we ing into it. Ever so much better go these | Christianity, they must answer for themthings without our bother; and our par- selves, when the proper time appears. son said, being a noble preacher, and fit Only we would let them know that any day for the navy, that the people who hold aloof from any breach of their comconquered the world, according to the mandments. prophet Joel-20th after Trinity - never noticed nature, never did consult the Lord of Hosts, and yet must have contented him. Difficult questions of this colour must be left to parsons (who beat all lawyers, out and out, in the matter of pure cleverness; because the latter never can anyhow, but the former, somehow, with the greatest ease reconcile all difficulties). The only business I have to deal with is what I bodily see, feel, and hear, and have mind to go through with, and work out to perfect satisfaction. And this night I found more than ever broke upon my wits before, except when muzzle gapes at muzzle, and to blow or be blown up depends upon a single spark. A flight of ten wild ducks had been seen coming up the river, every now and then, as well as fourteen red-caps, and three or four good wisps of teal. Having to see to my victualling now, as well as for the sport of it, I loaded the Parson's two-foot pistol, which was as good as a gun almost, with three tobacco pipes full of powder poured into each barrel, and then a piece of an ancient hat (which Ikey had worn so long that no man could distinguish it from wadding), and upon the top of the hat three ounces of leaden pellets, and all kept tight with a good dollop of oakum. It must kill a wild duck at forty yards, or a red-cap up to fifty, if I hit the rogues in the head at all. from the old drake first, and then from the rest of the company, and a racing after one another, and a rapid gambolling. Under and between them all, the river lost its smoothness, beaten into ups and downs that sloped away in ridge and furrow. The tide must have been pretty nigh the Because now, in my quiet manner (grow-flood, and the moon was rising hazily, and ing to be customary, under Parson all the river was pale and lonely, for the Chowne's regard) dipping oars, I crossed brown-sailed lighters (which they call the the river, making slant for running tide." Tawton fleet") had long passed by, That man, knowing everybody who might when I heard that silvery sound of swiftsuit his purpose, had employed me rather ness cleaving solitude the flight of a than old Ikey, or even Fuzzy, partly be- wedge of wild ducks. I knelt in the very cause I could row so well, and make no smallest form that nature would allow of, sound in doing it; while either of them, and with one hand held a branch to keep with muffled rowlocks, would splash and the boat from surging. Plash they came grunt to be heard across river, and half-down, after two short turns (as sudden as way to Barnstaple Bridge almost. As si- forked lightning), heads down for a molently as an owl I skimmed across the si-ment, then heads up, and wings flapping, lent river, not with the smallest desire to sousing and subsiding. Quacks began, spy, but because the poetry of my nature came out strongly. And having this upon me still, I rowed my boat into a drooping tree, overhanging a quiet nook. Here I commanded the river-front of all that great house, Narnton Court, which stands on the north side of the water over against our Deadman's Pill. After several voy- These fine fellows, as fat as butter after ages under sundry states of light and the barley-stubble time, carried on such weather, this was now approved to me as joy and glory within twenty yards of me, the very best point of observation. For that I could not bring my gun to bear for all the long and straggling house (quite big quiet shot, so as to settle four. Like an enough for any three of the magistrates' ancient gunner I bided my time, being up houses on our side) could have been tak-to the tricks of most of them. When en and raked (as it were) like a great ship with her stern to me, from the spot where I lay hidden. Such a length it stretched along, with little except the west end to me, and a show of front-windows dark and void; and all along the river-terrace, and the narrow spread of it, overlooking the bright water, pagan gods, or wicked things just as bad, all standing. However, that was not my business; if the gentry will forego the whole of their their wild delight of water should begin to sate itself, what would they do? Why, gather in round the father of the family, and bob their heads together. This is the time to be sure of them, especially with two barrels fired at once, as I could easily manage. I never felt surer of birds in my life; I smelt them in the dripping-pan, and beheld myself quite basting them; but all of a sudden, up they flew, when I had got three in a line, and waited for two more to come into it, just as the muzzle as swiftly almost as the wild ducks flew. was true upon them-up and away, and Meanwhile the officer stood and gazed unleft me nothing except to rub my eyes and til they had rounded the western point, swear. I might have shot as they rose, from which they had spoiled my shot so; but something told me not to do so. and knowing the vigilant keenness of a Therefore I crept back in my little punt, British captain's eyes, I feared that he and waited. In another moment I heard might espy my punt, which would have the swing of stout oars pulled with time disgraced me dreadfully. And even withand power, such as I had not heard for out this I felt how much I would rather be years, nor since myself was stroke of it. far away. There could have been no man Of course I knew that this must be a boat more against my taste to keep a watch of the British navy, probably the captain's upon, than a captain in the royal navy, gig, and choice young fellows rowing her; whose father might have been over me. and the tears sprang into my eyes at And vigorously as I called to mind that all thought of all the times and things be- I was doing must be for his good, as well tween, and all the heavy falls of life, since as for that of his relatives, I could not thus I clove the waters. All my heart find that satisfaction which ought to flow went out towards her, and I held my from such benevolence. However, it now breath with longing (as I looked between was too late to back out, even if my desire the branches of the dark and fluttering to know the end of this matter allowed of tree), just to let them know that here was it. one who understood them. CHAPTER XXXI. TWO LOVERS. The officer stood for a minute or two, as if in brown thoughts and deep melancholy, and turned to the house once or twice, and seemed to hesitate as to approaching it. The long great house, with the broad river-front, looked all dark and desolate; not a servant, a horse, or even a dog was moving, and the only sign of life I could see was a dull light in a little window over a narrow doorway. While I was wondering at all this, and the captain standing gloomily, a little dark figure crossed the moonlight from the shadowy doorway, and the officer made a step or two, and held out his arms and received it. They seemed to stay pretty well satisfied thus, the figure being wholly female, until, with a sudden change of thought, there seemed to be some sobbing. This led the captain to try again some soft modes of persuasion, such as I could not see into, even if I would THE boat came round the corner swiftly of the wooded stretch of rock, within whose creek I lay concealed; and the officer in the stern-sheets cried, in the short sharp tone of custom," Easy, stroke; hold all! I heard him jerk the rudder-lines, as they passed within biscuit-toss of me, and with a heavy sheer he sent her, as if he knew every inch of water, to the steps of Narnton Court: not the handsome balustrade, only a landing of narrow stone-way, nearer to me than the western end, and where the river-side terrace stopped. Two men sprang ashore and made the boat fast at the landing, and then some others lifted out what seemed to be a heavy chest, and placed it on the top-have deigned to do a thing against my most step, until the officer, having landed, grain so, because I have been in that way signed to them to bear it further to a cor- myself, and did not want to be looked at. ner of the parapet. I could see the whole However, not to be too long over what of these doings, and distinguish him by every man almost goes through (some his uniform, because the boat and the honestly, and some anyhow, but all tendgroup of sailors were not more than fiftying to experience), my only desire was, yards from me, and almost in the track of the moon from the place where I was hiding. In a minute or two all returned to the boat, with the exception of the officer, and I heard him give orders from the shore finding them at it, to get out of the way very quickly. For, poor as I am, there were several women of Newton, and Llaleston, and Ewenny, and even of Bridgend, our market-town, setting their caps, like springles, at me! Whereas I laboured at nothing else but to pay respect to my poor wife's memory, and never have a poor woman after her. And now all these romanThe coxswain jumped into the stern- tic doings made me feel uneasy, and ready sheets, in a second or two they had put to be infected, so as to settle with nothing about, and the light gig pulling six good more than had been offered me thrice, and oars shot by me, on the first of the ebb, 'three times refused a 7-foot-and-6-inch "Round the point, men! Keep close, and wait for me under the Yellow Hook I showed you." - mangle; and (if she proved a tiger) have] stoutness, and me to keep ready for plungto work it myself perhaps! ing. "Nevertheless, you know," he went Be that either way these two unhappy lovers came along, while I was wondering at them, yet able to make allowance so, until they must have seen me, if they had a corner of an eye for anything less than one another. They stood on a plank that crossed the narrow creek or slot (wherein I lay, under a willow full of brown leaves), and scarcely ten yards from me. Here there was a rail across, about as big as a kidney-bean stick, whereupon they leaned, and looked into the water under them. Then they sighed, and made such sorrow (streaked somehow with happiness) that I got myself ready to leap overboard if either or both of them should jump in. However, they had more sense than that; though they went on very tenderly, and with a soft strain quite unfit to belong to a British officer. Being, from ancient though humble birth, gifted with a deal of delicacy, I pulled out two plugs of tobacco, which happened to be in my mouth just now, and I spared them both to stop my ears, though striking inwards painfully. I tried to hear nothing for ever so long; but I found myself forced to ease out the plugs, they did smart so He took her quietly into his arms; and confoundedly. And this pair wanted some they seemed to strengthen one another. one now to take a judicious view of them, And to my eyes came old tears, or at any for which few men, perhaps, could be found rate such as had come long ago. These better qualified than I was. For they car- two people stood a great time, silent, full ried on in so high a manner, that it seemed of one another, keeping close with reveras if they could be cured by nothing shortent longing, gazing yet not looking at the of married life, of which I had so much moonlight and the water. Then the deliexperience. And the principal principle of that state is, that neither party must begin to make too much of the other side. But having got over all that sort of thing, I found myself snug in a corner, and able to regard them with interest and much candour. "My own dear, you are a child; almost a child for a man like me, knocked about the world so much, and ever so unfortunate." The rest of his speech was broken into, much to my dissatisfaction, by a soft caressing comfort, such as women's pity yields without any consideration. Only they made all sorts of foolish promises, and eternal pledges, touched up with confidence, and hope, and mutual praise, and faith, and doubt, and the other ins and outs of love. "Is there no hope of it then, after all; after all you have done and suffered, and the prayers of everybody?" This was the maiden, of course having right to the first word, and the last of it. "There is hope enough, my darling; but nothing ever comes of it. And how can I search out this strange matter, while I am on service always?" Throw it up, Drake; my dear heart, for my sake, throw it up, and throw over all ambition, until you are cleared of this foul shame." "My ambition is slender now," he answered, "and would be content with one slender lady." Here he gave her a squeeze that threatened not only to make her slenderer, but also to make the rail need more "I won't cry any more," she said, with several sobs between it; "I ought not to be so with you, who are so strong, and good, and kind. Your honour is cruelly wronged at home: you never shall say that your own, own love wished you to peril it also abroad." cate young maiden (for such her voice and outline showed her, though I could not judge her face) shivered in the curling fog which the climbing moon had brought. Hereupon the captain felt that her lungs must be attended to as well as her lips, and her waist, and heart; and he said in a soft way, like a shawl "Come away, my lovely darling, from the cold, and fog, and mist. Your little cloak is damp all through; and time it is for me to go. Discipline I will have always; and I must have the same with you, until you take command of me." "Many, many a weary year, ere I have the chance of it, Captain Drake." The young thing sighed as she spoke, though perhaps without any sense of prophecy. "Isabel, let us not talk like that, even if we think it. The luck must turn some day, my darling; even I cannot be always on the evil side of it. How often has my father said so! And what stronger proof can I have than you? As long as you are true to me He does not dislike you, Drake Bampfylde; he hates you with all the venomous, cold, black hatred, such as I fear to think of- oh my dear, oh my dear!" "Now, Isabel, try not to be so foolish. I never could believe such a thing, and I never will, without clearest proof. I never could feel like that myself, even if any one wronged me deeply. And in spite of all my bad luck, Bell, I have never wronged any one. At least, more than you know of." "Then don't wrong me, my own dear love, by taking no heed of yourself. Here, there, and everywhere seems to be his nature. You may be proud of your ship and people, and of course they are proud of you. You may be ordered to Gibraltar, where they have done so gloriously, or to America, or to India. But wherever you are, you never can be out of the reach of that terrible man. His ways are so crooked, and so dark, and so dreadfully cold-blooded." Isabel, Isabel, now be quiet. What an imagination you have! A man in holy orders, a man of a good old family, who have been ancient friends of ours "A bad old family, you mean bad for generations. It does not matter, of course, what I say, because I am so young and stupid. But you are so frank, and good, and simple, and so very brave and careless, and I know that you will own some dayoh, it frightens me so to think of it! that you were wrong in this matter, and your Isabel was right." What his answer was I cannot tell, because they passed beyond my hearing upon their way towards the house. The young lady with her long hair shining like woven gold in the moonlight, tried (so far as I could see) to persuade him to come in with her. This, however, he would not do, though grieving to refuse her; and she seemed to know the reason of it, and to cease to urge him. In and out of many things, which they seemed to have to talk of, he showed her the great chest in the dark corner; and perhaps she paid good heed to it. As to that, how can I tell, when they both were so far off, and riverfogs arising? Yet one thing I well could tell, or at any rate could have told it in the times when my blood ran fast, and my habit of life was romantic. Even though the light was foggy, and there was no time to waste, these two people seemed so to stay with a great dislike of severing. However, they managed it at last; and growing so cold in my shoulders now, as well as my knees uncomfortable, right glad was I to hear what the maiden listened to with intense despair; that is to say, the captain's footfall, a yard further off every time of the sound. He went along the Braunton road, to find his boat where the river bends. And much as I longed to know him better, and understand why he did such things, and what he meant by hankering so after this young lady, outside his own father's house, and refusing to go inside when invited, and speaking of his own bad luck so much, and having a chest put away from the moonlight, likewise his men in the distance so far, and compelled to keep round the corner, not to mention his manner of walking, and swinging his shoulders, almost as if the world was nothing to him; although I had never been perhaps so throughly pushed with desire of knowledge, and all my best feelings uppermost, there was nothing for me left except to ponder, and to chew my quid, rowing softly through the lanes and lines of misty moonlight, to my little cuddy home across the tidal river. THE Illustrated Australian News of October | amelled upon copper. These are said to be, as 9th informs us that a photographer at Clunes, works of art, really beautiful, and almost indecalled John Tanner, has, after four years of la- structible. bour, succeeded in producing photographs en From Temple Bar. on the site of the old town-house of Edward of Woodstock. Stowe describes it Ir is not generally known, or perhaps as above Crooked Lane End, upon Fish we should say it is not very well remem- Street Hill. Let a man now stand with bered, that Horace Walpole once intended his back to the Monument, looking northto become the historian of London. For ward, and he will have before him the a long time he contemplated drawing up site of- or he may build up again in some exposition of the metropolis, after his fancy-that glorious mansion. The the manner of the "Rues de Paris" by St. princely couple led a life there of such exFoix. He had even made some collection traordinary splendour-there were such of materials. A hundred and three years banquetings and dancings and gorgeous have elapsed since Walpole wrote to Cole: revelry on the spot now driven over by "I wish you would be so good, in the carts, waggons, and omnibuses, or paced course of your reading, to mark down over by weary combatants in the struggle any passages to that end- as where any for life that, rich as the august couple great houses of the nobility were situated, were, the magnificence was too costly for or in what street any memorable event their purse. They actually went to France happened. I fear the subject will not fur- for economy's sake, but they lived in the nish much till later times, as our princes same style in the Prince's government of kept their courts up and down the coun- Aquitaine, and did not return to Fish try in such a vagrant manner." Street Hill till Edward was in a dying This passage came into our memory the state. Even then he only sojourned for other day as we stood, looking for bits of a few days in the then royallest part of Old London, in a corner of Aldermanbury. all London. When Joan became a widow It is not a place where one would now she took up her abode in two localities look for a king, but a very renowned monarch once had his palace in it. King Athelstan lived in Addle Street! In old times the street was called King Adel (or "the noble king") Street. His residence was at the east end of the church, which was taken down in the early part of the reign of Charles I. The noble king' could probably pass from his residence into the church. The sacred edifice built on the site of Athelstan's traditional church, dedicated to St. Alban, was destroyed in the Great Fire. The present church-St. Alban's, Wood Street - is one of Wren's. Every merchant who passes through Adel or Wood Street should mentally salute the great king who dignified trade. It was he who enacted that the merchant who accomplished three commercial voyages from and to England should, by that very fact, become noble. 66 where widowed princesses are not now to There are many persons now living who can remember the Old Bell Yard. It was swept away, with other incumbrances, in order to make the existing road, on the Middlesex side, to London Bridge. It was a poor place, but it had been trodden by as much nobility and beauty as ever gathered together in London. As the Old Bell Yard, indeed, it was a relic of the That Fleet Street should be a trifle too "Old Black Bell Inn"; but that "Black noisy for a bishop, even in the seventeenth Bell Inn" formed a part of the palace century, is a matter easily understood; which was the London residence of the but that he should go thence to AldersBlack Prince and his beautiful but some-gate Street, because of its privacy and what corpulent wife Joan. freedom from noise, and its aristocratic The day that found us communing with houses and pretty gardens, does surprise Athelstan in Addle Street found us also us. Both streets now are where the |