tied his feet fast to the axle, with his face downwards. All the while he continued hurried prayers for mercy, protestations and piercing cries of despair. Springing again to my place in front of the cart, I gave the rein to the horse, and it moved. I heard his head and face, as hanging down they were dragged along, go knock, knock, on the stony hill-side; whilst his shrieks rang and echoed far away across the untrodden moorland.

I was now in a frenzy of excitement; the horse broke into a trot, a canter, a furious gallop, as screaming, "Now-now you have it; this is indeed revenge,-full, glorious revenge!-now!-now!—now!"-I lashed the animal into madness. Presently the thick and murky night broke up, there was lightning, several peels of thunder, and a deluging fall of rain. The poor horse was furious. On it flew like the wind, while I clung to the cart, whipping it now on the one side, now on the other, with frantic violence.

In this way we dashed along for about three miles, when one of the wheels went to pieces. I was thrown to the ground, and the horse, after staggering on a few paces, fell among the stones, and lay on its side, struggling and kicking, smashing the remains of the cart, and the mutilated body of Ormond. All this while the rain continued to fall by bucketfuls.

I sprang up considerably bruised, but with my bones all sound, and that was enough for me. My first proceeding was to cut the rope-harness that bound the horse to the fragments of the cart: having accomplished this, I managed to get him upon his feet, where he stood trembling and drooping his head. Securing him to the sound wheel by the halter, I proceeded to search for and examine the body of my victim.

His face and head were completely gone-knocked off; only a small shell-like fragment of the back of the skull remained, attached to the neck. The forepart of his chest was torn open, and the body being still quite warm, a thin vapoury steam ascended from it into the cold night-air. But I see I have horrified you too much—I will not go on with the details.

I now began to scheme how I should dispose of the shattered remains of my enemy-a moment, and my purpose was formed. Catching the rope that tied the legs, I dragged it round to where the horse stood. As I came close with it, he snuffed the air, and started, tugging at the halter with all his force. Seeing this, I bound a handkerchief over his eyes, and with a little difficulty succeeded in fixing it across his back. Jumping up behind it, I spurred towards the sea, and after half an hour's gallop, reached the place where the hooker lay.

I found them waiting all in readiness-my account they heard without a word of observation. We took the body on board, and turning the horse adrift to seek a new master where he could find one, shoved off and made sail across the Irish Channel. When about halfway, we threw the body overboard along with the clothes I had worn that night, and two days afterwards made the Welsh coast.

We immediately sold our boat and dispersed some went to labour at a great public work that was then in progress, others went to the harvest in England and Scotland; for my part, I became a wanderer over the face of the world for twenty years. During that time I had a taste of all the services-military, naval, and East Indian-but my ad

ventures during that time have little to do with the story I am telling you-besides, I am afraid I will hardly have time to finish it.

Well, about a couple of months ago I found myself once more on Irish ground. I was then one of a gipsey party, and we had just crossed from Scotland to Belfast along with the crowds of reapers returning from the Scotch harvest, or shearing as it is called. We travelled southward, and as we drew near this town, I proposed to my brethren of the gang that we might commence distilling. This was not so much on account of the gain to be got by the trade, but in order that I might have always a ready supply of that stuff, without which life was now to me an unendurable torment.

The proposal was eagerly adopted, and we set about procuring a suitable apparatus immediately. On coming to this town to buy tinplate, wherewith to construct it (for we all understood tinplate-working in a degree), I was struck with the appearance of a woman I saw ballad-singing in the streets. She sang beautifully, and this added to the remains, very perceptible, of great beauty, drew her abundance of encouragement. It was herself-Ellen Lucas. Thereupon the single and potent passion I had formerly borne for her, and which still throughout my long wanderings had filled my dreams, returned in all its vehemence. Yes, though she had betrayed me, I never hated her-my curses and my revenge were directed, not toward her, but against her accomplice Ormond; and now how I could have blest the gentleman I saw showering coppers into her bag-for she frequented the more aristocratic streets of the town, and seemed to find it profitable to cultivate an appearance of faded gentility-of one who had seen better days.

When I spoke to her and mentioned my name, she was struck dumb. She plainly knew me, yet she went away with me where I led without speaking a word. After a while, however, she recovered herself, and professed herself overjoyed to meet me. A long course of accusation, argument and recrimination ensued-which ended, as you will not be surprised to learn, if you are at all experienced-in my once more becoming the dupe of this Delilah.

Her connexion with Ormond before our marriage, she denied; and though I knew she was lying, I took her word. Her after connexion with him she excused on account of her poverty. She was starving and without a lodging. He offered her her former home, and she accepted it. All this I took from her as valid; and had she offered no excuse at all, it would have been the same thing. I was infatuated.

She was anxious to know what had become of Ormond. His horse, she informed me, had been found several weeks after his disappearance in the possession of some travelling hawkers, to whom, however, no connexion with him could be brought home. They stated they had found it grazing in a sequestered nook among the moors, and brought forward proof that they were in a quite different part of the country at the time implicated. With a strange delight I detailed to her the true account of his end. She listened in silence and without comment. It was now agreed between us that she should adopt my way of life, and she forthwith did so, and became one of our gang. A most useful member, too, she proved to be. With a bottle of spirits under her shawl she used to go about from house to house in a quiet, stealthy way, giving the people glasses by way of trial, and making whispered bargains for the disposal of gallons of the same stuff.

By this means we were rapidly drawing around us a profitable connexion. Our still was set a going in the identical vault I have described -the tower was much changed in other parts, but the vault remained the same. Here I was constantly employed, the rest of our gang going about as gipsies, stealing grain, potatoes, and other materials, and also selling when they could the manufactured produce.

One day while I was thus employed, and sitting watching in a state of dreamy half-intoxication, I heard several voices speaking low and whispering about the ruin. This gave me no concern, for I distinctly heard my wife's voice, and I concluded it must be the rest of our band. There was much talking; presently the sound approached the mouth of the vault—

"Bless me, how strong it smells!" said a strange voice, and there was a sound of sniffing.

I was alarmed, and instantly on the alert.

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There, that is the trap, that square hole there," said the voice of Ellen Lucas; "it's only four feet deep--but look sharp when you jump down-for he is a devil!"

I immediately saw what an egregious dupe I had been. Here was I caught like a badger in his hole, yet I determined to give them the double again" And as for that archtraitress," said I—and the rest was thought, not spoken.

Springing across the vault to the place behind the still, where was the vent in the wall, I crept into it, with the view of making my way to the outside; but close to the outer aperture a large stone had slipped from the upper part-the roof, you know, of the hole-and impeded my escape. Instantly-for I heard them descending through the trapinstantly I put my shoulder against it, and lying upon my front, I thrust my heels against projecting stones on each side, and bore my whole force against it. One strong shove, and it shook; the next-it gave way; but that instant I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon and split me. The wall had fallen in upon me, the vent was filled up, and I lay in the bottom of it, crushed with tons of hard stone above my broken body. The agony was excruciating-my back was broken in several places I knew. Oh, the weight-the murderous weight of these mighty stones crushing my very bones to powder-I feel them nowthey are hot-redhot-ah-Ormond, you hellhound-will you heap them on me-will you-will you-ah-a-a-ah————”

A quantity of fluid bubbled from his mouth, a convulsive grin passed across his face, a strange indefinable change came over his black staring eyes, and I knew he was dead.

I turned abruptly round, and beheld the soldier standing behind me with his terror-bleached face in vivid contrast to his red coat and glittering accoutrements. He had come into the room from the ward without, hearing the voice of his prisoner in continuous talking, and pausing behind the door, had heard nearly the whole narrative.

"Well, sir?" said he to me, "did you ever hear the like of that.— Them two, that is, this here and the other chap, must have been a pair of the dreadfullest villains-”

"Yes, my good man, they form two very excellent instances-the one of villany from ungoverned passion, the other from depraved and perverted judgment. But you don't understand these things."

ON SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.

Cu

Or settlements there are various kinds; settlements by lawyers, settlements by statesmen, settlements by colonists, settlements by debtors, settlements by schoolmasters, and settlements by housemaids. riously enough all these several species agree in being either no settlements at all, or worse than none. As a general rule there is no operation so like settling as that of unsettling. They are as like as two eggs, and the world has seen only one man who could distinguish one egg from another, and he lived in Greece two thousand years ago.

A miserable bed in which one cannot settle for a single moment is happily denominated a settle-bed; and poets being proverbially the most unsettled of mortal men, it has always struck me that the most appropriate name poet ever bore was the name of Settle.

But to begin with the settlements by lawyers, the principal is your marriage-settlement! You have only to repeat the two words, one close after the other, to perceive the prodigious incongruity between the two ideas. A marriage-settlement may be compared to a moveable fixture, a serene tempest, or a stagnant whirlpool. Prudentio weds a prodigal, Tranquillus espouses a vixen, Constantius allies himself to a flirt; all three unsettle themselves and their affairs for life, and the legal instruments that confirm their respective undoings, with all the formalities of signing, sealing, and delivering, are termed their marriagesettlements. This merits a distinguished place amongst the fictions of the law. Hence it is, no doubt, that in general when a man is ruined, people say he is "settled!" In like manner we say a person is "done," when he is " undone," and "dished" when he is undished, or has eaten the last dish he can call his own, and is obliged to put his finger in his neighbour's pie.

Ardelio bitterly complains of the law's delays, which defer the completion of the settlements and the hour of his union with the gentle Violenta. He is all impatience to be settled,-an eel languishing for the frying-pan-a mariner invoking tempests and tornadoes. Ardelio will be settled only too soon, and will wish (too late!) that the lawyers had wrangled to the day of judgment. Not long will the settlements be drawn when he would give Peru and Mexico that their "linked sweetness" had been "drawn out" for ever. Determined to settle, why did he not choose the quiet of a mill, or retire into the paddle-box of a steamer, or seek the repose of a wasp's nest ;-why did he marry Violenta? The matrimonial voyage commenced with airs; in a day or two these sprang up a breeze; before a week the lady stormed, and every day has been a gale-day since,-a hurricane with the regularity of the trade-winds. Ardelio is blown out of doors, and buffeted to and fro amongst the clubs, where he is daily congratulated upon being settled for life.

Step into the courts of equity and you will find that these marriagesettlements constitute the subject-matter of a large proportion of the "never-ending, still-beginning" litigation of those shrines of discord. The employment of five-sixths of the lawyers is unsettling settlements; proving that A, the settler, settled nothing upon B, the settlee; that the Oct.-VOL. LXVI. NO. CCLXII.

S

settled estate is to all intents and purposes still unsettled, like an Irish moving bog, or the isle of Delos, before Apollo settled there.

Again, what is understood by a settled point, or principle of law? "This is settled law, my lord," exclaims Serjeant Blackletter. "Settled law!" interrupts brother Betsworth. Who settled it?"

"Lord Thurlow."

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"Did he indeed? But Lord Eldon unsettled it."

"I am not so sure of that, Mr. Betsworth," remarks the living oracle upon the bench.

“Well, my lord, if Lord Eldon did not unsettle it, your lordship, I have no doubt, will."

"Perhaps so, when I have heard what you have to say."

And the end is that his lordship not merely turns Lord Thurlow's law topsy-turvy, but Lord Eldon's also, and decides the case upon an entirely new view of his own, which continues settled law, until "another Daniel comes to judgment," or another chancellor unsettles it.

It is certain, nevertheless, that all principles of law are settled, until some authority or another unsettles them. In the same way men are said to be settled old bachelors, until they unsettle themselves by marriage-settlements. All things are fixed, until they are unfixed. The world is divided between the settlers and the unsettlers. Some are born to settle, some to unsettle. It is a kind of Manichean system.

The settlements of politicians resembles strongly those of the lawyers. What are all our great constitutional settlements, as they are called, but unsettlements of previous constitutional settlements. Cromwell unsettled the British monarchy under Charles I.; that political restaurateur, General Monk, unsettled the settlement of Cromwell; and the Prince of Orange came over from Holland to unsettle the entire Stuart family, who proceeded to settle in France, where they led a very unsettled life, until Death, the only true settler, settled the last of the devoted race, and by so doing secured the existing settlement better than the "Act of Settlement" itself.

Can any thing show the identity of settlements and unsettlements more clearly than that we call the revolution itself a settlement? There never was so great an unsettlement as the Reformation, which settled the protestant religion, and unsettled the minds of half Europe. The rotten-borough system was a settlement, until the Reform Act unsettled it, and it is a moot point now whether the Reform Act is a final settlement, or no settlement at all. In fact the British constitution has been unsettled twenty times over, and will probably be unsettled twenty times again; politicians all the time prating of settlements; some pretending to maintain them, others aiming at subverting them ;-a contest which may be compared to the assault and defence of a castle in the air, there being no such thing as a settlement in any constitution save that of the realm of Utopia, the kingdom of Laputa, the empire of Barataria, the republic of Plato, the new Atlantis, or Rabelais's island of Medamothi, or Nowhere.

A political apothecary of our acquaintance once observed, "I wish the constitution were allowed to settle, that we might see the grounds ofit."

One of the drollest varieties of so-called settlements is that of