The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-12-26 00:00:00

CHAPTER IL

WHEN the coast was quite clear, the evil face was
once more thrust out from the bush, the body attached
to it soon followed, and a tall man rose to his feet,
shook himself, and advanced slowly to the steps in
the wall, which he mounted, seating himself where
the lovers had sat.

"Ay," said he, between his clenched teeth, "this is
where they were; his aim round, her waist, her cheek
lying against his shoulder. Curse them ! curse them !
curse them ! What's the use of that ? No good in
cursing; the devil won't hear me. I have tried him
every way; and the Lord's Prayer backwards and all.
He is on their side, devil is. I must be devil. I'll.
curse them myself. I could have outed upon them and
killed them to-night, only George Thomas has a spell.
I'd have knifed him twenty times, but he turned hi 3
eye upon me, and my heart melted into water. Yes,
George Thomas has a spell—but she has none. Let me.
catch her alone, and, dila! my dainty lady, you
despised Joe Morgan's love, did you? I wonder how
you will like his hate, hate, hate, hate !" making a
mouthful of the last word, and repeating it twenty
times and more, as if it did him good to utter
it. .

Joe, or "Black Morgan as he was generally called,
had narrowly escaped being a genius; only in this, as
in other things, the truth of the proverb, "a miss is as
good as a mile," was apparent. In his youth he had
astonished the neighbourhood by his self-acquired
learning, his poetical talents, and his ingenuity. At
the age of nineteen, he had made a collection of local
legends, written bath in Welsh and English, which an
old gentleman, who Came into the neighbourhood
annually for fishing and antiquarian research, had re-
vised and published in his own name, gaining some
local fame thereby; he had written satirical verses
upon the principal persons in the parish, and he had
persuaded the antiquarian angler to advance him
money to build a water-mill with. He had built his
mill, too, and made it pay, and it was situated on the
upper side of the wood from which he had just
emerged, not a mile from Jenny Lewis's cottage.
But with the building of the mill young Morgan's
career culminated. He had always been eccentric;
but at the age of twenty-one be began to grow very
queer indeed. He encouraged a growing fondness of
strong Welsh ale, and that did not help to clear the
cobwebs out of his brain. Then he fell desperately
in love with Jenny Lewis, who could not bear the
sight of him, and that naturally mado him worse;
though it was all nonsense to say, as some romantic
people liked to do, that his queerness and his love of
drink were entirely owing to disappointed love.
Depend upon it, if a man takes to drinking because a
girl will not have him, the girl exercised a very wise
discrimination. The rejected one had recourse to yet
another conventional method of relieving his feelings
—he poached vigorously;
.and the imputation of this
practice to their jilted country characters is due, not
to the invention, but to the observation of story-
tellers: blighted agriculturists are great destroyers of
game, and in his palmiest days Morgan had been un-
lawfully handy with net and gen. -
Altogether, be neglected his business; and when
people found that he took his own time about grinding,
their corn, they withdrew their custom. In short,
before he was thirty, he had grown a black beard and
a bad character; had lost all his business, but had
acquired an unconquerable habit of drinking to excess
and the soubriquet of "Black Morgan," and had no
one to sly a good word for him but the clergyman of
the place, who charitably averred that he wls not
right in the head.
How he lived, where the money came from to pay
for his clothes, his meat, and particularly for his drink,
cella a puzzle to some of the gossips. His mill had
fallen to decay, the wheel was broken, and the rapid
trout stream rushed unimpeded over the dam, as if
wild with joy at being freed from its term of im-
prisonment with hard labour on the treadmill. The
dwelling part was habitable, certainly, though in very
bad repair, so that he had no rent to pay, but that only
accounted for his lodging, not his hoard; and he did
not seem to grow anything butepotatoes in the little
bit of land attached to it. He had inherited a small
patrimony; the antiquarian angler had died, leaving
him his own share of the mill. He might. have saved
a little money during the few years of his industry,
and the poulterer at Brecon might give him something
occasionally for salmon, trout, eels, rabbits, hares,
pheasants, partridges, woodcocks, and snipe; but all
this did not satisfactorily account for his expenditure
—to the gossips, I mean—and curious folks whispered
darkly of practices to which he was a stranger. The
dog had got an ill name, and there were plenty ready
to hang him.
Black Morgan sat on the wall, muttering to hum-
:elf at intervals for nearly an hour; then he got down,
pushed rapidly upwards through tke wood till lie came
out again on the top side of it, and soon reached his
dilapidated home, which looked picturesque enough in
the moonlight.
There being no other occupant of the mill besides
himself and the rats—creatures who never do any-
thing hut mischief to any of their fellow creatures
except ivory merchants (for whom, I believe, they un-
wittingly select the finest tusks), and who certainly
have never yet been trained to act as hall porters—
Morgan had to take a large key out of his pocket, and
let himself in.

The upper story, which was that intended by the
builder for .habitation, was rendered unfit for the
purpose by the broken state of the roof, which,
lightly put together in the first instance, had been
greatly damaged by a gale of wind which got under
the slates, and acted there like a shell in a ship, so
that he had to live in the lower room, which had no
flooring, and no regular windows, only square, un-
glazed apertures, which were closed with shutters, and
secured by strong iron bars, and which was altogether
better suited to the storing of sacks of corn, its origi-
nal destination.

When Morgan had let himself in and secured the
door, he struck a light, revealing the comfortless
apartment with its bare walls. A deal table and three
common chairs, an old creel, a fishing-rod, and a
suspicious-looking net strewn in one corner, a few
implements in another, an untidy bed, several stone
gallon jars, and an iron pot; completing the catalogue
of furniture. There was no fireplace, but a heap of
ashes i:nd charred sticks on the bare earth in the
centre of the room, showed that he cooked his meals
at a bonfire, and ate them with his eyes smarting from
the smoke, like a Paddy.
When he had lit a candle which stood on the table,
he took a shovel from its corner, pushed the bed, which
ran on casters, to one side, and began clearing the
earth away from the spot where it had stood.
"Oh, yes, we know; and when he had removed
the surface earth, a trap-door became apparent, with
an iron ring in it !" Quite right, impatient and ex-
perienced reader.
"He raised the trap, and---"
Well, go on.
"A flight of steps ?" No. "A bright light?" Try
again. "A yawning gulf?"
Pshaw I Morgan's conduct promised something

sensational, I glint, but it ihis lirerY:vtilgif ad; 5
was only going to his cupboard!
Being of an ingenious turn of mind, and having
read of trap-doors and secret hiding-places in several
old romances, lie had turned his studies to account,
as readers ought, and as his poaching habits rendered
it highly desirable that lie should have a repository,
known only to himself, in which to conceal either
game or the unlawful instruments he used for its
destruction, he had dug a hole six feet long, three
wide, and eight deep; had bricked the sides and bottom
to keep it dry—an object Winch the nature of the
toil, the rising ground on which the mill was built, and
the dra.inage.of_the stream enabled him effectually-to -

attain—and had fitted the mouth with a cover in a
neat and workmanlike manner, so that, when the pit
was closed, and a thin coating of earth thrown over
it, the hiding-place might really halm afforded a hunt
to a London detective, let alone a Welsh gamekeeper.
On relinquishing the upper story to the wind, rain,
and rats, and taking up his lodging upon the cold
ground, Morgan had removed what few valuables he
had—his gun, his stock of powder, etc.—to this dry
well, where he also kept his money and provisions:
an arrangement which gave him some trouble at meal
times, though he trusted generally to the conceal-
ment afforded by his bed covering the spot, and only
added the coating of mould when he had game to con-
ceal, or meditated a longer absence from home than
usual.

He now let himself down into his cupboard—to
facilitate which process certain hollows, fitted for the
toes to rest in, were left in the sides—and then he lit
a bull's-eye lantern, and by its light discovered part
of a loaf, a piece of cod bacon, and a stone jar
similar to one or two we saw in the room, only it
was not empty, this one, and it had a bung in it.
Handing up these provisions, he placed them, to-
gether with the lantern, on the edge of his hole, and
then, drawing himself up after proceeded to eat and
drink in an eager, devouring way, like one who had
not broken his fast for many hours; and then, his
hunger satisfied, he sat for some time moodily con-
templating the still open gap in the ground, and taking
a periodical pull at the stone jar, which had not been
half full to begin with, and now formed an neuter
angle with the upper part of his face on each succes-
sive application.
Suddenly the dull apathy which had clouded his face
was dissipated by a gleam of intelligence, as if he saw
his way out of some difficulty which had beset him.
He tubbed his hands, and laughed inwardly with a
chuckle which was hardly human, there was some-
thing so insane or devil-possessed about it. Then he
went again into his cellar cupboard—jumping down
this time—and began to clear everything out of it, a
process which, at the rate he worked, did not take a
very long time; and when it was quite empty, and the
things which had been in it were placed, not without a
certain method, in various parts of the room, he
pulled out a loose brick, and from the recess which he
had contrived behind it to serve him as a secret
drawer, withdrew a tin box containing his money—
two or three notes of small value, some twenty
sovereigns in gold, and a little silver, for he was by no
means so near the end of his resources as the gossips
supposed. This he secreted , about his person, and
then replaced the lid of the pit, drew the bed over the
spot, and once more took up the stone jar for the
purpose of quenching the thirst which had been
excited by his exertions; but there were "no effects"
and his draught was not honoured.
It was not a reasonable proceeding to drain a poor
veFsel, and then swear at it for being empty; but
Morgan was guilty of that folly, and not feeling very
much better for it, he took up the objurgated jar, and
let himself out of the house, carefully locking the
door behind him.
It was late before he returned—much the worse for
drink, indeed, yet not so intoxicated but what he
• could carry his jar—full now—a bottle of spirits, and
a sack containing three loaves of bread, and a cheese,
provisions for some days.
• (To be continued.)

THETRESENT and FUTURE of BURNAM
In a comprehensive paper on this subject. Mr. Holt
S. Hallett says that Upper Burmah and the Shan
States, lying to the e tof it. which were until lately
under its control, should be of the greatest interest to
vs as a trading nation, for they were interposed
between the two most populous empires in the world,
India and China. In these dabs, eitti foreign coin-
petition getting keener every day, and hoetile tariffs
not only shutting the Europcaa markets against us,
but in a lesser degree America and English coloniee
also, in the race for fresh colonies and new markets
among the European Powers, it was of importance
that we should avail ourselves of our present oppor-
tunity for an inland connection and oommercial
alliance with Indo-China and China, and thus acquire
new markets of trenscendant promise. Burinah and
the Burmese Shen States were highly favoured
by their geographical position. They lay in
the course of the monsoons,- and were gifted
for the most part with a plentiful rainfall.
Even in places NV here the rainfall was scarce the
plains received a bountiful supply of water from the
hill streams. The climate was humid and the forests
and other vegetation were unsurpassed by that of aey
other region. Burmah was boundedmn the north by
the snow-clad hills of Southern Thibet ; on the east
by China, the Shan States tributary to China; on the
west by Assam, Mennen-, Chittagong, and the Inclien
Ocean; and on the south by the Indian Ocean and
Siam. Mr. Hallett having glanced at the history of
I3urniah from the earliest times, and detailed the
exceptionally rich natural products of the country,
said that Mandalay had been the capital since 1857,
but the capital had been frequently removed during
the last half century. Mandalay was situated three
and a half miles from the Irrawaddy, and was laid
out in a square, on a site of about a mile. It was
surrounded by a brick wall 20ft. high and 3ft. thick.
The palace, arsenal, magazir e and mint were enclosed
in an inner central square protected by a strong teak
stockade, 20f t. high. The population was about 70,000,
and the number of houses about 12,000. The inhabit-
ants of Burmah, owing to the exc-llence of the climate,
were robust and healthy-looking. They attained
the average length of human lifo, and children espe-
cially throve in the country. Measles, chicken-pox,
and whooping-cough existed in Burmeh in so mild a
form as to excite little or no apprehension. The
virtues of the Burmese were many and his failings
were not few. He displayed much spasmodic energy
and general laziness, loved feasts and shows, disre-
garded the saeredness of human life, was arrogant
and inconsiderate when placed in high position, was
generally truthful and—unlike most Orientals—was
quite unable to tell a specious falsehoed. Actual
poverty was almost unknown, but on the other hand
riches were never accumulated. The Burmese were
strongly distinguished from the Indian races by his
love of sport and amusement, and by his strong turn
for the ridiculous. The women were far more virtu-
ous and industrious than the men. Rangoon was the
chief port and most important military station and
town in British Burnitali. It was situated on the
east bank of the Rangoon River, and was supplied
with an admirable wharf, and steamers drawing
24 feet of water were able to proceed up to the
toe'n at high water. The town had doubled
its population during the last twenty years,
and in 1883 numbered 134,000 souls. The popula-
tion of British Burmah had increased from 2,747,141
in 1872 to 3,736,771 in 1883, and trade had more
than kept pace with the advance of the population.
In conclusion, Mr. Ifallet said that from personal
experience of " the country he was of opluon that
England could not in its own interest pursue a more
wise or profitable policy than to devote special funds
to the internal development of the vast resources of
British Burmah. The conquest of Upper Burmah
had been happily aecomplished within the past few
days. (Cheers.) They could now drive the iron
horse from India down the valley of the Irrawaddy
and viii Moulmein to:the very gates of China without
any political impediment. It now remained for the
British Government and our mercantile community
to do their part, and it was to be trusted that the
present opportunity for permanently strengthening
our position in Asia might not be. allowed to pass
away. (Cheers.)