for your horse, poor fellow! Stay by him, and keep him as quiet as you can. If he struggle, nothing will save him." I got to the road as quickly as possible, and galloped home as fast as Zoe could touch and lift. Ere I reached the stable-yard, I made a noise that brought out all the men. I told them a lady had her horse fast in the bog. They bustled and got ropes, put collars and chains on four draught horses, lighted several lanterns, and set out with me. I knew the spot perfectly. No moment was lost either in getting ready, or in reaching the place. There were signs of struggle, but neither the lady nor her horse were to be seen. The horror of a great darkness wrapt me round. I felt a murderer. I was not even free with regard to the horse dead under the peat-slime! He could not have got out, I knew. I had thought to do my best for him; but what if the lady could not get off him for lack of the hand she had asked me to reach her! What if her habit was entangled, and he sank under her weight, and she was dragged down with him! She might be on her way home on foot or her body down there in the bog, to be found one day, hardly changed, erect still on her peatembalmed steed!-no ill-fitting fate for her, but a ghastly thing to me, who had had a hand, if but the hand of an instrument, in bringing her fate upon her! And what would John say? Rebel as we might, and justly, was she not his mother? I told the men to go home, all but two, who should mount a pair of the horses, and go with me on the chance of rendering assistance to Lady Cairnedge. We took the way to Rising and had gone about two miles, when we saw her through the starlight, trudging steadily along the road. When we came nearer, I saw she was in her under garments only; she had had to disengage herself from her habit, and let it go down with her ill-used horse. I rode up to her, contriving to keep one of the men between us, and offered her one of the cart-horses to ride home upon; I would not have trusted my Zoe with her any more than with an American lion that lives upon horses. She declined the proffer with scorn and undisguised though restrained wrath. I offered her one or both men to see her home, but she refused in such a manner that they were both glad they had not to go. Nothing was left but to turn, and leave her to get home as she might. On the way home it occurred to me that I had not asked Martha whether she knew anything about my uncle's departure. She was never one to volunteer news, and, besides, would naturally think I must be in his confidence. As soon, therefore, as I dismounted I went to the kitchen. She knew nothing of our expedition, as no one had gone into the house- had only heard the horses and the voices, and wondered; so I told her what had happened, and then proceeded to question her as to any knowledge of my uncle's intentions. But the moment I began, what with fatigue and anxiety, my strength gave way, and I burst into tears. "Don't be silly, Belorba! cried Martha almost severely. "You an engaged young lady, and tied so to your uncle's apron-strings that you cry the minute he's out of your sight! You didn't cry when Mr. Day left you! "No," I answered; "he was going only for a day or two!" "And for how many is your uncle gone?" "That is what I want to know. He means to be away a long time, I fear." "I'll just see!" she returned. "I shall know a little by the money he left for the housekeeping. But I won't budge till I see you eat.' Although quite faint for want of food, I had no appetite. But I began at once to eat, and she left me to fetch the purse he had given her as he went, which she had not opened. She came back with it, and looked into it-then at me with dismay. I took it from her hand; it was a pocket-book and full of notes! I learned afterwards that it was his habit to have money in the house, in readiness for any need of it that might suddenly arise, his one dread being lest some day he should be parted from his little one. CHAPTER XXVIII. ANOTHER VISION. THAT same night, within an hour, to my unspeakable relief, John came home at least he came to me, who he always said was his home. It was rather late, but we went out to the wilderness, where I had a good cry on his shoulder, and felt better, and hope began to show signs of life in me. Then I told John all that had happened since he went. It was worse than painful to tell him about his mother's letter, and what I had just learned from my uncle, as well as my personal adven and angels! Whoever was your mother, God is your father! That is why you are and must be good, my beloved!" ture with her so shortly before his arrival, | But, oh, John, what am I talking of fairies but I felt I must. If a man's mother is a devil, it is well he should know it. He sat like a sleeping hurricane while I spoke, saying never a word. When I had ended, "Is that all?" he asked. "That is all-and enough," I answered. "It is," he cried, with an oath that frightened me, and started to his feet. The hurricane was awake. I threw my arms round him. "To kill her," he said - then threw himself on the ground, and lay motionless at my feet. I kept silence. I thought with myself he was fighting the nature his mother had given him. He lay still for about two minutes, then quietly rose. "Good-night, dearest!" he said; "and good-bye! It is not fit the son of such a mother should marry any honest woman!" "I beg your pardon, John!" I said, "I hope I may have a word in the matter! If I choose to marry you, what right have you to break your engagement? Let us leave alone what has to be, and recall the fact that my uncle is in imminent danger of being denounced as a murderer! Something must be done. That he is beyond personal danger for the present is nothing. Is he to be the talk of the country? "No harm shall come to him," said John. "I'm off to the tigress! I know how to do with her. She has learned at least that what her stupid son says, he does! I will swear to her that, if she makes the slightest movement to disgrace your uncle, I will immediately marry you right off, come what may; and then, if she goes on, will appear against her in court, and tell of her whatever may help to frustrate her wicked design. But as I will not threaten what I may not be able to perform, you must promise not to prevent me if she stands out." "I will risk it," I said. "I will for my uncle's sake marry you without his presBut I do hope she may not already have taken steps!" ence. "Her two days are not yet expired. I shall be in good time. But I do wonder you are not afraid to trust yourself alone with the son of such a mother!" He made no reply beyond a squeeze of my hand. Then he asked me whether I could lend him some horse or other to ride home upon. I told him there was an old horse the bailiff rode sometimes; I was very sorry he could not have Zoe; she had been out all day and was too tired. I went to the stable with him, and saw him ride away. What a determined look there was on his face! He looked a middleaged man almost. I have now to tell how he fared on the moor as he rode home. It was a darkish night, and had turned gusty, and rather cold. The moon would be up presently, however, he thought, and would be giving light enough before he reached the spot where his way turned off from that to Dumbleton- at a very small angle, and with a not very perceptible track. The moon, however, did not see fit to rise so soon as John expected her; he was not at that time quite up in moons, any more than in the paths across that moor; and as the old horse had not an idea where his rider wanted to be carried, and John confessed he did for a while fall into a reverie or something worse, he had to choose for himself, and chose a path which I believe he had often taken some years before, being a horse of use for anything and everything. John did not discover that he was out of the way, until he felt that he was carrying him downward, like Sleipner bearing Hermod to the realm of Hela, for the descent was rather steep. But he allowed him to go on, wishing to know, as he said, what the old fellow was up to. He came at last to a dead halt. John had not the least notion where they were, but I knew the spot the moment he began to describe it. In digging away the peat on the side of a steep slope, the laborers came on one of the bones of the hill, a low-risen peak of rock, round which had massed itself a quantity of the woody matter that goes to the making of peat. Some one took to blasting the rock for building withal, and quarrying went on for a good many years. was indeed occasionally active still. Above, it was rather a dangerous place. There was a tale of man and horse falling into it, and both being killed. "To be what I know you, John," I answered, "and the son of that woman, John had never come across it or heard shows that a good fairy was not far off at of it. When in it, however, he was your birth-say a good angel, rather! | aware of a certain indescribable feeling, that made him wait the expected moon before attempting either to advance or return. He thought afterwards it might have been some sense of the stone of the quarry about him, but at the time he took the place for an abrupt natural dip of the surface of the moor. Old Sturdy stood as still as if he had been part of it stood as if never of himself would he move again. "Does that imply you mean to continue your relations with those persons?" "I mean to do so.' "You mean to marry the hussy?" "I mean to marry the lady to whom you give that epithet. There are those who think you the last that ought to call names!" She rose and came to him as if she would strike him. John stood motionless. Except a woman had a knife in her hand, he said, he would not move an inch to avoid a blow from her. "A woman can't hurt you much," said John; "she can only break your heart! My mother would not know a heart when she had broken it!" he added. So he stood and looked at her. The light slowly grew, or rather, the darkness slowly thinned. All at once John became aware. that, about twelve yards from him, there was something whitish. A moment, and it began to move like a flitting mist through the darkness. The same moment Sturdy began to pull his feet from the ground, and move after the mist, which rose and rose until it came She turned away, and sat down again. for an instant between John and the sky; I think she felt the term of her power at. it was a big white horse, with my uncle on hand. its back; Death and he, John concluded, Did the man tell you," she asked, were out on one of their dark wanderings!" that, if you did not come home directly, His impulse of course was to follow them. I would give certain information concernBut when he came up on the level, where ing him?" the moon, showing a blunt horn above the horizon, made it possible to see a little, my uncle appeared already some distance away, and Sturdy objected to follow. While John was trying to persuade him, the white horse and his rider disappeared 66 "I have not seen him for some days. I have been to London." "You should have contrived your story better; you contradict yourself." "I am not aware that I do." "You have the man's horse, but you did not see him." "I am told he is probably in Paris." "Fled from justice! It shall not avail him! "It may avail you though, madam! It is sometimes prudent to let well alone. May I not suggest that a hostile attempt on your part, might lead to awkward revelations?" "Ah! But where could slander find a fitter soil to grow in, than the heart of a son with whom the prayer of his mother is powerless! "The prayer of a mother that never prayed in her life! Of a woman that never once cared for the happiness of any but herself! I don't believe you are my mother. If I was born of you, there must have been some juggling with my soul in antenatal regions. I disown you!" cried John with indignation. They were awful words. It was no wonder the bloom upon her face turned to ashy white; but whether it was through consciousness, or from fear, or only with rage, her son could not tell. She was silent for a moment. Then recovering herself, "And what, pray, would you have me? Your slave?" "I would have you my mother, my real mother. Oh, mother! mother!" he cried bitterly. "And what else, I beg," she said with scorn, "is the will of my son in regard to his mother?" "That she should leave me unmolested in my choice of a wife. It does not seem to me an unreasonable demand." "Nor does it seem to me an unreasonable reply, that any mother would object to her son's marrying a girl whose father she could throw into prison to-morrow with a word!" "John Day, you are no gentleman!" "I shall not ask your definition of a gentleman, madam.” "Your father was a clown!" "My father is not present to defend himself. If he were, he would show himself a gentleman by making you no answer. If you say a word more against my father, I leave the room." "I tell you your father was a clown and a fool like yourself!" John turned and went straight to the stable, had old Sturdy saddled, and came to me. He told me all I have just set down. "I have already begun to learn farming," I said, as we talked. "You're the right sort," said John. "I shall be glad to teach you anything I know." "If you can show me how a farmer keeps his books," I said, "so that I shall understand the bailiffs, I should be greatly obliged to you. As to the dairy and poultry-yard and that kind of thing, Martha can teach me as well as any." "I'll do my best," said John. "Come along then, and let's have a talk with Simmons! I feel as if I could bear anything after what you saw last night. My uncle cannot be far off after all! He is somewhere about with the rest of the guardian angels!" From The Fortnightly Review. AN ISLAND DEER-FOREST. WHEN we speak of a deer-forest in Norway which much-enduring land is once more the scene of my article we must dismiss from our minds the image of vast treeless wastes, so dear to Highland stalkers, and adhere to the original and popular idea of abundant trees, as represented by the final half of the compound word. For in that country the red-deer, although they resort occasionally to the open hillsides, and here and there have no other choice, belong essentially and as a tribe to the woodland, or, to quote the accurate definition of a forest, to "a wild, uncultivated tract interspersed with wood." It may be said that the greater such interspersion, the greater the chance of deer, because the more certain is the existence of suitable food and shelter. I think it might be fairly argued that all the larger kinds of deer would take habitually to the woods. if they had the chance that is, if they could find or know of the existence of woods to take to. Even the tame reindeer, accustomed to roam over the barren expanse and crop the arid mosses of the high fjeld, will frequently drift down by hundreds into the low forest, and there remain for weeks, fattening on the natural On his way over the heath, he spent an hour trying to find the place where he had been the night before, but without suc-pasturage which is nowadays the birthcess. I presume Sturdy by this time wanted his stall, not the quarry. As often as John left him to himself, he went homeward. When he turned his head in another direction, he would set out in that direction, but gradually work round for the farm. right of the farmer's domestic cattle. Is there anything unreasonable in the belief that their wild kindred, sprung from the same stock, but always associated in the sportsman's mind with stony summit and snow and glacier, would gladly do the same-if only they dared; and readily learn to habituate themselves to the shelter and warmth and rich herbage of the lowlands? Shall we not regard them as originally unwilling but now resigned seceders from the more luxurious habits of their remote ancestry? What hardships are not preferable to enduring servitude to a Lapp? In Norway the red-deer are at present confined to a limited number of small scattered areas. A good many years ago Professor Friis, of Christiania, published a charming book entitled "Tilfjelds," which was in 1878 translated by Mr. W. G. Loch, under the title of " Sporting Life on Norwegian Fjelds." To this work is appended a map indicating, by different tints, the localities where wild reindeer, elk, and red-deer are to be found in Norway. As regares red-deer these are, according to that authority, eleven in number-namely, three islands, of which the well-known Hitteren is the most important, and eight points of the mainland close to the sea, the majority of the latter being insignificantly small. If to this list we add an island of tolerable size in the Namsen Fjord, and one or two islets in the Hitteren group, it may be taken as complete so far as our present knowledge goes. I am about to try to amuse the readers of the Fortnightly by a sketch of one of the islets last mentioned. It is but a little place, rudely triangular, about six miles in length and five across the base, and has but small pretensions as a deer-forest; but when I and a friend first set foot on it, some fifteen years ago, it seemed to us, from its natural beauty and seclusion, a veritable paradise - I employ the last word in its ancient Oriental meaning, that of a beautiful pleasure-ground and chase combined, such as delighted the Persian monarchs of old, and still, I believe, delights the modern shah. At that time the red-deer were protected by law throughout the whole district of Aure, to which the island belongs, and consequently, although their traces were conspicuous, we did not trouble our heads about them. Blackgame we found in plenty, some willow-grouse and capercailzie, and altogether had excellent sport; but I think that even in those days of possibly greater keenness, the charm lay in the island itself. Then, as now, the few inhabitants lived among their little plots of arable and grass land on the very edge of the sea, and in the autumn at least, when the wandering cattle had been brought down to the homestead, the interior was undisturbed by man and man's belongings. How often and how enthusiastically did we recognize the beauty of some quiet nook where we had found game-(query: would its beauty have been as striking had we not found it?) How often did we select some spot by the margin of tarn or brook, or on the smooth level of an upland lawn, as the one choice site whereon to build a hut, and live retired from the human race. At all events, I thought of that island periodically for twelve years, and then revisited it, to find that no one else - no sportsman, at least - had been there during that long interval; after which it was suddenly, unaccountably, and viciously snapped up, together with much of the adjoining district, by a speculative sporting Scotch syndicate, which, in default of finding a tenant, had to relinquish it after twelve months' possession. Then I took a lease of my old love, some of whose charms I shall now attempt to describe. She is, as I have said, rudely triangular, divided from the high rugged coast of the mainland by an inner channel not wider than five hundred yards at the narrowest point, and from the dreary grey rock ridges of lower Hitteren by about two and a half miles of outer sound. Across both of these friths the red-deer stags are in the habit of swimming to and fro, so that their presence on the island at any given time must be more or less a question of caprice; but, as there appears to be a fair stock of attractive resident hinds, the chances are always in favor of there being also a few gallant stags. About two miles from the apex of the triangle the isle is divided almost in twain by an inlet running in a direct line from the inner to the outer channel; the short, narrow isthmus which still prevents their waters from meeting may be covered in a hundred paces from margin to margin. South of this neck lies a tract of low rolling ground, with clumps and thickets of fir, birch, and juniper, and boulders half hidden amongst a thick growth of heather. Deer are but rarely seen on this part of the island, but it affords a delightful range to the unambitious stroller with " scatter-gun and smell-dog." During our first visit we always used to find in the vicinity of the isthmus a certain number of wary old blackcock, which gave us infinite trouble before we could secure even a single bird. From this point there runs round a portion of both divisions of the island a border of velvet-like sea-turf, separating the woodland and low moorland from the rough shingle which forms the actual beach, the |