the strain of which upon the brain was agony even more profound than the most cruel suffering of the body. And then he began to think of green fields, and the haymaking time, and of the men whetting their scythes, and of the sheep calling to their lambs in the swelling breasts of the Downs. Then his senses came to him for a moment, and he knew that he was mad as he lay there, wounded, dying, bleating like a lamb that has been shut out from the sheep-fold. CHAPTER I. The crags repeat the raven's croak In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud, I have said that the Rev. Owen Gwyar gathered up the reins into his hand, and drove on; but I should more correctly have said that he would have driven on, had his pony consented. The pony, having found some succulent shrub growing in the loose stone wall which bounded the road, was not inclined to leave it at present. A whisk of the tail, a toss of the head, a sidelong movement into the ditch, were all the results of Owen's manipulations with whip and reins. 6 The three most particular curses a man can be afflicted with,' said Owen-'a jibbing horse, a scolding wife, and a bucket that's never filled. Well, I'm not the most unfortunate man in the world, for I never was married. If I can shame her into moving on, perhaps?' Owen threw the reins on to the splash-board, put his hands into his pockets, and began to whistle. There!' he said to himself; 'we will see which will be tired first.' After a time, however, this inaction became irksome, and Owen was again preparing for active measures against the pony, when he heard once more the dull croak of the raven. 'Deed,' said Owen, I'll go and look for that sheep. If I find it, and bring it home, Robert Evans of Esgair will give me half of it for my trouble; and I will have it stewed, and I will eat, and forget all my miseries. In the meantime, the pony will be tired of standing, and be ready to go on when I come back.' He jumped out of the dog-cart, and made his way across the country, by a track he well knew, to the mouldering walls of the old Roman station of Mediodunum. Even now, though the wintry rays of the sun gave small heat to the frosty air, yet the atmosphere about the ruined town felt warm and inviting. The ground on which it stood sloped down towards the south, and it was encompassed on two sides by the brawling river, whose high banks and rocky, foaming bed afforded ample security against surprise in that quarter. Nature and art combined had scarped the sides of the plateau farthest from the stream; and the narrow neck which united it with higher hills behind was fortified with a treble series of mounds and ditches. Seated on the topmost stone of what had once been the Prætorian gate sat the old raven, Bannoch, regarding the approaching figure suspiciously with his bright, lucent eyes. He rose slowly into the air as Owen approached, circled round the ruins once or twice, and then settled himself deliberately on a farther heap of stones, which lay wide of the station, just under the detached mass of rock known as the Craigddu. Ah, that's where she is, then, the dying sheep,' cried Owen; she has tumbled off Craigddu, and has broken her leg.' But there was no dying sheep lying under Craigddu. Owen began to swear in Welsh. Diaoul! Am I to have all my trouble without recompense, you miserable deceiver? Couldn't you be satisfied to sup on nothing yourself, without asking me to the feast, you old sinner! Diaoul! If I hadn't the rheumatism in my right arm, I'd break your leg with a stone, you brute! B-a-a-a, b-a-a-a, b-a-a-a!' shouted Owen in derision to the raven. 'No cold mutton for supper, eh? B-a-a-a, b-a-a-a!' 'M-a-a-a, m-a-a-a!'-just like the whisper of the ghost of a lamb-Owen heard faintly from the direction of the Craigddu. The Lord have mercy upon me! He has taught the raven to bleat, just as He taught Balaam's ass to speak, to reprove me for my sins, miserable, unworthy priest that I am!' Owen really was frightened and perplexed, and for the moment imagined himself the object of some special interposition of Providence; but the raven, alarmed at Owen's gestures, rose once more on the wing, and flapped away towards the hills; whilst again from the Craigddu, this time more distinctly, resounded the cry: M-a-a-a, m-a-a-a!' "There's a sheep there, after all,' said Owen, making his way to the place. 6 The Craigddu was a huge granitic boulder which lay upon a mass of gravel and detritus, the moraine, perhaps, of some antediluvian glacier; a smaller rock reclined against it, and the interstices of the rock were filled up by smaller fragments of stone and rubbish from the river-floods. There was no living thing lying by the Craigddu. Owen looked round in amazement, and again heard a bleat, this time much more distinctly, as though from the very rock under his feet. 'It's the Tylwyth Teg,' said Owen, falling on his knees. He knew a little prayer his grandfather had taught him; it wasn't to be found in the Prayer-book, which contains, indeed, no prayer against fairies and warlocks, but it was a prayer to the Virgin, a rhyming Welsh distich, tlie monks of Caerhun had taught the people ages ago. ‘M-a-a, m-a-a!' again sounded from under his feet. 'B-a-a-a! b-a-a!' roared Owen back again. 'I may as well speak them fair,' he whispered to himself; 'and, indeed, it isn't civil not to speak when you're spoken to.' 'M-e-e-a-a, m-e-e-a-a!'-this time with an altered inflection and more plaintive cadence. 'I'm done now,' thought Owen; 'I've got to the end of my vocabulary. Name o' goodness! however shall I deal with them? Let me see, how will I begin? Ahem!' he coughed in an apologetic and preliminary way. shot. Halloo!' sounded just below him like a pistol Owen looked for a hole to hide himself in, a bit of rock or a stone to cover him; every moment he expected to see filing forth from the ground the mystic battalions of the Tylwyth Teg; and woe to him who saw that sight! For, indeed, a man inherits his fantasies and superstitions, and can no more shake them off at the bidding of reason, than he can change the set and bias of his character by mere * The beautiful family-the fairies. internal resolutions. So, though Owen was conscious he was making a fool of himself, he was completely overpowered by superstitious terror, and tried to hide himself behind the Craigddu. Between the great crag and the smaller rock which leaned against it, the earth had given way, and exposed a sunken chasm; and when Owen, in his fright, ran round the rock, intending to hide in the niche between the two, the ground gave way still more, and he half-slipped and half-fell into a dark and gloomy cavern, which had existed, undiscovered, for centuries below the Craigddu. 'They've got me now,' said Owen. What will they do with me? Keep me underground till the day of judgment, marry me to the queen of the fairies, perhaps! Name o' goodness, I'll bear it all!' The cavern, though dark, was clean and dry; its roof was formed by the sloping edges of the rocks above; its flooring was of fine river-gravel. As Owen's eyes became accustomed to the light, he saw a figure lying in the corner-a figure, as it seemed to him, of portentous size. Anwyl dad! I thought they were little bits of things; they must have grown since the days of my grandfather. Drwg yn fechan, gwaeth yn faur' muttered Owen. 'Water, water! drink, drink!' said a hoarse voice from the corner; and then Owen found that there was no fairy there, but a man who lay in the corner groaning. TINTAGEL. PERCHED on this living granite, rest, To watch day's life-blood stain the seaThe sea that, rolling from the west, Roars here eternally. List how the weed-fringed, dripping walls Before, a waste; behind us, rise Tintagel's time-worn vaults and aisles; O'er Arthur's buried grandeur sighs The breeze that haunts these piles. What mem'ries from dim ages roll! If, flying busy days, the mind Love musing on these lonely heights, O'er those the ruins once enshrined, King Arthur and his knights! Leagues, leagues below that dark sea-line, Sleeps wondrous Lyonness, whence came The Brave and Fair, song-wreaths to twine Round Arthur's crescent fame. The mystic arm, the sacred brand, We may not in Garde Joyeuse hold High revelry; but with the sound Of those wild waters upward rolled, We view the Table Round; And from these crumbling walls the spell Is lifted. Lo! the Blameless King Sits with his peers. What tongue can tell The thoughts their faces bring? Sir Lancelot, knighthood's flower; Gawain, The tried, the trusty; Guinevere, Love's Rose, with Merlin in her train, And swan-white dames are here. An instant Fancy can delude Her vot'ry with that splendid past; But soon dies out her airy brood, Alas, too bright to last! Yet something lingers in the mind, A fragrance from these visions old; Types in their sapless forms we find By which ourselves to mould. Hence valour, simple faith, emprise, That daunted from no foe will turn, Love strong as death, the truth that lies In noble life, we learn. We tarry while the gorgeous dream Fades from these far-famed darkling knolls, Thrice happy if the heroic gleam Irradiate our souls If precious seed we bear away For future fruit from these gray walls, Where Eld and Silence shall hold sway Till earth in ruin falls. But see there homeward flies the chough, The Publishers of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL beg to direct the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice: 1st. All communications should be addressed to the 'Editor, 47 Paternoster Row, London.' 2d. To insure the return of papers that may prove ineligible, postage-stamps should in every case accompany them. 3d. All MSS. should bear the author's full CHRISTIAN name, surname, and address, legibly written. 4th. MSS. should be written on one side of the leaf only. Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the Editor cannot undertake to return rejected papers. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Pater noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH Also sold by all Booksellers. CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 453. POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1872. EXPERIENCES MATRIMONIAL. In the earlier years of my clerical life, it was my fortune to hold a curacy in one of the ancient metropolitan parishes. The church was in point of architectural beauty by no means what it might have been, although efforts towards its improvement had been made when I first entered on my duties. Yet, unprepossessing as was the appearance of the building, it seemed to exercise an almost magnetic power of attraction upon persons about to marry; and to such an extent was this the case, that when I left the parish, I had myself married one couple for every day of the period during which I had held the curacy. Seldom did an evening pass without a ring at the bell of my lodgings about nine or ten o'clock, and the entry of a peculiarly folded paper with ever the self-same contents: ‘REV. SIR—A wedding [two or three weddings, and now and then even six or seven] at ten o'clock to-morrow morning.-Your obedient servant, J. B. clerk,' He was a wonderful man, that same J. B. My vicar, who had not the best of health, though he did his part according to his ability, was a handsome man of some fifty-five years, and looked his profession; but J. B. on Sundays, as far as 'dress and deportment' went, with the neatest and stiffest of white cravats, and the glossiest of strictly clerical coats, and a look which seemed to say: 'Vicars and curates may be all very well in their way, but I know on whose shoulders the real responsibilities of the service rest,' fairly eclipsed us both. || He had seen, as he told me, four vicars 'out' he has since seen a fifth—and curates without number; his post was a lucrative one; and he was reported to have done well for himself in his business-that of an undertaker-so, perhaps, it was but natural that he should be tolerant of the vicar and condescending to the curate, as to 'men who come and men who go,' while clerks go on for ever. PRICE 1d. than to hear; his voice was his weak point: the higher it was raised, the more reedy it grew, as I realised on my first Sunday afternoon, when, after the baptismal service was concluded-there were eight babies that day-he shocked my notions of propriety by thus addressing the assembled sponsors: Ladies as wishes to be churched, please to go up to the rails;' which the ladies accordingly did. We had morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays. On my first Wednesday, I well remember that the snow, or rather what had been the snow, was deep on the ground. I had put on my surplice, and was leaving the vestry, when J. B. stopped me: 'Better see if there's a congregation first, sir.' He entered the church, and in a minute or so returned: 'If you please, sir, there was only Captain M.; and he said as there was only him, he wouldn't trouble you; and he's gone, sir.' This, however, I ought to say, did not happen a second time: we always had a congregation, though it was often a very limited one. There was a special point, however, on which, I must own, J. B. deserved my gratitude. He had a son who wrote a large and very legible hand; this son was his father's amanuensis, and used to write the names in the 'Bans Book.' It was the custom for the congregation to sit down every Sunday morning after the second lesson, whilst I published from twenty to thirty pair from various parishes for the first, second, and third times of asking; and but for the exceeding legibility of the writing, should many a time have broken down. I learned then for the first time with what strange and complicated names it is possible for people to go through the world; nor was it easy to avoid at times saying spinster after a man's name, and bachelor after that of a woman. My predecessor in the curacy was very shortsighted, and I was told that, as a rule, it took him ten minutes or more to 'get through the bans.' And this brings me back to the marriages. They were of all degrees, high and low, rich and But, like the peacock, he was better to look at poor. One morning I found myself confronted by ten bridemaids; on another, the bridegroom confided to the clerk in the vestry after the ceremony, that it had not been his fortune to get much carriage-exercise in the course of his life, and that, as he had made up his mind to ride to his wedding, one of his friends had wheeled him to church in a wheelbarrow. Speaking generally, I must say that had the brides been as dense as the men, the requirements of the marriage service could in very few cases have been got through at all; the majority of my bridegrooms appeared to have not the slightest idea of what they had to say, or of what they ought to do. As a rule, they were also far more nervous than their fair partners, whose impatience with their stupidity became at times only too apparent. I used to wonder what would become of me on these occasions if J. B. were taken ill, or otherwise detained from his duties. man begin: 'I, Mary,' or whatever the name might be, to his partner's intense disgust. It will easily be seen that the great majority of our weddings were the reverse of aristocratic. To what class, however, to assign some of them would be difficult. An elderly gentleman, whose card announced him as an officer of rank in the army, called upon me one evening and produced a marriage license, saying that he wished to be married as early as possible on the following morning. Accordingly, he appeared with a rather over-dressed lady, some twenty-five years his junior, and, by way of witnesses, a stout elderly couple of the small-tradesman rank. All went well until the time came for signing the registers. I asked the usual questions, among them the profession of the father of each party; major-general was given and entered as the Imagine six couples with their attendant wit-quality, trade, or profession' of the bridegroom's nesses, bridemaids and groomsmen, for the most parent. Your father's profession, if you please?' I part utterly unknown to the clergyman-in our asked the lady. 'Gardener' was the reply. I own parish were over ten thousand people, and thought that her husband looked much perturbed, very many outsiders came to our church to be but I duly entered the item, and thought no more married-and ignorant as to what was required about it until the next day, when, to my surprise, of them as to position, answers, &c. The modus he again called at my lodgings, and after an operandi was as follows. After some minutes elaborate explanation as to the true position of his had been spent in arranging them in order, J. wife's father, which he represented to be that of a B. was seen to place in a Prayer-book with great private gentleman, earnestly requested me to alter care six slips of paper, each one with a number this entry in the register, adding, that he was and the names of one couple written on it. Slip willing to pay any fee for the same. I did not, I No. 1 represented the first couple on the left, need hardly say, take any fee; but I made the and so on. Carefully arranging once more the alteration with a note on the margin, to the effect twelve individuals in proper order, his gray head that it had been made by me on the representation appeared between those of each pair: 'You Thomas and at the request of the bridegroom. Jones? You Mary Smith?' &c. 'Yes.' 'Then you'll please not to move. Having ascertained that all were where they ought to be, he gave a sigh of relief, handed the book with the slips of paper to me, and the service commenced. I soon found that I must know that service by heart, for well-nigh my whole time and attention was taken up in conversational instruction, and in watching to see that no over-curious bridemaid surreptitiously, though unintentionally, usurped the place of a too retiring bride. Hardly ever, I fear, did I perform the service without grave infractions of the law which forbids the making unauthorised additions to the Prayerbook; seldom was I allowed to ask the first question: Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?' &c. without some interruption; for if the bridegroom were not exceedingly reticent, he was almost invariably over-eager, and before I had got through the first few words, would answer, often with a pull of the forelock: Yes, sir;' or, 'To be sure, sir-surely, I will so.' A request to wait until the question was completed had the effect, as a rule, of driving him to the opposite extreme, and making him most reluctant to answer I will' when the proper time came. The severest trial, however, was at the next point in the service, and it was always with a sense of relief that I passed beyond it. Now, will you say this after me,' I used to ask: ""I, John, take thee, Mary," &c. The hesitation was occasionally so long that the bride grew impatient, and asked angrily, sotto voce, 'Why don't you say it?' which generally brought about the desired result. Turning to the bride-Now, will you say this after me: "I, Mary, take thee, John," &c.; and hard though it be to believe, full often would the On another occasion, after the usual threecornered note the previous evening, I found waiting at the vestry a good-looking but somewhat horsey' young man, with a license in due form, but without his bride. 'Sorry to have brought you out, sir,' he said, 'but I have not been able to see the lady this morning; would this time tomorrow be convenient?' I thought it very strange, and so did J. B.; but I could only acquiesce; and on the next day he appeared, accompanied by a pretty but evidently much-alarmed young girl, and by an elderly man and woman. I did not at all like the business; but there was no choice in the matter; the license was there; and the marriage was performed. Some few days afterwards, J. B. said to me: 'I had a visitor this morning, sir. You remember that queer-looking affair last week? She was a daughter of Mr (naming a gentleman of position who lived near C.), and he was a groom, called himself a riding-master, at E.'s riding-school. Mr has just come from Scotland, and finds his daughter gone; he came to look at the register, and declared he would never see her again.' Only too many, I fear, of the weddings at C. would, if appearances are to be trusted, exemplify in their after-history the truth of the saying: Marry in haste and repent at leisure.' It was a constant source of wonder to me to see, as I did see, day after day, respectable young women, apparently of the better class of domestic servants, giving themselves for better for worse to men of seemingly all but the lowest type of intelligence. Many of these marriages were only too plainly matters less of choice than of necessity. Late on one Sunday evening, a tidy-looking girl came to my lodgings, and asked if she could be married at eight o'clock on Monday morning-the usual hour she knew was ten, but if I could come to the church at eight she would be very grateful. My Sunday work at C., just at that time especially, was no light matter. Sunday school at 8.45, weddings at 9.45, which were barely completed by eleven o'clock, the time for morning service: this lasted till nearly one. At three o'clock came the afternoon service, with a sermon, and perhaps fifteen infants to be baptised, and the necessary registering and churchings afterwards. Confirmation classes followed until six, when I had to take part in and to preach at the evening service to nearly eight hundred people. And not unfrequently I reached home at 7.30, only to find some one waiting for me with a request to visit at once a sick or dying person, or with a note from a medical man that a child was dangerously ill and should be baptised immediately. So that having weddings at ten the next morning, I was not overwilling to shorten my night's rest without some special reason. This reason I could not get from the girl for some time, but at last it came out. He has got the money for the fees, sir; and I know that if he has to keep it after eight to-morrow, he'll drink it!' And are you really,' I asked, 'going to tie yourself for life to such a man as that?' Yes; she was, she must, she said; and she did. I might write much upon the amusing scenes which the necessary registering of the wedded parties' names, &c. gave rise to. The brides, no longer the men, were the shy ones in the vestry. 'Write your name here, if you please.' 'Please, sir, I had rather not.' 'Can you not write? If you cannot, make your mark.' 'To be sure I can write, sir; and a deal better than him.-Can't I, John? Why, I've kept mother's accounts at the shop for 'Then write, there; and be quick, please.' 'I had much rather you did it for me, sir.' 'But I must not do it, unless you are unable to write.' 'Please, sir, I don't like.' 'Very well, then I can't give you any marriage-lines. This generally overcame the scruples, and the true reason for the delay came out. The bride did not know what name to write-her maiden name, or that of her husband, and was too shy to ask. more I tried; but he turned to his bride, and asked in a hopeless and injured voice: What does he mean?' She indignantly replied, with a forcible nudge of the elbow: 'Say it arter him, can't you.' Then I found that he was stone deaf, and that he could not read a word. We performed the service, and I hope duly, at last; but how we did it, Í will-adding only that he did not know the deaf and dumb alphabet-leave my readers, lay, and clerical especially, to conjecture. A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE. WHETHER or not Uncle Magus had piously invented the statement that Arthur had been asking for his wife, mattered nothing to Helen. The scene to which she had so lately been a witness, had placed her relations with him on an altogether different footing from that which they had occupied an hour ago. It was no longer a question as to whether he was cold or affectionate, indifferent or eager for reconciliation; the breach between them, though only one of them could see it, had already widened to an abyss. Though she had often accused him to herself of unfaithfulness, she had not in reality believed it; it was rather to excuse her own unwifely conduct towards him, and to keep warm her indignation against him, that she had pictured him in such dark colours and now that she had satisfied herself of his perfidy, it came upon her with the shock of a revelation. It had been bad enough-'intolerable,' she had called it in her own mind to imagine herself an injured wife, but to know that she was so-that was wormwood. Her whole being revolted against the insult that had been put upon her; wrath and shame consumed her. If she had heard her husband calling 'Helen, Helen!' ever so tenderly, she would but have scorned him for his hypocrisy; if he had met her with a smile of welcome, she would only have set it down, with Hamlet, that one may smile and smile, and be a villain.' But, as it happened, Arthur was just beginning a late lunch in the dining-room, and at this supreme moment (had he but known it to be so !) was dividing his mind upon the respective merits of cold beef and pigeon-pie. Shut fast in her own chamber, Helen recalled his looks, his acts, his motions, as she had seen them from her post of espial above the chalk-pit, and each of them was fuel to her rage. She had cast her bonnet and mantle on the ground, but even thus she felt oppressed and feverish; and though the sun was low and the wind keen, she flung wide the window, and sat beside it, gazing out Then there was the spelling of the names, at which, I must confess, I often had to guess, finding it impossible to obtain the necessary information from the fountain-head. A German, who spoke English but poorly, had been married to an English widow. She was forty-five, but far too retiring to answer questions put to her otherwise than through her newly acquired husband. Your father's name?' I asked the lady. Henri Gôhn,' answered he for her. 'Henry what?' said I. 'Gohnge,' said he, pronouncing the second 'g' soft. I was beat, for the bride was evidently an English-upon the river with heated eyes. How long she sat woman; so, after one or two additional attempts, I asked him to write the name down. He did so; and gave me a paper on which was inscribed 'Jones.' But my experiences' have already exceeded the originally intended limit. One more in conclusion. A solitary couple appeared at the usual hour one Tuesday morning; nor did I expect that all would go otherwise than smoothly, until I found that no response of any kind, either of word or look, came to my first question-Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?'-except a vacant stare: to the question repeated in a louder tone, 'I don't understand what ye mean.' Once there, she knew not, but through her passionate and vengeful thoughts stole at last a sense of shivering cold, which warned her she was committing a great imprudence. The mists were rising from the stream, and curling above the tree-tops, and the thunder of the lasher was dulled in passing through them. What cared she, however, for cold and mist, or, rather, was it not better that they should stream in upon her bare head and unprotected bosom thus-and thus-and enwrap her in a veritable shroud! But no; they should not do that; for if she should die, that jade the lock-keeper's daughter would wear in triumph, and without concealment, the prize that she had already won; her |