intelligent as far as his knowledge went, but obstinate to a degree if you wished to get any new idea into his head, and decidedly more superstitious than he was obstinate, for Tom had a wonderful belief in all manner of fairies, demons, and ghostly apparitions; and, in good sooth, he had been sorely tried for a month or six weeks.

Before proceeding further, however, we must premise that Tom had been park-keeper for years at Fairlands House, situated in one of the wildest and most beautiful of our English counties, where fertile valley alternated with wild hill, and the woods grew with all the luxuriance of a tropical jungle. It was not a country, however, that had exactly marched in the van of civilisation, and in consequence old-world ways and old-world thoughts lingered there years after they had been driven by railroads and education from other parts of England. Tom was an old man too, and his father could go well back into the days when they burned and drowned witches, and had other nice little amusements to pass a summer holiday, which we have come to regard in rather a different light. Some years previously, when Tom was quite a lad, there lived a notorious poacher named Will Jones, whose mother only escaped burning or drowning through the tolerance of the age, for she claimed, and was universally allowed to have, dealings in the black art. Her son Bill, when on a deer-stealing expedition in the park in October, chanced to cross the path of a savage old red stag, of which kind a few were then kept at Fairlands, who attacked and gored him to death. The old lady, in her grief and anger at the loss of her son, vowed that he should return within fifty years, and not only drive every deer from the park, but carry off the park-keepers also. Recent events had brought the prophecy back to Tom's mind with a vividness which caused his knees to shake and sleep to forsake his eyelids. His tribulation first began as he looked from his windows at the lodge one night and saw his herd of deer driven round and round the park, evidently in the greatest terror and alarm, until some of the fattest bucks dropped from exhaustion, while he could neither see or divine the cause of their stampede. Man and boy, Tom had lived there sixty years, but he had never known anything like it before, while all the old village gossips, men to whom Tom was as a child in years and wisdom, could get no further into the matter than to shake their heads and say, 'There was summat wrong about it.'

Things passed on pretty quietly for a week or more, and the old fellow, if he thought of the affair at all, had come to the conclusion that some dog must have got into the park and started them, when he was once more roused from sleep by the herd careering under his windows the same as before; and the next morning, to his horror and consternation, beneath the clump of gigantic firs that crowned the highest point in the park, lay a fat buck, gored to death. Tom examined him well: it was no dog, for he was not torn, but stabbed, as if with a dagger, in the haunches and through the heart. Neither was it the work of his fellow-bucks, for they were all in the velvet, and could not have done it if they would. Tom scratched his head, after the manner of his kind, which helped

him but little; then he turned the buck over and looked at the other side, which helped him less. There were more wounds to be seen, certainly, but they were just like the others, mere stabs; and probe them how he may, he could make nothing else of it. Now, Tom's duty undoubtedly was to skin and dress the buck, seeing that he had bled well, and the flesh was not hurt; but I am sorry to say that he did nothing of the sort. He first took a pinch of snuff, then walked away to the under-keeper's lodge, told him to dress the deer, and went straight to the village alehouse and ordered in a quart of strong beer. This was not only indiscreet, but unfortunate; for there was an old loafer hanging about whose taste for beer was quite as keen as Tom's, and whose scent for a drain from any other man's cup was good as that of a sleuth hound. Tom had scarcely drawn breath after his first draught ere the old fellow was before him with, 'Mornin', Mr. Ashton; hope you're well this nice summer mornin'?'

'Middlin' for that,' said Tom; I ain't so much the matter, but 'summat as I can't make out is a driven the deer about o' nights, and 'killed one o' my best bucks last night just under the big firs on the 'crown o' the hill; will 'ee drink?"

The old man answered the question by taking the cup, and, turning his eyes piously towards heaven, brought the bottom of the mug so steadily and so surely in the same direction, that Tom was fain to call for another quart, or their conversation would have gone on dry-lipped from that moment. Then the old fellow drew the back of his hand across his mouth, sat down on a settle opposite, and, placing a hand on each knee, stared fearfully at Tom.

"What b'est staren at?' asked the latter, getting uneasy under his steady gaze.

'What be I a staren at-why, how many years ago is it the old stag killed Will Jones in that very spot? Tell me that, Tom 'Ashton,'

Tom turned pale, and once more scratched his head, but said nothing.

"Why, 'tis nine and forty year ago last Old Michaelmas,' continued he, answering himself; and now you knows what's a killen your bucks. His old mother spoke truth."

Tom's jaw fell, and, leaving his old crony to finish the second quart of beer-which he did not fail to do, as well as to get put in the stocks afterwards for riotous behaviour, where he sung indecent songs for the edification of the village children until he fell asleephe staggered home, a sadder if not a wiser man; and an afternoon's sleep only served to awaken him to the extent of the calamity which had befallen him. As the effect of his morning's potation wore off, it was with leaden eye and trembling limb that he plodded his way to the Hall to ask the house-steward to write and acquaint his absent master with the facts. A week or so elapsed ere an answer was received; and in the meantime buck after buck was found dead in the park, each fresh victim serving still further to scare poor Tom Ashton, who felt convinced that the redoubtable Will Jones was at work amongst the deer, and equally certain that his own time must

come when the autumn leaf was falling. A peremptory message from his lord to keep strict watch, rifle in hand, only kept him closer to the walls of his lodge, for, as he said, 'What's the use of powder ' and ball agin the devil himself; he'll only tear me in pieces if I fired at 'him, for certain ;' and the old fellow looked with dread to the day of his master's return, when he knew that all shirking in the matter would be at an end. However, luck was on his side, for on the very day on which his master did return, Tom, in crossing the path, saw a dead buck, with the 'little brown beggar,' as he called him, plunging a straight and sharp pair of horns time after time into the carcass of his fallen foe. Tom stopped with open mouth and eyes, and would undoubtedly have fled had not the object of his terror caught the wind of him, and set him the example, by disappearing in the manner already described, which at any rate served to show him that no present personal harm was intended as far as he was concerned, and sent him to greet his master with a less lugubrious countenance than he otherwise would have done.

Tom was not well versed in natural history, and knew nothing, as he said, about furren' beasts, by which term he designated any animal not to be found in that immediate neighbourhood, so that the Squire had an uphill game in trying to make out by cross-examination what kind of animal the depredator amongst his herds was. However, a little inspection of slots and so forth, compared with the wounds made, convinced him that a roebuck, who must have strayed from far distant parts, was the aggressor; and this view he communicated to Tom, who, according to his custom when asked to credit anything a little beyond his comprehension, treated the idea with scorn. What!' said Tom, a rowbuck or ryebuck, or whatsumever you likes to call un, no bigger nor a fox, or at any rate than my 'old setter dog, go and kill the best and oldest bucks in the park as big agin as himself. 'Tain't likely! Besides, what about driven alt the herd, when he wern't to be seen? No, no, maister; he's no ' deer, tak' my word for it, but Bill Jones's spiret! Besides, didn't I 'see un flee over the park palen, as is too high for all our bucks, and ' vanish in the copse? Let un alone, maister; let un alone, or wuss ''ill come of it !'

Great was Tom's trouble when his master announced his intention of trying the covert with harriers, and posting good shots in all the ridings; neither was the news of such an intention any better received in the village, where it was pronounced a 'wilful flying in 'the face of Providence ;' and no one would have been surprised had a comet, an earthquake, or any other dread portent foretold the fate of those who were about to take part in it. All this of course had no influence on the Squire, except to amuse him; and it was not many days ere a jolly party sallied out from the Hall, gun in hand, to compass the death of the desperate little villain who had wrought so much mischief amongst the deer. Tom, as in duty bound, was there; but what a different figure from the stalwart old keeper of a few months before, when his eye was as keen, his hand as steady, and his muscles as strong, if not quite so supple, as they had been

twenty years before. Now he looked like one risen from the dead, pale and trembling, as if he had left scenes of unutterable horror behind him; so that the Squire administered a good tumbler of cold ' without' to him ere he left the Hall, and tried to rally him out of his despondency. 'No use, maister,' said he, sadly; you beant agoin' 'to shoot a buck, but Bill Jones or the "old un.' Tom's nervousness notwithstanding, the guns were soon posted and the hounds at work. Of course they ran hares, but the Squire said, 'Never mind, they 'will rouse the buck all the sooner, and when once he's on foot, if we 'don't shoot him in crossing, we can get them on the line." His judgment was right: in running a hare they came right on the lair of the buck, and nearly every hound caught view; then there was little cheering needed. A few old hounds dropped back to their legitimate game, but the young ones, revelling in the scent, drove him round and round the covert, until the very oaks above shook with their music. Still, so deep and crafty was the game, that very few shots were afforded, and those only snap ones fired with no effect. Noon came on with its sultry heat, and yet the pack failed to bring-to their game, which persistently ran the densest thickets and brambles within reach of the guns, so that they began to flag; and the Squire told old Tom to go into the more open places in the underwood and see if he could not get a shot by that means. He had scarcely moved more than fifteen or twenty yards, in obedience to his master's wishes, when the buck sprang across the riding. The Squire, who was a first-rate shot, fired well forward, and saw the bound the roedeer gave as he received the shot, but little thought how fatal 'twas to prove. That bound, which would have cleared an ordinary river, brought him to old Tom, who turned round at the sound of the gun, just in time to receive the antlers, short and sharp as daggers and driven with all the force of a catapult, into his bosom. A cry of pain brought the Squire to the spot, when he found his faithful keeper and the dead roebuck rolled in a confused mass together on the ground, the latter having been the involuntary executioner of the man who so abhorred and dreaded him.

Poor Tom had just time to gasp, 'I knew 'twould be so, though 'God knows I never injured Bill Jones, nor my father before me, ' though what might a been had he caught un I can't say!' ere he grasped the extended hand of the Squire and breathed his last. No one ever knew where the roebuck came from. Neither before or since has one been seen in that country, and it was always conjectured that he must, like a rogue elephant, have been driven from his own society, and wandered from more than a hundred miles distant, and that want of companionship made him vicious, and take to worrying the deer, who had no defence against him while their horns were soft. However, this rendering of the affair never obtained credence in poor Tom's native village, where, although it happened many, many years ago, the people to this day believe in the fulfilment of the prophecy of Bill Jones's mother, and tell this wild legend of the West.

N.

24

IN MEMORIAM.

'Heu! Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse !'

Nay, reader, don't start at the title;
'Tis of only a horse-nothing more ;
Only one of the lower creation,
Whose loss 'tis my lot to deplore.
'Only a horse! well, what matter?'

Quoth Dives. 'Tis done in a trice;

Draw a cheque—the best horse that e'er hunted
Can always be bought—at a price.'

Ah! Dives, men envy your fortune;

You are floating through life with the stream;
You have got twenty hunters at Melton,
And the pride of the Park is your team;
But I want just to ask you a question,
So kindly one moment attend:
'Be it man, be it woman, or horse,
Can you ever replace an old friend?'

Such a friend as we owe now and then
To the sympathies born of the chase,
Raising horse to the level of rider,
Such a friend we can never replace.
The box that stands empty and chill
May shelter as perfect a frame,
But 'twill always seem sacred to him,
'Twill always be called by his name.

Chestnut coat, sloping shoulder, small head,
Legs that feared neither spavin nor sprains;
A mudlark when going was deep,

With the blood of Small-hopes in his veins.
When Andover landed the Derby,
The theme of my song first drew breath,
And, as good on the road as the grass,

Hunted up to the day of his death.

He had gone with the Queen's when Charles Davis
With horn made the forest to ring;

He remember'd the bay Pantaloon,

Bestridden by bold Harry King.

Since the day of that clipper from Denham,

How many good men have departed,

When to Willesden we ran in the hour,

And Harrow Boy first was uncarted.

Not unknown where the doubles of Blackmore
Lay many a steed on his back;

He had followed Jack Russell from Catstock,
With Poltimore's wonderful pack.