"A what, Robert ?" inquired the lad, firmly, while his eyes looked steadily into those of his brother. Why, afraid of powder," cried Robert, with a horrible laugh; "that's all." "That is a lie," said Harry, solemnly; "He knows that that is a lie." The latter at first received the attentions of his new acquaintance very stiffly, but the congeniality of their dispositions soon drew them together. "He is evidently Harry's friend," thought Robert, "and a fine, spirited young fellow enough, which looks well. I wonder whether "That you have borne insult upon insult-Blueboy may have been deceived, after all, by the insulters have boasted of it-wrong upon his informant." wrong, without calling one of them to an account; is that a lie, too, Henry?" "That is a lie, also, Robert; I call Heaven to witness." "I hope it is, boy," returned the other, in a voice wherein there was no hope. "I am come here to see that it is. I will dine with you at your mess to-morrow." "Not to-morrow," cried Henry; "dine any day but that." "Yes, to-morrow, brother; there are fourteen hours-fourteen too many hours-betwixt this and then; now I must rest." While he was yet speaking he threw himself upon the sofa, with his face to the back of it, and was asleep, or seemed to be so, almost upon the instant. The boy had spoken truth: he was not afraid of death at any time; at this moment he would have hailed it with delight in any form; his shame had been bruited abroad so far as London, and the only friend he had in the world believed it. One cold grip of the hand, smacking more of anxiety than affection, was all the caress he had received from the brother for whose sake he had endured all his miseries. Another day of degradation, more embittered a thousand times by that brother's presence, had already dawned. Ah! that he might have stood muzzle to muzzle with the ruffian Vials before Robert awoke! At an early hour, and while the latter was yet asleep, came Elton; all was arranged, he said, for the next morning. The Captain had seemed much astonished, and had delivered himself of many imprecations, but he was prepared to fight. It would be much better on all accounts, said the second, that Harry should not appear at mess that evening; but on the boy's explaining that his brother was bent on dining with him, it was arranged that he should do so; Vials would scarcely have the indecency to offer a fresh insult under the circumstances. "I suppose you will tell him," said Elton, pointing to the sleeper, "how you are situated?" "Certainly not," cried the young man, hastily; "I would not have him know it for the world." Dreading nothing so much as the being left alone with Robert, Harry begged the Lieutenant to breakfast with them, and awoke his brother. "Is Captain Vials a friend of yours, sir, may I ask?" inquired Robert, suddenly. The two young men interchanged a meaning glance, which was not lost upon the inquirer. "Not of mine," answered the Lieutenant -"certainly not." "Is he a man-forgive me for asking such a question concerning one of your own corps, but I have a deep interest in the answer-is he a man likely to tell a falsehood?" "No one more so, I should say," replied Elton, bluntly, "if it only suited his purpose." "And is he a bully where he gets the chance of being one, and a flatterer where there is any thing to be gained by that? " "You have drawn the gallant captain's character to a hair, sir; but I am on duty today and must leave you. I shall have the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you again at mess." As soon as he had gone, Robert took out a note-book, and wrote in it a word or two. Still holding this book open in his hand, and resuming the cold and severe manner which he dropped a little while speaking to Elton, he said, "Besides this Captain Vials, Henry, are there any more bullies in this regiment? I mean, to your own knowledge, within your own experience." Henry regarded the speaker in mute astonishment. "Again I ask you, brother," resumed Robert," because I do not wish to acquire this information from other lips; but, hear it I will somehow!" Another panic ensued. No carved Egyptian sphynx had ever eyes more fixed or features more immovable than those of the questioner. Determination, grim, unchangeable, was graven upon that rigid brow. "Their names, brother-their names P The terrified lad replied in whispers, but the other repeated each name after him aloud, and set it down. "Weir, Brookes, Kennedy-one instant; I must have it-Ormes, Hudson; there are no more, then; you will point me out these men at mess, this evening. And now," he added this in a lighter tone, like one who sees his way at last out of a difficult situation, "let us ride a little." The half-brothers were mounted in five minutes, and rode far and fast until late in the afternoon. Their scanty conversation only referred to ordinary subjects; each studiously avoiding that which lay nearest to his heart. They did not reach barracks before it was time to prepare for mess; there they, of course, sat side by side; opposite to them were Vials and Company in their usual place; and at his brother's request, Harry introduced them to him, respectively. "Why Ashton," cried a voice from another part of the table, "what have you done with yourself? How queer you look! Why, what has become of your moustachios ?" A laugh which they took no pains to smother, broke from the half-dozen of choice spirits. "Vials has got them," cried Weir; "you should have seen his face while we were shaving him." "My brother's face ?" inquired the elder Ashton; "do you refer to him? There was no answer given to this for a little time: Weir having become suddenly conscious of his excessive discourtesy towards a guest of the regiment. Vials at length replied, with the least possible swagger in his tone, that it was only a bit of fun that they had with the youngster. Robert said, "Oh, indeed," and went on quietly with his fish. Only Harry knew the volcano that was raging then in his brother's breast. In the mid-dinner time, and when the clatter of forks and plates was at the loudest, Robert leant a little across the table, and speaking so that he could be heard by those on the right and left of the person addressed, demanded, "Do you consider it also a bit of fun, Captain Vials, to represent a young man to his colonel, falsely, as being lily-livered." Vials colored up to the roots of his hair. "I am annoying you," continued Robert Ashton, in the same forced and distinct tone, which by its very quietness had begun to attract general attention; "I should apologize; let us have a glass of wine together." He filled his wine-glass to the brim. "There are five other gentlemen in your neighborhood to whom I owe the same courtesy, and I beg them to consider it as paid in the same fashion." While he yet spoke he hurled the glass and its contents in Vials' face, where it broke in a hundred fragments, so that the red wine and the blood flowed down his cheeks together in one dark stream. Every man sprang to his feet in confusion and fury. 66 My brother," cried the aggressor, with a voice that rang like a trumpet above the din, "will act as my friend in this matter, of course. I am ready to satisfy all or any of "The Long Barn, at half-past five," muttered the other in a stupor. 66 No; six o'clock," replied Robert. "That will be quite time enough, and I want a good long sleep and a steady hand; I shall go to the bedroom you have prepared for me, at once; I have much to do before retiring; there is no knowing what may happen; you will make all arrangements; I think I may trust you, Harry ? ” "You may; you may," cried the other, grasping his hand. Farther than you think," he added, as the other left the room; "farther than you think, brother." CHAPTER V. NOT above a hundred yards from the main road, but in a hollow, so that the roof only could be seen from it, stood the Long Barn, within twenty minutes' gallop from the barrack gates. Wrapped from the piercing air in their long cavalry cloaks, two figures were pacing before it, a little past five o'clock on the morning after the eventful day we have described, waiting for two others who had not yet arrived at the place of meeting. The younger of the pair was continually bursting out into some expression of impatience, as he looked along the western horizon in vain. "I never saw a principal so anxious for a bullet before," exclaimed the other, laughing, as his companion stamped his foot upon the ground, after a longer fruitless scrutiny than usual. "The man will come to time, depend upon it; he is out of his mind with rage, they say, at the insult your brother put upon him." "I care not about him," replied Harry, for he it was; "I fear only that my brother will come before this is over; before;- -there they are at last; thank Heaven!" What a boon, to thank Heaven for! The coming of a wretch, who was about to attempt murder in addition to his other crimes! But the speaker had no time, had he inclination, to think now of such inconsistencies. Why there are three of them, Elton!" Yes, there's the doctor, you know," said other, hastily; "what a pace they ride The new comers, indeed, very soon arrived, and picketed their horses at the other extremity of the barn from that where those of the others were already fastened. The principals stood apart as far from each pose, he struck him down with his fist, as other as possible, while the seconds and the though it had been a sword. He shook doctor conversed. Elton's arm off like a thread of gossamer, and stood over the prostrate second as if he would have set foot upon his face. "There is nothing to be said, I suppose, Mr. Weir," remarked Elton. "Nothing whatever, upon my side," observed the person addressed; "look at Vials' face!" Gashed and scarred in fifty places, with the wicked eyes alone unhurt, and blazing with savage malice, it did not certainly afford much hope of arbitrement. "My man did not do that, you know," said Elton, not without a tinge of gratification in the tone; "by Jove! but it was a smasher." The ground was measured, and the principals set in their proper places. Vials regarded his young antagonist with a fiendish glance; only by a great effort could he prevent himself from covering him, before the word, with his pistol. Henry Ashton did not even turn his eyes towards him; but gazed earnestly (as his position enabled him to do) westward. "One-two-.” Still the boy kept his glance directed to the horizon, where a rapidly increasing form was speeding towards the spot, as fast as the speed of one of his own swift chargers could be pushed. "Three," and at that word-nay, even a thought before it-the flame flashed from Vials' pistol in a line for his antagonist's heart. The boy stood for an instant after its discharge, fired his own weapon into the air, and dropped. "Foul play!-foul play!" cried Elton. "I call all to witness that that man shot before his time! He shall not escape!" But Vials was in his saddle, and on his way to the seaport while he spoke; and there was a dying man to be attended to upon the ground. The white lips parted, but without a sound; the failing eyes looked wistfully around, without settling upon any object. A horse's hoofs were heard upon the western road, and the next instant its rider had dismounted and flung himself beside the stricken lad. "Brave lad! dear brother! pardon me. I have wronged you deeply; say I have not murdered you. Harry! Harry!" The boy returned the pressure of his hand, but could not speak. Over Robert's face there came an awful change, far worse than that of death, which was stealing over his brother's features; still keeping his kneeling posture, he took out the note-book, kissed it as though it were a Bible, and repeated the six names aloud so that all could hear. He was resolving within himself that he would never rest while one of those remained alive upon the earth to wreak his vengeance on, when his eye lit on Weir; and starting up like a madman, before any one could inter 66 Your brother calls you," exclaimed the doctor, and instantly the strong man hurried back to the boy's side, like a child rebuked. Love, intense love, and some overwhelming anxiety seemed struggling together in the dying youth's features. Robert stooped down to his mouth, and caught these words, "Promise me one thing, dear heart; one thing, before I die." "Say on, and quickly, Harry: it is granted before you ask it." "By the love you bear me, promise it, Robert; by the honor of the House of Ashton," urged the boy with eagerness. "I do, I do say on." "Then promise," gasped the dying boy, endeavoring to rise to a sitting posture by help of his brother's arm, "never to revenge my death; never to fight a duel, Robert." The blood gushed from Harry Ashton's lips in a dreadful stream, as these words, the last that he was ever heard to speak, passed them. The doctor leant over him for an instant, then gravely shook his head. "It is all over." The affectionate young heart had ceased to beat forever. The body was brought back to barracks, and placed in the lad's own room. "You will abide by his last words?" said Elton, tenderly, the next afternoon, to the forlorn brother, still sitting by the corpse. "I will, I will," cried he; "no cup can be too bitter for me." "Be sure that the wretch Vials shall not escape; you may leave him safely to my hand;" said Elton. A fierce struggle ensued in Robert's heart, but a look at the quiet, still appealing face upon the bed determined it. "Thank you, friend, kindly; but this cannot be there must be no more blood shed in this matter." Since "I trust not, sir, indeed: this Vials cannot be dealt with more in such a manner. his flight it has been discovered that he-he was paymaster-has embezzled several hundred pounds belonging to the regiment. He is by this time in gaol; and if he be not hung for murder, as he deserves, he will be certainly transported for the felony. They have already sent an express for the Colonel, who is in Dublin." After the inquest, where at a verdict of manslaughter was obtained, Robert did but delay an hour in carrying the sacred remains to Ashton Castle, in order to have an interview with Blueboy. He sternly threatened to com municate directly with the Commander-in- | been poor Harry's murderer. His sinful wife chief, unless the five associates of Vials were had died while these sad scenes were being duly punished; and thereupon, in presence of enacted, and she wrote him upon her deaththe whole regiment, they were severely reprimanded, and a caution was administered to them concerning their future conduct, such as they did not easily forget. Sorrowfully, then, the lonely Ashton departed with his melancholy freight, and laid the body of his half-brother in the vault, by his mother's side. Nor was it long afterwards that those sombre gates re-opened to admit his own. The dream that he had dreamt a few months back, on the night before his brother's departure, seemed to him to have been fulfilled; he accused himself of having | bed, a few penitent and heart-wrung lines, which_touched him deeply; but within that year Robert Ashton passed away from earth, wifeless and childless, the last of his ancient House. After Harry's burial he had caused the picture of Sir Hildebrand's wife to be removed from its position, and hung up over the dining-room chimney-piece, that he might fix his eyes upon it whenever he would. "There was not one of us," he would murmur to himself, "not one of all our race who dreaded death less than he!" THE EDGE OF THE DARK.-During a considerable residence in Lancashire I never found the people very poetical. But they have an exceeding poetical expression for the twilight, which they call the edge of the dark. The Scotch gloaming is very beautiful, both for meaning and for music; but the edge of the dark, besides being beautiful, is picturesque and sublime. We behold the sword of God stretched forth from immensity, and cleaving between the dubious day and the dubious night. It may be observed that it is not so much on the night as on the evening and the morning that the poetry of speech hath expended itself. It is also observable that in the East, in the lands of the rising sun, the poetry of speech hath celebrated the dawn; while in the West, in the lands of the setting sun, it has been poured forth in incense to the twilight. Belonging to Asia Minor, we may justly place Homer among the Orientals. Now Homer delights in describing, and hath far surpassed all other poets in his descriptions of, the dawn; but for the twilight melting into night as the dawn melts into the day he had no glance and no sympathy. In poets more the children of the East than Homer, still more overwhelmingly does the dawn dominate. Grand in the East, and the herald of glory, is the dawn; and night rushes so abruptly down, that twilight there is but as the quick drawing of a curtain. In the West, however, the days, and in the North the nights, are often only twilights; so that the twilight, not the day or the night, as it is the most familiar presence, so is it the most familiar idea. A kind of twilight life have we altogether in the West and the North, and thus is our dream the richer of the stars, of the morn, of Heaven, and of God.-Critic. THE DEVIL'S TEA-KETTLE.-There is, probably, says the Mountain Democrat, no portion of the Continent which affords a wider field for geographical research, than the Great Basin of Deseret, or Utah. In that solitary, unexplored region are many curious salt lakes, the vestiges of a lost ocean, the waters of which are so strongly impregnated with saline matter that they are little else than immense reservoirs of salt in solution. Vast rivers meander for hundreds of leagues through sterile splitudes, and at length mysteriously disappear in the thirsty deserts. Immense deposits of soda cause the water, in certain localities, to seethe and effer vesce like boiling cauldrons. Springs of sulphur, and springs of boiling hot water, moun. tains of snow and burning plains, smiling valleys and vast deposits of subterranean ice, these, and a thousand other wonders are to be seen in the Great American Basin. Lieutenant Sawtelle, of the 6th Infantry, while on the recent march across the Continent, at a point about forty miles from where the Overland route first strikes the Humboldt, saw a very singular natural curiosity, which, per compliment, we will name the "Devil's Tea-Kettle. On the very apex of a conical shaped mound, about eighty feet in height, was an unfathomable miniature lake of warm water which had no apparent outlet or inlet. The water was quite tepid and perfectly translucent, and its surface was nearly on a level with the top of the cone which contained it. Various attempts were made to fathom this curious basin, but no bottom could be found. At the distance of forty feet from the base of the mound were a number of gushing fountains, the water of which was intensely hot. BEYOND. We must not doubt or fear or dread that love for life is only given, And that the calm and sainted dead will meet estranged and cold in heaven : SUMMER GONE. SMALL Wren, mute pecking at the last red plum, Or twittering idly in the yellowing boughs Fruit-emptied, over thy forsaken house, Birdie, that seems to come Oh, love were poor and vain indeed, based on Telling, we, too, have emptied our year's store, so harsh and stern a creed. True that this earth must pass away, with all the starry worlds of light, With all the glory of the day, and calmer-tenderness of night; For, in that radiant home can only shine the immortal and divine. Earth's lower things-her pride, her fame, her science, learning, wealth, and powerSlow growths that through long ages came, or fruits of some convulsive hour, Whose very memory must decay-heaven is too pure for such as they. It has no room to spread its wings, amid this crowd of meaner things. Summer is o'er: Poor robin, driven in by rain-storms wild To lie submissive under household hands, With beating heart that no love understands, And scared eye, as a child Who only knows that he is all alone, Pale leaves, sent flying wide-a frightened flock, tears The tender forms that lived in summer airs: Till taken at this shock, They, like frail hearts whom sudden grief sweeps by, Whirl-sink-and die: All these things, earthy, of the earth, do tell Just for the very shadow thrown upon its sweet-Though all the year's tale, as our years rush ness here below, The cross that it must bear alone, and bloody baptism of woe; Crown'd and completed through its pain, we know that it shall rise again. So if its flame burn pure and bright, here, where our air is dark and dense, And nothing in this world of night lives with a living so intense; When it shall reach its home at length-how bright its light! how strong its strength! And while the vain, weak loves of earth (for such base counterfeits abound) Shall perish with what gave them birth-their If in my heart I now could fear that, risen again, we should not know What was our Life of Life when here-the hearts we loved so much below; fast, Mourns, "Summer's past!" O love immortal! O eternal youth; Whether in budding nooks it sits and sings, Out of the wine-press of affliction, goes O youth undying! O perpetual love! With these, by winter fireside we'll sit down, And wear our snows of honor like a crown, And sing as in a grove, Where all the full nests ring with vocal cheer"Summer is here." Roll round, strange years: swift seasons, come and go; Ye brand upon us only an outward sign, Which God knows-and we know ;- I would arise this very day, and cast so poor a Therefore, uprouse, ye winds, and howl your thing away. But love is no such soulless clod: living, per fected it shall rise Transfigured in the light of God, and giving glory to the skies: And that which makes this life so sweet, shall render heaven's joy complete. -Household Words. will; |