doesn't choose to move while Flashman is at the door, and East, who stays by his friend anticipating trouble.

The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opinion wouldn't allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at an under-value was lawful.

"Now, young Brown, come, what'll you sell me Harkaway for? I hear he isn't going to start. I'll give you five shillings for him," begins the boy who had opened the ticket. Tom, remembering his good deed, and moreover in his forlorn state wishing to make a friend, is about to accept the offer, when another cries out, "I'll give you seven shillings." Tom hesitated, and looked from one to the other.

"No, no!" said Flashman, pushing in, "leave me to deal with him; we'll draw lots for it afterwards. Now, sir, you know me-you'll sell Harkaway to us for five shillings, or you'll repent it."

"No, no, another turn'll do it," answers Flashman. But poor Tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls forward on his breast, just as Diggs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the Hall with East at his heels.

"You cowardly brutes!" is all he can say, as he catches Tom from them and supports him to the Hall table. "Good God! he's dying. Here, get some cold water-run for the housekeeper.'

Flashman and one or two others slink away; the rest, ashamed and sorry, bend over Tom or run for water, while East darts off for the housekeeper. Water comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and he begins to come to. "Mother!"-the words came feebly and slowly-"it's very cold to-night." Poor old Diggs is blubbering like a child. "Where am I?" goes on Tom, opening his eyes. "Ah! I remember now;" and he shut his eyes again and groaned.

"I say," is whispered, "we can't do any good, and the housekeeper will be here in a

"You hear that now!" said Flashman, turning to the others. "He's the coxiest young blackguard in the house-I always told you so. We're to have all the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the benefit of such fellows as he.'

Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he speaks to willing ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men. "That's true, we always draw blanks," cried one. "Now, sir, you shall sell half, at any rate.

"I won't," said Tom, flushing up to his hair, and lumping them all in his mind with his sworn enemy.

"Very well then, let's roast him," cried Flashman, and catches hold of Tom by the collar; one or two boys hesitate, but the rest join in. East seizes Tom's arm and tries to pull him away, but is knocked back by one of the boys, and Tom is dragged along struggling. His shoulders are pushed against the mantelpiece, and he is held by main force before the fire, Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra torture. Poor East, in more pain even than Tom, suddenly thinks of Diggs, and darts off to find him. "Will you sell now for ten shillings!" says one boy who is relenting.

Tom only answers by groans and struggles. "I say, Flashey, he has had enough," says the same boy, dropping the arm he holds.

with Diggs, silent and sorrowful, and fans Tom's face.

The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom soon recovers enough to sit up. There is a smell of burning; she examines his clothes, and looks up inquiringly. The boys are silent.

"How did he come so?" No answer. "There's been some bad work here," she adds, looking very serious, "and I shall speak to the Doctor about it." Still no answer.

"Hadn't we better carry him to the sickroom?" suggests Diggs.

"Oh, I can walk now," says Tom! and, supported by East and the housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. The boy who held his ground is soon amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their lives. "Did he peach?" "Does she know about it?"

"Not a word-he's a stanch little fellow." And pausing a moment he adds, "I'm sick of this work; what brutes we've been!"

Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with East by his side, while she gets wine and water and other restoratives.

"Are you much hurt, dear old boy?" whispers East.

"Only the back of my legs," answers Tom. They are indeed badly scorched, and part of his trousers burned through. But soon he is in bed, with cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and getting

taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring

"Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest."

But after a sound night's rest, the old boyspirit comes back again. East comes in reporting that the whole house is with him, and he forgets everything, except their old resolve never to be beaten by that bully Flashman.

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them, and though the Doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew any more.

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school, and that lotteries and betting-books have gone out! but I am writing of schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good.

THE VICAR.

[Winthrop Mackworth Praed, born in London, 26th July, 1802; died there, 15th July, 1839. He was called to the bar, and was during his latter years a member of the House of Commons. Although he rendered good service to the state as a politician, it is as a poet that he is remembered; and best as the leader of the writers of vers de société. Humour and pathos, character and satire, are delightfully mingled in his works. An edition of his poems, in two volumes, edited by Derwent Coleridge, M.A., is published by Moxon & Co.]

Some years ago, ere time and taste

Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, And roads as little known as scurvy, The man who lost his way, between

St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Was always shown across the green, And guided to the Parson's wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;

Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, Led the lorn traveller up the path, Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, Upon the parlour steps collected, Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say"Our master knows you-you're expected."

Uprose the Reverend Dr. Brown,

Uprose the Doctor's winsome marrow; The lady laid her knitting down,

Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow;

Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed,
Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner,
He found a stable for his steed,
And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warmed himself in Court or College,
He had not gained an honest friend

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge,If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.

His talk was like a stream, which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses: It slipped from politics to puns,

It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws which keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound Divine,
Of loud Dissent the mortal terror;
And when, by dint of page and line,

He 'stablished Truth, or startled Error, The Baptist found him far too deep;

The Deist sighed with saving sorrow; And the lean Levite went to sleep,

And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermon never said or showed

That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, Without refreshment on the road

From Jerome, or from Athanasius: And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penned and planned

them,

For all who understood admired,

And some who did not understand them.

He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises, and smaller verses, And sage remarks on chalk and clay, And hints to noble Lords-and nurses; True histories of last year's ghost, Lines to a ringlet, or a turban, And trifles for the Morning Post,

And nothings for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,

Although he had a knack of joking; He did not make himself a bear, Although he had a taste for smoking; And when religious sects ran mad,

He held, in spite of all his learning, That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit
In the low hut or garnished cottage,
And praise the farmer's homely wit,

And share the widow's homelier pottage: At his approach complaint grew mild; And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me

Of Julius Cæsar, or of Venus; From him I learnt the rule of three, Cat's-cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus: I used to singe his powdered wig, To steal the staff he put such trust in, And make the puppy dance a jig,

When he began to quote Augustine.

Alack the change! in vain I look

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled,The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled: The church is larger than before;

You reach it by a carriage entry; It holds three hundred people more, And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear

The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear, Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. Where is the old man laid?-look down, And construe on the slab before you, "Hic jacet GVLIELMVS BROWN,

Vir nulla non donandus lauru."

TO A BELOVED DAUGHTER.

[Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, born in London, 7th October, 1810; died 12th January, 1871. Author of Poems and Poetical Fragments: The School of the Heart; Chapters on the Poets of Ancient Greece; Psalms and Hymns, adapted to the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year; Village Sermons, &c. He edited an edition of the New Testament. His language is always simple and direct, and all his works are inspired by fervent religious feeling.]

Say wilt thou think of me when I'm away, Borne from the threshold and laid in the clay, Past and unheard of for many a day?

Wilt thou remember me when I am gone, Further each year from the vision withdrawn, Thou in the sunset, and I in the dawn?

Wilt thou remember me when thou shalt see, Daily and nightly encompassing thee, Hundreds of others, but nothing of me?

All that I ask is a tear in thy eye,

Sitting and thinking when no one is by, "Thus look'd he on me, thus rang his reply:-"

"Tis not to die, though the path be obscure; Vast though the peril, there's One can secure; Grand is the conflict, the victory sure;

But 'tis to feel the cold touch of decay;
"Tis to look back on the wake of one's way,
Fading and vanishing day after day;

This is the bitterness none can be spared;
This the oblivion the greatest have shared;
This the true death for ambition prepared.
Thousands around us are toiling as we,
Living and loving, whose lot is to be
Past and forgotten like waves on the sea.

Once in a lifetime is uttered a word
That doth not vanish as soon as 'tis heard;
Once in an age is humanity stirred;

Once in a century springs forth a deed
From the dark bands of forgetfulness freed,
Destined to shine, and to bless, and to lead.

Yet not even thus we escape from our lot-
The deed lasts in memory-the doer lasts not;
The word liveth on, but the voice is forgot.

Who knows the forms of the mighty of old?
Can bust or can portrait the spirit unfold?
Or the light of the eye by description be told?

Nay, even He who our ransom became, Bearing the cross, and despising the shame, Earning a name above every name

They who had handled him when He was here Kept they in memory His lineaments clear? Could they command them at will to appear?

They who had heard Him and lived in His voice,
Say could they always recall at their choice
The tones and the cadence which made them rejoice!

Be we content then to pass into shade,
Visage and voice in oblivion laid,

And live in the light that our actions have made.

MY PLEA.

Master, whose life long work was doing good, Keep, first of all, my body out of pain; Then, whether of myself, or not, I would, Make me within the universal chain

A link, whereby

There shall have been accomplished some slight gain For men and women, when I come to die.

ALICE CARY.

THE WHITE BOAT.

A STORY OF LA VENDÉE.

[Emile Souvestre is one of the very few French novelists whose works are pure in thought and incident. His most important work is the Souvenirs d'un BasBreton; but he has written many others several specially

for children—and all may be read without fear of encountering any indelicate scene or suggestion.]

The traveller who visits La Vendée, with the stirring memory of its gigantic struggle of loyalty versus revolution fresh in his mind, and looks on it as the land that, in the short space of three years, became the grave of five Republican armies, as well as of the greater proportion of its own heroic population, and was thus converted into a vast and blood-steeped wilderness of smoking ruins, would naturally expect to find in the inhabitants a people gloomy and daring, proud, impetuous, and warlike.

To his astonishment, he sees himself surrounded by a race whose character is in every respect the reverse of this-quiet, thoughtful, taciturn almost to dulness, and whose might, like that of their powerful yoked oxen, slumbers and asks but for repose. Such is the case especially in the hill-country of La Vendée proper, the region of the pure Pictish blood; the people of the plain country bordering on old Anjou are distinguished by greater vivacity and friendliness.

It is in contemplating this aspect of the Vendean character that we learn to estimate the power of that deadly grasp which the bold hand of revolution must have laid on the innermost sanctuary of popular feeling to provoke an outburst of resistance so vigorous and so long sustained.

But if the physiognomy of the Vendeans be marked by a general sameness, nothing can be more varied than the aspect of their country. The eastern shore is indeed barren, dark, and gloomy; but to the north stretches a long tract of undulating country, rich in golden meadows and fertile fields, and dotted with groups of noble forest-trees, in whose shadow nestles many an orchard-circled château and peaceful hamlet: while here and there may be seen a large and populous village, with spire pointing to the skies. The high hedges and deep-embowered lanes, turned to such good account in the burgher struggles of the Chouan warfare, are still the peculiar and distinctive characteristics of the scene. This is indeed the Boccage; and wherever there is an opening, wide tracts of heath are seen, offering the strongest and

most picturesque contrast by the bright blossoms of the yellow furze and the purple glow of the heath flower to the solemn edging of green by which they are bordered. Totally different is the appearance of La Vendée proper-a long and boundless plain of waving corn, almost without trees, except where some narrow strip of orchard ground points to the neighbourhood of château or village. No sooner is the golden harvest brought in, than the waste and dreary stubble-lands are covered with loads of lime, giving to them, in the distance, the appearance of an interminable battle-field strewn with bleaching bones.

Proceeding onward towards the south, to the marshes-the Marais as it is called-we again find ourselves in a new world. The land here shows, like an accident, an exception—a creation of art, a sort of rustic Venice. The corn and the fruit seem to ripen on piles, and the flocks to be grazing on floating pastures. Ever since the sixteenth century efforts have been made to reclaim tracts of this marsh by drainage on the Dutch plan, so that the district should rather have been called Little Holland than "Little Poitou," as it is. Some business connected with one of these recently-drained tracts gave me the long-desired opportunity of seeing something of the mode of life of the Cabanneers

the name by which the inhabitants of the reclaimed lands are known, as Hutters is that appropriated to the dwellers in the marsh.

I had made an appointment with Guillaume Blaisot, the farmer with whom my business was to be transacted, to meet him at Marans, at the mouth of the Sèvre, opposite to the Isle of Rhé, in Pertuis-Poitou. I reached Maillepais, after a very uncomfortable journey, by the diligence, hoping to proceed by water.

As I was waiting at the door of the little inn for the arrival of the boat that mine host had promised me, I perceived an old acquaintance approaching, whom, by his little waxcloth hat and his wooden leg, I had at once recognized as Maître Berand, better known as Fait-tout. Berand was one of those equivocal traders who get a livelihood by various nameless handicrafts, and who, in common parlance, are said to live by their wits. He now assured me that business called him in the direction in which I was going. I invited him to embark with me in the boat, which at that moment came alongside. He thankfully accepted my invitation, and I thus secured a companion who, if not altogether trustworthy, was at least well acquainted with the country and its inhabitants; and who was, moreover, himself an interesting subject for my observation.

Immediately on leaving Maillepais we found ourselves in the district familiarly known as Le Marais Mouillé, and a wonderful spectacle it presented. As far as the eye could reach, it seemed as it were a water landscape whereon numberless islets, fringed with willows and ivy, were floating; now and then we passed a larger one, on which hemp and flax were cultivated. On the most elevated point of these little islands stand the solitary dwellings of the Hutters; they are of plaited wicker-work, and look like so many bee-hives. They have neither window nor chimney, and the door appears too low for a full-grown man to enter without stooping. We could generally distinguish a fire flickering on the hearth, and sending its smoke through all the interstices of the basket-work. The older huts are often covered with a mass of vegetation; and not unfrequently the willow-wands woven into the dwelling bud and sprout, and form a thick green trellis-work of leafy branches around the hut. The people find their food in the waters by which they are surrounded, the neighbouring towns offering a ready market for their fish and ducks. In winter, when the waters often rise to the level of their dwellings, the poor people are forced to take refuge, with their wives and children, in their boats, which are kept by them ready for such emergencies. In these they frequently pass long days and nights, till the floods are abated.

Our passage among the islets was much retarded by the tangled masses of the waterlily, the leaves of which were thickly spread over the surface; and our approach not unfrequently scared whole flocks of wild ducks and other water-fowl from their shelter, and sent them screaming and cackling over our heads.

The Hatters are said, by the proprietors on the coast, to have very inadequate perceptions and very short memories of the distinction between meum and tuum. My companion, however, soon proved that this confusion of ideas was not peculiar to the islanders. When ever he saw a snare hanging from a willow, he hastened to the spot; if the jar of a leechgatherer were left on the ground, he scrupled not to empty it into his own; and when I asked if his friends on the islands were thus solicitous to provide for his wants, he laughed, and said that what was taken from a Hutter was only indemnification; for that when he went round the islands with his pack, the wives and maidens were not particular in the matter of needles and ribbons-a cross made at the back of any article going in evidence that it was not stolen.

As I wished to see the interior of one of these huts we drew towards the shore, and I landed. The inside was incrusted with a black and shining coating of soot. In the dusky background two cows were lying down and chewing the cud at their ease before a sort of rough crib. This was the only piece of furniture in the hut, with the exception of a pair of earthen pitchers, a clumsy stool, and a hurdle covered with a layer of moss; on this lay a woman whose appearance showed her to be suffering from the biliary fever so common in this moist and fetid atmosphere. To our words of comfort she at first made no reply, but at length, rousing herself, she said

"What good can anything do me? I have seen the White Boat. All I want is the priest." These words had evidently a startling effect, not only on the sailor who had accompanied us, but on our friend Fait-tout, notwithstanding his habitual readiness to parade his scepticism.

"The White Boat!"" exclaimed both together, in a half-whisper, at the same time looking towards the shore.

"Yes, yes," continued the sick woman, with feverish excitement; "I was coming with a bundle of willows from the other side of the island, and there, gliding noiselessly through the channel, I saw the death-boat, with the yellow dwarf seated at the helm; and as I passed I heard him cough and groan; I felt his poison breath upon me, and fell to the ground. My husband found me and brought me home, and I have never raised my head since, and never shall."

I endeavoured to soothe the poor woman, and to explain the thing away as an optical delusion-but all in vain; she stared wildly into the darkness, and my companions slipped quietly away; I myself felt a sort of indefinable dread, thus left alone in the dusky hut with the dying woman, and hastened into the air.

When we got back to the boat our conversation was in monosyllables; and, in order to set it agoing, I made some inquiries respecting the young Blaisot whom I was to meet at Marans. At the sound of his name Fait-tout started from his reverie, but made as though he had not heard me, and called my attention to the great number of boats that were lying in a little bay which we were then crossing. It was no uncommon sight, but he wished to divert me from my subject.

We soon came alongside of an embankment, on which we rather heard than saw some travellers-for the view was entirely obstructed by a low growth of willows and alders. At intervals the plaintive monotonous chant of some shepherds broke upon the ear; they were