At length, after a toilsome walk along the rough surface of the débris, we reached the place whence this wonderful flood had burst. We found on each side of the valley a huge lump of the embankment remaining, while a vast gulf yawned between. This was somewhat different from what we expected; for we had seen it stated in the newspapers, that the whole was swept away. So far from this being the case, fully half of the entire mass remains, including portions of that central depression which has been spoken of. There is more importance in remarking this fact than may at first sight appear. In the investigation of the mysterious subject of the Parallel Roads of Glenroy, one theory has been extensively embraced—that they were produced by a lake, which has since burst its bounds and been discharged. It has been asked: Where was the dam that retained this lake? and should we not expect, if there was any such dam, that it could not be wholly swept away? Would not fragments of it be found at the sides of the valley—the breaking down of the centre being sufficient to allow the waters to pass out? When we look at the masses left on each side of the Bilberry embankment, we see the force and pertinence of these queries, and must admit that the lake theory is so far weakened. In the bottom of the breach, a tiny rill is now seen making its exit—the same stream which cumulatively took so formidable a shape a few months ago. For a mile up the valley, we see traces of the ground having been submerged. Immediately within the embankment, on the right side of the streamlet, is the empty tower or by-wash, that dismal monument of culpable negligence. We gazed on it with a strange feeling, thinking how easy it would have been to demolish two or three yards of it, so as to allow an innocuous outlet to the pent-up waters. When we had satisfied our curiosity, we commenced a toilsome march across the hills to a valley, in which there has lately been formed a series of embankments for the saving up of water for the supply of the inhabitants of Manchester. About six in the evening, we reached a public-house called the 'Solitary Shepherd,' where we had tea and a rest; after which, a short walk in the dusk of the evening brought us to a station of the Manchester and Sheffield Railway, by which we were speedily replaced in Manchester, thus accomplishing our very interesting excursion in about ten hours.
My final reflections on what we had seen were of a mixed order. Viewing the inundation as a calamity which might have been avoided by a simple and inexpensive precaution, one could not but feel that it stood up as a sore charge against human wisdom. That so huge a danger should have been treated so lightly; that men should have gone on squabbling about who should pay a mere trifle of money, when such large interests and so many lives were threatened by its non-expenditure, certainly presents our mercantile laissez-faire system in a most disagreeable light. But, then, view the other side. When once the calamity had taken place, and the idea of the consequent extensive suffering had got abroad amongst the public, thousands of pounds came pouring in for the relief of that suffering. The large sum of L.60,000 was collected for the unfortunates; and it is an undoubted, though surprising fact, that the collectors had at last to intimate that they required no more. It is thus that human nature often appears unworthy and contemptible when contemplated with regard to some isolated circumstance, as misanthropes, poets, and such like, are apt to regard it. But take it in wider relations, take it in the totality of its action, and the lineaments of its divine origin and inherent dignity are sure to shine out.
REMINISCENCES OF AN ATTORNEY.
THE INCENDIARY.
I knew James Dutton, as I shall call him, at an early period of life, when my present scanty locks of iron-gray were thick and dark, my now pale and furrowed cheeks were fresh and ruddy, like his own. Time, circumstance, and natural bent of mind, have done their work on both of us; and if his course of life has been less equable than mine, it has been chiefly so because the original impulse, the first start on the great journey, upon which so much depends, was directed by wiser heads in my case than in his. We were school-fellows for a considerable time; and if I acquired—as I certainly did—a larger stock of knowledge than he, it was by no means from any superior capacity on my part, but that his mind was bent on other pursuits. He was a born Nimrod, and his father encouraged this propensity from the earliest moment that his darling and only son could sit a pony, or handle a light fowling-piece. Dutton, senior, was one of a then large class of persons, whom Cobbett used to call bull-frog farmers; men who, finding themselves daily increasing in wealth by the operation of circumstances they neither created nor could insure or control—namely, a rapidly increasing manufacturing population, and tremendous war-prices for their produce—acted as if the chance-blown prosperity they enjoyed was the result of their own forethought, skill, and energy, and therefore, humanly speaking, indestructible. James Dutton was, consequently, denied nothing—not even the luxury of neglecting his own education; and he availed himself of the lamentable privilege to a great extent. It was, however, a remarkable feature in the lad's character, that whatever he himself deemed essential should be done, no amount of indulgence, no love of sport or dissipation, could divert him from thoroughly accomplishing. Thus he saw clearly, that even in the life—that of a sportsman-farmer—he had chalked out for himself, it was indispensably necessary that a certain quantum of educational power should be attained; and so he really acquired a knowledge of reading, writing, and spelling, and then withdrew from school to more congenial avocations.
I frequently met James Dutton in after-years; but some nine or ten months had passed since I had last seen him, when I was directed by the chief partner in the firm to which Flint and I subsequently succeeded, to take coach for Romford, Essex, in order to ascertain from a witness there what kind of evidence we might expect him to give in a trial to come off in the then Hilary term, at Westminster Hall. It was the first week in January: the weather was bitterly cold; and I experienced an intense satisfaction when, after despatching the business I had come upon, I found myself in the long dining-room of the chief market-inn, where two blazing fires shed a ruddy, cheerful light over the snow-white damask table-cloth, bright glasses, decanters, and other preparatives for the farmers' market-dinner. Prices had ruled high that day; wheat had reached L.30 a load; and the numerous groups of hearty, stalwart yeomen present were in high glee, crowing and exulting alike over their full pockets and the news—of which the papers were just then full—of the burning of Moscow, and the flight and ruin of Bonaparte's army. James Dutton was in the room, but not, I observed, in his usual flow of animal spirits. The crape round his hat might, I thought, account for that; and as he did not see me, I accosted him with an inquiry after his health, and the reason of his being in mourning. He received me very cordially, and in an instant cast off the abstracted manner I had noticed. His father, he informed me, was gone—had died about seven months previously, and he was alone now at Ash Farm—why didn't I run down there to see him sometimes, &c.? Our conversation was interrupted by a summons to dinner, very cheerfully complied with; and we both—at least I can answer for myself—did ample justice to a more than usually capital dinner, even in those capital old market-dinner times. We were very jolly afterwards, and amazingly triumphant over the frost-bitten, snow-buried soldier-banditti that had so long lorded it over continental Europe. Dutton did not partake of the general hilarity. There was a sneer upon his lip during the whole time, which, however, found no expression in words.
'How quiet you are, James Dutton!' cried a loud voice from out the dense smoke-cloud that by this time completely enveloped us. On looking towards the spot from whence the ringing tones came, a jolly, round face—like the sun as seen through a London fog—gleamed redly dull from out the thick and choking atmosphere.
'Everybody,' rejoined Dutton, 'hasn't had the luck to sell two hundred quarters of wheat at to-day's price, as you have, Tom Southall.'