Jerningham, whose iron camp-bed stood beside Revel's, rose up in breathless silence, and placed his hand upon the shoulder of his companion. Receiving no response, he bent over him, and saw by the dim light that his quondam friend was asleep an indifference which bore ludicrous comparison to his own agitation. A second shake, however, recalled the slumberer from his dreams. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and muttering, "Wake Duncan with thy knocking," until a word from Jerningham brought him to a sense of the project they were about to realize. ing a short staircase, stood before the connubial chamber of the Vandersplutter and his spouse. While they stole past on tiptoe, a loud snoring from within, in the nasal key of the master, announced that he was too deeply wrapt in the lethargic slumbers of intoxication to hear their noiseless footfalls. They hastened on more swiftly, and were speedily in the darkened schoolroom. As they moved among the benches and desks, Jerningham saw a pile of his own books lying there. He placed one of them in his pocket, and in another instant Revel had opened a long ground window looking out on the road, and they both leaped forth into the highway. A long deep-drawn sigh escaped from their bosoms-they were free! With many stumbles over corners of tables and legs of chairs, they managed to complete the operation of dressing; not, however, without making much more noise than usual, as people always do who attempt any stealthy act that The spell which apprehension had cast over requires silence. The gay bachelor stealing to their minds now rolled away, and the natural his couch under the paternal roof at three in the glee of boyish spirits burst forth without conmorning, is sure to slip down stairs and alarm trol. They ran a little way, until they were the household. The rakish benedick returned clear of the village precincts, and then regufrom a late dinner, who would fain slip to the lating their pace to a steady march, continued side of his better half without waking her on, directed by the signposts and an occasional watchful heart but acid tongue-doth he not milestone. Every now and then some reminisdrop his boots with a loud crash, or trip over cence of the past came across their memories, some errant pair of shoes with an explosion that and they laughed in chorus till the blue sky ensures discovery? The present instance was rung again. Their path, too, led them up rising not deficient in these characteristics. Jerning-grounds, from whence they paused to gaze upon ham had been struggling into a pair of trousers foreign to his limbs, and Revel had got his shoes upon the wrong feet, and various other anomalies, contingent upon dressing in twilight, had occurred to dispirit and vex them. But at last the consummation arrived-they stood ready for the campaign, accoutred cap-àpie. Before leaving the dormitory, each collected in a bundle a few extra portions of dress, and left a note upon his bed, containing the address to which the rest of his possessions were to be forwarded. Finally, they fastened towels round their feet, so that their iron heels might not clink upon the stair; and with their knapsacks slung over their backs upon a couple of hocky sticks, and their caps drawn slouchingly over their eyes, they cast a long wistful look round the apartment, and stepped across the threshold. the distant landscapes; and when they descended into the vallies, there were harebells to pluck, and wild roses to gather; and every dewy flower that they passed seemed to shed double incense because they were free. On, on, they haste to the great Babel, light of step, and smooth in cheek and brow; life has not stung them yet with the knowledge which is unhappiness. Another milestone! Another mile covered, and their brave spirits do not flag; another mile nearer the goal-London! that bourne to which so many like them have wandered full of hope, but from which no traveller returns unscathed. London! the chaos of all that is best and worst; the hospital of aching brows and broken hearts; the diseased body, in which vice ever festers; the mighty workshop, where the hungry and heavy-laden know nought but toil from the cradle to the grave-London! where the charlatan flaunts in cloth of gold, and genius dies of want; where crime conceals its shame, and sorrow its sting; where gold is the only God, and man lives years in hours while struggling to procure offerings for its altarLondon was pictured to their imaginations as the centre of the gay, as the city of palaces, as a throne where Pleasure sat enshrined in universal dominion. No matter their steps are lighter for the delusion! And they stepped into the pale moonlight, gleaming from a window at the end of the building. It showed them the chamber-doors of their schoolfellows as they passed along the gallery; and while one after another became indistinct, it seemed to their minds as if the hushed sleepers were also lost to them. All the well-known faces were mirrored in their minds; all the merry voices sank again upon their hearts like a strain of music, that is no sooner born than it dies for ever. When shall they meet In the month of June, night is brief as a again-those young spirits of the dawning age? dream. Before they were half-way upon their Ambition shall claim some, pleasure shall en-journey, the stars began to wax dim, the moon thral others, toil shall curb the many; but once launched in the sea of Life, few may meet again, the world is too wide for that. There are a myriad bubbles on the ocean, yet their circles do not touch. They left the gallery behind, and, descend waned into paleness, and a thin veil of mist crept over that cerulean sky. Then the shrill crowing of chanticleer rose from a neighbouring farmyard and was echoed from every henroost in every point of the compass. Nor was it long before the lark took up the song, and chirruped its matins at heaven's gate, and insects began to play over the streams, and the trout to leap after them with merry splash. As it grew lighter, the branches fluttered for a moment with an awakening sigh; a fresh chill-the coolness of a young hand-pervaded the atmosphere, and all things stirred to welcome the coming morn. They had taken byways past several villages that studded their track; but now, as the sun arose, they came to a little hamlet, which their path rendered it necessary to intersect. This rustic colony consisted of a mere strip of houses running in one straggling street; yet there was no lack of bustle, for it happened to be marketday. Carts loaded with vegetables were issuing from antique doorways; haymakers were gathered together in groups waiting for hire, and drinking home-brewed with the ostlers in the meantime; and milkmaidens of ruddy cheek and nimble limb yoked on their pails, and tripped off to the meadows, singing as they went in very lightness of heart. Jerningham and Revel were pondering at a distance how they might procure rest and provision without attracting notice, when a wellknown figure approached the fence on which they had paused to reconnoitre. It was the person of a youth scarcely older than themselves; but so emaciated with privation was the attenuated frame, so wan and withered was the vacant face, that any age might be reasonably fixed upon for his. Some shock had upset his reason, and poor Daft Jem, as he was called, wandered on day after day none knew whither, supported none knew how. They hailed him when he came near, and the wanderer stopped at their call, with the harmless simplicity which made his madness so pitiable. "Good morning, Jem," said Jerningham; "you're up in the morning early." 66 "No earlier than I always is," replied Jem; people whose beds is the ground or the barnfloor don't make too much of 'em. I slept in Farmer Gunning's yard last night, and very soft, too, if it warn't for the vermin; but the rats was up afore I was." "Never mind, Jem," said Revel, "better men than you have ratted it before nowministers to wit!" "Anan!" sighed the wanderer, sadly. "I don't understand them guns they've been firing," he continued-" they say it's for joy 'cause of the great battle; and only t'other day they fired guns over the grave of the corporal as died here of his wounds, and it was for grief then; so I asked if joy and grief was the same, and they called me daft.” "They were fools to say so!" exclaimed Jerningham; and it was a curious study for his brooding mind to see the fabled Satyr, who turned the traveller from his hearth for blowing hot and cold with the same mouth, impersonated n poor Daft Jem. "Do you know London?" said Jerningham, with some surprise and interest. 66 Aye, aye, no one better," he replied, "it's only eight mile from here; when I went first, I used to sleep under the dry arches of Lunnun Bridge; but I larn't better than that—and now I sleeps in front of the bakers' shops, 'cause they bakes at night, and their fires keeps the pavement warm. I was taught that by looking where the dogs went-these brute creatures may sometimes teach the best o'n us-there's the gate as leads to the church." Saying which, Daft Jem hurried off to the tavern close by, and they sauntered down the path he had pointed out. Before they reached the village kirk, Jem was there with a basket of good substantial comestibles. Pulling out a clean white napkin, which he had borrowed in honour of the occasion, as breakfasts were not his lot every day, he spread out knives and forks and cold meat and bread, not forgetting a stone bottle of chestnut-coloured ale. So the adventurers, soiled with dust, and weary with travel, sat down beside Daft Jem in the old church porch, and the morning sunlight fell on them soothingly, and the flask passed from hand to hand without restraint. Perhaps it might be an harmonious influence from the ivied walls or the tombs decked with trailing roses, perhaps it was the possession of freedom so sweet to eaglespirited youth, but that simple meal was a pleasure they had never tasted before, and like all real happiness, it was not noisy but serene. By the time the homely cheer had satisfied their appetites, a drowsiness stole over them, and in spite of their desire to proceed, exhaustion now began to tell upon their uninured frames. Daft Jem, too, grew restless, as was his wont when neither talking nor eating. They gathered the relics of the repast together, and put them into his wallet, adding a small memento from their limited funds. He started off again with a rude but fervent benediction-the benediction of a mind unaccustomed to kindness-and when he was out of sight, they sauntered into the church. That temple-you may see it now, reader, on the southern side of the silver Thames-was a relic of the middle age, built long before the innovations of modern art. What with protruding buttresses and massive pillars, there was scarcely a point from which the pulpit was visible, which indeed was less important than it would seem, for half the grey old church-goers were blind with age. Still the square highbacked pews looked very snug and reverend; the birds built nests in the windows, and sweetbriar peeping through the panes, filled the air with woodland perfume. The sexton-a meekeyed man, with hair silvered by seventy winters -moved away through the churchyard as our adventurers entered, so they were left in the chancel alone. At the end of the aisle, they found a larger pew than ordinary, shut in with scarlet curtains, where some village lord offered up his orisons. In a niche above it was an escutcheon, marked in one quarter with the red cross, telling of an ancestor fallen in crusade upon the fields of Palestine. They glided in here, and closing the door, stretched their limbs along the well-stuffed seats. And no fugitive, finding refuge in holy sanctuary, ever felt repose more grateful. Their slumber was profound as that of the village forefathers who slept in the mossy tombs of the churchyard—as unwarlike and untroubled as the rest of the Crusader whose name was recorded over their heads, but whose bones had long since blanched and withered before the battlements of Jerusalem. CHAP. XIII. we shall be flooded by novels in marble covers replete with thick coming fancies to keep us from our rest.' I shall never forget the tale of thrilling interest' you wrote in the Pepperton Gazette, and the agonies you suffered upon discovering that everybody was killed, and that nobody was left to rescue the knight from the tyrant's castle in order that he might marry the heroine." 66 6 No more o' that, Hal, an thou lovest me!'" cried Jerningham, with a laugh, “you are full of most unsavoury similes!" rus in Thus foreshadowing the future, or playfully recalling the past, they left the green fields behind, and entered upon those outskirts of the great city, where the trading community have loved from immemorial time to unite the urbe." At first these green retreats of meditative commerce were only visible at intervals, and, in spite of their white formal fronts, and clipt box, and pyramidal trees, still preserved something of the true rustic character. But soon such habitations became more frequent, and the occasional greenery wore a withered aspect, the foliage grew scant, the smiling sky less purely blue. Visions of tall chimneys came next, bellowing fire from their entrails, and vomiting murky smoke into the clouds. Then the houses, no longer standing apart with country independence, approximated closer and closer, until at last they joined in an unbroken They shouldered their knapsacks again, re- web. And the sky looked darker, and the vived in spirits, and strengthened in limb; and streets looked dirtier, and the doors and winhaving waved a grateful adieu to their resting-dows frowned ominously from the brows of their place, to which they vowed to make a pilgrimage at some future time, they set forth upon the remainder of their journey. THE ORPHAN AND THE FOUNDLING. It was noon before the weary sleepers woke almost simultaneously from their refreshing slumbers; the bell in the turret was tolling two, the church was silent and deserted as when they entered at early dawn. The sun was shining now, and light clouds were skimming along the sky, and lighter breezes were playing fitfully. It was a sweet summer day that gave wings to their feet, and made their bosoms lightsome. As every step brought them nearer town, they began to start projects of life, and weigh them with a shrewd half-boyish gravity. "The play's the thing' for me!" said Revel; "don't you remember what a hit I made when we fee'd the strolling manager with a couple of guineas to let me act one night at Pepperton? Even the Vandersplutter sat grinning in the boxes, and never recognized me, I was made up so well-anything will do, from tragedy to farce, from the Ghost in Hamlet to the walking gentleman in a sentimental comedy?" "Well!" replied Jerningham, merrily, "take care the walking gentleman does not extend his peregrinations into the King's Bench!" "You think that my occupation,' like Othello's, may soon be gone,' ,"" said Revel; "but I am prepared for an initiatory struggle, the phantom of Hamlet's father, you know, would not answer' at first." 66 "All success to you!" responded his friend; may you never find that the time is out of joint when you look in the larder!" "Amen! and for yourself, Ned, I suppose you have laid out a pen-and-ink existence, and shelving eaves. Even the very face of man changed its aspect to a more solemn cast, as they pierced into the depths of the seething capital. They stood upon London Bridge. From the bosom of the fair Thames rose a forest of unnumbered masts, and from those masts streamed many a gallant standard - the light pennant coiling like an adder, the fair flag of England waving its broad sheet to the breeze; and the fisherman glode along in his jumping skiff; and the waterman, gaily attired, plied his wherry from shore to shore; and at helm and at oar, and from cabin and topmast-head, floated laughter and song in rejoicing for Waterloo. He They passed on through the haunts of business where merchant industry toileth on, toileth ever, weaving its golden web like an inexorable fate. Poor slave of Mammon! and to-morrow he dies, and his place knows him not, and the hoards whereon he gloated with a lover's joy shall be scattered in a year by a prodigal nephew. The mug shopman, too, sits behind his counter, thrifty and content. has his visions as well. But they must not be realized yet, A few more hundreds in his chest, a few more summers sacrificed to Plutus, and he will doff the apron, and buy lands, and make much of himself. He looks in the glass. No! He is not so very old after all, there is time enough yet. And in the midst of his reveries, even while he " babbles of green fields," the voice fails, the pulse is hushed for ever, But now, as the wanderers move along 'Chepe and Ludgate, they can trace an evanescent smile among the commercial wrinkles, and dinners at a neighbouring tavern, hidden in some stifling court, are proposed and eaten, and punch and port wine leave the traders very mellow in honour of Waterloo. The wanderers wound their way on, wondering at the bustle, and stunned by the ceaseless uproar of hurrying multitudes. No face but wore a peculiar impress, no eye unlit by some absorbing passion, no unit of the moving mass but hastened upon a distinct pursuit. Even the lounging man of "ton" had a purpose in his leisurely tread, the "flaneur," gazing listlessly into a shop window, had abstraction in his mien. No more merry sunburnt visages, no more idlers stretched in the shade of spreading trees; Thought invested the city like a pervading spirit. walk without other support than leaning her hand upon his arm, and he soothed her with gentle words, and wiped the tears from her cheek with the solicitude of a brother. Unheeding the direction they took, Jerningham accompanied her along streets which she seemed to thread mechanically. She did not speak, yet her heart was full, for he felt it throbbing. Once she stopped, and looked up as if with intent to express her gratitude; but her utterance died away, and her eyes fell again, and she walked on droopingly and silent as before. Her attire was of the humblest kind; and her hand, though naturally small and white, had been seared with toil; but there was something in her eye of deepest violet, and features of chiselled regularity and mournful beauty, that seemed superior to her fortune. The heart of Jerningham grew more towards her with every glance, and he felt a sensation very like disappointment when she paused before the portals of a large empty house, and indicated that it was her home. Towards evening the streets became densely filled, more particularly within fashion's boundaries, where preparations were making for the night's festivity. The bay windows of the clubs In the same silent way, however, as hitherto, teemed thick with busy members, ministers she took a large key from her pocket, and showed there unbended brows, country gentle-opened the door; and the expression of her eye, men laughed loudly from the Alfred, boys of noble blood chatted epigrammatically at the door of White's. Borne along the tide wherever it listed, our young wanderers forgot their weariness; everything was attractive, because novel to them. They were walking beside the park of St. James's, marking with a crowd of others the frame-works trellised outside the houses for fireworks and illuminated devices, when suddenly a hum rose from the distance, a cry of "make way," and shouts, and vivas, and tossing hats. It approached nearer, and the crowd opened to admit the passage of a chariot magnificently appointed. "Long live the Prince!" echoed round, and the finest gentleman in Europe bowed gracefully to the people on either hand. The carriage had scarcely passed, when the mob pressed upon its rear to catch another glimpse of their favourite; and as they closed in, Jerningham saw a young girl fall under the feet of a horse belonging to one of the outriders. The fiery animal plunged violently, the mob held back afraid. Looking up with agonized terror, the girl gave vent to one of those harrowing screams that chill the heart as if it were cleft by cold steel. An inward impulse woke Jerningham from the spell that first bound his faculties. He leapt under the horse's belly, and seizing the girth to steady himself, drew the crouching form away with the grasp of a vice. An instant after, the thorough-bred charger had started off at full speed, and he was left standing, with the girl, faint and terrorstricken, supported in his arms. The curiosity of the mob was soon diverted, when they found that no melodramatic injury, such as mobs crowd to gaze on, had occurred; and Jerningham, leading his charge aside from the multitude, used every effort to calm her agitation. She gradually recovered sufficiently to rather than any uttered wish, invited him to enter. He followed without hesitation; and wide desolate staircase, covered with dust. they crossed the echoing hall, and mounted a Nothing could have looked more blank and drear, lit as it was by dim rays that struggled through the closed shutters, until she opened the door of an apartment on the drawing-room suite, which appeared to be the only room left for habitation. She sank into a seat, and the burst in a flood upon her raven hair. Jersunlight-for the windows were unshaded here lation, where gilded wall and painted ceiling ningham looked round upon the splendid desonices woven over with the spider's woof; and contrasted so coldly with bare boards and corthe girl, in her attitude of declining loveliness, appeared like a disembodied shadow revisiting the deserted hearth of other days. "And this is your home!" he said in a low tone, that reverberated with hollow echoes. 66 "Yes," she replied, motioning him to draw the other chair-there were but two-towards her own. Yes, I live here, and my name is Marie, and I am always alone." She paused, and looked wistfully at his countenance. The frank openness of its expression appeared to reassure her; for she added, " You have saved my life, will you not stay to cheer it? I am very lonely!" It was now Jerningham's turn to gaze; but he saw nothing save simplicity and gratitude : his first fleeting suspicion speedily died away. "But your parents, where are they?" he asked. "I cannot tell," was her reply; perhaps they are dead-and if not dead to the world, they are so to me." "Have you then no remembrance of them?" pursued Jerningham, strangely interested, in spite of the whisperings of sober common sense; at least you have friends." "Another time," she said with a gesture half imploring, “I will tell you all-all I know not now.' She cast her bonnet on the floor beside them, and drew nearer to him. "See," she continued, " the evening is come, and night-night-will soon be here; and it is so sad to have no one by when the panes rattle, and those strange noises echo on the stair; the wind stalks about like something ghostly, sighing and whistling on purpose to scare me; then the moon bursts in with its pale shadows, and there are steps in the hall, until I hide my face with fear, and pray for daylight." "Pshaw, Marie !" interposed Jerningham, (he had caught her name already), "these are childish fears; nothing worse than solitude haunts the house." "Then stay with me," she replied caressingly; "listen, don't you hear it now?" Jerningham rose, and she followed behind him fearfully. He opened the door, when suddenly from every side rose the sound of hurried feet down the stairs, within the wainscoting, over their heads, and along the distant hall. Flinging open a window, he admitted a stream of light upon these spectral visitants, and they beheld a perfect multitude of rats retreating in every direction, and apparently as much frightened at being disturbed as Marie had been at their phantom-like intrusion. "These are corporeal shapes, which are not so easily exorcised," said Jerningham, shutting the door again with a laugh; are you satisfied now, Marie?" 66 Yes," she answered; "but you will not leave me!" And she took his hand, and sat down at his feet once more with an innocent freedom that forbade refusal. As night deepened, her form, weak with confinement and privation, declined into slumber, and he watched her repose as if she had been a sister. Midnight was tolling forth from a thousand bells, and fires were illumining the sky, and rockets filling the air with a myriad lustres, when Jerningham suddenly started wildly to his feet. In the agitation of his strange encounter with Marie he had forgotten that Revel was separated from him by the crowd! And all that night, while the rats chased each other along the staircase, and the old empty house was rife with fanciful echoes and wild sounds, and while Marie slept childlike, his heart was rent with the deepest distress it had ever known-the loss of Revel. (To be continued.) THE MINSTREL LOVER. BY ADA TREVANION. The time of flowers is the time for me, When the vault of heaven is clear and blue, Morning! how lovely the day-beams pour! Last night, when the day-god sank to rest, And though the moon hath now left the sky, Still the dews like fire in the flowers lie; Away, ere the fawn the wet fern stirs, Silence now. The tall fir-trees throw I know the spot to which Aura hies Around, the down-sloping sward is strown, With starry clusters of blooms unmown; And the air is lulled by many a fall Of diamond fountains musical: Above, the lime and acacia fair |