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we should go down. Involuntarily, we of Great Britain found ourselves grouped together by the davits, holding on. Quoth the blasphemer

"Since we are to go down, we English will stick together, and let the damned Frenchmen drown by themselves. Is there any fellow here that can say a short prayer?" It was a dreadful punishment to him for his evil life, that he couldn't remember even the shortest in the whole Church Service; and I am quite sure, so staunch an Anglican was he, that he would far rather have gone to the bottom with no prayer at all, than with anything extemporaneous or irregular. Even the petition for rain would have comforted him.

ran away.

other times supposed to be of sound mind, went about peppering their noses with camphor powder. Some swathed their bodies with flannel, and some wore as little as they possibly could. Some would, at intervals, apply cold ice to the backbone-others, warm water. Others, again, would breakfast off bitter beer and boiled eggs, and dine on brandy and water and soup. One man wrote to the paper calling attention to the fact that few Englishmen died of cholera ; and that, as he had recently discovered, the English colonists always washed every morning, all over. This he recommended to his own countrymen, as a thing not, indeed, suddenly to be adopted, but to receive that serious attention and thought which the gravity of the step demanded. For himself, he confessed he sometimes washed his feet; but rarely.

One poor Briton nearly came to terrible grief. He was a mariner; and one evening, finding himself, some miles from St. Denys, overcome with liquor, he fell down by the wayside and slumbered. Native policemen, coming by with a cart, gathered him up as one dead; and a grave being already prepared, they laid him in it, fortunately removing the shell. The English clergyman read the service, with sorrow for the poor fellow cut off so suddenly, whose very name was unknown, and who lay there perhaps to be looked for, many a weary day, by wife and children. He had finished, and they began heaving in the earth. As soon as it fell upon his face, the shock awakened him. Starting up, still unsteady, he began to bawl out, "Ahoy there!-ahoy! Bill Gribble, ahoy!" The aborigines fled, howling in terror; nor would they ever accept any other version of the story than that it was a veritable post-mortem appearance, a spectre, that greeted them. And the churchyard is haunted by it to this day.

However, in St. Denys, the English merchants sat together in each other's offices. They drank a good deal of brandy in those days, in little occasional nips, that touched up the liver if it did not keep off the cholera. No business was done of any kind; nor was there any pretence at it. No clerks came-these were mostly mulattoes, and kept themselves at home, with the shutters half-closed, sitting in a horrible circle in the dark, and with a fearsome fluttering at their hearts. If they perceived an internal rumbling, they took a dose of cholera mixture. If any one said he felt unwell, the rest sidled from him; and if one was actually seized, they generally all The doctor in charge of the hospital-he was not a Frenchman, nor was he English, and it would be invidious to proclaim his race-ran away from his post. He had a struggle of some days between fear and honour. At last, as the sick were brought in more thickly, honour lost ground. He fled: "L'existence," he said, "avant tout." It was an honest confession, and proved a sort of martyr's creed; for when he came back, after the thing was all over, and the hospital swept up again, clean and neat, he was astonished to find that the GovernmentBritish, of course—was taking a harsh view of the matter, and that he was kicked out in disgrace. The straw-paper organs made capital out of the event. The writer of one They were not all cowards. Brave deeds .crushing article crammed for it, like Mr. Pott's were done. Foremost of all, the brave young man. John Huss, the early saints deeds of the divine Sisters of Mercy. If I of the Church, Savonarola, Cranmer, Sir die, poor and alone, forlorn and deserted, Thomas More, and Louis the Sixteenth may one of these ministering angels come furnished illustrations for this admirable to me, with her sweet, unlovely face, and treatise. passionless tenderness of heart! Then may Nostrums came into great use. Men, at she make me a Catholic, or a Ritualist, or

As for the sailor, he was taken home by the clergyman, and took the pledge; which he kept till he got to the next port. But he always swore he would never get drunk again in Palmiste.

anything she likes-all for dear memory of the things I have known her sisters do. For to them all duties are equally holy and equally divine. To them is nothing loathsome, nothing revolting; no form of disease or suffering too terrible to help; no accumulations of misery and poverty, no development of sickness, sufficient to keep them

away.

Is it fair, without mentioning a living man's name, to mention his deeds? Perhaps he will never see it in print. This is what he did. In the height of the cholera, two coolie ships put into port, both with cholera raging on board. They were promptly sent off to quarantine off an islet-a mere rock, half a mile across-twenty miles away.

Thence, after some time, news came somehow to Palmiste that their apothecary was dead, and the captain, and all the English sailors but a few. And all the coolies were dying with cholera. Who would go there? One young army surgeon stepped out, so to speak, from the ranks. To go there was to go to certain death. It was a forlorn hope. There would be no one to help him, no one to talk to even; no one to attend him if he was seized. He went. For weeks he struggled with the pestilence, saving some from the jaws of death, and burying others. The place, which was a mere charnel-house, he turned into a hospital-a Hôtel Dieu.

The poor, terror-stricken Indians slowly regained hope, and therefore health; and when the evil time died away, he was able to bring back half at least of his flock, rescued from death.

It is a heroism that is beyond the power of any Victoria Cross to reward; and when it fires the blood, and sets the heart aglow of him that reads it, the doer of the geste has his fittest crown of glory, though he never hear of it.

In the country, away down at Fontainebleau, they were comparatively safe. Few cases happened on the estate in the earlier stage; but when it began to leave town it broke out in the country. Mr. Durnford took no precautions. In these matters he thought it was like a battle-field. You could not, he said, devise any armour against a cannon ball.

"Obsairve," said Mr. MacIntyre, taking a nip of brandy, "some men are killed by a bayonet thrust."

But one evening, when Phil and Arthur came home from a stroll with their guns,

they found MacIntyre in a state of wild alarm on the verandah. Mr. Durnford had been seized. No doctor had been sent for, because none was within twenty miles. They had no medicine, except brandy. Mr. MacIntyre had been giving him copious draughts. He had taken a bottle and a half without the smallest effect; and now Mr. MacIntyre, seeing the boys go into the bed-room, retreated to the other side of the house, and began to drink the rest of the bottle, glad to be relieved of his charge.

There was very little hope. They sent off a dozen messengers for as many doctors. But, with the utmost speed, no doctor could arrive before the morning.

All night long they watched and tended. him. Mr. MacIntyre by this time, what with terror and brandy, was helpless. They could do literally nothing. But in the morning came collapse, and comparative ease. The dying man lay stretched on his back, breathing painfully; but conscious. Philip bent over him, and whispered, with dry eyes and hard voice, while Arthur was sobbing on his knees

"Father, tell me of my mother?"

Mr. Durnford turned his head and looked. He would have spoken; but a trembling seized his limbs, and his eyes closed in death.

He was buried the next morning. All the people on the estate went to the funeral. But Mr. MacIntyre was absent. For in the night a thought struck him. It was but a week since he had received, in hard cash, the half year's salary due to him. Now he

saw his occupation gone. Without any chance of finding employment in the island, he would be left stranded. He was staggered at first. Then he reflected that no one knew of the payment except his late employer. How if he could get the receipt? So, when the funeral procession started, Mr. MacIntyre stayed behind-no one noticing his absence.

The house man's room. had left it.

clear, he stole into the dead His desk was open, just as he Here was a chance which it

was impossible to resist.

"It makes my heart bleed to wrong the lads," said MacIntyre, wiping his eyes; "but one must consider himself."

Then he looked out the receipt from the file, and put it into his pocket. That done, he searched for the private account book, which also fell into his coat-tail pocket.

Then it occurred to him that it would be an admirable thing to get a whole year's salary instead of a half, and he began to hunt for the previous receipt. This he could not find, though he searched everywhere. But But he found something which interested him, and he wrapped it in brown paper, and took it also away with him. It was a big, fat book, with clasps and a small letter padlock, marked "Private." He went down to his cottage, and cutting open the clasps, he read it from end to end.

It was a sort of irregular journal, beginning sixteen years before. It opened with a confession of passion for Marie.

"If the girl were but a lady-if only, even, she were not coloured-I would take her away and marry her. Why should I not marry her? What difference would it make to me whether people approved of it

or not? . . .

"I saw Marie to-day. She met me in the garden behind her mistress's house. How pretty the child looked, with a rose in her black hair! She will meet me again this evening."

And so on, all in the same strain.

In the leaves of the book were three short notes, kept for some unknown reason, addressed to his wife; but without date.

Mr. MacIntyre, in a fit of abstraction, took pen and ink, and added a date-that of Philip's birth. There was another paper in the journal: the certificate of marriage of George Durnford and Adrienne de Rosnay. He took this out; and shutting up the journal, he began to reflect.

In the afternoon, when the sun grew low, he went to the little Catholic church which lies hidden away among the trees, about three miles from Fontainebleau.

Just then it was shut up. For Father O'Leary, the jolly Irish priest, who held this easiest of benefices for so many years, had only lately succumbed to age; and in the disturbed state of the colony no priest had yet been sent down. The presbytère was closed, the shutters up, and the church door locked.

The tutor went to the back of the house; forced his way in with no difficulty, by the simple process of removing a rotten shutter from the hinges.

Hanging on the wall were the church keys. He took these, and stepped across

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the green to the vestry door, which he opened, and went in, shutting it after him, whistling very softly to himself.

Then he opened the cupboard, and took down the two duplicate church registers of marriage. They were rarely used; because in that little place there were few people to get married, except the Indians, who always went before the registrar. Turning over the leaves, which were sticking together with damp-Father O'Leary was always the most careless of men-he came to a place where one double page had been passed over. The marriage immediately before it was dated twenty years since; that after it sixteen. He looked at the duplicate register. No such omission of a page had occurred.

Whistling softly, he filled up the form between Marie-no other name-and George Durnford, gentleman, for a date about a year before Philip's birth. Then he attested it himself "Alexander MacIntyre "—in a fine bold hand; forged the signatures of the others; and added, as a second witness, the mark of one Adolphe. Then he rubbed his hands, and began to consider further.

After this, he got the forms of marriage certificates, and filled one up in due form, again signing it with the name of the deceased Father O'Leary. Then he replaced that one of the two books in which he had written the forgery, put the forged certificate in his pocket, and the other register under his arm; then locked up the cupboard.

When he had finished his forgeries he looked into the church. The setting sun was shining through the west window full upon the little altar, set about with its twopenny gewgaw ornaments.

He shook his head.

"A blind superstition," he murmured. "We who live under the light of a fuller Gospel have vara much to be thankful for."

He went back to the presbytère, replaced the keys, and walked home with his register in his hands.

He had no servant, and was accustomed, when he did not dine at Fontainebleau, to send an Indian boy to the nearest shop and buy some steak, which he curried himself. He went into the kitchen-a little stone hut built at the back of the cottage-lit a fire of sticks, and proceeded to burn the register and Mr. Durnford's private journal.

The books would not burn at all, being damp and mouldy.

"At this rate of progression," he remarked,

"I shall be a twal'month getting through them. Let us bury them."

He dug a hole in a corner close to his house, buried his books, piled the earth over them, and cooked his dinner with a cheerful heart.

"A good day's work," he murmured. "Half a year's salary gained, and the prospect of a pretty haul, if good luck serves. Marie dead, O'Leary dead, one register gone, the certificates in my possession. Master Phil, my boy, the time will perhaps come when you will be glad to buy my papers of me."

Mr. Durnford's death showed that he had become a rich man. All his property went by will to "my son," while of Philip no notice whatever was taken. Only the lawyer wrote him a letter stating that by a special deed of gift, dated some years back, a sum of money was made over to him, which had been accumulating at compound interest, and had now amounted to five thousand pounds. This, at Palmiste interest, was five hundred pounds a-year. As his father had told him, it was his sole provision.

Philip's heart was stung with a sense of wrong. That no mention was made of him -that, through all his life, he had not received one word of acknowledgment or affection-that he had been evidently regarded as a mere encumbrance and a debt, rankled in his bosom. He said nothing, not even to Mr. MacIntyre—who, now that he had no longer any further prospect of employment, began to turn his thoughts to other pastures. But he brooded over his wrongs; and now only one thought possessed him to escape from a place which was haunted by shame.

Arthur, too, wanted to go; and their lawyer and adviser took passages for the boys, and gave them proper letters to those who were to take care of them in England till they were of age.

Mr. MacIntyre, the day before they started, came to say farewell. He had an interview with each of his pupils separately. To Arthur, by way of a parting gift, he propounded a set of maxims for future guidance, including a rule of conduct for morals, which he recommended on the ground of having always adhered to it himself; and he left his late pupil with a heavier purse and consequently a lighter heart. Mr. MacIntyre, in all his troubles, had never yet wanted

money. As a Scotchman, he never spent when he could avoid spending.

His conversation with Philip was of greater importance. With much hesitation, and an amount of nervousness that one would hardly have expected of him, he hinted that he was possessed of certain information, but that the time was not yet arrived to make use of it. And then, biting his nails, he gave the young man to understand that, if he ever did use it, he should expect to be paid.

"But what is your knowledge?" asked Philip; "and if you have any, why, in the devil's name, don't you let it out at once? And how much money do you want?"

'Mr. MacIntyre leaned forward, and whispered in his ear

"Suppose my information proved your mother's marriage? Suppose that a manI'm not for saying that I should be the man brought all this to light?" "Poor Arthur!" said Philip.

"That's not the point," urged the other. "To be plain. What would that information be worth?"

"I don't know."

"Should we say five thousand pounds?" "You mean that I am to give you five thousand pounds for giving information which you ought to give for nothing? MacIntyre, you're a scoundrel."

"Eh! mon," replied the moralist. "Can you give me these proofs?" cried Philip, his voice rising.

"No, I cannot-not yet. And perhaps I never shall be able to do so. Whether I do or not depends upon yourself. And don't be violent, Mr. Philip Durnford. Remember," he added with a touch of pathetic dignity, "that you are addressing your old tutor, and a Master of Arts of the University of Aberdeen."

"Go to the devil," said Philip, "and get out of this. Go, I say!"

I am grieved to say that Arthur, who was sitting outside, was startled by the fearful spectacle of his reverend tutor emerging with Philip's hand in his collar, and Philip's right foot accelerating his movements.

It all took a moment. Mr. MacIntyre vanished round the corner, and his pony's hoofs were speedily heard clattering down the road.

Arthur looked up for explanation.

"Never mind, old boy!" said Philip. "The man's a scoundrel. He's a liar, too,

I believe. Arthur, give me your hand. I have been worried lately, a good deal. But I won't wrong you. Remember that. Whatever happens-you shall not be wronged." The next night they were steaming gallantly away. The headlands of Palmiste lay low on the horizon as the sun set, and touched them with his magic painter's brush.

Arthur took off his cap, and waved it. "When shall we see the dear old place again, Phil?" he said, with a sob in his throat.

"Never, I hope," said Philip. "It will be to me a memory of sickly sorrow and disappointment. Never. And now, old boy, hurrah for England and my commission! I am going to forget it all."

visit Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and Syria. The incidents of travel and impressions of life in foreign parts are detailed by the American humorist in the two last works of the list given above. "The Innocents Abroad" gives Twain's account of the voyage out; while "The New Pilgrim's Progress" recounts the adventures of the voyage home.

The author of these books is possessed of remarkable talent. His works are widely read, and very generally popular. Mark Twain is altogether the best living exponent of American humour, and he may be sure of receiving a hearty welcome whenever he revisits the Old Country.

THE

He stood there, with the bright look of MARVELLOUS EXPERIENCES

hope and fearlessness that so soon goes out of the eyes of youth, and the sea breeze lifting his long black hair, a possible-nay, a certain hero. It is something in every man's life for once to have been at peace with

OF

ELIZABETH WINTERBOURNE. BY JOHN C. DENT.

XIII.

God-for once to have thrilled with the "I CAN take little credit to myself," began warm impulse of true nobility.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

MARK TWAIN.

THE HE name by which the American humourist who wrote "The Jumping Frog" is known by the readers of his works is a nom de plume. Mr. Samuel L. Clemens has only lately left England, and has promised to come and see us 66 Britishers again before long.

California has developed a literature of its own, and its proudest boast is the possession of Mark Twain. "The Jumping Frog," pronounced by the Saturday Review "an inimitably funny book," soon made its author famous, and gained for him readers wherever English is spoken. "The Jumping Frog" is a story of the Californian gold mines; it is very humorous, and very well told. "Eye-openers," "Screamers, ""A Burlesque Autobiography, "The Innocents Abroad," and "The New Pilgrim's Progress," are all of them works of the peculiar humour invented by our American cousins, from the pen of the author of "The Jumping Frog."

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In the summer of the year '67 a pleasuretrip left New York, Mark Twain being one of the excursionists. For 1250 dollars, passengers were to cross the Atlantic, and

Mr. Barcliffe-"I can take little credit to myself for any display of shrewdness in getting to the bottom of this little affair. When you first told me the story, sitting in this room, on the day of my arrival, I confess I had strong suspicions of the girl's having imposed upon you all. I thought it much more probable that she should have chosen this method of indulging in a little skylarking expedition-which, as you are probably aware, is not so very uncommon a thing for young women to do-than that so strange a tale should be true. Then, again, you informed me that she had been educated beyond her degree in life. What, then, so natural as that she should read novels? And this was just the kind of story that a country girl, whose head was full of romances and rubbish, would be likely to invent. With this suspicion strong in my mind, I accompanied you to her father's hut, and amused myself with a little harmless gossip, for the purpose of passing the time, until I could take a good look at her. I had no sooner begun to talk to her than my suspicions were considerably shaken; and I had no sooner heard her story from her own lips, out there on the moor, than I gave entire credence to it.

"Upon turning the matter over in my mind, one thing was so very evident, that it could not by any chance have escaped me,

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