miles past the hill, when, for the fifth or sixth time, we lost the gig before us behind a bend of the road. We were four minutes, I should say—or, at the outside, five—before we passed the corner, and recovered sight of it; and when we did see it, we both of us this time had need to rub our eyes in earnest. There—a hundred yards a-head of us—stood the gig; and in it sat Mrs. Oldwink in the most unconcerned manner possible; but Mr. Oldwink had disappeared, and with him the mare. Mr. Purkiss pulled up suddenly when this sight met his eyes. He knew no more than myself what to make of it. Oldwink certainly was gone—the mare certainly was gone; but why leave Mrs. Oldwink in that heartless manner to meet her fate alone? And why did that eccentric lady appear so perfectly unmoved at being thus unceremoniously deserted?
Mr. Purkiss whistled softly to himself, while we advanced at a walk towards the deserted lady, who did not condescend even to turn her head when we drew up close behind her and descended to accost her.
Mr. Purkiss was the first to approach her. “A Dummy, by Jove!” he screamed, as he peered under the bonnet. “Done again, as I’m a sinner!”
It was as he said. The figure we had taken for Mrs. Oldwink was merely two cross sticks placed upright in the gig, and covered by the lady’s ample shawl and bonnet—in fact, neither more nor less than a respectable scarecrow.
“Well,” said I, scratching my head, “I confess I don’t see the meaning of this thing.”
“You don’t!” cried Mr. Purkiss, glancing savagely at me, for he was evidently out of temper at last. “Why, what a stupid you must be! Don’t you see, man, that when Oldwink halted close to the plantation, instead of his doing it to breathe the mare as we thought, he did it to give his wife an opportunity of making off into the wood with the jewellery? This thing was then dressed up, and we were enticed forward as far as this spot, in order to give the woman an opportunity of getting clear away. And now, to finish the affair, Oldwink has made off with your mare across the country, and will meet his wife at some place agreed on, twenty or thirty miles away from this. Well, he’s a slippery customer and no mistake!”
Further pursuit was useless for the present, even if we had known which road Oldwink had taken; and very down in the mouth we both looked as we turned our faces back to Deepwood, which we did not reach till far into night.
What my wife had to say to me about this little affair when I got home, need not be set down here. And the wigging she gave Jim! Poor old girl! it served her to talk about for many a month after, so that I found it best after a while to shorten her tongue by buying her a peach-coloured satin gown.
I have nothing more to add, except that Mr. Oldwink and his wife were taken at Liverpool some three months after by Mr. Purkiss; for some years after which event they were both cared for at the expense of an enlightened public.
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.
It was as easy for the ancients to conceive that animals could be produced from putrefying matters, as it is difficult for the instructed physiologist of our day to conceive any generation whatever except that by direct parentage. Aristotle found no difficulty in believing that worms and insects were generated by dead bodies, and that mice could become impregnated by licking salt. The successors of Aristotle were even less sceptical than he. They were constantly observing animals and plants suddenly springing into existence where no animals or plants had been before. Every dead dog, or decaying tree, was quickly beset with numerous forms of life; how could it be doubted that the putrefaction, which was observed as an invariable accompaniment, was the necessary cause of these sudden appearances of life?
To the mind imperfectly acquainted with the results of modern science, Spontaneous Generation is as easy of belief as it was to Aristotle. Do we not constantly see vegetable mould covering our cheese, our jam, our ink, our bread? Do we not, even in air-tight vessels, see plants and microscopic animals develop where no plants and animals could be seen before, and where, as we think, it was impossible that their seeds should have penetrated? And when we hear that Mr. Crosse produced an insect by means of electricity, startled as we may be, do we really find any better argument than our prejudice for disbelieving such a statement? Where do parasitic animals come from, if not spontaneously generated in the body? These parasites are found in the blood, in the liver, in the brain, in the eye, nay, even in the excessively minute egg itself. “How gat they there?” is our natural question. This question, which is so easily answered on the supposition that generation can take place spontaneously, presents the most serious difficulties to science, because the massive weight of scientific evidence has been year after year accumulating against such a supposition; until the majority of physiologists have come to regard it as an axiom, that no generation whatever can occur except by direct parentage. This axiom, which a small minority has always rejected, has quite recently met with a formidable questioner in M. Pouchet, the well-known physiologist of Rouen; and his experiments and arguments having agitated the Academy of Sciences, our readers may be interested if a review of the whole subject be laid before them.
The first person who assailed the notion of Spontaneous Generation was Redi, the excellent Italian naturalist, to whom we owe so many valuable observations. I have at this moment on my table the brief but pregnant treatise, “Experimenta circa Generationem Insectorum,” in which he reviewed the facts, and proved that the worms and insects which appear in decaying substances, are really developed from eggs deposited in those substances by the parents. So masterly was the treatise, that no one since then has had the courage to maintain the production of worms and insects spontaneously. It has been held as preposterous to suppose that putrefaction could generate an insect as that it could generate