that she spoke less freely to him than heretofore. He felt surprised to hear her allude to Doctor Rowel in a manner so changed from that in which she had always spoken of him formerly. Then it was as a friend, a helper; one from whom, above all others living, she had the most to hope for, and to whom she ought to feel most grateful. But now she mentioned the very name with dread, and seemed to shudder whenever the recollection of his presence in that house came across her mind. All this raised Colin's curiosity, and stimulated his inquiries. Question after question did he put to her, until the vivid recollection of the scene that had passed, and the keener sense of her father's situation, which this conversation awakened, brought her again to tears, and amidst many sobs and interruptions she at last related to the horror-stricken youth the whole story of her late master's death-bed communication. During the recital Colin turned pale as ashes, and when it was done,

"I'm sure he murdered him!" he exclaimed, "and we shall find it all true about your father. Think as you like about it, but that doctor tried to stop his mouth only to prevent him telling you. Take him at his word, Fanny, and let him show you over his

house."

Fanny made no reply. She scarcely heard his words, for in imagination she fancied herself before the little cell that held her father; she thought of him as a madman whom she dared not touch, and scarcely even look at; one who, though her own parent, had not sense enough left to talk even like a little child. And as she thus thought, the tears silently rolled down her cheeks. She longed for the time to arrive, but dreaded the trial to which it might expose her.

Having arranged that they should meet again as early as possible after her visit to the madhouse, Colin Clink took his farewell of Fanny; and, on quitting the house, proceeded immediately in the direction of the old hall of Kiddal, with the intention of carrying out another part of his plan.

CHAPTER VII.

Colin seeks an interview with Squire Lupton. An unexpected adventure takes place, which raises him to the station of a hero, and promises great things to

come.

WHEN Colin arrived at Kiddal Hall, Mr. Lupton was quietly reposing himself on a small couch placed near the wide-opened window of his drawing-room, and inhaling the fragrance of the great "wicked weed from a long Turkish pipe, whose voluminous folds lay like a sleeping serpent on the ground beside him. At some distance from him, close to the door, and unperceived by the squire, stood an individual of short stature, dressed in a coat that reached nearly to his knees; inexpressibles that descended to the same point, blue worsted stockings, and laced-up boots. His hat was placed upon its crown on the floor beside him, as though the owner, in so disposing of it, meditated a stay of some duration.

"Is that Mr. Lupton?" demanded a gruff Johnsonian voice. "Who the d-1 is that?" exclaimed the Squire, puffing the smoke away from his mouth, and looking eagerly in the direction whence the voice proceeded.

"Nay-nay, now!" was the reply he received, "it signifies nothing to you who I am, for if a man gets justice done him for his crimes, what can it matter to him whose hand does it?"

"How did you come here, fellow?" again asked the Squire. The little old man replied,

"Never mind asking me how I got here, and not yours. I am here, and that is enough."

that is my business

"But, what are you?-who are you?—what have you come here for?"

you;

I am a

"Well - well! if you ask me what I am, I can tell father. And, if I were to tell you what you are, sir, I should say you are an unprincipled man, and unworthy of your station: a man that, because he has power in his hands, can insult poverty, and betray it to ruin, under the pretence of doing it a service. Does your recollection extend as far back as sixteen or eighteen years ago?" Instead of answering this question, Mr. Lupton laid aside his pipe, rose from his seat, and advanced towards the little man in the middle of the room, extending his hand in an authoritative

manner.

"Come, come, fellow! go away. Save me the trouble of putting you out."

"You put me out, sir!" tauntingly replied his strange visiter; "it is more than you dare undertake to do if all your servants were about you; and, as it is, remember there is not one. Keep your hands off me, or I shall make you repent it. You have touched too much of my blood already; and now I have called for some of yours. Look to yourself. I'll be fair with you."

As he thus spoke he drew something from the pocket of his long coat, which Mr. Lupton thought, from the slight glance he caught of it in the twilight, to be a pistol. The sight nerved him to desperation, and suddenly he sprung forwards to strike or seize the man before him. But the latter was too expert; he slipped aside, and Mr. Lupton fell forwards with the impetus of his motion, almost to the ground. The cocking of the pistol, and the opening of the room door were heard at the same instant. Flash went the deadly powder, slightly illuminating the apartment, and showing a third party standing against the old man in the long coat, who had struck the pistol aside with his hand, and thus diverted what otherwise would have proved a deadly aim. That third person

was Colin Clink. He had reached the hall a minute or two before ; and one of the servants, who knew him, had conducted him upstairs, under the belief that the squire was alone,-for the old man had obtained his audience secretly. While in the passage outside, however, they overheard the latter part of the conversation just related, which induced Colin to rush in, and thus was he instrumental in saving the life of his own father-though unknown to himself— from the deadly hand-equally unknown to him—of his own grandfather.

Jerry Clink had recently returned from New South Wales; and during all the years of his banishment had kept

"The patient watch, the vigil long,
Of him who treasures up a wrong."

No sooner did Jerry find that the pistol had failed in its intended

work, and that Mr. Lupton, who was a powerful man, was again upon his legs, than he dashed Colin furiously aside, and retreated towards the window. The Squire followed him, and was himself followed respectively by Colin and the servant. They endeavoured to pin the old man in a corner, but their first efforts did not succeed. He strove to rush between them, and to escape at the door. Lights now glanced along the passage, and on the staircase. Other servants were hurrying forwards, having been brought up by the report of fire-arms. Escape that way was now impossible. What could he do? There was the window-the only chance. Nobody so much as dreamed that he would go out there, for it was twenty feet or more from the ground. He approached it. The resolution and the action were one. In an instant his body darkened the open space as he leapt through, and he was gone! The spectators stood still some moments, for into mere spectators did this daring and desperate leap transform them all. They then ran to the window. There lay a dark substance on the ground beneath. It moved. It got up. They watched it; and, in the height of their amazement, never thought of running out to seize it. It looked up and laughed with derision in their faces as it hastened off. Some of them now ran down stairs in pursuit. It was deep twilight, and the sight of the desperado was lost. He had crossed the lawn, and got into the woods. They followed with guns and staves, but Jerry Clink was safe.

"And what young man is this?" asked Mr. Lupton, as he turned to gaze at Colin, and by the lights which now shone in the apartment beheld a noble, open countenance, and a pair of bold, dark eyes, whose look brought a flush of heat up in the Squire's face, and made him for a moment dream that he gazed into a mirror, so much were they the counterpart of his own. Whoever you are,” pursued the Squire, "I owe you much for this brave interposition. I am indebted to you, young man, perhaps for my life; and, certainly, for sound bones, and a whole skin. Sit down- sit down a moment. But stop; this will do at present." And he drew out his purse containing nearly ten guineas, and tendered it to Colin," Take this, until I can do something better for you."

"No, sir, thank you," replied the youth. "I do not want money: and if I did I could not take it for only doing right. I came to speak to you, sir, about something else, if you will allow me." "Not take it!" exclaimed Mr. Lupton, in astonishment, " then you were not born in Yorkshire, were you?"

"Yes, sir, I was," answered he: "I was born and brought up in this village, though you do not know me.”

"Indeed! Why, I do not remember to have remarked you be

fore.

Who are you? What is your name?"

"Colin Clink, sir, is my name."

The squire sat down and turned away his face, so that the lad could not see it, as he asked, in an altered and somewhat tremulous voice, if Mrs. Clink, that kept the shop, was his mother?

"Yes, sir,” replied Colin," she is: but I never knew my father." Mr. Lupton was for some moments silent. He placed his elbow on the back of his chair, and his open hand over his eyes, as if to screen them. Something had touched his bosom suddenly; but the lad knew not what. At length, and evidently with some effort, though without changing his position in the least, Mr. Lupton said,

me.

"I cannot talk with you now, young man that fellow has ruffled Take that purse, and come again some other time. I shall be from home nearly three weeks. Come again this day three weeks, and I shall have something of importance to talk to you about. Take particular notice, now, and be punctual. But what are you doing? and where do you live?"

Colin satisfied him on both these particulars. The squire continued,

"Then come as I have appointed, and your situation shall be exchanged for a better. I will make your fortune: but I cannot talk now. Come again, my boy,-come again."

Colin stood a few moments in silent suspense as to the course to be pursued. The unexpected event which had taken place had entirely defeated the purpose for which he had ventured to Kiddal Hall, while the squire's language half confounded him. Should he speak again? He dared not, except to express his thanks, and, retiring from the room, he left the squire's purse untouched upon the table.

Colin reached Whinmoor shortly before ten o'clock.

When Mr. Lupton arose from his reverie, and strode across the room, his foot struck against the bullet that had been discharged from Jerry Clink's pistol. He looked up to the wall; and, though the blow which at the critical moment Colin had struck diverted it from himself, the Squire saw, with a strange sensation, for which he could not account, that it had passed through the canvass, and near the bosom of his wife, Mrs. Lupton's picture.

CHAPTER VIII.

Gives a description of Fanny's visit to the madhouse, and of her interview with her father.

AFTER the lapse of some few days, during which Mr. Lupton left the hall on his proposed brief journey,-(though not without first sending à messenger to Whinmoor with a small packet for Colin, which the latter found to contain fifteen guineas, and a repetition of the invitation to appear again at Kiddal on the day previously named,)-Fanny's arrangements for going over Doctor Rowel's establishment were completed; and according to appointment she set out one morning, early after breakfast, and reached Nabbfield about ten o'clock. As she approached the place her heart began to throb violently, and her hands to tremble as she placed them on her bosom, as if by that action to still the poor troubled thing within. She gazed at the building as though every single stone was a separate source of fear to her; at its melancholy windows as so many eyes, out of which madness and pain looked upon the pleasant world below. As she passed along the footpath outside the boundary wall she stopped, and listened. Instead of sounds of woe, which she expected to hear from within, the blackbird and the linnet in the plantations sounded their pleasant notes there the same as elsewhere. The great and gaudy dragon-fly darted along the sunny wall, and little clouds of gnats flew in innumerable and ever-changing evolutions beneath the pendant branches of the young elms and

sycamores by the roadside. When she saw the gateway she first lingered, and then stopped, to gather breath and resolution. She could not she looked again, and then retraced her steps some yards, hoping to quiet herself, and grow more calm. She looked up at the sky: it was bright, and vast, and deep, with an intense blue, that seemed as unfathomable as eternity. She thought of her father, and then of another Father who alone could help her and sustain her in all trials. Fanny sunk down upon the bank, and clasped her hands together in silent and spontaneous prayer for assistance to meet the coming trial. She arose strengthened, calm, and assured. As the keeper of the lodge-gate opened it to admit her, Fanny inquired, with evident signs of fear, whether the people whom she saw at some distance up the pathway, would do her any injury? These were several of the partially-recovered and harmless patients, who had been allowed to take exercise in the garden. Although Fanny's question was answered in the negative, and she was told not to be in the least afraid of them, she yet advanced up the pathway with a quick-beating heart, and a timorous step. As she approached them, several of the people held up their heads, and gazed half-vacantly at her.

Fanny hurried along with increased rapidity, and reached the doctor's house without interruption. She rung the bell, and stood a long time before anybody answered it, though she knew not it was more than a moment, so occupied was her mind with the thoughts of what was about to ensue. "If my father be here," thought she,-"if I should see him, and hear him say his name is the same as mine, what in the world shall I do? How shall I conduct myself? What shall I say to him?" and, as she thus thought the door opened, and Fanny was ushered into an elegantly-furnished room, such as she had not before seen, and at the same time, into the presence of the doctor's wife.

As I have before stated that the visit had been previously arranged, Mrs. Rowel was of course prepared to conduct her almost immediately over the establishment. As she successively passed through open rooms in which the more harmless patients were assembled,— some laughing and playful, others desponding and weeping over again their troubles of former days,- and thence was conducted down gloomy ranges of cells, the dim light of which just served to show the fairest of God's creations writhing in foul struggle with the demon of madness,-or, yet more remotely, was taken to behold sights which humanity forbids me to describe, but which, once seen, can never be forgotten ;-as all this, I repeat, passed before the affrighted eyes of Fanny, and brought up to her mind still more vividly the picture of her own father, it was with the greatest difficulty she could hide her emotion from those who accompanied her.

Fanny and the doctor's wife now proceeded together, and unaccompanied, down that winding passage which led to the yard where James Woodruff obtained all of daylight and air which he had enjoyed during many years. The door was opened to the dazzling light of Midsummer time, so that Fanny could scarcely see, after being so long in the dungeon-like places of that dreary mansion. But there stood the black old yew-tree, looking as if carved out of ebony, amidst the blaze of a mid-day sun, and under its deep hard shadow lay a man, motionless as might be the monu