“The Lone Poplar”

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 6 May 1905, Page 4 (Supplement)

“The Lone Poplar”

In a waste of desolation arose u solitary poplar. Far and wide stretched ths barren, dun-coloured moorland, devoid of any sign of life, without point or habitation, a monotony unbroken by trees or inclosures.. Cut straight across the heath ran the so-called road, in reality a cart track, rutted, broken, and irregular, and this way passed right beneath the poplar. Strange, indeed, it seemed in its mysterious loneliness, a landmark for many miles ;■ none knew the secret cf its appearance there, but tradition affirmed it to have been planted by tee Fiend himself, and village gossips told lowvoiced tales concerning it to each other on wintry nights. Beneath tho poplar a white-faced, anxious girl had waited restlessly for hours,. The low sun waning in tho chill November evening had glanced slant-wise across tho heath, tho dull, sad twilight had slipped into gloom, and now from amidst the black.' gathering etorm-clouds obscuring tho stars sailed proudly forth the cold, majestic moon. In the weird, breathless silence Grace Spencer listened and waited. Far away over tho dead, discoloured heath moved a darkl spot, gradually becoming nearer and more distinct until a cart driven by a roughclad waggoner drew up beneath the poplar tree. The girl hurried forward. From under the slouching hat spoke an unmistakably well-bred voice. ” Safe so far, sweetheart ; but a merry fight we’ve had by the waeer, and I mistake not if the Preventive mon—curse their keenness !—follow us closely. My folfows are taking tho cases up tho valley to Bender's farmhouse, and I have found that which I seokl” Ho brought to view a tiny, ancient, two-handled cup in worked bronze, strangely inscribed. “Tho talisman of tho Lacys is once more their orqn. An odd thing, some would say, to turn smuggler all to recover a lucky cup and a thousand pounds worth iff lace, which will neatly adorn your wedding gown. So after td-nigfvt to lead a highly respectable life, and go no more aroving. Take them to the hiding-place, sweetheart, for I must be gone.”

Almost mechanically the girl concealed both amongst her clothing, and tho pretended carter kissed her merrily and drove away. After a While she also departed along tho some track, her pulses beating quickly as she Hoard the hurried tread of a man behind her. He proved to bo one of the .Revenue force. " A wild night, lady,” he said, saluting her respectfully, fjr the name of Spencer was held in high repute throughout the countryside, and Grace answered with eyes searching tho ground. ” You say truth, and I would fain bo home but for any anxiety regarding on emerald brooch I have lost upon tho moor. 'Tis ancient and of value.” Honest Thomas Jenkins bestowed advice and condolence, presently offering his escort villagewards, to which, perforce, the girl consented. So she journeyed thither under tho guidance of one who gave her detailed accounts of the fight by the quay, and was moved to almost hysterical laughter when reflecting that she all unsuspectedly carried a portion of the contraband goods. At the door of tho gabled house where Grace lived solitary her protector hade her adieu, declining refreshment, and no sooner had ho departed than the gir 1 (dole stealthily out down tho dark, uneven, village street, Cfourting tho shadows,’ and swiftly flying across the patches of moonlight, she reached the ancient church. It was a low, rude building of reddish stone, consisting solely of nave and tower, connected by a massive archway. Towards tho square, thick tower Grace Spencer moved unerringly. She was anxious to deposit the bodty and feel quit of her trust. Sho paused before an apparently bricked-up entrance, but tho trick was ktidwm to her and she swiftly entered. The tower was ligheed by twd lancet windows ; the walls were excessively massive. Grace waited a moment before raising the marked square on the rough floor beneath the ancient safe, and in that pause her blood ran, cold as she heard men’s footsteps coming along the narrow aisle- Something warned her instinctively they were not the footsteps of friends. And if she were found in such an incriminating position, suspicion would l,e aroused, and then farewell to wild Will Lacy’s integrity passing, micbul.enged. Indeed of late it had seemed to tier lie was looked at askance, and rumour hinted he had some connection with the nameless gang of smugglers who worked unrecognised and uncaught. Gossip affirmed. indeed, that ho was but held back by the restraining hand of proud Mistress Spencer-the last of her line, and an orphan. What would be said if it ware known that sho had cognisance of Will Lacy’s enterprises, and, to save him peril, unwillingly gave her assistance ? The moments were few in which to decide on action. Grace fled silently into the churchyard, stopping in horror on seeing it- encircled with lights and armed

men. The Revenue officials must have been extraordinarily vigilant, or someone (had traitorously informed them where specialtreasure was deposited. In the groat stillness she could hear, the party which had novi entered the tower talking and laughing together ; evidently they expected to recover tho Hooty, even if the miscreants gdt free. What a disappointment it would be when they found notlThe long, wet grass struck chill as she slipped in between friendly, protecting tombstones, hiding by a huge, square vault, and as she did so a sudden, wild remembrance and wilder scheme for safer ty flashed upon ber mind. In that massive tomb were buried together a Spencer and a Lacy, who years and years ago had fought a b.ttor quarrel to the death. A lingering tradition mysteriously connected with tho names of these erstwhile great and powerful families with that vault and with the poplartree far out on the moorland. The tomb had fallen into decay, one side was broken and crumbling ; looking in Grace Spencer conceived the idea of creeping into that gruesome abode and lying there until the danger was passedAnd pray heaven that Will Lacy came not to the church with a further consignment of tho ill-gotten goods. are fully SWe crept therein, closing up the space as best she could, and tnen a horror of great darkness fell upon her. There was an extraordinary amount of room, but as Grace shuffled to the farthest end something gave way beneath her lee , and she felt herself slipping.Down, down, gasping with fear, chokmg back the mad desire to scream for help, and clutching wildly in her descent what she felt to be the remnant of a crumbling narrow stair. Wherever the bottom might be, it had been reached-a low, block, cobwebby passage, full of strange, weird noises and alarmed, scuttling ra s. Unable to return, the girl boldly giope her way forward in the pitchy darkness. Her only ray of consolation was tho possession ‘of the Lacys’ Lucky Cup-that cherished heirloom gambled away m the reign of James 1,. With Its loss-as had been forotold-thc family had gradually dwindled and sank in importance, and wild Will Lacy had sworn an oath to reclaim it before he died. It had been traced to France, and while the band of smugglers worked and fought for spirits, tobacco, lace, and other contraband articles their leader thought only of eventually gaining the emblem of good fortune. He was the last of the Lacys, and smuggling was a fine excitement, especially With such a good motive to still any occasional twingt of conscience. But now they would marry and ho would settle down. While she held the luck within her grasp evil could not happen to him 5 Nevertheless, as Grace Spencer toiled along the rough, weary way, an awful picture of that weird and solitary poplar tree transformed into a gibbet with her lover hanging thereon tortured her mind. She had always been so very, very lonely, and there was no one but Will to love in all the world- Awful memories of tales about the poplar which floated mysteriously through the little village sot upon the edge Of the moorland assailed her thoughts; lietlMwlfereil stories of

ghosts who lured young maidens to feariul deaths crowded upon her, until sho could have shrieked for pure terror as she struggled onward. Tho low, narrow path went down, down, lower and lower, and then commenced to gradually ascend. It seemed to Grace as though she had pursued it for miles, when it ceased abruptly, disclosintg no exit, no aperture, Sho fell against the hard earth, and wopt piteously.

Suddenly arose a crackling, a rending' of the ground above and on every side of her, an uprooting as though some demon were tearing bodily at the OaJth ; then a terrific crash and a tiny ray of light. Wildly working at the little space to open it out wider, Grace became conscious that a tremendous hurrictaio was raging over the heath, and that by some miraculous agency had been disclosed to her the narrow exit from tho passage hitherto blocked by disuse and time. Struggling up into light and air, sho stopped aghast. It was morning ; a gale ot wind tore helter-skelter across tho barren moorland ; the mighty, solitary poplar lay stretched along tho faded heath. Its uprooting by the violence oi the storm had torn away tho earth and debris blocking tho exit to the subterranean passage, and thus had saved her. Grace Spencer gazed, shaking from head to foot.- It was, as tradition affirmed, the satanicnlly planted poplar tree that kept the secret way, and had allowed tho peaty ground and heather clumps to cover it safely from view. At tho other end all access was guarded by a dead S pioneer and a dead Lacy united in burial. Both had yielded their grim secret to her — tho last of tho Spencers holding tho cherished cup of tho Lacys—in her hour of greatest, overwhelming need, and had succoured her. Tho crumbling tomb had afforded harbourage, and the rmighty poplar, having lived its appointed time, had finished the work ot assistance and in completing it had fallen.

Slowly Gracei Spencer put up her stiff, shaking hand and brushed her eyes. There was Will Lacy riding over foe heath, and carolling merrily the while.—Mabel Adelino Cooko, in M.A.P.

Her Nogelli, a German expert, says that a succession of deep yawns is of more benefit than a bottle full of the best tonic, and that the habit, practised as a regular lung exercise, is a grand aid to health. It is certainly true that deep and systematic breathing is an excellent thing for our lungs, and it is on similar ground that Nogelli recommends a hearty yawn. He declares that the expansion of the breast bones, and the stretching of the arms, which accompany awhole-heart-yawn, together with the filling of the lungs, form a splendid daily exercise, and provide us free of cost with most perfect chamber gymnastics.

Until the beginnning of the seventeenth century English princes, and other babes, were immersed three times in the font when christened. The last Prince of Wales who was submitted to this ordeal appears to have been Arthur, the son of Henry 11., who died in 1502, at the age of sixteen. The abolition of the practica was strongly obj'ected to by Sir John Floyer, a celebrated physician, who died in 1734, upon sanitary grounds. “ Immersion,” he says, “would prevent many hereditary diseases,” and “ the English will return to it, when physic has given them a clear proof that cold baths are both safe and useful.” So our morning tub is the outcome of Royal immersion.

In 1713 the British Government offered £lO,OOO, £15,000, or £20,000 to anyone discovering a method for determing the longtitude at sea within sixty, forty, or thirty miles. John Harrison, a carpenter’s son, made his first chronometer in 1735, and was sent the nexr year to Lisbon and back to test it. The trial was successful, but the inventor was awarded only £5OO. He produced other instruments in 1732 and 1749, and finally in 1759 he constructed n chronometer hi the form of a watch, five inches in diameter, which was only 1 min. 54J sec. in error after a voyage to Jamaica and back. This was equivalent to determiniug the longitude within eighteen miles, but full payment for his invention was withheld till 1773.

The Russian naval standard— a blue flag with a white cross—was adopted by Peter the Great, who stayed for some months at Guardam, near /Amsterdam, working as a mechanic, to gain a knowledge of shipbuilding. During this time he took a strong fancy to a clover workman named Cruys, whom he persuaded to return with him to Russia, after he had revealed to him his true name and position. Cruys drew tho plana for the first ships built for the Russian Navy, and to show his appreciation, Peter the Great made him an admiral, and gave orders that the Russian Navy should thenceforward have a special flag with a white cross upon it, to perpetuate the memory of his trusted associate, Cruys being an old form of the Dutch word for cross.

The fact that wheat should follow beans ns a crop has been known for centuries; the reason has been discovered but recently. If the roots of a healthy bean are dug up, a number of nodules or tubercles will be seen upon them. All pod-bearing vegetables have such nodules, and microscopic examination has shown that they consist of milllions of bacteria, which are incessantly absorbing free nitrogen from tho air, and converting it into forms suitable for the plant’s digestion. In fact, much more nitrogen is absorbed than can be used, and the surplus is left in the soil, which thus becomes fitted to produce a larger wheat crop. These bacteria have been successfully cultivated by an American man of science, and beans and similar vegetables inoculated with them develop great tubercles and grow to a largo size even in the poorest soil. Millions of them, absorbed by cotton, can bo sent by post to any part of the world, and arrive in perfect condition.

An electric motor coin-counting and wrapping machine has been invented, to facilate the rapid and accurate counting and bundling ot coins of all descriptions, from pennies to sovereigns, since there are many lines of business which necessitate the employment of a large staff of clerks, whoso sole duty heretofore has been the performance of this laborious task. The machine counts and wraps coins at the rate of seven every seednd,' or 420 coins every minute, and does this continuously as long as the motor runs and coins are fed into the “hopper.” The coins are wrapped compactly at the rate of from eight to twelve bundles per minute, according to the size of the coins. Since an expert is only enabled to count and wrap fifty coins a minute manually, it will be seen that the machine will do at least as much work as eight men.

In the old days, municipalities use to manage their own post-offices. Aberdeen, for instance, had a “ council-post ” as early as 1590; the letter-carriers—there was usually only one at a time—being clothed in blue, with the town’s arms in silver on the right sleeve. The burgh records of Glasgow for 1630 contain a resolution by the council that “ ane trustie youthe be made a poste,” and he appears to have received 6s. Bd., together with a suit of clothes arid a pair of shoes, for his trouble. This was subsequently raised to one shilling weekly in English money (12s. Scottish), and then, alas, the pay vanished entirely, for the ■’ post’s ” business increased so much that he required a horse, to purchase which the canny City fathers advanced funds on condition that the rider of it served “ thankfullie ” without wages for a season. Then, when the steed had thus been bought on the instalment system, the same shrewd Scottish Council initiated the first penny post by making that sum the fee, from 1663, for every letter received or delivered.

Like the arranging of flowers, the tying of knots has been carried to the point of a complex art by Japanese. There is one wayone right way, that is—to knot the cord that confines a birthday-present. There is one way to tie the brocade-bag of the tea-jar when the latter is empty, and another when it is full. Not only general ignorance of social customs, but deadly insults may be communicated by the way a knot is tied, foreigners often making dreadful mistakes, either through not knowing, or from ignoring the niceties of knot etiquette. Hooks and eyes, buttons and buckles, are unknown, so far as Jagancse dress is concerned. They do not have much to fasten, but what they do have they fasten with cord. That is why they have carried the tying of cord so far. The Japanese have hundreds of ornamental knots, some of them so old that they antedate written Japanese children are taught to make knots just as they are tanght to write and draw. All sorts of flower and animal forms are copied. There is the chrysanthemum knot, theirisknot, plum-blossom, pine-tree, and cherry-blossom knots. There is a stork knot, a turtle knot, a knot named for the sacred mountain Fujiyama. An easy knot is called tho " old man’s knot.’’ There is also an old “ woman’s knot."