| feathers of a superb cock-pheasant, which he was holding up by the neck with his right hand, its varying and gorgeous hues glittering and glowing in rare mimicry of life. A large hare and small rabbit hung by their heels from the top rails of the fence, while a great pile of game, composed of hares and pheasants only, was heaped up at the sportsman's feet, his double barreled gun leaning against a post in the extreme right foreground, a bright and golden glitter falling upon the yellow bank and the light foliage of the bushes just behind it, and sleeping lovingly upon the sere and faded herbage that lay below, with every blade of grass, and shivered stick, and small white pebble, laughing out all distinct and sharp in the soft sunset. No words, however, can describe, so as to convey an idea of its vraisemblance, its strong reality, and truthfulness, that noble picture; and Harry Archer, as he observed his friend, whom he knew to be an amateur and connoisseur of no mean jugdment or ability, said nothing, but, supposing only that he was admiring its very visible and striking beauties, relapsed into his own revery, from which he was aroused at length by a loud burst of laughter from Fred Heneage. Looking up, not amazed a little at this sudden interruption, he was encountered by an expression so funnily and joyously triumphant in the face of Fred, that he too was constrained to laugh, as he asked,

"What now-what the devil's in the wind now, Heneage?”

"So you've been humbugging as usual-stuffing me at your old tricks-hang it !--but I'll pay you for it."

reality thinking, and that too rather deeply, on matters growing out of their late conversation. Harry was pondering in his mind whether of two beats would be the preferable for to-morrow; the one being by far the better for woodcock, but in bad rotten ground and exceedingly thick covert; the other much opener and easier shooting, but not by any means so favorite lying for the long billed birds of passage; while Heneage was ruminating on all that he had heard, and marveling not a little, and half doubtful whether he was not the subject of some wilful mystification, touching American field sports on the part of his companion. After awhile, however, he raised his eyes to a large and fine oil painting which hung over the fire-place, and which, from the accidental position of both the argand lamps on one-and that the right end of the mantle-piece, was clearly visible in its best light. At first his eyes fell on it by mere chance, and then were riveted by the grand massing of the light and shadow, before he had so much as observed the subject of the painting. He was then on the point of speaking, and asking his friend something of the artist, when an idea struck him, and he examined it, not with a critic's only, but with a sportsman's eye; for, like most of the decorations of Harrry's shooting box, it was connected with those matters that were for the most part uppermost in the mind of the owner. It was a large and nobly executed piece-a view of a narrow woodland lane expanding in the foreground of the piece into an open meadow, where it was closed by a set of strong timber bars. The wood and winding lane were actually natural-the gnarled and mossy trunks of the large trees just gilded on their western edges by the ruddy beams of the declining sun, the rich autumnal foliage over head here opening to let in long penciled rays of livid yellow lustre, these blackening into twilight shades, impervious to the strongest light; the mossy greensward checkered with slant gleams and long shadows, and the sandy lane most naturally varying from the brighest tints of ochre to the deepest umber, as it was touched by sunshine, or overhung by heavy foliage. The left hand foreground of the picture was occupied by a tall oak, its deep brown coppery umbrage casting a massive gloom over the earth below it, while here and there a flickering glance of gold glinted on its rough boll between the sere leaves. In the front of this, brought into strong and papable relief, for it was in broad light, stood a stout built gray pony, with a long tail and heavy tangled mane, looking out of the corner of his eye with a half vicious glance, as if more than half inclined to kick at a small spaniel, which seemed to be tickling his forelegs by the feathery motion of his thick silky tail. A saddle lay ungirt by the dog, with all its trappings, crupper and stirrups and surcingle, cast in disorder on the ground, as it had been flung down by the smock-frocked urchin who leaned against the rails, holding the bridle carelessly in one hand thrust under his frock, and "Well, well, I grant that-I grant that-but did watching the actions of the principal personage, a you chance to read, too, that the partridge of New siout, athletic man, with shooting jacket, game bag, York is not the partridge of Virginia-and farther yet, boots and leather leggins, who was employed a little that the partridge of New York is the pheasant of way advanced before the rest in smoothing down the | Pennsylvania, and New Jersey? And farther, once

"Now what do you mean in the name of all that's wonderful?" Harry exclaimed, himself quite mystified. "I have not stuffed you; and, in truth, I cannot even guess what you are driving at."

"Oh! no-not you, I warrant you-here you've been cramming me all night about ruffed grouse, and quail, and wood ducks, and Heaven only knows what else; and making me eat snipe under the name of woodcock-though they were mighty large snipe, I must acknowledge-just for the sake of cramming me that woodcock in America were not woodcock. I suppose you think I have never read about pheasant shooting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and partridge shooting in Virginia and New York. But no you do n't-no you don't, master judge! I am not to be had to night!"

"Faith! but you are had pretty thoroughly. Oh! how I wish Frank Forester were here—but I'll tell him-I'll tell him if I die for it, and he shall cook it up for some of the magazines, that 's poz. But how did you find out that you were had, Fred?”

"Why, I tell you, I have read books about America, if I never have been here before, and I know that there are pheasants in Pennsylvania, and partridges in New York and Virginia."

again, that neither the partridge of New York nor the partridge of Virginia is a partridge at all-nor the pheasant of any place on this side the Atlantic a pheasant?"

"No, Harry, I never did read that--and you may just as well stop stuffing me, when I sit here with the proof of your villany before my eyes."

"Where, Fred-where is the proof-hang me if I know where you are in the least!-where is the proof?"

"Why this is too much! Do you think I'm blind, man-there!—there in that picture!-don't I see pheasants there, and hares too?"

"Oh! yes, Fred-yes, indeed!" shouted Archer, choking down a convulsive laugh that would burst out at times almost overpowering him. "Yes, that is it, certainly and those are hares and pheasants-and that's a right smart Jersey trotter, I some guess-a critter that can travel like a strick-and the boy holding him-that's a Long Island nigger, now I calkilate, —oh, ya—as! and that's a Yorker on a gunnin' scrape, stringin' them pheasants! ya-as;" and he spoke with so absurd an imitation and exaggeration of the Yankee twang and drawl, that he set Heneage laughing, though he was still more than half indig- |

nant.

"No!" he said, when he recovered himself a little, -"no, I did n't say that-the boy is not a nigger." "A white nigger, I some think!" responded Archer, still on the broad grin.

"No, not a nigger at all-and that does not look much like an American fast trotter either-nor has that man much the cut of a New Yorker."

spring, sometimes before the snows off the ground, laying, rearing its young, and going off when the winter sets in to the rice fields, and warm wet swamps of Georgia and the Carolinas. The bird called in the eastern states the partridge, and every where souts ward and westward of New Jersey the pheasant, s in reallity, a grouse-the ruffed or tippet grouseTetrao umbellus-a feather-legged, pine-haunting mountain-loving bird, found in every state, I believe. of the Union, in the Canadas, and even up to Labrador. There are many other grouse in North America of which none are found in the states except the great abundance in Long Island, New Jersey, and it pinnated grouse, or prairie fowl, formerly found ir northeastern parts of Pennsylvania, though on Long Island it is now quite extinct, and nearly so in Penn sylvania and New Jersey. They are still killed on Martha's Vineyard, a little island off the coast Massachusetts, where they are now very rigorously preserved; and in Ohio, Illinois, and all the wester states, they literally swarm on the prariries. The spruce grouse, a small and very rare kind, is found in Maine occasionally, and in a portion of New York, between the head waters of the Hudson and the Canada frontier. Four or five other species are found in Labrador, and on the Rocky Mountains, but be of these, though well known to the ornithologist, can be included in the sportsman's list of game. The partridge of Virginia is the quail of New York; common y known as pedrix Virginiana—though of late there has been a stiff controversy as to his name and geaus. It is proved, I believe, beyond cavil, that he is not exactly a quail, nor a partridge either, but a sort of half-way link between them; the modern nura.ists call him an ortyz-a very silly name, by the way! since it is only the Greek for quail, to which he is in truth the more nearly connected. His habits are tar more like those of the quail than of the partridge, and he should be called quail in the vernacular. I pou want to get at the merits of this case, I will lead you a book, written by my old friend, J. Cypress, Jr., and edited by Frank Forester, in which you will Lnd the controversy I have mentioned. These three birds we shall kill to-morrow, and you will be convinced af the truth of what I tell you. Properly speaking, there is no rabbit in America-the small gray fellow, whi is commonly so called, sits in a form, and never burrows, nor does he live in congregations—whe the large fellow, who is found only in the easter states, and some parts of New York and Jersey, turts white in winter, and is in fact a variety of the Alpine Hare. The first, I dare say, we may kill to-m£*\. certainly not the latter. The snipe, moreover, whi is called English, to distinguish him from all the thousand varieties of sandpipers, shore birds, and plovers, which are called bay suipe, indiscriminately and from the woodcock, which the country folks mud snipe, blind snipe, and big-headed snipe, just is their fancy prompts, is not-so say the ornithologists

"No. I should think not very much. Negroes are not for the most part white-and, as you say, American trotters have not in general quite so much hair about their fetlocks, or quite such lion manes-it might do for a Canadian, though-but then unluckily they are not apt to be white!-and certainly you might travel from Eastport to Green Bay and not meet a man with laced half boots and English leggins, unless you chanced to stumble on your most obedient; and as to a blue Leicester smock-frock, such as that lad has got on, there most unquestionably is not such a thing on this side the Atlantic-but never mind, Fred, never mind. That gray cob is quite as much like Ripton or Americus, and that little fat faced chaw bacon is as much like a Long Island nigger, and that broad shouldered Yorkshire gamekeeper more like a New York gunner, than those long-tailed, greenheaded, golden-breasted pheasants to any American fowl, be he called what he may. Why Heaven preserve your wits, Fred! That is an English picture, by an exceeding clever Royal Academician. See!Fred, you must have heard of him! A Day in the Woods' he called it, and a right good day's work he has made of it. Now, listen to me; there is not one wild bird or beast in America, unless it be a few ducks, that is precisely similar to its European congeners. The woodcock is a distinct variety, Scalo--exactly the same bird as his English brother; ar pax minor, rarely.exceeding eight and never eleven ounces he is red breasted, and is in the northern states a summer bird of passage; coming early in the

though his habits, cry, feeding ground, and so forth. are exactly similar, except, by-the-by, that here perches on trees sometimes."

"Heavens and earth, what a whopper!" interrupted Heneage.

'Just so I told Sam B-d-t when he told me so six years ago, and ten days afterward I saw it myself, in company with Mike Sanford. Bill R, of Newark, knows it right well, and has seen them do so himself, and so does Frank!"

"You be hanged!" answered Fred.

"You think so now," said Harry, "but you'll know better one of these days. Mean time I have about finished my yarn. All I have got to say more is, that the only birds I have found precisely similar here and in England are the mallard and duck-the teal, which is called here the green-winged, in contradiction to our garganey, which these folks call the blue-winged, teal. And now, ring the bell, and fill up a fresh glass of punch." So said so done; and, ere the tumbler was replenished, Tim made his entry.

"Now, Tim," said Archer, "we shall want breakfast before day break-say half past five o'clock. Do you drink tea or coffee, Fred-oh, either-very well, then black tea, Timothy-dry toast-no hot meatthat cold quail pie will do. The double wagon, with Lucifer and Pluto, at six precisely-we shall want Dick to bring the nags home, and you to go with us. Some luncheon in the game bag-the flasks all filled. I will shoot over Sancho and Jem Crow and Shot tomorrow-do you understand?"

"Ay, ay! sur," answered Tim, and exit.

"And now, Fred, this is your bed-room-all's right, I fancy-you shall be called at five to-morrow, and, please the pigs, I'll let you know, and that before sunset, that a day's tramping in the swamps of Warwick is quite another thing from our friend Lee's Day in the Woods.'

MARRIAGE A LA MORT.

A PASSAGE FROM THE ANNALS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.

BY W. E. BURTON.

CHAPTER I.

THE RETREAT.

been feeding its fishes. 'Tis a perilous swim on a wintry day."

"But why cross the river at this point, so far from the field of battle? We must travel along the northern bank, on our road to Nantes, to avoid the numerous streamlets that intersect this shore."

"Why, then, are you here?" said Raoul Moyse, the new comer. "How were you enabled to cross the Loire in the neighborhood of Savenai, when our whole force were not sufficient to command the pass?"

In the gray of the morning of Chritmas Day, in the year 1793, a young man, in the ordinary costume of a French peasant, with a bright red handkerchief bound round his head, stepped cautiously from a bushy shelter on the summit of a precipitous cliff that banked the current of the river Loire. His attention had been aroused by a slight splashing of the water below, and he vainly endeavored to distinguish in the rising mist the cause of his alarm. He poised a huge and rusty musket on his knee, drew his nail across the edge of the flint and loosened the caked powder that filled the pan. In a few moments, a man was seen swimming in the river's brink, and endeavoring to find a foothold among the rocks; he had scarcely effected his hazardous landing, ere the watcher, having descended the cliff, hailed him in the rude patois of Bretagne. The swimmer paused, gazed anxiously around, and into the group, and killed a lovely creature-one who fell exhausted on the beach.

"Here, Jean Brive," shouted the watcher, "leave your hiding place in the bush-crawl down, and help me to assist a brother unfortunate."

Another figure appeared descending the cliff: a frightful wound deformed his youthful face, and streaks of gore stained his dress.

The historical reader will at once perceive that our actors are fugitive Vendeans from the fatal battle of Savenai.

"Peste!" exclaimed the swimmer,, as he revived under the exertions of his comrades, "had the Loire been fifty yards wider I should, by this time, have

"We jumped into a ferry boat that was leaving the shore, during the thickest part of the pursuit. We thought we were unobserved, but the cowardly blue coats fired after us, although the rest of the passengers were women and children. One of the hired slaves of the covention, a dragoon, dashed his horse into the river, and swam some distance after the boat. We could easily have stopped his progress, but the girls pressed round us, and held our arms. The ruflian fired

had been most earnest to save his life. We fired in return, and the dragoon, and the nobler brute, the horse, both sunk beneath the stream."

"You were right, André Bezas, in crossing the river at your earliest chance. The northern shore swarms with legions of the blues. I have been hunted by the demons during the entire night; and when the first glimpse of light exhibited a body of the enemy in advance on the east, I resolved to attempt the passage of the Loire, dangerous as it was, rather than run the risk of falling into the hands of the butchers.”

A consultation was then held by the trio, respecting the method of procedure, when it was resolved to

throw away their muskets, to avoid the banks of the river, to make a detour to the southeast, till they struck upon the only great road in the Bocage,* leading from Rochelle to Nantes. A passage on this road, by unarmed peasants, would not be a suspicious event; but, in case the troops of the convention were likely to be troublesome, a knowledge of the by-ways of the Bocage would enable the Vendeans in a few days to strike the river to the east of the city of Nantes, when, desending the stream in a market boat, they could not be suspected of participation in a battle fought many miles to the west, should the authorities deem it necessary to interfere.

"I can promise you both shelter," said Jean Brive, the man with the gash in his face, "should we gain the city. My sister, Pernelle, inhabits a small house built on the ruins of the old ramparts. The remains of a covered way pass under the house to an unexplored extent; at all events, there is room for a couple of runaway Vendeans, and I'll be bound that Pernelle will not let us starve."

and the discomfited royalists hastened to obey their leaders. The republican troops offered no opposition to the progress of the sons of the Bocage, and thou sands of the fugitives gathered together in the capital of the old duchy of Bretagne. But the emissaries of the Convention had possession of the plans of the royalist, and the Nantese authorities gave up the control of the city to a pro-consul sent from Paris with power to punish and to slay. The Vendean fugitives were arrested, and the jails were crowded with their thousand victims.

"Jean Baptiste Carrier, the pro-consul, might, to quote the language of Sir Walter Scott, "have summoned hell to match his cruelty without a demon venturing to answer his challenge." He was originally a low, unprincipled attorney in one of the Auvernoise villages, and early distinguished himself by his ferocious conduct during the various movements of the Revolution. He joyfully accepted the mission to Nantes, and bade his colleagues mark the energy of his acts. Informal trials gave his victims to the

"What reason can you assign for returning without guillotine in daily crowds; the inhabitants wept at the your youngest sister, the pretty Benotte?"

"Pernelle knows why Benotte followed our people into the field. Patriotism is a pretty excuse for the love of a dashing young officer. Guillaume Roland has received a violent hurt-Benotte hastened to tend his wounds; and if he is captured by the enemy, she will not hesitate to share his imprisonment."

The hardy Vendeans proceeded to put their plan into execution. The wounds of Jean Brive were washed and bandaged-he had received the thrust of a pike in one of his cheeks, and a carbine bullet had gone through the flesh of his arm-yet he scorned to complain, and cheerfully essayed the long and toilsome march. A rough cross was erected by the river side; prayers were addressed to the Savior, and the aid of the Virgin Mary claimed in their behalf. A scant breakfast was extracted from the knapsack of André Bezas, and the trio set forth with cheerful and resolved minds. Their muskets were detained until they neared the great road, when a farmer gladly filled their knapsacks with the best of provisions in exchange for their arms. In due time they reached the city of Nantes, and, with but little difficulty, gained the friendly roof of Pernelle Brive.

CHAPTER II.

THE PRO-CONSUL OF THE CONVENTION.

After the disastrous battle of La Mans and Savenai, which occurred within a few days of each other, the Vendean chiefs meditated a concentration at Nantes,

Le Bocage, a little wood, or grove, is the name given to an extensive district comprising the chiefest portions of the departments of La Vendee, the Lower Loire, the Mayenne and the Loire, and the Two Sevres. The whole of this country is woody, though there are not many large forests. The fields are small, enclosed with live hedges, interspersed with large trees. There is but one great road in the Bocage, as above stated, but cross roads leading to the public road from Tours to Poictiers, are innumerable. A by-way, or ercss road, which serves also for the bed of a brook, may be found at the end of every field. A traveler cannot fail being bewildered in this endless labyrinth of muddy ways.

unprecedented slaughter, but the insatiate Carrier grumbled at the inanity of his death dealings, and dispensing with all show of trial, doomed thousands to the grave.

Collot d' Herbois, Joseph Lebon, Maignet Robespierre-nay, the whole mass of the sanguinary ruffians of the Revolution were excelled in individual cruelty by this Carrier. Anecdotes of occasional mercy, of minute workings of human nature, of irresolution in the execution of their dreadful deeds, are related of many of the most conspicuous among the blood-stained crowd; but not a single point can be urged in Carrier's favor. He lavished death with a gout that characterized him alone; blood seemed necessary to relish his daily bread; and the workings of an active imagination were employed to vary the monotonous doings of the executioner-to excite and gratify the appetite that reveled with a fiend's de light in the annihilation of his fellow creatures.

The three Vendean soldiers were concealed in the covered way of the old ramparts by the girl, Pernelle Brive, at the hazard of her life. This heroic creature obtained a poor living by trimming the better kind of hats of Nantese manufacture, famous throughout the west of France. Her scanty means were unable to furnish the additional food required by the new comers; and she was ultimately compelled to state her impossibility of providing another meal. It was resolved that one of the party should venture from the place of concealment, and, in disguise, perambulate the city, to obtain, if possible, the means of existence for his starving comrades.

The choice fell upon André Bezas, who returned empty-handed from his day's stroll. He had been unable to procure the requisite change of clothing to effect a perfect disguise; he was therefore fearful of venturing in the crowded avenues, lest he should be reconized by the busy foe. He was too proud to beg, and too honest to rob, even for the bread of life.

Jean Brive's wounded face was reckoned too remarkable to be trusted in the public streets. The

third peasant, Raoul Moyse, unwillingly went forth, | lutionary army-the executioners of rapine and of with many an oath, upon the necessary but fearful murder! task.

He returned with a basket of the choicest foodwith a hamper of wine-with a purse of gold! He refused to explain to his comrades the cause of his success; and, despite their honest cautions, boldly ventured to walk the busiest streets at all hours of the day.

It has been remarked among the peculiarities attending the doings of the Reign of Terror, that timid and tender-hearted men became, without any stage of intermission, the most blood-thirsty and ferocious in their acts, when possessed of power over their fellow creatures. A score of names may be cited as auPernelle Brive was a well-made buxom lass, and thorities. Raoul Moyse had never exhibited any her cheerful looks and kind attentions made a power-powerful traits of a sanguinary nature during the exful impression on the plastic mind of André Bezas. terminating contest in which he had been engaged; The horror of the times had driven the timid Cupid but, when appointed to a command among the ruffian from the haunts of men; but in the damp recesses of corps, he emulated the bloody fame of Carrier himself. the ancient war paths the little god found welcome. André told his amorous plaint in the secrecy of his dark hiding place, and saw not the blush that irradiated Pernelle's brown cheek when she listened to his welcome tale of love. Her brother gave his sanction to Andre's claim, and the willing maiden consented to bestow her hand whenever her lover dared boldly to claim his prize.

Raoul Moyse had also beheld the ruddy beauties of Pernelle with an amorous eye, and scrupled not to prefer his claim. He offered her a variety of choicest trinkets-jewels that the richest of the Nantese ladies might have worn with pride-but the honest girl rejected his present and his vows. The fellow pointed to the tri-colored cockade, which he had been compelled to assume in his disguise, and, with a grin of peculiar malignity, went forth into the crowded

square.

CHAPTER III.

THE CARNAGE.

Few persons in the Vendean army knew the particulars of Raoul's life. He claimed La Vendee as his birth place, and it was known that he had done good service to the cause. One of the small islands on the western coast was in fact his natal spot; and for many years he belonged to a gang of desperate wreckers that haunted the troubled shores of the Bay of Biscay. When the civil war first reared its head in La Vendee, he joined the banner of the royalists at the command of a seigneur, to whom he had been obliged for protection in more than one of his suspicious deeds. The excitement of a soldier's life gratified his active disposition; and, as the peculiar mode of warfare adopted by the Vendeans permitted him to change his leader at his will, he rambled from post to post unquestioned, and at last achieved a character for patriotism and bravery.

On the day when he first quitted the vaults to seek for food, he encountered one of his brother islanders, who was then high in command in the army of the Convention, and deep in the confidence of Carrier, the pro-consul of the doomed city. Raoul kept his own secret, and his friend made him an offer of service. Ere the day had passed, Raoul was an officer in Carrier's own corps-a corps composed of Parisian thieves, convicts released from jail, galley slaves, the refuse of the provincial cities, the scum of the Revo

On the morning of the twenty-first of January, 1794, Carrier was standing in one of the public squares of Nantes, superintending the execution of nearly two hundred human beings of all ages. The condemned were placed in columns, to be mowed down by grape shot-in line, to be murdered by the musketry of his pets, as he denominated the assassins under his command. The word was given-the cannon roared-a band of music struck up a gay and martial air, to drown the victims' shrieks. The musketeers poured in their fire-the cavalry dashed in among the dying and the dead, and, with their sabres, cut the maimed sufferers to the earth. The servile wretches that composed the staff of Carrier turned pale with horror and affright. A smile of triumph lighted the eyes of the chief demon of the group, and his thin lips quivered with joy.

An old man, a decrepit, time-bowed wretch, with a seamed and wrinkled face, and long white hair, now dabbled with his blood, escaped the aim of the marksmen with a flesh wound, and skillfully parried with his staff the sabre of the dragoon who tried to cut him down. He staggered to the feet of Carrier, and implored, not mercy, but time for one brief prayer to God!

"There is no God!" said the atheist, with a sneer. "The Convention has decreed that there is no God! prayer therefore would be a waste of time." Two of Carrier's ruffians drove their bayonets into the old man's body, as he knelt at Carrier's feet.

The old man started up, and his life-blood trickled unchecked from his gaping wounds. His piping treble seemed changed to the rich, full voice of his youth, as he said—

"I stand on the threshold of eternity! There is a God! He has summoned me to his presence, and I summon thee to meet me there ere another year be added to thy life!"*

For a moment the old man wavered as he stood. A smile enlivened his worn and pallid lineaments; the vividness of death passed away, and he dropped motionless at Carrier's feet.

The group stood aghast! The chief placed his foot upon the old man's corse, and, taking a pinch of snuff, quietly exclaimed—

"My pets must be looked to-they are becoming careless, or this poor wretch would not have escaped to

* Carrier closed his infamous life upon the scaffold within a year from the date of the massacre at Nantes. Upward of thirty thousand persons perished during his proconsulship at Nantes.