Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 703

'I'm telling ye, ye're wrang,' said the piper hotly; 'and it iss nonsense ye're talking apoot, Tonald MacTavish! – Though, sir,' again appealing to the stranger's intelligence, 'it iss not muckle that a game-keeper can ken apoot the rearing o' young bulls; they can tell a grouse from a partridge in a stubble-field on a dark nicht, I'll alloo that,' in a tone implying that he conceded the utmost; 'but the rearing o' young bulls iss oot o' their line; and for a man that has nefer peen oot o' his ain county from the tay he wass born till the tay o' his death, to teach anither man wha has peen roond the whole world moreofer wi' his Grace the Teuk – to tell him apoot savages' —

'I alloo,' interrupted Donald with a friendly wave of the hand, having filled and emptied a glass while John was speaking – 'I alloo that there iss no petter piper in the county – no, nor in the whole Hielants moreofer, than yoursel', John Cameron; and it iss the Teuk himself I hef heard say as muckle many's the time that; and prood I hef peen to hear it; and I hope it iss to this shentleman and me that ye will pe giving a tune afore we pairt the nicht; but I canna alloo that ye are petter acquaint wi' the subject on hand. And ye can ask Sandy the Deuk's grieve yoursel' apoot it, and he wass in the byre when the bull was calfed, and he will' —

'Teffle a tune ye'll get from me this nicht; and it iss a obstinate mule ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and always wass; and as for Sandy MacIntyre, the Teuk's grieve, it iss all the parish that kens him for a foolish ignorant liar!'

The two men pushed their respective chairs a foot or so farther apart, and looked at each other in no amiable mood. John the piper was a tall thin Celt with fiery eyes, that flamed out from a mass of tangled hair as brown as heather, covering a low square brow; he was of a much more inflammable temperament than his friend, whose high cheek-bones, wide surly mouth, and cheeks that seemed to have gathered black forests of hair at the expense of his crown, which was of the shiny bald order, indicated a vein of Saxon blood in some progenitor, although his accent and fluency in Gaelic proved that he was a native of the west. Under the chair of the piper, Fingal the piper's collie, almost as excitable as his master, lay asleep; and in a corner by the game-keeper's gun, Jet, Donald's placid pointer, lay stretched at full length. Betty laid down her knitting in some trepidation when the argument reached this point, and came in to see if she could not pour oil on the troubled waters. She found the piper on his feet with his bagpipes under his arm, evidently much offended, looking about in the dark for his bonnet.

'It iss anither gless o' whusky ye'll pe taking now, Mr Cameron, pefore ye tak' the road this cauld nicht?'

'And it iss verra pad whusky ye hef peen giving us the nicht, Mrs MacTonald, eneuch to tak' the temper away from any man,' said the piper in his severest tones.

'And ye are quite richt there, Mr Cameron,' said Betty timidly, willing to appease her guest at the expense of her own reputation; 'and it iss myself that iss glad ye mentioned it, for I had to offer ye some o' the Cawm'lton-still the nicht, cass the gentry when they wass on the moor yesterday shooting took every drop o' the rale heather-watter away in their flasks, and left no a drop wi' me. But I'm sure, Mr Cameron, ye'll no pe so angry wi' me as that comes to as to go away angry like that.'

'The whusky iss cood eneuch, if taken wi' a thankful spirit, Mrs MacTonald,' said Mr MacTavish. 'But when a man iss prood and stuck-up cass he has travellet at the heels o' his betters – but the Teuk's dog has done as muckle – while his own neibors have bided at home, he thinks maype that naepody kens the tifference atween a reel and a hornpipe but himself! Gif me another gless, Mrs MacTonald. – Cood-nicht, John; I drink to your petter manners.'

John was at the door, having found his bonnet, but came back to say, shaking his fist in Donald's face: 'It iss an ignorant prute ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and I scorn to pit my fingers upon ye; but nae doot ye'll want me to bring my pipes to the clachan anither nicht; and nae doot your son Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to play the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he will look to have his crack wi' Maggie! Ye will live, Tonald, my man, to ken it wass an ill nicht when ye thocht fit to drink to my petter manners!'

With which flourish, wound up by an emphatic and defiant snap of the piper's fore-finger and thumb in close proximity to the nose of the calmer game-keeper, the piper marched with what dignity he could muster, seeing that he carried half a pint of fierce whisky beneath his belt, from the clachan to the pathway across the moor, homewards; and so absorbed was he in cherishing his anger, that he would not indulge himself on his solitary way with one of his favourite Jacobite lilts, lest the sound of the pipes might charm away his wrath. And his collie Fingal followed sadly at his heels.

The game-keeper sat for only a short time after his friend was gone; he gave utterance to a low hard laugh as the piper disappeared, and then relapsed into sulky silence. Presently he said, rising to leave: 'I'd petter pay ye for my share o' the whusky, Mrs MacTonald.'

'Na; that can remain. Ye will pe here the day after to-morrow or so, I daresay, to make it up.'

'Take the money,' said Mr MacTavish firmly; 'he will peg my pardon pefore I drink another drop in his company.'

'A bad job!' said poor Betty, with tears in her eyes, as she slowly counted out to him the change.

On the afternoon of the same day, Maggie Cameron the piper's daughter was in her father's dairy busily at work. The piper's cottage and small farm-steading stood white and solitary at the mouth of Glen Heath, barely half a mile from Inversnow. The score of sheep that strayed about the glen with the red mark J. C. branded on their woolly sides belonged to the piper; so also did the three or four cows that stood cooling their feet in the heat of the day, in the peat-brown burn that coursed through the heart of the glen past the piper's fields and garden, to the loch. He was in a moderate way a prosperous man, and after the manner of men conscious of a bigger balance than their neighbours at the local bank, he thought he had a right to dogmatise on occasions. Folks who knew the piper knew that whoever ultimately was lucky enough to win the hand of his only daughter Maggie, would not take her dowerless; and that the dower would be something by no means to be sneezed at, was evident when the Inversnow intellect began to reckon on its finger-ends the various sources of the piper's income. There was first and foremost the farm; the piper's crops were ever the earliest and the heaviest; his mutton was always prime, and the piper knew well when and to what market to send. Nor on the Duke's whole estate were better turnips grown. Then what milk was to be compared to that which came from the piper's byre; and as for the piper's butter – churned by Maggie's own pretty hands – why, better butter was not to be had in or out of the parish for love or money. Besides which, the piper's white cottage, built on the slope facing the loch on one side and looking towards the glen on the other, within a few minutes' walk of the best scenery, the best shooting, and the best fishing in South-western Scotland, fetched – well, Inversnow did not know how much per month. Let to the 'gentry' during spring, summer, and autumn of every year, it was in itself another tap of gold flowing into the piper's pockets.

For several months in each year the Duke entertained guests at Inversnow Castle; and it was the piper's duty, as it was his pleasure, to march daily (Sundays excepted, and he grudged Sundays) for two hours to and fro in the hall of the castle while the Duke and his guests dined, the sonorous bagpipes discoursing appetising and digestatory music; and he was indeed a mean or thoughtless guest who departed without remembering the piper in some shape tangible to the piper. Dearly he loved his money. Nor was he a man likely to let money readily slip from his grasp when he once fingered it, and no man in Inversnow was more fertile in resources for adding to his store. But dearly as he loved gold, dearly as he loved his sheep, his cattle, and horses, his dram and his bagpipes, his one primary treasure was his winsome daughter Maggie. Rough he might be, but beneath the hard shell was a true human heart that beat warmly and tenderly towards her.

Maggie stood, as has been said, busily at work on the clean paved floor of the dairy, her burnished milk-pans full of creamy richness, arranged on shelves along the walls. The dairy was cool and shady, and the sweet fragrance of the fresh milk mingled sweetly with odour of late honeysuckles and fuchsias clambering in at the window. Between the leaves of honeysuckle there was to be seen from the window, far off across the sloping fields, a peep of the loch, the blue sky, and the heather-clad hills in the distance. The door was open, and the afternoon light fell upon no more pleasant sight than the bright shapely Highland lassie, whose sleeves were tucked up to the elbow, her dress pinned behind, while her hands were deftly shaping butter with the aid of a pair of wooden 'clatters' into tempting rounded pats, each pat being dropped, by a quick graceful turn of her skilful hands, into a dish of clear spring-water beside her. Maggie hummed in a sweet low treble as she worked, an old Gaelic air that had a touch of melancholy in it, her sole audience the piper's monstrous bull-dog, that lay all her length in the sunshine asleep on the threshold. Presently the formidable-looking animal raised her head, pricked her ears and growled; then, at the sound of footsteps, rose and bounded down the path; and Maggie, as she paused in singing, heard a well-known voice cry: 'Down, Diana; down, I tell ye; keep down!' The Highland girl went on with her work, with perhaps a tinge of crimson shewing through the sun-browned face, while a man's voice rang out 'Maggie!' from the kitchen door, and then the steps turned to the open dairy door.

'Well, Angus,' Maggie said in a tone of surprise that was hardly meant to be taken as real; 'and iss it you again? I thought you said yesterday that the yacht was going to meet some of the castle-folks at Sheepfell?'

'The Teuk changed his mind, or had a telegram or something. But are ye not glad to see me, Maggie, that ye won't shake hands wi' a body?'

'Deed and I am fery glad to see yourself, Angus, and well ye ken that; but my hands are wet wi' the watter and the butter; and indeed ye must excuse me.'

'But it iss a cold greeting to gif a body, that iss what it iss, no to shake a hand, Maggie,' said Angus; 'or maybe,' plucking up courage from the laughter in Maggie's eyes and the pose of Maggie's cheek, 'maybe that iss what you wanted!' And Angus boldly bestowed a kiss upon the girl's cheek.

'Oh, Angus MacTavish, and how could ye do the like o' that, when ye see I could not protect myself wi' my hands among the butter?'

'Then gif it to me back again, as the song says,' said Angus, taking his own again, before Maggie could make any show of resistance.

'But it iss a wild fellow ye are, and no deserving this drink o' new-drawn warm milk I am going to give ye!'

Maggie wiped her hands in the long white apron she wore, and turned to fill a tumbler full of milk from one of the pans.

'Well, Maggie Cameron, it iss maybe more than I deserve,' said Angus, as he took the tumbler from her hand and raised it to his mouth; 'but here iss to your ferry good-health, Maggie!'

'I believe ye would rather it had been a dram,' said the girl, as she watched the milk swiftly disappear down the young sailor's throat. But Angus declared that in saying so she libelled him.

'And now, Maggie, ye must put on your hat and come with me,' said Angus seriously, when he had emptied the tumbler.

'Go with you, Angus! You're joking. Wass it not for your lesson on the pipes ye came? But dad iss not at home this afternoon – he went the clachan-way with your father – but he will be disappointed to hef missed you.'

'I want you to come to the shore with me, Maggie; I have something to shew you, and I will take no denial for this once.'

'To shew me, Angus? But dad might not be pleased, if he came home when I wass out, to find I wass away trifling with you on the shore.'

'I will answer for that, Maggie Cameron.'

'Well, it iss true my churning is over, and the baking o' the scones can be done when I get back, but' – The maiden hesitated.

'But there' – and Angus lifted the dish of butter-pats and marched off with them, followed by Maggie, to the kitchen. 'Now put on your hat and come with me.'

While Maggie went to her room, Angus turned the key in the dairy-door, and hung it on a nail in the kitchen; and leaving Janet the maid to bring in the cattle and milk them, the couple started on their expedition with light hearts.

They were a winsome couple, and Janet – a goodly lass herself – stood admiring them from the door-step, not without certain longings on her own account, as they walked along the pathway that skirted the meadow, to the bridge at the gate; and from thence over the stile and across a field, towards the loch. Margaret Cameron was a tall well-built girl, yet her head was just on a level with her companion's shoulder. Her face was fresh and sunny, light and shadow playing on it in quick responsive movement to the mental mood that happened to rule her. She was young, not yet out of her teens, full of youthful impulse, that expressed itself in frequent peals of merry laughter easily roused; with a tender heart too, as the sweet blue eyes told, by the quick rush of tears when she was moved by any tale of woe, or touched by the chill finger of disappointment. Angus was a broad-shouldered six-foot sailor, stooping slightly as he walked, with a bronzed cheery face, and the kindest of honest eyes, that looked you straight in the face fearlessly. He had been for many years one of the most trustworthy 'hands' on board the Duke's yacht, The Curlew, and was looked up to by the fishing-folks of Inversnow with all the respect due to a favourite of the Chief's, and to one whose ideas had been expanded by frequent visits to the Mediterranean.

'Where are we going?' asked the girl by-and-by, as Angus struck into a road leading to the town. 'It iss nefer into Inversnow we are going like this together!'

'And are ye ashamed to be seen walking with me, Maggie Cameron?'

'Ashamed? No! But it iss not well to be having folk talking idle gossip apoot us in the daytime, when maybe I ought to be at home working.' Maggie was made the more jealous of her reputation as a good housekeeper by receiving a surprised nod at that moment from Mr M'Alister the grocer, who stood lazily on the door-step of his shop.

'Nefer mind what folk say, Maggie. This iss the way;' and Angus turned off the main street to the pier.

'Eh, Angus, what a pretty little poat – what a fery pretty poat!' said Maggie as they reached the end of the pier and looked down on a tiny boat resting placidly on the loch.

'And ye think her a pretty poat now, do ye, Maggie?' looking proudly from his achievement to his companion's interested face.

'I nefer saw anything prettier. She sits on the water like a sea-gull,' replied the girl warmly.

'And you can read her name on the stern now, can't you, Maggie – eh?'

The maid looked down fixedly and, as she looked, changed colour. Angus was watching her with beaming eyes. Painted in distinct blue letters on an oak ground were the words, 'Maggie Cameron – Inversnow.'

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS

The fact that during last year (1876) no fewer than 1245 persons were killed and 4724 injured upon the various railways of Great Britain, is sufficiently startling; for these numbers, we need hardly remind our readers, exceed those of the killed and wounded in many a great battle. The average number killed per annum during the last five years has been 1295, and of those injured 4333. Fortunately, however, for the peace of mind of the average British passenger, these numbers are not quite so alarming as they at first sight appear. That this is so, we shall shew by an analysis of the causes which led last year to the above-mentioned losses. Of those killed, no fewer than 305 were trespassers upon railway lines; and between thirty and forty of these were trespassers with the deliberate intention of committing suicide. Again, more than one half of the total number of persons killed were railway servants; and the same class furnished no fewer than 2600 of the 4724 cases of injury recorded in the returns. From their own misconduct or want of caution, 101 passengers lost their lives, and 604 sustained injuries. Level crossings are each year a very fertile cause of accidents, and to them no fewer than fifty-nine of the deaths of 1876 must be apportioned. We come now, however, to that which is undoubtedly a fact of the utmost gravity, namely, that thirty-eight passengers were killed and 1279 injured from causes over which they had no control, upon the railways of Great Britain.

In 1874, a Royal Commission was issued at the request of parliament to inquire into the causes and cure of railway accidents in Great Britain. For two years and a half the Commissioners pursued their labours; and their Report now lies before us. From it we gather that the Commissioners examined several hundreds of witnesses, including officers of the Board of Trade, general managers of railway companies, traffic managers, superintendents and assistant-superintendents of railways, inspectors and sub-inspectors of various classes, foremen of shunters, station-masters, engine-drivers, guards, brakemen, shunters, plate-layers, signalmen, pointsmen, boilersmiths, porters, and clerks. The Commissioners likewise arranged for a most valuable series of practical experiments upon the merits of the various systems of applying brake-power to trains, to be performed before them upon a portion of the Midland Company's railway near Newark. Of the important results disclosed by the elaborate system of experiments thus performed we shall have something to say presently. In addition to all this, the Commissioners personally inspected railway premises and works in various places throughout the kingdom, and investigated upon their own behalf certain 'typical cases' of railway accidents. Whatever conclusions, therefore, they may have arrived at claim at least the respectful consideration of all interested – and who is not? – in the prevention of railway accidents.

Regret has, we observe, been freely expressed in certain quarters that the Commissioners have not seen fit to advise the establishment of a government department which should exercise a general control over the practical administration of British railways. To have done so would, however, the Commissioners say, not have been in their opinion 'either prudent or desirable.' A government authority placed in such a position would, they remark, 'be exposed to the danger either of appearing indirectly to guarantee work, appliances, and arrangements which might practically prove faulty or insufficient, or else of interfering with railway management to an extent which would soon alienate from it public sympathy and confidence, and thus destroy its moral influence, and with it its capacity for usefulness.' Whilst, however, the Commissioners are thus strongly of opinion that any change which would relieve the railway companies from the responsibility which now rests upon them to provide for the safety of their traffic would be undesirable, they are nevertheless disposed to believe that legislation – by which the adoption of certain recognised improvements, and the construction of certain necessary works for the greater safety of the traffic, should be made compulsory upon the railway companies – would be a public gain. Amongst these improvements and necessary works are included by the Commissioners the compulsory adoption of the block and interlocking systems. The object of the block-system, we may here remark, is to preserve an arbitrary interval of space between all trains which are moving in the same direction upon the same line of rails. This is accomplished by dividing the line into sections; and not until a telegraphic message has been received announcing that a train has passed out of one section, is another permitted to enter that section. If properly carried out, this would prevent the possibility of one train running into another from behind, which as we all know has been a frequent cause of accidents.

We are not quite certain whether the Commissioners have done well in advising that 'increased facilities be afforded to the public to obtain redress by cheap and summary process when trains are late.' In the first place the Commissioners have not attempted to define when a train shall be held to be unpunctual; that is, whether one or five or fifteen or fifty minutes is to be held to constitute unpunctuality; and also whether the distance which the train has run is, or is not, to be taken into account. If every passenger by the Flying Scotchman from Edinburgh to London is to have a right to an action against the railway companies, in the event of that train being, say five minutes late upon its long journey of four hundred miles, the prospect of litigation thereby opened is sufficient to appal the hearts of shareholders in the North British, North-Eastern, and Great Northern Railways, and to make glad those of lawyers. Moreover, the Commissioners do not attempt to define what they mean by 'a cheap and summary process' being afforded to passengers of bringing actions against railway companies. At present such actions are occasionally brought in the County Courts, and it would be difficult, we think, to imagine 'a cheaper or more summary process' than they already afford.

At present, as most of our readers are aware, every passenger train which runs a distance of twenty miles without stopping is bound to carry with it some means whereby passengers can communicate with the guard or engine-driver of the train. The Royal Commissioners, however, have resolved to recommend that every train which runs for even eight miles without stopping is to be provided with a means of communication between the passengers and the servants of the company. Why this limit of eight miles has been arbitrarily fixed upon can only be left to conjecture. If some simple method could be devised whereby a passenger could instantaneously communicate with the servants of the train, an important benefit would be secured; but so long as the railway companies continue to call a small cord hidden away somewhere or other outside of the carriages, 'a means of communication between passengers and the servants of the company,' we confess that we do not attach much practical importance to this last recommendation of the Royal Commissioners.

We have already mentioned that the Royal Commissioners caused an extensive series of experiments to be performed in their presence upon a portion of the Midland Company's system near Newark, in order to test the various methods which have been invented for applying continuous brake-power to trains. Before, however, the trials of the various continuous 'brakes' were made, trials of the amount of brake-power usually supplied to the trains of some of the chief railway companies in Great Britain were made. From these experiments it appeared that with the amount of hand brake-power usually supplied, a train going at between forty-five and fifty miles an hour could not as a rule be brought to a full stop in much less than half a mile. During the trials at Newark, the merits of eight different kinds of 'continuous brakes' were tried; and 'amply proved the necessity for some greater control over fast passenger-trains than that hitherto provided in this country.' Speaking approximately indeed, it was shewn conclusively at these trials that a good continuous brake will reduce the stopping distances of fast trains to one-third of the distance within which they can be stopped by the present ordinary means. With regard to the effect upon passengers of any sudden stoppages by means of these continuous brakes, it is satisfactory to know that 'by none of the systems used in the trials could the brakes be applied too powerfully or too suddenly for the safety of the passengers.'

As the result of these Newark trials, the Royal Commissioners recommend that it should be made obligatory upon railway companies to provide every train with sufficient brake-power to bring it, at the highest speed at which it may be travelling and upon any gradients, to an absolute stop within five hundred yards. They also advise that a large proportion of the brake-power should be in the hands of the engine-driver. He is usually the man who first espies danger; and as when a train is travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, it passes over eighty-eight feet per second, it will easily be seen, that however slight may be the interval necessary for the driver to attract the attention of the guard, and for that official to apply his brakes, it may be sufficiently long to cause a serious accident.