry and small animals from the rain. It is a composite flower of the sub-order Tubulifloreæ. The large club-shaped bunch of flower comes before the leaves are more than partially developed, and are of a pale-purple tint, and of a most delicious fragrance, not unlike the heliotrope. When these die off, the magnificent leaves form quite a beautiful object in the landscape. Artists are fond of introducing them into the foreground of their sketches, and very ornamental they are; but they should be careful not to place them where nature never designed they should grow, among dry hill and rock scenery, or on the sea-coast—for they are only to be found growing in moist and shadowed places, and usually in the vicinity of a brook, to which they form a very apposite adornment.—But here we are at home, and there stands Fanny at my door with her load of treasure, George having trotted her home by a shorter cut than that which I had followed; and unless Jack or Sam can honour me with their company the next time I go flower-picking, I shall surely, as the Scotch say, 'ride upon shanks naiggie.'

AN EVENING IN WESTMINSTER

In a drizzly afternoon at the close of January, we met by appointment at a house in Westminster with a gentleman, who had kindly undertaken to introduce us to a very remarkable institution in that part of the metropolis. A walk of a few minutes through the plashy streets brought us to a wide gateway, like the entrance to a brassfounder's yard. We soon found ourselves in a narrow court, encumbered with building materials and surrounded with plain brick structures, which appeared to have either been recently erected, or to be undergoing some changes designed to adapt them to new purposes. Everything looked plain and homely, even to rudeness; but we, nevertheless, knew well that a heart of humanity and noble intention beat under the rough exterior of the place.

Rather less than four years ago, the teacher of a ragged school in Westminster encountered, in the course of his professional exertions, three or four boys who had hitherto been thieves, but now expressed a desire to leave their evil courses. Having some reason to repose faith in their professions, and being humbly anxious to assist them in so good a purpose, he received them into a poor garret-lodging, hired and paid for out of his own resources. He supported them there, taught and trained them, making himself their friend as well as their mentor, and in time he succeeded in getting them passages to America, where they have since prospered. Mr Nash—for such is the name of this philanthropist of humble life—continued his benevolent exertions and sacrifices, till various gentlemen, hearing of what he was doing, came to his assistance. A little money being then collected, it was found possible to take in a greater number of boys. In short, Mr Nash became the head of a little institution for the reclaiming of criminal and vagrant youths, which has finally become located in the yard we have described, under the name of the London Colonial Training Institution and Ragged Dormitory. It is still a kind of family arrangement of Mr Nash's own, taking its character mainly from his benevolent and self-sacrificing efforts, although drawing pecuniary support from the public, and ostensibly graced with a list of honorary officebearers, with the Earl of Shaftesbury at their head.

There is a prepossessing simplicity in the whole affair. We found the ground-floor of the new building used as a school and public room, and the two upper floors as dormitories—nothing but brick walls whitened, brick and deal floors—no luxury, but cleanliness and good ventilation. The beds were mere bags of straw laid on the floor. Three plain meals per day are given. The strictest regulations are maintained; but there is no restraint. The inmates can leave the institution if they please. Their coming is entirely voluntary; and, to make sure of their being thoroughly in earnest, they are not admitted to the humble privileges of the place, till they have lived a fortnight upon a pound of bread a day, sleeping all the time upon bare boards. In the outer buildings, the boys are trained to carpentry, tailoring, and shoemaking. A few are instructed in printing: in their little office, we found one ordinary press, besides a small one for taking proofs. They can execute shop-bills and placards for the tradesmen in the neighbourhood, and we received a copy of an annual report which had been printed very neatly by them. In work, schooling, religious exercises, and walks out of doors on the ordinary days of the week, the time passes usefully and not disagreeably. At the end of a year, they are, if not provided with employment at home, sent to some of the colonies with a small outfit, generally at the expense of some benevolent individual. Lord Shaftesbury has been particularly liberal in furnishing means for their shipment. The inmates feel that they may now have a hope in the world. They hear of companions who are prospering in America, and they work cheerfully on in the faith of getting there also. Very few fail in their course, or act dishonestly towards the institution. When one or two lately left it, taking away things not belonging to them, the others set out in search of them, caught them, and handed them over to the police. This shews how their hearts are interested in the institution. They feel that Mr Nash acts towards them in pure kindness, and they are anxious to make a suitable return. And kindness really is the sole principle at work in the place. One good man rules these sixty outcasts of society without guard or assistance; without the use of punishment, beyond a temporary restriction of meals; without, it may be said, any force whatever, but that of his benevolent intentions.