Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 704

'I tell ye what it iss, Maggie, ye will bide at home when Mr Buchanan comes, and ye'll pehave yourself civilly, or maybe it may pe worse for ye. Angus MacTavish hass turned your head; but he'll get a bit o' my mind maybe yet, as his father hass pefore him mirofer, and that pefore the set o' sun too!'

'O dad, dad! ye'll break my heart, so ye will, inteed and inteed ye will, dad, if it iss in that way ye speak o' Angus.'

'I'll not hef him come apoot my hoose longer! He iss a wanderin' rake; efery sailor iss that, and no fit to make a cood huspand to the like o' you.'

'He iss not a rake! Ye are no speaking the words of truth, father!' exclaimed the girl passionately.

'Efery sailor iss a rake, Maggie; eferypody knows that; and I daresay he iss none better than his neibors.'

Stung by the cruel words, Maggie ran to the dairy, where she shut herself in and burst into a flood of tears. The Highland maid had few hatreds; she had the impulsive almost passionate temperament of every true Celt, but her impulsiveness ran in loving channels. But if she did hate, she hated warmly – also after the Celtic manner. And the one living object for whom she felt undying scorn was this Sandy Buchanan, who knew more of her father's affairs than any man in Inversnow; and whose studied civility to her on all occasions, and attentions more or less marked, were resented by her as she would have resented another man's insults. Perhaps he was all the more despised because he kept at a respectful distance when Angus was at home; a peculiarity that Maggie attributed to a certain dread of physical consequences, that was not to be wondered at in a weak-legged milksop fellow like him. But whenever the Duke's yacht was away, Mr Sandy danced attendance upon her assiduously, insisting upon seeing her safely home from the kirk on Sunday evenings, and otherwise thrusting his obnoxious presence upon her in ways which she considered offensive.

And sure enough, just as the sun was veering round to the west, the piper was seated at the table of his best parlour with a bottle of whisky and glasses, and a plate of Maggie's crisp oatmeal bannocks between him and the detested Sandy Buchanan, whose breath blew forth gales of peppermint – an odour that Maggie always associated with him, and put the worst construction upon – as he listened patiently to the rather confused statement of the piper's grievance. Sandy tried honestly to look at the case from the piper's stand-point; but put in any form, it appeared that if any legal action was to be taken the decision could hardly take the only form which would satisfy the irate piper – namely the immediate arrest, trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Mr MacTavish for an undefined number of months in the county jail. Sandy gathered that the piper had succeeded in hooking a 'cood seven-pound grilse;' that while he was landing the same, Mr MacTavish appeared on the scene threatening to report him to the Duke for poaching; words passed between them, not of a complimentary nature, ending ultimately in one of two catastrophes – the piper could not clearly remember which – either the game-keeper had seized the piper's rod with result of breaking it to pieces, or the piper had broken his fishing-rod over the game-keeper's back; and then a struggle had ensued, the upshot of which was that the latter walked off with the 'grilse' and a black eye, while the former did the like with his shattered fishing-rod and empty basket, each vowing to lay the matter before 'the shirra.'

The Sheriff, as represented by Sandy Buchanan the fiscal's clerk, thought, much to the delight of the piper, that he had good ground for an action for assault against Mr MacTavish; and presently father and daughter (poor Maggie was compelled to remain in the room to hear the brutal manner in which he, a Cameron, had been treated by a MacTavish) were thrown into a state of mental confusion by the adroit manner in which Sandy now addressing the piper as 'our client,' now as 'the plaintiff;' both of which phrases the piper received and acknowledged in the light of a personal compliment, and also by liberal but not very coherent allusion to Act of Queen Victoria this, and chapter of Act Queen Victoria that; all tending to prove the piper the most abused and injured of men.

In the midst of the conference Angus MacTavish appeared at the door. He indiscreetly opened it and looked in without knocking. The piper, who was feeling at the moment keenly alive to his own importance, with the delightful sense that he had matter to bring before the 'shirra' (as he called the Sheriff), looked up and frowned, fingering his glass of whisky the while.

'What idiot iss it that walks into a shentleman's hoose withoot knocking at the door, and withoot waiting to be asked to come in?'

'Come, piper,' said Angus, walking boldly into the room, somewhat surprised to see Buchanan there, but holding an outstretched hand to the piper; 'it iss not the first, nor the second, nor maybe the twentieth time I hef bed your hospitality, and I am thinking it will not pe the last time – and that without claiming it.'

'My name is Maister Cameron – Maister Cameron of Glen Heath, Maister Angus MacTavish! And apoot its peing the last time or not depends upon more consiterations than one!' The piper spoke with a sternness and pomposity of manner that made his visitor allow his hand to drop quickly to his side, and brought an indignant flush to the young face.

'What does it all mean?' said Angus in a bewildered way, turning to Maggie.

Maggie stood behind her father's chair the personification of misery. The man of law sat looking stolidly before him with the most wooden of expressions on his pale face.

'It means,' said the piper in the same harsh sharp key, 'that that is the door, that yonder is the road, that the quicker ye are there the petter it will pe for you, and the petter pleased too will all in this room pe.'

'Iss that it?' said Angus slowly, looking still at Maggie, and turning again towards the door. 'No, Angus, no! It iss not true that all in this room will pe petter pleased that ye should go. It iss not true!' burst out the girl in the fullness of her heart.

'But it shall pe true!' shouted the piper, bringing his hand firmly down upon the table. Angus did not stay to argue the matter, but sorrowfully went his way.

'Stop that whining, Maggie – stop that foolish whining; I will not hef it!' said the piper, turning upon his daughter fiercely, who tried in vain to repress a sob as Angus disappeared. 'O Sandy Buchanan, it iss muckle that ye'll hef to answer for, if ye'll make me that I'll hate my own father too,' said the poor girl, storming out into open mutiny.

'Leave the room, Maggie!' cried the piper, waving his hand. The maiden gladly availed herself of her dismissal, and fled to the solitude of her own room. 'Cott has not gifen to women the brains to understand pusiness,' he continued, generalising apologetically to his guest.

A week passed, and the piper's wrath against the clan MacTavish endured. The feud was not one-sided. Mr MacTavish replied to a letter full of nothing, expressed in the bitterest legal phraseology, written by Sandy Buchanan on the piper's behalf, by a document of elaborate counter-charges, written by the banker-lawyer of the town, breathing threatenings and lawsuits. And the case promised to be profitable to both of these astute gentlemen, as such cases generally manage to be.

HINTS TO SICK-NURSES

Trying as are many, indeed we may truly say most of the duties of the sick-room, nothing renders them so much so as the fact that the disease under which the patient is suffering is of an infectious, or of a contagious nature.

There is a great deal to be said on the head of avoidance of infection or contagion, while nursing a sufferer through disease of either one nature or the other. In this as in all other matters connected with sick-nursing, heroic, would-be-martyr-like conduct is absurd and blamable, for prudence goes for a great deal, and indiscretion brings trouble and suffering on others as well as yourself. 'I don't mind what risk I run; I am too anxious to think about myself!' always seems to us a feeble and (to use a strong northern word) a very feckless sort of remark, only made, in nine cases out of ten, to exact the tribute of a surprised or admiring look. On the contrary, the aim and end of every sick-nurse should be to do as much good and be as much comfort as possible with the least possible risk. To achieve this, the smallest and most apparently trivial precautions are worth taking, in order to prevent the friends and relatives about you having the additional trouble and anxiety of nursing you as a second invalid, just when 'number one' is recovering.

'I am so anxious I can't eat! I haven't touched a morsel to-day!' are by no means uncommon remarks to hear from the lips of some one who is nursing, or assisting to nurse a case of infectious disease. Yet this abstinence is just the very worst thing you can possibly do under such circumstances, and the most calculated to render yourself an easy prey to that unseen influence pervading the air, and like the seeds of some poisonous plant, ready to take root if soil be found favourable to its growth. Feebleness, over-weariness, exhaustion, want of sufficient nourishment – all these things aid in preparing this suitable soil, and woo the disease germs that are floating about in the air to take root and bring forth bitter fruit. A vigorous cheerful person, capable of strong self-control, often seems able to defy the closest contact with disease; and even if some malaise (often closely allied to the disease of the patient) knocks over the willing nurse for a time, the elastic constitution of body and mind seems to throw off the poison, and no serious illness results. Nothing is more common than the occurrence of these spurious attacks of illness, allied to that from which the person nursed is suffering, and the following case is an example.

A lady nursing a friend in small-pox, after lengthened attendance in the sick-room, was attacked by faintness, shivering, a sensation of nausea, and violent headache. Both the nurse and her friends concluded that a seizure of the loathsome disease from which the patient was suffering was inevitable. However, the following day several large blotches appeared on various parts of the body; all unpleasant symptoms gradually disappeared; and in a day or two – without the original sufferer having had any idea that her nurse was kept away by anything more serious than need of rest – she was able to return to her duties, and never suffered any further deterioration of health. In the same way we have known those who were nursing cases of fever to be suddenly attacked by sore throat, headache, and vertigo, these symptoms passing off after twenty-four or forty-eight hours, and no further evil resulting. A vigorous constitution, care while nurse-tending as to diet and exercise, joined to a mind calm and equable, and ready to face all possibilities without flurry, feverish excitement, or fear, will in many cases enable the sick-nurse to throw off the seeds of disease. But a malignant influence which floats in the atmosphere of the sick-room, pervading the breath of the sick person, and hanging like a bad odour about the bed-clothes, carpets, and even the wall-paper of the room, is necessarily a difficult enemy to evade – and such is infection. And any one who has a timorous dread of it is far better away from the sick-room.

This is, we think, a matter that cannot be too strongly insisted upon. To watch for symptoms is often to develop them; and constant dwelling upon the condition of any one organ of the body, and apprehension as to disease in that organ, will often produce at all events functional derangement if no greater evil. By this we do not mean that neglect of one's self is ever justifiable, but only that fearful and timorous apprehension is deleterious.

So strongly has this fact impressed itself upon us with regard to infection, that we even think it would be well to strain a point, and encourage a person to absent herself from the sick-room, rather than run the risk of having a nurse of this temperament near a patient suffering from disease of a catching nature. In sickness the perceptions are often rendered painfully acute, and the mind naturally much concentrated on itself, is therefore ready to take offence or be troubled by trifles. We have seen a patient shrink from the ministrations of a person whom he felt to be in a state of fear.

Just in the same way, if the duties of the sick-room are (as they often must be) unpleasant, a look of aversion or disgust is enough to wound the sufferer beyond the power of caress or words to heal! A woman who turns sick, or is obliged to put a handkerchief to her nose at a foul smell – who shudders at the sight of blood, ought never to be in a sick-room. The same may be said of one who is always feeling her own pulse, or (as we once saw) looking at her own tongue in the glass (by no means a graceful proceeding), to see if symptoms are 'declaring themselves.' All or much of this sort of nervousness may be affectation; but at the same time we must not judge unkindly of those who from natural temperament dread infection, and are therefore likely to fall a prey to it.

And now, taking it for granted that we have a tolerably sensible woman to deal with, and that she is called upon to nurse a case of fever, small-pox, diphtheria, or any such-like unpleasant ailment, what precautions are best calculated to reduce the risk of infection to a minimum? – a risk which we cannot do away with, but are certainly called upon to guard against to the utmost in our power. Attention to diet, so as to ward off great exhaustion at any time, and taking at least half an hour's exercise in the open air, are excellent rules to observe. Never go into the sick-room fasting. And here we must strongly urge upon every sick-nurse the value of coffee as a restorative. In times of cholera epidemics among our soldiers, the first precaution the authorities invariably take is to order a cup of strong coffee to be served out to each man the first thing in the morning. The effects of this plan are known to be admirable.

Take a brisk walk shortly after your breakfast; order a cup of hot strong coffee to be ready when you come in, and take it before going into the patient's room. Nothing helps to throw off the weariness of a night's watching like this turn in the fresh air (even if taken of necessity under an umbrella), and the coffee braces the nerves and invigorates the system.

To speak of the avoidance of alcoholic stimulants is to enter upon delicate ground; though we are of opinion that in serious cases the nurse should seldom touch anything stronger than coffee throughout the whole time. This abstaining gives a power of recovering with great promptitude from the effects of long-continued watching and heavy duties in the sick-room. Depend upon it that the recurring glass of sherry, the oft-repeated 'nip' of brandy-and-water, do a world of harm both in the sick-room and out of it.

That wine and brandy are valuable restoratives in weakness, cannot be denied; and it is certain that there are many constitutions which need a moderate amount of stimulant; but that stimulants are taken to a perfectly needless and most pernicious extent, even by those who by no means come under the term 'drunkard,' and that among these are numbered women as well as men, is a stubborn and unhappy fact. One of the many evils resulting from this over-use of stimulants is this: when severe illness and prostration call for wine or brandy, the system is so used to their action that but little benefit accrues; at all events, little when compared to that prompt answer the constitution gives to even small doses, when that constitution has either made very sparing use, or no use at all, of such whips and spurs to the energies of life.

The proper ventilation of a sick-room is a most important means of lessening the danger of infection; and this more particularly in such diseases as fever, small-pox, or diphtheria – that is, diseases coming distinctly under the head infectious. In those which are contagious, ventilation is of course also important, but not equally so. And this leads us on to speak of the difference between infection and contagion. Infection is subtly diffused through the atmosphere, the patient's breath, the clothes, hangings, walls, &c. Contagion consists in the disease being propagated by the emanations of the sick person. It is therefore obvious that the latter (contagion) is more easily guarded against by a prudent person than the former (infection). The plentiful use of disinfectants seems to be one of the best preventives against contagion; but of course all such details are generally regulated by the medical man in attendance, and no better advice can be given to the amateur sick-nurse than to follow his directions implicitly.

We will, before leaving this subject, quote one passage from Dr Aitken's excellent work, The Science and Practice of Medicine. In volume one, page 222, he says: 'Ill-health of any kind therefore favours the action of epidemic influences.' Thus then, we see how one of our highest medical authorities bears out the truth of what we have said – namely that for the sick-nurse to neglect her own health – to go without sufficient and regular food – in a word, to lower by any means whatever the standard of her own physical condition, is to intensify the risk of infection or contagion for herself, and trouble and anxiety for those belonging to her.

We have no belief in the disinfecting of clothes that have been worn during attendance on cases of an infectious nature. It is far better to wear an old dress, wrapper, shawl, &c., and when the illness is over have them burned. The same thing applies to clothing worn by the patient.

We remember one most lamentable case where (as was supposed) everything was disinfected, washed, and exposed to the air; yet the gift of a night-dress to a poor woman resulted in virulent small-pox, and the sufferer, a young married woman, was cruelly disfigured in spite of the best care and nursing an hospital could give.

It comes then to this: infection cannot be evaded; but risk may be reduced to a minimum by an observance of the precautions we have noted, by the exercise of plain common-sense, and by the reality – not romance – of devotion to the work undertaken by the sick-nurse.

INDIAN MILITARY SPORTS

For the following amusing account of some of the more popular of Eastern regimental sports we are indebted to an officer in India. He proceeds as follows:

The sports of the native Indian cavalry, commonly called Nesi Basi, are much encouraged by the authorities, as to excel in them requires steady nerve and good riding. I believe it is the custom in most regiments to devote one morning a week to these essentially military games. They are most popular with the men, it is easy to see, for besides the hundred or so who generally turn out to compete, the greater part of the regiment is present on foot as spectators.

The proceedings generally commence with tent-pegging pure and simple. A short peg is driven into the ground, while some two hundred yards distant the competitors are drawn up in line, each on his own horse; for the native sowar, like the vassal of our own past times, comes mounted and armed to his regiment. While off duty the native soldier can dress as he pleases, so on occasions like the present, individual taste breaks forth in showy waistcoat or gorgeous coloured turban. Each man carries a bamboo spear in his hand. At a signal given by the wordi major or native adjutant, the first man, his spear held across his body, starts at a canter; his wiry little country-bred knows as well as he does what is in hand, and as the speed quickens to a gallop, the pace is regular and measured, enabling his rider to sit as steady as a rock. When about fifty yards from the object the sowar turns his spear-point downward, bends well over the saddle till his hand is below the girth, and then, when you almost think he has gone past, an imperceptible turn of the wrist and – swish – the spear is brandished round his head, with the peg transfixed on its point. Another is quickly driven into the ground, and the next man comes up; he too hits the peg, but perhaps fails to carry it away to the required distance, for it drops from his spear-point as he is in the act of whirling it round his head. This does not count, and he retires discomfited. The third misses entirely; the fourth strikes but does not remove the peg from the ground; while after them in quick succession come two or three who carry it off triumphantly. With varying fortune the whole squad goes by; and it is interesting to note the style of each horseman as he passes, some sitting rigid till within a few yards of the mark; others bending over and taking aim while still at a distance; some silent, others shouting and gesticulating; while one no sooner has his steed in motion than he gives vent to a certain tremolo sound, kept up like the rattle of a steam-engine, till close upon the peg, which having skilfully transfixed, he at the same time throws his voice up an octave or two, in triumph I suppose, as he gallops round and joins his comrades. Two or three men now bring up their horses with neither saddle nor bridle, and with consummate skill, guiding them by leg-pressure alone, carry off the peg triumphantly, amid well-deserved cries of 'Shabash!' from the spectators.

The next part of the programme is 'lime-cutting.' Three lemons are put up on sticks about twenty yards apart; and as the sowar gallops past, tulwar in hand, he has successively to cut them in two without touching the sticks – a by no means easy feat. Then three handkerchiefs are placed on the ground; and a horseman, riding barebacked a good-looking bay, flies past in a very cloud of dust, and on his way stoops, picks up, and throws over his shoulder each handkerchief as he comes to it.

And now we come to the most difficult feat of all. A piece of wood a little larger than a tent-peg is driven into the ground, and a notch having been made in the top, a rupee is therein placed so as to be half hidden from view. The feat is to ride at this, lance in hand, and to knock out the rupee without touching the wood – a performance requiring rare skill and dexterity; yet it is generally accomplished successfully, once or twice, by the best hands of the regiment.

Perhaps the proceedings may close with something of a comic nature, one man coming past hanging by his heels from the saddle, shouting and gesticulating; others facing their horses' tails, firing pistols at a supposed enemy, with more antics of a like nature, often ending in an ignominious cropper, though the nimble fareem generally succeeds in landing on his feet.

The sports of the infantry are of a totally different nature. The last time I had an opportunity of being present at a tamasha of this kind was a pleasant breezy day on the banks of the Ganges. A space about twelve yards by fifteen was prepared by picking up and softening the ground till it presented the appearance of a minute portion of Rotten Row. One side of this space was reserved for the European officers and their friends; while round the other three stood or squatted the sepoys and any of their acquaintances from the neighbouring villages whom they chose to invite. In the rear were booths, whose owners were doing a brisk trade in native sweetmeats, while some twenty tom-toms kept up a discordant and never-ending din. Every native present, from havildar to sepoy, was clothed only in the langoti or loin-cloth, to give free play to the muscles of the limbs and chest. At each corner of the arena stood a man in authority, like a Master of the Ceremonies, to see that the sports were carried on in a proper manner and that nobody allowed his temper to get the better of him. One of these was a remarkably fine-looking man, who, had he been of somewhat lighter hue and clothed in the garments of civilisation, might have passed as an English aristocrat of the first-water; while another, of powerful build and with mutton-chop whiskers, was the very image of an eminent City man of my acquaintance.

We arrived on the scene a little late, but were immediately shewn to a seat, one of the native officers coming up to hand us a plateful of cut-up almonds and cocoa-nut, with raisins and spices intermixed. Of course we took some, as this was the native welcome. We were hardly seated when two wiry-looking young men stepped into the arena. First, they each bent down and raised to the forehead a little earth in the right hand. This was poojah, or a request for help from their deity in the approaching struggle; though I suspect in most cases it was a meaningless performance; for I saw a little Christian boy who played first-cornet in the band, go through the same manœuvre. The two wrestlers then went to opposite corners, and began some of the queerest antics I ever saw, slapping their chests, thighs, and arms; first hopping on the left, then on the right foot; bending over and jumping back, and recalling in some degree the movements of the ballet; and then, after a few feints, they clutched each other by the arms close to the shoulder, while their two bullet-heads met together and acted as battering-rams. This went on till one man presented a chance by incautiously lifting his foot, when down he went in a trice, his adversary falling on him. This, however, was not a 'fall.' While on the ground, they turned and twisted and writhed like snakes, their lean legs curling round each other in a manner marvellous to behold, their efforts being greeted every now and then by applause, led by the Masters of the Ceremonies aforesaid, given in a sing-song way, and always ending in a long-drawn 'Tee' (Victory). It was almost wearisome to watch them, until at length the bout was brought to an end by one man being fairly thrown on his back, his adversary keeping clear. This was a true 'fall.'

Couple after couple set to in the same way, sometimes a raw youth requiring the friendly admonition of the watchful M. C. to make him keep his temper, though I must say the friendly way in which these exceedingly rough sports were carried on was deserving of the highest praise.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the aristocrat and the mutton-chop whiskers man, throwing aside their dignity, enter the arena and go through the same antics, the latter's pirouettes and pas de Zéphir resembling the gambols of a young elephant; but nevertheless they went through the affair as their predecessors had done.

Between times the little boys from the neighbouring villages would rush in as they saw their opportunity, and seizing a long sword with a handle that covered the arm to the elbow make cuts and points innumerable at a supposed enemy, dancing the while, and never leaving the spot where they commenced. The meaning of this I could not divine, but it pleased the spectators, for they did not withhold their applause, the aristocrat himself on one occasion prolonging the usual 'Tee' in a sonorous voice after every one else had finished.

I was told that this sort of thing went on from early morning till sunset; but though interesting for an hour, it soon begins to pall on the ordinary European; so, after seeing a little single-stick and club practice, excellent of their kind, we took our departure.