queen's letters with his hat on, and his left the room than Ivan broke out in only answer to the brutal threat it drew praise of a man so jealous of his misfrom the czar was to cock it defiantly tress's honor, protesting that he wished and vow his mistress uncovered for no he had such a servant. "Which prince on earth. To some suggestion whoreson of you all," he is said to reflecting on the queen's conduct and have cried to his confounded ministers, dignity, his argument in reply was to "would have dared so much for me!" fling down his gauntlet on the floor of A secretary was at once sent round to the council-chamber and challenge any the ambassador's lodging with an ample man in Russia to fight him for his mis- apology, and the fullest protestations of tress's honor. Things culminated at the czar's love for Elizabeth and favor last in a violent personal altercation towards her devoted servant. Next day with the czar himself. Irritated appar- the prime minister came in person to inently past bearing by the queen's con- quire into his complaints of the conduct tinued coldness and the pretensions of of the anti-English party, with the result her envoy, Ivan flew into one of his that Shalkan the chancellor, its exalted passions and told Bowes roundly that leader, was soundly flogged. Thencehe did not consider Elizabeth his equal. forth Sir Jerome's difficulties disapSir Jerome's Border blood was up in a peared, and his enemies had to confine moment, and, regardless of the conse- themselves to indirect operations. To quences, he swore the queen his mis- this end, as it would seem, he was intress was the equal of any prince induced one day to display his horsemanChristendom, however great he might think himself, and a princess well able to make the czar of Muscovy, or any other who offended her, smart of his malice. Yea!” cried Ivan derisively. How sayest thou of the French king and the Spanish?" "Marry," was the stout if ungrammatical reply, "I hold the queen, my mistress, as great as any of them both." Then what sayest thou," the czar went on, to the emperor of Germany ? " Such is the greatness of the queen my mistress," retorted the ambassador triumphantly, that the king her father not long since in his wars with France had the emperor in his pay." More furious than ever, Ivan could find no better repartee than to swear that, were Bowes not an ambassador, he would throw him out of doors, and Bowes, undaunted, bade him do as he liked, but warned his ferocious antagonist to beware his mistress's vengeance. Dominated as it would seem, like the cowardly bully he was, by the unflinching courage of the Englishman, Ivan in a sudden change of mood bade him shortly to be gone, and Bowes, with a haughty salute, went off with all the honors of the field. The extraordinary and well-earned result of the scene was a complete triumph for Bowes. No sooner had he ship in taming an intractably vicious We Sir Jerome's enemies sprang up thick around him. Everything he had gained war; and the only monument Chancellor received were the scars left by a hostile British squadron in that same great bay where the astonished Muscovites had welcomed him just three hundred years before. JULIAN CORBETT. From Temple Bar. AT THE SIGN OF THE PANTUFFEL, PREFATORY. was lost, and Shalkan, the flogged chan- fifty years ago a Russian proposed to cellor, who was now omnipotent, sent celebrate its tercentenary with an interhim a mocking message that the English national monument to Willoughby and emperor was dead. Confined to his Chancellor. But he spoke beyond the house Bowes placed it in as good a state book, not knowing how grim a joke fate of defence as means allowed, and had in store for the occasion. For, as waited for the worst. For two months every one knows, the ceremony which he was thus kept a prisoner in daily solemnized the tercentenary of our fear of his life, and then came a sum- friendship with Russia was the declaramons to repair to court for his congé. tion of a most bloody and ill-advised It was given by Shalkan with studied indignities, and before the fuming ambassador was allowed to enter the presence of the new emperor his sword was forcibly taken from him. Not to be outdone in insolence he straightway sat down, pulled off his boots, and sending for his bed-gown, slippers, and nightcap, vowed he would enter the presence so, since he might not go as a soldier. It was only by threats of violence that he was induced to accept the czar's cool letters and trivial present for the queen, and with such reckless defiance did he AFTER the fashion of children's carry himself to the last, that it would story-books, once upon a time there was seem to have been only by Horsey's a man called Mildenhall at least, that exertions that he was suffered to leave is what people used to call him who had Moscow alive. Abandoned by the dis-only seen his name written, but had gusted English colony Bowes and his followers set out armed to the teeth, and, insulted at every step yet too formidable for violence, made their way at last to St. Nicholas Bay. The embarkation had all the aspect of an operation of war, but even then they had not heard the last of him. For once safe on board he managed by a daring expedient to return the czar's letters and present on the hands of the insolent official who had attended him to the coast. In vain they pursued him, thinking to compel him to receive them back. He had marked the last point in the game, and sailed away deriding their efforts. never heard it pronounced — Mil-denhall, in three syllables; for that is how he spelt it, and of course they did not know any better. But he himself and his friends pronounced it quite differently; they used to say with great emphasis My! and then shut down their teeth as suddenly as possible afterwards; yet not so suddenly but that an n would also rush out and escape before they could prevent it (after the manner of that doughty knight, Marmion, when he bolted out at the castle gate as the portcullis was in the act of falling, and the "bars descending razed his plume" and how about the horse's tail?). But to continue; as, as So ends the first chapter of Anglo- I was saying, the whole three-syllable Russian history and the story of the name was supposed to be rushing out men who made it. To Horsey fell the of a man's mouth with great impetutask of filling the breach which Bowes's osity, he would let its head out and then heroic diplomacy had the ill-luck to cleverly bite it in two so that the rest make, and well he played his part. of it never reached the open air and the With the accession of a new Anglophile light of day, but being swallowed down ezar a good understanding was re-estab- again, was kept down there to do duty lished. For three centuries it continued for the next occasion. But the tail, the with a cordiality so unbroken that some, being as it would seem not easily - choked down, would struggle up and was suffering from overwork in busi get out in a very much enfeebled condition as the man opened his mouth again; and so the whole name sounded Myn(gurgle)l. Now the man with this extraordinary name had also an extraordinary thing happen to himself; a young lady pulled him out of a river wherein he was drowning. She did not want to marry him (this was not extraordinary, for he was rather old and ugly); he did not want to marry her (this was perhaps more curious, as she was young and very pretty); but he lay on his back on the grass, when she had pulled him out of the water, and refused point blank to propose to her, or even to accept her hand if she offered it to him. Such was the procedure of an elderly and respectable city merchant; and the extraordinary part of the story is, that he still looks upon this abrupt way of conducting himself as the most rational thing that he ever did in his life. I know he does, for I myself am he. But, as the story has begun to get about among my friends, and appears to be seriously damaging my reputation for sanity among them, I am anxious to explain publicly, once for all, how the thing really happened. I. THE DAY BEFORE. THE Pantuffel Inn is a charming riverside hostelry, in equally charming country, not a thousand miles (by a "long chalk") from London. When I say a riverside hostelry, I thank heaven (in a parenthesis) that it is not on the Thames. No, no! the Bibble is the river; the Bibble (as I say, thank heaven) as yet unknown to cockney fame, and therefore still quiet and peaceful, haunted only by a stray fisherman or two, or by some solitude-seeker like myself and by the herons and coots which love to splash through the reeds along the bank. Yet it is an excellent fishing locality, and the country around, heavily wooded, more charming than any that I know along the much-bepraised Thames. When I was staying down there, I ness, and the strain of London noise and bustle, and consequently wanted to be as quiet and undisturbed as possible. In the Pantuffel gardens I discovered a huge beech-tree down by the riverside; the branches stretched far out over the stream, which ran deep and strong beneath them. It was perhaps rather a strange thing for me to do, but I was possessed by the desire of solitude and idleness I procured a hammock and had it slung along one of these boughs, so that it swung some feet above the water, and well out from the bank. It was a difficult matter to get into the hammock in this position, but the gardener left me the ladder which he had used in fixing it up, and therewith I assured myself that the task of mounting into my little nest was a perfectly practicable one. I promised myself that I would spend many an hour in idle happiness in this novel retreat; certainly I was very far from anticipating the excitements which would intrude upon my proposed seclusion, or the awkward situations in which I should be involved, owing to my eccentric choice of the spot in which my hammock was swinging. That same night there came in two young fellows, Cambridge men, to stay a day or two: Mr. Bob Tyncker to fish, so he said (his entire fishing outfit was, however, a curious one, and consisted of a very weak trout-rod, a heavy jackline, a couple of salmon-flies, a little perch-tackle, and a box of lob-worms). His companion, Mr. Tattler, had come "cos I met Bob at Paddington, y' know; and he was lookin' so much more lively than usual (he and I are up together at Trinity, you see), that I thought he must be spendin' his Long Vac. pretty pleasantly; and so I told him I'ud take a cut in, too, for a day or so; keep him comp'ny, don'tcherknow? So, as he was only comin' down here fishin' for a couple of days, and as I had got my traps at the station, waitin' for somethin' to turn up, why down I came too.” Here Mr. Bob Tyncker muttered to himself something of which I caught part-to the effect that "he wished to heaven he could have given Tattler the slip; Tattler wasn't a bad sort of chap, but he was so confoundedly talkative, and altogether deucedly in the way, just at present." same), had retired quietly to my hammock, and was now swinging lazily over the Bibble. The great beech-tree formed a leafy tent about me; the enormous stem towered upwards from the very brink In the course of the evening Tattler of the river; thousands of the roots came and sat with me in the smoking- had pushed themselves through the room, Tyncker having gone out "to soft and crumbling bank, and were ground-bait," he told Tattler. But hanging down in matted network in the Tattler evidently thought his proceed-water. Behind them the stream had ings were growing a trifle mysterious. washed away the earth-how far I "He don't seem very chummy just could not tell, for they formed a sort now," he complained to me, sticking of fringe in front of the cavity; but an eyeglass in his eye and staring at me through it solemnly enough, but in a half-inquiring, half-impudent sort of way that seemed habitual to him, and that made me feel inclined to burst out laughing; "shouldn't wonder if he was courtin' the barmaid out in the back garden. What else brings him down here? He ain't a fisherman, that I know. And besides, why should he want to write a little note in a surreptitious sort of way, and slip out with it like a burglar, if he's only gone to ground-bait? P'raps that's how they ground-bait where Tyncker comes from; but they don't do it for fish, any way." The opposite bank was low, and And the aggrieved Mr. Tattler pro- skirted by heavy clumps of bushes; ceeded to inform me that he himself then came an artificial embankment, came from Karatoga, New Zealand, following the windings of the river, where every one was always pleased to see a friend," he said again, somewhat complainingly. through their interstices I could see the current glancing, black and deep, right in underneath the treacherous bank. Two or three long, thin roots thrust themselves forth from the darkness beneath the fringe, and swung with a slow, living sort of motion in the stream. I began to picture to myself the fancy that they were the feelers of some gigantic river-octopus, lying there in his den expectant of prey. In this mood Tattler was not quite so entertaining as I felt he might generally be, and I retired early. I determined to keep my little nook and hammock to myself if possible. Tattler was not a bad specimen of the genus undergrad., and certainly Tyncker seemed a very good specimen; but I wanted quiet and rest, and felt that talkative undergraduate society was just then not quite to my taste. II. MORNING. IT was ten o'clock, and a marvellously fine August day. I had contrived to give Mr. Tattler the slip soon after breakfast (it struck me that Mr. Bob Tyncker was endeavoring to do the "I hope to goodness I shan't fall out of this hammock,' I said to myself with a sort of shudder, turning my attention with some relief elsewhere. and away beyond were water-meadows, and then gently sloping and wellwooded hills. A few minutes' contemplation of the peaceful scene was sufficient to rid me of my late creepy sensation; and once more, like a snail drawing in its horns, my attention drew back to my immediate neighborhood. The tree was opened about me like an immense umbrella. On the land side the boughs hung down, many feet distant from the stem, in a semi-circle. Beneath them I had a glimpse of the old-fashioned inn gardens, crowded with rhododendron - bushes and cypresses, and, farther still, the quaintly gabled inn itself. The semi-circle of the boughs that overhung the water came much lower-many of them indeed were trailing their lowest leaves in the surface itself. Beneath them a few dace moved gently along, close to the top; sometimes floating lazily in the broad | heavy jack-line, affixed a rather staring sunshine outside; sometimes coming float; then tying on a hook which into the shade, and they flicked in sport seemed already baited, dropped it in the dipping leaves as they passed. I quietly between two bushes, and half expected to see my friend Mr. watched the float swim down and beTyncker stroll down from the inn and come fixed among the branches of the try a fly out under the branches. lower bush. But then, on the opposite side of the river were those heavy clumps of bushes, growing well out over the water; and their branches, dipping into the current, were matted and bound inextricably with drifting weeds. The stream beneath them ran deep and sluggishly there, if anywhere, were the lurking holes of great perch and I recollected Mr. Tyncker's heavy perchtackle, and his box of lob-worms. I was therefore not at all surprised to see him appear suddenly on the other bank behind the fringe of bushes. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes-I had seen, quite clearly, that already baited hook as it swung out over the water, and recognized it to be nothing more or less than one of the salmon-flies. What a queer way to fish!" This time being thoroughly surprised, I had almost said it aloud. But Mr. Tyncker, having accom plished all these curious things in a very preoccupied sort of way, once more sat down at the foot of the em bankment, and waited. He minded his Through the boughs I could see him float not a bit-and, poor fisherman plainly, but, as was to be expected, he as I may be, I could not see why could not very easily see me. I did not he should mind it; I doubt the adwant him to see me. I wanted to be visability of fishing for perch with a quiet, and not to talk to frivolously salmon-fly. minded undergraduates. So I lay quite still. I expected to see him eagerly put his rod together, and start his fishing. But he did nothing of the sort; he produced from a side-pocket an immense handkerchief, red, and about the size of a decently minded flag; and then he climbed up the steep embankment behind him. On the top of the embankment stood a dead tree; up this tree, with some little trouble, Mr. Tyncker contrived to climb a few feet; and tied his flag to a withered branch in such a manner that its full surface hung exactly at right angles to the course of the river. This performance he carried out with great caution, and looking carefully around to see that he was not observed. Then he crept down the bank again, sat down and waited. "That is a queer way to fish!" I thought, rather interested. He sat, and waited, some few moments; then with a start he seemed to recollect his purpose of fishing. He hurriedly put together his rod (that very weak trout-rod), put on it the As the young fellow "waited," he stared persistently down stream, as if momentarily expecting to see some one appear along the embankment. I fell to wondering over two or three matters connected with the present state of things. In the first place, how did Mr. Tyncker come to be on the opposite side of the river? I could answer this question easily a rustic foot-bridge crossed from the Pantuffel, just by the waterfall which sounded pleasantly round the bend of the stream, to the wooded hillside opposite. And the footpath thence led along the waterside through the wood, to the embankment beneath which my young acquaintance was fish ing to fish. was sitting and pretend Secondly, how was it that he had appeared so suddenly? If he had come along the top of the embankment I should have noticed him before he reached his present station. I inclined to believe (perhaps helped thereto by the mysterious caution of his late proceedings) that he must have crept along behind the bushes, out of sight of |