"Pooh, pooh-folly, Jem; all folly. I suppose property must be protected. I suppose you won't deny that, eh?" asked Capstick. "I deny nothing," answered Jem hopelessly; and then he groaned "God help us! Why didn't he die in the frost and snow? Why did Î warm him, when a babby, at my own fire, only to help to hang him arterwards ?" 66 Hang him! Nonsense! I tell you, Jem, you 're a foolan old, butter-hearted fool-and you know nothing here have you lived all your life with the worst of people about you-not but what folks at the very best are great rascals, every one of 'embut here have you been up to your ears in villany—and yet you look upon everybody about you as innocent as shepherds and shepherdesses in white china. I'm ashamed of you, Jem; be a man, and think of the world as its rascality deserves. For Lord! what a lump of roguery it is! How that the blessed sun should ever condescend to smile upon such a lot of wretches as we are, I can't tell." "No more can I," answered Jem: "but since the sun, as you say, does condescend to show a good face to us, I think it's as little as we can do to try to do the same to one another.” Capstick, taken somewhat aback, looked suddenly round upon Jem; and then, feeling himself wholly unable to controvert this opinion, he simply said, "Jem, you 're a fool." 66 A week passed on, and the trial of St. Giles approached. It was strange to Mr. Capstick that so many of his customers would ask him about his health. Why, what can ail the people ?" he would say. "I was never better-never in all my life. I eat like a pig, and sleep like a dormouse: can any man do better than that?" But Mr. Capstick was not well. The biped pig made poor meals; the human dormouse had restless nights: and when dreaming, dreamt horrid visions of death and Newgate. It wanted some ten days of the trial, when Bright Jem presented himself at Capstick's house. "You see, said Jem, 66 they 're getting some money in the Lane so that they may have a lawyer for poor St. Giles. Well, they 're a bad lot, I daresay: but you should only know what some of the poor souls have done.' "And what have they done?" asked Capstick, with what he meant for a sneer. 66 Why, some as had two blankets have sold one on 'em; some with two gowns have pawned one o' them. It would make you bless yourself, Mr. Capstick, to see besides what things they've made twopences and threepences of-kettles, sarcepans, anything. It's wonderful to see how they do stick by one another. "Crime, Mr. Aniseed, crime is a brazen cord-and certainly does hold rogues together," said Capstick. "You may say what you like," said Jem, "but whenever I've looked up that horrid Lane, and seen men and women like devils, and children-poor creturs,-like devil's little ones,-I never could have thought that in that dismal place there was after all a sort of good, that the very best of us wouldn't be any worse for more of it. "Very like; very like," said Capstick. "And I am to understand, that the people want to fee a lawyer?" "That's it," replied Jem. "There's a Mr. Tangle, somewhere in Clifford's Inn; he's a sharp un: they say he 'd get a chap out o' Newgate; get him out through a flaw no bigger than a keyhole. Well, I've been thinking not that I can do much-but I've been thinking that as we helped to get the boy into Newgate, if we was to give what money we could to help to get him out." "And so defeat the ends of justice?" cried Capstick, and he frowned severely. 66 "Oh, I daresay it's wrong," said Jem; "nevertheless, if we could only get the boy safe off, he might be a good un after all. Didn't you hear how he cried? Oh, there's heart in him yet, I'm sure there is. Well then, you see—” "I see perfectly," said Capstick, "you've come to ask me to subscribe to the fund for the lawyer? 66 Well, that's just it," assented Jem. "Forgetful of my serious responsibility as a witness-forgetful of the ends of justice-forgetful of what I owe to society— forgetful-" "Forgetful," cried Jem with animation, "of everything except of saving a child from the gallows." "Mr. Aniseed," said Capstick very decidedly, "I am sorry to refuse you anything, but you must not let your feelings blind you you mean well, but you have yet to learn that the best meaning men are those who so often do the most mischief. In a word, sir, I can have nothing to say to this business." Bright Jem made no answer, but with a moody nod, was about to leave the shop, when the muffin-maker called to him. "I think you said this attorney's name was Wrangle?" "Tangle," said Jem, shortly. 66 66 'Tangle, Lyon's Inn," said Capstick. Clifford's-Inn," cried Jem, a little sulkily, and then he darted from the shop. It is most true that Mr. Tangle deserved the high reputation bestowed upon him by Jem. His office in Clifford's-Inn was looked upon as a private way out from Newgate. Many and many a time, when the fatal halter seemed inevitable, has he, by some deft device, turned the running into a slip-knot, and the hangman has been defrauded by the quibbler. Many a gentleman had Mr. Tangle restored to the road, none at all the worse for Newgate. Many a highwayman, on his solitary midnight watch, might think with gratitude of the master-spirit of Clifford's Inn. It was the evening of the day on which Bright Jem solicited Capstick, and Mr. Tangle sat in the solitude of his chambers. He was sunk in profound study; possibly, pondering how to find or make a flaw: how to give to the line of right a zig-zag, profitable bend, for some consulting client shut in Newgate stones. His clerk was out therefore, his knocker being struck, he rose himself and opened the door. A tall, bulky man, wrapped in a greatcoat, a hat slouched over his face, tied by a handkerchief that almost wholly covered his features, stalked into the room. Mr. Tangle was not at all surprised: not at all. So many odd people -so strangely appointed-every sessions called upon him. 66 'You are Mr. Tangle," said a voice that most assuredly belonged to Capstick, the muffin-maker. Mr. Tangle bowed. "You are interested in the case of a boy, one St. Giles?" "A "I have been consulted," said Tangle in his dry way. bad case; confessedly, a bad case; still, something may be done. You know till a man's hanged there's always hope; that is, if there's always "Money." Mr. Tangle smiled and nodded. Mr. Capstick took a small leathern bag from his pocket, from which he counted out ten guineas. "I am not a rich man, Mr. Tangle," said Capstick. 66 "I am sorry for it," said Tangle (and evidently with a feeling of sincerity); otherwise the ten might have been fifty. 66 But do what you can for that wretched boy-only save him from hanging, and there 's twenty more. "Thirty pounds," said Tangle; "it's doing to be done at all-very cheap; too cheap. you 're not a rich man, I'll not refuse money. it-if indeed it 's Nevertheless, as What name?" "Never mind that," said Capstick. "I think I've given you enough to show that I'm in earnest. Now, only save the child, and as God's in heaven you shall have the other twenty." "We'll see what can be done," said Tangle, showing Capstick to the door" I have hopes; great hopes.' . And the trial came on, and St. Giles and Thomas Blast were arraigned for stealing a pony of the value of fifty pounds, the property of the Marquess of St. James. Nothing could be clearer than the evidence against the boy, as delivered by young St. James, Mrs. Simmer, and her servant. But legal proof was wanting against Blast. True, he had been seen talking to St. Giles, as the boy led the pony; but nothing more. There was no doubt that the man who had taken the animal from St. Giles in Long Lane was an accomplice of Blast's, but he was not to be found-there was no proof. Whereupon, Thomas Blast was acquitted; and young St. Giles found "Guilty,-Death." SONNET ON THE DEATH OF LAMAN BLANCHARD. GENTLE and kind of heart-of spirit fine; Who smiled the while he taught, and on the page Mourn a true worshipper; his lyric strain, With each recurring month shall read, and still H. G A. 312 TRUTH IN A VISION. In the afternoon of an early spring-day, a traveller stood on the side of a hill, and looked down into a valley. The day had been fitful, and frequently overcast with clouds; though, sometimes, gleams of splendour had burst forth, revealing prospects of unexpected beauty, and changing the dull, lonely cottages on the sides of the moorland hills, into sunny homes--fit places for angels to visit. But our traveller was weary; for he had wandered afoot many miles over lonely moors, which depend far more than well-cultivated fields on the sunshine for every aspect of cheerfulness that visits them. But are not all the smiles thrown from the loveliest spots on the earth's varied face, humble expressions of praise to the all-beautifying and glorifying sun? What on earth can be beautiful except as the reflection of the heavens ? The life above hallows and illumines the life below, even as the sky colours the face of the sea. But the hues of the dark-brown moors had overshadowed the thoughts of our traveller. The earth had seemed to him, during the day, heaven-forsaken; and he had gazed with melancholy upon the lone cottages here and there sprinkled among scanty patches of green, regarding them as the abodes of victims doomed for ever to solitude, penury, toil, and all the aching ills of life. This gloomy impression was deepened and darkened as he looked down into the valley inhabited by miners and their families, who found subsistence by arduous and hazardous employment in bringing to light the ore hidden beneath the moorland hills. The dulness and toilsomeness of life, bereft of all the charms which religion, poetry, and imagination can throw over it, oppressed the wanderer's mind: his heart beat less courageously in his bosom; fears of the future grew upon him, and he felt weary of his own destiny. -How this train of feelings had come upon him he could hardly tell; but, when once indulged, it was hard to be cast aside. Thought he |