commit was justifiable for his country's good; still though his mind was made up, his heart beat thick and fast, and he wished it was over. Presently there was a sound of horse's hoofs drawing rapidly nearer ; Corny strained his ears to listen, the rapid pace was unlike the usual easy going riding of John St. Leger,—some one perhaps had warned him of danger. He drew back farther into the shadow, his hand shook, and his eye grew dim. Nearer and nearer it came, the horse and his unsuspecting rider passed out of the shadow of the ash-tree,— there was a flash, a report, and then- Corny flung his weapon into the air with a wild cry of agony. For one instant he had seen the outline of a boyish figure against the sky, the next the horse plunged madly forward, leaving his rider a motionless heap in the middle of the road. With a frantic leap, Corny stood by his young master's side, and then a deeper and more bitter cry broke from him. On his back with his arms outstretched on either side of him lay Geoffrey St. Leger, his right hand seemed to grasp at a book that lay on the road beside him, but he made no groan or movement. Corny did not touch him or lift him up,—he felt sure that he was dead. Mechanically he took the book from his hand, and opened it; on the fly leaf was written, "Cornelius Tiernay, from his friend Geoffrey St. Leger." Geoffrey had seen the look of disappointment on Corny's face when he failed to bring the book, and had ridden into town that evening to get it for him. Corny could bear it no longer, the white face seemed to reproach him with his cruelty and ingratitude with a cry that startled the birds from their slumbers, he fled away into the shadow. But he was wrong, Geoffrey was not dead: two men returning home late found him lying on the road; they put him on a door which they wrenched from a tumble-down cabin, and carried him to his father's house, where a doctor was speedily sent for. An hour later Mr. St. Leger returned home to stand by what seemed the deathbed of his only son. Unceasingly he and Nora watched by Geoffrey until after many hopeless days he feebly struggled back to life. When Mr. St. Leger first heard the doctor's words, "He will live," it seemed to him there was no room in his heart for anything but thankful joy. But when it dawned on him that though life had come back indeed, the strength vigour of the young limbs would never return, he felt very sad and bitter thoughts filled his heart: he blamed no one in particular for what had happened, it was only part of a black conspiracy that under a pretence of right had over and over again stained the land with blood. Mountain and valley, hill and river, were very dear to John St. Leger; very dear also was the little churchyard where his young wife slept, but he would leave them all, and he and his children would try and forget their wrongs in a happy English home. Another year had gone, and it was again a bright spring morning, radiant with sunshine and beauty: but a melancholy change had come over the old house of Lisnadoon; it plainly showed that its owner no longer cared for it; weeds were growing in the neglected walks, and inside Nora wandered disconsolately through the dismantled rooms. Geoffrey had managed with the help of his crutches to crawl into the shrubbery, and was lying stretched on the grass with something very like tears in his eyes. He was much altered from the handsome active lad of a year before; the frame was bent, and the features haggard, the eyes alone still bright and eager were all that remained of the promise of earlier years. Geoffrey had passed through months of almost unbroken suffering, not only of body but of mind, slowly and painfully had he learned to forgive, but the hard won victory had left its traces in the grave noble expression of his face. Geoffrey had not been long in the shrubbery when a sound in the bushes attracted his attention, they were pushed cautiously aside, and looking scarcely less haggard than he did, Corny stood before him. The boy seemed half wild, and his voice was husky with grief as he said, "I couldn't let ye go without askin' ye to forgive me, Masther Geoffrey, though I know ye can't," he added incoherently. "I forgave you weeks and months ago, Corny; I was more sorry for you than for myself." "Then ye knew it was me, sir?" Corny started, “Oh, sir,” cried the wretched boy, "I'd rather have been shot myself than done it, it was all along of a mistake.' For a moment Geoffrey's eyes flashed, and his voice became harsh as he said angrily, "And you think it would have been less wicked to have killed my father? Yours is a poor sort of repentance, Corny." Corny cowered; "I know, I know, I am bad and wicked, but they told me I was doing right, and those books praised that sort of thing up, you know, the people killed their king in one, and Mick told me as how they were fine fellows and—” he broke off suddenly with a scared look, "There's some one coming!" "I cannot stop to argue with you now," said Geoffrey, "but remember GOD has said, 'Thou shalt do no murder.' Promise me you will try and keep that commandment." "I promise," cried Corny, wildly; "I will! I will !” And Geoffrey added reverently, "With GOD's help. Five minutes later Mr. St. Leger had bidden farewell to Lisnadoon. Their carriage had to pass through the village to reach the high road, and as the sound of its wheels died away in the distance, Corny's was not the only heart that felt with bitter regret that they had driven from among them a kind and merciful master. Ten years from that time a haggard-looking man was crawling feebly along a crowded thoroughfare in New York; a quarrel had been forced upon him in a by-street, and his opponent had struck him with a knife. Pressing his hand to his wounded side, he limped painfully along, but as he turned aside into a quieter street his strength gave way, and he was obliged to sit down on some steps. Two gentlemen coming up opposite ways met just in front of him. "How are you, St. Leger ?" said one, "who would have dreamed of meeting you in New York ?" The other, whose tall figure stooped slightly, returned his friend's greeting warmly; neither noticed the sudden shivering and paleness that seized the man on the steps. "Is it true," said the first speaker, "that you are going back to Lisnadoon ?" "Yes," said Mr. St. Leger, "I love the place, and could scarcely bear to part with it." "You have built a school there, I hear ?" "Yes," said Geoffrey St. Leger gravely, "I hope it may succeed, but as yet I cannot tell." "Well, I shall see you to-morrow, I hope," said his friend, and passed on. A groan made Geoffrey start: Corny, for it was he, had heard every word, and needed nothing more to tell him that the speaker was Geoffrey St. Leger. "Masther Geoffrey," he said feebly; the next moment Geoffrey was at his side, but Corny had fainted. However he was no longer friendless and alone, his old master had him carried to his own room in the hotel where he was staying, and then he sent for a doctor. The doctor shook his head and said it was a bad case; but when he was gone, having done all he could for him, Corny revived a little, and then the whole story of the past ten years was poured into Geoffrey's ears; often when struggling for his bread in a strange land he had thought of those who would have been so good to him, but for his own folly and wickedness. Corny was almost as ignorant still as he had been ten years before, but while struggling and despised among strangers, where none cared whether he lived or died, through suffering, toil, and sorrow he had learned humility and gratitude. Thenceforward he became the faithful and devoted servant of him whose life he had once so nearly taken. AN ENIGMA. IT dwells in the mountain, it rests on old ocean, 144 ALEXANDER II., EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.1 IF the memories of the Treaties of Paris and Berlin cast a shadow over the reign of the Emperor Alexander II. in the eyes of the Panslavonian and of the Nihilist portion of his subjects, he is not the less regarded with gratitude and regret by the great mass of the Russian nation. In the recent Exhibition at Moscow, a picture of him riding bareheaded through the holy gate of the Kremlin on his way to be crowned; a more recent portrait of him as a grey-headed old man; and a colossal statue in the centre of the building, were the most attractive objects to the middle and lower classes, and although a year and a half after his death, were constantly surrounded by an admiring and sympathetic crowd. But the sovereign who has endured a defeat, however slight, has lost his prestige, for the time at least, in the eyes of the higher class in Russia; and although Alexander II. accomplished his aim of restoring his empire to the position she enjoyed in his father's reign, there is no doubt that the two treaties in whieh, to avoid another sanguinary war, he yielded to the demands of united Europe, were the real cause of the conspiracies which ended so fatally, and that if the Treaty of San Stefano had been carried out, he would have been left to die a natural death. A letter from a Swiss resident at S. Petersburg, in April, 1881, to the Bibliothèque Universelle," a magazine published at Lausanne, contains this comment on the recent murder of the Czar. "A glance at Russia now, is enough to disprove all that the revolutionists have told us of the impatience of the people to throw off a tyrant's yoke; for the passionate attachment of the nation to its sovereign has surely never been greater than at this moment. No one recollects such universal sorrow in S. Petersburg and the provinces. Loud sobs are heard in all the churches, where requiems are being chanted incessantly. The papers are filled with accounts of apoplectic attacks, of suicide, and of mental alienation produced by the terrible event, and they are the subject of everybody's conversation. All agree on the necessity of taking energetic measures to prevent such frightful crimes. It would be too long to enumerate all the reforms with which Alexander II. has endowed his country. It is enough to say, that apart from those well 1 Life of Alexander II., Emperor of Russia. (W. H. Allen.) 1 Vol., 10s. 6d. |