"Again, let me ask you why, in your new position of chairman to the Eastern Counties, you should be so jealous of a line passing through Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, while you proclaim that the Eastern Counties Railway, with its present lines and branches, may be made to pay ten per cent that portion of the kingdom lying upon and east of the London and Cambridge line, forming a district quite as extensive as the one proposed for the London and York?

Why should you wish to compel passengers to go even twelve miles round by Cambridge, while that town will certainly have its railway to the east, west, north, and south? Why, then, endeavour to prevent Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire from similar advantages?"

I will next approach the fallacy which Mr. Hudson makes his great cheval de bataille-his destrier. But first it is necessary to remind the reader, that the question respecting direct or devious lines will be tried, amongst the earliest next session, in deciding on the relative merits of the competing lines from London to York; and this, whether one of those schemes has to go again before a committee of the Commons, or, as the chairman affects to imagine, will at once get to the Lords. The decision will assuredly make a leading case, and exercise vast influence on all the other cases to be tried. There are three schemes; the London and York, Eastern Counties Extension (Hudson's), and the Direct Northern. The last-mentioned goes as straight as possible from point to point; the London and York zig-zags to accommodate towns and villages; and Hudson's sweeps round far a-field to carry out a project for the benefit of an existing railway and its directors, of whom he is the chosen chairman and champion. The distance from London to York by his line would be 200 miles; by the London and York, 186 miles; and by the Direct Northern, 176. The first has the best gradients; the second the worst, and the most embankment, cutting, and tunnelling. Mr. Hudson is labouring to induce the shareholders of the London and York to repudiate the directors (who are only M.P.s and gentlemen of property on their line, and not professional speculators in railways), and to take shares, on amalgamation, in his scheme. The papers are full of correspondence on the subject, and no art is neglected to seduce or intimidate those same share

holders. Their chairman, Mr. Astell,

writes to him, saying,

Yet though it might not be easy to answer those questions, yet Mr. H. has his objections. At a meeting at Cambridge, he said,

"To the public you propose a scheme repudiated by a select committee in 1845, a scheme avoiding nearly every town that ours would serve, and longer than ours from twelve to fifteen miles, leaving the district bordering on the great north road from London to York without railway accommodation."

"I tell the parties promoting the London and York line that it will be as great a blunder as ever disgraced a railway management. The honourable gentleman tells you his line will effect a saving of ten miles; but he ought to have measured that ten miles by time, and not by distance. A railway ought not to be measured by distance, but by the time it takes in accomplishing that distance. Any one knowing any thing of what railway travelling is, must be fully aware of what it is to get bad gradients and a quantity of tunnels. There may be a large parallel case (but I hope there are not any) in which there is a tunnel having gradients of one in a hundred."

This is an instance of a gross pon→ deracion. The Report of the Board of Trade admits that the gradients of the London and York "are for moderate lengths, and have nothing in themselves that can be considered as objectionable." But here is the proposition on which Mr. H. relies: "A railway ought to be measured not by distance, but by the time it takes in accomplishing that distance." Now if trains of equal weight, drawn by engines of equal power, were always to run at the greatest possible speed they could command and attain, this would be true; but, as these circumstances do not and never can exist, practically, the proposition is a fal

And then, after characterising his lacy, involving the assumption that

project as merely a daring attempt to raise the value of Eastern Counties stock and rid the Midlands of a rival,

he says:

the line, with better gradients, will be, in its ordinary traffic, traversed at a greater rate of speed than one with those less favourable. But this

is not true. The speed will be kept up on both lines alike up to the point which will afford fair profit and satisfy the just requirements of the public up to, in Stephenson's phrase, the commercial limit. But the speed will cost less on the better graded line than it does upon the other; and thus in so far as the difference may be in amounts respectively of cost it will affect one of the points on which the cost of transport mainly depends, namely, cost of conveyance. This, in the annual expenses of working a line, would not, under any circumstances, unless the gradients were outrageously bad, make a very large item. But how would it be with respect to the longer line with the better gradients as to the other principal point on which cost of transport depends, namely, cost of construction? Why, for every mile it exceeds in length, there will be an annual expense for working it of, according to the Board of Trade's Report, 1000l. a mile, and capital, at a minimum of 12,000l. per mile sunk, together with its interest and compound interest, for ever.

Let us, however, examine this matter a little farther. Taking for granted that there must always be a commercial limit of speed on railways, I say that the fundamental distinction between two lines of equal length, and still more of unequal length, will be found to result in the relative cost of transport. In other words, the respective cost of transport is the ultimate exponent of the relative value of competing lines. Now that cost depends, 1st. upon the cost of construction, to which is to be added, a part of the cost of management and repairs; 2d. on the cost of conveyance properly so called, to which is also to be added a part of these same secondary expenses. In fact, the total expense of transporting a ton from one extremity of a railway to the other consists of four elements. 1st. The annual interest of the expenses of construction, and the annual expenses of management and repairs divided by the number of tons transported annually; 2d. The expenses of the locomotive engine expressed by a formula given by Navier; 3d. the expense of the waggons, carriages, &c. which is proportional to the length of the railway;

4th. the expense of warehousing and despatching, which we shall also consider as proportionate to the length of the railway.

We then see, says Navier, that the valuation of the total price is thus reduced in each particular case to the determination of a very small number of elements; that is to say, the expense of construction and repairs, for which data are given by the formation of the project, the estimate of the annual tonnage, the determination of the weight of the train, which should be drawn by a locolastly, the length of the line of railmotive engine of a given power, and, way. It will be at once perceived and acknowledged that the vitally important elements are the cost of construction and the length of the line.

If, then, Hudson's line be twelve miles longer than the London and York, while he will have little to take off for his cheaper working, he will have a great deal to put on for the additional length to increase the cost of transport. But when the excess of length, as in Hudson's over the Direct Northern, comes to be twenty-five miles, the argument about performing the journey in equal time becomes ridiculous; so &c., and of working increase the cost much would the cost of construction, of transport. And if the shorter line have as good working gradients as need be well desired, a comparison between the two projects becomes preposterous.

Mr. Hudson, it is true, never alluded in the course of his phi lippic against the London and York to the Direct Northern. One would not have imagined from his discourse that there was any such project in the field. Why was this? Simply because his engineering ar gument in favour of his line would not have then been worth a rush! On the Direct Northern the whole amount of tunnelling is short of 4000 yards. There is only one viaduct. Sixty-nine miles are on a level, and there is no acclivity or declivity above 1 in 200,-a most excellent working gradient when properly distributed over the line. Now 1 in 200 is that clivity which forms the limit between those clivities in descending which there is, and

those in descending which there is not, a saving of power.

The objections, then, to the steep gradients of the London and York and the 4 miles of tunnelling would not apply, while the additional length of twenty-five miles presses against his own line with full force. In fact, though even as against the London and York, his only serious argument was its inefficient estimate. It cannot be the project is not supported with money, or Mr. Hudson would not wear the aspect of so determined a wooer. But if the Direct Northern and the London and York amalgamated, as they ought to do, this objection would be obviated by the amount of combined capital. The main line, then, should be the direct one, and satisfactory arrangements might be concluded about the numerous branches. If this were done the triumph of the

direct principle against the circuitous would in this, the first great contest of the session, be undoubted. And now one short observation, and then I shall have done.

As to better provision for the safety of passengers, I see no means so certain as laying down a set of rails by the sides of the others for the use of goods and luggage only, which might be carried at a rate of fifteen miles an hour, at a farthing per ton per mile. Nine out of ten accidents occur through the presence of luggage-trains on the same rails with passenger-trains. A good deal of expense might be spared in construction by devoting certain lines of rail to the transport of passengers alone, as the steepness of gradients would not be so material. The cost for the additional route would be about 4000l. a mile.

THE LADY OF ELM-WOOD.

CHAPTER I.

THE evening shadows were stealing on, at the close of a cold, bright winter's day. Stretched on a bed of sickness, pale, wasted, silent, lay the lady of Elm-wood. The curtains of purple velvet, dark and gloomy in the fading light, hung heavily round her, and through an opening, at the foot of the bed, a gleam of red light from the blazing fire now and then fell on her face, but did not rouse her from the deep thought in which she seemed plunged. There was much beauty even yet in her large, dark eyes and delicately formed features; but her cheek was hollow, and the tightly closed lips looked as if no smile of joy had ever parted them.

A hired nurse, the only watcher by that sick-bed, was dozing in an arm-chair before the fire, rousing herself now and then to glance at the lady, who was totally regardless of

her

presence. The old woman began to feel chilly as the evening closed in, and she was rising to draw the curtains before the window, when the clear, gay laughter of a child rang on the frosty air, floating up from the

passed across the lady's face, and she

sighed heavily.

"Did you speak, my lady ?" asked the nurse, moving to the bedside.

No, nurse," answered a sweet, yet feeble voice; "I want nothing-nothing that you can give me," she murmured, as the old woman turned away. "Oh, for a loving voice to

cheer me in this dark hour!"

Again she lay, silent and thoughtful as before; but, after a time, she called the nurse, and, as if by a strong effort, said, "Go to him-to my husband-and tell him I am very, very ill. Say that, for the love of Heaven, I entreat him to come to me!"

She half raised her head from the pillow to listen to the old woman's slow footsteps, till the sound died away in the long and distant corridors. The slamming of a door gave her notice when the nurse had reached her destination, and she clasped her thin hands in an agony of impatience, as it seemed, to know the result of her mission.

"Surely, surely he will come now," she said; "he does not love me; he garden below. A look of misery has taught my child to scoff at me;

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCIII.

I

and yet, now, surely he will feel something for me!"

The door was heard again, the nurse tottered back, and stood once more beside her charge.

"My lord bids me say, he is engaged now, but will come by and by."

The lady's head fell back on the pillow, and the colour that had risen to her cheek for a moment faded away. The nurse had been used to look on scenes of suffering and sorrow, and perhaps age, too, had blunted her feelings, for she re-established herself in her comfortable chair, and sank into a doze. The lady's voice once more roused her.

"Go to him again, nurse! say, that I am dying--you see I am ;-tell him, I entreat him to send for Mr. Paterson to pray for my departing soul. Beg him earnestly to grant me this, only this!"

Again the messenger departed, and again the lady listened anxiously for her return, yet with less hope in her sorrowful eyes than before. Her heart sank evidently when she heard the nurse returning immediately.

66

My lord says, said the old woman, "it is only your fancy that is

sick."

"My lord said, No, he would have no canting priests here.'

The old woman hobbled back to her seat, and the lady, covering her face, sobbed aloud.

Cruel, even to the last!" she said at length. "This life, that some call so happy, how dreary has it been to me! long, miserable years, ending in a death like this!" And words of long-suppressed anguish, thoughts that had burdened the heart with a weight of misery for years, burst from her dying lips.

"Poor lady!" muttered the nurse, "her mind wanders. I've heard

strange stories about her.
sure, there was something wrong, or
To be
my lord would never have kept her
mewed up so close; and I dare say the
thought of it troubles her now.'

"To be sure there was something wrong!" The words had been in many mouths, till it came to be believed that some dark secret, some hidden error, was the cause of the seclusion in which she was kept by her husband. The sadness of her countenance was held to be occasioned by remorse, and the tears that were sometimes seen to fall, as she knelt in prayer in the house of God, were looked upon as tears of penitence. The patience and meekness with which she bore the impertinence of some, who hinted, even in her presence, at the suspicions they entertained, only confirmed them in their belief that, in some way, she had erred grievously. "And then, my lord," they said, "is so easy and good-humoured, any body might be happy with him!" So by degrees a belief had gained ground that all was not as it should be with the beautiful lady of Elm-wood, and some dared to speak scornfully of her, even those who were unworthy to wipe the dust from her feet.

For the suspicions that had gone abroad, the undefined mysterious whispers against her, were unjust as they were cruel. There was nothing of shame, though, God knows, there was enough of bitter sorrow in her blushes and her tears. Her spirit was too utterly broken by daily and hourly trials, of which the coarse world knew nothing, to resent insult None or reply to impertinence knew-how should they know?ginning in her earliest years, had how a course of petty oppression, be

conquered all cheerfulness and crushed all hope; and, during her married life, to none but to her God did she breathe a word of the troubles which subdued her, and to which she submitted without a struggle. The little world about Elm-wood had only seen her brought-in triumph, as it seemed as a bride to her husband's ancestral home. They had seen, at first, a gay succession of guests at the old hall, and the young bride presiding at brilliant entertainments. But the number of guests fell off by degrees, ladies ceased to be among the few remaining visitors, and, when an occasional party met at Elm-wood, the lady was no longer seen among them. Her husband thought it necessary, at first, to excuse her absence

on the plea of ill health, but it was
soon understood that there were other
reasons (although none knew what
such reasons were) why she appeared
no more, and her name was never
mentioned.

clergyman, Mr. Paterson, to his surprise, saw the delicate form of the lady of Elm-wood kneeling in her usual place, her meek head bowed in prayer. When the service was over, he went to her, and offered to assist her in getting home. She took his arm in silence, and, feeling that she was trembling with cold, he led her towards the rectory, whither his wife and daughter had preceded him. He looked compassionately upon her, as he endeavoured to shield her from the beating rain, for she appeared so feeble, that without his help she must have fallen.

"This is trying weather for one who seems so delicate and weak as you," he said gently. "Surely you should not venture to leave home on a day like this."

I come here for consolation," she answered sadly; "you know not how much I need it."

"But God is in every place, dear lady. From your secret chamber, He hears your prayer arise, and surely it is not well to risk your life thus."

She was sometimes seen by persons who visited Elm-wood on business, wandering alone in the woods near the house, like a pale yet beautiful spirit, or tending the flowers in a small garden sheltered by the farstretching walls of the old hall. Some, who had purposely thrown themselves in her way, said, that she replied gently to their greeting, but always in a tone of sadness. On Sunday she never failed, unless when detained at home by severe illness, to walk to the church in the neighbouring village. It was built upon the edge of her husband's park, and a little path led to it from the great house, through old dark woods, and by a little stream, that stole away at last singing as it went, into the fields below the churchyard. The whole village was part of the Elm-wood property, and the church contained many monuments to the memory of its possessors. The family pew had still its velvet cushions and draperies, faded though they were, and here the lady knelt alone Sunday after Sunday. Rain and cold, frost and snow, all seemed alike to her. The good rector, who soon learned to take an interest in her pale and melancholy face, never failed to glance at that bumble worshipper, so constant in her attendance. Sometimes he saw that she was weeping, and his kind heart longed to breathe comfort to her evidently wounded spirit. His attempts to make her acquaintance at her own house had all proved vain. Her husband, whose manner to the good old priest was full of scarcely suppressed contempt, always replied to his inquiries about the lady, by saying, she received no visitors. To speak to her on her way to or from the church was his only chance of proving to her how much he felt interested in her welfare. She always waited till all others had left the church, and then stole quietly across the graveyard, and through the little gate into the park. One wet and stormy Sunday, when the congregation was very scanty, the

My life!" she exclaimed, in a tone of grief that brought tears into the old man's eyes; 66 my life! Why should I nurse and cherish it, as if it were a precious thing? Who would miss me if I were gone? Forgive me! oh, forgive me!" she added, after a short silence; "I know these are wild and sinful words. Forget that I have spoken them. Think of me only as of one sorely tried, to whom your ministrations have given more comfort than aught else on earth. Good and kind I know you are. Let my name be sometimes on your lips when you pray to your God. We are told the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Will you do this?" she said, earnestly, raising her eyes to his face.

"As I hope for peace I will," answered he, with much emotion.

"And when you hear that I am dead, do not grieve for me, but thank peace." God that a wounded spirit has found

"Do not speak so sadly, dear lady," said the rector. "You must be familiar with God's Word; you have read there, that He who made the worlds, even He, healeth the broken in heart.'

6

"Yes, I feel it," she replied. "He,