my blade glided along hers, and I perceived that the iron button was broken off from the point of her foil. "You must have made a mistake, Mademoiselle," I said, "your foil has no button." "Well observed, Sir," she replied, with flashing eyes. "I pointed the blade myself! In four weeks a wedding! Your bride loves your false face. She shall not have it. I'll cut it in pieces, as you have done my heart! En garde, Monsieur." "But, Julie " "En garde, Monsieur !" and her eyes glittered like those of a lioness. "Save yourself if you wish to have a wedding at all." She struck out again with violence. I had to parry with all my skill, but without success. Her sharp fleuret cut the flesh of my arm, from the hand to the shoulder. As soon as she saw my blood flowing, she threw her foil into a corner, and raised me up in her arms. I had sense enough left to tell her to break the point off the foil, before I fainted. When I recovered my senses I found my arm bandaged. Though I could not move, I heard her moaning, and calling out, Ernest, dear Ernest, I have killed you. I would gladly have died for you a thousand times, and now I have killed you. Oh, Ernest, dear Ernest, don't die," she cried, in deep agony. I was soon able to speak. "Be quiet, child; but first give me the sword point." When it was brought to me, I examined it and found the point sharp as a needle. Monsieur Fernand came in. "What has happened?" he cried, in the greatest excitement. "How was this possible ?” "With all my heart I forgive you," I answered, looking into her deep dark, but now tearful eyes. "You shall love me, my dear Julie, not as a bride but as a sister; confide in me in everything, and I'll watch over you as a brother." Sighing, she bent over my wounded arm, and burning tears fell upon it. She looked up into my eyes, so grieved, so afflicted; she seemed to think it useless to speak of refusing my request. The heart only could hear the "No!" she uttered. While she tried to master her feelings, she said sorrowfully, "I will love you as a brother." Monsieur Fernand again entered. I soon found myself strong enough to drive home; and with a hearty salute from the old gentleman, and a long hot glance from Julie, I bade adieu to my generous instructor and his warm-hearted daughter. "Dinner ready," calls my wife, from the din ing room. "Come here, darling," I reply. "What is it, Ernest?" "Look here, Julie, do you know this sword point?" My wife blushes. Her eyes look into mine as they did ten years ago. She had improved from a small tiny bud, and had grown up into a beautiful rose, smiling; she puts her arms around my neck and kisses me again and point? It must be somewhere. I'll speak to again, till I say playfully : “Plus machinale "Very simply," I replied. "The button of the foil broke off, and Julie has wounded me accidentally." "How careless, child; but where is the the sword-maker for sending me such a blade as this. I am very, very sorry." After a while the old gentleman begged to excuse himself. He must go to his guest. He left us, telling Julie she must keep me company. Julie came to me deeply affected, and begged me to forgive her. ment, Julie! The wound had made my arm stiff; my betrothed rejected me. She did not wish to marry a cripple. Julie became my wife. She gave up fencing, for she has now enough to keep her employed with the care of our children. paper that this method would consume more time and money than a little quiet organ-building could ever absorb. But it was all no use. My father had not a logical mind, and he drove away conviction in a manner most irritating to a sound reasoner like myself. However, I had my own way at Cambridge, but under pro test. Now the organ in the Chapel of St. Blasius was an old organ, which had been renovated and added to by several builders, till the inside of the instrument was crowded beyond all reason. For the most ordinary processes of tuning and regulating, the unfortunate opera My name was put on the boards of St. Blasius in October, 185-, and after a most tender parting from my household gods in Warwickshire, I commenced residence in all the glory of a promising freshman. I do not know that I ever had very sanguine hopes of academic distinction, so I received the full blessing of expecting nothing, inasmuch as, in this respect, I met no disappointment. I had a hard battle with my revered father, and after-tor had to perform the feat of an acrobat before wards with the tutor of the college, to be allowed to rent an extra room in which I might carry on my favourite relaxation. This was the unusual pursuit of amateur organ-building. My father said that the idea was preposterous and expensive. The tutor affirmed that such things ruined a young man's prospects, and made him idle. But, nevertheless, I carried the day through the intercession of my mother; and my carpenter's bench, with the appurtenances thereof, were duly accommodated in a small room opening out of my gyp-room, on staircase letter C. I was not long in maturing my plans for erecting a small chamber-organ of two manuals, with all kinds of ingenious mechanical appliances in the way of stops and couplers. I was naturally both of a mechanical and musical turn of mind; so, by my favourite pursuit, I gratified both sides of my disposition. I often tried to convince my father that it was a most economical step thus to kill two birds with one stone, but he could not see it. I explained how I might develop my mechanical talent by building an expensive steam-engine, and indulge my musical propensities by insisting on running up to London every week to enjoy the Opera or Philharmonic concerts. I proved on he could get at either pipes or key-action. The bellows had to be emptied and the swell closed before he could get in at all. And after he was in, it was only by getting over sundry massive beams, under cross-beams not more than two feet from the ground, and through apertures scarcely big enough for a rabbit, that any of the important working-parts of the instrument could be reached. To tie oneself into a knot, as tumblers do, was nothing to this. Unless a man could double himself up into the space of a cubic foot or so, unless he could wriggle along yards upon his back, and stand for many miserable minutes in the most apoplectic postures, he could not hope to do anything to the interior of the St. Blasius organ. It was from this untoward instrument that I obtained all my patterns and measurements for my own chamber-organ. I formed the acquaintance of the organist, and, after a vast amount of strategy, won his consent to my venturing into the hidden depths of his hideous old machine. Week after week did I attempt new feats with the view of getting hints for my own amateur work. I lived in a chronic state of broken head and contused shins. Every now and then I appeared with one or more black eyes; and on two occasions I was most suspiciously cross-examined by the Dean as to presumed word, silently and mournfully left the chapel. pugilistic propensities. But in the midst of all these difficulties I progressed most satisfactorily with my work, and was proud to think that all my evolutions in the St. Blasius organ, however detrimental to my own bodily comfort and personal appearance, brought after all no damage whatever to the venerable and sacred instrument itself. So long as this state of things continued, perfect amity prevailed between the organist and myself. He did not object to any amount of punishment wherewith I punished my own cranium or limbs, but he swore a deep oath that the moment I injured a hair in his precious organ, that moment I should be to him as a heathen man and a publican. Four terms passed by without any accident. My studies were in a most backward state, but, oh joy my chamber-organ was on the highroad to completion. The tutor complained of my idleness. My father upbraided me for neglecting my reading, but I hugged myself with the thought that once the organ was finished, I would buckle to and make my running with the college subjects. In the midst of my good resolutions, a most lamentable accident took place. I was, one day, standing inside the chapel organ, resting on my left knee, with one foot wedged in between two pipes, the other suspended delicately in the air, my head tucked out of the way under my right arm, while I held a long screw-driver in my left hand. In this pleasant position I had stood for nearly ten minutes, examining a portion of the wind-chest work, when by an overpowering impulse I was compelled to sneeze, and in the act I dropped the screw-driver. Down it fell heavily on the swell-trackers, and forthwith snap went the trackers, and my implement travelled on to further mischief below. At this juncture I heard a familiar voice. "Hallo !-what's that?" "Oh, nothing!" I replied. The organist, on asking for the services of an organ-builder, had to give an account of the accident, and consequently got soundly wigged by the Dean for "dreaming of allowing a wild young undergraduate to meddle with and injure so noble and valuable an instrument." From that hour I knew there was no more help to be obtained by me from "that noble and valuable," etc. I was thrown on my own resources. My organ progressed but slowly; my work, from being imitative, became tentative; and often times I fitted twenty different pieces of wood in a given place before I got it right. Week after week I toiled away laboriously, with a patience worthy of a better cause. I chafed a good deal at my constant obstacles, and twice did I attempt to make it up with the organist. But it was no use. "No, sir," he said, peremptorily: "there will be no more damage done to the organ by you again, if I can help it." By this time I had finished the key-action, bellows, sound-board, and wind-chest. The pipe-work, so far as it was metal, I did not attempt. This portion of my organ was supplied by an organ-builder in London. The stop-work was also finished, and I was now engaged in putting on some composition-pedals. In this there were one or two intricacies which I could not solve, and I at last determined that I would attempt furtively to get into the chapel organ and examine the composition-pedals there. But at this I was staggered by the difficulty of the project. To get the keys of the organ was impossible. To force an entrance was, of course, out of the question. My only chance was to watch an opportunity when the organ should be left open, and the organist absent. For this combination of circumstances I watched and waited in vain for nearly three weeks. At last, one Sunday morning, I was late for chapel, and passing up the ante-chapel I found the choir-gates closed, and the service "You get out of that, sir, and let me see what well advanced. I had nothing particular to you have been at." Like a guilty hound, I extracted myself from the organ. The organist pulled out a few of the swell-stops, and ran lightly over the keys. In two seconds my fatal delinquency came to light. I knew it was all over. I put down the key of the organ on the stool, and, without a do, so I thought I would sit down in the antechapel to hear the anthem. So I made myself comfortable near the screen, looking up every now and then to the "noble and valuable" old instrument above me. Towards the end of the Psalms a frightful ciphering took place, or (in untechnical language) several notes struck down inside the organ, and sounded various and discordant pipes whether the organist liked it or no. This "ciphering" I at once perceived was on the swell. In a second I heard a handful of swell-stops pushed hastily in, and the Psalms were finished on the Great and Choir. When the Anthem began, the first few chords told me, plainly enough, that the swell was now all right-the ciphering had been cured. Now I knew, that in all probability, the organist must have got at the key action to effect this, and I also knew that, in that clumsily-arranged instrument, he could not do this without going inside. At once it struck me-had he left the little side door open? If he had, now was my opportunity. I slipped up the winding stair-case, and crept cautiously along the top of the screen till I hid myself behind the organ. Unfortunately for me, the side door was near the bellows-handle, and so long as the man who blew sat near I could do nothing. However, as this was a sermon Sunday, I had plenty of time; so I kept still in my hiding place, and bided my time. The bellows-blower might go to sleep, or he might leave the organ-loft for a few minutes during the sermon. The Dean gave out his text, and commenced one of his dreary and lengthy compositions. I cannot say I was very attentive. I was too fully occupied in watching my man. Slowly and ponderously the learned Dean got through his introduction and the first of his three heads. Just as he proceeded with "Secondly," the bellows-blower, to my great joy, softly left the organ loft, while the organist was all right in front, listening hard, it is to be hoped, to the Dean's sermon. In a moment I slipped round, when I found the coast was clear, and came upon the little side door open! I doubled myself up and got in. I went cautiously on hands and knees across the top of the bellows, and after several hairbreadth escapes reached the rods of the great organ tops, with the composition rollers working above and below. I softly got off the bellows at the side farthest from the side door, and here I had to place myself into the most uncomfortable position it is possible to conceive. I had just room for my two legs, but none for the upper part of my body. A large beam projected just into the very spot where my shoulders ought to have been; so I had to bend my head forward over the top of the reservoir-bellows, with a row of sharp wire screw-ends above, lying across the nape of the neck. The composition pedal-work was now in front of me nearly, and, pulling out a small rule, I immediately commenced my investigation and measurement. Meanwhile, I could hear the heavy theological Dean droning out his interminable sermon. For the first time in my life I admired his prolixity, for every additional subdivision of his subject gave me so much more time for my work. I knew full well that, when the sermon came to an end, my little excursion must also terminate, for the organist would then commence his concluding voluntary. I heard a faint sound at the back of the organ, of which, however, I did not take much notice. I supposed (and rightly) that it was the blower returning to his post, and I naturally calculated the small gratuity which would suffice to buy his silence when I made my exit through the dark little door opposite. How far the Dean had advanced in his sermon I could not tell exactly, but I knew he was deep in "Thirdly," and I thought to myself it was nearly time for me to get out. I had just resolved upon this, and was folding up my two-foot rule and my paper of memoranda, when my attention was attracted by a subdued, creaking sound. I looked round; and by the dusty twilight which prevailed inside the organ, I just saw enough to suspect that the bellows-blower had begun to put in the wind. In the greatest consternation I put my hand upon the top of the reservoir-bellows just before me. Yes, it was too true; the wind was put in, ready for the concluding voluntary. It must be remembered that my head was of necessity bent forward, that my face was looking down upon the top of the bellows, and that I was so securely wedged into this position that it was only by scrambling across the top of the bellows I could possibly get out; and this was only possible when the wind was out and the bellows at its lowest level. Immediately when I saw the difficulty I endeavoured to get one leg upon the bellows, in the hope I might be able to scramble over it to the other side before it rose much higher. But it had already risen too high for this. Every movement of the handle, worked by the man outside, raised the large moving surface an ad ditional inch or so. It was now breast high, within two inches of my face. To raise my head was impossible, for, as I before remarked, a row of sharp screw ends (technically called "tapped wires") was directly over the nape of my neck. All this time, though it was but a few seconds, I was acutely conscious of the steady progress of the sermon. I can even now remember every word of the enormous Dean's peroration. A sudden thought flashed across my mind: "What a fool I am!-why not open the escape valve?" Now the escape valve, which is an arrangement for preventing the bellows from bursting, was as usual, in the middle of the wide expanse of the bellows' top. If I could only press this down, the air would escape, the bellows would sink and I might yet get free. I strained and reached, but in vain; my longest finger could not be got within six inches of the valve. thought of my two foot rule; but, alas! in my consternation I had let it drop. On went the sermon; "beat, beat," went my heart. The bellows top was now touching my nose, and the sharp points were being gradually driven into the back of my neck. I struggled, but in vain. It was no use. I was wedged in like some poor victim in a torture machine of the Inquisition. "Pump, pump," went the bellowshandle; down came the blood from innumerable punctures in the back of my neck. My agony was intense. My face was literally jammed between the ever-rising bellows below and those hideous spikes above. I dare not cry out; for was not the Dean in the finest passage of his peroration? In the midst of my agony I heard a sound, and felt a movement in the mechanism near me. It was the organist pulling out the great organstops. At the same instant my eyes caught I sight of the "pull-downs" leading from the great organ wind-chest. Some little demon whispered in my ear; and in a moment I saw my only hope of release from the intense and increasing agony I was suffering. I must open the nearest pipes, and thus release the accumulating wind. I knew, of course, the uproar I should cause, and I still heard the interminable Dean at his interminable sermon. But I could not help it. With one hand I grasped about eight of the brass "pull-downs,” and with the other I laid hold of the nearest pedal-trackers. A roar of the most awful character ensued: it was as though fifty healthy bulls and five active volcanoes had burst into the chapel. The Dean's sermon was effectually quenched. One of his finest periods was brought to an unexpected full stop. The unfortunate organist bounded off his stool, and swore audibly. The bellowsblower rushed off, thinking, no doubt, the devil was inside the organ. But, oh joy! the bellows sank, and in a fainting state I clambered over the top, stumbled out through the little side-door, and fell into the arms of two Senior Fellows who had hastened up to the scene of disaster. The commotion among the gownsmen in the chapel, I was afterwards told, beggared description. Laughter, horror, exclamations of surprise and indignation, were all to the front by turns. The Blessing was pronounced amidst the greatest confusion; and altogether the scene was such as those sacred walls had never witnessed before. I was politely conducted to my rooms. The next morning I appeared before the Master and Seniors, and though I pleaded loud and long, I was rusticated for two terms. I never went back to Cambridge. I always considered that I had been very badly treated. |