The Secret of Whitmore Chase.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 534, 16 December 1867, Page 1

The Secret of Whitmore Chase.

A TALE OF ENGLAND & AUSTRALIA. By R. E. Lee, Author of “ A Tangled Skein.” TO! THE HAWKS’S BAY WEEKLY TIMES. The riff hi of IraudalioH is reserved hy ike author. CHAPTER XXV. i:> §T$ ’ rV- cox cl usjo x. '"l v '■ o IT MM E DIATELY upon their arrival iu \ V Loudon, "Warren had seat for ' '**' V Haynes, ami after a satisfactory f f&rb. C / 'L~ arrangement of his own affairs, J\ the solieilor despatched his clerk k ) "' s for Waiters, who came inimedih ately, aiul was greatly delighted! { to find Philip alive and well. ” I told you so,” he exclaimed, “it wasn’t natural for Mr Whitmore to die and spoil such a denouement as this will be. Why, it beats anv of the Surrey pieces into sticks. But, 1 say, Mr Haynes, I hope you have not said -anything about the document I showed vou ? ’

“ I believe I gave you a promise not to do so,” returned the attorney. '• lam a man of my word.” After some discussion, Walters arranged the scheme which he carried out sc successfully ■ and Philip accompanied Haynes to the latter’s house. Before startin'; to see Warren, Haynes had telegraphed to Ellen, requesting her presence at his house iu the afternoon ; aud he informed Philip of this circumstance ; who went with the attorney, feeling anything but easy as to his probable reception. He did not know his wife. Basely as he had acted in deserting her, the loving woman’s heart still clung to him; in the words of Scott, — “ Forgot wore wrongs and fears,” and he was forgiven ere his embarrassed tongue could find speech. Philip’s nature was naturally noble, though, it had been warped by circumstances. When he saw this affectionate welcome, this loving return, for his cruel desertion, he was overcome ; and inwardly vowed to make amends for his former conduct by,a life of devotion. What lie said to his wife, and her reply, requires no record. Contented with his return, Ellen asked no more ; and Philip, at Haynes’ suggestion, look her with him to Westmorland, to be present at the interview arranged by Walters. Sir Bryan was disposed to look favorably on everything Philip did; and the old man was agreeably astonished when presented to his sou’s wife; insisting on their taking up their abode at the Chase. “ The place will get sadly out of order, my boy, unless you do so,” said the baronet. “ Your bro Beecham has managed it for a long time ; and the people want a sharp eye over them.” At length Philip consented, and the news rapidly spreading through the, county, he received many visits from the neighboring gentry, who were acquainted with his mesalliance, and anxious to see Mrs Whitmore. If they expected to find her at fault in her new position, they were greatly mistaken. Naturally of a quiet disposition, Ellen had intuitive good manners by which she was very well qualified to pass muster with much more fastidious critics than the county aristocracy ; and the general opinion was that she was a lady—rather shy, hut decidedly a lady, one to be “ taken up,” as the Dowager Countess of Fitzwaggar- (the Armstrong gun of Westmorland ton j expressed it. Philip was seated at breakfast with his wife and father one morning shortly after his return. Carelessly taking up the Times, he glanced over it, and suddenly changing color, uttered an exclamation of surprise. " What is the matter ? ” enquired Sir Bryan. Philip made an evasive answer, placing the paper in his pocket; and shortly afterwards found an excuse for leaving (he room, having previously signed to Ellen to accompany him. Mrs Whitmore was greatly alarmed at her husband’s agitation. He placed the paper in her hands, and pointed to the following extract: — Melancholy Affair.—' The Steele of the day before yesterday contains an account of a duel between two Englishmen, resulting in the death of one of them. It appears that Mr Beecham Whitmore, the unfortunate deceased, had quarrelled with a Captain Wilmington, and the latter followed his antagonist to Paris; succeeding in provoking a hostile meeting The parties met in a secluded spot near Paris, and two shots were exchanged, Mr Whitmore being shot through the lungs at the second fire. The unfortunate gentleman only lived a few hours after the occurrence. Captain Wilmington has made good his retreat, it is supposed to Belgium, hut two officers in the Guides, who acted as seconds, are under arrest. Philip was greatly shocked at this termination to his brother’s career. He broke the news to his father as gently as possible, but Sir Bryan seemed to nave occu gradually sinking since his son’s return ; and ere many weeks elapsed the old man passed away, dying with his hand in Philip’s. The latter kept his promise respecting Walters, furnishing that worthy with funds to embark for the antipodes.

TiitJE HisroET of Jack Horveh.— Who has not heard of this wonderful individual ? Who does not remember ofbeing told in his childhood about Jack Horner? and who has not envied his good fortune when he— Sat ia the corner eat ins a Christinas pie. F.it in hU thumb Ami pulled out a plum. And said, “ What u good boy am I: ” (lave the children ever enquired who Jack Horner was? Here is the tradition-. When Henry YIII. suppressed the monas-, teries, and drove the poor old monks from their nests, the title-deeds of the Abbey of Mells—including the sumptuous grange built by Abbot Bell wood—were demanded by the commissioners. The Abbot of Glastonbury determined that he would send them to London; and as the documents were very valuable, and the roads infested with thieves, it was difficult to get thorn to tlie metropolis in safety. To accomplish this end. however, he devised the following plan : he ordered a pie to be made—as line as ever smoked on a refectory table ; inside he put the documents the finest filling a p;o ever hrvl since pie.- 1 were first made ; he trusted this dainty to: a lad named Horner, to carry up to 1 ondon, to deliver safely into the hands for whom it was intended. But the journey was long, and the day was cold, and the boy was hungry, and the pie was tempting, and the chance of detection was small. So the boy broke off a piece of pie and behold jtho parchment; ho pulled it forth innocently enough, wondering how it could, have reached there—tied up the pastry, and arrived in town. The parcel was delivered, but the title-deeds of Mells Abbey were missing; Jack had them in his pocket. These were the juciest plums of the pie. Great was the rage of the commissioners, heavy the vengeance thev dealt out to the monks. Jack kept his secret, and when peaceable times were restored claimed the estates and received them. Whether Mr Horner deserves the title of “ good boy,” bestowed on him by the nursery legend, is more than doubtful; however, that’s the story.— Monthly Magazine.

A Close Witness. —During a recent trial at Auburn, the following occurred to vary the monotony of the proceedings;—j [Among the witnesses was one as as verdant j a specimen of humanity as one would wish! to meet with. After a severe cross exatni j nation, the counsel for the Government: paused, and then putting on a look of! severity and ominous shake of the head,) exclaimed, “Mr Witness, has not an effort! been made to induce you to tell a different! story?” “ A different story from what I [have told, sir ? ” “ That is what 1 mean.” |“Tea, sir; several persona have tried to :get mo to tell a different story to what I ! have fold, but they couldn’t.” “ Now, sir,' upon your oath, I wish to know who those persons are.” “ Waal, I guess you’ve tried ’bout as hard as any of them.” The witness was dismissed, while judge, jury, and [spectators indulged in a hearty laugh. An Anecdote.— The following (says the j United Service Gazette) is rather too good to lose ; — Si non b eero, e hen h ovato. In a late war—we will not particularise, for fear of being personal—a medical o£icer, of a division of blue jackets, met a captain belonging to the same division, and the “Oh, Doctor! you’re surgeon of our division, ain’t you?” Doctor: “Certainly.” Captain (beginning to handle his leg below the knee) : “I am wounded, —just here.” Doctor: “ W ell, I must see it, you know. Just pnll down your stocking.” Captain :i “ To, no. Tot just now—we’re engaged in action, you know ; —but here’s the bullet ; —just stick my name down, will you ? ” Doctor (after examining the missile, which was flattened) ; “Well, you must have a hard shin-bone, and what’s more, it must have been whitewashed, too ! ” The Social Evil. — A correspondent of the Canterbury Press complains that the streets of Christchurch are infested with prostitutes, and says that the last few j shiploads of women have proved a curse j rather than a blcsaug.

INI! A ! > I T E T) P L A N E T 8. (By T. L. I’hipson, PU. D„ F.C.S.) In olden times the vanity nf man placed our earth in the centre of the solar system, caused the sun, moon, and stars to revolve about it, looked upon it ns the most impovtnntorb in creation and boldlv asserted that it was tired in its place ami devoid oi j mot ion. Bmco then the effort* of ustronojm rs iiave overturned one by one these extraordinary notions, the results of superstition and imperfect observation. At the present day the science of astronomy has taught us to guide our ships; to coii'truct our maps ; to regulate time and divide the year ; (o c dculate the coming of comets and eclipses, thy, even shooting stars, the movement of f iles, the (distances, volumes, and weights of (he heavenly bodies, and those of the globe in iwinch wo live; and sundry other usefn i lessons which need not be mentioned i here. I 11 nt, putting aside the practical results ;of this most ancient of the sciences, we 1 love to dwell sometimes upon teachings ■ of another kind, more apt to captivate our curiosity. After satisfying ourselves, for instance, that the sun is a 1 ivat luminous, globe, 1 107,187 times greater that tiie earth ; that it forms the centre of our planetary system ; that it (urns upon its I axis, and illuminates all the planets which I revolve around it, to which in also radiates 1 .heat ; that, it is not fixed in space, but ! 'travels along with its host of planets,! [satellites, comets, and meteroids, towards ■ some distant space in the midst of the I universe ; that it- is nearly 115,090,090 : nudes from us; afun- assuring ourselves of it’d*, we are led to inquire more intimately iinto the nature of this wonderful orb ; we i endeavor to learn something of itspbysi-j cal constitution ; wc study minutely its] surface, its bright, portions and its spots.! its great, red protuberances, thousands of miles long, seen dark g an eclipse ; analyse file light it sends us ; and wc notice carefully the influence of its snots upon the movements of a magnetic needle, or upon the product of a wheat district. Another consideration has not failed to excite our curiosity. Is it inhabited ? The ancients, having no idea whatever of the size and forms of the planets, could only speculate a little upon the sun and moon. On the latter they were fond of putting inhabitants, which the moderns have as diligently taken off again, insisting that the moon has no atmosphere, Ac., and therefore no living creatures. It is amusing to find Anaxagoras speaking of a lion which fell i i:L cf the moon into Peloponnesus, alluding, perhaps, to a great fall of meteoric stones —a class of phenomena to which lie afterwards devoted much attention. The ancient, writers were out of reach of more moden fanaticism ; no one strove to contradict them ; they excited no doctrines. Put it was rather different in the time of Copernicus and Galileo. When the latter began to give the world the benefit of his observations, he was, as ev ry one knows, most villauously persecuted. Yet it was not the man, not the illustrious Tuscan, of whom his fellow-citizens were justly proud, but bis “principles” that were attacked in February 1G15: “ Put a groat reserve on what you say ; for when you establish a certain resemblance between the terrestrial globe and the lunar globe, another person immediately exaggerates it, and says you suppose that there a>-o men in the moon ;| and tiiis other person soon begins to in-; quire how they can possibly have decendedj from Adam, or come out of the ark of] Noah, with no end of other extravagances of which you have never dreamt !” The celebrated astronomer Gassendi, in much later times, received a very similar epistle from another theologian. Now that wo are more thoroughly acquainted with the planetary system revolving round the sun, and can compare the distances, volumes, movements, weigts, Ac., of the different members of this system, what do wo discover? Wo find that our earth, magnificent as it is—with its volcanoes and hot springs, its earthquakes, snow-peaked mountains and lovely valleys, its mountain torrents, cascades, and wide rivers, its boundless ocean, its varied and beautiful vegetation intermingled with myriads of different animals —constitutes but a very secondary feature among the planets. It is neither the largest nor the smallest, the nearest to the sun nor the farthest away; neither the wannest nor the coldest, the lightest nor the heaviest; and if wo find it teeming with life, we must necessarily suppose that life—the highest manifestation of nature’s forces—exists in other planets also. This question has no doubt, given, in modern times, a great stimulus to astronomical inquiry, and to the physical investigation of the orbs which constitute our solar system. Several works have anneared concerning the inhabit ability of the planets. Not long since we had in England the j well-known controversy between Professor Whowcll and Sir David Brewster, in the works Plurality of Worlds and More Worlds than One, which for a time excited much interest in this part of the world. An important work of the same (kind has lately created some sensation in .France. I allude to La Phiralite des Marines JTnhUes, by M. Camille Flam marion, of the Bureau des Longitudes, whose book, pubheed in ISS3, is now in its tenth French edition. An astronomer by profession, one of the editors of the journal Cosmos, and for several years an active member of the

imperial Gbscrvaiorj?, ’>l. Ulauini irion i;us had every opportunity that he could desire ior developing this interesting subject, and elucidating it, by the aid of the (most recent discoveries in astronomy and , physics. In the new edition of this work; (the arguments of the English philosophers' are incorporated, together with copious' notes from other sources bearing upon ihuj same subject, and are carefully discussed.! Devoting 1 lie lirst portion of his volume' to (ho results of an extensive historical) (research, he next proceeds to the physical) (study of each planet ia particular; then; to the manifestation of life uoou our globed to the conditions to which life is submitted! upon tho earth, and to which it would be I submitted, as.far as wa know, on tiic sur-i (fare of other planets; and lastly, the; jauthor develops an ingenious theory, in ! which he endeavors to establish that tho spiritual unity of the world is as necessary as its physical unity. To any person tolerably devoid of prejudice, and slightly acquainted with the! ! cachings of the modern astronomy, it I must appear absurd in tho extreme to) suppose that tile magnificent worlds which rovolve round tho sun should not have! been as highly endowed by the Greater as : our little earth, a mere point in the uni } verse, which constitutes so moderate a| feature among them ; and quite as fanci-' ful to iinanginc that our globe is for man | j the* best; possible of worlds. j ; One or two prodigious difficulties arise,! (however, when wo wish to bring forward; some palpable proof of the planets beiii"' in reality inhabited by creatun s at all like) surselvos. Not the slightest doubt can) exist as to the possibility of this, as far as; certain planets are concerned—more par-; [ticularly Venus, Mars, and Mercury—[reasoning from tho little wo know of their physical properties, and their telescopic appearance, so similar to what our earth must appear viewed from one of them. But if from planets wo proceed to specit' late upon their satellites, and from these to the sun itself, and to tho comets and shooting stirs, we find ourselves soon without a reasonable argument to stand upon. In ihe first place, our own sitellitc reveals no atmosphere—unless, indeed, some observations made by Sccchi a few years ago should be confirmed, according to which tho moon has a slight atmosphere, th-ougb which penetrate the peaks of its high mountains. And as far as the sun is concerned, if the development of life is to ba measured by tho amount of heal and light which each planet receives from the central orb of our system, this orb must indeed be a region >f e-tor l ;il life and p-ndeet happiness! Ju-I piter and Satern being very light planets,' some astronomers have supposed that the! former was nothing more than a vast globe) of water; its inhabitants in this casc( would be of the aquatic order,—large! whales, and so on. As to comets, who' can say anything? But shooting stars,! or rather meteoric stones, when they reach our earth, have been found to contain organic matter, either the remains or the beginning of life. I

Bonbtless, many centuries will yet elapse before the inhabitants of our planet —our own Cybelc—can have any very nositive proofs of the existence of living creatures on the other globes which travel in space; all vre can say at present is, that such a fact is exceedingly probable. But! as far as speculation—based upon well-! ascertained scientific data, and upheld by | sound philosophical reasoning—can go,| il. Flatnmarion has conducted us in the! work alluded to above, that, throughout which there reigns a soothing breath of natural and pure philosophy, i spired by deep admiration of the grander works of the Creator. Even those authors who like the late distinguished Professor Whewell, endeavor! to establish that the planets contain no! living beings in any way analogous to man,| believe it possible that life, in some formj or other, exists upon them. But M. Flammariou is of opinion that the spiri-! tnal and physical universe are one, andi that the planets are the abodes of intelli-j gence, more or less developed, we may suppose, according to their respective pod-; lions. !