Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846

by Various

Part IV.

"Y asi entre otras razones le dijo que no tuviese pena del suceso de Camila, porque sín duda la herida era ligera."—Cervantes. El Curioso Impertinente.

The unexpected and opportune appearance of Mariano Torres, at the moment of Herrera's escape, requires a few words of explanation. When Rodil, on the morrow of the skirmish with Zumalacarregui in the Lower Amezcoa, evacuated that valley, he proceeded to distribute a portion of his army amongst various garrisons; and then, with the remainder, marched to Biscay in pursuit of Don Carlos, who, having as yet no place of security from his enemies, was wandering about attended by a handful of followers. Amongst the troops left in Navarre by the Christino general, was the cavalry regiment to which Herrera and Torres belonged, and this was ordered to the plains of the Ebro. The day after its arrival at the town of Viana, a battalion marched in from Pampeluna, and with it came Sergeant Velasquez, who, after his escape from the Carlists, had taken refuge in that fortress. Great was the consternation of Torres on learning the surprise of the escort and capture of his friend, and his grief was warmly sympathized in by the other officers of the regiment, with whom Herrera was a universal favourite. But Torres was not the man to content himself with idle regrets and unavailing lamentations, and he resolved to rescue Herrera, if it were possible, even at the hazard of his own life. He confided his project to the colonel of his regiment, who, with some difficulty, was induced to acquiesce in it, and to grant him leave of absence. This obtained, he disguised himself as a private soldier, and boldly plunged into the centre of Navarre in quest of Zumalacarregui and his army. He had little difficulty in finding them: he announced himself as a deserter from the Christinos, and, without attracting unusual notice or suspicion, was enrolled in a Navarrese battaline, which, a day or two afterwards, marched to the village where Herrera was kept prisoner. Although by the interference of Count Villabuena, and the dexterity of Paco and the gipsy, Mariano's daring self-devotion was rendered superfluous, it had its uses, inasmuch as his disappearance with Herrera prevented the slightest suspicion from falling upon those who had really contrived and effected the escape. The gipsy, after guiding the two friends to Salvatierra, and receiving an ample reward from Herrera, performed the secret service with which Zumalacarregui had charged him, returned to that general with a ready framed excuse for the slight delay in its execution, and pocketed the ten additional onzas promised him by Paco. The muleteer, still weak from his wound, was the last man to be suspected; and of the Count's participation in the affair, no one, excepting Major Villabuena, for a moment dreamed. Don Baltasar, remembering his cousin's anxiety concerning Herrera, certainly entertained a notion that he had in some way or other facilitated his escape; but of this he could obtain no proof, nor, had he been able to do so, would it have been for his own interest to expose the Count, whom he was desirous, on the contrary, to conciliate. It was a vague and undefined apprehension of some attempt at a rescue, that had led him, at so late an hour on the night of the escape, to prowl in the vicinity of Herrera's prison.

The autumn and winter of 1834 passed away without any material change in the position of the personages of our narrative. The war continued with constantly increasing spirit and ferocity, and each month was marked by new and important successes on the part of the Carlists. The plains of Vittoria, the banks of the Ebro, the mountains of central and northern Navarre, were alternately the scene of encounters, in which the skill of Zumalacarregui, and the zeal and intrepidity of his troops, proved an overmatch for the superior numbers of the Christinos. In vain did the government of the Queen Regent, persevering in spite of its many reverses, send its best troops and most experienced generals to that corner of the peninsula where civil strife raged: it was only that the troops might be decimated, and the generals forfeit their former reputation in repeated and disastrous defeats. Although the country and climate were such as to render temporary repose in winter quarters most desirable for the contending armies, the idea of such an indulgence was scarcely for a moment entertained, and the winter campaign proved as active as the summer one. The arrival of Mina to take the chief command of the Queen's forces, and the severity of the measures he adopted, rendered the character of the war more sanguinary and cruel than it had been since its commencement; and although, in numerous instances, the nearest relatives and dearest friends were fighting on contrary sides, it became impossible for them to obtain intelligence of each other's welfare. It was by no means surprising, therefore, that eight months elapsed, and the spring arrived, without Herrera hearing any thing of Count Villabuena or his daughter; and that the Count, on the other hand, remained ignorant of the proceedings of the young man whose life he had saved, and in whose fate he could not but feel interested, save through the occasional rumour of some dashing exploit, by which Herrera maintained and increased the high reputation he had early acquired in the ranks of the Christinos. His gallantry did not go unrewarded, and the opening of the spring campaign found him in command of a squadron, and on the high-road to further promotion.

Whilst Herrera was thus gaining fame and honour, his rival, Major Villabuena, had no reason to complain of his services being overlooked. His courage was undoubted, his military skill by no means contemptible, and these qualities had procured him a colonel's commission and a staff appointment. But, in spite of these advantages, Don Baltasar was dissatisfied and unhappy. His object in joining the Carlists had not been promotion, still less a zeal for the cause, but the appropriation to himself of the fair hand and broad lands of Rita de Villabuena. His prospect of obtaining these, however, seemed each day to diminish. The favour with which the Count regarded him had lasted but during the first days of their acquaintance, and had since been materially impaired by the discovery of various unpleasing traits in Don Baltasar's character, and particularly by his endeavours to urge the death of Herrera in opposition to the wishes of his kinsman. Moreover, there could be little sympathy or durable friendship between men of such opposite qualities and dispositions. Count Villabuena had the feelings and instincts of a nobleman, in the real, not the conventional sense of the term: he was proud to a fault, stern, and unyielding, but frank, generous, and upright. Don Baltasar was treacherous, selfish, and unscrupulous. He felt himself cowed and humbled by the superiority of the Count, whom he began secretly to detest; and who, whilst still keeping on good, or at least courteous, terms with his cousin, became daily more averse to his alliance, and more decided to support Rita in her rejection of his suit.

As a natural consequence of Zumalacarregui's successes, they of the absolutist party in Spain who had openly declared for Don Carlos, and who, during the first year of the war, had been hunted from post to pillar, and frequently compelled to seek concealment in caves and forests from the pursuit of the foe, found themselves, in the spring of 1835, in possession of a considerable tract of country, including a few fortified places. El Lobo Caño, the Grey-haired Wolf, as his followers had styled Don Carlos, in allusion to his hair having become bleached on the mountain and in the bivouac, began to collect around him the semblance of a court; and various ladies, the wives and daughters of his partisans, who had been in temporary exile in France, recrossed the frontier and hazarded themselves in the immediate vicinity of the scene of war. Amongst others, Rita de Villabuena, who had been residing with some friends at the French town of Pau, implored, and with difficulty obtained, her father's permission to rejoin him. A house was prepared for her reception in the small town of Segura in Guipuzcoa, whence, in case of need, a speedy retreat might be made to the adjacent sierras of Mutiloa and Aralar, and here she arrived, under her father's escort, towards the commencement of the month of May.

One of the first who hastened to pay court to the young and beautiful heiress, was, as might be expected, Colonel Baltasar de Villabuena. But his reception was in the highest degree discouraging, and he was able to assure himself, that if any variation had taken place in Rita's sentiments, it was by no means in his favour. His only remaining hope, therefore, was in an appeal to the Count, whom he still believed to be, for the family reasons already adverted to, desirous of a union between Rita and himself. This appeal he resolved to take an early opportunity of making. A valuable estate, which Rita had inherited from her mother, lay within the tract of country already conquered by the Carlists; and although the revenue it yielded was greatly diminished by the disturbed state of Navarre, and the contributions levied for the carrying on of the war, it was still sufficiently important to excite the cupidity of Don Baltasar, and to render him doubly anxious to obtain, on any terms, the hand of his cousin.

It was on a bright May morning, three days subsequently to Rita's arrival at Segura, that a small train of horsemen was seen winding along the declivitous paths that lead across the sierra of Elgua, a part of the northern boundary of the province of Alava. The snows with which, during the long winter, the upper portion of these mountains had been covered, had disappeared in the warm rays of the spring sun, and disclosed peaks of grey rock, and patches of table-land strewn with flints, producing little besides a few Alpine plants, which, in defiance of the scanty nourishment they found, and of the keen air that blew over those elevated summits, boldly expanded their blossoms in the pleasant sunshine. Lower down, and on that part of the southern side of the mountain over which the cavalcade now proceeded, masses of forest-trees sprang out of the more plentiful soil, and overshadowed the rocky path that rang under the horses' feet; the dusky foliage of the fir-tree, the brighter green of the oak, and the broad angular leaves of the sycamore, mingling in rich variety. Now the path lay through some dried-up water-course, half filled with loose stones, whose elevated sides, over the edges of which the tendrils of innumerable creeping plants dangled and swung, bounded the view on either hand; whilst overhead the interwoven branches afforded, through their thick leafage, but scanty glimpses of the bright blue sky. Presently, emerging from the ravine, the road, if such it might be called, ran along the shelf of a precipice, below which successive ranges of luxuriant foliage, varied here and there by a projecting crag, or enlivened by the dash and sparkle of a waterfall, continued to the level below. From the foot of the mountains, an extensive plain stretched out to a distance of several leagues, its smiling and fertile fields thickly sprinkled with villages and farm-houses. To the left front rose the old Moorish castle of Guevara; and at a greater distance, more to the westward, and near the centre of the plain, were seen the imperfect fortifications and lofty church-towers of the city of Vittoria.

The foremost of the horsemen, who, on the day referred to, were thus scrambling, to the great discomfort of their steeds, down the steep and rugged sides of the sierra, avoiding, for reasons of safety, the high-road from Salinas to Vittoria, which lay at a league or two on their right, was a man of middle age and tawny complexion, mounted on a lean and uncomely, but surefooted horse, whose long tail, which, if allowed to flow at will, would have swept the ground, was doubled up into a sort of club, about a foot long, and tightly bound with worsted ribands of bright and varied colours. The thick and abundant mane had been carefully plaited, with the exception of the foremost tuft, left hanging down between the ears, and from beneath which the wild eyes of the animal glanced shyly at the different objects he passed, pretty much as did those of the rider from under his bushy and projecting eye-brows. The horseman was dressed in a loose jacket of black sheep-skin, the wool rubbed off in many places, fastened down the front by copper clasps and chains that had once boasted a gilding, and bound at edges with coarse crimson velvet, which, from time and dirt, had become as dark as the principal material of the garment. Between the loose short trousers and the clumsy half-boots, replacing the sandals that were the customary wear of the person described, several inches of lean and sinewy leg were visible. A coloured handkerchief, tied round the head, and from beneath which a quantity of shaggy black hair escaped, rusty iron spurs, with huge jingling rowels, and a well-stuffed leathern wallet slung across his body, completed the equipment of the horseman, in whom the reader will perhaps already have recognised Jaime, the gipsy esquilador, now acting as guide to the persons who followed. These consisted of Count Villabuena and his cousin, Don Baltasar, both well mounted on powerful chargers, and cloaked from chin to heel; for they had been early in the saddle, and, although now in the month of May, the morning air upon the mountains was keen and searching. They were followed, at a short distance, by an escort of forty Carlist cavalry, strange, wild-looking figures, whose scanty equipment, and the little uniformity of their clothing, might have excited the derision of better provided troops; but whose muscular forms and hardy aspect, as well as the serviceable state of their carbines and lances, gave promise of their proving efficient defenders and formidable foes.

Not having been bred to the profession of arms, Count Villabuena was, in a strictly military point of view, of little use to his party; but his intimate acquaintance with Navarre and the Basque provinces, with the customs, feelings, and prejudices of their inhabitants, rendered him invaluable in all administrative arrangements and combinations, and in these he cheerfully and actively exerted himself. It was on a mission of this nature that he was now proceeding, having left Oñate early that morning, to attend a meeting of influential Alavese Carlists, which was to take place at the village of Gamboa, on the north side of the plain of Vittoria. Although the country he had to pass through was not then occupied, and only occasionally visited, by the Christinos, an escort was necessary; and, besides this escort, Colonel Villabuena had volunteered to accompany his cousin. His object in so doing was to obtain an opportunity for an uninterrupted conversation with the Count, on the subject of his pretensions to the hand of Rita.

This conversation had taken place, and its result had been most unsatisfactory to Don Baltasar. The Count plainly told him that it was not his intention to force the inclinations of his daughter; and that, as she was averse to the proposed alliance, he himself had abandoned the idea of its taking place. A long and stormy discussion ensued, and Baltasar accused the Count of having deceived him, and induced him to join a cause, the ultimate triumph of which was impossible, by holding out hopes that he never intended to realize. The Count replied by reminding Don Baltasar, that when he had urged him to serve his rightful monarch, and not under the banner of a usurper, the only arguments he had used were those of loyalty and duty; and that the proposed marriage was a private arrangement entirely contingent upon his daughter's acquiescence. Sharp retorts and angry words followed, until the conversation was brought to a close by the Count's checking his horse, and allowing the escort, which had previously been at some distance behind, to come up with them. The cousins then rode on, still side by side, but silent, and as far apart as the narrow path would allow, the Count haughty and indignant, Don Baltasar sullen and dogged.

Whilst this occurred in the mountains, the persons whom Count Villabuena came to meet were assembling at the place of rendezvous in the village of Gamboa. From various country lanes and roads, substantial-looking men, wrapped in heavy brown cloaks, and riding punchy mountain horses, were seen to emerge, for the most part singly, and at the careless, deliberate pace least calculated to excite suspicion of their going to other than their ordinary avocations. Some of these were alcaldes and regidores from the neighbouring villages, others landed proprietors in the vicinity. Now and then a lean, anxious priest, perched upon a high saddle, his feet encased in clumsy wooden stirrups, his head covered with an enormous hat, of which the brim, curled up at the sides over the crown, projected half a yard before and behind him, came ambling into the village, distributing his benedicites amongst the peasant women and children, who stood at the doors of the houses bowing reverently to the padre cura. One man, dressed in the coarsest and commonest garb of a labourer, came up upon an ill-looking mule, and received a loud and joyful welcome from the persons already assembled. He was a wealthy proprietor, whose estates lay within the Christino lines, and had been compelled to adopt this disguise to avoid notice. The arrival of another person, to all appearance a charcoal-burner, with grimy face and hands, riding a ragged pony, across which a couple of sacks, black from the charcoal they had contained, were thrown by way of saddle, was hailed with similar demonstrations of joy. He was a rich merchant and national guardsman from Vittoria, secretly well affected to Don Carlos.

The place where the Carlists first assembled was not in a house, but on a paved platform, extending along one side of the large church, by which it was masked from the view of persons approaching from the direction of Vittoria. A sort of cloister, with stone benches beneath it, ran along the wall of the church, and in front of the platform was a broad greensward, used as a playground by the village children. Whilst the Carlists grouped themselves in the cloisters, talking eagerly together, and waiting the coming of Count Villabuena, their horses and ponies stood saddled and bridled upon the green, held by peasant boys, and in readiness for their owners to mount and ride away at a moment's notice, or on the first signal of alarm. Of the mountain path by which the Count was expected to arrive, only about a mile was visible from the platform, after which it disappeared over the brow of a low wood-crowned eminence that rose to the north, partially intercepting the view of the sierra. On this eminence a peasant was stationed to watch for the Count; whilst on the other side of the village, at a short distance upon the road to Vittoria, another vedette was posted, to give notice of the appearance of any of the foraging or reconnoitring parties which the Christinos not unfrequently sent out in this direction.

It was considerably past noon, and the members of the Junta, for such did the assembly style itself, were beginning to wax impatient for the arrival of the Count, without whom the business for which they had met could not be proceeded with, when the watcher upon the hill gave the concerted signal by waving his cap in the air, uttering at the same time one of those far-sounding cries, peculiar to the inhabitants of mountainous regions. Upon this announcement, the Carlists descended from the platform into the road that ran past one of its extremities, and took their way, with grave and dignified demeanour, to the dwelling of the priest, in which the meeting was to be held. This house, according to custom one of the most spacious and comfortable in the village, was situated at about musket-shot from the church, and a little detached from the other buildings. Annexed to it was a long garden, bordering the road, and divided from it by a low hedge; beyond the garden was a vast and level field, and, on the eastern side of that, a tract of marshy ground, thickly covered with a lofty growth of willow and alder trees, extended to a considerable distance. The Carlists had traversed nearly the whole length of the garden hedge, and the foremost of them were close to the door of the house, when they were startled by the loud blast of a horn, with which the peasant sentry upon the Vittoria road had been furnished, to give the alarm if needful. They simultaneously paused, and anxiously listened for a repetition of the sound. It came; a third and a fourth blast were sounded, and with such hurried vehemence of tone as denoted pressing danger. Yet the peril could scarcely be so imminent as the quick repetition of the signal would seem to denote; for, from the place where the vedette was posted, he would command a view of any advancing troops nearly half an hour before they could reach the village, and those who had aught to fear from them would have ample time to effect their escape. But the horn continued sounding, ever louder and louder,—the Carlists gazed at each other in dismay, and some few made a movement towards their horses, as if to mount and fly. Suddenly a fat and joyous-looking alcalde, whose protuberant paunch and ruby nose were evidence of his love for the wine-skin, although the chalky tint that had overspread his features at the first sound of alarm, did not say much for his intrepidity, burst out into a loud laugh, which caused his companions to stare at him in some wonder and displeasure.

"By the blessed St. Jago!" exclaimed he, "the idiot has mistaken our friends for our enemies. He has been looking over his shoulder instead of before him, and has caught a sight of the Señor Conde and his escort. See yonder."

The Carlists looked in the direction pointed out, and on the top of the hill over which Count Villabuena was expected to approach, they saw three horsemen standing, one of whom was sweeping the village and the adjacent country with a field-glass, apparently seeking the cause and meaning of the violent fanfare that had so much alarmed the respectable Junta. Behind these three men, who were no others than the Count, his cousin, and their guide, the lance-flags of the escort were visible, although the soldiers themselves were still out of sight, having halted just here arriving on the crest of the hill. The countenances of the Carlists, which for a moment had contracted with alarm, were beginning again to expand, as the plausibility of their companion's explanation occurred to them, when suddenly they saw the Count and his companions turn their horses in all haste, and disappear behind the hill. At the same moment, and before they could guess at the meaning of this manoeuvre, a shout was heard, a troop of Christino dragoons debouched from behind the willow wood, deployed upon the field, and charged across it in open order, their lances levelled,[9] and the pennons fluttering above their horses' ears. In less time than it takes to write it, they had crossed the field, dashed into the garden, and, breaking through the hedge, clattered over the rough streets of the village in pursuit, of the unfortunate priests and alcaldes, who, taken entirely by surprise, knew not which way to run to avoid the danger that menaced them. Some few who had time to get on horseback, scampered off, but were pursued and overtaken by the better-mounted dragoons; others crept into houses and stables, or flung themselves into ditches; and the majority, seeing no possibility of escape, threw themselves on their knees, and, in piteous accents, implored mercy. This was not refused.

"Give quarter, and make prisoners," was the command uttered in the clear, sonorous tones of Luis Herrera, who led the party; "they are unarmed—spare their lives."

The order was obeyed, and only one or two of the more desperate, who produced concealed weapons, and endeavoured to defend themselves, received trifling sabre-cuts from the exasperated dragoons.

But although Don Baltasar, on first obtaining a view of the Queen's cavalry, and before he knew what force was approaching the village, had retired behind the brow of the hill. It was by no means his intention to make a precipitate retreat without ascertaining the strength of the enemy, and endeavouring, if possible, to rescue the captive Junta. Whilst the Count and the escort retraced their steps down the hill, and halted in the fields upon its north side, whence they had the option of returning to the mountains by the way they had come, or of striking off into the high-road to Salinas and Oñate, which ran at a short distance to their right, Colonel Villabuena and the gipsy, concealed amongst the trees that clothed the summit of the eminence, noted what passed in the village. They at once saw how the surprise had occurred. The Junta had not expected an enemy to approach by any other road than that from Vittoria, and had consequently stationed sentries in no other direction. That such would be the case, had been foreseen by the Christinos, who having received, through their spies, information of the intended meeting had sent out troops upon the Pampeluna road, with orders, after proceeding a certain distance, to strike off to the left, and, availing themselves of the cover afforded by a large tract of wood and swamp, to take Gamboa in rear or flank. The manœuvre had been rapidly and skilfully executed; and Luis Herrera, who, with his squadron, had been sent upon this duty, arrived with one half of his men within a few hundred yards of the village before he was perceived by the Carlist vedette. His other troop he had detached to his right, in order that, by making a wider sweep, they might get in rear of Gamboa, and prevent the possible escape of any of the rebels. This detachment, ignorant of the country, and puzzled by the numerous lanes and paths which crossed each other in every direction, had lost its way, and was still at some distance from the village when Herrera charged into it.

When Colonel Villabuena had made his observations, and ascertained that the number of the enemy but little exceeded that of his own men, he rode out of the wood and rejoined the escort, resolved to take advantage of the Christinos being dispersed, and, unexpectant of an attack, to make a dash at them, which, he doubted not, would be fully successful. Previously, however, and although the Count had no military rank, it was a matter of common courtesy, not to say of duty, to communicate with him, and ask his consent to dispose of an escort which had been sent for his protection. But here the sullen temper of Don Baltasar, and the rankling irritation left by his recent altercation with his kinsman, showed themselves. Followed by the gipsy, he rode to the front of the lancers, who were drawn up in line, and, without addressing a syllable to the Count, or appearing to notice his presence, gave, in a sharp abrupt tone, the necessary words of command. The men moved off to the left. The Count, highly sensitive on matters of etiquette, and indignant at being treated by Don Baltasar as a person of no importance, unworthy of being consulted, allowed the troop to march away without giving any indication of an intention to follow or accompany it. Don Baltasar looked round, hesitated for a moment, and then seeing that the Count remained motionless, and took no notice of the departure of his escort, he rode back to him.

"The enemy are few," said he, abruptly; "I shall attack them."

Count Villabuena bowed his head coldly.

"Scant measure of courtesy, colonel," said he. "Angry feelings should not make you forget the conduct of a caballero."

On hearing himself thus rebuked, an expression of anger and deadly hate overspread the sombre countenance of Don Baltasar, and he scowled at the Count as though about to deal him a stab. But his eye sank beneath the calm, cold, contemptuous gaze of Count Villabuena. He said nothing: and again wheeling his charger, galloped furiously back to the head of his men, followed, at a more deliberate pace, by his cousin. Passing swiftly over a few fields, the little troop swept round the base of the hill, dashed across the level, and appeared upon the road at half a mile from the village. On obtaining a view of the latter, Don Baltasar at once saw that he was not likely to have so cheap a bargain of the Christinos as he had anticipated. Herrera had too much experience in this description of warfare to be easily caught; and although, upon first entering Gamboa, the dragoons had unavoidably dispersed in pursuit of the fugitives, he had lost no time in reassembling them; and, whilst a few men kept the prisoners already made, and searched the houses for others, he himself had formed upon the road a party fully equal in number to that commanded by Don Baltasar. Nothing daunted, however, at finding the enemy on his guard, the Carlist colonel drew his sabre and turned to his men.

"A ellos!" he cried. "At them, boys, for Spain and the King!"

The lancers replied to his words by a loud hurra, and the little party advanced, at first at a moderate pace, in order not to blow the horses before the decisive moment should arrive. The Count, forgetting private animosity in the excitement and exhilaration of the moment, rode cheerfully at the side of his cousin, and drew the sword which, although a civilian, the perilous and adventurous life he led induced him invariably to carry. At the same moment Herrera's trumpeter sounded the assembly, and those of the dragoons who had dismounted hurried to their horses. Before, however, the distance between the opposite parties had been diminished by many yards, the blast of the Christino trumpets was replied to by another, and, upon looking back, Don Baltasar saw a fresh party of dragoons just appearing upon the road, about a mile in his rear. It was the second troop of Herrera's squadron coming to the support of their leader.

"Curse and confound them!" cried Baltasar, his face darkening with rage and disappointment. "Halt—files about! And now, boys, legs must do it, for they are three to one."

And he led the way back into the fields, followed by his men at a rapid pace, but in good order.

Without a moment's delay, Herrera, leaving a few dragoons to guard the prisoners, dashed across the country in pursuit of the Carlists. His example was followed by Torres, who commanded the other detachment. The fugitives had a good start, and were soon behind the hill; but the Christino horses were fresher, and although less accustomed to climb the mountains, in the plain they were swifter of foot. Don Baltasar, now riding in rear of his men, cast a glance over his shoulder.

"They gain on us," said he, in a low tone, and as if to himself. "It is impossible to reach the sierra. If we could, we should be safe. There are positions that we could hold on foot with our carbines, where they would not dare attack us."

"We shall never reach them," said the Count. "Let us turn and fight whilst yet there is time."

"The bridge! the bridge!" cried the gipsy, who, notwithstanding the gaunt appearance of his steed, had kept well up with the soldiers. "If we gain that, we are safe. A child could pull it down."

"Right, by God!" cried Baltasar glancing in some surprise at the adviser of an expedient which he had himself overlooked. "Spur, men, spur; but keep together."

Every rowel was struck into the flanks of the straining, panting horses and the Carlists rapidly neared a small river, which, rising in some of the adjacent mountains, flowed in rear of the little hill already referred to, and parallel to the sierra whence Count Villabuena and his companions had recently descended. The land, for some distance on either side of the stream, was uncultivated, covered with furze and yellow broom, and sprinkled with trees and clumps of high bushes. Across the river, only a few months previously, a rude but solid stone bridge had afforded a passage; but the bridge had been broken down soon after the commencement of the war, and the stream, which, although not more than seven or eight yards broad, was deep, and had steep high banks was now traversed by means of four planks, laid side by side, but not fastened together, and barely wide enough to give passage to a bullock cart. Over this imperfect and rickety causeway, the retreating Carlists galloped, the boards bending and creaking beneath their horses' feet. When all had passed, Don Baltasar flung himself from his saddle, and aided by the gipsy and by several of his men who had also dismounted, seized the planks, and strove, by main strength, to tear their extremities from the clay in which they were embedded. The Christinos, who were within a couple of hundred yards of the river, set up a shout of fury when they perceived the intention of their enemies. By the sinewy hands of Baltasar and his soldiers, three of the boards were torn from the earth and flung into the stream. The fourth gave way as Herrera came up, the first man of his party, and, regardless of the narrow footing it afforded, was about to risk the perilous voyage. Violently curbing his horse, he but just escaped falling headlong into the stream. A shout of exultation from the Carlists, and the discharge of several carbines greeted the disappointed Christinos, who promptly returned the fire; whilst, as was usual when they came within earshot, the complimentary epithets of "Sons of Priests," and "Soldados de la Puta," accompanied by volleys of imprecations, were bandied between the soldiers on either side of the stream.

"Is there any bridge or ford at hand?" said Baltasar hastily to the gipsy.

"None within a quarter of a league," was the reply.

"Then we will have a shot at them."

Herrera and Count Villabuena were again opposed to each other, and each acknowledged the other's presence by a brief smile of recognition.

A smart skirmish now began. All was smoke, noise, and confusion. The Count rode up to his cousin, who was on the right of his men.

"Let us retire," said he. "No advantage is to be gained by this idle skirmishing. Infantry may be at hand, and delay will endanger our retreat."

"Not so fast," replied Baltasar; "we will empty a few saddles before we go."

"The escort was sent for my safety," said the Count, haughtily. "You are not doing your duty in thus risking it."

"I have not been twenty years a soldier to learn my duty from you, sir," said Baltasar, fiercely. "Aim at the officers, men. A doubloon for him who picks off the captain."

Stimulated by the promised reward, several of the Carlists directed their fire at Herrera, who was on the left of the dragoons, exactly opposite to, and within sixty paces of, Don Baltasar. The bullets flew thick around Luis, but none touched him, and Baltasar himself drew a pistol from his holster to take aim at his opponent. Disgusted at his cousin's intemperate speech and imprudent conduct, the Count contemptuously turned his back upon him and approached the stream, regardless that by so doing he brought himself into a cross fire of friends and foes.

"This is useless, Herrera," said he, "draw off your men."

The words had scarcely left his lips, when his hand relinquished its hold of the bridle, by a convulsive movement he threw himself back in the saddle, and fell heavily to the ground, struck by a ball. A cry of horror from Luis was echoed by one of consternation from the Carlists, on witnessing the fall of a man whom they all loved and respected.

"Where can we cross the stream?" demanded Herrera of one of his men, who knew the country.

"To our left there is a ford, but at some distance."

"Cease firing," cried Herrera. The trumpet sounded the necessary call, the Christinos hastily formed up and started at a gallop in the direction of the ford. Don Baltasar advanced to the spot where his cousin lay prostrate. Count Villabuena was lying on his back, his teeth set, his eyes wide open and fixed, his clenched hands full of earth and grass. Baltasar turned away with a slight shudder.

"He is dead," said he to the subaltern of the escort. "To take the body with us would but impede our retreat, already difficult enough. The living must not be endangered for the sake of the dead. Forward, men!"

And, without further delay, the Carlists set off at a brisk pace towards the mountains, which they reached before the Christinos had found and passed the distant ford. When the dragoons arrived at the foot of the sierra, Don Baltasar and his men were already out of sight amongst its steep and dangerous paths; and Herrera, compelled to abandon the pursuit, returned mournfully to the river bank, to seek, and, if it could be found, to convey to Vittoria the body of Count Villabuena.

Leaving Herrera to his mournful duty, let us conduct our readers to an apartment in a house on the outskirts of the town of Segura. The interior, which was plainly but commodiously furnished, indicated feminine tastes and occupations, breathing that perfume of elegance which the presence of woman ever communicates. Vases of flowers decked the sideboards; a few books, the works of the best Spanish poets, lay upon the table; and a guitar, unstrung, it is true, was suspended against the wall. Two persons occupied the apartment. One of them, who was seated on a low stool at its inner extremity, near to the folding doors that separated it from an antichamber, was a robust, ruddy-cheeked Navarrese girl, whose abundant hair, of which the jet blackness atoned for the coarse texture, hung in a thick plait down her back, and whose large red fingers were busily engaged in knitting. At the other end of the apartment, close to the open window, through which she intently gazed, was a being of very different mould. On a high-backed elbow-chair of ancient oak sat Rita de Villabuena, pensive and anxious, her fair face and golden tresses seeming fairer and brighter from the contrast with the dark quaint carving against which they reposed. Her cheek was perhaps paler than when first we made her acquaintance; anxiety for her lover, and, latterly, for her father, was the cause; but her beauty had lost nothing by the change, for the shade of melancholy upon her features seemed, by adding to the interest her expressive countenance inspired, rather to enhance than diminish its charm. She was now watching for her father, who had led her to expect his return at about this time. Over the stone balustrade of her balcony, she commanded a view of the road along which he was to approach; and upon the farthest visible point of it, where a bend round a group of trees concealed its continuation, her gaze was riveted. Although the Count had assured her, before his departure, that his journey was unattended with risk, Rita's arrival upon the scene of war was too recent for her to escape uneasiness during his absence. Some hours before the time at which his return could reasonably be looked for, she had taken her post at the window, and although, at the persuasion of her attendant, a simple country girl, recently installed as her donçella, she had more than once endeavoured to fix her attention on a book, or to distract it by some of her usual occupations, the effort had each time been made in vain, and she had again resumed her anxious watch. In every horseman, or muleteer, who turned the angle of the road, she thought she recognised the guide, who, two days previously, had accompanied her father from Segura, and her heart throbbed with a feeling of joyful relief till a nearer approach convinced her of her error.

Could the vision of Rita de Villabuena have penetrated the copse that bounded her view in that direction, she would have perceived, towards four of the afternoon, not her father, alas! but another horseman, attended by the gipsy guide, riding at a rapid pace along the road. On reaching the trees aforesaid, however, they deviated from the track into a lane inclosed between hedges, which led round the town, and again joined the road on its further side. To explain this manoeuvre, it is necessary to retrace our steps, and to follow the movements of Colonel Villabuena after his return to Oñate on the preceding evening.

When the first excitement of the skirmish and subsequent flight had subsided, and the detachment of Carlists, after giving their horses a moment's breathing-time upon one of the higher levels of the sierra, resumed their march at a more leisurely pace, the thoughts of Don Baltasar became concentrated on the one grand object of deriving the utmost possible advantage from the death of his cousin. By that event the estates of the Villabuena family were now his own, those, at least, that lay within the Carlist territory. These, however, were comparatively of little value; and although the far more extensive ones, that had been confiscated by the Queen's government, might possibly be redeemed by a prompt abjuration of the cause of Don Carlos, a measure at the adoption of which Don Baltasar was by no means so scrupulous as to hesitate, yet even that would not fully satisfy him. He had other views and wishes. As far as his selfish nature would admit of the existence of such a feeling, he was deeply in love with Rita; the coldness with which she treated him had only served to stimulate his passion; and he was bent upon making her his at any price, and by any means. He was sufficiently acquainted with her character to be convinced that his prospect of obtaining her hand was any thing but improved by her father's death and that to her the wealthy possessor of her family's estates would be as unwelcome a wooer as the needy soldier of fortune. He did not doubt that, after the first violence of her grief should subside, she would return to France, where some of her mother's relatives were resident; and that, when next he heard of her, it would be as the bride of his fortunate rival. The picture thus conjured up caused him to grind his teeth with fury; and he swore to himself a deep oath that she should be his at any risk, and if, by the boldest and most unscrupulous measures, that consummation could be brought about. A plan occurred to him which he thought could not fail of success, and by which the obstinacy of the self-willed girl must, he believed, be overcome. It was a hazardous scheme, even in that unsettled and war-ridden country, where men were too much occupied in party strife to attend to the strict administration of justice; but Baltasar did not lack resolution, and the prize was worth the peril. One thing he wanted; a bold and quick-witted confederate, and him it was not so easy to find. No man had fewer friends in his own class than Don Baltasar, and by his inferiors he was generally detested on account of his harsh and overbearing demeanour. Of this he was aware; and he vainly racked his brain to find a man in whom he could confide. The details of his nefarious project were already arranged in his mind, and only this one difficulty had yet to be overcome; when, at two hours after dark, he entered the streets of Oñate. Hopeless of being served for affection's sake, he was meditating whom he could make his own by bribery, when a light from an open window flashed across the street, and illuminated the unprepossessing profile of Jaime the gipsy, who, in his capacity of guide, was riding in front, and a little on one side of Colonel Villabuena. The sight of those sinister features, on which rapacity and cunning had set their stamp, was as a sudden revelation to Don Baltasar, to whom it instantly occurred that the gitano was the very man he sought. The circumstance of his belonging to a race despised, and almost persecuted, by the people amongst whom they dwelt, was an additional guarantee against any compunctious scruples on his part; his occupation of a spy bespoke him at once daring and venal, and Colonel Villabuena doubted not that he should find him a willing and useful instrument.

The soldiers filed off to their quarters; and Baltasar, after desiring the gipsy to come to him in an hour's time, betook himself to the posada. When Jaime had given his horse an ample feed, and groomed him with a care that showed the value he set upon his services, he made a hasty meal in a neighbouring taberna, and repaired to the Colonel's quarters. His stealthy tap at the door was replied to by an impatient "adelante," and he entered the room.

A scarcely tasted supper was upon the table, and Don Baltasar was pacing the apartment, his brow knit and apparently deep in thought. On beholding the gipsy, he arranged his features into their most amiable expression, and advanced towards him with an assumed air of frank good-humour.

"I have to thank you, Jaime," said he, "for your promptness and presence of mind this morning. Had you not thought of what we all forgot, and suggested the pulling down of the bridge, few, if any of us, would have seen Oñate to-night. I shall report your conduct most favourably to the General, who will doubtless reward it."

The esquilador slightly bowed his head, but, with the exception of that movement, made no reply; nor did any expression of satisfaction at the praise bestowed upon him light up his dark countenance.

"Meanwhile," continued Don Baltasar, "I will discharge my personal obligation to you in a more solid manner than by mere thanks."

And he held out a handful of dollars, which, the next instant, disappeared in one of Jaime's capacious pockets. This time a muttered word or two of thanks escaped the lips of the taciturn esquilador.

"Whither do you now proceed?" enquired Baltasar. "Are you to rejoin the General? What are your orders?"

"I am no man's servant," replied the gipsy, "and have no orders to obey. When your General requires my services, we make a bargain, I to act, he to pay. I risk my life for his gold, and if I deceive him I know the penalty. But the service once rendered, I am my own man again."

"So then," said Baltasar, "you are not bound to Zumalacarregui; and should any other offer you better pay for lighter service, you are free to take it?"

"That's it," replied the gipsy.

There was a short pause, during which Colonel Villabuena attentively scanned the countenance of Jaime, who remained impassive, and with eyes fixed upon the ground, as though to prevent their expression from being read. Baltasar resumed—

"Say then that I were to ensure you a large reward for the performance of services far less dangerous than those you daily render at a less price, would you accept or refuse the offer?"

"I must know what I am to do, and what to get," said the gipsy, this time raising his eyes to Don Baltasar's face.

"Can you be silent?" said Baltasar.

"When I am paid for it—as the grave," was the reply.

"In short, if I understand you rightly," said the Colonel with an easy smile, "you will do any thing at a price."

"Any thing," returned the unabashed gipsy. "It is not a small risk that will frighten me, if the reward is proportionate."

"We shall suit one another charmingly," said Baltasar; "for what I require will expose you to little danger, and your reward shall be of your own fixing."

And, without further preamble, he proceeded to unfold to the gipsy the outline of a scheme requiring his cooperation, the nature of which will best be made known to the reader by the march of subsequent events.

The sinking sun and rapidly lengthening shadows proclaimed the approach of evening, and Rita de Villabuena, still seated at her window, watched for her father's arrival, when the trot of a horse, which stopped at the door of the house, caused her to start from her seat, and hurry to the balcony. Her anxiety was converted into the most lively alarm when she saw the Count's gipsy guide alighting alone from his horse; a presentiment of evil came over her, she staggered back into the room, and sank almost fainting upon a chair. Recovering herself, however, she was hurrying to the door of the apartment, when it opened, and Paco the muleteer, who had lately been attached to her father as orderly, and whom the Count had left as a protection to his daughter, made his appearance.

"The gipsy is here, Señora," said he; "he brings news of his Excellency the Conde."

"Admit him instantly," cried Rita, impatiently. "Where did you leave my father?" she enquired, as the esquilador entered the room. "Is he well? Why does he not return?"

"I left the Señor Conde at a convent near Lecumberri," replied the gipsy.

"Near Lecumberri?" repeated Rita; "it was not in that direction he went. He left this for the plains of Vittoria."

"He did so, Señora," answered the gipsy; "but before we were half-way to Oñate, we were met by a courier with despatches for the Señor Conde, who immediately turned bridle, and ordered the escort to do the same. It was past midnight when we again reached Segura; and, not to cause alarm, we marched round the town, and continued our route without stopping.

"And your errand now?" exclaimed Rita. The gipsy seemed to hesitate before replying.

"The Señor Conde is wounded," said he, at last.

"Wounded!" repeated Rita, in the shrill accents of alarm. "You are not telling truth—they have killed him! Oh, tell me all! Say, is my father still alive?"

And, clasping her hands together, she seemed about to throw herself at the feet of Jaime, whilst her anxious glance strove to read the truth upon his countenance. It was a strange contrast presented by that lovely and elegant creature and the squalid, tawny gipsy; an angel supplicating some evil spirit, into whose power she had temporarily fallen, might so have looked.

"The Señor Conde's wound is severe," said Jaime. "On his way yesterday afternoon to attend a meeting of the Navarrese Junta in the valley of Lanz, he fell in with a party of Christino cavalry, and, although his escort repulsed them, he himself received a hurt in the skirmish."

"My father wounded and suffering!" exclaimed Rita in extreme agitation, passing her hand over her forehead in the manner of one bewildered by some stunning and terrible intelligence. "I will go to him instantly. Quick, Paco, the mules! Micaela, my mantilla! We must set out at once."

The servants hurried away to obey the orders of their mistress, and prepare for instant departure, and the gipsy was about to follow, when Rita detained him, and overwhelmed him with questions concerning her father's state, to all of which Jaime replied in a manner that somewhat tranquillized her alarm, although it produced no change in her resolution to set off immediately to join him. This, indeed, the esquilador informed her, was her father's wish, as he found that he should be detained some time in his present quarters by the consequences of his wound.

Although all haste was used in the necessary preparations, the sun was close to the horizon before Rita and her attendants left Segura, and took the road to Lecumberri, at about two leagues from which, as Jaime told them, and in the heart of the sierra, was situated the convent that was their destination. The distance was not great; but, owing to the mountains, the travellers could hardly expect to reach the end of their journey much before daybreak. Paco, who viewed this hasty departure with any thing but a well-pleased countenance, urged Rita to postpone setting off till the following morning, alleging the difficult nature of the roads they must traverse, and which led for a considerable part of the way over a steep and almost trackless sierra. But Rita's anxiety would brook no delay, and the little cavalcade set out. It consisted of Rita and her waiting-maid, mounted upon mules, and of the gipsy and Paco upon their horses; Paco leading a third mule, upon which, by the care of Micaela, a hastily packed portmanteau had been strapped. The gipsy rode in front; thirty paces behind him came the women, and the muleteer brought up the rear. Jaime had betrayed some surprise, and even discomposure, when he found that Paco was to accompany them; but he did not venture to make any objection to so natural an arrangement.

Taking advantage of the goodness of the road, which for the first league or two was tolerably smooth and level, the travellers pushed on for nearly two hours at a steady amble, which, had the nature of the ground allowed them to sustain it, would have brought them to their journey's end much sooner than was really to be the case. The sun had set, the moon had not yet risen, and the night was very dark. Jaime, who continued to maintain a short interval between his horse and the mules of Rita and her attendant, kept shifting his restless glances from one side of the road to the other, as though he would fain have penetrated the surrounding gloom. He was passing a thicket that skirted the road, when a cautious "Hist!" inaudible to his companions, arrested his attention. He immediately pulled up his horse, and, dismounting, unstrapped the surcingle of his saddle. On perceiving this, Rita stopped to enquire the cause of the delay, but the gipsy requested her to proceed.

"My horse's girths are loose, Señora," said he in explanation. "Be good enough to ride on, and I will overtake you immediately."

Rita rode on, and Paco followed, without paying any attention to so common an occurrence as the slackening of a girth. Scarcely, however, had he passed the gipsy some fifty paces, when the latter left his horse, who remained standing motionless in the middle of the road, and approached the thicket. Just within the shadow of the foremost trees, a man on horseback, muffled in a cloak, was waiting. It was Colonel Villabuena.

"All is well," said the gipsy; "and you have only to ride forward and prepare for our reception."

"Who is with you?" said Don Baltasar, in a dissatisfied tone.

"The lady and her donçella, and Paco, her father's orderly."

"Fool!" cried Baltasar; "why did you let him come? His presence may ruin my plan."

"How could I help it?" retorted Jaime. "If I had objected he would have suspected me. He's as cunning as a fox, and did not swallow the story half as well as his mistress. But her impatience decided it. Nothing would serve her but setting out immediately."

"He must be disposed of," said Baltasar. "There's many a mountain precipice between this and our destination," he added meaningly.

Jaime shook his head.

"I might do it," said he; "but if I failed, and he is a wary and active fellow, the chances are that he would do the same kind office for me, and return with the lady."

"Humph!" said Baltasar. "Well, he shall be cared for. And now ride on. I shall be at the convent an hour before you. Remember to take the longest road."

The gipsy nodded, returned to his horse, and, springing lightly into the saddle, galloped after his companions. Don Baltasar remained a short time longer in the thicket, and then emerging upon the road, followed Rita and her party at a deliberate pace. From time to time he stopped, and listened for the sound of their horses' footsteps. If he could hear it, he halted till it became inaudible, and then again moved on. His object evidently was to keep as near to the travellers as he could without allowing his proximity to be suspected.

It was nearly midnight, and Rita and her companions had been for some time amongst the mountains, when they reached a place where the road, or rather track, they followed, split and branched off in two different directions. Jaime, who, since they had entered the sierra, had abridged the distance between himself and his companions, and now rode just in front of Rita's mule, was taking the right hand path, when Paco called out to him that the left was the shortest and best.

"You are mistaken," said Jaime abruptly, continuing in the direction he had first taken.

But Paco would not be put off in so unceremonious a manner, and he rode up to the gipsy. "I tell you," said he, "that I know this country well, and the left hand road is the one to take."

"How long is it since you travelled it?" inquired Jaime.

"Only last autumn," was the reply, "and then for the twentieth time."

"Well," said the esquilador, "it may be the shortest; but if you had ridden along it this morning, as I did, you would hardly call it the best. The winter rains have washed away the path, and left the bare rocks so slippery and uneven, that I could scarcely get my horse over them in daylight, and by night I should make sure of breaking his legs and my own neck."

"I know nothing of this convent you are taking us to," said Paco, in a sulky tone; "but if it stands, as you tell me, to the north of Lecumberri, this road will lengthen our journey an hour or more."

"Scarcely so much," said Jaime. "At any rate," added he doggedly, "it is I who answer to the Count for the Señora's safety, and I shall therefore take the road I think best."

Paco was about to make an angry reply, but Rita interfered, and the discussion terminated in the gipsy having his own way. Three minutes later Don Baltasar arrived at the division of the roads, paused, listened, and heard the faint echo of the horses' hoofs upon the right hand path. With an exclamation of satisfaction, he struck his spurs into the flanks of his steed, and at as rapid a pace as the uneven ground would permit, ascended the contrary road, the shortest, and, as Paco had truly asserted, by far the best to the convent whither Rita de Villabuena was proceeding.

Over rocks and through ravines, and along the margin of precipices, Don Baltasar rode, threading, in spite of the darkness, the difficult and often dangerous mountain-paths, with all the confidence of one well acquainted with their intricacies. At last, after a long descent, he entered a narrow valley, or rather a mountain-gorge, which extended in the form of nearly a semicircle, and for a distance of about three miles, between two steep and rugged lines of hill. Upon finding himself on level ground, he spurred his horse, and passing rapidly over the dew-steeped grass of a few fields, entered a beaten track that ran along the centre of the valley. The moon was now up, silvering the summits of the groups of trees with which the narrow plain was sprinkled, and defining the gloomy peaks of the sierra against the star-spangled sky. By its light Don Baltasar rode swiftly along, until, arriving near the further end of the valley, he came in sight of an extensive edifice, beautifully situated on the platform of a low hill, and sheltered to the north and east by lofty mountains. The building was of grey stone, and formed three sides of a square; the side that was at right angles with the two others being considerably the longest, and the wings connected by a wall of solid masonry, in the centre of which was an arched portal. In front, and on one side of the convent, for such, as a single glance was sufficient to determine, was the purpose to which the roomy structure was appropriated, the ground was bare and open, until the platform began to sink towards the plain; and then the sunny southern slope had been turned to the best account. Luxuriant vineyards, a plantation of olive-trees, and a large and well-stocked orchard covered it, whilst the level at its foot was laid out in pasture and corn-fields. The space between the back of the convent and the mountains was filled up by a thick wood, affording materials for the blazing fires which, in the winter months, the keen airs from the hills would render highly acceptable. The forest also extended round and close up to the walls of the right wing of the building. From the roof of the left wing rose a lofty open tower, where was seen hanging the ponderous mass of bronze by whose sonorous peal the pious inmates were summoned to their devotions.

Urging his horse up the steep and winding path that led to the front of the convent, Don Baltasar seized and pulled a chain that hung beside the gate. The clank of a bell immediately followed, and Baltasar, receding a little from the door, looked up at the windows. No light was visible at any of them, and the most profound stillness reigned. After waiting for about a minute, the Carlist colonel again rang, and he was about to repeat the summons for a third time, when a faint gleam of light in the court warned him that some one was afoot. Presently a small wicket in the centre of the gate was opened, and the pinched and crabbed features of the lay-sister who acted as portress showed themselves at the aperture. In a voice rendered unusually shrill and querulous by vexation at having her rest broken, she demanded who it was thus disturbing the slumbers of the sisterhood.

"I come," said Baltasar, "to speak with your lady abbess, Doña Carmen de Forcadell, upon matters of the utmost importance. Admit me instantly, for my business presses."

"The lady abbess," peevishly returned the portress, "cannot be disturbed before matins. If you choose to wait till then, I will tell her you are here, and she will perhaps see you."

"I must see her at once," replied Baltasar, waxing wroth at this delay, when every moment was of importance to his projects. "Tell her that Don Baltasar is here, and she will give orders to admit me."

Whilst he spoke, the lay sister raised her glimmering lantern to the wicket, in order to take a survey of this peremptory applicant for admission. The view thus obtained of his features apparently did not greatly impress her in his favour, or at any rate did not render her more disposed to open the solid barrier between them.

"Baltasar or Benito," cried she, "it is all one to Mariquita. You may wait till the matin bell rings. Fine times, indeed, when every thieving guerilla thinks he may find free quarters where he pleases! No, no, señor, stay where you are; the fresh air will cool your impatience. It will be daybreak in an hour, and that will be time enough for your errand, whatever it is."

It was with no small difficulty that Don Baltasar restrained his spleen during the old woman's harangue. When it came to a close, however, and he saw that she persisted in leaving him on the outside of the gate till the usual hour for opening it, he lost all patience. Before the portress could shut the wicket, close to which she was standing, he thrust his hand and arm through it, and grasped her by her skinny throat. The lay sister set up a yell of alarm and pain.

"Jesus Maria! Al socorro! Help, help!" screamed she; the last words dying away in a gurgling sound, as Don Baltasar tightened his hold upon her windpipe.

"Silence, you old jade!" cried the fierce soldier in a suppressed tone, "you will alarm the whole convent. You have the keys in your hand—I heard them clank. Open the gate instantly, or by all the saints in heaven, I throttle you where you stand."

The increased pressure of his fingers warned the old woman that he would keep his word; and, yielding to so novel and convincing a mode of argument, she made use of the keys whose jingle she had imprudently allowed to be heard. Two heavy locks shot back, and a massive bar was withdrawn; and when, by pushing against it, Don Baltasar had convinced himself that the gate was open, he released the gullet of the trembling sister, and entered the paved court. In grievous trepidation the portress was retreating to her lodge, which stood just within the gate, when an upper window of the convent opened, and a female voice enquired, in commanding tones, the cause of the uproar. Don Baltasar seemed to recognise the voice, and he rode up beneath the window whence it proceeded.

"Carmen," said he, "is it you?"

"Who is that?" was the rejoinder, in accents which surprise or alarm rendered slightly tremulous.

"Baltasar," replied the officer. "I must see you instantly, on a matter of life or death."

There was a moment's pause. "Remain where you are," said the person at the window; "I will come down to you."

The portress, finding that the intruder was known to the lady abbess, for she it was whom Baltasar had addressed as Carmen, now refastened the gate, and crept grumbling to her cell. Don Baltasar waited. Presently a door in the right wing of the convent was opened, a tall female form, clothed in flowing drapery, and carrying a taper in her hand, appeared at it and beckoned him to enter. Tying his horse to a ring in the wall, he obeyed the signal.

The room into which, after passing through a corridor, Colonel Villabuena was now introduced, was one of those appropriated to the reception of guests and visitors to the convent. The apartment was plainly furnished with a table and a few wooden chairs; and in a recess hung a large ebony crucifix, before which was placed a hassock, its cloth envelope worn threadbare by the knees of the devout. But if the room of itself offered little worthy of note, the case was far different with the person who now ushered Don Baltasar into it. This was a woman about forty years old, possessed of one of those marked and characteristic physiognomies which painters are fond of attributing to the inhabitants of southern Europe. Her age was scarcely to be read upon her face, whose slight furrows seemed traced by violent passions rather than by the hand of time: she had the remains of great beauty, although wanting in the intellectual; and the expression of her face, her compressed lips, and the fixed look of her eyes, went far to neutralize the charm which her regular features, and the classical oval of her physiognomy, would otherwise have possessed. The outline of her tall figure was veiled, but not concealed, by her monastic robe, from the loose sleeves of which protruded her long thin white hands. After closing the door, she seated herself beside a table, upon which she reposed her elbow, and motioned her visiter to a chair. A slight degree of agitation was perceptible in her manner, as she waited in silence for Don Baltasar to communicate the motive of his unseasonable arrival. This he speedily did.

"You must do me a service, Carmen," said he. "My cousin Rita is now within an hour's ride of this place. She comes hither expecting to find her father. She must be detained captive."

"What!" exclaimed the abbess, "is your suit so hopeless as to render such hazardous measures adviseable? What is to be gained by such an act of violence? Her father will inevitably seek and discover her, and disgrace and disappointment will be the sole result of your mad scheme."

"Her father," replied Baltasar gloomily, "will give us no trouble."

"How?—no trouble! If all be true that I have heard of Count Villabuena, and of his affection for his only surviving child, he is capable of devoting his life to the search for her."

"Count Villabuena," said Baltasar, "now stands before you. The father of Rita is dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed the abbess with a start. "How and when did he die?"

"He was shot in a skirmish."

"In a skirmish!" repeated Doña Carmen. "He held no military command."

"I was escorting him with a few men to attend a junta. We were attacked by a superior force, from which we escaped, thanks to an intervening river. A few shots were exchanged, the Count thrust himself into the fire, and fell."

The abbess seemed to reflect a moment, and then fixed a keen and searching look upon the countenance of Baltasar.

"Was your loss in men severe?" said she abruptly.

"No—yes—" replied Baltasar, slightly confused. "I believe there were several wounded. Why do you ask?"

"And the Count's death gives you the Villabuena estates?"

"It does so," answered Baltasar.

The dark penetrating eyes of the abbess still remained fixed, with a peculiar expression of enquiry and suspicion, upon the countenance of Colonel Villabuena. He tried at first to sustain their gaze, but was unable to do so. He looked down, and a slight paleness came over his features.

"I have no time to answer questions," said he, with a rough brutality of manner which seemed assumed to veil embarrassment. "My plan is arranged, but promptness of execution is essential to its success. Rita must be detained here, where none will think of seeking her, till she becomes my wife. Your power in this place is unlimited, and your word law; you will have no difficulty in secluding her in some corner where none shall see her but those in whom you can fully confide. Make the necessary preparations. Each moment she may arrive."

Whilst Baltasar was speaking, Doña Carmen remained with her brow supported on her hand, silent and sunk in reflection. She now sprang impetuously from her chair.

"I will have naught to do with it," cried she; "you would entangle me in a labyrinth of crime, whence the only issue would be ignominy and punishment. You must find others to aid you in your machinations."

In his turn Baltasar rose from his seat, and, approaching the abbess, led her back to her chair.

"Carmen," said he, in a suppressed voice, and from between his set teeth, "is it to me that you say 'I will not?'—Carmen," he continued, speaking low, and with his face very near to hers, "there was a time when, for love of you and to do your bidding, I feared no punishment here or hereafter. Have you already forgotten it? 'I hate him,' were your words, as I sat at your feet in yon sunny Andalusian bower—'I hate him, and in proportion to my hatred should be my gratitude to him who rid me of his odious presence.' That night the serenos found the body of Don Fernando de Forcadell stiff and cold upon the steps of his villa. He had had a dispute at the monté table, and two men were sent to Ceuta on suspicion of the deed. Only two persons knew who had really done it. Ha! Carmen, only two persons!"

During this terrible recapitulation, the abbess sat motionless as a statue, for which indeed, in her white robe and with her marble pale complexion, she might almost have been taken. She covered her face with her hands, and her bosom heaved so violently, that the loose folds of drapery which shrouded it rose and fell like the waves of a troubled ocean. When Baltasar ceased speaking she removed her hands, and exhibited a countenance livid as that of a corpse. Her almost preternatural paleness, the dark furrows under her eyes, and the tension of every feature, added ten years to her apparent age.

"Is that all?" she said, in a hollow voice, to her tormentor.

"And one of those persons," resumed the pitiless Baltasar, without replying to her question, "swore by earth and by heaven, and by the God who made them both, never to forget the service that I—that the other person, I would say—had rendered her, and to be ready to requite it whenever he should point out the way. Years have flown by since that day, and the feelings that united those two persons have long since changed; but a promise made as that one was—a promise sealed with blood—can never pass away till it has been redeemed. Carmen, I claim its fulfilment."

Baltasar paused. "Fiend!" exclaimed the abbess, "what would you of me?"

"I have already told you," said Villabuena. "It is no crime, nothing that need alarm your conscience, recently grown so tender; but a good deed, rather, since it will prevent the daughter of a noble house from throwing herself away on an adventurer and a rebel, and give her hand to him for whom her father destined it. She is as yet unaware of the Count's death. She will learn it here, and no place fitter. Your pious consolations will soothe her grief. I shall leave her in your guardianship, and, when the first violence of her sorrow is over, return, to find means of overcoming her puerile objections to my suit. But I am a fool," exclaimed he, interrupting himself, "to lose in idle talk time that is so precious! They must already be in sight of the convent. Lead me to a window whence we may observe their approach, and whilst watching for it we can make our final arrangements."

He took the hand of the abbess, and she led the way, mechanically, to the door of an inner room. Passing through two other apartments, they reached one at the extremity of the wing, from the window of which a view was obtained for a considerable distance down the valley. The prospect that presented itself to them on pausing before this window, was so enchantingly beautiful, that it seemed to produce an effect, and to exercise a softening influence, even upon the depraved and vicious nature of Don Baltasar. At any rate, a full minute elapsed during which he stood in silence and contemplation.

The view afforded by the valley in question, upon that pleasant May morning, was indeed of almost unparalleled loveliness. The sun, which had already risen behind the eastern hills, but not yet surmounted them, threw its first rays across their summits, and illuminated the opposite mountains, bathing their pinnacles in a golden glow, whilst their lower steeps remained in comparative darkness. In the depths of the valley the last shades of twilight still seemed to linger, and masses of thin grey vapour rolled in billows over the rich vegetation and vivid verdure of the fields. The most fantastic variety of form was exhibited by the surrounding mountain wall; here it rose in turrets and towers, there spread out into crags, then again fell in blank abrupt precipices, their edges fringed with shrubs, the recesses of their sides sheltering wild-flowers of the most varied hues, whose sprays and blossoms waved in the sweet breath of morning. Equally varied, and as delicately beautiful, were the ethereal tints of the mountain tops, to which the cloudless sky seemed to impart a tinge of its azure. On the edge of a ravine, midway up a mountain, were seen a few crumbling walls, and a fragment of a broken tower, sole remains of some ancient stronghold, which, centuries before, had frowned over the vale. The hut of a goatherd or charcoal-burner, here and there dotted the hill-side; and at the southern limit of the valley, just before its change of direction took it out of sight of the convent, were visible the houses of a small hamlet, surrounded by plantations, and half buried amidst blossoms of the tenderest rose-colour and most dazzling white. Masses of beech and ilex clothed the lower slopes of the mountains, and from out of their dark setting of foliage the grey walls of the Dominican convent arose like a pale and shadowy spectre. The fresh brightness of spring was the characteristic of the whole scene; the year seemed rejoicing in its youthful vigour, and to express its delight by millions of mute voices, which spoke out of each leaf and twig that danced in the breeze. Nor were other and audible voices wanting. The lark was singing in the sky, the grasshopper had begun its chirp, the rills and rivulets that splashed or trickled from the hills, gave out their indistinct murmur; whilst, heard far above these voices of nature, the toll of the matin bell resounded through the valley, calling the devoutly disposed to their morning thanksgiving.

The angelus had ceased to ring when Rita and her party came in sight of the Dominican convent, their horses and mules giving evidence, by their jaded appearance, of having been ridden far, and over rough and painful roads. The gipsy rode in front, vigilant and unfatigued—although he had now been in the saddle, with little intermission, for a whole day and night—and was followed by Rita, to whose delicate frame the long ride had been an exertion as unusual as it was trying. But a resolute spirit had compensated for physical weakness, and, uncomplaining, she had borne up against the hardships of the preceding ten hours. She was pale and harassed; her hair, uncurled by the night fogs, hung in dank masses round her face, and her fragile form was unable to maintain its upright position. Micaela, the waiting-maid, yawned incessantly, and audibly groaned at each rough stumble or uncomfortable movement of her mule. Several times during the drowsy morning hours, she had nearly fallen from her saddle, and had to thank Paco, who had taken his station beside her, for saving her from more than one tumble. Paco, either out of respect to the presence of Rita, or concern for the Count's misfortune, rode along, contrary to his custom, in profound silence, and without indulging in any of those snatches of muleteers' songs with which it was his wont to beguile the tedium of a march.

Upon nearing the place where she expected to find her father, Rita's impatience to behold him, and to ascertain for herself the exact extent of the injury he had received, increased to a feverish degree, and on reaching the convent gate, already open for her reception, she sprang from her mule without assistance. But she had over-rated her strength; her limbs, stiffened by the long ride and the cold night air, refused their service, and she would have fallen to the ground had not Paco, who was already off his horse, given her the support of his arm. The portress and another old lay sister were the only persons visible in the court, and the last of these invited Rita to accompany her into the convent. Paco held out his horse's bridle and those of the mules to Jaime, intending to follow his young mistress, but the gipsy hesitated to take them, and the lay sister, perceiving Paco's intention, interposed to prevent its execution.

"You must remain here," said she; "I have no orders to admit men into the convent, nor can I, without express orders from the lady abbess."

Paco obeyed the injunction, and the three women disappeared through a door of the right wing of the building. They had been gone less than a minute, when the lay sister again came forth, and, approaching the gipsy, desired him to follow her. He did so, and Paco remained alone with the horses.

With eager step, and a heart palpitating with anxiety, Rita followed her guide into the convent, making, as she went, anxious enquiries concerning her father's health. To her first question the old woman replied by an inarticulate mumble; and upon its repetition, a brief "I do not know; the lady abbess will see you,"—checked any further attempt upon a person who either could not or would not give the much wished-for information. Passing through a corridor and up a staircase, the lay sister ushered Rita into an apartment of comfortable appearance.

"I will inform the abbess of your arrival," said she, as she went out and closed the door.

Five minutes elapsed, and Rita, to whom this delay was as inexplicable as her impatience to see her father was great, was about to leave the room and seek or enquire the way to his apartment, when the abbess made her appearance.

"Holy mother!" exclaimed Rita, advancing to meet her with clasped hands and tearful eyes, "is my father doing well? Conduct me to him, I beseech you."

Struck by the beauty of the fair creature who thus implored her, and touched, perhaps, by the painful anxiety expressed in her trembling voice, and pale and interesting countenance, Doña Carmen almost hesitated to communicate her fatal tidings.

"I have painful intelligence for you, Señora," said she. "The Count, your father"—

"He is wounded; I know it," interrupted Rita. "Is he worse? Oh, let me see him!—This instant see him!"

"It is impossible," said the abbess. "The bullet that struck him was too surely aimed. Your father is dead!"

For an instant Rita gazed at the speaker as though unable fully to comprehend the terrible announcement, and then, with one shriek of heartfelt agony, she sank senseless to the ground.

The shrill and thrilling scream uttered by the bereaved daughter, rang through the chambers and corridors of the convent, and reached the ears of Paco, who had remained in the court, waiting with some impatience for the return of the gipsy, and for intelligence concerning the health of the Count. Abandoning his horse, he rushed instinctively to the door by which Rita had entered the building. It was closed, but not fastened, and passing through it he found himself in a long corridor, traversed by two shorter ones, and at whose extremity, through a grated window, was visible the foliage of the forest surrounding that side of the convent. Not a living creature was to be seen; and Paco paused, uncertain in what direction to proceed. He listened for a repetition of the cry, but none came. Suddenly a door, close to which he stood, was opened, and before he could turn his head to ascertain by whom, he was seized from behind, and thrown violently upon the paved floor of the corridor. The attack had been so vigorous and unexpected, that Paco had no time for resistance before he found himself stretched upon his back; but then he struggled furiously against his assailants, who were no others than Don Baltasar and the gipsy. So violent were his efforts, that he got the gipsy under him, and was on the point of regaining his feet, when Colonel Villabuena drew a pistol from the breast of his coat, and with its but-end dealt him a severe blow on the head. The unlucky muleteer again fell stunned upon the ground. In another minute his hands were tightly bound, and Don Baltasar and his companion carried him swiftly down one of the transversal corridors. Descending a flight of stone steps, the two men with their burthen entered a range of subterranean cloisters, at whose extremity was a low and massive door, which Don Baltasar opened, and they entered a narrow cell, having a straw pallet and earthen water-jug for sole furniture. Close to the roof of this dismal dungeon was an aperture in the wall, through which a strong iron grating, and the rank grass that grew close up to it, allowed but a faint glimmer of daylight to enter. Placing their prisoner upon the straw bed, Don Baltasar and Jaime took away his sabre and the large knife habitually carried by Spaniards of his class. They then unbound his hands, and, carefully securing the door behind them, left him to the gloom and solitude of his dungeon.

---

SOMETHING MORE ABOUT MUSIC.

We mused on music some while ago; and as the subject still haunts us—very much after the manner of an obstinate ghost that refuses to be laid, even by the choicest Latin—we are strongly disposed to try the effect of giving it full swing for once; and in idle mood, too idle to oppose ourselves to its tyranny, letting it carry us whither it will, in the hope that, in return for our complacence, it may in future suffer us to conduct our meditations according to our own pleasure, and give that sad and serious thought, which their merits demand, to the gravities of this life—to corn-laws and poor-laws, (of all sorts!) and the Irish question, and the debates to which all these give occasion, in reading which we have already worn out we know not how many pairs of spectacles, and one pair of excellent eyes; and last, not least, to the marchings and counter-marchings of the House of Commons, in which we are deeply interested.

With such a course of study before us, we are disposed to make the most of our holiday; and should we chance to be a little too frisky, it must be borne in mind that retribution is at hand, and that we shall speedily become as solemn as ever a fool in the land, as dull as an owl bathing its eyes in the morning sunshine, which—having overslept itself—it takes for the full moon, and dismal enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of the religious duty of being miserable,—eschewing laughter as we would the tax-gatherer, and refreshing our oppressed spirits alone with serious jokes, and such merriment as may be presented to us under the sanction and recommendation of a college of dissenting divines!

But our harp will be a mingled one, for so is our theme; having a sympathy alike for our mirthful and sorrowful moments, which it alike spiritualizes; striking the light, gleesome chord to the one, and attuning the soul to more ethereal joy; while by its soft influence it tones down the harshness of bitter, unavailing sorrow, and woos the heart, misanthropizing under the pangs of grief or unrequited love—pent up in its own solitude, unpitied and uncared for—and filled with dark thoughts, and sad sounds, and tones of plaintive winds, sighing through the cypress and doleful yew with mournful melody around the resting-place of the loved and lost, to submissive lamentings, and slow stealing tears that assuage its aching anguish and tranquillize the spirit, leading it to the hope of a brighter future, in whose dawning beams it will, ere-long, show like "the tender grass, clear-shining after rain"—more glistening and beautiful for the invigorating dews of the cloud which had overhung it, and beneath whose gloom its beauty faded away—for very trouble!

How often have we found that hard, bitter mood into which the mind under the pressure of suffering which is irremediable, and which has to be borne alone, is so apt to decline—feeling the harder and the bitterer for the careless, galling gaiety of all around—softened, subdued, yea, utterly broken up by the sweet notes of "some old familiar strain," that steal on the willing ear, freshening and exhilarating the spirit like a breezy morning in June, when it seems a sin to be wretched; the twittering birds on dancing boughs crying shame on us, for what is not only wrong, but, as we begin to feel, needless—not to say foolish; and we return from our stroll, wondering what in the world we have done with that load on our chest with which we began our walk—ending in a regular ramble—and which it then seemed incumbent on us, nay, a sacred duty, to pant under for the term of our natural lives; relieving ourselves by such sighs and groans as appeared to us the appropriate forms of expression for all human beings under the sun—made on purpose to be unhappy; we especially, fulfilling the end of our creation. And as we mark the change that has passed upon us—the bounding circulation in place of flagging energies—full, calm breathing, instead of the slow, short respiration of sadness—with reverent heart we bless nature, and, may we say also, nature's great Architect, all-merciful, all-loving!

Such on us is frequently the effect of music; the heaviness of heart, caused by the weary rubs of this rough world, or the result of a temperament that has a constitutionally jarring string in it, is as it were drawn out, and sweetness and calm-breathing tranquillity infused in its stead; while our nerves become as the harmonious strings of a harp, that respond in sympathy with the master chords of one with which it is in unison, and whereon the fresh breeze of morning lightly plays, calling forth sounds of joy and gladness. Therefore do we love it, with a warmth of affection that may perchance appear extravagant to those whose robust, well-balanced minds, clothed with strong, healthy, unsusceptible bodies—people who are always in good spirits, unless there be a reason for the contrary—may render them independent of such external influences, for we must acknowledge, that we do at times express this our affection in somewhat unmeasured phrase, as one who stays not accurately to calculate, and weigh with cool precision, the virtues of a friend, thus laying ourselves open to the unmitigated condemnation of those who soar above, (or sink below!) such sympathies.

Be it so! We are not about to enter into any vindication of ourselves; we shall not even attempt to convince these dull souls, that it is possible for elevated feeling, and repose and tenderness of mind, to be indebted for their origin to such insignificant and material sources as catgut and brass wire—and that they are not therefore to be undervalued; though by way of illustration of the influence of matter over spirit, we would remind them of their own humane and charitable feelings after dinner, compared with the fierce, nay, atrocious sentiments, which their consciences convict them of having entertained, before the pangs of their raging hunger had been appeased by that inestimable mollifier of men's hearts and tempers. For the cause of their insensibility to such impressions—a natural incapacity for receiving them—it is vain to seek a remedy, however willing we might be to apply one; but where cure is impracticable, palliatives are frequently admissible, and we would suggest that one may be found in this case, in the patients' treating the unhappy privation under which they labour with greater tenderness than has been their wont, throwing over it that veil of oblivion and charity with which they so gracefully conceal their other defects, instead of obtruding it on public observation, under the singular misconception of its being an admirable feature in their character, a something of which a man ought to be proud. Conduct like this, they may rest assured, will not fail of being appreciated and rewarded by the corresponding delicacy with which all, who are not utterly barbarous, invariably treat him who, by the deprecating humility with which he seeks to conceal his deficiencies, betrays his painful cognisance of their existence.

We are aware that this is a turning of the tables upon them which they may not be disposed to admire—to be placed at the bar, when they expected a seat on the Bench, and were just smoothing down their ermine, and adjusting their wigs, in order to enter on their duties with the greater impressiveness and dignity; but they must believe us when we tell them, that we, too, have an opinion on this subject, to which we must be permitted to attribute as high authority as they possibly can to their own; and that, tried by this standard, they, being found wanting, would inevitably have been brought up for judgment, but for a merciful leaning, (sanctioned by legal precedent,) which prompts us rather to try the salutary effect of admonition and good counsel, than to proceed at once to inflict extreme penalties on the offenders—in short, that we are not in a hanging humour, or they should swing for it!

Grim, rough Luther, laying about him with his ponderous mace, and making giant Pope tremble in the deepest recesses of his stronghold, lest he should grow utterly savage with his perpetual warfare—albeit a "Holy war"—humanized and spiritualized himself with his lute—(who does not sympathize with his unfailing "Deus noster refugium," that divine stay of his stout heart that trembled not at men or devils!) Ken, undaunted opponent of the tyranny of a king—meek sufferer for that monarch's lawful rights, rose at day-dawn, or so soon as the first brief slumber had recruited his exhausted frame, to give thanks unto the King of kings in strains that, handed down to us, yet thrill the heart by their fervent piety, and plain, vigorous verse, and animate it to a stricter more manly rectitude. Herbert—saintliest of men and priests—after his sacred toils, refreshed his spirit with "divine music;" the more melodious to his ear, that his heart was teeming with the harmony of that "good-will towards man," which seeks and finds its due expression in active exertions on their behalf—disdaining not the lowliest occasion of serving with hearty zeal the lowliest of his neighbours. Rest assured, then, O reader! whosoever thou art, that it is not for thee to pretend to despise it!

Ponder the rather on the power of that art, that could soothe the perturbed soul of Israel's wrath-sent king—mad and moody—and even expel the evil spirit that goaded him; and on its dignity—for prophets of old, when the Divine inspiration came upon them, revealing to their purified eyes the "vision of the Almighty," uttered their "dark sayings upon the harp."

What a plague it sometimes is to be hag-ridden by a tune, racing through one's head, with a never-ending always-beginningness, as though a thousand imps were singing it in one's ears. Wherever you may be, whomsoever with, whatsoever doing, still ring on those incessant tones of perchance the merriest of all jigs, till—it is Sunday morning, and you are preparing for church—you leave your house with the entire and miserable conviction, that, seated in your pew in the very face of the congregation-genteel sinners in silks, and satins, and feathers—you will betray your long-concealed suffering by giving vent to that interminable "Rory O'More," the moment you open your lips for the emission of "All people that on earth do dwell;" so ensuring your rapid transfer to the street, under the escort of the man with the parti-coloured coat and black wand, whose Sabbath duties of jerking the Sunday scholars, and rapping their heads with that authoritative cane, are unceremoniously interfered with on your behalf. Misery and disgrace stare you in the face, and all through an undue titillation of that part of your sensorium that takes cognisance of musical sounds; a titillation not to be subdued by endeavouring to direct your attention from it to the very gravest of all subjects; nor propitiated even by audibly chanting the offending strain, previously retiring into the furthest corner of your coal-cellar, to prevent your unwilling profanity on shocking the strictly conscientious ears of your household. This is bad—and yet it is but a mild form of this morbid affection, which, in its most intense degree, torments the sufferer from fever, (or one stunned by some sudden and violent grief,) when certain sounds, words, or tunes, accidentally determined, thrill through the head with the steadiness and vehement action of the piston of a steam-engine—beat, beat, beat!—every note seeming to fall on the excited brain like the blow of a hammer; while, as the fever and pain increase, the more rapidly and heavily do those torturing notes pursue their furious chase. We well remember, under an attack of disorder in the neighbourhood of the brain, causing severe suffering, lying—we know not how long, it might be a thousand years for any thing we knew—singing over and over again in our mind, for we were speechless with pain, the 148th psalm, which we had just chanced to hear sung, in Brady and Tate's version, to a new and somewhat peculiar tune. Oh, how those "dreadful whales" and "glittering scales" did quaver and quiver in our poor head! Lying like a log—for pain neither permitted us to stir nor groan—still rattled on, hard and quick, the rumbling bass and shrill tenor of that most inappropriately jubilant composition—"cherubim and seraphim," "fire, hail, and snow," succeeding each other with a railway velocity that there was no resisting; no sooner had we got to "stands ever fast," than round again we went to the "boundless realms of joy," and so on, on, on, through each dreary minute of those dreary hours, an infinity, or perchance but twenty-four, according as time is computed by clocks or by agonised human beings. It made a capital Purgatory; one which we have even deemed every way adequate to those slight delinquencies of which we may have been guilty, and which are appointed, as it is understood, to be expiated in this way.

At times some simple air, or even a single chord of unusual, but apparently obvious harmony, will haunt us with a peculiar sweetness, producing a soothing, gentle sadness, as though we listened to distant bells, whose music is borne in surges on the breeze that sways the golden corn on a sunny Sabbath, when our pathway lies through the undulating fields, already "white unto the harvest;" where the pleasant rustling of the ripened grain, as it is stirred by the soft wind, is sweet and soothing; and the gay poppy, and other less obtrusive, though not less beautiful wild-flowers, bloom at our loitering feet. In the power of exciting such feeling, what can equal our old English ballads? There is an inexpressible charm in these, and we would almost give our fingers to be able to describe that indescribable something, which constitutes their peculiar fascination and power over the imagination. Most plain, most artless, does their composition appear; like the natural out-breathing of the heart in its sunny moments; and yet—as with all earthly brightness—with a trace of cloud on that sunshine. They are redolent of the "olden time;" and as they fall softly on the ear, the antique hall, with its groined roof, and mullioned window, glowing with rich heraldic devices, through which the many-tinted lights fall tenderly on arch and pillar, and elaborately fretted walls, studded with ancestral armour, rises up before us; and with the melting tones of the lute, mingles the low, clear voice of a gentle maiden, whose small foot and brocaded train are just seen from behind yonder deeply sculptured oaken screen. What innocence is in that voice! and how expressive are the chords that accompany it—less elaborate and fantastic, perchance, than might win favour in our vitiated ears; but natural, harmonious, full, and in exquisite subordination to the air, which they fill up and enrich, instead of overpowering with misplaced beauty.

And now a movement of the singer reveals still more of the quaint, beautiful costume, with its heavy, yet graceful folds, while—aha! what else do we see?—a plumed hat thrown carelessly on the ground; the armed heel, glittering rapier, and slashed sleeve, just visible, betokening that its owner is not far off, and that the lady fair has not, as we had thought, been wasting her sweetness, either of voice or countenance, on that comfortable-looking pet dog or caged linnet. Sing on, pretty one! for well do gallant knights love to hear their stern deeds sung by innocent lips; and right well, to listen to the strain that tells how the heart of "lady-bright" is won by noble daring. But what means that sudden break in the song, and the confused sweep of the strings, as though the lute had slipped from its owner's grasp; while the masculine paraphernalia which we had just discovered disappears altogether behind that most impervious and curiosity-mocking screen? No great harm done, or that light laugh had not escaped the lips so suddenly silenced; and the offending cavalier is doubtless forgiven on the spot, as they amicably retreat to that deep oriel, framed apparently for the express purpose of excluding intrusionists like ourselves, who would fain follow, where, it is evident, we are marvellously little wanted! Well, well!—maidens will be maidens, we trow, and lovemaking in the olden time is, we suppose, after all, vastly like the same performance by more modern actors. Leave we them to their light-heartedness:—and yet we could linger long in this ancient chamber,

"With quaint oak-carving lined and ceiled;"

so calm, so cool, so repose-breathing,—the shrill twitter of the swallow the only sound now heard amid its silence; the fleecy clouds, throwing that rich interior into alternate light and shade, as they sail lazily along the deep blue sky—the only moving objects, save the long wreaths of ivy, that, green as the tender buds of spring, tap lightly against the casement, as they are swayed by the impulses of the summer breeze. Beyond, is an old-fashioned garden—a pleasance, as it would be called—and truly is it one; with its trim walks, its terraces, and moss-grown urns, around which luxuriant creepers are entwined—its impervious hedges—its close-shorn lawn, decked with appropriate statues, and its yew-trees, clipped into fantastic shapes; while the ivy-covered walls that bound it, afford a shelter from the blasts that too often allay the sunshine of our northern climate, and render it a spot where 'tis sweet to saunter, in idle or quiet contemplative mood, at glowing sunset; or chaster beauty of summer evening, when the pure, cold moon mingles her passionless lustre with the gorgeous hues that still linger around the portals of the west—bright train of the departing monarch that has passed to the sway of a new hemisphere!

Here could we linger in genial meditation, while from the dark pannelled walls look down upon us lovely countenances of those who, centuries ago, have called this home—portraits whose calm, meek dignity so far transcends the more active style in which it too often pleases us moderns to glare from our gilt frames, "looking delightfully with all our might, and staring violently at nothing;" costume and truth being utterly outraged,—the roturier's wife mapped in the ermine of the duchess, and perchance dandling on her maternal lap what appears to be a dancing dog in its professional finery, but which, on closer inspection, turns out to be an imp of a child, made a fool of by its mother and milliner; and my lady—in inadequate garments, and a pair of wings, flourishing as some heathen divinity or abstract virtue! Look at those girlish features, just mantling into fairest womanhood, with their sweet serious look, exhibiting all the self-possession of simplicity; the drapery and other accessories natural, and in perfect keeping with the unpretending character of the whole; and then turn to some recent "portrait of a lady," with what toleration you may. Contrast for one moment that fine ancestral face, dignified and unmoved as the mighty ocean slumbering in his strength, with the eager visage of one of the latest "batch," (cooked, without much regard to the materials, for some ministerial exigency,) who would appear to be standing in rampant defence of his own brand-new coronet, emulative of the well-gilt lion which supports that miracle of ingenuity rather than research, his brightly emblazoned coat-of-arms; whose infinitude of charges and quarterings do honour to the inventive genius of the Herald's Office, and are enough to make the Rouge Dragon of three centuries ago claw out the eyes of the modern functionary.

But, oh dear, dear! where are our ballads all this while? Drifted sadly to leeward, we fear, according to a bad habit of ours, of letting any breeze, from whatever point of the compass it may chance to blow, fill our sails, and float us away before it, utterly unmindful of our original purpose and destination. Thus have we, to the tune of an old Hall and its garniture, sailed away from that which we were aiming—trying to find out, and describe the peculiar fascination of our loved old ballads; flattering ourselves, perhaps, that we were escaping a difficulty which we feared to meet.

There is a quaint cheerfulness in them, toned down with a shade—the shadow of a shade—of the most touching melancholy, effected, we can scarcely tell how, by an exquisitely felicitous, though but slight introduction of the minor key, perchance but a single note or chord. But that suffices, and it is as a sudden vision of our home, far off among the mountains, or in the "happy valley" of our fathers, passing before us in the gay crowded city, bringing plaintive thoughts of remembered joys, and quietude, and childish innocence. Old ballads are like April skies, all smiles and tears, sunshine and swift-flitting clouds, that serve but to heighten the loveliness they concealed for a while. They are like,—nay, we despair; none but our own Shakspeare can express what we should vainly puzzle ourselves to describe, the essence of the "old and antique song."

"Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chaunt it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age."

Ay! like gray eld fondling sunny childhood, gazing on the wavy hair, and pure brow, and calm yet kindling eye, with a fond sad pleasure; for in that young exulting spirit he sees the sure inheritor of his own fading honours, the usurper of his strength, and influence, and worship, rapidly passing away from his feeble grasp; and as he gazes, though his lips pour willing benedictions on the unconscious supplanter, there lingers in his heart the sorrowful, "He shall increase, but I shall decrease."

Something akin in their sad soothing effect, are the waits, (dear reader, you do not need to be told what these are? Wordsworth has immortalized them;) simple, rude, and inharmonious as they would be in the clear, truth-telling daylight, but strange, witching, and half unearthly, when heard between the pauses of some fantastic dream in the deep midnight; when,

"All around,
The stars are watching with their thousand eyes;"

those same stars that peered down on this earth, in "earnest gaze," on the first act of that most awful drama, when, in "the winter wild, the heaven-born child"—Him in whom all nations of the world were blessed—was placed in his rude cradle at Bethlehem: in commemoration of whose advent—and this is one secret of their pathos, waking high thoughts in the soul, too long brooding over and degrading itself with the mean cares and hopes of this life—the humble musicians make night tuneful, "scraping the chords with strenuous hand."

A blessing on them as they go, softening our hard, unloving hearts! In our childhood it was one of our most cherished pleasures to lie—half-sleeping, half-waking—listening to them, as the sounds, at times discordant enough, though of that we recked not, rose and fell in pleasing cadence, as the winter wind rose and fell, wafting the notes that, faint and fainter still, at last died away in the distance.

We and our room-companion were under a solemn engagement, each to other, to waken the little sleepy thing beside him, when the more watchful became aware of the approach of the itinerant minstrels; and woe to the one who had forgotten this duty! It would have required no little "music" to soothe the "savage breast" of the aggrieved one; for—as we are pathetically reminded by the old song—"Christmas comes but once a-year," and so often, but no more, did we know that our chance of hearing this seductive harmony occurred. Hence our wrath, if through the neglect, the "breach of promise" of another, so solemnly pledged, we missed it. And even now, dear as is the oblivion of night and dreamless sleep to the spirit, harassed and world-worn, that in outgrowing its child-like feelings and happiness, has, alas! also out-grown what its increase of worldly wisdom can hardly make amends for—the child-like purity, and intense enjoyment of simple pleasures, which marked its earlier years—even now, weary and dull-hearted as we are become, we would not willingly lose this delight of our happier days, although it fall on the still darkness like wail for a departed friend, unsealing the fount of mournful memories, whose bitter waters gush from their stricken rock; sad as are its associations, they are of that sadness whereby the "heart is made better."

What think ye of the drum as a musical instrument? Is there not something magnificent in it, albeit suggestive of a distant wheelbarrow on rough paving-stones, or heavily laden cart in the distance? This latter, by the way,—we appeal with confidence to any musical soul present for confirmation of our assertion—being decidedly its equal, in effect, any day; as in our happy infancy we found out to our sorrow, from being frequently deceived by its dull booming, which our vivid imagination at once pronounced to be its parchment representative; as we writhed and wriggled with agony on our unhonoured bench (selected, and adhered to, for constancy was our forte, chiefly on account of its being out of the reach of the cane, and commanding a good view of the street) in a perfect fever, poor little soul, to squirl away books and slates, and scamper after the soldiers. Scarlet has been said to be like the sound of a trumpet; surely then a drum must be taken as the exponent of that ferocious mixture yclept thunder and lightning, erst dear to country bumpkins, and rendered classical by Master Moses Primrose's coat. It can scarcely be described as music, but rather as sound with an idea in it—the connecting link between mere noise and musical expression. Kettle-drums,

"Whose sullen dub,
Is like the hooping of a tub,"

we hate; and never see them in a concert-room without heartily wishing they and their tatooer might tumble, helter-skelter, from their topmost perch into the very lowest depth, if there be one lower than another, of the orchestra; and thereby sustain such a compound fracture, attended by loss of substance, as should put it out of their power, for that night at least, to torture our fastidious ears. Being of a melancholy temperament, we are unfortunately, at times, subject to most ludicrous fancies; and as these ungainly instruments loom on our disgusted eye, we cannot, for the life of us, help imagining them moulds for a couple of enormous gooseberry puddings; and we verily pant at the idea of the sea of melted butter, or yellow cream, requisite to mollify their acidity—and then we laugh like a hyena at the nightmareish vision, and so are disgraced, for it is at a "serious opera:" therefore, we repeat it, do we hate them, cordially and perseveringly. They are horrid things, and ought to be excommunicated. And when employed in military bands—why, a horse looks a complete fool between a couple of these gigantic basins, each with its long tag-rag of unmeaning velvet, beplastered and bedizened with lace and gold, streaming from it; and the unlucky performer perched between them, exactly like an old market-woman, bolstered up between a brace of paniers or milk-pails;—any thing but a fierce dragoon, or most chivalrous hussar. But peace be to the kettle-drums,—ay, peace be to them, say we! and may our ears never again be subjected to the torture of hearing Handel's massive chorus, or Beethoven's fearfully dramatic harmony, disfigured by their most abominable bangs, or villanous rumble-grumble.

Now all this is rank nonsense—we are fully aware of it; and it is a most foolish, unjust prejudice of ours against drums—kettle or otherwise, as it may please Apollo—which are most respectable members of musical society, and good—very good—in their way; were it only as a foil to the enchanting, inspiriting, maddening strains of the horn, the shrill pipe, the regal trumpet, and the various other instruments of our military music, of which we are more passionate admirers, almost ready to follow the drum ourselves. Oh, the supreme delight of having one's arms and legs shot off to such soul-elevating sounds, to the tune of Rule Britannia, and somebody or other's march! "Britons strike home" thrills through the air, and you scarcely feel that you are spitted by a Polish lancer; a flourish of trumpets, and enter a troop of horse, that trot briskly over you as you lie smashed by a round-shot, but heedless of the exhibition of their unceremonious heels to your injuries, for are you not sustained by that "point of war"—mercilessly beaten at your elbow, without the slightest regard to the effect it may have on your cracked head, for which you are indebted to the last trooper who spurred his charger over you: who would care for his vulgar limbs under such excitement? But if this part of our military economy be intended to inspire cowards with courage, and string them up to a disregard of all the chances of warfare, in the way of bullet and sabre, why—why is not so valuable an idea carried out to the full extent of its requirement, and a military band instituted for the comfort and encouragement of the patients (every whit as nervous as if they were under arms) of Guy's Hospital? Why should not the case of poor bedfast wretches in cap and gown, and pale faces, meet with as much consideration as that of your clodpole in scarlet and an 'Albert hat?' (Heaven forgive the prince for making such simpletons of our handsome Englishmen!) Look to it, ye governors of such institutions, and look to it, ye charitable and humane, who empty your purses into the blandly presented plate to buy shoes and stockings for the kangaroos. Consider the case of your afflicted countrymen, and relieve the plethora of your coffers by providing them music, every way equal to that enjoyed by troops going into action; music so entrancing that an arm or leg whipped off shall, under its influence, be no object to them; and let them drink down their odious physic to such masterly compositions of the first artists as shall sweeten the bitterest potion, and elicit a chorus of blessings on the taste and liberality of their munificent benefactors. But we fear that our pleading will be vain—Englishmen, poor, sick, and suffering, are intolerably uninteresting; not to be named on the same day with the happy possessors of woolly locks, flat noses, and copper-coloured skins; these being personal qualifications calculated to excite the intense sympathies of the many whose charity neither begins nor ends "at home." Yet, in the spirit of the little girl, who, on the denial of her request that she might be married, substituted the more modest one of a piece of bread and butter; if unsuccessful in this particular, we will be content to lower our tone, and, in place of the luxury we have recommended, simply require all whom it may concern to give the poor—their own!—honest wages for their honest labour.

We may perhaps be accused of having a Turkish taste in music (after the pattern of that Sultan's, who was chiefly fascinated with the jarring process of tuning the instruments, a thing abhorred by "gods and men") if we venture to own the strange, thrilling effect once produced on us by the discordant, yet withal imposing clangour of some half dozen regimental bands (all of them, mark you, playing different tunes!) which struck up simultaneously as my Lord ——, the then commander-in-chief, (whose spirit has since mingled with the shades of the heroes who had preceded him, not to the hall of Odin, but we trust to a more Christian place,) made his appearance, with his brilliant staff, on —— Moor; whither he came down ostensibly for the purpose of reviewing the troops—really, to marry his nephew and heir to the grand-daughter of a manufacturing millionnaire. (Commercial gold, or heraldic or, is a good modern "tricking;" though we query whether our ancestors would have countenanced such bad heraldry, or been content with such abatements of honour on their old shields!)

The wild sounds streamed on the crisp morning air—'twas one of those September days whose mature beauty rivals the budding grace of spring—with a strange wayward beauty, a barbaric grandeur, that carried away both our heart and ears; and we enjoyed it to the full as much as did the steed of a military lady present, that verily danced with the tingling delight. We had a fellow feeling with the brute, and could ourselves, grave and sensible as we are, have pranced about in an ecstasy of admiration, which was by no means allayed when the deep-toned sullen music—for such it is to us—of the artillery uttered its majestic bass to the sharp ringing fire of musketry. While, as wreath after wreath of the light morning mist floated away before the breeze, the glittering files and compact bristling squares, the centaur-like cavalry, and stealthy riflemen gliding along the windings of the copse, became apparent, stretching far into the distance; now hidden for a moment by the rolling vapour from a discharge of firearms, then, as it curled above them, dimming the clear sky, glancing bright in the sun, which blithely kissed sabre and epaulet, and dancing plume, and the knightly-looking pennoned weapon of the picturesque lancer. Truly the scene was beautiful, and one to breathe a warlike spirit into the most unexcitable. And we gazed in a paroxysm of admiration at the exquisite evolutions and fierce charges that seemed as though they must bear all before them, till this perfection of discipline came to an end, and the long files of troops had taken their slow dusty departure; when, hot and fagged, and with bright colours still dancing before our eyes, we returned to our home. There, as each "pleasure has its pain," we found that one was superinduced on ours, in the shape of a robbery of our plate committed while we were staring ourselves out of countenance at the gay spectacle; our faithless domestics having taken that opportunity of indulging their own taste for the "sublime and beautiful." 'Tis to be hoped they got enough of the "beautiful" at the show, as we indulged them with a touch of the "sublime" (which has one of its sources in terror) when we discovered our loss. But we enjoyed the review thoroughly for all that, and are ready for another to-morrow, first taking the precaution to "lock up all our treasure," warned by a catastrophe which nearly reduced us to wooden spoons and hay-makers.

Military music! But to feel its power fully, let it be heard when the exulting strains that are wont to fill the air with exuberant harmony are saddened into the sweet, mournful, heart-breaking notes that steal on the ear at a soldier's funeral, and the gaudy splendour of military array has passed into the drear pomp of that most touching, most monitory sight. Faint mournful bugle-notes are wafted fitfully on the wind, plumes and glittering weapons glance and disappear as the procession advances, now hidden by the hedge-rows, now flashing on the sight, in the autumnal sun, as it winds slowly along the devious road; louder and louder swell those short abrupt trumpet-notes as it draws near, till the whole sad array, in its affecting beauty, is presented to the eye. The life in death that pervades the melancholy ceremonial!—"Our brother is not dead, but sleepeth," seems written on the impressive pageant; and we almost expect, while we gaze, to see the deep slumber chased from the closed eyelids, and the recumbent form start up again to claim the warlike weapons with which it was wont to be girt, and that now lie, as if awaiting their master's grasp, in unavailing display on the funereal pall. But a mightier than he has for ever wrenched them from his hold, and vain the sword, the helm, the spear, in that unequal conflict. The last contest is over, and "he is in peace."

"Brother, wrapp'd in quiet sleep,
Thou hast ceased to watch and weep;
Wipe the toil-drops from thy brow,
War and strife are over now;
Bow the head, and bend the knee,
For the crown of victory."

But suppose not pathos confined to the "bugle's wailing sound," and the sad subdued bursts of well-modulated military music—to the long files of slow-pacing troops with reversed arms, and the riderless steed, vainly caparisoned for the battle, that proclaim the obsequies of a chief. We are not ashamed to confess that the tear has been wrung from our eye by the plaintive notes of the few rude instruments that alone lament over the poor private's simple bier—the inharmonious fife, and the measured beats of the muffled drum; while the dull tramp of the appointed mourners following a comrade to his obscure resting-place falls chilly on the heart. Though even he, lowly in death as in life, shares with his leader in the brief wild honours of a soldier's grave—the sharp volleys of musketry pealing over his narrow home, a strange farewell to its passionless inhabitant, on whom the sanctity of the tomb has already passed; the unholy sound falls voiceless on his dull ear, fast closed until

"The last loud trumpet-notes on high
Peal through the echoing sky,
And cleave the quivering ground"—

breaking, with dreadful summons, "the eternal calm wherewith the grave is bound."

"Facilis descensus!" We cannot say that we admire the hurdy-gurdy, that synthesis of a grindstone and a Jew's-harp, yea, of all that is detestable, musically speaking, which must have owed its origin to a desire on the part of Jupiter Musicus, in a bad temper, to invent a suitable purgatory for expiating the sins of delinquent musicians; affording, on this supposition, an exquisite illustration of the perfect adaptation of means to an end—one well worthy the attention of all future writers on that subject. Independently of the nuisance of its inexpressibly harsh-jingling tones, (as, if you were being hissed by a quantity of rusty iron wire,) it always gives us the fidget to hear it for the sake of poor Abel, (surely its only admirer,) grinding away for dear life, to the extreme exacerbation of the bears growling beneath, under the combined irritation of no supper and his abominable tinkling. How they must have longed to gobble him up, were it only for the sake of popping an extinguisher on the "zit zan zounds" overhead! It was the reverse of the old tale, "no song no supper;" for they got the song, instead of a supper on the nice plump artist, which they would have liked much better. We wish he had stuck to his text, and persisted in his refusal to play; for then the fate that awaited him would but have been poetical justice for his utter and criminal want of taste—an adequate retribution on a wretch patronising an instrument whose demerits transcend every adjective that occurs to us at this present moment.

But as we cannot, even in the wildest freaks of our imagination, conceive of any one really liking the hurdy-gurdy—nay, we are prepared to demonstrate much affection absolutely impossible—we incline to think there must have been some corruption of this tradition in the course of its being handed down to us, so far at least as concerns the name of the instrument played at such a price; and on the antiquarian principle that consonants are changeable at pleasure, and vowels go for nothing, we take leave for hurdy-gurdy (what a vulgar sound it has!) to read flute, violin, lute, or, in short, any other presentable musical instrument that may chance to find the greatest favour in our eyes. A change which has the twofold merit of saving Abel's character for taste, and preserving so excellent a story from carrying a lie on the face of it; and for this service of ours, we desire alike the thanks of musicians and moralists, to whom we most respectfully present our improved version, as suitable for circulation by the most fastidious artist, or rigid precisian.

Mercy on us! What a rattling and clattering of doors and windows! The windows will certainly be blown in at last, for they strain and creak like a ship at sea; and how the wind roars and bellows in the chimney, as if Æolus and all his noisy crew were met on a tipsy revel! There—that last gust shook the house! It is to be hoped the chimneys stand with their feather-edge to it, or we shall have a stack or two about our ears in a trice. We wonder whether the cellars would be the safest place, or, indeed, whether there is a safe place about the house at all! We have often heard of the music of the wind, but never felt less disposed to admire it in our life—for the gale has been howling in our ears all day; and this last hour or two, there has been, as the sailors say, a fresh hand at the bellows; so that we are in no humour to sentimentalize on what is, within a few yards of us, curling the dark waves, that, since the day in which their fluctuation was first decreed, have swallowed up so much of what is goodly and beloved of this earth, and that now roar as if for their prey! of which may the great God that ruleth over the sea, as well as the dry land, disappoint their ravening jaws! We shrink and are half appalled at their clamour, while we are on the point of uttering a hasty vow never again to locate ourselves at the sea-side, though it were prescribed by fifty physicians; or, at all events, not so very near that dun mass of troubled waters, blending on the horizon in strange confusion with the lowering, tempestuous sky. Who could believe, as he views them in their milder mood, as we did yesterday—lying placid as a clear lake among the mountains, wherein the bright face of heaven is mirrored, reflecting each light cloud that floats in the deep azure, or the many-tinted hues of evening—that anon, lashed into foaming wrath, they should devour "rich fruit of earth, and human kind," the gold, and the gems, and the priceless treasures wrung from both hemispheres; and the young, the brave, the loved—the bright locks, and the manly beauty, and the hoary head; crushing their diverse hopes into one watery ruin, surging a wild tumultuous dirge over their one fathomless tomb! And then, sated with destruction, smile and glisten beneath the morning sunbeams with all the sportiveness of child-like innocence.

No, no—speak not to us of the "music of the wind." For to us, in our gloomy moods, it breathes but of desolation, sorrow, and suffering; while, as the blast rises higher, its sentimental mournfulness is mingled with painful thoughts, which press on our spirit, of the peril in which it places so many of our fellow-creatures; and, "God help the poor souls at sea!" rises earnestly in our heart, and even unconsciously passes the barrier of our lips, as we retire, utterly unsympathizing with the selfish enjoyment of those who delight to wrap up themselves, warm and cozy, in their curtained and downy repose, lulled to deeper slumber by the blustering cold in which others are shivering, or, haply, contending with the winds and waves so soon to overwhelm them. And in our more ordinary everyday humour—if it chance to rise above what in our humble opinion ought to be its maximum, a gentle refreshing breeze, just enough to waft sweet woodland sounds, or ripple the quiet stream—why, it discomposes and discomforts us, whistling, howling, and rattling among slates and chimney-tops, and making whirligigs of the dust, in the town; and in the country, soughing among the boughs, as though the trees had got some horrible secret which they were whispering to each other, while their long arms lash each other as if for a wager; the whole exciting in us a most uneasy and undefinable sensation, as though we had done something wrong, and were every minute expecting to be found out! A sensation which might fairly be deemed punishment sufficient for all the minor offences of this offensive world, and which we most decidedly object to having inflicted on us for nothing.

"The music of the wind!" Why, what can be more detestable than the wind whistling through a key-hole? or singing its shrill melancholy song among the straining cordage of the storm-threatened ship? Then, uninteresting accidents happen during squally weather: hats are blown off; coat-tails, and eke the flowing garments of the gentler sex, flap, as if waging war with their distressed wearers; grave dignified persons are compelled to scud along before the gale, shorn of all the impressiveness of their wonted solemn gait, holding, perchance, their shovel-hat firmly on with both hands; and finally, there is neither pathos nor glory in having your head broken by a chimney-pot, or volant weathercock. No, the wide sea is an emblem of all that is deceitful and false, smiling most blandly when preparing to devour you; and the wind is only one shade more respectable—nay, perchance the worse of the two; for the waters, in the self-justifying, neighbour-condemning spirit, apparently inherent in human nature—and for which Father Adam be thanked—may very possibly lay the blame of their fickleness upon it, and bring a host of witnesses into court to testify to their general good behaviour—their calmness, and amenity, and inoffensiveness, till exposed to the evil influence of Æolus's unruly troop—the most wholesale agitators going, and never so happy as when raising a riot.

N.B.—The whole tribe of zephyrs, gentle airs, and evening and morning breezes, will please to consider themselves as not included under the term wind; to which alone, in its common-place hectoring style, this tirade is meant to apply.

(We hate any thing important being popped within a parenthesis, but as the literary sin pinches us less than the immorality, we must here state what truth requires us to say—that the above, being written during a fit of the spleen, induced by the hubbub of winds and waters adverted to, must be received by the candid reader with considerable allowance.)

So much for the wind, which has blown music completely out of our head for a while. What a pity we did not bethink us of placing our Æolian harp in the window, before it had sunk into those short angry gusts which are now alone heard—the mere dregs of the gale; and so have drawn our inspiration from that which puffed it out! But, somehow or other, our bright thoughts generally present themselves too late to be of any use; and this is one in that predicament!

Some people profess to be never tired of music, but to enjoy it à l'outrance, at all times and in all places. With such, we must own, we have no sympathy. With all our love—not mere liking—for the art, we still hold that it is indebted for its charm to the categories of time and place, at least as much as its neighbours; for (but this confession should be made in the smallest, most modest-looking type in the world) there are both times and places when we hate it cordially, and fervently wish that neither harmony, nor its ancestor, melody, had ever been invented. In some such mood as made the very heavens themselves odious and pestilential to Hamlet, does music appear to us as unlike itself, as they really were to his crazed imagination of them; and we look forward with malicious pleasure to the time when, if Dryden is to be believed—but your poets are not always prophets—"music shall untune the sky," as a period when all the miseries it has inflicted on us shall be amply revenged by its perpetrating, or assisting at, this gigantic mischief. 'Tis then that your first-fiddle is but impertinent catgut—your fluent organ a vile box of whistles, fit representative of its Tube-al inventor—and the sweetest pipe ever resonant with the clear, music-breathing air of Italy, or bravely struggling against the damper atmosphere of our humid isle, sounds harsh and shrilly in our ears, instead of soothing our "savage breast," which seems to marshal all its powers the more emphatically to give the poet the lie. This—now that we are in the confessional—we are free to own—yea, it is incumbent on us to do ourselves this justice—is only when we are in one of our unamiable moods, luckily about as rare as snow at mid-summer, but correspondingly chilling and shocking to the genial ones around us,—ourselves usually most so, like quiet sunshine in November. We are, by nature, the meekest of individuals—a "falcon-hearted dove," or anything else, pretty and poetical, that might give the idea of our possessing a brave heart under a most gentle exterior; but when roused, then indeed are we a very dragon; or rather, to keep up our former simile, (which we think a taking one, though, alas! it is not our own,) and delineate, by one expressive phrase, a mouldering, rage kept in check; by the constitutional cowardice on which it is superinduced—then are we a pigeon-hearted hawk, wanting only the courage to be desperately cross! (An impertinent friend, who has been looking over our shoulder, suggests that ourselves, under the two above-named phrases, would be better adumbrated by the figure of a dish of skimmed milk, and that same milk curdled! A plague on friends, say we! the most impertinent impertinencies that fall to our lot in this cross-cornered world are sure to emanate from them.)

Another of our sins which—to make "a clean breast"—we must confess, is that of fickleness in our loves; an occasional flirting with other arts and sciences, in their turn—for we protest against the profligacy of making love to more than one at once! We string together fearful and unreadable lengths of iambics, and dactyles, and trochaics, and write sonnets to the bright queen of night, beginning "O thou!" and stick fast in the middle of sorely-laboured and at length baffling extempores to this, that, and t'other; and, wickeder still, then we din them into the ears of a wretched friend, who having once, in the extremity of his courtesy, unhappily proved himself a good listener, is, for his sins, fated to continue so to the end of the chapter—i.e., our interminable rhymes; til, tired of exchanging our bad prose for worse poetry, (and having the fear of his maledictions before our eyes,) we throw it aside in a pet. Then comes a change over our spirit; and we dabble in paint-pots, and flourish a palette, and are great on canvass, and in chalks, and there is a mingled perfume of oil and turpentine in our studio (whilome study) that is to us highly refreshing, and good against fainting; and we make tours in search of the picturesque, climbing over stone walls, and what not, to gain some hill-top whence we may see the sun set or the moon rise, haply getting soused in a peat-drain for our pains—and we pencil sketches from nature, really very like; and the blue mountains, the solemn sunsets, and purple shadows among the woods, or falling on the tawny sands, girdling the sea, whose blue-gray melts into the horizon, throw us into quick ecstasies of delight that almost paralyse the adventurous hand as it seeks, often vainly, to transfer the quick-changing loveliness to the enduring canvass. And then we fling away our pencils in despair, and worship, with all the devotion of which ignorance is the mother, (for we never handled the chisel,) the serene beauty of sculpture; most passionless, most intellectual art, breathing the repose of divinity, the grand inaction of the All-powerful; shadowing forth in this its perfection, sublime truth, with its faint, troubled, yet still sublime reflection, error;—the "without passions" of Divine revelation, and its perversion, its undue development, the unconsciousness, issuing in the final perfection of annihilation, of Braminical deity. So are the extremes of truth and error linked—the error depending for its existence on its antagonist truth. Painting is objective, sculpture subjective, throwing the mind more upon itself, to seek there the hidden forms of grace and beauty yet unmanifested by pencil or chisel. The one appeals more to the senses, the other to the imagination and the mind; exciting ideas rather than presenting them. Painting, sublimate it as you will, is still of the earth; albeit a purer one than this desolated habitation in which the sons of Adam mourn their exile—even the unviolated Eden; of which it is one of the fairest, tenderest emanations, reaching forward to the angelic, yet still a child of earth with mortality on its brow. Sculpture is of the gods, with its Titanic majesty, and calm, celestial grace.

But next succeeds one of our hard, stern, misanthropical fits, in which verjuice and aloes might be taken as the type of our condition, and we propound strange heresies concerning the affections, social and domestic; the leading one being that they are greater inlets to misery than happiness, and that mankind would have been less wretched had they grown up, like blades of grass, alone and separate; a cheerless doctrine, but one which misanthropical logic legitimately deduces from the more comprehensive one, that in this world evil is more potential than good—more active and influential in its own nature. And we bitterly call to mind all the treachery with which our trustfulness has been met—our leaning on that broken reed, friendship—the placing our whole hope and stay on some loved one who has failed us in our extremity;—we call up (and how they throng at that call!) these gloomy recollections, clad in all the terrors of the dark and indistinct past, to build ourselves up in our gloomy creed. And in our utter weariness of soul, the thought of an uninterrupted sentient existence is oppressive: and we passionately wish that the rest of the grave might not be vouchsafed to our body alone, but that our spirit also might sleep a deep, tranquil sleep, until the great day of awakening. 'Tis a dreary mood—like clouded moonlight on troubled, turbid waters! And we could roast Love with his own torch—and we see every thing through crape spectacles, and have no clarity for the softer, more refined emotions and contemplations; so we plunge our head and ears into a chaos of most musty, dusty metaphysics; and by the time we are nearly choked with them, and have reasoned ourselves, first, out of all intercourse with an external world, secondly, out of its existence, thirdly, out of our own, we are right glad to be brought back to our senses, and our old love, whom we embrace with all the ardour of reconciliation after a lover's quarrel, and willingly yield ourselves to the humanizing effect of music—grave or gay, as our mood may dictate, either perfect after its kind.

Reader, should you haply be of the extreme North, has it ever chanced to you to be present at our glorious English cathedral service? If not, congratulate yourself on this enjoyment in reserve for you; and when you next visit our end of the little island, pass not, we beseech you, those Gothic towers, massive and rich, or taper spires rising majestically above the cloistered arches, buttresses, and pinnacles, of these monuments of the piety, consummate skill, and humility of our ancestors; for no modern black board, with gilt letters, proclaims the name of their founders, who have sought a simple, perchance a nameless, tomb within the sacred walls they have reared. Pass within that lofty doorway; and the silence, the stillness, the vastness within, awe the heart! From the care and turmoil without, one step has placed us lonely as in a desert;—from the surges of life to the presence of the dead, who sleep around as if under the more immediate keeping of the Mighty One in His holy temple! And if, entering, a solitary memorial of the more clouded faith which they inherited from their fathers—the jewel, dimmed by its frail setting—should meet the eye, start not, with the pride of knowledge, from the meek petition, "Ora pro me," enscrolled beneath that mitred effigy, worn by the thoughtless feet of the generations passed away; but believe, and fear not to do so, that "it is accepted according to that a man hath," and that the sincere devotion of the heart, even when erroneously expressed, through involuntary ignorance, shall not be rejected by that just Being who seeks not to reap where He hath not sowed; but that it may come up as holy incense before Him, when our cold, unloving, orthodox prayers, backed by our heathenish lives, and meaner offerings on the altar of our God, shall return, blighted and blighting, into our own bosoms. Or should you be too petrified with pious horror at this—Popery, as with your longest, dismalest face, you will style it—to think with any charity of those who dwelt but in the twilight of your open day—the very verger, sleek, round, and smiling, as he stands by you in his sake-robes, shall, in his honest zeal, supply an antidote for the evil, moralizing on the vanity of such supplications, and winding up his simple homily with the significant—"Where the tree falleth, there it shall lie!" Think on that, rigid critic, and take heed how you fall!—nor, if you have the capacity for finding "good in every thing," will you disdain to learn the lesson of instruction, which your own heart had failed to supply, from so lowly a source.

But you still curl your sanctimonious lip, and shrug your pious shoulders, in intimation of your knowing vastly better than your poor, ignorant forefathers! Ah, well—then live better; that is all we have got to say to you!

Our very parish churches are now emulating the impressive ceremonial and exquisite musical service of the cathedral. Enter, then, with us one that has seemed, in some degree, to revive the glory of the olden time, when men, as they received, gave lavishly for the service of the altar; nor meted out their offerings with the niggard hand that is moved by the heart of this generation; unmoved, unwarmed, but boastful of its light—the light of a moonbeam playing on an iceberg! There is the long sweep of the nave, with the open chancel (not separated from the former by the richly carved and fretted screen, which, however beautiful in itself, mars the grand effect of the whole) leading to the altar—we are old-fashioned people, and fear not to offend by this old-fashioned term—whose sacred garniture glows beneath the many tints of the fine eastern window, with its monograms and emblems, and flowing-robed apostles, through which the mellowed summer sun shines obliquely, throwing strange, grotesque, many-coloured shadows on the walls and pavement; while on either side tall lancet-shaped windows, thickly covered with heraldic devices, bear modest record to the willing service of those whose munificence has reared the pile, and give increased light and richness to the scene. The great western window, also covered with armorial bearings, throws a dim, yet kindling, tint on the stone font aptly placed beneath it, as figurative of its character—initial to that further sacrament, meetly celebrated where the star of Him who first blessed it proclaimed His advent to the expectant world. While throughout the holy building, high-springing arch, and sombre aisle, and vaulted ceiling, and curiously-wrought oaken roof; all combine to impress the mind with awe and admiration, with thoughts of the past and hopes for the future.

But this is not all: these are but the glories of art, worthily employed, indeed, in the service of the temple; 'tis but the body without the life, the soul that animates it. Return at the decline of day, when "man, who goeth forth unto his labour even unto the evening," has received a respite from his ordained toil, and seeks to refresh and elevate his spirit, wearied and worn down with the low, inevitable cares of the day, with the mingled prayer and chant, "rising and falling as on angels' wings," that duly, at each appointed eve, swell through the consecrated structure, filling its concave with solemn melody. The last flush of evening has died in the west, and the scattered worshippers are indistinctly seen by the dim lights, which, bringing out into strong relief the parts immediately adjacent to the massive yet graceful pillars to which they are attached, throw the rest of the interior into deeper gloom, brought into sharp contrast with the illuminated portions, by intersecting arch, clustered shaft, and all the endless intricacies of Gothic architecture; exuberant with profusely decorated spandrils, sculptured bosses, light flying buttresses, and delicate fan-like tracery. How beautiful and hushed is all around! Now the stillness is broken by approaching footsteps, and the white-robed train of priests and choristers is seen advancing along the aisle, the organ uttering its impressive modulations to soothe the heart, and still its tumult of worldly care and feelings, that these may not, "like birds of evil wing," mar the sacrifice about to be offered on its unworthy altar. And then, amid the succeeding silence, fall on the ear—ay, on the very soul!—the words of Holy Writ, deprecating the wrath of an offended Creator, announcing pardon to the repentant, and cleansing from the pollution of guilt to the heart, vexed with the defilement of this evil world, and yearning after the purity of that higher existence for which, erst designed, the inherited frailty of its nature, and the threefold temptations that unweariedly beset it, have rendered it unfit and unworthy.

How clear, simple, yet most thrilling, is the enunciation of those words! and mark the superb harmony with which, proceeding in the sacred service, the single plaintively modulated voice of the officiating minister is answered by the choral supplications of the assembled worshippers—swelling out in joyous exulting tones, and dying away in sorrowful minor cadence, as though the shadow of sin and suffering fell on those pathways to the highest heaven, clouding the radiance unmeet for mortal eye! And if rude tremulous notes, from some of the lowly ones who, still habited in their garb of daily toil, kneel by our side—for, in that house, distinctions are there none—mingle with the harmony, they mingle not harshly, for there is melody in the heart, and it is the voice of a brother; not the less "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh," that the blessings of this life have been more sparingly bestowed on him—perchance to crown him more abundantly with glory and honour in that which is to come. Succeeding each other, the antiphonal chant—venerable with the port of near eighteen centuries; yea, with the hoar of Jewish, as well as Christian antiquity—the exuberant anthem with its ponderous chorus, and again, the joyous, melancholy, choral response, wherein blend the voices of childish innocence, strong manhood, and plaintive age, hear us on to the close;—that threefold blessing which none may hear unmoved, and whose magnitude seems to transcend our poor belief, as we reverently bow, in awed silence, musing on its unfathomable import; while the deep, mellow voice that pronounced it still lingers on the ear.

How imposing is the sight! One kneeling throng around—the indistinct light, that clothes with mysterious grace the beautiful lineaments of the Gothic structure—the bright gleam on the white and flowing vestments;—and the stillness! broken at length by a low, sad melody, in accordance with the subdued tone resting on all, gradually rising into the more swelling chords of the solemn organ, that, earthly strains though they be, seen not unmeet to mingle with those exalted ones that have gone before—rousing the heart from its more celestial contemplations, and by gentle transition—like a descending dove—bringing it down from its heavenward flight to that earth with which its present daily and active duties are concerned, the more fitly and cheerfully performed when thus hallowed; for, be it remembered, the preparation for that unseen world to which we are tending, is the best preparation for our continuance in this.

But the last wave of harmony has died away in the sounding aisles; one by one the lights are extinguished, throwing the varied beauty of arch, and niche, and pillar, into indistinguishable and fast deepening shade; and, last of the train, we, with heart tranquillized and elevated by the service of that evening hour, slowly follow the departing worshippers into the still, clear night.

M. J.

---

MARTHA BROWN.

By an Ancient Contributor.

TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Sir,—It is twenty years since I first contributed to your Magazine;—it was rather a brief article, and was not inserted in the early part of the work. In short, it consisted of a few lines in the Obituary at the end of the Number, and was as follows:—"Died at Bunderjumm, in the East Indies, Thomas Sneezum, Esq., much and justly regretted by a numerous circle of friends and acquaintances." He was my uncle, sir, and I was his heir,—a highly respectable man, and a remarkable judge of bullocks. He was in the Commissariat, and died worth forty thousand pounds. If you saw his monument, on the wall of our parish church, and read his character, you would know what a beautiful sympathy exists between a dead uncle and a grateful nephew. I took the name of Sneezum in addition to my own—bought an estate, and an immense number of books—and cultivated my land and literature with the greatest care. I planted trees—I drained meadows—and wrote books. The trees grew—the meadows flourished—but the books never came to an end. Something always interfered. I never could get the people in my novels disposed of. When they began talking, they talked for ever; when they fought duels, they were always killed; and, by the time I had got them into the middle of a scrape, I always forgot how I had intended to get them out of it. In history, it was very nearly the same. Centuries jostled against each other like a railway collision. I confused Charlemagne with Frederick Barbarossa, and the Cardinal Richelieu with M. Thiers. So, with the exception of the article I alluded to, in your Magazine, and a few letters on the present potato disease in the Gardener's Guide, I am a Great Unpublished—in the same way as I understand there are a number of extraordinary geniuses in the dramatic line, who have called themselves the Great Unacted. I can only hope that advancing civilization will bring better days to us both—types for me—actors for them.

At the time of the lamented death of my uncle, I was about thirty years of age, and for ten years before that, had been sleeping partner in a house in Liverpool; and I can honestly say I did my part of the duty to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned. I slept incessantly—not exactly in a house in Liverpool but in a very comfortable one—the drawing-room floor, near the Regent's Park. Twice a-year a balance-sheet came in, and a little ready money. I put the money carefully away in a drawer, and threw the balance-sheet in the fire. It was a very happy life, for I subscribed to a circulating library, and wrote the beginnings of books continually.

One day, about six months after I was in possession of the fortune, I heard a ring at the bell. There was something in the ring different from any I had ever heard before—a sort of sweet, modest tingling kind of a ring. I felt as if somebody was shaking my hand all the time; and, on looking back on the event, I think there must be something in mesmerism and every thing else—homœopathy and the water cure included; for it was certainly quite unaccountable on ordinary principles—but so it was. The maid was very slow in answering the bell. There was another pull. The same mysterious effects—a sort of jump—a tremor as it were, not at all unpleasant, but very odd—so I went to the door myself; and there fixed on me, in the most extraordinary manner, were two of the blackest eyes I ever saw—illuminating cheeks of a dark yellow colour, and increasing the whiteness of the most snowy teeth—the brightest, glistenest, shiningest, teeth that can possibly be imagined. She wore—for I may as well tell you it was a woman—she wore a flowing white veil upon her head, the queerest petticoats, and funniest shoes—at that time I had not seen the Chinese Collection and thought it was Desdemona (whom I had seen Mr Kean put to death a few nights before) "walking" in some of Othello's clothes. What she said, or if she said any thing, I was too much astonished to make out; but she walked into my room, smiling with her wonderful teeth, and curtsying with the extraordinary petticoats down to the very floor—and calling me "Massa Sib."

"My good woman," I said, "I am afraid you make a mistake. I don't know any one of the name of Sib;" but I checked myself, for I thought she perhaps mistook me—I wore prodigious whiskers at that time—for a gallant colonel, whose name begins with that euphonious syllable.

"No, no—no colonel," she said; "me wants you—me no care for colonels." What could she possibly want with me? I had never seen the woman before, or any body like her, except a picture of the Queen of Sheba when she was on a visit to Solomon. Could this woman come from Sheba? Could she take me for—no, no—she couldn't possibly take me for Solomon. So I was quite non-plussed.

"You no get no letter, Massa Sib, to tell you we was to come—eh?"

A letter? a letter?—I had had a hundred and fifty letters, but put them all into a box. How was it possible for me to read such a number? and who did she mean by us? How many more of then were coming?

"Massa Sib vill be so fond of him's babba—him vill"——

A dreadful thought came into my head—a conspiracy to extort money—a declaration at Bow Street—a weekly allowance. "Woman!" I said, "what, in heaven's name, do you mean by babba?"

"Dee little babb; it is so pretty—so like him papa."

"And whose baby is it? for I suppose it's a baby you mean, by your chatter about a babb."

"Your's. Oh! you will so lubb it."

"Mine? you detestable impostor, I never had such a thing in all my life."

"And here it is—oh, dee pretty dear!"

And at that moment, another woman, dressed in the same outlandish style as herself, brought up a little round parcel, that looked like a bundle of clothes, and, before I had time to say a word, or shut the door, or fly, placed it in my arms; and then both the women showed their glistening teeth, stretching from ear to ear, and screamed out in chorus, "You vill so lubb dee babba—it is such a pretty dear!"

I stood in a state of stupefaction for some time, but the dark-visaged visitors by no means shared my inactivity; they ran, and screamed, and bustled; trotted down stairs, jumped up again, and filled the whole passage; then the drawing-room; then the little bedroom behind it, with trunks, and bags, and band-boxes, and bird-cages full of parrots, and cloaks, and shawls; till at last, when I started from my trance—in doing which, nearly let the baby fall—I found my whole house taken possession of, and the two women apparently as much at home as if they had lived with me twenty years.

I unrolled the shawls and things from the baby's face. It was an infant about a year old, and opened its eyes as I was looking at it, and looked so wisely and sagaciously at me in return, that I could almost believe it knew as much of the proceeding as I did—and this it might very easily have done, without being a miracle of premature information, for I had not the remotest conception of what the whole thing was about. So I laid the child on the sofa, and went to the bell to ring for a policeman.

"Oh, don't ring him bell, ve are so comfitable here!" said one of the women. "Yesha vill go home 'gain, and I vill habb little bed in t'oder room, and vill sleep vid dee babb—so nice!"

"Oh, you will—will you? We'll see about that," I answered, astonished at the woman's impudence. "I will get you and your little lump of Newcastle"—this was an allusion to her colour—"turned out into the street."

"Oh, Massa Moggan vill soon be here! Him wrote letter a veek since; but him vill come to-day."

"Oh!"——

So I did not pull the bell, but looked at the two intruders just as Macready looks at the witches in Macbeth; for Mr Morgan was my legal adviser, and had been my uncle's agent, and transacted all the business connected with the succession; and I had such confidence in him that I never opened his letters, and had of course thrown the note they talked of into the great wooden box that was the receptacle of all my correspondence.

In the mean time, the baby began to squall.

"Take the brat away, and I'll tell a little bit of my mind to Mr Morgan," I said, grinding my teeth in a horrible passion; and, in a moment, the two women disappeared with the child, roaring and screaming, as if they had stuck pins into it on purpose to drive me mad.

If I had been a man of a tragic turn of mind, and fond of giving vent to the passion of a scene, I would have walked up and down the room, striking myself on the brow or breast, and shouting, "Confusion! distraction!" and other powerful words which Mr Kean used to deliver with astonishing emphasis; but I had no talent for the intense, and threw myself on the sofa, exclaiming, "Here's a pretty go!"

And a pretty go it undoubtedly was—two black women and a saffron-coloured baby established with me, as if I had been married to a Hottentot; and my sister-in-law, as is very often the case, had come to attend to her nieces' morals and education.

"So! Mr Morgan, what is the meaning of all this?"

But before I had time for further exclamations, my friend Mr Morgan, who had come quietly into the room, interrupted me——

"Hush, my dear Sneezum—you are delighted, I'm sure. A most interesting incident—eh, Sneezum?"

"Oh! these things do all very well in a book," I began; "but, by jingo, sir, it's a very different thing in real life; and I tell you very fairly, I'd sooner be married at once than have all the troubles of bringing up a set of children that I have nothing to do with."

"Children! my dear Sneezum?"

"To be sure; how do I know that some more black women mayn't come—with some more children—till my house grows like a gallery of bronzed figures; but I'll sell them—see if I don't; I'll pack them all on an Italian boy's head-board, and sell them to the doctors—every one."

"You labour under a mistake, my dear Sneezum. You've got my letter?"

"Yes—I got it—but"——

"Oh, then, of course you are too happy to show such respect to the wishes of the defunct."

"What defunct?"

"Your uncle."

"What! uncle Sneezum?" and a wonderful light seemed to break in upon my mind.—"He sent this baby here?"

Mr Morgan nodded his head; and, being a man of great caution, he only put his finger in a mysterious manner alongside of his nose, and said—

"Secrets in all families, Sneezum."

"Oho! well—but the women—they're ugly customers, both of them; uncle Sneezum was no judge of beauty."

"The women! what do you mean?" said Mr Morgan.

"Ay, which of them is it? but you need hardly tell, for I should never know which of them you meant; they're a great deal liker each other than any two peas I ever saw. Are we to call her Mrs Sneezum?"

Here Mr Morgan burst into a great laugh.

"My dear Sneezum, you are always trying to find out some wonderful scene or other to put into one of your books. No, no—these are two nurses; one will remain in charge of the child, the other returns immediately to Calcutta."

"And where will the one that is to remain—where will she live?" I asked with a fearful presentiment of something shockingly unpleasant. But before he had time to answer, the black visage of the nurse herself appeared at the door, smiling with more blindingly white teeth than ever.

"We have took dee room below dis—dee babb is in dee beautiful bed, and ve vill never leave Massa Sib—never no more—so nice!"

So I was booked, and felt it useless to complain.