HARRINGTON.

CHAPTER I.

WHEN I was a little boy of about six years old, I was standing with a maid-servant in the balcony of one of the upper rooms of my father's house in London-it was the evening of the first day that I had ever been in London, and my senses had been excited, and almost exhausted, by the vast variety of objects that were new to me. It was dusk, and I was growing sleepy, but my attention was wakened by a fresh wonder. As I stood peeping between the bars of the balcony, I saw star after star of light appear in quick succession, at a certain height and distance, and in a regular line, approaching nearer and nearer. I twitched the skirt of my maid's gown repeatedly, but she was talking to some acquaintance at the window of a neighbouring house, and she did not attend to me. I pressed my forehead more closely against the bars of the balcony, and strained my eyes more eagerly towards the objects of my curiosity. Presently the figure of the lamp-lighter with his blazing torch in one hand, and his ladder in the other, became visible; and, with as much delight as philosopher ever enjoyed in discovering the cause of a

new and grand phenomenon, I watched his operations. I saw him fix and mount his ladder with his little black pot swinging from his arm, and his red smoking torch waving with astonishing velocity, as he ran up and down the ladder. Just when he reached the ground, being then 'within a few yards of our house, his torch flared on the face and figure of an old man with a long white beard and a dark visage, who, holding a great bag slung over one shoulder, walked slowly on, repeating in a low, abrupt, mysterious tone, the cry of "Old clothes! Old clothes! Old clothes!" I could not understand the words he said, but as he looked up at our balcony he saw me-smiled —and I remember thinking that he had a good-natured countenance. The maid nodded to him; he stood still, and at the same instant she seized upon me, exclaiming, "Time for you to come off to bed, master Harrington."

I resisted, and, clinging to the rails, began kicking and roaring.

"If you don't come quietly this minute, master Harrington," said she, "I'll call to Simon the Jew there," pointing to him, " and he shall come up and carry you away in his great bag."

The old man's eyes were upon me; and to my fancy the look of his eyes and his whole face had changed in an instant. I was struck with terrormy hands let go their grasp-and I suffered myself to be carried off as quietly as my maid could desire. She hurried and huddled me into bed, bid me go to sleep, and ran down stairs. To sleep I could not go, but full of fear and curiosity I lay, pondering on the thoughts of Simon the Jew and his bag, who had come to carry me away in the height of my joys. His face with the light of the torch upon it appeared

and vanished, and flitted before my eyes. The next morning, when daylight and courage returned, I asked my maid whether Simon the Jew was a good or a bad man? Observing the impression that had been made upon my mind, and foreseeing that the expedient, which she had thus found successful, might be advantageously repeated, she answered with oracular duplicity," Simon the Jew is a good man for naughty boys." The threat of " Simon the Jew” was for some time afterwards used upon every occasion to reduce me to passive obedience; and when by frequent repetition this threat had lost somewhat of its power, she proceeded to tell me, in a mysterious tone, stories of Jews who had been known to steal poor children for the purpose of killing, crucifying, and sacrificing them at their secret feasts and midnight abominations. The less I understood, the more I believed.

Above all others, there was one story-horrible! most horrible!—which she used to tell at midnight, about a Jew who lived in Paris in a dark alley, and who professed to sell pork pies; but it was found out at last that the pies were not pork-they were made of the flesh of little children. His wife used to stand at the door of her den to watch for little children, and, as they were passing, would tempt them in with cakes and sweetmeats. There was a trap-door in the cellar, and the children were dragged down; and -Oh! how my blood ran cold when we came to the terrible trap-door. Were there, I asked, such things in London now?

Oh, yes! In dark narrow lanes there were Jews now living, and watching always for such little children as me; I should take care they did not catch me, whenever I was walking in the streets; and

Fowler (that was my maid's name) added, " There was no knowing what they might do with me."

In our enlightened days, and in the present improved state of education, it may appear incredible that any nursery-maid could be so wicked as to relate, or any child of six years old so foolish as to credit, such tales; but I am speaking of what happened many years ago: nursery-maids and children, I believe, are very different now from what they were then ; and in further proof of the progress of human knowledge and reason, we may recollect that many of these very stories of the Jews, which we now hold too preposterous for the infant and the nursery-maid to credit, were some centuries ago universally believed by the English nation, and had furnished more than one of our kings with pretexts for extortion and

massacres.

But to proceed with my story. The impression made on my imagination by these horrible tales was greater than my nursery-maid intended. Charmed by the effect she had produced, she was next afraid that I should bring her into disgrace with my mother, and she extorted from me a solemn promise that I would never tell any body the secret she had communicated. From that moment I became her slave, and her victim. I shudder when I look back to all I suffered during the eighteen months I was under her tyranny. Every night, the moment she and the candle left the room, I lay in an indescribable agony of terror; my head under the bed-clothes, my drawn up, in a cold perspiration. I saw faces around me grinning, glaring, receding, advancing, all turning at last into one and the same face of the Jew with the long beard and the terrible eyes; and that bag, in which I fancied were mangled limbs of children

knees

-it opened to receive me, or fell upon my bed, and lay heavy on my breast, so that I could neither stir nor scream; in short, it was one continued nightmare; there was no refreshing sleep for me till the hour when the candle returned, and my tyrant-my protectress, as I thought her-came to bed. In due course she suffered in her turn; for I could not long endure this state, and, instead of submitting passively or lying speechless with terror, the moment she left the room at night I began to roar and scream till I brought my mother and half the house up to my bedside. "What could be the matter with the child?" Faithful to my promise, I never betrayed the secrets of my prison-house. Nothing could be learned from me but that " I was frightened," that " I could not go to sleep ;" and this, indeed, my trembling condition, and convulsed countenance, sufficiently proved. My mother, who was passionately fond of me, became alarmed for my health, and ordered that Fowler should stay in the room with me every night till I should be quite fast asleep.

So Fowler sat beside my bed every night, singing, caressing, cajoling, hushing, conjuring me to sleep : and when, in about an hour's time, she flattered herself that her conjurations had succeeded; when my relaxing muscles gave her hope that she might withdraw her arm unperceived; and when slowly and dexterously she had accomplished this, and, watching my eyelashes, and cautiously shading the candle with her hand, she had happily gained the door; some slipping of the lock, some creaking of the hinge, some parting sound startled me, and bounce I was upright in my bed, my eyes wide open, and my voice ready for a roar: so she was compelled instantly to return, to replace the candle full in my