act upon every purse among the Hejazi | dertaking by government of the transport and neutralize the hostility of the most of the haj to Jeddah, and the appointment recalcitrant of caliphs or sherifs; while a of an agent, a native of India, to look after systematic development of the pilgrimage their interests while in the Holy Land. as a government undertaking, with the "By making," he concludes, "the ar construction of a railway from Jeddah to rangements I have suggested, the English Mecca and the establishment of thor- government will gain, not only the goodoughly well-ordered lines of steamers will of the whole Mohammedan population from the principal Mohammedan ports, of India, but they will also inspire the all matters which would amply repay their hajjis with the wholesome feeling that cost, would every year add a new prestige they owe allegiance to, and can claim proto English influence. This might be still tection from, an empire other than that to further enhanced by the very simple meas- which the people of Arabia are subject ure of collecting and transmitting officially (the Turkish). The proposed help would the revenue of the Wakaf property, en- stand in very favorable contrast to the tailed on the sherifs, in India. This is sufferings which the pilgrims undergo said to amount to half a million sterling, from maladministration at Mecca and in and might, as in Turkey, take the form of their journey to Medina. Moreover, a government subsidy. At present it is practically the assistance rendered by the collected privately, and reaches the sherifs government would be the most effective reduced, as I have been told, by two-way of resisting such influences as the thirds in the process of collection, so that propagandists might bring to bear upon the mere assumption of this perfectly the hajjis with a view to animate them legitimate duty by the Indian authorities with hostility to the British supremacy in would put a large sum into the hands of India. . . . I believe if the Indian govthose in office at Mecca, and a proportion-ernment only wished to make some such ate degree of power into the hands of its arrangement it would pay its own way. I collectors. This, indeed, would be no am absolutely certain that it would have a more than is being already done by our disproportionately beneficial effect on the government for the Shia shrines of Ker-political feelings of the Mohammedans bela and Meshed Ali, with results entirely towards British rule." beneficial to English popularity and influ- Such, or some such, is the line of acence. With regard to the pilgrimage, Ition which England, looking merely to her will venture to quote the opinion of one own interests, may, it is hoped, pursue in of the most distinguished and loyal Mo- the next century, and begin in this. Her hammedans in India, who has lately been Asiatic interests she must recognize to be advocating the claims of his co-religion- peace and security in Mussulman India, ists on the Indian government for protec- good-will in Egypt, and the healthy growth tion in this and other matters. Speaking of the humaner thought of Islam everyof Sultan Abd el Hamid's pan-Islamitic where, and these she can only secure by schemes, which he asserts have not as occupying the position marked out for her yet found much favor in India, he contin- by Providence of leading the Mohammeues: "I may, however, add that by far the dan world in its advance towards better most formidable means which can be things. The mission is a high one, and adopted for propagating such ideas, or well worthy of her acceptance, and the for rousing a desire for Islamitic union, means at her disposal are fully sufficient would be the distribution of pamphlets to for its discharge. Nor will her refusal, the pilgrims at Mecca. The annual haj if she refuse, be without grave and imme at Mecca draws the more religious from diate danger. The Mohammedan world all parts of India, and the hajjis on their is roused as it has never been in its hisreturn are treated with exceptional re- tory to a sense of its political and moral spect and visited by their friends and dangers, and is looking round on all sides neighbors, who naturally inquire about for a leader of whatsoever name or nation the latest news and doctrines propounded to espouse its cause. We can hardly in the holy cities; so that for the dissemi- doubt that the position of directing so vast nation of their views the most effective a force, if abandoned by England, will be way would be for the propagandists to claimed by some more resolute neighbor. .bring the hajjis under their influence. I The British empire in Asia is cause of call it effective, because the influence of envy to the world at large, and its proswhat the hajjis say goes to the remotest perity has many enemies, who will cer villages of the Mofussil." He then advo-tainly make the distress of Islam an encates as a counteracting influence the un- gine in their hands against it. Neglected

school to combine the advantages of | so much as I have known it to affect other the two systems seemed to be every- streams. Perhaps our water was more thing that could be desired. The two rapid perhaps less clogged with dirt girls also found at Brentwood everything and refuse. Our side of the dell was they wanted. They were near enough to charmingly accidenté, and clothed with Edinburgh to have masters and lessons fine trees, through which various paths as many as they required for completing wound down to the river-side and to the that never-ending education which the village bridge which crossed the stream. young people seem to require nowadays. The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, Their mother married me when she was with very prosaic houses, the other side. younger than Agatha, and I should like Village architecture does not flourish in to see them improve upon their mother! Scotland. The blue slates and the gray I myself was then no more than twenty- stone are sworn foes to the picturesque; five an age at which I see the young and though I do not, for my own part, fellows now groping about them, with no dislike the interior of an old-fashioned notion what they are going to do with pewed and galleried church, with its little their lives. However, I suppose every family settlements on all sides, the square generation has a conceit of itself which box outside, with its bit of a spire like a elevates it, in its own opinion, above that handle to lift it by, is not an improvement which comes after it. Brentwood stands to the landscape. Still a cluster of houses on that fine and wealthy slope of country, on differing elevations, with scraps of one of the richest in Scotland, which lies garden coming in between, a hedgerow between the Pentland Hills and the Firth. with clothes laid out to dry, the opening In clear weather you could see the blue of a street with its rural sociability, the gleamlike a bent bow, embracing the women at their doors, the slow wagon wealthy fields and scattered houses of lumbering along-gives a centre to the the great estuary on one side of you; and landscape. It was cheerful to look at, on the other the blue heights, not gigantic and convenient in a hundred ways. Withlike those we had been used to, but just in ourselves we had walks in plenty, the high enough for all the glories of the glen being always beautiful in all its atmosphere, the play of clouds, and sweet phases, whether the woods were green in reflections, which give to a hilly country the spring or ruddy in the autumn. In an interest and a charm which nothing the park which surrounded the house else can emulate. Edinburgh, with its were the ruins of the former mansion of two lesser heights the Castle and the Brentwood, a much smaller and less im its spires and towers pierc-portant house than the solid Georgian edifice which we inhabited. The ruins were picturesque, however, and gave importance to the place. Even we, who were but temporary tenants, felt a vague pride in them, as if they somehow reflected a certain consequence upon ourselves. The old building had the remains of a tower, an indistinguishable mass of mason-work, overgrown with ivy, and the shells of walls attached to this were half filled up with soil. I had never examined it closely, I am ashamed to say. There was a large room, or what had been a large room, with the lower part of the windows still existing on the principal floor, and underneath other windows, The village of Brentwood lay almost which were perfect, though half filled up under the house, on the other side of the with fallen soil, and waving with a wild deep little ravine, down which a stream growth of brambles and chance growths which ought to have been a lovely, of all kinds. This was the oldest part of wild, and frolicsome little river flowed all. At a little distance were some very between its rocks and trees. The river, commonplace and disjointed fragments of like so many in that district, had, how-building, one of them suggesting a certain ever, in its earlier life been sacrificed to trade, and was grimy with paper-making. But this did not affect our pleasure in it

Calton Hill
ing through the smoke, and Arthur's Seat,
lying crouched behind, like a guardian no
longer very needful, taking his repose
beside the well-beloved charge, which is
now, so to speak, able to take care of
itself without himlay at our right hand.
From the lawn and drawing-room win-
dows we could see all these varieties of
landscape. The color was sometimes a
little chilly, but sometimes, also, as ani-
mated and full of vicissitude as a drama.
I was never tired of it. Its color and
freshness revived the eyes which had
grown weary of arid plains and blazing
skies. It was always cheery, and fresh,
and full of repose.

pathos by its very commonness, and the complete wreck which it showed. This was the end of a low gable, a bit of gray

wall, all encrusted with lichens, in which well (I thought) what they would have to
was a common doorway. Probably it had say to me "The weather has been so
been a servants' entrance, a back door, or fine, that Roland has not once gone by
opening into what are called "the offices" train, and he enjoys the ride beyond any-
in Scotland. No offices remained to be thing." "Dear papa, be sure that you
entered pantry and kitchen had all don't forget anything, but bring us so-and-
been swept out of being; but there stood so, and so-and-so" -a list as long as my
the doorway open and vacant, free to all arm. Dear girls and dearer mother! I
the winds, to the rabbits, and every wild would not for the world have forgotten
creature. It struck my eye, the first time their commissions, or given the sight of
I went to Brentwood, like a melancholy their little letters, for all the Benbows
comment upon a life that was over. A and Crosses in the world.
door that led to nothing-closed once,
perhaps, with anxious care, bolted and
guarded, now void of any meaning. It
impressed me, I remember, from the first;
so perhaps it may be said that my mind
was prepared to attach to it an importance
which nothing justified.

But I was confident in my home comfort and peacefulness. When I got back to my club, however, three or four letters were lying for me, upon some of which I noticed the "immediate,” “ urgent," which old-fashioned people and anxious people still believe will influence the post-office and quicken the speed of the mails. I was about to open one of these, when the club porter brought me two telegrams, one of which, he said, had arrived the night before. I opened, as was to be expected, the last first, and this was what I read: Why don't you come or answer? For God's sake, come. He is much worse." This was a thunderbolt to fall upon a man's head who had one only son, and he the light of his eyes! The other telegram, which I opened with hands trembling so much that I lost time by my haste, was to much the same purport: "No better; doctor afraid of brain-fever. Calls for you day and night. Let nothing detain you." The first thing I did was to look up the time-tables to see if there was any way of getting off sooner than by the

The summer was a very happy period of repose for us all. The warmth of Indian suns was still in our veins, and we did not feel the cold. It seemed to us that we could never have enough of the greenness, the dewiness, the freshness of the northern landscape. Even its mists were pleasant to us, taking all the fevor out of us, and pouring in vigor and refreshment. In autumn we followed the fashion of the time, and went away for change, which we did not in the least require. It was when the family had settled down for the winter, when the days were short and dark, and the rigorous reign of frost upon us, that the incidents occurred which alone could justify me in intruding upon the world my private affairs. These incidents were, however, of so curious a character, that I hope my in-night-train, though I knew well enough evitable references to my own family and pressing personal interests will meet with a general pardon.

I was absent in London when these events began. In London an old Indian plunges back into the interests with which all his previous life has been, associated, and meets old friends at every step. I had been circulating among some halfdozen of these enjoying the return to my former life in shadow, though I had been so thankful in substance to throw it aside and had missed some of my home letters, what with going down from Friday to Monday to old Benbow's place in the country, and stopping on the way back to dine and sleep at Sellar's, and to take a look into Cross's stables, which occupied another day. It is never safe to miss one's letters. In this transitory life, as the Prayer-book says, how can one ever be certain what is going to happen? All was perfectly well at home. I knew very

there was not; and then I read the letters, which furnished, alas! too clearly, all the details. They told me that the boy had been pale for some time, with a scared look. His mother had noticed it before I left home, but would not say anything to alarm me. This look had increased day by day; and soon it was observed that Roland came home at a wild gallop through the park, his pony panting and in foam, himself "as white as a sheet," but with the perspiration streaming from his forehead. For a long time he had resisted all questioning, but at length had developed such strange changes of mood, showing a reluctance to go to school, a desire to be fetched in the carriage at night-which was a ridiculous piece of luxury an unwillingness to go out in the grounds, and nervous start at every sound, that his mother had insisted upon an explanation. When the boy — our boy Roland, who had never

thing but to ask questions and to hear of the condition of the boy.

I looked at him from the door of his room, for we were afraid to go near, lest we should disturb that blessed sleep. It looked like actual sleep-not the lethargy into which my wife told me he would sometimes fall. She told me everything in the next room, which communicated with his, rising now and then and going to the door of communication; and in this there was much that was very startling and confusing to the mind. It ap peared that ever since the winter began, since it was early dark, and night had fallen before his return from school, he had been hearing voices among the ruins

known what fear was began to talk to her of voices he had heard in the park, and shadows that had appeared to him among the ruins, my wife promptly put him to bed and sent for Dr. Simson which, of course, was the only thing to do. I hurried off that evening, as may be supposed, with an anxious heart. How I got through the hours before the starting of the train, I cannot tell. We must all be thankful for the quickness of the railway when in anxiety; but to have thrown myself into a post-chaise as soon as horses could be put to, would have been a relief. I got to Edinburgh very early in the blackness of the winter morning, and scarcely dared look the man in the face, at whom I gasped "What news?" My at first only a groaning, he said, at wife had sent the brougham for me, which which his pony was as much alarmed as I concluded, before the man spoke, was a he was, but by degrees a voice. The bad sign. His answer was that stereo- tears ran down my wife's cheeks as she typed answer which leaves the imagina- described to me how he would start up in tion so wildly free, "Just the same." the night and cry out, "Oh, mother, let Just the same! What might that mean? me in! oh, mother, let me in!" with a The horses seemed to me to creep along pathos which rent her heart. And she the long, dark country road. As we sitting there all the time, only longing to dashed through the park, I thought I do everything his heart could desire! But heard some one moaning among the trees, though she would try to soothe him, cryand clenched my fist at them (whoever ing, "You are at home, my darling. I they might be) with fury. Why had the am here. Don't you know me? Your fool of a woman at the gate allowed any mother is here!" he would only stare at one to come in to disturb the quiet of the her, and after a while spring up again place? If I had not been in such hot with the same cry. At other times he haste to get home, I think I should have would be quite reasonable, she said, askstopped the carriage and got out to see ing eagerly when I was coming, but dewhat tramp it was that had made an en- claring that he must go with me as soon trance, and chosen my grounds, of all as I did so, " to let them in." "The docplaces in the world, when my boy was tor thinks his nervous system must have ill!to grumble and groan in. But I received a shock," my wife said. "Oh, had no reason to complain of our slow Henry, can it be that we have pushed pace here. The horses flew like light-him on too much with his work a delining along the intervening path, and drew cate boy like Roland?—and what is his up at the door all panting, as if they had work in comparison with his health? run a race. My wife stood at the open Even you would think little of honors or door with a pale face, and a candle in her prizes if it hurt the boy's health." Even hand, which made her look paler still as I the wind blew the flame about. "He is sleeping," she said in a whisper, as if her voice might wake him. And I replied, when I could find my voice, also in a whisper, as though the jingling of the horses' furniture and the sound of their hoofs must not have been more danger ous. I stood on the steps with her a moment, almost afraid to go in, now that I was here; and it seemed to me that I saw without observing, if I may say so, that the horses were unwilling to turn round, though their stables lay that_way, or that the men were unwilling. These things occurred to me afterwards, though at the moment I was not capable of any

-

as if I were an inhuman father sacrificing my child to my ambition. But I would not increase her trouble by taking any notice. After a while they persuaded me to lie down, to rest, and to eat -none of which things had been possible since I received their letters. The mere fact of being on the spot, of course, in itself was a great thing; and when I knew that I could be called in a moment, as soon as he was awake and wanted me, I felt capable, even in the dark, chill morning twi light, to snatch an hour or two's sleep. As it happened, I was so worn out with the strain of anxiety, and he so quieted and consoled by knowing I had come, that I was not disturbed till the afternoon,