and snow-storms, and revenuecruizers going down stern foremost, kegs of brandy and French prisons, which we shall not repeat; for indeed the public has been surfeited with sea stories of late, from Captain Chamier's dull ones up to the genial wisdom of Peter Simple, and the gorgeous word - painting of Tom Cringle's Log. And now the subject is stale-the old war and the wonders thereof have died away into the past, like the men who fought in it; and Trafalgar and the Bellerophon are replaced by Manchester and Mary Barton. We have solved the old sea-going problems, pretty well-thanks to wise English-hearted Captain Marryat, now gone to his rest, just when his work was done; and we must turn round and face a few land-going problems not quite so easy of solution. So Claude and I thought as we leant over the sloop's bows, listening neither to the Ostend story forewards nor to the forty - stanza ballad aft, which the old steersman was moaning on, careless of listeners, to keep himself awake at the helm. Forty stanzas or so we did count from curiosity. The first line of each of which ended infallibly with

Says the commodo-ore.

And the third with

Says the female smuggler. And then gave up in despair; and watched in a dreamy, tired, half-sad mood, the everlasting sparkle of the water as our bows threw it gently off in sheets of flame and tender curving lines of creamy' fire, that ran along the glassy surface, and seemed to awaken the sea for yards round into glittering life, as countless diamonds, and emeralds, and topazes, leaped and ran and dived round us, while we slipped slowly by-and then a speck of light would show far off in the blank darkness, and another, and another, and slide slowly up to us--shoals of medusæ, every one of them a heaving globe of flame-and some unseen guillemot would give a startled squeak, or a shearwater close above our heads suddenly stopped the yarn, and raised a titter among the men, by announcing in most articulate English his intention of invading the domestic happiness of his neighbour―

and then a fox's bark from the cliffs came wild and shrill, although so faint and distant; or the lazy gaff gave a sad uneasy creak.-And then a soft warm air, laden with heather honey, and fragrant odours of sedge, and birch, and oak, came sighing from the land.-And all around us was the dense blank blackness of the night, except where now and then some lonely gleam through the southern clouds showed the huge cliff tops on our right.-It was all most unearthly, dream-like, a strange phantasmagoria, like some scenes from The Ancient Mariner- all the world shut out, silent, invisible, and we floating along there alone, like a fairy ship creeping through Chaos and the unknown Limbo. Was it an evil thought that rose within us as we said to Claude,

Is not this too like life? Our only light the sparkles that rise up round us at every step, and die behind us; and all around, and all before, the great black unfathomable eternities? A few souls brought together as it were by chance, for a short friendship and mutual dependance in this little ship of earth, so soon to land her passengers and break up the company for ever?' He laughed.

There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's meaning, too. Your friends, the zoologists, have surely taught you better than that. As I read Nature's parable to-night, I find nothing in it but hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow. What if there seem a chaos, the great organic world is still living, and growing, and feeding, unseen by us, all the black night through; and every phosphoric atom there below is a sign that even in the darkest night there is still the power of light, ready to flash out, wherever and however it is stirred. Does the age seem to you dark? Do you, too, feel as I do at times, the awful sadness of that text,- The time shall come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Lord and shall not see it?' Then remember that

The night is never so long

But at last it ringeth for matin song. And even as it is around us here, so it is in the world of men; the

farewell, too, the soft still summer weather. Claude and I are taking our last walk together along the deer-park cliffs. Lundy is shrouded in the great grey fan of dappled haze which streams up from the westward, dimming the sickly sun. 6 There is not a breath the blue wave to curl.' Yet, lo! round

Chapman's Head' creeps a huge bank of polished swell, and bursts in thunder on the cliffs.-Another follows, and another.-The Atlantic gales are sending in their avantcouriers of ground-swell-six hours more, and the storm which has been sweeping over 'the still-vexed Bermoöthes,' and bending the tall palms on West Indian isles, will be roaring through the oak-woods of Devon. The old black buck is calling his does with ominous croakings, and leading the way slowly into the deepest coverts of the glens. The

stormy petrels, driven in from the Atlantic, are skimming like great black swallows over the bay beneath us. Long strings of sea-fowl are flagging on steadily at railroad pace, towards the sands and salt-marshes of Braunton. The herring boats are hastily hauling their nets-you may see the fish sparkling like flakes of silver as they come up over the gunwale; all craft, large and small, are making for the shelter of the pier. Claude starts this afternoon to sit for six months in Babylonic smoke, working up his sketches into certain unspeakable pictures, with which the world will be astonished, or otherwise, at the next Royal Academy Exhibition; while I, for whom another fortnight of pure western air remains, am off to wellknown streams, to be in time for the autumn floods, and the shoals of fresh-run salmon-trout.

IT

PART II.

T was late in the evening of the same day. Marguerite and Dumiger were sitting by the fire together. The fire burnt so brightly that it was not necessary to light the candles. ́Marguerite, with her eyes closed and half reposing in Dumiger's arms, was enjoying all the happiness which the sense of returning affection gives. The night was somewhat changed since they first sat there. The rain beat against the casement, and the wind whistled down the chimney. The more it rained and blew, the closer crept Marguerite to Dumiger's side. It was a picture of comfort; of that comfort which, alas! is so easily destroyed by the breath of tyranny. It was a type of the many hearths which are covered with ruins when the trumpet sounds through the city and the tocsin rings to arms; when war or rebellion sweeps like a pestilence, not alone over the ruins of palaces and of senate-houses, but over the abodes of the humble, where every room can tell a tale of affection and toil.

There was a knock at Dumiger's

CHAP. IV.

door, which made Marguerite start and called all the colour into her cheeks.

There was something ominous in the knock. It was a short, quick, clear, and decisive knock. It was the knock of a man in authority; of one who felt that, although standing on the outside of the door, he had a right to be within. Marguerite and Dumiger both looked at the fire, as though they could read in its confused shapes the reason of this interruption; but the result could not have been very satisfactory, for neither spoke, while reluctantly Dumiger rose to open the door, and Marguerite followed his movements with intense anxiety.

The truth is, that people are never thoroughly comfortable and happy without a sense of the uncertainty of human happiness stealing over them. We speak of those whose lives are not a succession of parties of pleasure, of soft dreams and golden fulfilments: to such favoured ones all sense of happiness is deadened by satiety; but they who toil through long,

long days, and are blest with a few moments of repose, value them so highly that they scarcely believe such happiness can last.

Dumiger opened the door, and uttered a faint cry. Marguerite was in a moment by his side.

He had, indeed, some cause for alarm. An officer of the Grande Cour de Justice stood there. There

was no mistaking his character, for the uniform of the myrmidons of that court was too well known to all the inhabitants of Dantzic, and more especially to the poorer classes, who gazed on them with awe, for they were in general stern, hard-featured, and hard-hearted men, who did their duty without gentleness, and rarely deserted a man when once they had him in their clutches. Dumiger had made acquaintance with them of old on one or two occasions, and the recollection was anything but agreeable.

The man entered the room very quickly, took his seat in Dumiger's chair, and drew his missive from his pocket. It was Dumiger's bill to Hoffman for a very large sum, which had been purchased by the Count.

What is this?' gasped forth Dumiger; for, at the moment, the debt had entirely escaped his recollection.

Ach Gott!' exclaimed Dumiger; is it possible?' but observing Marguerite standing by pale, tearful, and trembling, he restrained his impetuosity.

Dumiger rose and went to a drawer. He counted over, with the eagerness of a miser, all the dollars which were kept there, --the few which had remained after the expenses of the last fortnight. For some time past he had devoted all his energies so entirely to the construction of the clock, that the smaller receipts of his craft had been despised.

A cold perspiration stood on his forehead as he gazed upon his small store. He knew too well that by the laws of Dantzic the debtor was either dragged to the common prison or all his goods were seized. Either alternative was terrible. He looked round the room. On one side stood the clock, the child of his mind and industry; on the other was Marguerite, beautiful in her grief.

The man had lit a pipe and was carelessly smoking.

6

'Come,' said the officer at last, as shaking out the ashes of his pipe and drawing himself to his full stature so as to give weight to his authority,come, we have no time to lose, Herr Dumiger. The money or the furniture, or to prison. Consult the pretty jungfrau there; but you must come to a conclusion directly, for time presses and I have several other little bits of business to perform tonight so I will light another pipe while you make up your minds."

It was no easy matter for Marguerite to bring her mind to a decision. She thought on the one hand of the lonely nights she might have to pass; on the other, of the irreparable loss the clock would be to Dumiger. Dumiger clasped her hands in his own, and as his lips clung to hers he exclaimed, Perish all things but love.' He rose; he was on the point of desiring the man to take away the clock in payment of the debt, in the hope that he might redeem it on the morrow, when the sudden thought struck him that the Count was the

instigator of this act. He caught hold of the man by one arm, which was hanging listlessly over the back of the chair, and exclaimed,

"Tell me who sent you on this mission.'

The man only looked round with an expression of astonishment at his presumption, and, without deigning any reply, he resumed his pipe.

Was it the Grand Master?' asked Dumiger.

Obey my orders and ask no questions,' said the man. You had better follow my example. I have told you already that there is no time to spare. Tell me what course you intend to take. Give up some articles in this room, there is that clock, which will do more than pay the bill-or follow me immediately. There is no other alternative.'

The whole conversation with the Grand Master occurred to Dumiger. There could be no doubt that the clock would go into his possession ; that it was a deep-laid scheme to spoil him of the result of all his labour. Better, far better that Marguerite should bear the pain of separation, than that the clock should be endangered, and by such a man.

'Marguerite,' said Dumiger, in a low voice, after a long pause, 'it is

fixed. We must part for a short time. I will write from my prison to some of my friends; they will not desert me in this necessity. A few short hours, and I shall return to you, my own Marguerite.'

But Marguerite had fainted, and the lips which touched his cheek were cold and pale.

Slowly she opened those large blue eyes, and, although her lips faltered, the look and the voice were both earnest as she bade him go.

"Yes, Dumiger, you are right, ambition such as yours is a less selfish passion than love like mine. Leave me for a time. I know the interval will be short. It is another step towards the greatness to which you are aspiring.'

The man looked at them with a vague and vacant look. He had been witness to this description of scene so frequently that he began to believe it to be a part of the debtor's craft. As some people can regard the most beautiful varying tints of heaven, the lights and shadows which flit across the face of Nature, and see nothing more in them than a part of that vast and complicated machinery that governs the world; so he, in these lights and shadows of life, only beheld the natural workings of the human mind.

With a pale cheek but a firm step Dumiger departed. The last sound that fell upon his ear as he left his door was the blessing murmured by his bride. Again he felt disposed to turn back and sacrifice all for his affection; but already one of the city guard stood behind him, and the rattle of arms on the pavement told him that his arrest had not been lightly planned or carelessly conducted.

The castle towards which Dumiger and his guards directed their steps was the Grimshaus, formerly a citadel and an important point of defence for the town of Dantzic, though now converted into a prison for political offenders and debtors. The reader may be aware that the laws against debtors in the great free commercial cities were intolerably severe. Some men were permitted to groan away their whole lives in hopeless misery. The creditor was in general without pity, and the debtor unpitied. He was entirely at the mercy of the

gaoler, who had it in his power to load him with chains, and even on the slightest pretext of insubordination to execute summary justice upon him. These laws, however, had as yet little affected Dumiger; though threatened with arrest on one or two previous occasions, his difficulties had always been arranged. But the present debt was more serious than any which had as yet been pressed for, and he could not but feel that friends might be less willing to become surety.

They arrived at the square in which the Grimshaus was situated. It was a wild, unhealthy, stern, fantastic pile, which stood, in point of fact, upon an island, for a wide, wet ditch, surrounded it, except where a drawbridge connected it with the square; the towers and ramparts had in some places mouldered away, and huge bars of iron were introduced in different parts of the wall to give strength to the building, by binding the yawning mason-work together.

The square was deserted; the cry of the sentinel at the most distant of the landward posts sounded ominous, like that of a lost bird at night. Although the moon shone brightly, it was difficult to distinguish the whole outline of the building on account of the pestiferous vapours which rose from the moat, and hung like a pall over the recently flooded plain. Through these mists the city chimes sounded muffled and melancholy. It was solitude of all solitude the most fearful- - a prison solitude in the neighbourhood of a great town. The very escort appeared to feel the influence of their melancholy and lonely scene, for the jests stopped as the foot of the vanguard clanged on the drawbridge. This was merely the effect of discipline; but to Dumiger it appeared a part of the drama, and it added to his sense of fear.

They were detained some time upon the drawbridge while the sergeant was holding a conversation with the officer of the watch.

'By the Holy Mary!' exclaimed the functionary who had arrested Dumiger, 'there must be something more than a mere debt in all this. I never saw such a fuss made about the receipt of the body of a debtor in all my life. And then, it was rather strange my