to the last. went out, that, for a space, had glowed so redly athwart the abiding gloom that was the heritage of the Stuart race. They were no longer the aggressive | a few short weeks, amid the butcheries force, fired with enthusiasm and buoy- of Cumberland, the flickering light ant with hope, that, a few months before, seemed to others than Lovat predestined to annihilate opposition and alter the destinies of an empire. Even in such an hour of extremity They were now a straggling and dispir- the fortitude of Lovat did not forsake ited band, without courage and without him. His residence lay in the track of resource, whose sole intent was to es- the prince, fleeing from the fatal field. cape as fast and as far as possible from For a few hours he received the shelthe pursuer who followed on their track. ter of its roof. In those untoward Some adverse intelligence had already circumstances, Lovat had his first and reached Castle Dounie. On receiving last interview with the unsceptred king, it, Lovat despatched a hasty order for on whose behalf he had contrived so the recall of his son. But the master cunningly, and for whom he was desreturned a manly reply. He declined, tined to suffer so much. It is stated he said, to lay himself open to the im- that the restless energies of Lovat were putation of deserting a cause he had as ardent as ever, but struck no correespoused, when it most needed his aid. sponding chord in the breast of the Whatever they should be, he would prince. To the eager propositions of stand by its fortunes and follow them his monitor, the desponding fugitive turned a deaf ear. Imbittered by his In proportion as the retreating High-impassibility, Lovat railed at him landers approached his vicinity, the roundly, and pointed him to the great mind of Lovat became more perturbed. example of his ancestor, the Bruce, He was, in truth, face to face with in similar circumstances of darkness the gravest situation. Notwithstanding and defeat. But, so far as Prince the adoption of so many precautionary Charles Edward was concerned, the devices, he felt how desperate his venture had closed. A snatch of food, chances were in the event of the worst and an hour of rest, and he hied him occurring. But he did not necessarily to the wilderness again; while his anticipate the worst. He felt himself, enfeebled and disenchanted host was indeed, to be fully committed. It was borne away to seek a precarious conimpossible to retrace the steps he had cealment amid the most inhospitable taken. But, amid the despondency recesses of his domains. around him, the high spirit of the old The sequel to these events is soon man did not quail. He had cherished told. Lovat found refuge in one of the with such fondness the dream of suc- rocky caverns in which these Highland cess that it clung to his imagination | regions abound. For the time, his still. He pressed, by his messengers, life was the sport of every variety of on the prince and his coadjutors a bold anxiety and hardship. A few tufts of and resolute policy. He had un- heather formed the only separation bounded faith in his Highlanders, and between his paralyzed limbs and the in their capacity for sustaining the dank floor of the dripping cave; his most precarious struggle on the van- only sustenance was meal and water. tage ground of their native wilds. Had After the lapse of a few weeks he was his body been as robust and active as discovered and captured by a military his mind was alert and vigorous, the party who were scouring the neighborcatastrophe of Culloden might have hood for rebels. Sent to London for been indefinitely deferred. But there trial, he travelled thither by easy stages, was not in the councils of Prince and on his arrival was lodged in the Charles Edward a mind capable of Tower. After a protracted delay, which grasping the situation and responding he himself, with characteristic aptitude, to its requirements. The inevitable took every available means of extenddoom was speedily accomplished. In ing, he was impeached for high treason The at the bar of the House of Lords. trial occupied five days. On its completion, he was unanimously found guilty, and sentenced to death with all "LOOK 'ee 'ere, my leddy, 'is name's the variety of barbaric detail common Jack. I'm d-d." Then the speaker to the crime and the time. The prin- paused and rubbed his red forehead cipal witness against him was John with a redder silk bandana, and glared Murray of Broughton, who had been out of bloodshot eyes at the pillows of Prince Charles Edward's secretary. the bed near by, on which rested a This unhappy man, to save his own woman's head, shrouded in a volumidishonored life, had turned king's evi- nously frilled muslin nightcap. dence against his old colleagues and eyes in that head were calmly fixed on friends. He produced Lovat's confi- the tapestry canopy that roofed in the dential correspondence with his master massive four-post bedstead, and did not and himself; and these letters, need- turn to meet those of the speaker. less to say, were of so incriminatory a character, that, alone, they would have sufficed to procure a verdict for the crown. During the trial Lovat bore himself with spirit and dignity. In those days the State prisoner had to conduct his own defence, being only permitted the aid of counsel in disentangling points of law. Lovat followed the windings of the case with conspicuous shrewdness, and addressed his judges with eloquence and force. His arts and efforts were unavailing. But his equanimity remained undisturbed. He received sentence with entire serenity, and bade the noble court farewell with a jocose reference to the improbability of all of them ever meeting in the same place again. In the interval that elapsed between the sentence and its execution, the buoyancy of his disposition was never more apparent, even in his most auspicious hours. His geniality and wit were the marvel of his attendants, and flowed unrestrained to the last. He was assisted to the scaffold with a smile on his cheek and a pleasantry on his lip. And when the headsman's gruesome work was done, it was the verdict of all, that throughout the range of changing scene in which this remarkable man had borne a part, in none had he appeared to braver advantage than in the last. WM. DONALDSON. Lady Dorothy's sighs had been wasted that nothing I can say will alter what carbonic acid gas for a long time so far has been done. My son has been chrisas her husband was concerned, but tened Roger according to the rites of when a man's wife crowns his wishes the Church, and there is an end to it. for an heir to his name and estate after | If you had stayed at home and taken fourteen years of disappointment, it is the direction of affairs, the child might. excusable in the man if he recover have been named as you wish. It is somewhat from his sigh-deafness. too late to think about that now." The squire of Bassetwyke slowly straightened his back, and looked sideways at his wife. "Feel all right, my leddy?" My lady answered not, therefore her lord gave the charred log a hard kick with the toe of his muddy top-boot, and watched the consequent sparks which flew up the chimney as if to form an appropriate tail to his cometic expletive. "I say, Dorothy, my lass"—he was standing between the bed-curtains by this, and had laid one hand tentatively where the shape of his wife's could be distinguished under the coverlet "dun't 'ee fret. When Banty (this was his favorite cocker spaniel) - when Banty litters she just suckles her pups and leaves me or Kit to name 'em. Can't 'ee do as she do, and let me name our pup? Do now, there's a good lass." The lady's head moved wearily on the pillows, and the face was averted from the speaker. The latter stooped a little to recover sight of the pale features. "There's al'ays been a Jack Darrel, Dorothy, Jack Darrel of Bassetwyke; they 'ang together like sucking-pig and Chris'mas. Dun't 'ee go and try to part 'em. I'd a'most rather I would by keep on as we were, and let the old place go to Paston Darrel's son Jack when I'm gone. I say, Dorothy, my dear," he stooped lower yet, and the big, heavy countenance softened visibly, "let me 'ave my way in this, and I'll pay off all your brother Tregantle's debts; I'll set him clear, and I'll be a good husband to 'ee, Dorothy, all my days. Give us a buss, my lass, and say done, and you see ef I dun't keep my word.” Not loud, but very distinct and positive withal, came the reply. "Mr. Darrel, you very well know The black oak staircase creaked beneath his ponderous tread as he descended to the wide, circular hall of his great manor-house, where, high out of clear eye-shot, hung rigid-formed portraits of Darrels in rigid, narrow oaken frames, umbrous in color, shadowy in delineation, and generally unprepossessing. Here and there, on handsome carved brackets of the same dark wood, lay perfectly complete human skulls with not a missing tooth. (The Darrels were celebrated for their immunity from the sceptic ravage that the preacher so feelingly refers to in the third verse of his twelfth chapter.) The ghastly whim of an old Darrel who had brought his own bloody crown out of Worcester fight, where he had left a less fortunate son and brother, was responsible for this feature in the decoration. A very large and splendid piece of silversmith's work in the shape of a lamp depended by two silver chains from the domed roof of stained glass. There was a suggestiveness of ecclesiasticism about its elaborate ornamentation that harmonized with the half-accepted legend anent its abstraction from a SpanishAmerican cathedral by an ancestor of the squire. Altogether the effect of the hall, with its tall, dark, diverging doors and deep | set his heart upon a thing that he meant doorways, was far from lively; yet to have it, and pursued his object there was somehow an appropriateness shrewdly enough. He comprehended evident between the big-bodied, mas- clearly what he wanted just then, and sive-framed man and the nest where he if he propped his broad back meditahad been hatched, and whence the tively against the carved pilaster of the flights of his full-fledgedom had been stair-balustrade, and stared with drooped brief and infrequent. eyelids at the crimson shaft of light sent by the autumnal sun through the Darrel blazon on the panes of the halldome, it was in no uncertainty of mood but only in uncertainty of method. The squire's mental fibre lacked a number of the constituents of a nicely balanced intelligence, and decision was not amongst them. He could be obstinate too, but was more customarily rapid in deciding than rooted in abiding by a decision. Contracted in his sympathies and in his views by the hedgerows of local landlordism and class privilege, which flourished rankly on either side of the narrow pathway of his life; Tory from the scalp of his wig to the buckles of his square-toed shoes, with a vague, unavowed disloyalty that was almost hope, oscillating between St. John at the Treasury and James Stuart at St. Germains; continually at secret variance with an avowed loyalty to the Hanover house under whose rule he sat secure, John Darrel was just John Darrel of Bassetwyke, good landlord, indifferent justice of the peace, and decidedly bad scholar. The whole of his learning, polite, political, and canonical, might easily have been contained in the shell of one of the walnuts that grew on the six tall trees surrounding his bowling-green plat. Famous trees they were, comparatively new importations just then, for it was Dutch William's taste for peeling nuts that led to extensive cultivation of the fragrant-leaved trees in his new realm. Beeves, hoggets, tegs; horses, hounds, hares; cobwebby port, October ale, and hollands-geneva; dominoes, dice, and shuffle-board, were topics within the compass of the squire's understanding and that of his acred neighbors with whom he discussed and swore over them; but it was not safe for him to push out like Genoese Colon into the unknown. Although there were many surrounding things beyond his ken, there was one that he knew perfectly-he knew his own mind; realized fully when he Pendent from his fob-pocket and half-hidden by the unbuttoned flaps of his long waistcoat the squire wore bunch of seals, and amongst the seals hung a heavy silver whistle, in shape a mermaid with a twisted, fishy tail. Below stairs, in the great butteryroom, which, with the yet greater kitchen and its offshoots, stretched an immeasurable space beneath Bassetwyke manor - house, sat Christopher Christopher, more generally abbreviated into Kit-Kit, Squire Darrel's man. A small, spare man was Kit, wearing a cast coat of his master's, brown in color and a vast deal too large for him. Now between the mermaid and the man Kit there existed a well-recognized link; they were, so to speak, the two diaphragms of the telephone of the eighteenth century. Squire Darrel never called Kit, nor rang the bell for him; he whistled for him, and though Kit might be leisurely in answering either bell or call, he was alert enough in attention to the whistle; et pour cause. The squire, when irritated, had an impatient habit of distributing surrounding objects promiscuously, and Kit's head and the squire's jack-boot had once or twice occupied the some spot in creation. When therefore the resonant shrill of the whistle smote upon Kit's ear that autumn forenoon, the big brown coat travelled nimbly up the stone steps leading from the servants' quarters with the little man inside it. "Kit!" quoth his master, "where's the passon ? "Please yer honor, Mr. Youl's in t' orchard along with t' gardener." "Tell 'im I want 'im- in the clock room. Ay, in the clock-room. And I say, Kit, set some ale and strong waters and pipes and baccy, and tell 'im I'm waiting for 'im." And The flat, broad heels of the squire's boots sounded with masterful taps on the thick, uncarpeted boards of the long corridor that ran straight from the rear hall to the apartment known as the clock-room. The high, narrow-mullioned window that lighted the corridor was massively grated outside, with all sorts of spiked projections, to the grating of which the sparrows made resting-places and the garden-spiders stretching-props for their nets. there Squire Darrel stood, still jingling his seals with one hand, and looked up at the few rooks which were trying to warm themselves in the pale sunshine on the topmost boughs of the elms. Many a time, when he was a boy, he had shot at their grandfathers and grandmothers with his cross-bow from that window, and a recollection of the fact flashed upon him just then, while he waited for the parson and the strong waters and long clay pipes. He remembered that with all his shooting he had never hit a rook in those days. Many, many arrows (quarrels they were called then) had he lodged in the branches, there to lie till they rotted point and feather, or till they were shaken down from the swaying boughs by the blustering February gales; but he had never brought down a rook. "I'm ef I dun't 'it my mark this time, though." So thinking the squire turned round to satisfy himself that the approaching footfalls he heard were those he was expecting, and then passed through a doorway, over the lintel of which was a large, black dial-clock with gilt figures and hands framed in carved oak-work, worthy of Grinling Gibbons. He was promptly followed by a short, corpulent man dressed in a compromise between a cassock and a geneva gown of black camlet, rubicund and convivially good-humored-looking, with plump, fat-clothed features, set off by a tidily curled Hanover wig. Behind came Kit, bearing a silver-handled, oaken tray, laden with squat jugs and case bottles, whose rotund necks and bosoms were adorned with silver insignia of the knighthood of potatocracy. There were Dantzic-water flocculent with gold leaf, Barbadoes cordial horsechestnut-colored and oily, hollands schnapps yellow and smoke-flavored, and red-brown home-brewed coronetted with froth. Yard-long pipes with capacious bowls were there also, flanked by an earthenware barrel with leaden lid shutting in the dark knaster tobacco that had paid more or less duty on its transit from Rotterdam to Bassetwyke. "Well, passon, 'ave ye got all my Canterbury pippins inside ye? Ye're a fond man to stuff yerself with cidermash. Ye'll be getting a whis'ling colic. Blood and 'ounds, man, d'ye ever say grace before yer apples?" "Your worship's pippins are safe and sound for me. Gardener Horrocks is not comely enough for Eve's part, and I was christened Caleb, not Adam." "Chris'und! Umph! Ay, you was chris'und Caleb, passon. I s'pose old Youl named ye and — and The squire had abandoned the tone of half-contemptuous bantering he had at first greeted his retainer with, and was stiffening himself into an attitude of aggressiveness. Suddenly, however, he dropped into a chair and tucked his feet under its stout, lower bar. Kit, who stood attentive, hastened to tender the tray to his master. "Well, passon, I've got something to tell 'ee," continued the latter, "so fill a pipe and a rummer with what ye like best, and that'll not be Adam's ale. Ye keep all the cold water for the brats, ch? The last dose ye took of it yerself was when ye was sprinkled, I expect, passon. Yer old dad, Jacob Youl, was a rare dog for Dutch schnapps and French brandy. Many and many a tub of it the old varmint hid in his mill under the grist bags. You keep yours in a safer place, Youl. The 'cisemen can't rummage your round belly as they did the old man's mill, or ye'd die under a hedge as he did." Parson Youl filled a pipe and a tumbler in submissive silence. Reverend |