she married the man, whose peremptory orders were in reality the cause of her being famous. History tells us no more of her. Did education refine her? Did she ever think of Caroline Bürger, in the latter’s obscurity, or aid the comrade who shared her peril, but not her good fortune? It is believed not. She whom we have called Caroline lived and died, obscure and humble, perhaps not less happy; even her real name was not known by the old inhabitant of the Schloss Lüneberg, from whose lips this little narrative was gathered years ago, and who could boast of having both seen and spoken to, the famous heroine of Lüneberg, Johanna Stegen, by no means the first, nor in all likelihood the last, to whom fortune has called in a fit of caprice, and loaded with unmerited favours.
RACING BY STEAM.
Of all English sports, racing is the most thoroughly popular, and of all our national pleasures there is none so widely and so heartily loved as this. The English passion for horses united to this delight in racing, has produced, and keeps alive a system of national amusement, girt about with a machinery almost sufficiently extensive and complicated to govern a country. But if the English people love horse-racing, there is no small number of them whose sympathies are strong for other developments of the same species of sport. Every British yachtsman glories in our regattas, every oarsman loves the madness of a boat-race, every runner pants for foot-races, while our small boys find intense delight in trials of speed between rival donkeys. As a people, we assuredly do love all manner of racing. Hunting is popular, cricket a favourite sport, shooting has its enthusiastic votaries, fishing its fond disciples, fighting even its lovers, and the mystic game of “nurr and spell” its obscure devotees; but racing embraces all of these, covers every variety of sportsman under its broad mantle, and forces each to acknowledge its superior attractiveness.
Now these thoughts came to me on this wise: In the month of December 1857, I went, in common with many another man from the country, to the Annual Smithfield Cattle Show. I admired the short-horns, wondered at the obese pigs, was charmed with the muttons, and pleased with all I saw. I walked through the stands for the exhibition of machinery, and mused and marvelled at the ingenuity there represented. I presently dived down stairs to the small steam engines below, and found myself ultimately almost bewildered by the variety, extent, and novelty of the means by which modern science has added to the resources of the farmer, when I suddenly stood face to face with my old friend and quondam schoolfellow, Plummer Block. I had not seen Plummer for fifteen years; when last we met he, then a lad with much love of tools and all manner of machinery, was about being apprenticed to a millwright, established near his father’s farm, who made for the farmer such ploughs, harrows, drills, and grinding-mills as were in fashion at that time; since then we had not met, and I had only heard of him as senior partner in a comparatively new and flourishing firm, known as Messrs. Block and Bolt, Agricultural Engineers and Machinists.
Greetings and friendly inquiries over, I spoke presently of my wonder and admiration of the appliances by which we were surrounded.
“Yes,” said Plummer, “there have been very great improvements lately; and in no branch of our business is this more noticeable than in the construction of these engines about us.”
I looked interested, and he continued:—
“Ten years ago, the term ‘Agricultural Steam Engine’ had scarcely a recognised existence; now there are some thousands of these busy bees humming away in this country alone.”
I asked what he considered the chief agents in working such a revolution.
“Increase of improvement and adaptability to their work in the machines,” he replied. “The first engines of this description were expensive, ill-made pieces of machinery, costly in working, and difficult to move from place to place, from their great weight; now they are models of lightness, good workmanship, and economy. Our annual show has done wonders in bringing about this change, and the system of competitive trials of the relative merits of engines by the different makers has produced very marked results. This engine,” he continued, nodding towards that near which we stood, “is our last year’s racer,—a first-class engine in every respect.”
“Last year’s racer!” I exclaimed; “what do you mean?”
“Ah,” he replied, “‘racer’ has grown to be quite a recognised term in the trade now. We call those engines ‘racers’ which we exhibit and enter for the Royal Agricultural Society’s prizes; and I can assure you,” he added, “that the run against your rivals, as well as the preparatory ‘training’ and ‘trial gallops,’ are by no means unexciting amusements.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “that you really train engines—steam engines—for these yearly ‘races’ as you call them?”
“Most seriously I do,” said Plummer; “but you seem interested as well as surprised: make up your mind, then, to run down into Blankshire for a week next June, and we will give you a peep into the mysteries of an agricultural engineer’s mechanical ‘stud,’ and show you the paces of some of our forthcoming crack entries for the Carlisle meeting of 1858.”
The result of this conversation was, that I visited Messrs. Block and Bolt’s manufactory, and, believing the general reader to be as unacquainted as I previously was with the mechanical mysteries of engine racing, I now propose to tell him something of what I saw, and show him that the races of steam engines, as well as of horses, boats, or donkeys, may have their elements of pleasure and excitement.
I presume that everybody now-a-days knows what is meant by an agricultural or portable steam engine: let no one innocently imagine that I am about to speak of two engines of locomotive habits being pitted against each other for a trial of speed. No. The agricultural steam engine is nothing