cold sweat ran off my brow as I heard the hollow sound with which they descended! One of the wretches then took the spade, and began hastily to fill up the cavity: as he worked he became apparently conscience-stricken, and whispered something in a low tone to his associate. Don't be alarmed," returned he, "I tell you I hare them dead!" There could now be no doubt-they must be murderers concealing their victims! "Well, but," said the other, "what if the officers should discover us, Gilbert ?" "Oh! no fear of that," replied the hardened villain; "if they suspect any thing, they will never think of searching here, and they may rummage my cottage till doomsday! Don't be frightened - I've done the trick often enough before now, and have never been found out!" By this time they had restored things to their former state, and shortly after relieved me from their hated presence. Scarcely knowing what I did, I started up, and in an agony of fear and horror, again ran on a distant light attracted me, and I hastened towards it-sounds of merriment arose from within. It was the house of the keeper, and he and some jovial friends were spending a merry night. I stopped not, but rushed into the midst of them, with my person disordered, and my hair on end, exclaiming, "Murder! murder! aid me to do justice on the murderers!" It was some time before I became calm, or before they could think me any other than a maniac. When at length I became composed, I related the scene I had witnessed, and conjured them to give their assistance to the discovery of the crime to the completion of which I had so unwillingly been a witness. "Why," said the keeper, "for certain that Farmer Gilbert is a bad character, and nobody do know what errand he is out about so late at nights, but I should not think he'd go so far as to commit mur-" "I tell you," cried I, "I saw him and an accomplice bury two bodies in a spot 1 can point out, if a sufficient number will accompany me. ," "If that's the case, then," said he, "instead of saying any thing more about it, we'd better go and dig up the bodies at once, afore the thing gets wind." This was the very course I wished them to pursue, as I was afraid if the guilty parties were to hear of my discovery, they would immediately exhume their victims. I accordingly warmly seconded the proposition; and, it being now daybreak, the whole party were soon after on their way to the forest, with the requisite tools for digging. With feelings of disgust at the remembrance of the last night's scene, I pointed out the spot: a stout labourer commenced his task, and soon nounced that he had discovered the first sack,-it was hauled out, and deposited on the green sward. an I trembled in every joint as the dreadful receptacle was opened, and felt obliged to turn away my head as the keeper opened it. I expected to hear a general burst of horror at the sight of the horrid contents, when, to my surprise, the whole of the party burst into a loud fit of laughter. "What is the meaning of this?" cried I, angrily, as I turned round,-" have you not found the bodies?" "No!" returned the keeper, smiling, "but we've found plenty of spirits!" "How, what mean you?" I cried in wonder, "have you discovered nothing in which the officers of justice ought to interfere?" "Not a bit of it," replied he, still smiling, "but a good deal that the officers of excise will interfere in-two casks of rare strong BRANDY!" Every thing was now clear: Farmer Gilbert's mysterious night-proceedings were connected with smuggling, and, instead of concealing the victims of murder, he and his companions were merely hiding part of a run cargo from the scrutinizing eyes of the revenue-officers!-My discovery, however, caused him to fly that part of the country; and I was soon glad to follow him, to escape from the continued banterings with which I was assailed whenever I appeared, on the subject of the eventful night of my mysterious adventure in the New Forest! ALCANOR. PARISH CLERKS. Q. What think you they portend? SINCE the days that Martinus Scriblerus distinguished his talent as P. P., in the Miscellaneous Papers of Pope Parish Clerks have not been remarkable for prose, or poetic, composition; if the enthusiastic clerk at Marlborough be excepted, who, on hearing of the visit of the bishop of the diocese, burst forth in an inspired rivalry of Sternhold and Hopkins, by an improvisatorial stanza: Why does you hop, ye little hills? Ye little hills, why does you hop? A wide difference exists between a city and a country Parish Clerk, though both, like the practice in the Chancery Courts, have moved rather slowly towards the general improvements of the day. As one of the main qualifications of a Parish Clerk is, that he should lead the congregation in psalmody, so it is, or it ought to be made a corollary, that he should have a good voice and knowledge in using it. But this is not always so: few, very few of this " desk fraternity" can sing. It not infrequently happens that the Clerk and the charity children are wide of the mark in their euphonic accent, tune and time. But the country Parish Clerk is fading out of date, and, like an old gravestone in the midst of modern cuts, quite an original in the congregated assemblies. He is a standard mellowed over by his temperate years, and wears a solemn and graduated aspect towards the green sward. He retains the old-fashioned drawl in reading, holds the spectacles over his nostrils with a stride; leaves the desk to lead the singing in the chancel, or gallery; takes a morphean, composing draught, sometimes, during sermon; attends the curate in exchanging his surplice for the gown; is the respondent at the grave, the christening and the wedding keeps the register entries, makes certificates and extracts, and waits for all church business, except preferment, with more attention than talent. lity which he bears, like the ivy in the precincts of the tower. By way of rogation, the city Parish Clerk assumes an importance in his robe of velvet and tassels. Modernised in dress and mar.ners, he sometimes performs by deputy. This system of pluralism throughout the country makes one man rich—another man poor. In accordance with his vocation, he is an undertaker, looks after the toll and sexton's movements. If he attend the Mitre with a chosen few in jovial amity, he is often the subject of smoking remark, which, to his credit, he passes off either by mutes or liquids. His march before a funeral in sables is becomingly grave, and his heralding a wedding suitably decorous. He gives instructions in the vestry, or at the font; assists in the several receptions of fees, and steers above the inebrious Moses, who with a lanthorn and the vicar, of days that are passed, staggered together into the half-filled vacuum. His residence is usually in the parish golgotha, or near the place of skulls. His windows are emblematical of the decorations of the cemetery.* He is a great reader only of Liturgies and Communions. He invites others by an alpha to the praise and glory, without contributing the classic portion of a man of letters. He pronounces Amen! as his habit, taste, or knowledge varies. He is not a Beau-clerc, nor a Clerk of Oxenforde. His little learning is not a dangerous thing; it gives him a house, and sometimes land. The delivery of his desk notifications is appropriate, but not always congenial with the circumstances of his fellow parishioners, when they relate to assessments. The light of his candle is not hid under a bushel, nor is his talent buried in a napkin-were he a better musician, he would be a "marvellous proper man!" GOLD.-(FOR THE OLIO.) P. P. Oh what is gold that men should bend Their souls before its shrine ? Can gold impart fair Reason's lay, He is, moreover, sometimes the village schoolmaster, and combines contra callings, to make his pittance serve for necessary disbursements. His acute pronunciation of scripture names, is of his own vernacular tone and emphasis; he will not, or cannot, alter it, though his curate precedes him by example. He is, like the lessons he reads, invariable. He is a pitcher of tunes, but rather cracked in the mouth, which cannot hold water. The sap of his trunk will not yield to luxuriance: the offsets may be transplanted to a city soil, ↑ An Hibernian once defined a coffin to be a but they would lose the indigenous qua- house for the dead to live in." Before the miniature leaden-lid of a coffint in the window of an undertaker, not a hundred miles from the Olio Office, are the fo!lowing words : "A furnished apartment to let for a single person." Ah, no! the heaviest growth of earth, It weighs upon the soul, Like grief upon the wings of mirth, A mountain-like controul! What, can'st thou give a happy heart? Go, steel the miser's grov'iling breast! R. JARMAN. THE STORY OF A LEGACY. (Continued from p. 309.) HENDERSON'S interview with his uncle next day, at Beechwood Park, ended in the latter declaring most repulsively that he would not pay a single farthing; knowing well that his tampering attorney, and his nephew's lack of pecuniary means, would stay the award of justice. Frederick's road, on his return, lay through Beechwood Park, and scenery more impressive and delightful could not be imagined. The Park, seated on an eminence parallel with the river Swale, abounds in beautiful deer. Its bordering woods are numerous and lofty, and form some of the finest preserves for game in the kingdom. The walks on the northern side are lined with rows of romantic beeches; and the luxuriant gardens around the Ionic fabric of Beechwood Hall are sheltered from the north by nurseries of the ilex, sycamore, maple, and birch. From the most commanding point of view is seen the open country, presenting a view which might have seduced the pencil of Claude from its Italian task. It is the valley of Mowbray, anciently the domain of the Mowbrays and Percys, and now forming the estates of the Earl of Egremont and the Duke of Devonshire. Upon an artificial mount, overlooking this landscape, and on which originally stood a summer-house, Frederick sat him down in the deepest sorrow. Before him lay the valley, arrayed in the blended majesty and beauty of nature: guarded on the right by a defile of rocky mountains, and shadowed on the left by forests. The awakening spring had aroused the peasant and his energies into life; and the whistling of the ploughmen imparted a cheerfulness to the budding scenery. The tardy Swale rolled sullenly below, its tranquillity broken only by the plunging of the oars of a pleasure-boat, and the screams of the scared water-fowl. The squirrel rambled and leapt from bough to bough amongst the clustering beeches overhead: a few daisies had ventured to peep through their covering of decayed leaves; and "vernal joy" seemed to gladden every object save the sorrowing Henderson. He looked around, and fixing his gaze on a venerable ash, recognised the letter H. rudely cut in the bark. He well recollected it; he had himself traced it one truant day when his presence at school had been desirable. He lifted up his eyes to an ornamental obelisk, shrouded in trees, and discerned through his tears the name of a brother, carved at his own request, who had since perished in the noxious clime of India. His thoughts reverted to the sordid cruelty of his uncle, and his own pitiable condition in being obliged to subsist on the charity of his friends: he pondered on the clouds of adversity which overhung his path; the envy and contumely undeservedly levelled at him; the wanderings and privations he had undergone; and, slowly threading his way through the groves of Beechwood Park, he left its gates with the bitter feelings and cheerless resolves of a confirmed misanthrope. It was about the third week after Frederick's arrival at Ashby, when one night, after having sat up two or three hours, writing in his chamber, he opened his window to look out on the prospect. It was a starlight night, and objects were seen but indistinctly. He was straining his eyes to descry the firs of Beechwood Park, when he heard the swift trampling and snorting of a horse along the narrow road skirting the North Fields. Directing his attention across the clustering trees of the orchard, he beheld a horseman advancing at a quick trot; a circumstance which did not particularly strike him, until the rider dismounted at a gate leading into a field of Squire Rockton's, through which ran a deep rivulet, nearly overgrown in some parts with brushwood. Regarding him more attentively, he beheld the horseman take something from what he judged to be a sack slung over the horse, and after listening and looking about him very cautiously for a short interval, he walked a little way down the stream, and then threw in his bundle. Frederick watched until he rode away; when, marking the spot in his eye by the contiguous bushes, he closed his window, descended, and, climbing over the orchard fence, was presently in the field which the man had quitted. The brook was not wide but deep, and obscured by the branches of the flowering thorn; Frederick, how ever, brushed through them in the very place where he beheld the bundle hurled into the stream, and descending the rough and uneven banks, he arrived at the water's edge. In this damp and noxious situation, with but the weak glimmering of light through the bu hes to guide him, he vainly looked for the burden of which the hasty horseman had rid himself; his untimely search but disturbed the squeaking water-rats, which sought a refuge from such unwelcome scrutiny, by diving to their holes. Foiled in his purpose, Frederick climbed to the brink of the stream, and leaving a twig of thorn stuck in the ground as a mark, he wandered towards the village, intending to wait for day; but passing the shop of Bob Johnson, the boisterous butcher of Ashby, he discovered a light through the open door, and Bob busily at work, dressing the carcase of an ox for the next day's market. He entered; and surprised the stentorian Bob no little by his midnight appearance; who, surveying Frederick with a stare of astonishment, roared out, in that idiomatic Saxon which chiefly forms the dialect of Northern Yorkshire "Is that Mr. Henderson? Lord help us, sir, what brings you out at this taam o' neet? you freeten'd me." "Why, Mr. Johnson, I may retort upon you by asking the same question. Does your business require such late hours?" "To be seer it duz, sir; whea wad gan to't market fo' me, if I stopped at yam to kill i't deay-taam? It wadn't dea, sir." 66 Every man knows his own business best, Mr. Johnson; but were I sworn, I could not tell you what causes this my unseasonable visit. Did you hear a horse pass your house within this hour?" "Ay, I did; and my bitch heared it, tea, and wauken'd me up wi' her barking; but that was all reet-for Lsud ha' owerslept mysel'." To end this colloquy, Frederick related to Bob Johnson what he had seen, and likewise his fruitless endeavours to find the burden thrown into the brook. "Lord ha' mercy on us!" exclaimed Bob; "there's some foul wark ganging on somewhere! But I'll gang wi' ye; I'll tak' a reake, and if it be as deep as t' sea, I'll find it!" Provided with a rake, as a substitute for a drag, they arrived at the stream, when, stopping at the place marked by the branch of thorn, Johnson descended, and after a few ineffectual strokes in the water with the rake, he felt it impeded by something rather heavy, which, by twisting into it the prongs of the rake, he succeeded in drawing to the surface: unravelling the napkin which was sewed around it, a newly-born infant presented itself to the horrified gaze of Frederick and his companion! Bound up with it was a dumb-bell, evidently for the purpose of sinking it. Though there was no decisive sign by which to recognize the murdered infant, yet the presumptive conclusion deducible from circumstances plainly pointed out Squire Rockton as the father. Frederick recollected, too, the remark made by Kit Briton, which was kindly interrupted by Thomas Walker, and which was declaratory of the undisguised suspicion of the former touching the Squire's villanous designs upon his illegitimate offspring; and so confident was Johnson of Squire Rockton's guilt, that in the precipitancy of his resentment, he proposed to take the body to his house, and directly to accuse him of the crime; but he was dissuaded from his headlong purpose by the arguments of Henderson; and the corpse of the little innocent was deposited, for the present, at Will Yeateley's. Morning came, and as quickly as her radiant beams illumined the village of Ashby, did winged Rumour spread the intelligence of the midnight deed.— Crowds of execrating mothers thronged to "The Three Horse-Shoes ;" and many a potent whisper hinted at the authors of the act. But, though all were confidently assured on this point, not a man durst openly play the accuser.Questions, certainly, were asked of the Squire's servants which they would not answer, and they denied, also, all knowledge of the housekeeper's retreat. Briton and Thomas Walker were silent about the transaction; as they were determined, they averred, if the Squire's evil day were come, that it should not be said they trampled on a prostrate foe. The matter was hushed up: the body was interred without material inquiry; and in a few days every thing at Ashby resumed its wonted aspect. But that revenge which neither slumbers nor sleeps had now taken possession of the feelings of Squire Rockton, in addition to his former hatred incurred by Frederick in rescuing the boy from the lashes of his whip. The death of Henderson could alone satisfy him; and how speciously he compassed this, the recital of the fate of the unfortunate youth will amply testify. THE To be continued. BABINGTONS. A TALE OF CHADSTOW. The appointed night and hour arrived. During the entire day, the princess and Barbara had been closely secluded in the tapestried room, whose hangings were worked in figures as large as life, portraying different scenes in the eventful career of Coeur-de-Lion. In one part the glowing arras displayed him tearing out the lion's heart-in another were seen the huge towers of his castle prison, beneath whose trees Blondel was chaunting the lay that led to his deliverance-but, most conspicuous, was his magnificent entry into London, amid gorgeous barons and shouting citizens. All these royal reverses did the Lady Barbara, when other sources of consolation failed, pithily moralize to the desponding princess, and so far prevailed, that ere night, she could deliberate calmly on her future fortunes. Precisely as the second hour after midnight was proclaimed from the clock-tower, Barbara herself led the way down a private turret, and was followed by the fugitive, closely wrapt from observation, through the yew labyrinths and ghastly gleaming statues of the garden. Every argument of hope and courage did Barbara employ, to which the other seemed ruefully to assent; but, when left to herself at the appointed postern, her hand trembled so that she could scarcely turn the key of the wicket. On the outside she found a person in a horseman's cloak awaiting her, who, in low but respectful tones requesting her to be silent, led or rather carried her to a considerable distance, till they reached a lonely house on Fradley Heath, on whose verge a body of horsemen were hovering. Her guide was no other than the trusty Philip, and they were speedily joined by Sir Gilbert Vaucler. He did not address his captive, but, with a long clear whistle, summoned the distant horsemen, who immediately approached, and forming themselves into marching order, displayed a formidable force. Vaucler could hardly conceal his joy at this successful termination of all his plots. He mastered himself, however, so far as to present to the lady, in the same respectful silence, a flaggon of spiced wine, which was produced from the house. Apparently stupified with terror, she sipped it mechanically; Sir Gilbert took a deep draught a palfrey was then brought forward, on which she was carefully mounted, and then the whole party, with their precious charge in the centre, and Sir Gilbert at their head, set off at a round trot, striking into the bye-ways in a southerly direction. After about an hour's silent travel, the east began to redden, and objects to assume a more distinct shape; and as the troop swept beneath the bulky heights of Hopwas Forest, the brown towers of Tamworth displayed their hilly outline, like Cybele's diadem, against the manifold colours of the kindling sky. Still avoiding the high-roads, they struck into the grassy lanes that led to the hamlet of Weeford, and thence proceeded to thread the paths of the Canwell woods. The sun was now struggling through the tangled trunks, and the lady had drawn her cloak and hood more closely, to protect her from the chilly air of that early hour, when Vaucler, quitting the front of the troop, took his station at her side. "Be not startled, lady," he beganbut had not time to finish the sentence, when a flight of arrows, hurtling through a large oak thicket, stretched three of the headmost riders on the plain, while a terrific shout,-"St. George to the rescue! Down with the traitors!"speedily recalled Sir Gilbert to the van. A body of horse, nearly doubling his own in number, now poured from the covert, some of them disclosing the St. George's Cross in the growing light, and others bearing the Torteauxes of Babington. At the first onset, Mark Babington rode up to the Lady Anne, and giving her in charge to two others, she was quickly placed out of danger from the conflict. In a brief space, the victorious party rejoined her with Mark at their head, Sir Gilbert disarmed and bound on a led horse between two arquebussiers, and sundry of his followers in a similar plight, the rest being either dispersed or slain. |