The trouble was a lion, and Miss Martha was but a mouse, but a mouse who never left off gnawing at the nets and the chains. On the present occasion Miss Martha was thinking about Paul. She could not tell why, but she had thought a great deal about the young man lately. For the past few days he had scarcely for a moment been absent from her mind. She had dreamed about him every night, and she had talked about little else every day. This was the more remarkable, as a new event ought to have sent all her ideas in the direction of Camlough. Miss Martha was fully aware of the important step that was taken when an attractive young girl like May was sent to establish a friendly footing in a house like that of the Archbolds, where she should be admired, and coveted, and taught the ways of the world. Miss Martha's pride on this point knew no bounds. A stray duke might find his way to Camlough, and might want to place his coronet on May's simple brow. Well, and was it for her own desolation upon the consummation of such an event that Miss Martha could fret over her knitting? Was it for her own sake that she cherished so fierce an enmity towards that imaginary duke? No; there was nothing about that. It was Paul who would be defrauded, Paul who would be wronged. Miss Martha, I have hinted, was a faithful soul, and she had accepted Paul Finiston as the son of her heart. Whilst his mother had lived he had been nothing to her, but his mother I was dead, and he was second with her now; and Miss Martha's second was far better than very many people's first. It was an object of her life to bring him home from his wandering to pet him, to worship him, to watch over his interests, and constrain fortune, if it might be, to relinquish her old grudge against his family, and to shower favours for the future upon this innocent head. And in order that her heart might not be divided, she would make her first and her second into one precious whole, so that one could not hurt the other, whilst she herself must be just to both. Thus best would she pay her debt to the dead Elizabeth. Yet here, and amid these day-dreams, was May, with all her sweetness, whirled away into the chances of the world, and Paul beyond seas, and that imaginary duke coming post-haste to Camlough. So Miss Martha might have guessed very well how for the past few days she had been thinking so incessantly of Paul. Now, when she was alone, she

drew his last letter from the pocket of her apron, and spread it upon her knees, and read it many times. There was not one word in the whole about coming home.

In the mean time May had passed over the rim of the Golden Mountain, and forgotten her own identity in marvelling at the beauty of the world. This midsummer eve seemed like to be the first of a new era in her life. The oxen planted their feet on the steep pavement, the carriage slid slowly from brae to brae, and from hillock to hillock, moors, fens, and lakes shimmered and burned in the sun, and shifted with a magical intermingling of lines and hues, floating off in flecks of blue and silver, and amethyst and amber, to become mere pencillings of tinted glory in the distance. In the midst of all this flush of nature on went May like a queen of summer upon a royal progress, with golden weeds brushing her cheeks, and crimson berries dropping ripe into her hands. Till the castle appeared in sight, and then a little accident occurred.

A shrill wailing sound had been for some minutes coming from a distance towards the carriage.

Accustomed to the strange cries of birds and shepherds, May did not mind it; neither did the coachman nor the drivers of the oxen. At last it arose out of a bush above their heads.

Aye-aye-aye-aye-aye!"

This was a human voice, and, moreover, there was a white pocket-handkerchief waving madly from the point of a very long umbrella. Yet no human being was to be seen.

"It's a banshee !" murmured one of the men who led the oxen. "Go on, ye baste!" he said, whacking the animals in trepidation.

"Ye idiot! don't ye see it's a lady in disthress!" thundered down one of the coachmen from his perch upon the box.

A figure had appeared upon the bank above, looming largely against the sky. It was dressed in a long dark gown, a scarlet shawl, and a white kerchief over the head and under the chin. The face was long and fat, and suffering from recent sunburn. The arms were waved with tragic appeal towards the travellers.

"It's Mrs. Lee, a lady from the castle, miss," said the coachman, touching his hat to May. "It's likely she wants a sate in the carriage. Lost herself, I suppose, she has. Ye've no objections, miss? Yes, ma'am, comin', ma'am. Lane on me,

ma'am! Oh, begorra, you'll have to come an' help us, Darby! Press yer weight betune the two of uz, ma'am ! it'll balance betther. Now, slither down, ma'am, and ye'll come safe to the botthom!" And the tall, stout lady was fairly dragged down the sandstone cliff, and deposited panting on the road.

She looked helpless, travel-soiled, and weary. Tears and dust were mingled in her eyes.

"My dear ma'am," she said piteously to May, "I beg your pardon, but I am obliged

to intrude."

"Not at all," said May. glad of a companion."

"I shall be

66 Thank you, thank you, thank you!" gasped Mrs. Lee all round, as the men once more put their hands under her elbows and hoisted her respectfully into the carriage.

"A-a-ah!" she groaned, sinking back into the seat, and sitting upon May, and unfurling a large umbrella against the sun. "My dear ma'am, I am exceedingly obliged to you. We cannot be introduced till we get to the castle. You are particular in these countries, and that is quite proper. But in the mean time might we not have a little conversation ?"

I should be very glad of it," said May. "A-ah!" groaned Mrs. Lee again. "If you had been lost on the hills ever since breakfast time this morning you would not be a very entertaining companion. You would be hungry and tired, and in bad humour, like me."

Mrs. Lee's long, smooth face was chiefly expressive of softness and feebleness. She had great brown eyes, full of meek and irritating patience. She had a complaining voice, and her words fell out of her mouth as if the wires that managed her speaking were out of order. She had come from America, but it was not very clear to what country she belonged. She had not the smartness of an American, nor the elegance of an Englishwoman, nor yet the liveliness and humour of an Irishwoman. She was not exactly coarse or vulgar, but she was heavy and unrefined. Her accent was of no nation, and her manners were peculiarly her own. She had been heard to address Sir John as" My dear ma'am." It seemed odd that this lady should be a guest at Camlough, but she was Christopher's mother, and this was Katherine's doing.

May was naturally wondering what could have brought this good lady so high up on the hills, alone and without her

bonnet. Her figure did not seem suited to climbing or jumping, yet to enjoy solitude on the braes of Camlough climbing and jumping were indispensable accomplishments.

"You will be quite surprised at finding me here," said Mrs. Lee, answering her thought. "But, my dear ma'am, a troubled mind will not let a person rest. It walks one about. It gets one into scrapes. What I would give for leave to sit and rest myself a whole long day, my dear ma'am-I could not describe it to you!"

May murmured something to the effect that she was sorry to learn that Mrs. Lee was troubled in her mind.

"My dear ma'am," said Mrs. Lee, "troubled is no word for it. Tortured is a more natural expression."

This was said with such earnestness, and with such a face of distress, that May became sympathising, and looked so.

And

"A-ah! Tortured is the word. there has been no one to confide in here. The truth is, I am afraid of her ladyship. And besides, how could I speak to her on such a subject? I have already appealed to the girl herself, but she is as hard as flint, and as wicked as a witch. And Christopher is mad and blind. My dear ma'am, my son is being ruined before my eyes."

May at this point got a lively fear that the lady beside her was a little more than troubled in her mind. A marriage with the beautiful and wealthy Katherine seemed the strangest disguise in which ruin could attack a young man.

66

I hope you are mistaken," she said. "Well, well! This is no place for entering into particulars," Mrs. Lee said, waving her umbrella towards the coachman. "Another time I will pour out my troubles to you."

Here the carriage swept round before the castle entrance, and May had hardly time to protest that she was the very worst person in the world for a confidante. Figures were scattered on the lawn, watching for the travellers. Sir John welcomed May very kindly as his special guest; Lady Archbold gave her the outside of her cheek and the tips of her fingers, and Katherine embraced her. The greetings were made in the midst of laughter. Scouts had been sent to the hills in search of Mrs. Lec.

"Go away, young man," said that lady to the footman, "I will have my own son to help me out."

Christopher stepped forth with a good enough grace, blushing, smiling, and knit

HOW AN EARL WAS HANGED.

Is the year 1758 the tongues of Leicestershire gossips were busy with the wild doings and extraordinary behaviour of Laurence Shirley, the fourth Earl Ferrers, who lived at Staunton-Harold, near Ashbyde-la-Zouch, on the Staffordshire borders of Leicestershire.

The house of Ferrers boasted the bluest blood in Leicestershire, however much it had corrupted in the person of the turbulent and savage-tempered master of Staunton. The family, sprung from the royal Plantagenets, had fought and governed in England for generations. One sturdy ancestor, struck down beside the king's standard at the great battle of Shrewsbury, in the early part of the reign of Henry the Fourth, has been immortalised by Shakespeare. The second baronet of the family, Sir Henry Shirley, married one of the daughters of the last favourite of Elizabeth, the Earl of Essex. The son of Henry, Sir Robert Shirley, was kept close in the Tower by Cromwell for his obstinate adherence to the cause of Charles the First. Sir Robert's second son was summoned to parliament by Charles the Second, in reward for his father's loyalty, by the title of Lord Ferrers, of Chartley, as the descendant of one of the coheiresses of Robert, Earl of Essex, the title having been in abeyance since the head of Essex fell on the Tower Hill scaffold, and the precedency having been suspended since the reign of Edward the First. In 1711, Queen Anne created Robert Lord Ferrers, Viscount Tamworth, and Earl Ferrers. This nobleman had ruled over vast domains, but they were much reduced by being sub

divided between his fifteen sons and twelve daughters, the abundant progeny of two wives. The first earl's titles fell to his second son, but he dying without issue, they passed to the next surviving brother, the ninth son, and he never marrying, they came eventually to the tenth son, the father of the unfortunate earl who ended his misspent life at Tyburn.

This unhappy nobleman-a man of violent passions-had a clear intellect and acknowledged abilities, when his brain was not sodden with wine and brandy. Then he became a madman, whom wealth and power only rendered more dangerous. In 1752 he married Mary, the daughter of Amos Melville, Esquire. (This lady afterwards married a brother of the Duke of Argyll.) Towards his wife the earl behaved with insane barbarity. A single instance of his groundless cruelty and ferocity will suffice. Lord Ferrers's brother and his wife were paying a visit at Staunton-Harold, and some dispute arose between the two gentlemen. One day, the countess being absent from the room, the earl rushed up-stairs with a large clasp-knife in his hand, and asked a servant whom he met where his lady was. The man replied, "In her own room,' upon which Lord Ferrers ordered him to load a brace of pistols and follow him. The man obeyed the order, but, apprehensive of mischief, put no priming to the pistols. Lord Ferrers discovering this, swore at him, and taking the powder primed the pistols himself. He then threatened that if the man did not immediately go and shoot his brother, the captain, he would blow his brains out. The servant naturally hesitating to obey this order, the earl pulled the trigger of one of the pistols, but luckily it missed fire. The countess, coming in at this juncture, threw herself on her knees, and begged him to restrain his passion. The earl, brandishing the other pistol, sullenly swore at her, and threatened to blow her brains out if she continued to vex and thwart him. The servant, taking advantage of this lull to escape from the room, and running pale and scared to the captain's bedroom, reported to him all that had passed. Upon which the captain very wisely made his wife get up and dress herself, and they both left the house instantly, though it was then only two o'clock in the morning.

On all occasions when annoyed the earl flew into tremendous rages with his servants, and cuffed and beat them as if they had been slaves or convicts. On one oc

casion, some oysters sent from London arriving tainted, the earl ordered one of his men to swear before the magistrates that the carrier had confessed to changing the barrels. The servant respectfully declining to take any such oath, the earl burst into one of his whirlwinds of passion, flew at the man, stabbed him in the breast with a knife, cut his head with a silver candlestick, and kicked him so terribly that he suffered for several years afterwards.

In 1756, the earl's temper was again at blood heat. At the Derby races he cruelly ran a mare (then in foal) against the horse of a Captain M. for fifty pounds, and won. In the evening over the wine, the captain, laughing about the earl's mare, offered to run his horse against her again at the end of seven months. Lord Ferrers, enraged at what his wild temper at once suspected to be a prearranged insult, instantly, though it was three o'clock in the morning, left Derby, and posted to his seat at Staunton-Harold. The next morning, as soon as he awoke, he tore at his bedroom bell, and called for his groom. He asked how Captain M. came to be told that the mare that ran at Derby was in foal. The groom denied that he had ever told any one about the mare. The next day the earl waited in vain for the captain and the rest of his Derby friends, whom he had insulted, and who naturally refused to expose themselves to fresh annoyances. Lord Ferrers, enraged at finding that no one came, fell on his footmen, and, rushing among them furious as Herod among the innocents, kicked and horsewhipped them all round, and threw everything at them that he could lift.

The natural end of the earl's mad rages was the divorce sued for and obtained by his long-suffering wife in 1758. Horace Walpole, writing to his crony and gossip, Sir Horace Mann, then at Florence, dilates of course upon the earl's divorce, and mentions some particulars of the earl's extraordinary conduct on the occasion, when he dared not throw boot-jacks at the counsel, or decanters at the judges. He did not attend the trial, in fact, at all, but, probably to affect a contemptuous indifference, rode the same day to Hertford assizes, to prosecute Page, a well-known highwayman, who had recently robbed him.

The disgrace and vexation attending the divorce seem to have pushed the earl just that step further which tumbled him over the precipice of madness. His paroxysms of passion grew more frequent and still

more beyond his control. Whatever his fury suggested as such times, he at once endeavoured to effect. Taking lodgings at Muswell Hill, he one Sunday, in a momentary caprice, sent off a mounted messenger post-haste for a favourite mare which he had intrusted to the care of the landlord of a neighbouring inn. The messenger found the family absent; and, moreover, as the boy who kept the keys was also at church, the stable where the mare was could not be entered. On hearing this, the earl blazed up into madness, snatched up a swordstick, and, arming two of his servants with guns and sledge-hammers, hurried away to the inn. There meeting the landlord, the earl wounded him with his sword-cane, knocked down the frightened landlady, broke down the stable-doors, and carried off the mare in maniacal triumph. Yet in this same inn the earl frequently lodged, revelling with the village topers, alternately threatening and treating them; drinking scalding coffee out of the spout of a coffee-pot; breaking rows of glasses, and often threatening to smash the landlord's bureau and throttle the landlady. In calmer moments he was despondent, lamented his fits of rage, and begged people not to be offended with his ways.

In 1760, the trustees under the act of separation proposed Mr. Johnson, the earl's steward, as the receiver of rents for the countess's use. This Mr. Johnson had been bred up in the family from his youth, and was distinguished for his regularity in accounts, for his general respectability and tried fidelity. With an instinctive presentiment of evil, Johnson at first declined the trust, till specially urged to take it by his master, for at this time Johnson stood very high in the earl's opinion. They soon, however, became the deadliest of enemies, for Johnson refusing to in any way falsify the accounts, the earl swore at him for having been a witness for the countess at the trial for divorce, and for having lent his unhappy wife in her need fifty pounds.

The earl soon began to accuse Johnson of treachery, especially of having combined with the trustees to disappoint him of a contract for certain coal mines; he also attempted with might and main to turn him out of an advantageous farm, half a mile from Staunton - Harold, which he held under his lordship, but the trustees renewing the lease, the earl was baffled. This repulse raised the madman's passions to the last degree. Fired with drink, he now bent himself to murder. With all the

canning of insanity the earl behaved to the faithful steward with great affability, and transacted business with him without reproaches or angry remonstrances. The family at Staunton-Harold, during this fatal lull, consisted of Mrs. Clifford, the earl's mistress, her four daughters, three men-servants, an old man, a boy, and three maids. On Sunday, January the 13th, 1760, the earl rode up quietly to the door of Johnson, who lived about half a mile from the hall, and, with his usual brusque voice and manner, desired him to come to Staunton between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the following Friday. On the day named, just after the two o'clock dinner of the family, Lord Ferrers went into the still-house, a semi-detached building, where Mrs. Clifford and the children lodged, and sent her for a walk to her father's house, two miles off. He then sent all the men-servants away on some fool's errand or other. Mrs. Clifford and the children were not to return till halfpast five. He had a clear field in which to carry out his no doubt long-matured purpose. The three maids could not stay his arm, and would be too frightened even to spread an alarm in the outbuildings. At the appointed hour the unconscious steward arrived at the house prepared for his slaughter. Elizabeth Burgham, the maid, smilingly let him in, and showed him to the door of his lordship's room.

Lord Ferrers sullenly came to the door, and ordered the steward to go and wait in the still-house. In about ten minutes Lord Ferrers came out, called the steward into his room, and at once, to his surprise, locked the door, and took out the key. Hitherto Johnson had felt no alarm; but now he saw the earl's face darken, and his brow knit, as the earl turned on him angrily, ordering him at once to pay certain disputed sums, and, after curses and threats, producing a prepared paper, "a confession of villany," as he called it, which he insisted on Johnson then and there signing. The steward refused to sign any such document, and, half angry, half alarmed, expostulated and declared his innocence of any evil intention against his lordship. But the madness of revenge had entire rule now over that infirm and fierce nature. The earl, snatching a loaded pistol from the deep side-pocket of his square-cut laced coat, cocked it and presented it, shouting, "Kneel down."

The astonished man, afraid to refuse, knelt on one knee.

"Down on your other knee," roared the earl, so loud as to be heard in the kitchen. "Down, and declare what you have done against Lord Ferrers. Your time is come. You must die."

Then he fired. The pistol-ball entered the steward's body just under the last false rib, and penetrated the bowels. Johnson did not fall, but, pale and suffering, staggered to a seat, uttering groans and appeals for mercy. Lord Ferrers drew out a second loaded pistol, still shouting to the dying man to sign the paper, but did not fire again. In about twenty minutes or so he grew calm enough to unlock the door, go into the passage and call out, "Who is there ?" to the frightened women who had huddled together for safety in the wash-house. On the boldest and most compassionate of them coming to where the wounded man sat, pressing his side and groaning, he sent her at once for some one to help in getting the steward up-stairs to bed. Lord Ferrers, who, wonderful to relate, was perfectly sober, now despatched a mounted messenger for Mr. Kirkland, a surgeon of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, two miles distant, and then went himself up to the wounded man, whom the maid was tending, and asked him how he found himself. The steward faintly replied that he was dying, and begged his murderer to send for his children. Lord Ferrers at once sent for the steward's daughter. On her arrival Lord Ferrers sent one of the maids up with her to her father's room, and soon after followed himself, in great perturbation, being now fully conscious of the danger. Johnson being nearly insensible, Lord Ferrers pulled down the clothes and sponged the orifice of the wound with arquebusade water. Then he went down-stairs, and drank himself drunk with great draughts of beer. The messenger soon after returned with the surgeon, to whom Lord Ferrers frankly confessed his violence, but said he thought Johnson was more frightened than hurt.

"I intended," he said, "to have shot him dead, for he was a villain, and deserved to die; but now I have spared his life, I desire you to do what you can for him."

He also declared that no one should lay hands on him, and that he would shoot dead whoever attempted it. Mr. Kirkland, knowing the man's fiery temper, and seeing that he was partly drunk, assured him that there was no danger, and that no violence would be offered him. On the surgeon probing the wound, Lord Ferrersproduced the pistol, described the direc