1832.] Windlass Hall. . 531 



beverage having been long-since proscribed from the Hall 5 or the high- 

 pressure coffee-percolator may happen to burst, in which event you are 

 well off indeed, if the loss of your coffee is the utmost extent of your suf- 

 ferings. When I was last at the Hall, a young lady was nearly scalded to 

 death in consequence of that accident having occurred. The Captain was 

 exceedingly distressed, and immediately dismissed the servant who, it 

 appeared, by neglecting to dispose the safety-valve properly, had occa- 

 sioned the explosion. " I never could make that fellow," he said, 

 " understand the properties of elastic fluids." But coffee is not always 

 a certainty, even when the steam-engine is in the best possible order. A 

 pair of squirrels, kept solely for the purpose, grind all the coffee that is 

 used in the establishment. In general these nimble little animals having 

 no object of course but their own divertisement, keep the mill turning 

 and the family well supplied ; but should they chance on any occasion to 

 be idle or indisposed, you are sure to feel the effects of it at breakfast, 

 particularly if you are as partial to the Mocha berry as I am. 



It is one of the peculiarities of my gallant friend, that he cannot bear to 

 hear the most ordinary household utensil called by its vernacular name, if 

 it is practicable to give it a scientific one. I believe few persons are more 

 intimate with him than I am $ yet I would not for fifty guineas undertake 

 to call the " high-pressure coffee-percolator" a coffee-pot. One day that 

 he took me with him to inspect the offices, he was accosted by his groom, 

 who mentioned amongst other matters that the pump in the stable-yard 

 was out of order. I was struck by the bitterness of manner with which 

 he received this information -, and ascribed it to the failure of an extraor- 

 dinarily subtile piece of mechanism, which I was aware he had substituted 

 for the common piston and sucker ; but I was mistaken : as soon as 

 the groom was out of hearing, he burst out with " Pump, pump the 

 fellow will never call it anything but pump ; often as I have dinned it 

 into his ears, I never can get him to say hydraulic engine ; no, nothing 

 will do but pump, pump, pump : " then, after a pause of a few seconds, 

 he added ; " I do not want him to comprehend it : there is not such an 

 engine for raising water in the three kingdoms : but he might call it by 

 its proper name no, no j nothing will serve him but pump." To illus- 

 trate the value of this unrivalled " engine for raising water," as the 

 Captain was pleased to style it, it is enough to say that the water which 

 supplied the house and offices was generally brought upon the heads of 

 the servants from a well at least half-a-mile from the hall. Often, under 

 the broiling suns of July and August, have I heard them make bitter 

 complaints upon this subject ; and many a longing eye have I seen them 

 turn to the common pumps of the farmers in the neighbourhood, any one 

 of which I suspect the unscientific dogs would gladly have taken in 

 exchange for the "hydraulic engine" in the stable-yard, which after all 

 had but one fault : it did not raise water. 



It is but just, however, to state that some of the Captain's inventions 

 are useful as well as ingenious. The most popular amongst his friends 

 is his " Dressing Barometer." This instrument, which hangs in the 

 breakfast-parlour, instead of being graduated in the usual way, is marked 

 with the changes of apparel appropriate to every variation of season or 

 weather ; for instance, Russia duck, cloak, great-coat, dread-nought, &c. ; 

 then, on the female side, pelisse, boa, shawl, parasol, pattens, &c., j 

 so that by a glance at the instrument, previous to setting out on a walk 



