young Bullock, with the fellow's arm round her waist. The girl is mad, I thought, for I was beyond speech. Presently the door was dashed open, and in bounced young Bullock, out of breath. "Make haste, ma'am, make haste! We have kept a capital corner for you, though it is only in a cattle truck they have put on behind." us with the promise of another special train coming every instant, I should have turned round and walked myself back every step of the way to Slowmansleigh, and have entered an action against the railway company the very next day for "breach of promise," and would have had the Lord Chancellor to lay the damages. "Away, serpent!" I cried; and sink- I may be deceived, for I am not the ing upon a chair, my feelings overcame Pope of Rome, but I believe it was halfme, and I dissolved in tears. past ten or a quarter to eleven-I won't A piercing steam-whistle, whose ex-be particular to a minute-I only know cruciating shrillness turned my skin into gooseflesh, roused me from my misery. With my fingers in my ears I rushed to the door just in time to see Slowman dragged from an open carriage window which he had attempted to enter while the train was moving from the platform, when the porters had secured him by the heels, and pulled him ignominiously forth like a thief. I laughed scornfully, for I was half glad to behold him punished for his desertion and neglect of the wife of his bosom. the telegraph wires were buzzing so, that I expected each moment they would go off like a gun-when we saw the up signal turn slowly round, by which we knew our train was coming in at last. People had begun to look blank and limp with waiting, but now they bustled about as lively as crickets, and swarmed like ants in and out of the offices. for joy, though he was as sooty as a sweep. There was no room to spare, so people tumbled in just wherever they could. Luckily, Slowman and I found a beautiful carriage with a lamp burning on the top to prevent taking liberties in the tunnels, and a wool footing up to one's ankles, and cloth linings that would have been comfortable enough had it been winter, instead of a broiling sun, and the perspiration running in peas down one's face. It smelt rather fusty too, that's a fact, and I was scandalized to see the moths walking in and out of holes just as they do o' Sundays in the faded green baize of Squire Jilly's pew in church directly the organ begins. It is a matter of history how Jessie, the Flower of Dunblane, sang "The Campbells are coming," at the relief of Lucknow ; but I never knew what it was "If ever there was a finger of Provi- to enter into her feelings, poor thing, till dence," I said as he came up to where II heard the whistle of the engine and saw stood, looking sheepish enough as you that train come sailing alongside the may suppose "if ever there was a finger platform. I could have kissed the stoker of Providence, Slowman, that was one!" I am good-tempered enough if everything goes smooth, nobody can deny that; or if they do, I will go further and show them that folks are never so put out as when they are contradicted flat. No lamb but would feel mortified at being left behind by an excursion train; no lamb but would be in tantrums at it. It is as much as to say you are not good enough for our company. Now I have my own opinion on that matter, and I will never sit under anybody's footstool, that I am determined. Consequently I do not mind admitting, that for the next two hours Slowman led a pretty life of it with me, and I have no doubt he was quite sincere in wishing himself at home and me at Jericho, though he need not have put himself to the trouble of repeating that wish so often as he did. If it had not been that Keziah was actually gone on with that young Bullock, "who," said I, "if he does not take care may find himself figuring at the Xeter assize court some fine day for abduction or arson, or something worse." If it had not been for that, and that they kept on deceiving A polite gentleman with large whiskers and a gold chain, worth a mint of money, sat opposite to me, and a more genteel Romeo-and-Juliet looking fellow I never saw. The curl of his moustachios. spoke volumes of military romance. It seemed to me he must have been bred up in the Castle of Otranto, and that he held the Horse Guards in his pocket. There were three others in the carriage whose appearance I did not much regard, but he was as polite as could be, offering to let up and down the windows, and helping me in all manner of ways, quite a pattern to Slowman. Besides these there was a countryman with a large bundle which he pushed in under my seat, and a young lady, dressed to death, as they say, with a hat that would have turned Keziah's brain could she have seen it. What with the heat and standing about, I could scarcely keep my eyes open; and I had not been seated a minute before I forgot all about the roses at the back of my bonnet, and resting my head so that they must have been squeezed into a pancake, I dropped asleep as sound as a roach, and woke up three minutes afterwards under the impression we were arrived at Xeter. Nothing of the sort. There was a porter at the window asking to see our tickets, and Slowman was slapping one pocket and then another as if that would create them, and then at last had to confess that he had handed them over to Keziah to take care of. Of course the money had to be paid again, and the gentleman opposite with the large whiskers and watch-chain I fancied eyed Slowman's purse quite rudely when he took it out. For though it was but a common leather bag, there was plenty of lining to it, that is certain. Then, as they make a point of doing, the porter must needs open the door and slam it again with all his might, bawling out "All right," as if he would insult us to the last; whereby my dress got jammed, and the next time I moved it tore a quarter of a yard three-cornered rent. With a screech like my godmother used to give when she sang, "There was an old woman all skin and bone" (which is always associated in my mind with the smell of hot punch and the wind rumbling in the chimney), the engine dragged us sulkily out of the station, and of course you may suppose we were off at last. Nothing of the kind, bless your heart! They simply shunted us on to the middle line, no better than so many luggage vans; and there we stuck simmering and spitting (that is, the engine, you understand) till the clock had struck twelve, the express train passing malignantly up before us! I should have burst with spite had not some one sensibly proposed a game of cards. Croquêt would have been more genteel, but Keziah was not NEW SERIES--VOL. I., No. 3. with us, and there would scarcely have been room, I expect, even if we had had the balls. The polite gentleman with the large whiskers and watch-chain took a deal of persuasion, unless, as he said, the ladies would play. I was ready at once; but after the first game, which I lost, I felt so sleepy I could not go on, so he made up a rubber of whist with Slowman and two of the others. I never woke until after three o'clock, just as the train reached Xeter. Everybody was complaining of the scandalous way in which we had been detained on the road, and Slowman was cursing and biting his nails worse than any. The countryman, who, I told him, had no right in our carriage with a third-class ticket, wanted to get at his bundle, but I would not budge an inch, till he let out that it was a butt of bees, and that he merely wished to see if they were safe. Good gracious! I wonder I did not go straight out of the window, like a Jackin-the-box. "Lor, missus, you needn't squall so," said the man (I give it in the low creature's own words; and upon my honor I only exclaimed, "Gemini! Slowman!" and leapt up, creeping all over, as well I might.) The polite gentleman with the large whiskers and watch-chain caught hold of my dress; for I dare say he expected to see me every instant through the window, and a coroner's inquest sitting on me; and one of the others made me change places with him, though it was but a moment before we all got out at Xeter station, where the crowd was so great I lost sight of them instantaneously, though I looked everywhere to thank them for their politeness: for I was determined to shame Slowman, who I verily believe would have seen me stung to a strawberry without lifting a finger, he looked so glum. Will you believe it? The Horticultural Exhibition was closed; and just as we reached the cattle - yard a violent tempest came on, and we were drenched to the skin, while the lightning was awful. "My dear Slowman," I said (I am always affectionate in a thunderstorm)— "my dearest husband, let us go back." And back we went, as fast as our legs could carry us, to a pastry-cook's in the High street, where we found our Keziah and Young Bullock in the long room 25 behind the shop, with a lot of others as merry as grigs around a table covered with chops and steaks and sausage rolls, drinking Allsopp's pale ale in long glasses and talking sixteen to the dozen. It was still thundering, and I had not the heart to scold the girl, who indeed did seem overjoyed to see us, and kissed me again and again, and whispered she had a secret to tell me. Now, if I have a weak point it is to hear a secret. I believe if I were fighting a deadly duel with broadswords, and my adversary whispered she had a secret to tell me, I should throw down my arms at once. So I smiled at Keziah, and said there would be time enough for that by-and-by. For one should never listen to a secret directly. Waiting makes one's mouth water whether it is for currants or kisses. And I can tell you it is much nicer to put a secret off for a while, like a letter, which I always carry in my apron pocket for an hour before opening. Down I sat and began to eat, for I had tasted nothing all day, and the beefsteaks were done to a turn, and such baked potatoes, for all the world like snowballs in curl - papers! Slowman had been out of the room with that young Bullock, and now came back looking more cheerful than when he had a legacy left him. I own it exasperated me to see him so hand and glove with that young fellow; and I was preparing to say something biting to the young scamp, who looked as if butter would not melt in his mouth, when we all know Arrowmore cheese would not choke him, when all at once our Keziah exclaimed "Why, father, do you know you have Mr. Bullock's purse stuck in your waistcoat pocket ?" Slowman went immediately as red as a lobster. beholding to that "-I paused to give it emphasis-" to that-gentleman. Since, Mr. Slowman, you cultivate a taste for gambling, and are become so childish as not to be capable of taking care of your money, it is well for you that you have a wife whose purse is at your disposal. Take it," I said, imitating, as near as I could, Lady Macduff's tone, in the play, when she murders sleep, and plunging my hand in my pocket My conscience! I thought I should have dropt. There was nothing in it. Upon examination, we found that my dress had been cut with a sharp instrument, and I as innocent as an unborn babe of it, and my purse stolen. Up went my hands and eyes. "Well," I cried, "this beats Banagher, as the Irishman said," and, turning about, who should I see at a corner table but the polite gentleman with the large whiskers and watch-chain, whom I knew directly, although he was holding up a newspaper before him. The minute he saw me he laid down the paper and stretched his legs, and took up his hat, and moved to the chimney-glass in a leisurely sort of way, and then was about to pass by us out of the room. What possessed me I cannot think, but I touched him on the arm, and asked him if he might have seen my purse which I had lost in the railway carriage. "My good woman," he answered, as grand as Doomsday, staring like a stone above my head, "what are you talking about? Is the creature insane?" he added, waving his hand to Keziah to let him go by. You may imagine how I felt. "Do you mean to say," I demanded, all aghast at his impudence, "that we did not travel together in the same carriage this morning?" He tapped his forehead significantly, looking round on the others and shaking his head (the scoundrel !). Yes, my dear," he said, hesitating, and looking at me. "The fact is, I may as well out with it; I lost every penny I had, playing at cards in the train with a "The poor thing! she ought to be conlot of blessed sharpers "-not that Slow-fined in an asylum. Never saw her in man employed the term "blessed," but all my life before, 'pon my honor." if you understand irony you may guess A suspicion instantly darted into my what he used-" and Bullock here has mind. been kind enough to offer to lend "It is my belief, you villain, you took the purse yourself," I called out. He made no reply, but tried to push by Keziah. I was determined he should not escape, if he had been a Hercules and I a midge: so I caught hold of his | shoulder, held my breath, and clung like a leech. When he found he could not shake me off, he called for the mistress of the shop, and asked in a lordly manner whether she did not know the name of Captain Blackball, at the same time throwing down a card as if he were the Champion at the Queen's coronation. He wanted to know whether she called her refreshment - rooms respectable. He asked what she meant by it; and declared he had been grossly insulted, and that he would prosecute "that female" (meaning myself), and all who aided and abetted her, with the utmost rigor of the law. The shopwoman curtsied, and said she was sure she did not know any of us, but that she was perfectly astounded at any female accusing a captain in the army. At the same moment a gentleman and lady came on out of the back room, the gentleman calling out in a light, airy tone as he passed, "Good-bye, captain; we shall see you to-night at the Park !" and then stopping, apparently surprised at the scene. "Oh, ma'am," I cried to the lady, whom I recognized at once by her hat, "did we not travel together to-day, ma'am, in the same carriage with this gentleman with the large whiskers and the watch-chain ?" She stared at me for a minute, and then smiling languidly to the shopwoman, said, "There is evidently some mistake. The woman is crazed. Come, captain, you will go with us." I could scarcely believe my senses. You might have tripped me up with a gossamer. I turned to Slowman to support my evidence; but neither he nor young Bullock were visible, and Keziah was crying like the rain. I let go my hold on the captain's coat, and they had reached the door, when it was blocked up by young Bullock and a policeman, and the next instant brought Slowman and two or three more of the police, who made no ado but slipped handcuffs at once upon the captain and his fine friends, who turned out to be a part of a gang of swindlers that had been pocket picking in every direction through the town. My purse was discovered the very first thing in the captain's pocket; so I got it again without the loss of a single penny-piece; for which you may be sure I was thankful enough to remember in my prayers; not that I cared so much for the money as for the little gilt thimble which had belonged to my godmother's aunt, to whom it had been given by her nurse's cousin, when she was a child in the mumps; and has been an heirloom in the family ever since. Of course there was congratulation between us all. You would have taken that pastrycook's shop for the Houses of Parliament in debate, there was such a jabber; and I caught myself gossipping with at least six people at once, without knowing one of them, and shaking hands with young Bullock for his good service, before I was aware of what I was doing. I could but be grateful to him, you know. He and Slowman then left us to go before the magistrates or something, and they tell me I shall myself have to appear as a witness when those light-fingered gentry are brought to trial. I have, however, made up my mind to be in bed that day with a sick headache or something infectious, even if I have to drink mustard and water to produce it. The barristers shall never have an opportunity of playing off their tricks on me, with their "Now, Mrs. Slowman, speak up that the jury may hear" you," or "Remember you are upon your oath, ma'am.” Oh, I have heard and seen poor witnesses worried into swearing black is white, and badgered to tears many a time in the course of justice! That was the tea we made when Slowman and young Bullock returned, and we all sat down in the pastrycook's back room, with kidneys and broiled ham that would have made a Jewish cardinal break his fast of a Friday! It is my firm conviction, and you would never turn me from it were you to talk within an inch of your life, that we should not have moved to this day had not the omnibus called to take us back to the railway station. For Keziah had whispered her secret; namely, that old Mr. Bullock, who I will say is a most respectable man, and owns more property than half the gentry round-that old Mr. Bullock had taken a nice estate for his son, about four miles from Slowmansleigh, and that young Bullock had There now I am beginning to cry again. It is very foolish, but I cannot help it. I suppose they will be married in the spring, and that will be the result of our going to the Cattle-Show. Temple Bar. SORCERY, ANCIENT AND MODERN. PERFORMERS of miracles are as old as the world, and as eternal as human folly; the pythonesses of Greece and the augurs of Rome can shake hands, across twenty centuries, with the spirit-rappers of Amer ica and England. So long as magnetizers contented themselves with telling you the number of your watch, no great harm, perhaps, was done: but at present the evil is proving one of a serious nature, for the spiritualists are as legion, and are indubitably exerting a very deleterious influence over minds. Till the time arrives when the law shall be called upon to treat these impostors in the same manner as it does the comparatively harmless fortune-tellers, there is only one weapon which can be employed effectively against them, and that is ridicule. For this laudable object we will take advantage of the recent appearance of a work by M. Alfred de Caston,* to give our readers a cursory account of sorcery ancient and modern. According to trustworthy documents, India was the cradle of the occult sciences practiced by the ancient thaumaturgists. From India the science of the Magi passed to the Chaldeans, and from them to the Egyptians; where, through the sacerdotal organization, it soon made great progress. God's chosen people did not escape infection from the prevalent mania, and sacred history tells us that the Lord punished the Canaanites because they employed enchantments against their enemies. We also read that Moses, ere he became the leader of the Israelites, was educated by the daughter of Pharaoh in the learning of the Egyptians. The ancients believed that the gods revealed their will to mortals through certain privileged beings. Warriors, women, freemen, and slaves went to consult renowned oracles, just as, in Les Marchands des Miracles: Histoire de la Superstition humaine. Paris: E. Dentu. our days, we consult a great physician or celebrated lawyer. It was, in short, a golden age for the priests and sibyls. The temple of Delphi was the most celebrated, and the priests did all in their power to keep up its reputation. Their means of acquiring information are thus described by M. de Caston: "Every caravan, every deputation, every private person, coming to consult the oracle, was surrounded, while still twenty leagues ling companions, who had no difficulty in disfrom the temple, by spies, guides, and travelcovering the visitors' object. All the attendants at the inns where the travellers halted were devoted, body and soul, to the college of priests. The latter, on their side, contrived to gain the requisite time for obtaining information about the new-comers, and, by various pretexts, delayed the day when the oracle would speak. While awaiting the good pleasure of the gods, strangers amused themselves as best they could, by visiting the monuments and curiosities of the country. They were constantly accompanied by guides, who had the double duty of watching and exciting them by artfully told tales. Here a large fresco displayed the exemplary punishment doubted the power of the local divinity. Farinflicted on an incredulous man, who had ther on, a man, hurled from the summit of a precipice, was a miser, who had not kept his promises to the god. In another monument, the statues and admirably-modelled gold vases were the gifts of some great man, whom the oracle had saved from mortal danger. All this naturally affected the new-comers, and divinity they had come to consult." inspired them with great confidence in the When the priests had obtained all the information they needed, they allowed the oracle to speak. Should it happen, however, that the visitor was silent, and no information could be acquired about him, the oracle still spoke; but the answers were very enigmatical. The priests invented about a hundred phrases, which were half-way between an affirmative and a negative, and, with such a system, it was very difficult to catch the oracle tripping. This plan, by the way, is extensively imitated by our false prophets, mediums, and extra-lucid somnambulists. At the same time the rulers took advantage of this jugglery, and managed that the prophecies should harmonize with their projects. Demosthenes exclaimed, the priests of Delphi constantly make "The Pythoness philippizes!" on seeing their oracle speak in favor of Philip of Macedon. It is true that the latter prince |