PART I.

"Come, old ship, give us a yarn!" said the younger forecastle-men to an old one, on board of an Indiaman then swiftly cleaving the waves of the western Atlantic before the trade-wind, and outward-bound, with a hearty crew and a number of passengers. It was the second of the two dog-watches, and the ship being still in the region of evening twilights, her men in a good humor, and with leisure, were then usually disposed, as on this occasion, to make fast their roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits, and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general _reunion_, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks, or a couple of rival novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a grave, solemn old North-Sea whaler with one eye, who professed to look down with contempt upon all raw head-work, on navigation compared with seamanship, and fiction against fact. As for himself, he rested all his fame upon actual experience, and told long dry narratives of old shipmates, of his voyages and adventures, and sometimes of the most incredible incidents, with a genuine briny gusto which pleased the veteran stagers beyond expression. They were full of points of seamanship--expedients for nice emergencies, tacks, knots, and splices. He gave the very conversation of his characters, with all the "says he" and "says I;" and one long recital of the old fellow's turned upon the question between himself and a newfangled second mate about the right way to set up back-stays, in which he, the sailor, was proved correct by the loss of the ship.

The other story-teller, again, was a Wapping man; a lively, impudent young Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies--not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible: yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen _life_ too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. He had his sentimental vein, accordingly, in which he took the last love-tale out of some "Penny Story-Teller" or fashionable novel he had spelled over below, and turned it over into a parody that would have thrown its unfortunate author into convulsions of horror, and his critics into shrieks of laughter. The fine language of lords and ladies, of romantic heroines, or of foreign counts and bandits, was gravely retailed and gravely listened to by a throng of admiring jacktars; while the old whaler smoked his pipe sulkily apart, gave now and then a scornful glance out of his weather-eye, and called it "all '_high-dic_' and soger's gammon."

On this occasion, however, the group forward did not solicit the services of either candidate, as they happened to have present among them a shipmate, who, by general confession, "took the shine" out of both, although it was rarely they could get hold of him. "Old Jack," the captain's private steward, was the oldest seaman on board, and having known the captain when the latter went to sea, had sailed with him almost ever since he commanded a ship, as well as lived in his house on shore. He did not now keep his watch, nor take his "trick at the helm," except when he chose, and was altogether a privileged sort of a person, or one of the "idlers." His name was Jacobs, which afforded a pretext for calling him "Old Jack," with the sailor's fondness for that Christian cognomen, which it is difficult to account for, unless because Jonah and St. John were seafaring characters, and the Roman Catholic holy clerk St. Nicholas was baptized "Davy Jones," with sundry other reasons good at sea. But Old Jack was, at any rate, the best hand for a yarn in the Gloucester Indiaman, and had been once or twice called upon to spin one to the ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy. It was partly because of his inexhaustible fund of good humor, and partly from that love of the sea which looked out through all that the old tar had seen and undergone, and which made him still follow the bowsprit, although able to live comfortably ashore. In his blue jacket, white canvas trowsers edged with blue, and glazed hat, coming forward to the galley to light his pipe, after serving the captain's tea of an evening, Old Jack looked out over the bulwarks, sniffed the sharp sea-air, and stood with his shirt-sleeve fluttering as he put his finger in his pipe, the very embodiment of the scene--the model of a prime old salt who had ceased to "rough it," but could do so yet if needful.

"Come, old ship!" said the men near the windlass, as soon as Old Jack came forward, "give us a yarn, will ye?"

"Yarn!" said Jack, smiling, "what yarn, mates? 'Tis a fine night, though, for that same--the clouds fly high, and she's balling off a good ten knots sin' eight bells."

"That she is, bo'--so give us a yarn now, like a reg'lar old A 1 as you are!" said one.

"'Vast there, mate," said a man-o'-wars-man, winking to the rest,--"you're always a-cargo-puddling, Bill! D'ye think Old Jack answers to any other hail nor the Queen's? I say, old three-decker in or'nary, we all wants one o' your close-laid yarns this good night. Whaling Jim here rubs his down with a thought over much o' the tar, an' young Joe dips 'em in yallow varnish--so if you says Nay, why, we'll all save our grog, and get drunk as soon as may be."

"Well, well, mates," said Jack, endeavoring to conceal his flattered, feelings, "what is it to be, though?"

"Let's see," said the man-o'-war's-man--"aye, give us the Green Hand!"

"Aye, aye, the Green Hand!" exclaimed one and all. This "Green Hand" was a story Old Jack had already related several times, but always with such amusing variations, that it seemed on each repetition a new one--the listeners testifying their satisfaction by growls of rough laughter, and by the emphatic way in which, during a pause, they squirted their tobacco-juice on the deck. What gave additional zest to this particular yarn, too, was the fact of its hero being no less than the captain himself, who was at this moment on the poop quarter-deck of the ship, pointing out something to a group of ladies by the round-house--a tall, handsome-looking man of about forty, with all the mingled gravity and frank good humor of a sailor in his firm, weather-tinted countenance. To have the power of secretly contrasting his present condition and manners with those delineated by Old Jack's episode from the "skipper's" previous biography, was the _acme_ of comic delight to these rude sons of Neptune, and the narrator just hit this point.

"Ye see," began he, "tis about six an' twenty years gone since I was an able seaman before the mast, in a small Indyman they called the Chester Castle, lying at that time behind the Isle of Dogs, in sight of Grenidge Hospital. She was full laden, but there was a strong breeze blowing up that wouldn't let us get under weigh; and, besides, we waited for the most part of our hands. I had sailed with the same ship two voyages before; so," says the captain to me one day, "Jacobs, there's a lady over at Greenwich yonder wants to send her boy to sea in the ship--for a sickening I s'pose. I am a going up to town myself," says he, "so take the quarter-boat and two of the boys and go ashore with this letter, and see the young fool. From what I've heard," says the skipper, "he's a jackanapes as will give us more trouble than thanks. However, if you find the lady's bent on it, why, she may send him aboard to-morrow if she likes. Only we don't carry no young gentlemen; and if he slings his hammock here, you must lick him into shape. I'll make a sailor of him or a cabin-boy." "Ay, ay, sir," says I, shoving the letter into my hat; so in half an hour's time I knocks at the door of the lady's house, rigged out in my best, and hands over the screed to a fat fellow with red breeches and yallow swabs on his shoulders, like a captain of marines, that looked frightened at my hail, for I thou't he'd been deaf by the long spell he took before he opened the door. In five minutes I heard a woman's voice ask at the footman if there was a sailor awaiting below. "Yes, marm," says he; and "show him up," says she. Well, I gives a scrape with my larboard foot, and a tug to my hair, when I gets to the door of _such_ a fine room above decks, all full o' tables, an' chairs, an' sofers, an' piangers, an' them sort o' highflying consarns. There was a lady all in silks and satins on one of the sofers, dressed out like a widow, with a pretty little girl as was playing music out of a large book--and a picter of a man upon the wall, which I at once logged it down for him she'd parted company from. "Sarvint, ma'am," says I. "Come in, my good man," says the lady. "You're a sailor?" says she--asking, like, to be sure if I warn't the cook's mate in dish-guise, I fancy. "Well, marm," I raps out, "I make bould to say as I hopes I am!"--an' I catches a sight o' myself in a big looking-glass behind the lady, as large as our sky-sail,--and, being a young fellow in them days, thinks I, "Blow me, if Betsy Brown asked me that now, I'd ask her if _she_ was a _woman_!" "Well," says she, "Captain Steel tells me in this here letter, he's agoing to take my son." Now," says she, "I'm sore against it--couldn't you say some'at to turn his mind?" "The best way for that, yer ladyship," says I, "is to let him go, if it was only the length of the Nore. The sea'll turn his stomack for him, marm," I says, "an' then we can send him home by a pilot." "He wanted for to go into the navy," says the lady again, "but I couldn't think on that for a moment, on account of this fearful war; an', after all, he'll be safer in sailing at sea nor in the army or navy--don't you think so, my good man?" "It's all you knows about it," thinks I; hows'ever, I said there wasn't a doubt on it. "Is Captain Steel a rash man?" says she. "How so, marm?" says I, some'at taken aback. "I hope he does not sail at night, or in storms, like too many of his profession, I'm afeard," says she; "I hope he always weighs the anchor in such cases, very careful." "Oh, in course," says I, not knowin', for the life of me, what she meant. I didn't like to come the rig over the poor lady, seein' her so anxious like; but it was no use, we was on such different tacks, ye see. "O yes, marm," I says, "Captain Steel al'ays reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and we're as safe as a church, then, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty." "This relieves my mind," the lady says, "very much; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling bottle, as she wor agoin to faint. "Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship," I says at last; "I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs." "Thank you," says she; "but, I beg your pardon, would you be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if you see Edward? I think he's in the garding. I feel sich a smell of pitch and tar!" I hears her say to the girl; and says she to me again, "Do you see Edward there?--call to him, please." Accordingly, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise--one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a cigar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. "No wonder the young scamp wants to go to sea," thinks I, "he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief." "Which is the young gentleman, marm?" says I, lookin' back into the room--"Is it him with the cigar and the red skull-cap?" "Yes," says the lady--"call him up, please." "Hallo!" I sings out, and all runs off but him on the barrel, and "Hallo!" says he. "You're wanted on deck, sir," I says; and in five minutes in comes my young gemman, as grave as you please. "Edward," says the mother, "this is one of Captain Steel's men." "Is he going to take me?" says the young fellow, with his hands in his pockets. "Well, sir," I says, "'tis a very bad look-out, is the sea, for them as don't like it. You'll be sorry ten times over you've left sich a berth as this here afore you're down Channel." The young chap looks me all over from clue to earing, and says he, "My mother told you to say that!" "No sir," says I, "I says it on my own hook." "Why did you go yourself then?" says he. "I couldn't help it," answers I. "Oh," says the impertinent little devil, "but you're only one of the common sailors, ain't you?" "Split me, you little beggar?" thinks I, "if I doesn't show you the odds betwixt a common sailor, as ye call it, and a lubber of a boy, before long!" But I wasn't goin' to let him take the jaw out o' me, so I only laughed, an' says I, "Why, I'm captain of the foretop at sea, any how." "Where's your huniform, then?" says the boy, lowering his tone a bit. "O," I says, "we doesn't al'ays wear huniform, ye know, sir. This here's what we call on-dress." "I'm sorry, sir," says the lady, "I didn't ax you to sit down." "No offence at all, marm," I says, but I took a couple o' glasses of brandy as was brought in. I saw 'twas no use goin' against the young chap; so, when he asked what he'd have to do aboard, I told him nothing to speak of, except count the sails now and then, look over the bows to see how the ship went, and go aloft with a spy-glass. "Oh," says his mother, at this, "I hope Captain Steel won't never allow Edward to go up those dangerous ladders! It is my partic'lar request he should be punished if he does." "Sartainly, marm, I'll mention it to the captain," I says, "an' no doubt he'll give them orders as you speak on." "The captain desired me to say the young gentleman could come aboard as soon as he likes," says I, before goin' out of the door. "Very well, sir," says the lady, "I shall see the tailor this same afternoon, and get his clothes, if so be it must." The last word I said was, putting my head half in again to tell 'em, "There was no use gettin' any huniforms at present, seein' the ship's sail-maker could do all as was wanted afterwards, when we got to sea."

Well, two or three days after, the captain sent word to say the ship would drop down with the morning tide, and Master Collins had better be aboard by six o'clock. I went ashore with the boat, but the young gemman's clothes warn't ready yet; so it was made up he was to come aboard from Gravesend the day after. But his mother and an old lady, a friend of theirs, would have it they'd go and see his bed-room, and take a look at the ship. There was a bit of breeze with the tide, and the old Indiaman bobbed up and down on it in the cold morning; you could hear the wash of water poppling on to her rudder, with her running gear blown out in a bend; and Missus Collins thought they'd never get up the dirty black sides of the vessel, as she called 'em. The other said her husband had been a captain, an' she laid claim to a snatch of knowledge. "Sailor," says she to me, as we got under the quarter, "that there tall mast is the main-bowsprit, ain't it? and that other is the gallant bowling you call it, don't you?" says she. "No doubt, marm," says I, winking to the boys not to laugh. "It's all right," I says. Howsoever, as to the bed-room, the captain showed 'em over the cabin, and put 'em off by saying the ship was so out of order he couldn't say which rooms was to be which yet, though they needn't fear Master Ned would get all comfortable; so ashore the poor woman went, pretty well pleased, considerin' her heart was against the whole consarn.

Well, the next afternoon, lying off Gravesend, out comes a wherry with young master. One of the men said there was a midshipman in it. "Midshipman be blowed!" says I; "did ye ever see a reefer in a wherry, or sitting out 'o the starn-sheets? It's neither more nor less nor the greenhorn we've got." "Why don't the bo'sun pipe to man sideropes for him!" says th' other; "but, my eye, Bob," says he to me; "what a sight of traps the chap's got in the boat! 'twill be enough to heel the Chester Castle to the side he berths upon, on an even keel. Do he mean to have the captain's cabin, I wonder!" Up the side he scrambles, with the help of a side-ladder, all togged out to the nines in a span-new blue jacket and anchor buttons, a cap with a gould band, and white ducks made to fit--as jemmy-jessamy a looking fellow as you'd see of a cruise along London parks, with the waterman singing out alongside to send down a tackle for the dunnage, which it took a pair of purchase-blocks to hoist them out on board. "What's all this?" says the mate, coming for'ard from the quarter-deck. "'Tis the young gemman's traps, sir," I says. "What the devil!" says the mate, "d'ye think we've room to stow all this lumber? Strike it down into the forehold, Jacobs--but get out a blue shirt or two, and a Scotch cap for the young whelp first, if he wants to save that smooth toggery of his for his mammy. You're as green as cabbage, I'm feared, my lad!" says he. By this time the boy was struck all of a heap, an' didn't know what to say when he saw the boat pulling for shore, except he wanted to have a sight of his bed-room. "Jacobs," says the mate, laughing like an old bear, "take him below, and show him his bed-room, as he calls it!" So down we went to the half-deck, where the carpenter, bo'sun, and three or four of the 'prentices, had their hammocks slung. There I left him to overhaul his big donkey of a chest, which his mother had stowed it with clothes enough for a lord ambassador, but not a blessed thing fit to use--I wouldn't 'a given my bit of a black box for the whole on it, ten times over. There was another chockful of gingerbread, pots o' presarves, pickles, and bottles; and, thinks I, "The old lady didn't know what _shares_ is at sea, I reckon. 'Twill all be gone for footing, my boy, before you've seen blue water, or I'm a Dutchman."

In a short time we was up anchor, going down with a fast breeze for the Nore; and we stood out to sea that night, havin' to join a convoy off Spithead. My gentleman was turned in all standing, on top o' some sails below; and next day he was as sick as a greenhorn could be, cleaning out his land-ballast where he lay, nor I didn't see him till he'd got better. 'Twas blowing a strong breeze, with light canvas all in aloft, and a single reef in the tops'ls; but fine enough for the Channel, except the rain--when what does I see but the "Green Hand" on the weather quarter-deck, holding on by the belaying-pins, with a yumbrella over his head. The men for'ard was all in a roar, but none of the officers was on deck save the third mate, The mate goes up to him, and looks in his face. "Why," says he, "you confounded long-shore picked-up son of a green-grocer, what _are_ you after?" an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. "Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber," says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers--"it's well the captain didn't catch ye!" "Come aft here, some of ye," sings out the third mate again, "to brace up the main yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment and pull!" At this the greenhorn takes out a pair o' gloves, shoves his fingers into 'em, and tails on to the rope behind. "Well, dammit!" says the mate, "if I ever see the likes o' that! Jacobs, get a tarbucket and dip his fists in it; larn him what his hands was made for! I never could bear to see a fellow ashore with his flippers shoed like his feet; but at sea, confound me, it would make a man green-sick over again!" If you'd only seen how Master Collins looked when shoved his missy fingers into the tar, and chucked the gloves o' board! The next moment he ups fists and made slap at me, when in goes the brush in his mouth; the mate gives him a kick astarn; the young chap went sprawling down into the half-deck ladder, where the carpenter had his shavin'-glass rigged to crop his chin--and there he gets another clip across the jaws from Chips. "Now," says the mate, "the chap'll be liker a sailor to-morrow. He's got some spunk in him, though, by the way he let drive at you, my lad," says he: "that fellow 'll either catch the cat or spoil the monkey. Look after him, Jacobs, my lad," says the third mate; "he's in my watch, and the captain wants him to rough it out; so show him the ropes, and let him taste an end now an' then. Ha! ha! ha!" says he again, laughing, "'tis the first time I ever see a embreller loosed out at sea, and but the second I've seen brought aboard even! He's the greenest hand, sure enough, it's been my luck to come across! But green they say's nigh to blue, so look out if I don't try to make a sailor of the young spark!"

Well, for the next three or four days the poor fellow was knocked about on all hands; he'd got to go aloft to the 'gallant cross-trees, and out on the yard foot-ropes the next morning, before breakfast; and, coming down, the men made him fast till he sent down the key of his bottle-chest to pay his footing. If he closed his eyes a moment in the watch, slash comes a bucket full o' Channel water over him; the third mate would keep him two hours on end, larnin' to rig out a sternsail boom, or grease a royal mast. He led a dog's life of it too, in the half-deck: last come, in course, has al'ays to go and fill the bread barge, scrub the planks, an' do all the dirty jobs. Them _owners' 'prentices_, sich as he had for messmates, is always worse to their own kind by far nor the "_common sailors_," as the long-shore folks calls a foremast-man. I couldn't help takin' pity on the poor lad, being the only one as had seen the way of his up-bringing, and I felt a sort of a charge of him like; so one night I had a quiet spell with him in the watch, an' as soon as I fell to speak kind-ways, there I seed the water stand i' the boy's eyes. "It's a good thing," says he, tryin' to gulp it down--"it's a good thing mother don't see all this!" "Ho, ho," says I, "my lad, 'tis all but another way of bein' sea-sick! You doesn't get the land cleared out, and snuff the sea blue breeze nat'ral like, all at once! Hows'ever, my lad," says I, "take my advice--bring your hammock an' chest into the fok'sle; swap half your fine clothes for blue shirts and canvas trowsers; turn-to ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you--you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!"

Well, next night, what does he do but follows what I said, and afore long most of his troubles was over; nor there wasn't a willin'er nor a readier hand aboard, and every man was glad to put Ned through anything he'd got to do. The mates began to take note on him; and though the 'prentices never left off callin' him the Green Hand, before we rounded the Cape he could take his wheel with the best of them, and clear away a sternsail out of the top in handsome style. We were out ten months, and Ned Collins stuck to the fork'sle throughout. When we got up the Thames, he went ashore to see his mother in a check shirt, and canvas trowsers made out of an old royal, with a tarpaulin hat I built for him myself. He would have me to come the next day over to the house for a supper; so, having took a kindness to the young chap, why, I couldn't say nay. There I finds him in the midst of a lot o' soft-faced chaps and young ladies, a spinning the wonderfullest yarns about the sea and the East Ingees, makin' 'em swallow all sorts of horse-marines' nonsense, about marmaids, sea-sarpents, and sich like. "Hallo, my hearty!" says he, as soon as he saw me, "heave a-head here and come to an anchor in this here blessed chair." "Young ladies," says he, "this is Bob Jacobs, as I told you kissed a marmaid hisself. He's a wonderful hand, is Bob, for the fair!" You may fancy how flabbergasted I was at this, though the young scamp was as cool as you please, and wouldn't ha' needed much to make him kiss 'em all round; but I was al'ays milk-an'-water along side of women, if they topped at all above my rating. "Well," thinks I, "my lad, I wouldn't ha' said five minutes agone there was anything of the green about ye yet, but I see it will take another voy'ge to wash it all out." For to my thinkin', mates, 'tis more of a land-lubber to come the rig over a few poor creatures that never saw blue water, than not to know the ropes you warn't told. "O Mister Jacobs!" says Missus Collins to me that night, before I went off, "d'ye think Edward's tired of that ere horridsome sea yet?" "Well, marm," I says, "I'm afeard not. But I'll tell ye, marm," says I, "if you want's to make him cut the consarn, the only thing ye can do is to get him bound apprentice to it. From what I've seen of him, he's a lad that won't bear aught again his liberty; an' I do believe, if he thought he couldn't get free, he'd run the next day!" Well, after that, ye see, I didn't know what more turned up of it; for I went myself round to Hull, and ships in a timber-craft for the Baltic, just to see some'at new.

One day, the third voy'ge from that time, on getting the length of Blackwall, we heared of a strong press from the men-o'-war; and as I'd got a dreadful dislike to the sarvice, there was a lot of us marchant-men kept stowed away close in holes an' corners till we could suit ourselves. At last we got well tired, and a shipmate o' mine and I wanted to go and see our sweethearts over in the town. So we hired the slops from a Jew, and makes ourselves out to be a couple o' watermen, with badges to suit, a carrying off a large parcel and a ticket on it. In the arternoon we came back again within sight of the Tower, where we saw the coast was clear, and made a fair wind along Rosemary Lane and Cable Street. Just then we saw a tall young fellow, in a brown coat, an' a broad-brim hat, standing in the door of a shop, with a paper under his arm, on the look out for some one. "Twig the Quaker, Bob!" my shipmate says to me. As soon as he saw us, out the Quaker steps, and says he to Bill, in a sleepy sort of a v'ice, "Friend, thou'rt a waterman, I b'lieve?" "D---- it, yes," says Bill, pretty short like, "that's what we hails for! D'ye want a boat, master?" "Swear not, friend," says the broad-brim; "but what I want is this, you see. We have a large vessel, belonging to our house, to send to Havannah, and willin' to give double wages, but we can't find any mariners at this present for to navigate. Now," says he, "I s'pose this onfortunate state o' things is on account of the sinful war as is goin' on--they're afraid of the risk. Hows'ever, my friends," says he, "perhaps, as you knows the river, ye could put us upon a way of engagin' twenty or more bold mariners, as is not afeard of ventering for good pay?" and with this he looks into his papers; and says Bill, "Well, sir, I don't know any myself--do you, Bob?" and he gives me a shove, and says under the rose, "no fear, mate," says Bill, "he's all over green--don't slip the chance for all hands of us at Jobson's." "Why, master," I says, "what ud you give them mariners you speaks on, now?" "Six pounds a month, friend," says he, looking up; "but we gives tea in place of spirits, and we must have steady men. We can't wait, neither," says he, "more nor three days, or the vessel won't sail at all." "My eye!" says Bill, "'twont do to lose, Bob!--stick to him, that's all." "Well, sir," I says, "I thinks I does have a notion of some't of the sort. If you sends your papers to Jobson's Tavern to-night, in the second lane 'twixt Barnaby Street and the Blue Anchor Road, over the water, why, I'll get ye as many hands to sign as you wants!" "Thanks, friend," says the young broad-brim, "I will attend to thine advice,"--so he bids us good day, and stepped into his door again. "Bill," says I, as he went off, "now I think on it, I can't help a notion I've seen that chap's face afore!" "Very like," says Bill, "for the matter o' that 'tis the same with me--them broad-brims is so much of a piece! But that 'ere fellow don't know nothing of ships, sure enough, or he wouldn't offer what he did, and the crimps' houses all of a swarm with hands!"

"Take my word, mate," says I, "it's a paying trip, or he wouldn't do it--leave a Quaker alone for that! Why, the chap's a parfit youngster, but I am blessed if he don't look as starched as if he'd sat over a desk for twenty year!"

Well, strike me lucky, mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough--but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, an' the next noon all hands was aboard of the Pandora frigate at Sheerness. The first time of being mustered on deck, says Bill to me, "Cuss my eyes, Bob, if there isn't the 'farnal Quaker!" I looked, and sees a midshipman in uniform like the rest, and so it was. "The sly soft-sauderin' beggar!" says I. "All fair in war, and a press-mate!" says one o' the frigate's men. All the while I kept looking and looking at the midshipman; and at last I says to Bill when we got below, giving a slap to my thigh, "Blessed if it ain't! it's the _Green Hand_ himself!" "Green Hand!" says Bill, sulky enough, "who's the Green Hand? Blow me Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!" So I told him the story about Ned Collins. "Well," says he, "if a fellow was green as China rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, 'tis a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So for my part, I forgives the young scamp, 'cause I ought to ha' known better!"

By the time the frigate got to sea, the story was blown over the whole maindeck; many a good laugh it gave the different messes; and Bill, the midshipman, and I, got the name of the "Three Green Hands."

One middle-watch, Mister Ned comes for'ard by the booms to me, and says he, "Well, Bob Jacobs, you don't bear a grudge, I hope!" "Why," says I, "Mister Collins, 'twould be mutiny now, I fancy, you bein' my officer!" so I gave a laugh; but I couldn't help feeling' hurt a little, 'twas so like a son turnin' against his father, as 'twere. "Why Bob," says he, "did ye think me so green as not to know a seaman when I saw him? I was afeared you'd know me that time." "Not I, sir," I answers: "why, if we hadn't sailed so long in company, I wouldn't know ye now!" so master Ned gave me to understand it was all for old times he wanted to ship me in the same craft; but he knew my misliking to the sarvice, though he said he'd rather ha' lost the whole haul of 'em nor myself. So many a yarn we had together of a dark night, and for a couple of years we saw no small service in the Pandora. But if ye'd seen Ned the smartest reefer aboard, and the best liked by the men, in the fore-taups'l bunt in a gale, or over the maindeck hatch, with an enemy's frigate to leeward, or on a spree ashore at Lisbon or Naples, you wouldn't ha' said there was anything green in his eye, I warrant ye! He was made acting lieutenant of a prize he cut out near Chairboorg, before he passed examination; so he got me for prize bo'sun, and took her into Plymouth. Soon after that the war was ended, and all hands of the Pandora paid off. Master Ned got passed with flying colors, and confirmed lieutenant besides, but he had to wait for a ship. He made me say where I'd be found, and we parted company for about a year.

Well, I was come home from a short trip, and one day Leftenant Collins hunts me up at Wapping Docks, where I'd had myself spliced, six years before, to Betsy Brown, an' was laid up for a spell, havin' seen a good deal of the sea. Ye must know the young leftenant was fell deep in love with a rich Indy Naboob's daughter, which had come over to take her back to' the East Indgees. The old fellow was hard close-hauled against the match, notwithstanding of the young folks makin' it all up; so he'd taken out berths aboard of a large Company's ship, and bought over the captain on no account to let any king's navy man within the gangways, nor not a shoulder with a swab upon it, red or blue, beyond the ship's company. But, above all, the old tyrant wouldn't have a blue-jacket, from stem to starn, if so be he'd got nothing ado but talk sweet; I s'pose he fancied his girl was mad after the whole blessed cloth. The leftenant turns over this here log to me, and, says he, "I'll follow her to the world's end, if need be, Bob, and cheat the old villain?" "Quite right too, sir," says I. "Bob," says he, "I'll tell ye what I wants you to do. Go you and enter for the Seringpatam at Blackwall, if you're for sea just now; I'm goin' for to s'cure my passage myself, an' no doubt doorin' the voy'ge something'll turn up to set all square; at any rate, I'll stand by for a rope to pull!" "Why here's a go!" thinks I to myself: "is Ned Collins got so green again, spite of all that's come an' gone, for to think the waves is agoin' to work wonders, or ould Neptune under the line's to play the parson and splice all!" "Well, sir," I says, "but don't you think the skipper will smoke your weather-roll, sir, at sea, as you did Bill Pikes an' me, you know, sir?" says I. "Oh, Bob, my lad," says the leftenant, "leave you that to me. The fellow most onlikest to a sailor on the Indyman's poop will be me, and that's the way you'll know me!"

Well, I did ship with the Seringpatam for Bombay. Plenty of passengers she had, but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel. I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy-yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of a collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After a while there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from--mizen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as "Rule Britannia," "Bay of Biscay," "Britannia's Bulwarks," and "All in the Downs." The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and "Well I'm blessed, mates," says he on the fok'sle, "but that chap aft yonder with the lady--he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across! What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallowchops an hour agone?" "What was it, mate?" I says. Says he, "'Do ye know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reely green at the line--_green_ ye know, Sar Chawls, _reely_ green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa--ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I _thought_ he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff,[A] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand--for somehow or another, I was always a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.

[Footnote A: Let out the secret.]

Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with _him_; though, as the naboob had never clapt eyes on him to know him like, 'twain't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways--I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, "As 'twas in the beginning,"--then, in the one key, "Haul aft the mainsheet,"--"is now and ever shall be,"--"Small pull with the weather-brace,"--"Amen,"--"Well the mainyard,"--"The Lord be with you,--Taups'l yard well!" As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being well handled.

'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, to the south-east. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel, and I hears him say to the second how the land-breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard, "Jacobs, my lad," whispers he to me, "how d'ye like the looks o' things?" "Not overmuch, sir," says I; "small enough sea-room for the sky there!" Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. "Sir," says he, "do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?" "No, sir," says the first mate; "what d'ye mean?" "Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point," says he. "Sir," says the Company's man, "if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd larn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort," he says. "Look on the starboard quarter then," says the leftenant, "at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look," says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's look through the mizen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "Now," says the leftenant, "d'ye think ye'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'west, sir?" "Well," says the first mate, "I daresay we shouldn't--but what o' that?" "Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done," says the leftenant, "you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky to nor'west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells." "Weather-glass!" the mate says, "why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy." Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the royal navy. "Sir," says the mate again, "mind _your_ business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!" "If I was you," the leftenant says, "I'd call the captain." "Thank ye," says the mate--"call the captain for nothing!" Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. "Why, sir," says the mate, "I'd no notion you was a _seaman_ at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?" "Well, sir," says Mr. Collins, "if you'll do it, I'll tell ye at once."

At this point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a _short yarn_?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several--"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"

From Fraser's Magazine for June.

SOMETHING ABOUT A MURDER.

FOUNDED ON FACT.

A Fair and gentle girl was Barbara Comyn, the only daughter of one of the strictest and sternest old ministers that ever adhered to Calvin. Yet Mr. Comyn was thoroughly conscientious in all his views; and when he frowned, he did it not through love of frowning, but that he hoped, by gathering a cloud upon his brows, to bring down from those eyes upon which he frowned such showers of repentance as refresh and make green the soul sin-withered and sere from the harsh and hot suns of vice. He was, in truth, a worthy and good man; somewhat narrow of mind and bigoted of creed, it may be, but utterly incapable of committing an ungenerous or dishonorable action. Still, greatly as he loved his winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who, as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness, and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke. Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with many blushes, that she loved her young Episcopalian kinsman, John Percival.

The cousins had not been reared together, nor had they even met before the youth had passed his twenty-fifth, the girl her nineteenth year. But we are not of the opinion that young people are the more prone to fall in love with each other for the being educated together in a sort of family domesticity. Such facts are contended for in fiction, but realities have convinced us that such things seldom happen; and if we ever have the fortune to possess children of our own, and wish a son or daughter to wed a particular individual, we shall take good care, not only to conceal our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,--when, in sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.

But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability, with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had, nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said, that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted, guest.

The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion--so frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!

A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of the character he was about to perform in her presence; and, indeed, the wooing of the honest clothier was neither very active nor oppressive--but, alas, for all that, it was steadfast and resolute.

A wonderful deal of what they deemed "religious discussion" was carried on betwixt Mr. Bruce and the minister during the visit of the former at the manse, which, we have omitted to state, (though for certain reasons we do not intend to give it a name,) was situated out of the town of Aberdeen, in a retired strath or valley, full of hazels and sloe-bushes, with the Dee running through them like a huge silver snake. Although little more than half a mile from Aberdeen, and much nearer the church of which Mr. Comyn was minister, the manse seemed as lonely and quiet as if thirty miles lay between it and a busy, populous town. Now, though Mr. Bruce had hired a sleeping apartment in the cottage of Mr. Comyn's bell-man, or sexton, which stood hard by the kirk, he spent all his spare time with his friend at the manse, where his meals were invariably taken; and in addition to the wonderful amount of polemical palaver we have hinted at, a wonderful deal of whisky-toddy did the worthy minister and his guest contrive to swallow in the heat of their arguments. Many a time and oft did good, innocent Miss Henny Comyn declare, that when the shake-hands hour arrived, Mr. Bruce, "puir man, seemed to toddle aff to his cosie beddie at Davy Bain's marvellously fu' o' the spirit!" True it was; but the ancient virgin guessed not in her guilelessness, that the spirit was an evil one, and elicited by man and fire from the unsuspecting barleycorn.

At last, as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish--nay, his commands--that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his--"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her father _before_ marriage--her husband _after_. He had no doubt she would be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!" And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim her hand--which he had the audacity to kiss--he left her for his Glasgow warehouses.

In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not naturally sour, passes through such trial without becoming sweeter)--was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was again at Aberdeen--determined, should all other methods fail, to carry off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap, did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have passed, and Mr. Bruce--once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain--is come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.

One evening--it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents--John Percival betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick copse of hazel past which ran--heard but not seen--the river; which, where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole. Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's attendance on his cousin in her way homeward. The rustic seat in the centre of the coppice was still unoccupied, and he began to fear that something had transpired to prevent her from coming. It was no use to listen for the sounds of her light, advancing footsteps; for the Dee made so loud and incessant a sough as it tumbled from the steep bank that helped to form the Nut-hole, that it drowned all lesser sounds.

He was, however, soon made conscious that there were sounds which no sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water--a heavy plunge, that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood. Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.

He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately, there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden, seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed, had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had happened, and entreated her to befriend them.

"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it, sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive. She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?" added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive the retiring form of her cousin.

If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret. Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel, when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,

"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that are not!"

"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst, as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.

"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me, that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet yours."

And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:

Last night, after leaving you, I was stopped by your sexton, my landlord, David Bain, who led me out of the highroad to the Nut-hole, under pretence of showing me a large salmon which he had hooked but could not land. He there felled me to the earth, robbed me, and flung my body into the river Dee. Pray for the soul of

SIMON BRUCE.

When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler. Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat, leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table; while his sister, finding her niece better, left her to see that her brother's best hat and gloves were ready.

We wonder what Barbara is about meanwhile.

Presently Mr. Comyn returned to the parlor, and putting the Bible in his pocket, (for he dared not again look at the horrible piece of writing,) set off at a quick pace for the town. Nor, as he hurried on, did he give a passing glance at the track which diverged from the highroad toward the Nut-tree-hole. The magistrate was at home, and great indeed was his amazement when he heard the minister's story; but lo! when Mr. Comyn, reverently taking the Bible from his pocket, opened it to show Mr. Craigie the note, written as he declared in the peculiar handwriting of his friend, he found nothing where he had deposited it but a piece of blank paper, folded up in the same form, but utterly void. And then in truth the worthy magistrate waxed somewhat wroth; at first accusing Mr. Comyn of being credulously duped by some pawkie servant who owed him a grudge, and ending by setting him down as "clean daft, doited, and dazed by too mickle study," (and in his ire he had very nearly added, "too much toddy.") But, as in no amicable frame of temper the gentlemen were about to quarrel downright, the magistrate asking the minister what proof he could adduce of Mr. Bruce's not being alive and merry, a seasonable and loud knocking at the street-door interrupted them; and presently a servant entered to announce that a drowned man had been found in the Dee, and that his body had been brought to the door!

With shaking limbs the minister followed Mr. Craigie down stairs to the lobby, now full of people. It appeared that some men employed in the salmon fisheries had, within the last hour, dragged their nets, in which they had discovered the corpse of a man whose skull had been literally smashed in twain by a violent blow.

It was, in fact, the body of Mr. Bruce. Here, indeed, was confirmation strange of the statement which the mysterious and missing document had contained; and both Mr. Craigie and the minister, exchanging looks that expressed their mutual dismay, were sorely perplexed in their own minds how to account for these singular events. The body was reverently laid out in the hall, whilst the magistrate, summoning some of his officials, and accompanied by the clergyman and one or two of the fishermen, proceeded to the cottage of David Bain.

The bell-man was not at home, having gone, they said, "to Mr. Comyn's, to inquire about his lodger, Mr. Bruce, who had not come home to his bed the night before, as was customary."

Strange glances passed between the auditors; but a sign from the magistrate imposed silence, and they departed, determining to survey the Nut-hole, near which, in the river, the body had been found in the nets, after which they had no doubt they would find the sexton at the manse. As they threaded the thicket of hazel, at some distance from the pool, one of the salmon-fishers declared, that from a plot of white-thorn and bramble-bushes he had seen the eyes of a foumart or polecat glare out upon him; and in a low voice, directing the attention of a comrade to the spot, they both imagined they could detect the figure of a man crouching among the trailing shrubs. Whispering their suspicion to Mr. Craigie, he ordered the whole party to join quietly in a search, and follow him and the minister to the Nut-hole. Thither, then, the magistrate, attended only by Mr. Comyn, proceeded; and who, think ye, found they there?

A young man, handsome and well-dressed, in the undisguised apparel of a gentleman, stood there, evidently unconscious of the advancing twain. He held a stout, club-like stick in his hand, which he was examining intently--for it was covered with blood, now dried, and amidst which stuck clots of hair! As the gentlemen came suddenly upon him he started, and dropped the stick; whilst Mr. Comyn, staring at him in wonder, for, as we have said, all disguise had been discarded, exclaimed--

"John Percival, is this you?"

A question which the young man could have answered in the affirmative with strict veracity, but for the assertion from the magistrate which followed it up.

"And you, sir, are the murderer of Mr. Bruce!"

"Good God! what do you mean!" cried the horrified youth.

"That stick, which you have just dropped, is covered with blood," said Mr. Craigie; "a foul murder has been committed, and we find you with the supposed instrument of that murder, near the very spot where there is ground to believe the act was perpetrated."

A fearful pang shot through Percival's frame, but conscious innocence made it brief, and with a calmness of demeanor which guilt never could have assumed, and gravely smiling, he turned to his uncle saying--

"_You_ cannot believe that I am guilty?"

"No, no, John!" answered the individual appealed to. "God forbid that I should judge you wrongfully, but--"

"But," interrupted the magistrate, "not only does it appear that you have slain a man, but that, desirous of fixing your guilt upon another, you have written a letter, falsely accusing an innocent person of that crime."

"Letter!" repeated Percival, "Sir, I do not even know what you mean."

"Mr. Comyn," asked the magistrate, "this young man--the nephew of my lamented friend, your late wife--paid court, as I understand, to your daughter, and was by her rejected?"

"By me, sir--by me, Mr. Craigie," answered the clergyman; "the lassie never rejected him, but _I_ did."

"And the murdered man," slowly pronounced the magistrate, "was the betrothed husband of Miss Comyn?"

Percival started violently, uttering an ejaculation of horror and wonder, for at last he saw the inferences which Mr. Craigie seemed willing to draw from circumstances that certainly looked suspicious.

"As God is my judge, that is the truth," replied the minister, "and I had forgotten all about it. Oh! John Percival, as you are the nephew of my beloved Mary, answer me with truth, and say that you are innocent of this heinous deed!"

"I am indeed innocent, my dear uncle," said the young man; "nor did I know until this moment who the unfortunate man was, of whose untimely death I am accused."

"Here he is, gentlemen; we've got him safe and sound!" cried several voices; and dragging a wild and haggard-faced man, the fishers and officials of justice approached the trio who stood by the Nut-tree-hole.

"The Lord be our guide!" exclaimed Mr. Comyn, "it is really David Bain!" and as the wretched sexton struggled to free himself from the arms that pinioned him, the minister, prompted by a sudden impulse, advancing toward him, and looking steadily in his face, said--

"David Bain, look not to deny your crime, but confess it, and implore your Maker's pardon, even at this the eleventh hour. In my Bible, this morning, I found a paper, written by the spirit of him you murdered here last night, and charging you with the commission of the deed."

At these strange words, which in our modern times might have produced mirth, the guilty creature, losing all self-possession, uttered a loud cry, and pointing to the bloody cudgel which still lay at the magistrate's feet, exclaimed--

"I did it with that! I did it with that!" and fell back in a fit.

It would be easy to lengthen out our historiette into one of circumstantial evidence, trial, condemnation, and ultimate discovery; but we have preferred telling it as it really happened. On the person of David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence. Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that courtship to proceed between his daughter and him, which he had before so strenuously opposed.

One circumstance still remained a mystery, undeveloped to all save Barbara's aunt, Percival, and the worthy magistrate,--by whose advice, indeed, it was concealed from the minister; who, to his dying day, confidently believed that the paper he had found in his Bible had been placed there by supernatural interposition. But the hand of the dead had nothing to do with it, as we mean to explain.

On the evening of the murder, Barbara Comyn sallied forth to meet her cousin, leaving Mr. Bruce and her father discussing punch and polemics. She was later than usual, and as she sped along, she became aware of the approach from Aberdeen of an individual, whom she could not avoid meeting if she proceeded direct to the tryst. She therefore stole into a different track, thinking to make a circuit which would occupy the time the stranger might take in passing the copse of hazels; but, unfortunately (or fortunately, was it?), she met a poor woman, the wife of a neighboring peasant, who was on her way to the manse to implore some black currant jelly for a child suffering from sore throat. The call of distress was never disregarded by Barbara, and she flew back to the manse, procured the jelly, and giving it to the woman, hastened amidst falling rain to the trysting-place. As she was about to round the point which hid the Nut-hole from view, she heard the sounds of struggling feet and wrestling arms; and, regardless of danger to herself in her fears for Percival, she forced her way through some bushes, and beheld two men, in no friendly embrace, staggering on the very verge of the pool. Before she could look again the one had fallen on the earth; and the other, with a desperate blow of his stick on the head of the prostrate man, uttered an oath in a voice whose peculiar tones were well-known to Barbara, and in the twinkling of an eye shoved the wounded man over the bank into the Nut-tree hole!

Her blood curdling with horror, Barbara found no voice, no strength, to speak or stir; but she became, so to speak, all eye; and as the murderer, swiftly cramming into his hat and pockets something which she could not define, rose up, and forgetful of the cudgel, which lay blood-dabbled on the grass, rushed from the place where he had taken the burden of a deadly sin upon his soul, she saw his face, and recognized her father's sexton--David Bain.

In terror, that found no tongue, she reached her lover, and became insensible; nor was it till her recovery, when she found herself alone with her aunt, that she felt how important to her future life might be the events of that night. She resolved, ere yet she spoke one word in reply to the questions of her aunt, to ascribe her swoon to anything but the real cause; and it was, perhaps, well she so determined, for she remembered that, in her flight from the fatal spot where she had witnessed the perpetration of so foul a deed, she had picked up a letter, which she had hid in her bosom, scarcely conscious of what she did, yet, perhaps, imperceptibly aware--with the foresight of inexplicable convictions--that it might yet prove of essential service. When she retired to her chamber, and had got rid of Aunt Henny, she took the paper from its concealment, and saw that it was the empty cover of a letter addressed to "Mr. Bruce, at the house of David Bain, Sexton;" and then the certainty struck her of the murdered man being her affianced husband.

The character of David Bain was marked by extreme avarice, and Barbara's conclusions as to the instigating cause of the crime he had committed were easily formed. But what means could she pursue in order to convict guilt, without at the same time rendering her own appearance before a public court of justice necessary? from which she shrank nervously, since the cause of her presence in such a spot, and at such an hour, must of course be revealed. A sudden thought struck her--and, wild as it was, she put it into instant execution. She knew her father's belief in supernatural agency, and trusted strongly to the effect such a document as that which she now prepared would have upon him. She wrote the note which Mr. Comyn discovered in the Bible, imitating Mr. Bruce's hand, which was peculiar, as closely as she could; and then, when the minister left it there--a circumstance which, though she did not foresee, rejoiced her--she subtracted it thence, uninterrupted and unsuspected. But when it pleased the Almighty to make manifest the murderer by the means thus strangely suggested to her, she confessed the whole to the indulgent Henny and her lover, and by their advice took the magistrate also into her confidence.

We have nothing more to relate, but that Barbara Comyn and John Percival were soon after united by the worthy minister; whilst Miss Henny was as busy as a bee in preparations for the wedding, and as happy in witnessing the happiness of others as if she had never known a care of her own.

* * * * *

THIERS has abandoned politics and history for the summer to visit England.

Miscellanies.

[From Charles Mackay's New Volume of Poems, "Egeria," &c.]

THE GARDEN GATE.

"Stand back, bewildering politics! I've placed my fences round; Pass on, with all your party tricks, Nor tread my holy ground. Stand back--I'm weary of your talk, Your squabbles, and your hate: You cannot enter in this walk-- I've closed my garden gate.

"Stand back, ye thoughts of trade and pelf! I have a refuge here; I wish to commune with myself-- My mind is out of gear. These bowers are sacred to the page Of philosophic lore; Within these bounds no envies rage-- I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, Frivolity and Show. It is a day of Spring; I want to see my roses blow, And hear the blackbird sing. I wish to prune my apple-trees, And nail my peaches straight; Keep to the causeway, if you please-- I've shut my garden gate.

"I have no room for such as you, My house is somewhat small: Let Love come here, and Friendships true I'll give them welcome all; They will not scorn my household stuff, Or criticize my store. Pass on--the world is wide enough-- I've shut my garden door.

"Stand back, ye Pomps! and let me wear The liberty I feel. I have a coat at elbows bare-- I love its _dishabille_. Within these precincts let me rove, With Nature, free from state; There is no tinsel in the grove-- I've shut my garden gate.

"What boots continual glare and strife? I cannot always climb; I would not struggle all my life-- I need a breathing time. Pass on--I've sanctified these grounds To friendship, love, and lore: Ye cannot come within the bounds-- I've shut the garden door."

* * * * *

POETICAL COMPOSITION.--If metre and melody be worth anything at all, let them be polished to perfection; let an author "keep his piece nine years," or ninety and nine, till he has made it as musical as he can--at least, as musical as his other performances. Not that we counsel dilatory and piecemeal composition. The thought must be struck off in the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil, and be forged in a few seconds: true; but after the forging, long and weary polishing and grinding must follow, before your sword-blade will cut. And melody is what makes poetry cut; what gives it its life, its power, its magic influence, on the hearts of men. It must ring in their ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why, to believe and to obey.--_Fraser, for June._

* * * * *

POETRY OF THE LAST AGE AND THE PRESENT.--A writer in the last number of _Fraser's Magazine_ says well that, "there is in periodicals and elsewhere, a vast amount of really poetic imagery, of true and tender feeling, and cultivated ingenuity, scattered up and down in the form of verse. We have no new great poets, but very many small ones--layers, as it were, and seedlings from the lofty geniuses of the last generation, showing in every line the influence of Scott, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, and their compeers, seeing often farther than their masters saw, but dwarfs on giants' shoulders. Not that we complain of this. Elizabethan ages must be followed by Caroline ones; and our second Elizabethan galaxy is past; Tennyson alone survives, in solitary greatness, a connecting link between the poetry of the past and that of the future. In poetry, and in many other things, ours is a Caroline age; greater than the first one, as every modern cycle in a God-taught world, will be nobler, richer, wiser than its ancient analogue; but still a merely Caroline age--an age of pedantries and imbecilities, of effete rulers, side by side with great nether powers, as yet unaccredited, anarchic, unconscious of their own laws and destinies--an age of formalisms and Pharisaisms, of parties embittered by the sense of their own decrepitude--an age of small men, destined to be the fathers of great ones. And in harmony with this, we have a poetic school of Herberts and Vaughans, Withers and Daniels, to be followed hereafter, it may be, by a Milton, of whom as yet the age has given no sign."

* * * * *

DEATH-BED SUPERSTITIONS.--The practice of opening doors and boxes when a person dies is founded on the idea that the minister of purgatorial pains took the soul as it escaped from the body, and flattening it against some closed door, (which alone would serve the purpose,) crammed it into the hinges and hinge openings; thus the soul in torment was likely to be miserably pinched and squeezed by the movement on casual occasion of such door or lid. An open or swinging door frustrated this, and the fiends had to try some other locality. The friends of the departed were at least assured that they were not made the unconscious instruments of torturing the departed in their daily occupations. The superstition prevails in the north as well as in the west of England; and a similar one exists in the south of Spain, where I have seen it practiced. Among the Jews at Gibraltar there is also a strange custom when a death occurs in a house; and this consists in pouring away all the water contained in any vessel, the superstition being that the angel of death may have washed his sword therein.

* * * * *

Old authors notice the training of camels to move in measured time by placing the animal on gradually heated plates, and at the same time sounding a musical instrument.

* * * * *

AN ARAB GAME.--The Arabs are far more amusable, far more jovial and open-hearted. They have their coffee-houses every night, and their religious festivities periodically; they play at all sorts of complicated games, resembling draughts and chess, and find means ingeniously to vary their sports. If they compromise their dignity, they succeed in whiling away their leisure time far more successfully than the pride-stuffed Levantine. One of their amusements--called the game of plaff--is worth mentioning, especially as it is not only indulged in by the vulgar, but formed the chief delight of the venerable Moharrem Bey himself. Two men, often with respectable gray beards, sit on a carpet at a little distance one from the other. All Easterns are usually dry smokers; but on this occasion they manage to foment a plentiful supply of saliva, and the game simply consists in a series of attempts on the part of the two opponents to spit on the tips of each others noses. At first, this cleanly interchange of saliva goes on slowly and deliberately--Socrates never measured the leap of a flea with more seriousness--but presently one receives a dab in the eye, another in the mouth. They begin to grow hot and angry. "I hit your nose," cries one. "No, it was my cheek!" replied the other. They draw a little nearer, in order to ascertain the truth by feeling; spit, spit, they still go, like two vicious old cats; their palates grow dry; their throats become parched; but the contest continues, and they exhaust themselves in making spittoons of each other's faces and beards. Hamlet and Laertes were not more eager and desperate. "A hit, a very palpable hit!" they exclaim, as they hawk up their last supply of ammunition. Each denies the truth; they mutually proceed to a verification, and the game of plaff often ends in a regular match of nose-pulling.--_Two Years' Residence in a Levantine Family._

* * * * *

A MARRIAGE IN AMERICA.--A respectable farmer came in from some distance, and married the cook. The bridegroom was about fifty, and the bride was thirty years of age. The landlord and many of his boarders assisted at the ceremony, which was performed in the evening, and those of the boarders who had not been present were invited in afterward by the bridegroom to partake of wine and cake. After all were charged, he gave this sentiment, "Friendship to all, love to a few, and hatred to none." So systematically were matters managed, that next morning the bridegroom was sitting in the stove at the bar at seven o'clock, and at half-past seven breakfasted as usual at the public table, at which, of course, his wife, the cook, did not appear, and in the afternoon the happy pair left for their home. When I asked the landlord what the wife was like, he answered, "She is as pretty as a picture, and straight as a candle."--_Sir J. Alexander's "Acadie," just published._

* * * * *

ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS IN OUR OWN TIME.--The Arabs, who have among them most imaginative and finished _improvisatori_, compare the elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel. The _Thousand and One Nights_, like most clever fables, have some foundation in fact, as is well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable part of his establishment. African travelers relate that these friends will assemble before his tent, or on the platform with which the house of a Moorish Arab is roofed, and there listen night after night, to a consecutive history, related for sixty or even one hundred nights in succession. The listeners on such occasions have all the air of being spell-bound, especially while hearing some of their native songs, which are frequently extemporized, full of fire, and appealing with irresistible force to the passions. "I have seen," says Major Denham, "a circle of Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one moment and bursting with loud laughter; at the next melting into tears and clasping their hands in all the ecstacy of grief and sympathy."--_Leaves from the Diary of a Naturalist._

* * * * *

THE LAST YEAR'S LEAF.

The last year's leaf, its time is brief Upon the beechen spray; The green bud springs, the young bird sings Old leaf, make room for May: Begone, fly away, Make room for May.

Oh, green bud smile on me awhile, Oh, young bird, let my stay-- What joy have we, old leaf, in thee? Make room, make room for May: Begone, fly away, Make room for May.--_Philip Taylor_.

* * * * *

DIVINATION BY THE BIBLE AND KEY.--This superstition is very prevalent amongst the peasantry of this and adjoining parishes. When any article is suspected to have been stolen, a Bible is procured; and opened at the 1st chapter of Ruth; the stock of a street door key is then laid on the 16th verse of the above chapter, the handle protruding from the edge of the Bible; and the key is secured in this position by a string, bound tightly round the book. The person who works the charm then places his two middle fingers under the handle of the key, and this keeps the Bible suspended. He then repeats in succession the names of the parties suspected of theft; repeating at each name a portion of the verse on which the key is placed, commencing, "Whither thou goest, I will go," &c. When the name of the guilty party is pronounced, the key turns off the fingers, the Bible falls to the ground, and the guilt of the party is determined. The belief of some of the more ignorant of the lower orders in this charm is unbounded. I have seen it practiced in other counties, the key being laid over the 5th verse of the 19th chapter of Proverbs, instead of the 1st chapter of Ruth.--Godalming, April, 1850.--_Notes and Queries._

* * * * *

SIR THOMAS MORE'S HOUSEHOLD.--The conduct of this great man's house was a model to all, and as near an approach to his own Utopia as might well be. Erasmus says, "I should rather call his house a school or university of Christian religion, for there is none therein but readeth or studieth the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none are seen idle; which household that worthy gentleman doth not govern, but with all courteous benevolence." The servant men abode on one side of the house, the women on the other, and met at prayer time or on Church festivals, when More would read and expound to them. He suffered no cards or dice, but gave each one his garden-plot for relaxation, or set them to sing or "play music." He had an affection for all who truly served him, and his daughters' nurse is as affectionately mentioned in his letters when from home as they are themselves. "Thomas More sendeth greeting to his most dear daughters Margaret, Elizabeth and Cecily; and to Margaret Giggs as dear to him as if she were his own," are his words in one letter; and his valued and trustworthy domestics appear in the family pictures of the family by Holbein. They requited his attachment by truest fidelity and love; and his daughter Margaret, in her last passionate interview with her father on his way to the Tower, was succeeded by Margaret Giggs and a maid-servant, who embraced and kissed their condemned master, "of whom he said after, it was homely but very lovingly done." Of these and other of his servants, Erasmus remarks, "after Sir Thomas More's death, none ever was touched with the least suspicion of any evil fame."--_Mrs. Hall, in the Art Journal._

* * * * *

THE "PASSION PLAY" IN BAVARIA.--This year, the foreign journals state, is the year of the passion play of the Ammergau in Bavaria. The last representation took place in the month of July; the spectators were betwixt eight and nine thousand, collected in an open air theatre; the corps of actors, three hundred and fifty in number, some of them, says a French account, men and women as old as eighty years.

The play, which was written in 1633, and which had been recently retouched, is in twelve acts and eleven _entr'acts_ interspersed with _tableaux_. The representation lasted from eight o'clock in the morning, till four in the afternoon, was most elaborately prepared, and perfectly executed. At its close, the actors fell on their knees and recited prayers in which they thanked God that their performance had succeeded so well. They were of the peasant class, and almost all belonged to the Ammergau. "This same Ammer-valley," says the _Athenæum_, "lies in a most picturesque country, betwixt Munich and Innspruck--on the road by the Lake of Staremberg and Partenkirch."

* * * * *

AMBASSADORS.--Holland, Germany, France, America, Spain, send forth their eminent lawyers, historians, merchants, jurists, and publicists, to fill embassies and conduct negotiations; while we content ourselves with recruiting our diplomatic corps from the younger branches of the aristocracy, or from the sons of men of wealth apeing the manners and travestying the mode of life of the grand seigneurs, who conceive themselves made of "the porcelain of earth's clay." The Schimmelpennicks, the De Serres, the Rushes, the Wheatons, the Clays, the Adamses, the Jeffersons, the Rufus Kings, the Daniel Websters, the Dr. Bankses, have all been lawyers; the Washington Irvings, the Bancrofts, the Guizots, the Bunsens, the Niebuhrs, the Humboldts, the Ancillons, were men of letters before and during the period they continued ambassadors.--_Fraser._

* * * * *

M. GUIZOT has been compelled to sell at auction a portion of his valuable and extensive library, and a London paper describes some of the more remarkable books, and states the prices for which they were sold. "Comte Auguste de Bastard, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits Français depuis le huitième siècle jusqu'à la fin du seizième," 20 parts, all at present published, in five portfolios, Paris, 1835. This splendid work was described as the most sumptuous, unique, and costly book that has ever been produced. Each part contains eight plates, copied from the most superb examples known to exist; they are colored and finished with gold and silver equal to the exquisite originals; the whole series extends to 160 engravings in 20 _livraisons_, each of which was sold to subscribers only at 1800f., amounting in the whole to 36,000f., or in our money to 1,500_l._ No perfect copy of this production has been offered for sale in this country prior to the present time; it was sold for 200_l._ "Voyage de la Corvette l'Astrolabe pendant les Années, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, sous le Commandement de Capitaine d'Urville," containing copious descriptions of all the objects in science and history met with on the voyage, the whole being illustrated by splendid engravings, 30_l._; "Voyage Pittoresque et Romantique en Bretagne," one of the most magnificent and extensive works ever published on the scenery and antiquities of any part of the world; the illustrations to this were executed in the most superb style of lithography; the stones were broken as soon as the plates were printed; 26_l._ 5_s._

* * * * *

SIR STRATFORD CANNING.--This eminent civilian and ambassador, whose former residence in this country is remembered with so much pleasure by his friends here, is thus referred to in a series of papers on the Diplomacy, Diplomatists, and Diplomatic Servants of England, now in course of publication in _Fraser's Magazine_: "He who has been forty-three years in the public service, who commenced his duties as precis-writer in the Foreign Office in July 1807, and who, having served as Secretary of Embassy to the Porte, as Envoy to the Swiss Confederation, as Minister to the United States, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to Russia, as Plenipotentiary on a special mission to Spain, and as Ambassador three times near the Sublime Porte, is now serving with credit and advantage in that very Stamboul whose towers and minarets he first saw in 1808."

* * * * *

THE SEVEN-MILE TUNNEL THROUGH THE ALPS.--Dr. Granville says: "To give at once some idea of the boldness of Chev. Mons' undertaking, we may, in the first place, state that in its progress the tunnel must pass under some of the most elevated crests of Mont Cenis,--one, in particular, where there will be 4,850 feet of mountain, capped with eternal glaciers, over head, at the middle of the tunnel, so that not only will the workmen and machinery in construction, and the passengers and trains in transit, be buried to that depth in the heart of the mountain, but all idea of shafts, either to facilitate excavation, or to promote ventilation, must be out of the question. The breath of life itself must be respired, from either extremity, with artificial aid, in shape of currents of fresh air transmitted, and of foul air withdrawn, by mechanical apparatus ever at work, at least during excavation, which is also itself to be effected by machinery of a new and simple nature, worked by water-power of mountain streams whereby the trains are also to be run through the tunnel, which ascends, from the northern or Savoy side, at Modane, all the way to its exit at Bardonneche, with a gradient equal to 19 in 1000. The machine, once presented to the rock, projects into it simultaneously four horizontal series of sixteen scalpels, working backward and forward, by means of springs cased in, and put in motion by the same water power. While these are at work, one vertical series on each side works simultaneously up and down, so that together they cut out four blocks, or rather insulate four blocks on all sides, except on the rock behind, from which they are afterward detached by hand. It has been already ascertained that each of the two machines, at the opposite ends of the tunnel, will excavate to the extent of 22 feet a day, and it is estimated that the whole excavation will be completed in four years. The gallery to be perforated by the machines will be 13 feet wide by 7 feet high, and this once cut through, the bore will be enlarged by ordinary means to 25 feet in width and 19 feet in height, and a double line of rails laid. The estimated cost of this great tunnel is only 13,804,942f. It is to be immediately commenced at the north entrance."

* * * * *

Medicine has killed as many people as war. Powder and pills are as fatal as powder and ball. Be careful, therefore, how you allow people to shoot them into you.