his chief delight; one loved poetry and music, which to the other gave little or no pleasure. One went habited with due regard to his rank, having a valet to dress him; the other was careless of his dress, generally going about, on his shooting and other business, in great boots and a plain plush coat, stained with wine and weather.

'Friendship,' said Mr. Hilyard, 'commonly with young men, goes by opposites. If Jonathan resembled his father, he had nothing of David's disposition in him; yet were they friends in youth. The great Coligny and his malignant enemy, Guise, were once close friends, each admiring points of unlikeness. Perhaps my lord and Mr. Forster admire also, each in the other, points of unlikeness.'

Although the party consisted both of Catholics and Protestants, there were no discussions on that account; for, in Northumberland, so many families still belong to the old religion that we can meet each other without quarrelling. It must not, therefore, be thrown in Tom's face that he was a secret friend of Papists. This has been said of him

with injustice. stouter Protestant, though his lawful Sovereign belongs, unhappily, to the opposite faith. Yet so tolerant withal. Each,' he would say, 'for his own religion. Live and let live. But not to meddle with the endowments of the Church or to suffer Papists and Nonconformists to enter into the Universities.'

In truth there was never a

On the evening of Christmas Day there was performed for our pleasure the old play of 'Alexander and the Egyptian King,' by village mummers from Hexham and Dilston. The mummers were dressed up with ribbons and finery in rags and tatters; on their heads they wore gilt-paper crowns; they carried swords, and had a fiddler with them who played lustily all the time, whether the speakers were delivering their words or not.

First came the great King Alexander-he was a blacksmith by trade, and a very big and lusty fellow, who wore a splendid crown of gilt paper and a rusty breastplate; he flourished a sword and marched valiantly, strutting like a game-cock after a fight. Then he pronounced his verses, and brave verses they were, though afterwards he quite forgot

that he had promised to produce for us Dives and a Doctor, The Doctor came in due course, but we looked in vain for Dives, and a great moral lesson was lost. Everybody would like to be rich, yet few know the danger of riches or their own weakness in temptation. After him came the King of Egypt and his son Prince George; the King was stricken in years, and somewhat bent by rheumatism and his trade, that of shoemending; but the Prince was a lad whom I knew for as famous a hand with cudgel or quarterstaff as one may hope to see at a country fair. There was no reason why he should wish to fight Alexander, yet it seemed natural that they should, immediately on meeting, hurl words of reproach at each other and fly to arms. A most terrible and bloody fight it was which followed, the combatants thwacking and hacking at each other in such earnest as made one tremble, save for the thought that the swords were but stout ash-twigs painted blue, fitter to raise great weals than make deep cuts. The fiddler, meantime, ran round the pair, shouting while he played; and the King, so far from

feeling terror for his son, clapped his hands and applauded, as we all did. It was arranged that Prince George was to be killed, but such was his stubborn nature that he refused to lie down until the great conqueror, a much heavier man than he, had first covered him from top to toe with blows and bruises. When at length he lay down, the Doctor was called in. This learned man, who was the clerk of the parish, impudently asserted his ability to cure all diseases, and, in proof, restored the Prince to life. Then there was another duello between the King and the conqueror: the reason of which I did not understand, save that it enabled the cobbler to show under what unhappy conditions one bent with his trade has to fight. It needs not to say that the cobbler, too, fell beneath great Alexander's sword. They bore

away his body, and all was over.

'But where is Dives?' cried my lord. 'You promised Dives.'

The actors looked at one another, and presently the blacksmith plucked up courage to explain that there never was any Dives in the piece at all, though it was true that he

was regularly promised in the prologue or opening verses.

'Well,' said my lord, we will excuse the Dives for this once; and thank you, actors all, for a merry tragical piece, in which I know not whether most to admire the skill of Alexander or the courage of the King who dared to meet him. Stand aside, good fellows, and let us go on to the next show.'

Then followed the singers and choristers of Hexham, who were ordered to sing none but true North-country songs, of which we have many, and our people sing them prettily and in tune, sometimes one taking treble, and another a second, and a third tenor or bass, and all with justness, according to time and tune very melodiously, the like of which, I think, will not be found elsewhere, save in cathedrals, such as Durham and other places, where anthems are sung. My lord confessed that he had never heard anything like this rustic singing in France, where the peasants sing on holidays; but not, as our people sing, with gravity and earnestness. First they sang the song of The Knight and the Lady:'