Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 695

'Of course I meant no such thing, and you know that I did not,' I replied, laughing outright. 'I should think there is need for a great deal of the ideal in all love, to keep it alive.'

'Ah, now we are getting on to fresh ground,' he said enjoyably. 'Let me see, the proposition is that love needs a great deal of the ideal to keep it alive; and yet' —

But I was not going to indulge him with a disquisition upon love; giving him a Roland for an Oliver, in my own fashion: 'No one is more glad that Lilian's has turned out to be only an ideal love, than yourself.'

'Ah, that is not spoken with your usual accuracy of statement. Should you not rather have said that no one could be more sorry than I that her ideal did not preserve her from' —

'She is preserved; and that is what you care most about.'

He smiled. 'Well, perhaps it is.'

When we arrived at the turn in the lane leading to the cottage, he took leave of me. I did not invite him to go in with me, and I think he quite understood my motive for not doing so, this first evening of our entrance upon a new life. But he responded as heartily as I could wish, when I expressed a hope that he would come as frequently as he could to the cottage; adding that we should expect a great deal from him now that he had shewn us how helpful he could be in times of emergency. 'Besides, it will be good for us, I suppose, to occasionally see one of the lords of creation, lest we should come to forget that we are but women.'

'Yes; you at least require to be occasionally taken down.'

'You must consider me very amiable to say that in my presence.'

'Did you hurt your hand when you struck it upon the seat the other day? From the violence of the blow, I was afraid you would suffer a little afterwards.'

'Surely you did not call that temper?'

'O dear, no; I did not venture to call it anything. What did you call it?'

'Righteous indignation,' I calmly replied.

'Righteous indignation! O indeed. Then if I have cause to be angry with a person, it is righteous indignation to attack his friend, and enforce my arguments by blows upon a piece of wood?'

'You are worse than usual to-night; but come soon to see Mrs Tipper and Lilian,' I said, smiling.

'Let us shake hands upon that.'

I stood looking after him a moment, as he walked away in the twilight with the long, easy, swinging motion natural to one of a powerfully built frame. Moreover I knew that his mental power was at least in equal proportion to his physical strength, and had no fears as to Lilian's happiness, by-and-by. The only drawback to her happiness would be the remembrance of past weakness, and that may not be the worst kind of drawback one could have in the time of prosperity.

As we sat that night by the open window, the May moon flooding the lovely scene outside, resting, as I persuaded myself, tenderly on my house by the hill-side, nearly facing us, from the other side of the village, we told each other that some people were not intended for a life of luxury and grandeur, and that we were of their kind; heartily agreeing that we were now in our proper sphere.

Dear little Mrs Tipper was a bright example of content and happiness. Never had I seen her at such advantage as at present. Energetic and cheerful, company manners packed away with her best dresses, she was a happy little woman again, bustling about her small domain in a print-dress and large apron, and finding a new pleasure every ten minutes. There was not even the drawback of anxiety about Lilian in her mind.

She had confided to me that she had never felt quite satisfied with Arthur Trafford as a husband for her niece, though she had been afraid to trust to her own judgment in the matter, lest her want of appreciation might arise from her ignorance of society and its ways. But she quite shared my opinion as to the probability of Lilian's getting healthily over her disappointment. There was nothing to prevent her giving expression to her real sentiments about the change in her life, and Lilian had the pleasure of knowing that auntie at least could not be said to be suffering from reverses.

'It does me real good to do it, my dear; it does indeed!' she ejaculated, when I offered to wash the tea-things for her. 'It all comes so natural and handy again. Little did I think, when I packed up these and a few other things and brought them to brother's unbeknown, that I should have the pleasure of washing them again. I couldn't bear to sell them, because they were father's present to me on my wedding-day, and nobody has ever washed them but me. You wouldn't believe how fond I came to be of this one with the little chip in it, washing it every day for thirty years. John, he used to be sitting there by the fire with his pipe,' she went on, pointing to a corner, and evidently seeing in her mind's eye the old cottage home, 'and telling me how things had been going on at the office in the day; and the news out of the papers – very fond of the papers, John was; and he had the reading of them when the gentlemen had done with them. And I standing here washing up the tea-things, and saying a word now and then to shew him I was listening. – It all comes back so plain – doesn't it?' she added, apostrophising the cup with tearful eyes. 'I can almost hear the cuckoo clock ticking against the wall.'

It was time to put in a word, which I did as gently as possible, and she was presently smiling cheerily again.

'You mustn't think I'm low-spirited, dear; no, indeed. There was nothing in those old times to make me sad; and John's in heaven. All this only reminded me, you see.'

'I hope you will find Becky useful.'

'That I shall, dear; she's so handy and knows about things so much, more than you might expect. It would never have done to have a fine lady, afraid of spoiling her hands, for a servant here, you know.' Stopping a moment to open the door and call out to Becky, at work in the little scullery at the back: 'You won't forget to order the currants and candied peel for the cake to-morrow, Becky. It must not be said we hadn't a bit of home-made cake when there's dripping in the house. A good thing I thought of ordering tins; but that's what I said to the young man; leave it to me to know what is wanted in the kitchen.'

'I won't forget, ma'am,' called out Becky in return.

'And, Becky' – trotting to the door again – 'there's bedroom candles and soap to be thought of when the grocer comes in the morning. There would be no sense in having to send into the town when we could have it all brought. Don't forget to look at the little slate, if I'm up-stairs, to see if there's anything else wanted.'

And so on, and so on, until Lilian and I at last got her up to her bedroom, fairly tired out, but as happy as a queen.

I was rejoiced to see how much good it did Lilian to find that the dear little woman took so kindly to cottage ways.

'How much worse things might have been, Mary. How thankful I ought to be!'

'Yes; I think you ought, dearie.'

She and I stood for a few moments at my bedroom window, gazing at the peaceful scene without. My room, as they already called it, was at the back of the cottage; and the window commanded a view of the woods on the one side, and the beautiful open country on the other. But we tacitly agreed to avoid sentiment; we were not strong enough for that yet. We just let the outside peace and quiet steal into our hearts, as we stood there together for a few minutes, my arm about her, and her cheek resting on my shoulder, and then bade each other good-night without any demonstration.

THREE WONDERFUL RAILWAYS

The 'Three Wonderful Railways' which we propose to notice are the Brenner, the Semmering, and the Rigi lines.

The Brenner line, which lies between Innsbruck and Botzen, and constitutes a portion of the railway connecting Bavaria and Italy, although it passes through tunnel after tunnel, until the weary traveller is prone to abandon all hope of obtaining any view of the scenery, nevertheless is not content with getting through the pass, but proudly mounts to the top and passes over the summit level before beginning the descent. The pass is a low one, indeed one of the lowest over the main Alps; but then it must be borne in mind that this 'low' Alpine pass is four thousand seven hundred and seventy-five feet high; no mean altitude for a railway. Neither is it merely for its height that the writer is induced to describe it, nor for its pretty scenery (it can scarcely be called grand), but for the extraordinary engineering difficulties which the making of the line presented, and which have been so ably and ingeniously overcome. Some of the more ordinary difficulties of the district traversed by the line may be gathered from the fact that the ascent from Innsbruck involves no fewer than thirteen tunnels, while in the descent there are ten. The line, clinging to the side of the mountain, has to penetrate projecting rocks so frequently that it strongly resembles, except in the lovely peeps obtained in the momentary intervals, the Metropolitan District Railway; which is dignified by the name of the 'Daylight Route,' because it is not always underground. In its course up the valley the railway on one side sometimes rises above the level of the carriage-road on the other, sometimes finds itself considerably below it. In climbing the pass, the rail of course never ceases to ascend; while the more humble road bows to the obstacles it encounters, and rises and falls according to the nature of the ground. At last, Nature seems determined to put a stop to the encroachments of steam, and the railroad finds itself directly facing a lateral valley, the bottom of which lies far below it.

Now how to get over this valley and pursue the direct course up the main valley, seems a problem. The road would descend to mount again; not so the rail. The difficulty and its solution may be well realised by imagining a railway cut in the face of a long row of houses (which must be supposed to represent one side of the main valley). This railway, starting from one end of the row at the basement level, gradually rises, in order to pass over the roofs (that is, the head of the pass) of another row of houses at right angles to and at the end of the first row. In its course it encounters a side-street (the lateral valley) with no outlet at the other end, and which is too broad to be spanned with a bridge. Now the line at this point has reached the second floor; and to get to the opposite houses and pursue its course, it turns a sharp corner, runs along one side of the blind street, crosses it at the further or blind end by merely clinging still to the houses, returns along the other side, rounds the corner into the main street, and resumes its course. During this détour the ascent has been continued uninterruptedly, so that on the return of the line to the desired opposite corner it has mounted to the third floor. Applying this illustration, the reader will perceive the ingenious yet simple solution of the difficulty.

The effect on reaching the first corner of the lateral valley is most remarkable. The line is seen at the opposite corner far above the traveller's head entering a tunnel; and how he is going to get there is a puzzle which he hardly solves before he finds himself on the spot looking down on the corner he has just left, wondering how he ever came from there.

But even this striking instance of engineering triumphs is eclipsed by a portion of the line on the other side of the pass. Pursuing the direction he has already come, the traveller has stopped in the descent at Schelleberg, a small station perched at an enormous height above an expansive valley, when he perceives a village five hundred feet almost perpendicularly below him, which he is informed is the next station. It would not take long to reach this village (Gossensass) in a lift, but in a train he has to run far past it, always descending, then turn completely round, and run back again in the direction he has come from, but now on a level with Gossensass. But at the point where this evolution has to be made occurs another lateral valley, much longer than the first alluded to; and this time one which it is not desired to cross, as Gossensass lies as it were on the basement of the house on the third floor of which is Schelleberg. The train proceeds, therefore, to turn the corner into the side-street as before; but without pursuing the street to its end, it suddenly dives into one of the houses, makes a complete circuit of its interior, and emerges in the opposite direction; returning to the corner whence it started by means of the same houses, but on a lower floor. The appearance of this engineering feat is quite bewildering; and after tunnelling into the hill on the sharp curve, and then finding himself proceeding back towards the place he has just come from, the traveller experiences a difficulty in believing that the line parallel with him, but almost over his head, is the one he has just been passing over. Shortly after Gossensass has been left behind, the train passes close under and almost into the gigantic and formidable-looking fort of Franzensfeste; and then after a few more tunnels, gradually leaves the Alps behind, and descends by Botzen into the Italian plains with all their luxuriant foliage. It should be added that the Brenner line was completed in the year 1867, and that its numerous engineering difficulties entailed an average cost of about twenty-eight thousand pounds per mile.

The Semmering line, which lies south of Vienna, on the way thence to Trieste, and which, until the completion of the Brenner, was unique in the boldness of its conception and execution, as also for the height to which it attained, is now eclipsed as to altitude in more than one instance; but as a magnificent engineering achievement it can hold its own against any railway at present constructed. While resembling the Brenner in many particulars, it differs from it in some important points. Among these differences is the fact, that whereas the Brenner line actually surmounts the pass, the Semmering, on reaching a height of two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three feet, or about four hundred feet short of the summit, suddenly, as if tired of so much climbing, plunges into the ground, and only emerges again nearly a mile off, and on the other side of the pass, which it then proceeds to descend. It is thus that it may be said to have been the prototype of its great successor, the Mont Cenis.

The Semmering further differs from the Brenner in what may perhaps be considered its most remarkable feature – namely, its viaducts. For while the latter avoids many a yawning abyss by some ingenious curve, the former seems almost to seek the opportunity for a magnificent display of span. These viaducts occur frequently, being as many as fifteen in number; and in many instances are formed of a double row of arches, one standing on the other in the manner sometimes adopted by the Romans in the construction of their aqueducts. To realise the grandeur of these viaducts, they should not be seen merely from a train, but the traveller should contrive to view them from below. The finest is over the Kalte Rinne, and consists of five arches below and ten above. The line also in places requires to be protected from avalanches of stone or of snow, and this is effected by means of covered galleries, such as may be seen on so many Alpine roads. The tunnels too are as numerous as the viaducts. In fact the train no sooner emerges from a tunnel than it finds itself skimming over a viaduct, only to plunge once more into a tunnel or a gallery. The device for crossing a lateral valley described above in the case of the Brenner is also resorted to here, and need not be further alluded to.

The proportionate cost of the Semmering railway was more than double that of the Brenner, being about sixty thousand pounds per mile. This may be accounted for partly by the fact, that the former was constructed and opened thirteen years prior to the latter; by which the latter was enabled to reap the benefit of the engineering experience acquired in the progress of its predecessor. But the chief cause of this enormous difference in the cost of construction lies in the different modes adopted for overcoming obstacles; and the vast viaducts of the Semmering entailed an expense which was wisely and ingeniously avoided in the construction of the Brenner.

The gradients, as may be supposed, are very steep on both these railways, and the rate of speed not great. On the Semmering a long train has to be divided into two or three portions, to enable it to surmount these steep slopes, which frequently are as rapid as one in forty, even on the viaducts and in the tunnels. The reader has only to notice the numbers on the gradient indicators by the side of an English railway, to be able to judge what an incline of one in forty is like.

But if one in forty seems steep, what shall be said of one in four, which is the gradient of a large part of the Rigi railway? No doubt the ascent of the Rigi has come to be regarded much as the Londoner regards the ascent of Primrose Hill; though in the latter case the hardy traveller has to use the means of locomotion with which Nature has provided him in order to reach the summit; while in the former he merely seats himself in a railway carriage at the base of the mountain, and is deposited without the smallest exertion on his part at or nearly at the top.

Steam here, as elsewhere, has almost entirely superseded the old means of travel. But as if it were not a sufficiently stupendous undertaking to have one railway to the top of a mountain, two have here been constructed, one having its base at Art on the Lake of Zug, the other at Vitznau on the Lake of Lucerne. Taking the latter, which was first accomplished, the height to be scaled is four thousand four hundred and seventy-two feet from the level of the Lake of Lucerne, the total altitude of the mountain being five thousand nine hundred and five feet above the level of the sea. Of this four thousand four hundred and seventy-two feet, the rail accomplishes all but one hundred feet or so. To do this, an excessively steep gradient must be constantly maintained, as the formation of the mountain does not admit of wide sweeps, détours, or zigzags; but the course pursued is round the shoulder, then along the ridge which communicates with the topmost heights, and finally up those heights themselves, a distance of not more than eight miles. It is thus that a gradient of one in four becomes a necessity. Let the reader mark out a distance of four feet, and at one end place a foot-rule perpendicularly. A line drawn from one end of this distance to the top of the rule at the other end will indicate the gradient of one in four. It is a steeper incline than horses and carriages are expected to surmount, yet trains pass up and down constantly without difficulty, and it is confidently asserted, without more danger than on ordinary lines. The rate of speed is of course not high, one hour twenty minutes being occupied in the ascent, and a slightly less time in the descent. The construction of the train is remarkable. It consists of an engine with small tender and but one carriage. An ordinary locomotive would be powerless on such steep gradients, therefore one of peculiar construction is used, which is of itself an extraordinary object. On level ground it appears as if it had completely broken down and lost two of its wheels. This arises from the fact that, being expressly intended to work on an incline, it is built in such a way as to compensate for the incline and maintain the boiler in a vertical position. This boiler in appearance resembles nothing so much as a large beer bottle standing upright when the train is ascending or descending, but very much out of the perpendicular when on level ground. The small tender is of course constructed so as to have its floor level when on the incline. Its sides are of wire-work, and are made thus with the object of reducing the weight as much as possible; an object which is also carried out both in the engine and in the carriage, which are as light as they can be made, it not being necessary to prevent the wheels jumping from the rails by the pressure of great weight as on ordinary lines, where a high rate of speed is attained. This tender, in addition to its usual functions, performs the office of carrying surplus passengers on an emergency.

The carriage is an open car, rather resembling a block of low pews taken from a church, placed on wheels, and surmounted by an awning, with curtains to let down at the sides, as a protection against the weather. The seats, which are nine in number, and accommodate six persons each, all face one way – namely, downhill; and a fixed footstool serves to keep the passengers from sliding off their seats. Contrary to the usual order, the carriage on this line precedes the locomotive in the ascent, and is pushed instead of being pulled up the incline. In the descent the locomotive takes the first place, and exercises merely a retarding force. It will be seen, therefore, that the two portions of the train are necessarily in close connection when in motion, and for this reason, as well as for purposes of safety, couplings are dispensed with. Each portion is provided with its own brake-power, so that in the event of the engine getting beyond control, the carriage can be stopped and rendered entirely independent, since it is not coupled to the engine. The brake is of course of a totally different kind from that in ordinary use, which would be of no service whatever on such inclines, as the wheels, even if the brake were so powerful as to stop their revolution, would slide down the hill by the mere force of gravity. Here, however, the brake consists in an ingenious adaptation of the means which are employed in driving the engine.

The roadway is laid with three rails, the outer ones being of the usual kind, while the central one is a long-toothed rack, of which the teeth are perpendicular. Into this rack fit the teeth of the pinions or cogged-wheels with which both engine and carriage are provided. Now it is apparent that if these wheels are put in motion they will pull the train along the rack; and if stopped and held firmly in one position, they will prevent any onward motion by the mere clinching of the teeth, to use a common expression. One of the cogged-wheels, then, which are attached to the engine is the driving-wheel, and forms the special means of locomotion, while the other cogged-wheels of course merely revolve without exercising any traction. But immediately a halt is required, all these wheels become of equal importance, and supply a prompt and most efficient brake, since directly they are locked, the train is brought to a stand-still, and held as in a vice even on the steepest inclines. Other brake-power is also applied; but this would seem to be the efficient means of control in case of accident.

It will be seen, therefore, that the danger of the train running away is carefully provided against; and no less care has been bestowed on the means for preventing the train leaving the rails, a danger fully as alarming as the other on a line which, for the greater part of its course, runs on the brink of a fearful precipice. Along each side of the central or rack rail, which is raised some inches from the ground, runs a projecting edge; and the engine and carriage are provided with two strong rods, the ends of which are bent in such a manner as to pass under these projections. Any jerk or jump of the train, therefore, would be resisted by the pressure of these bent ends against the under surface of the projections.

It is not within the province of this paper to speak of the hotels which form such huge excrescences on the mountains' sides and top (by no means an improvement on nature), or to allude to the hundreds of tourists who daily swarm in these hotels, or to the hundreds of others who take the journey for the sake of a 'new sensation.' It may, however, be mentioned that from one of the stations (Rigi Staffel) runs a branch-line which communicates with the Rigi Scheideck, where is situated one of the largest of the hotels; and that the line from Art joins the Vitznau line near the summit. It will thus be seen that the Rigi is traversed in all directions by railways; and according to the opinion of an intelligent Swiss with whom the writer conversed, these railways owe their origin to the fact that the Germans, who have now become such a travelling nation, will not penetrate in any numbers where they cannot travel by horse, by carriage, or by steam; and he further indicated his opinion of Germans by adding, that no doubt ere long, a lift would be constructed to work up and down the perpendicular face of the Matterhorn for their benefit. Who shall say that such a thing is impossible?