By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars, looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood was full of noises, among which he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it, he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cool air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him, with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge.
THE GIANT AND PYGMY OF BOOKLAND.
The extremes of bookland which meet in the British Museum are each remarkable products of the art of book-making. Difficulties would seem to attend the perusal of either of them, though of a widely different sort. Here is to be seen the largest book in the world—an atlas of the fifteenth century. It is seven feet high. When a tall man consults it, his head is hidden as he stands between its generous leaves. Its stout binding and ponderous clasps make it seem as substantial as the walls of a room.
The smallest book in the world is a tiny "Bijou Almanac"—less than an inch square, bound in dainty red morocco, and easily to be concealed in the finger of a lady's glove.
These two extremes of the printer's art might well stand at the beginning and the end of the amazing thirty-seven miles of shelves filled with books which belong to the great English library.