Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 700

Each little plate of the sea-egg's shell may be most accurately described as being hexagonal or six-sided in form; but this shape may be more or less modified in certain regions of the shell. The five double rows of the shell which are perforated with holes, it may be remarked, are those through the apertures in which the small 'tube-feet' of the animal are protruded. And it may also be noted that in some of the sea-eggs these perforated rows do not extend from pole to pole of the shell, as in the common species, but are limited so as to form a rosette-like figure, on the upper surface or at the upper pole of the shell. This modification is well seen in a group of sea-eggs, not uncommon round our coasts, and which are popularly named 'Heart-urchins' from their peculiar shape.

The outside of the shell presents us with some curious features; the zoologist's study leading him thus to carefully note points which an ordinary observer would hardly deem worthy his attention. When we examine the outer surface of the shell, we find it to be thickly studded over with little rounded knobs or 'tubercles,' which are, if anything, most numerous on those parts or rows of plates which are not perforated. And if we carefully study one of the spines we shall find that it is hollowed out or is concave at its base. Clearly then, the spines are meant to articulate by means of these hollowed or cup-shaped bases with the rounded knobs on the outside of the shell, and in each case a true ball-and-socket joint is thus formed. The spines are thus intended to be moved, and they are not only firmly attached by a ligament or band of fibres to the surfaces of their tubercles, but appear to be moved by special muscles, which form a thin investing layer on the outer surface of the shell. The spines undoubtedly serve as organs of defence, but in some species they are employed as boring-organs to scoop out holes in the sand or shallow beds in rocks, in which their possessors lie snugly ensconced.

The outer surface of the shell also bears certain very peculiar appendages, known as 'Pedicellariæ.' These little organisms also occur on the outer surface of Star-fishes and other members of the sea-egg's class; but regarding their exact nature and functions, zoologists are still in doubt. The form of one of these pedicellarians may be best imagined by figuring to one's self a small or minute stalk attached to the shell, and bearing at its free extremity two or three little jaws, which move actively upon one another, with a quick snapping motion. These little jaws can be seen to seize particles of food, and there is no doubt whatever that they possess a life and vitality independently of the sea-egg or other organism upon which they reside; since their movements are seen to continue after the death of the animal which affords them lodgment. Some naturalists have regarded them as 'peculiarly modified spines;' but the reasons or grounds for this belief are anything but clear, since it is difficult to imagine any reasonable explanation of the means whereby a spine could acquire an active living and independent nature. By good authorities, who have not ventured to theorise so boldly, the pedicellariæ have been regarded as parasites of some kind or other; and they may also possibly represent stages in the as yet unknown development of some organisms. Whilst, assuming them to be fully-grown beings, their function, as they exist on the shell of our sea-egg, has been supposed to be that of seizing particles of food, and of removing waste or effete matters.

The internal structure of the sea-egg shews its near relationship with the Star-fishes and Sea-cucumbers. The mouth is the large orifice opening at the lower pole of the shell; so that as our sea-egg crawls slowly and mouth downwards over the bed of the sea, or over the floor of its native pools, it can procure food without any very great trouble as regards its conveyance to the mouth. The internal furnishings of the body include a stomach and complete digestive system, along with a very peculiar set of jaws or teeth, lying just within the mouth, the points or tips of the jaws being usually protruded from the mouth-opening. This arrangement of teeth is named the 'Lantern of Aristotle,' and comprises five conical pieces, so arranged together and so provided with muscles, as to be perfectly adapted for bruising the sea-weeds and other forms of nutriment on which the sea-eggs subsist. Their near neighbours the Star-fishes do not possess any teeth; although curiously enough, the unarmed sea-stars prefer a richer dietary than that which contents their sea-egg neighbours, since they devour large quantities of oysters and other molluscs. Our sea-egg possesses a heart for circulating its blood, in the form of a simple tube; and although no distinct breathing-organs are developed, naturalists believe that the blood may be purified by being circulated through a delicate membrane which is named the 'mesentery,' and which serves to suspend and support the digestive organs to the wall of the shell. The fact that this membrane is richly provided with the delicate vibratile filaments known as 'cilia,' and that it is bathed in the sea-water – necessarily containing oxygen – and which is admitted within the shell, would seem to favour the idea that it constitutes the breathing-organ of these animals.

The sea-egg is not destitute of means for obtaining some degree of knowledge regarding its surroundings; and it obtains its quantum of information through the same channel by which man is brought into relation with the world in which he lives – namely the nervous system. The sea-urchin possesses no structure corresponding to a brain – indeed in all animals of its nature, the nervous system exists in a comparatively low and unspecialised condition. We do not find, in other words, that development and concentration of the parts of the nervous system seen in the highest groups of animals, and which enables these latter to form definite ideas regarding their surroundings and respecting the world at large. A cord of nervous matter surrounds the gullet of the sea-egg, and from this central portion five great nerves are given off; one nerve-trunk passing along the inner surface of each of the perforated double rows of plates of the shell, to terminate at the upper pole of the body. The only organs of sense developed in the sea-eggs appear to consist of five little 'eyes' of rudimentary nature, each consisting of a little spot of colouring matter and a lens. These eyes are situated on five special plates of the shell, developed at the upper pole or extremity of that structure. We thus remark that the parts of the nervous system, along with other portions of the sea-egg's structure, are developed in a kind of five-membered symmetry – if we may so express it. And it is a singular fact that not only throughout the sea-egg's class do we find the number five to represent the typical arrangement of parts and organs – as is well exemplified in the five rays of the common star-fish – but we also discover that this number is one exceedingly common in the symmetry of flowers. This fact apparently struck an old writer – Sir Thomas Browne – as being a curious and noteworthy feature of the Star-fishes and their allies, since we find him inquiring 'Why, among Sea-stars, Nature chiefly delighteth in five points?' – although to this suggestive query, the learned and eccentric author of the Religio Medici gives no exact or satisfactory reply.

The movements of our sea-egg are effected by means of an apparatus, which forms one of the most noteworthy parts of its structure. If a star-fish be dropped into a rock-pool, it may be seen to glide slowly but easily over the bottom of the miniature sea in which we have placed it. When we examine the lower surface of this animal's body, we at once perceive the means whereby its movements are performed; for existing in hundreds, in the deep groove which runs along the under surface of each ray, we see the little tube-feet or ambulacra, each consisting of a little muscular tube, terminated in a sucker-like tip. By means of an apparatus of essentially similar kind, the sea-egg is enabled to crawl slowly over the floor of the sea. The tube-feet existing to the number of many hundreds in the sea-egg, are protruded, as has already been remarked, through the holes existing in each of the five double rows of perforated plates of the shell. The mechanism of their protrusion depends on the presence of a special system of vessels, known as the 'ambulacral' vessels, which carry water to the little feet, for the purpose of their inflation and distension.

Thus on the upper surface of the shell we find a single large plate perforated with holes like the lid of a pepper-box. This plate opens into a long tube called the 'sand-canal' – a name which is decidedly a misnomer, since the function of the plate resembling the pepper-box lid is to allow water to enter this tube, but at the same time to exclude particles of sand and like matters. The sand-canal terminates in a circular vessel, which, like the nerve-cord, surrounds the gullet; and from this central ring a great vessel, like a main water-pipe, runs up each of the five rows of perforated plates in company with the nerve-cord. At the base of each little tube-foot is a little muscular sac or bag, and into these sacs the water admitted by the sand-canal ultimately passes. When therefore the sea-egg wishes to distend its feet for the purpose of protruding them through the shell-pores, and of thus walking by applying their sucker-like tips to fixed objects, the water in the little sacs is forced into the feet, which are thus distended. Whilst conversely, when the feet are to be withdrawn, the water is forced back, by the contraction of the feet into the sacs, or may be allowed to escape from the perforated tips of the feet, so as to admit of a fresh supply being brought in from the interior.

The development of the sea-egg may be briefly glanced at by way of conclusion, along with a few points in its economic history. The animal, solid as it appears in its adult state, is developed from a small egg, which gives origin to a little body, usually named the 'larva,' but which, from its resemblance in form to a painter's easel, has received the name of Pluteus. This little body does not in the least resemble the sea-egg; possesses a mouth and digestive system of its own, and swims freely through the sea. Sooner or later, however, a second body begins to be formed within and at the expense of this Pluteus-larva; whilst as development proceeds and ends, the sea-egg appears as the result of this secondary development, and the now useless remainder of the first-formed being is cast off and simply perishes. Thus the development of the sea-egg is by no means the least curious part of the animal's history, and presents a singular resemblance to the production of the Star-fishes and their neighbours.

The mere mention of the economic or rather gastronomic relations of the sea-eggs may appropriately form a concluding remark to our gossiping remarks concerning these animals. With our British prejudices in favour of eating only what our forefathers were accustomed to consider wholesome, it is not likely that the sea-eggs will appeal with success to be included as culinary dainties. Yet on the continent these animals are much esteemed as articles of dietary and even of luxury. The Corsicans and Algerians eat one species, whilst the Neapolitans relish another kind; and in classic times, when variety rather than quantity or quality was the chief feature of high-class entertainments, the Echini were esteemed morsels at the tables of the Greeks and Romans. Here then is an opportunity for another Soyer to tempt the modern cultivated appetite with a new and wholesome dish. Considering that crabs and lobsters are so highly esteemed, the sea-eggs but wait a suitable introduction to become, it may be, the favourite tit-bits of future generations.

A wise philosopher – the great Newton himself – remarked concerning the limitation of our knowledge, that we were but as children, picking up at most a few stray grains of sand on the sea-shore, whilst around us lies the great region of the unknown. Our present study may not inaptly be related to Newton's comparison, since it serves to shew that even the brief and imperfect history of a stray shell picked up on the sea-beach may teem with features so curious and with problems so deep, that the furthest science may be unequal to the explanation of the one or the elucidation of the other. Whilst the subject no less powerfully pleads for the wider extension of the knowledge of this world and its living tenants – knowledge which in every aspect reveals things which are not only wondrously grand, but also 'fair to see.'

THE TWELFTH RIG

IN SIX CHAPTERS

CHAPTER V. – THE WORKING OF THE CHARM

The theatre was crowded with an assemblage of fashion and beauty, and many were the glances directed towards the boxes, and numerous the comments of those who came to see rather than to hear, on the beauties who shone there like so many stars striving to outsparkle each other.

In one of the side-boxes Eliza was seated with her husband. Passionately fond of music, she seemed to have forgotten her sorrows, till, on turning to Charles to make some observation, she perceived that some young men, acquaintances of his, had entered and were conversing with him. One of them was directing his attention to a particular box. Following their eyes, she observed a young lady, all in fleecy white and pale blue, with pearls glimmering in her dark hair. A most radiant beauty, her eyes sparkling with extraordinary brilliancy, and seeming to far outshine the lustre of the diamonds that gleamed around; the rich damask of her cheek putting to shame the roses she held in her hand. Several gentlemen stood around her, attentive to every word and look, each striving to win her special regard. She appeared in buoyant spirits, and conversed with great animation, smiling often with singular sweetness. But her smiles, though so bewitching, were distributed carelessly, and she never distinguished any one of those about her above the rest.

Eliza, struck with admiration, gazed at her earnestly. The young lady looked in that direction. Their eyes met. A thrill passed through Eliza's frame. All at once the gay assemblage seemed to vanish from her sight, the lights burned dim and lurid, and the air grew heavy as if with death. The voices of the singers retreated far away. She heard the murmur of mountain rivulets, and the soughing of the wind over a wide space. Before her eyes uprose a lonely field, with the moonbeams shimmering over its dark ridges. She saw herself, and fronting her a shadowy white face and form, like the dim reflection in a stream, of a human figure. Then, mingling with the distant music, the words 'Doomed, doomed!' smote on her ears like a wailing cry of agony, or the scornful laugh of a mocking fiend.

With this scene before her, with these words ringing around her, she sat on, as if in a dream. Had she looked towards her husband, she would have seen a dark cloud on his forehead and a moody look in his eye. Could she have seen into his mind, it would have troubled her more.

'How lovely!' he thought. 'What grace, what ease and animation! And she might have been my wife. What a fool I was! Eliza is pretty enough still, but compared to her' – he turned, that he might make the comparison, but she was unconscious of it. 'Ah! mere country prettiness, which loses half its charm out of its place. Vivacity was her attraction, and that gone, what has she? She looks now as if she did not know what was going on around her. And for her I gave up the beauty that brings all Paris to its feet, lost a handsome fortune, alienated my family, and endangered my prospects from them. Yet that is not the worst. I see now that my marriage with Eliza was a mistake in every way. I was mad to throw away my prospects and happiness thus; to forsake her whom I really loved, and who loved me – then at least. Blind fool that I was!'

There was a stir in that box towards which so many glances were directed. The young lady had risen, and pale as death, leaning heavily on the arm of a middle-aged lady, prepared to leave the theatre. 'She is fainting; the heat is too much for her,' was whispered around. A dozen gentlemen sprang forward to wrap her in her mantle and call her carriage; she thanked them with a faint sweet smile, but uttered no word. When the carriage had driven away and all were out of sight, she cast herself sobbing on her companion's breast, and trembled from head to foot.

'Oh, do not bring me to these scenes any more!' she cried; 'I cannot bear it; indeed I cannot; they are torture to me. I know you meant it kindly, dear friend – thought to rouse and cheer me; but it will not do; I cannot be gay like others while my heart is breaking. Oh, take me far away to some quiet spot, where I may pass the short time that remains to me in peace and seclusion!'

'Darling, we shall leave Paris to-morrow, if you really wish it,' returned the middle-aged lady; and her tone betrayed alarm, as if she feared for the result of so much emotion.

'Eliza!' said Charles, somewhat roughly; 'don't you see all is over and everybody is going away? Are you dreaming?'

She started and looked up with a bewildered air; then she saw how dark his brow was, and the cause puzzled her.

All that night Eliza lay awake tossing feverishly; she made an effort to dispel the thoughts that distracted her and compose herself to sleep; but when she closed her eyes, faces seemed to press close up to hers, familiar faces, that she used to see every day. It was useless to think of sleep, and she lay watching wearily till dawn.

In the morning, Eliza was so feverish and ill that she felt unable to rise. A doctor was sent for. Before he arrived, she had become delirious, and raved pitifully about her old home and her father. Another name too was often on her lips. The doctor, who was an Englishman, as he stood by her bedside, supposed it might be that of her husband. 'Will! Will!' she repeated over and over, sometimes in tender loving accents, then in tones of wild despair. When the physician took her hand she seemed to become conscious of who he was and of her own illness.

'I shall die,' she said in a sad quiet tone. 'I know I shall. There's no use in your coming to me. You may be the greatest doctor in Europe, but all your skill won't save me. I am doomed, doomed!'

He thought her still raving, in spite of her calm tone; but in reality she was not so now. Her youth and beauty, joined to her piteous look and tones, moved him. Some of her wanderings seemed to shew that she had once been accustomed to a sphere of life far beneath that in which he found her. He thought some sorrow or trouble weighed on her mind, and tried to discover if such were the case. But in answer to his kind questioning she only shook her head or moaned feebly.

On leaving his patient, the doctor sought Crofton. He found him lounging, with a very gloomy brow, over a late breakfast.

'I have seen Mrs Crofton,' he said. 'I do not apprehend any danger at present. It is a touch of fever, which will pass. But I wish to mention that change of air and scene are absolutely necessary for her. I was told by her maid that she has been in the habit of remaining very much within doors of late, and that she has been depressed in spirits.'

'She need not have remained within doors if she did not choose,' returned Charles coldly; 'and if she was depressed, it was totally without cause.'

The other looked at him. It was a strange tone for the husband of one so young and beautiful; and not long wedded, as he had been given to understand.

'Well,' he replied after a pause, 'I recommend that she should be removed to a quiet country place as soon as possible – to-morrow, if she is able to bear the journey.'

'As you say so, of course it shall be done. My own arrangements do not permit of my leaving Paris at present, but that need make no difference; Mrs Crofton can go accompanied by her maid.'

Again the doctor looked at him, the tone was so indifferent, as if he wished to dispose of the matter at once, and be troubled no more. Merely mentioning the place he thought most suitable for his patient, a quiet little town in the south of France, he bowed coldly, and withdrew.

Charles rose and sauntered to the mantel-piece. 'She acts the fine lady well,' he muttered to himself. 'Ill and out of spirits! She has no cause to be so. As much as I lost she has gained. Yet she acts and speaks sometimes as if she had made a sacrifice for me. I could almost fancy that she regrets that clodhopping fellow. It is a pity, after all, she was so ready to jilt him. She can't expect that I will coop myself up in a wretched dreary place. We are not so very devoted now, either of us, that we require no other company than that of the other.'

In the evening Eliza was better; the feverishness had passed, and it was thought she would be able to leave next day; so Charles went to her room to inform her of the doctor's command, and the fact that the journey was to be made without him.

'I have arranged to remain here yet, and can't alter my plans,' he said. 'But my presence could do you no good; and when you are better you can join me; that is, if you wish to do so.'

If she wished to do so! He would not then care if she did not join him! His words and manner implied that she had become a burden to him, which he would willingly cast off, were it possible; since it was not possible, absent himself from her as much as he could. She turned, sighing, away; and Charles left the room without another word, without a kiss.

It had come now that he was actually estranged from her! He could let her go from him alone, ill as she was, and in a foreign land, the land he had brought her to! It was not with any wild passionate pang, such as she would have felt had she loved him, that she thought this; but a dead cold weight pressed on her heart, and a sense of utter desolation came over her.

'Alone, alone!' she murmured. 'Father, lover, friends, home – I abandoned them all, and for what? – for what?'

CHAPTER VI. – THE CHARM DISSOLVED

Next day Eliza set out, accompanied only by her maid. No one, to see her, would have fancied she was not yet one year a wife.

In the sweet quiet spot to which she went her illness passed away; but she was weaker than before, and her health precarious. Her spirits too sank daily, and the rich glow of her cheek, dimmer during the last few months than it used to be, faded more and more. The sparkling smile of other days, or the discontented pout which had always betrayed any little 'temper,' never dwelt on her lips now. A softened subdued shade settled on her countenance. In her sadness and loneliness, forsaken by him to whom she would still have clung even when love was gone, she turned, in her sorrow, to thoughts which had never occupied her before, to religion, the one source of consolation that remains to the disappointed and unfortunate; fortunate if they can embrace it, and find peace and full satisfaction somewhere at last.

In a peaceful nook, embosomed among a grove of beech-trees, there was a lonely little chapel. Thither Eliza went every evening, and kneeling among the few quiet worshippers, lifted her eyes to the sculptured form above the altar, whose mild angelic face and outstretched arms seemed to speak of pity and sympathy with human woe.

One evening she lingered till dusk began to gather in the quaint old place. It was now again the eve of All-Hallows, and her thoughts reverted to the past and all that had happened during one short year. Looking up at last, she found that the others had gone and she was alone. The pale spectral rays of a rising moon, broken and intercepted by the fluttering trees without, stole in at the windows and crept with a kind of stealthy motion across the floor. The silence was tomb-like. It smote on Eliza's heart. Part of the chapel, where the moonbeams did not pierce, was veiled in gloom, and in the darkness the draperies about the altar seemed to stir and take strange form. Indistinct masses, which looked as if they might at any moment become endowed with animation, filled the corners. Eliza could almost fancy that the dim dead who slept in the vaults beneath were rising round her. She turned to leave the place, and then perceived that she was not alone.

A female figure knelt at a little distance, the face buried in the hands. As Eliza moved down the aisle it rose slowly and turned round. With a low shuddering cry she sprang back, and almost sank to the ground. She gasped for breath. She tried to speak, but for some moments in vain. At last, in a loud cry, her voice broke forth: 'In the name of the blessed God and by this holy sign!' (crossing herself rapidly), 'speak! Who and what are you, that twice before have crossed my path? In the lonely field; in the crowded theatre, suddenly changing from an aspect of light and beauty to a ghastly corpse-like image; and now again!'

The figure approached a few steps, the lips moved, but no sound came. Eliza shrank back to the wall, pressing against it as if she would force herself through the stone. A low sigh sounded, a faint tremulous voice spoke: 'Twice before have you started up to bewilder and affright me: in the lonely field, when the night-wind was sighing; in the gay assemblage; and here again, the third time. Who and what are you, let me ask?'

Eliza rose. 'One who is lonely and unhappy,' she answered; 'who, having deserted others, is herself left alone now. If you would know my name, it is Eliza Crofton.'

There was a pause, then in low, awestruck tones, the last word was repeated: 'Crofton! And I am Ellen Courtney.'

'And we meet thus, for the first time knowing each other, though I have often heard your name, and you mine! Did you too, then, go to the Twelfth Rig last Hallow-eve night?'