In that old garden, said the villagers, a lady in a white mantle used to walk among the trees, and look with yearning glance towards the windows of the old house. There I have waited for her, but she never came; for, through habit, I have fallen into believing the stories I hear. Perhaps the sunshine frightened her away; perhaps, from long living in the shades, her eyes had grown too weak to bear the light; perhaps she cared not that strangers should share her grief, and wished to mourn there alone, with the darkness for her friend, and the winds sighing comfort to her among the trees. Whatever the reason was, I never met her face to face in that gloomy hollow. Yet, although she was so fair and young, the older villagers could not tell her tale without a shudder; and though the lads and lasses laughed aloud, yet it was a wavering, uncertain laugh, which died on their lips, and left a silence all the more profound.
Forty years had passed since the oaken door creaked on its hinges to admit the master and his fair young bride; and a year later, it had closed on her as they bore her away to sleep in the churchyard, to the grave that had proved too small for her wandering, restless spirit. On that day, cold, and with a drizzling, chilling rain, the small cortège passed through the gate, a man walking behind, with head bent and eyes cast on the ground, his face calm, but chill and gray as the sky. And if the curious one had turned his eyes on the house, he would have seen, at an upper window, a woman’s figure, clad in mourning, with head bent, intently watching the pallbearers as they wound along the muddy road. Had the curious one cared to look closer, he might have seen the gleam of triumph in her eyes—dark, flashing, coal-black eyes—as she watched the tall bent figure walk behind with such a weary, listless step. But soon a turn in the road hid the company from view, and the window was empty again.
One year had sufficed to darken the brightness of that fair young life. Did it ever strike you, reader, that some men and women seem to have had a sunlight bath before entering this world, so destined are they to make everything around them pure and good; while others, wafted from the regions of gloom, cast all around them the shadow of death? Into this baleful darkness had the young bride fallen, and in it her spirit had been quenched. She loved her husband truly, that tall, bronzed man, who had come from the Indies to woo her in the sunny lanes of her own England. Right glad, too, had she been to become mistress of his old home. For months, no spot had come on their home-picture. He was happy in his treasure; she, too, in her simple life in the village, where, from her kindness, she already was receiving the homage due to a queen. But one day, when the snow was on the ground and the flowers were dead, a woman came to the Old House in the Hollow. She was dark, and radiantly beautiful, with the beauty that blossoms under western skies. She neither asked nor received leave to stay as a member of the family circle in the old house, but there was no one to oppose her action. The master was her cousin, she said; and even as she spoke, the gleam in her eyes gave her words the lie. Yet he said nothing, for suddenly he had grown silent and cold, avoiding even the wistful, questioning glances of his wife.
The shadow spread slowly over the house, up the staircases, into the nooks and corners of the rooms, laying its black hand now on this and now on that, but nowhere so strongly as on the heart of the young mistress. Her rippling laughter changed to sighs, her bright smiles were replaced by downcast looks; she passed from summer to winter with no mellowing autumn days to make the change less sad. It was not that the woman, who had come so strangely, sought the love of her husband, or in any other way attempted to dispel the sunshine of her life; she simply dwelt with them, nay, was friendly enough at times; but the dark dress which she wore, and the masses of dark hair which at times she would let fall about her shoulders, seemed indicative of the moral cloud which was slowly gathering over their lives. The lily drooped day by day for want of sunlight. She became morbid, nervous, full of strange and wayward fancies. She thought the love of her husband was dead; and she took to dressing herself in her wedding garb, to try if by that strange way she might make it live again. Clad in the soft, lustrous satins—in which as a happy bride she had blushed and smiled in the little English church but a few months before—she would pace her room for hours, and stand, too, longingly before the glass, peering wistfully to see if aught of her charm were gone. In this garb, too, she would walk among the old trees, and deck her bosom with the snowdrops of spring; but they seemed to wither away at her touch and hang listless and dead. Thus it was, one day she was found sitting among the trees on the fresh spring grass, some faded snowdrops in her lifeless hand, her golden hair surmounting a face darkened with some mysterious presence. A pale gleam of spring sunlight had crept down and settled on her brow; but it was out of place, and timid as the sunbeams which I have seen playing on the old house itself.
Thus quietly as the gliding of a river did her spirit depart, or rather was effaced, as a cloud can hide the silver moon from us for a time. And so, they tell me, she can be seen at times in the old garden, just as, when the clouds grow faint, the welcome shafts of light come down to assure us that their mother orb still lives.
QUARANTINE.
BY AN EXAMINING OFFICER.
At a time when every one has been anxiously perusing the daily accounts of the increase or abatement of cholera in European towns, and when there exists a lurking fear lest the dreaded scourge should obtain a footing on our shores, a brief description of the precautions taken against such a visitation may possibly prove interesting to your readers. The majority of people have, of course, a hazy idea that vessels from Southern France are not allowed to slip in and out of the United Kingdom without strict examination as to the possibility of cholera or other disease existing on board. They know that there is some action taken bearing the old-fashioned title of ‘Quarantine,’ and that it relates to the isolation of vessels on board which disease may exist; but with this knowledge, in a majority of instances their information ends. This very haziness thus induces unfounded fear—and fear supplies one of the chief ingredients on which cholera may be most bountifully fed. If I can in any way lessen this apprehension by detailing, as briefly as possible, the close supervision to which vessels from foreign ports—just now from the south of France especially—are subjected, the purpose of this article will be fully realised.
‘Quarantine,’ according to the lexicographers, ‘is the term during which a ship arriving in port, and suspected of being infected with a malignant, contagious disease, is obliged to forbear all intercourse with the shore.’ Thus a ship arriving in the United Kingdom at the present time, and having on board, or suspected of having on board, a case of cholera, would be at once cut off from all intercourse with the shore or with any neighbouring vessel. This ‘cutting-off’ process was in olden times much more cumbrously managed than at present. Then, the quarantine stations round the shores of Great Britain were not only numerous, but were themselves a source of danger to all concerned. Now, the only one of the old quarantine stations of the United Kingdom is that of the Mother-bank, in the Isle of Wight, where are located three unemployed men-of-war, having on board a staff of officers and men with all appliances necessary for dealing with vessels placed in quarantine. These vessels, I understand, have only been called into requisition on twelve occasions during the last twenty years. The place for the performance of quarantine at any port is now generally decided by the Local Authority of that port in conjunction with the officers of Customs who may be stationed there. Her Majesty’s Privy Council are, of course, primarily responsible for the due carrying out of the quarantine regulations; but on the officers of Customs depends the detention of any vessel, pending the decision of the higher authorities regarding such detention. To enable the officer of Customs to act with authority in the matter, he is provided with a ‘Quarantine Commission,’ on the faith of which he can detain any vessel arriving from abroad on board of which he may suspect the existence of cholera or other infectious disease.
I will suppose, now, a vessel arriving in the Mersey, the Thames, the Tyne, or other busy shipping centre. The vessel, with her national ensign flying aft, to denote that she is from a foreign port—let us suppose a port infected with cholera—sails or steams up to a position some distance from the shore, termed the ‘boarding station.’ Here the master must ‘bring to’ under a penalty of one hundred pounds. The Customs officers come alongside in their boat; and before any one goes on board, the following questions are put to the master: ‘What is the name of the vessel and of the master? From what port have you come? Was there any sickness at the port while you were lying there or at the time you left it? Have you any Bill of Health?—if so, produce it. What number of officers, crew, and passengers have you on board? Have any of them suffered from any kind of illness during the voyage?—if so, state it, however trifling it may have been. Is every person on board in good health at this moment?’ Should the master refuse to answer any of these questions, or give a false answer to any of them, the refusal or falsehood subjects him to a penalty of one hundred pounds; and if the questions have been put upon oath and he returns a false answer, he is liable to punishment for wilful and corrupt perjury.