Punch (85.1883)

116

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHAP1VARI.

[November 3, 1SS3.

self when I have once settled down comfortably, I prepare to spend
so much of the afternoon as may remain between now and dinner-time.

We give the weather another chance, which is returning good for
evil, and determine to leave the “ Avernus of the North,” whatever
happens, to-morrow morning.

The weather takes our courteous treatment into consideration, and
limiting itself to a Scotch mist to begin with, but a real fine day and
a pleasant breeze to finish wdth, away we go, “ a-sailing, a-sailing ”
—and thoroughly enjoying the poetry of motion.

******

We sail by Loch Nevis, Armadale, and arrive at Loch Hourn,
where, after a consultation between the Commodore, the Pilot, and
the Captain, we anchor. In this part, at the entrance of the Loch,
there is a good practical joke played by some one "who has placed a
stick with a square piece of something on it (’which may be a notice-
board -when you get close enough to it), on the top of a submerged
rock. The humour of this is, that in broad daylight it is scarcely
visible, in twilight it may be just discerned with a strong glass when
you are unpleasantly near it, and at night it can’t be seen at all. Of
-course, the practical fun of this is evident.

* * * * * *

Killick and Crayley, who has developed a wonderful faculty for
fiat contradiction, have a lively argument as to the meaning of
“ Seavaig.” It commences by Crayley informing the company
generally that Loch Nevis is Lake Heaven.

Killick says he knew this, and caps it by telling us that Loch
Hourn is just the opposite.

Then I ask, if the guide-books call Loch Seavaig the Avernus of
the North, what is the meaning of Seavaig ?

Killick thinks that it must mean something gloomy.

Melleville observes, marginally, “ probably.”

Crayley thinks it is the old Scotch for “ Witch.”

“ Gaelic,” says Killick, majestically.

“No; not Gaelic,” returns Crayley. “ They don’t speak Gaelic
here.”

“ They did ! ” retorts Killick, shortly.

“ They did nothing of the sort,” answers Crayley, with his head
well on one side, his glass screwed in his eye, his face turned away
from Killick, and towards Loch Nevis.

“ Oh, certainly ! ” remarks our Commodore, intervening with per-
suasive gentleness. “They certainly spoke Gaelic in these parts.
Seavaig, Nevis; and Hourn are all Gaelic names. ”

“ Armadale isn’t,” says Crayley, not thoroughly convinced.

This is my opportunity. I am not well up in Gaelic, but now I
feel my feet. “ Armadale,” I say, cleverly, “ was a novel. Was it
a story about this locality ? ”

Nobody is positive on this point; ergo, I suppose no one has read
it. I haven’t.

Killick remembers it in the Cornhill Magazine. “ By Wilkie
Colliks,” he adds, as if he had only read the title, and stopped
there. There are some people with great reputations for reading
everything who never do more than this, and manage to pick up the
chief points in the course of conversation.

“ It wasn’t written by Wilkie Colliks ! ” replies Crayley, curtly.
He evidently owes Killick one for the latter’s recent victory on
the Gaelic dispute.

“ It was! ” retorts Killick, sharply.

“Nonsense,” says Crayley. “ It'was Mrs. Wood.”

“ Hh! I don’t think it was Mrs. Wood,” I say, “ because she has
a magazine of her own, and why should she write in the Cornhill ? ”
Having given this piece of logical reasoning, it occurs to me that
Mrs. Wood hasn’t a magazine of her own ; but keep the doubt to
myselt.

“ Armadale was by Mrs. Wood or Miss Brad don,” says Crayley,
returning to the subject. “Wasn’t it?” he asks, appealing to our
Commodore.

But Melleville will not commit himself to an opinion. He
that Armadale was the name of a novel: nothing* more.

.-Jy1^ neutrality decides Crayley, and he bears down on Killick
with all his guns.

Of course,” he says, decidedly, as if he had just that instant
TrvT ec PrivTe a,H positive intelligence from indisputable authority.

Ot course Armadale was by Mrs. Wood or Miss Broughton-, and,
at ail events, it certainly was not by Wilkie Colliks.”

‘I’ll bet you anything you like,” says Killick, warmly, “that
Com f” WaS by WlLKIE CoLLms- I’H bet you five pounds.

But Crayley won’t “come.” He simply replies, with a superb
contempt for Killick’s offer, “ I never bet,” which provokes Killick
mto extravagant offers to back his own opinion, at twenty to one,
tnirty to one, fifty to one, anything, in fact, to one, that Wilkie
j Bollihs did write Armadale. But Crayley preserves a disdainful
j silence, which so irritates Killick that he says, “ My dear fellow
lie is only affectionate when he means quite 'the contrary, for if his
j My dear fellow” were translated, it would be literally, “ You d—

(not dear) fool (not fellow),”—“ My dear fellow, you can’t be certain,
or you would back your opinion.”

“ I never bet,” repeats the inperturbable Crayley, still with his
head on one side, his glass firmly screwed in his eye, and his gaze
fiercely fixed on the opposite coast. He reminds me of Edgar Allan
Poe’s wearying Raven, with its constant “ Never more ! ” Killick
would have thrown his boots at that raven, and broken the bust of
Pallas Athene over the Poet’s door. As it is, if he could chuck
Crayley quietly into the water, he would do so, and, as the latter
was sinking, he would ask him savagely, “Now, did Wilkie Colliks
write Armadale or not ? ” to which Crayley, rising for the third
time, with the glass in his eye, and his head on one side gazing
upwards, would serenely reply, “ I never bet,” and disappear
for ever.

Our Commodore goes below; so do I; and Killick crosses over to
the other side of the vessel.

Now, though at the commencement of this discussion I knew per-
fectly well, without having read the novel in question, who was the
Author of Armadale, yet now I own to being a bit shaken by the
decided tone and positive manner of Crayley. Positiveness is nine
points of the law, if you happen to be “ laying it down.”

“Dinner is under weigh, Sir,” cries the Merry Young Steward,
and we descend silently.

* * * * * *

We all meet at dinner as happily as possible, and hear no more of
Armadale.

Crayley and Killick avoid discussion. It is a truce between
them ; but when they recommence, the contest will be frightful.

As neither Melleville nor myself will dispute with him, Crayley
starts a new method and argues with himself. He contradicts him-
self fiatly, and finally brings himself as holding Opinion No. 1, over
to the side of himself as representing Opinion No. 2, or he tries to
bring one of us into this dual discussion. But as to cut in on such
delicate ground would be like interfering between man and wife, we
wisely hold aloof, and express no opinion either way.

For example, he takes up a telescope, and, after a careful survey
of the distant shores, he says, “ There’s a castle the”e. A splendid
ruin.” Then he hands the glass to me, and I agree with him,
in much the same spirit as the old courtier Polonius did with
Hamlet as to the camel-shaped cloud which was hacked like a weasel
and very like a whale. But this does not content Hamlet-Crayley.
He looks at the object again, and then, in a voice which is quite loud
enough for any bystander to catch and reply to (it is a bait thrown
out to Killick, who won’t bite,—or bark either, now), he says to
himself, “No, it isn’t a castle ; it’s a rock.”

He turns to offer me the glass, but as I am with Clarissa Harlowe
in Bloomsbury, and cannot be disturbed, and as Melleville and
Killick have gone below, he applies the telescope once more to
his eye, and continues the argument entirely with himself.
“Yes,” he says, “it Is a castle”—then, the next minute, he meets
this statement with the fiat and rude contradiction, “No, it isn’t.”
Then he treats himself in the most cavalier manner, and quite
turns up his nose at the idea of anyone ever having been so absurd
as to think that eccentric-looking rock a castle. And here it would
end, but that he takes one more look through the glass, which
results in his saying positively, “Yes, it is a castle: I thought so
from the first ”—which concludes the controversy. It is a harmless
amusement, and, so to speak, keeps his hand in for when he shall
have a real opponent to contradict.

We are now making for Kyle Aikin, and that is my last noint
before Strome Ferry.

Gold Leaf from Goldsmith..

Here is a cap to fit some of ’em nowadays :—

“To be known in this town was almost synonymous with being on the road
to fortune. Ifow many little things do we see, without merit or without
friends, push themselves forward into public notice, and by self-advertising
attract the attention of the day : the wise despise them, but the public are
not all wise. Thus they succeed, rise upon the wing of folly or ot fashion,
and by their success give a new sanction to effrontery.”

This is from Oliver Goldsmith’s Life of Beau Nash. 0 sweet
Oliver ! 0 brave Oliver ! Who would have thought that Beau

broke one hundred and twenty years ago. Some of the advertisers of
our day might take this to heart, that “ all is not Gold[smith] that
glitters! ”

A Conservative Solicitor in the country refused to subscribe to a
Luther Commemoration Fund on the ground that, first of all, Luther
started a Preform Bill, and, secondly, that had he been alive now he
would have come under the Corrupt Practices Act for allowing two
wives at the same time to an Elector. [Surely this “ Permissive
Bill ” of Dr. Martin’s was a questionable blessing to the Elector,
specially if there were two Mothers-in-law. Eh ?]