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minutes. The truest man can say na more. Wont ye step into the bar, sir, and give your order? I'll let ye know as soon as 'tis ready."

Christopher turned into a room smelling strongly of the night before, and stood by the newly kindled fire to wait. He had just come in haste from Melchester. The upshot of his excitement about the wedding, which, as the possible hour of its solemnization drew near, had increased till it bore him on like a wind, was this unpremeditated journey. Lying awake the previous night, the hangings of his bed pulsing to every beat of his heart, he decided that there was one last and great service which it behoved him, as an honest man and friend, to say nothing of lover, to render to Ethelberta at this juncture. It was to ask her by some means whether or not she had engaged with open eyes to marry Lord Mountclere; and if not, to give her a word or two of enlightenment. That done, she might be left to take care of herself.

His plan was to obtain an interview with Picotee, and learn from her accurately the state of things. Should he, by any possibility, be mistaken in his belief as to the contracting parties, a knowledge of the mistake would be cheaply purchased by the journey. Should he not, he would send up to Ethelberta the strong note of expostulation which was already written, and waiting in his pocket. To intrude upon her at such a time was unseemly; but to dispatch a letter by a messenger before evidence of its necessity had been received was most undesirable. The whole proceeding at best was clumsy; yet earnestness is mostly clumsy ; and how could he let the event pass without a protest? Before daylight on that autumn morning he had risen, told Faith of his intention, and started off.

As soon as the vehicle was ready, Christopher hastened to the door and stepped up. The little stable-boy led the horse a few paces on the way before relinquishing his hold; at the same moment a respectably dressed man on foot, with a small black bag in his hand, came up from the opposite direction, along the street leading from the railway. He was a thin, elderly man, with grey hair; that a great anxiety pervaded him was as plainly visible as his feature. Without entering the inn, he came up at once to old John.

"Have you anything going to Knollsea this morning that I can get a lift in?" said the pedestrian-no other than Ethelberta's father.

"No empty, that I know of."

"Or carrier?"

"No."

"A matter of fifteen shillings, then, I suppose?"

"Yes-no doubt. But yond, there's a young man just now starting;

he might not take it ill

in the hire of the trap. "Ah, do."

if ye were to ask him for a seat, and go halves Shall I call out?"

The hostler bawled to the stable-boy, who put the question to Christopher. There was room for two on the dog-cart, and Julian had no objec

VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 196.

20.

tion to save the shillings of a fellow-traveller who was evidently not rich. When Chickerel mounted to his seat, Christopher paused to look at him as we pause in some enactment that seems to have been already before us in a dream long ago. Ethelberta's face was there, as the landscape is in the map, the romance in the history, the aim in the deed; denuded, rayless, and sorry, but discernible. For the moment, however, this did not occur to Julian. He took the whip, the boy loosed his hold upon the horse, and they proceeded on their way.

"What slap-dash jinks may there be going on at Knollsea, then, my sonny?" said the hostler to the lad, as the dog-cart and the backs of the two men diminished on the road. "You be a Knollsea boy; have anything reached your young ears about what's in the wind there, David Straw?"

"No, nothing; except that 'tis going to be Christmas-day in five weeks; and then a hide-bound bull is going to be killed if he don't die afore the time, and gi'ed away by my lord in three-pound junks, as a reward to good people who never curse and sing bad songs, except when they be drunk; mother says perhaps she will have some, and 'tis excellent if well stewed, mother says."

"A very fair chronicle for a boy to give, but not what I asked for. When you try to answer a old man's question, always bear in mind what it was that old man asked. A hide-bound bull is good when well stewed, I make no doubt-for they who like it; but that's not it. What I said was, do you know why three fokes, a rich man, a middling man, and a poor man, should want horses for Knollsea afore seven o'clock in the morning on a blinking day in Fall, when everything is as wet as a dish-clout, whereas that's more than happens in fine summer weather?" "No I don't know, John hostler."

"Then go home and tell your mother that ye be no wide-awake boy, and that old John, who went to school with her father afore she was born or thought o', says so. . . . . . Chok' it all, why should I think there's sommat going on at Knollsea? Honest travelling have been so rascally abused since I was a boy in pinners, by tribes of nobodies tearing from one end of the country to t'other, to see the sun go down in salt water, or the moon play jack-lantern behind some rotten tower, that, upon my song, when life and death's in the wind there's no telling the difference!"

"I like their sixpences ever so much."

"Young sonny, don't you answer up to me when you baint in the story-stopping my words in that fashion. I won't have it, David. Now up in the tallet with ye, there's a good boy, and down with another lock or two of hay-as fast as you can do it for me."

The boy vanished under the archway, and the hostler followed at his heels. Meanwhile the carriage bearing Mr. Mountclere and Sol was speeding on its way to Lychworth. When they reached the spot at which the road forked into two, they left the Knollsea route, and keeping thence under the hills for the distance of five or six miles, drove into Lord Mountclere's park. In ten minutes the house was before them, framed in by dripping trees,

Mountclere jumped out, and entered without ceremony. Sol, being anxious to know if Lord Mountclere was there, ordered the coachman to wait a few moments. It was now nearly eight o'clock, and the smoke which ascended from the newly lit fires of the Court painted soft blue tints upon the brown and golden leaves of lofty boughs adjoining.

"Oh, Ethelberta !" said Sol, as he regarded the fair prospect.

The gravel of the drive had been washed clean and smooth by the night's rain, but there were fresh wheel marks other than their own upon the track. Yet the mansion seemed scarcely awake, and stillness reigned everywhere around.

Not more than three or four minutes had passed when the door was opened for Mountclere, and he came hastily from the doorsteps. "I must go on with you," he said, getting into the vehicle. "He's gone.'

"Where-to Knollsea?" said Sol.

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"Yes," said Mountclere. Now, go ahead to Knollsea!" he shouted to the man. "To think I should be fooled like this! I had no idea that he would be leaving so soon! We might almost have been here an hour earlier by hard striving. But who was to dream that they would arrange to do it at such an unearthly time of the morning at this dark season of the year? Drive-drive!" he called again out of the window; and the pace was increased.

"I have come two or three miles out of my way on account of you," said Sol, sullenly. "And all this time lost. I don't see why you wanted to come here at all. I knew it would be a waste of time."

"D— it all, man," said Mountclere; "it is no use for you to be angry with me."

"I think it is, for 'tis you have brought me into this muddle," said Sol, in no sweeter tone. "Ha-ha! Upon my life I should be inclined to laugh, if I were not so much inclined to do the other thing, at Berta's trick of trying to make close family allies of such a cantankerous pair as you and I! So much of one mind as we be, so alike in our ways of living, so close connected in our callings and principles, so similar in manners and customs! 'twould be a thousand pities to part us-hey, Mr. Mountclere?"

Mountclere faintly laughed with the same hideous merriment at the same idea, and then both remained in a withering silence, meant to express the utter contempt of each for the other, both in family and in person. They passed the lodge, and again swept into the high road.

"Drive on!" said Mountclere, putting his head again out of the window, and shouting to the man. "Drive like the d!" he roared again a few minutes afterwards, in fuming dissatisfaction with their rate of progress.

"Baint I doing of it?" said the driver, turning angrily round. “I aint going to ruin my governor's horses for strangers who won't pay

double for 'em--not I. I am driving as fast as I can. If other folks get in the way with their trops, I suppose I must drive round 'em, sir?" There was a slight crash. "There!" continued the coachman. "That's what comes of my turning round!"

Sol looked out on the other side, and found that the fore-wheel of their carriage had become locked in the wheel of a dog-cart they had overtaken, the road here being very narrow. Their coachman, who knew he was to blame for this mishap, felt the advantage of taking time by the forelock in a case of accusation, and began swearing at his victim as if he were the sinner. Sol jumped out, and looking up at the occupants of the other conveyance, saw against the sky the back elevation of his father and Christopher Julian, sitting upon a little seat which each overhung, like a big pudding upon a small plate.

"Father-what you going?" said Sol. "Is it about Berta that you've come?"

"Yes, I got your letter," said Chickerel, " and I felt I should like to come that I ought to come, to save her from that old rascal. Luckily, this gentleman, a stranger to me, has given me a lift from Anglebury, or I must have hired." He pointed to Christopher.

"But he's Mr. Julian!" said Sol.

"You are Mrs. Petherwin's father?—and I have travelled in your company without knowing it!" exclaimed Christopher, feeling and looking both astonished and puzzled. At first it had appeared to him that, in direct antagonism to his own purpose, her friends were favouring Ethelberta's wedding; but it was evidently otherwise.

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Yes, that's father," said Sol. Father, this is Mr. Julian. Mr. Julian, this gentleman here is Lord Mountclere's brother—and, to cut the story short, we all wish to stop the wedding."

"Then let us get on, in heaven's name!" said Mountclere. "You are the lady's father?"

"I am," said Chickerel.

"Then you had better come into this carriage. We shall go faster than the dog-cart. Now, driver, are the wheels right again?"

Chickerel hastily entered with Mountclere, Sol joined them, and they sped on. Christopher drove close in their rear, not quite certain whether he did well in going farther, now that there were plenty of people to attend to the business, but anxious to see the end. The other three sat in silence, with their eyes upon their knees, though the clouds were dispersing and the morning grew bright. In about twenty minutes the square unembattled tower of Knollsea church appeared below them in the vale, its summit just touching the distant line of sea upon sky. The element by which they had been victimised on the previous evening now smiled falsely to the low morning sun.

They descended the road to the village at a little more mannerly pace than that of the earlier journey, and saw the rays glance upon the hands of the church clock, which marked five-and-twenty minutes to nine.

Sir Henry Taylor's Poems.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Tennyson's drama of Queen Mary did not, immediately upon its appearance, so distinctly command the public favour as was the case with his previous works, it will unquestionably have one important result. The drama cannot fail to suggest the question-How is it, that with so much poetic wealth as the Victorian age is acknowledged to possess, we get so few attempts in high dramatic art? More than one living poet has given evidence of a slumbering talent of a superior order; but since the publication of Mr. Browning's noble dramatic pieces, and until the appearance of Mr. Swinburn's Bothwell, it seemed as though the dama was too lofty an aspiration for existing poetic genius. The Poet Laureate may have given an impetus to the dramatic spirit hitherto in process of decay, and it would not be one of the least valuable aspects of his latest work if we could point to it as amongst the first symptoms of the reawakening of a higher taste in our midst.

Whenever this taste is rekindled-and may it speedily be the case!— the poems of Sir Henry Taylor will be turned to with avidity, not only for their depth of observation and general intuitiveness, but also for their massive breadth and vigorous conception. His suffrages will be wide as, and coextensive with, the lovers of literature. A more distinctly English genius has rarely been witnessed-certainly not in our own day; and he is remarkable for the fidelity with which he has fulfilled the principles of his art, according to the exposition with which he has himself favoured us of those principles. More hasty composition and more disjointed efforts have in recent years found favour with the public; due probably to the feverishness and instability which are the prominent characteristics of the age. Sir Henry Taylor, untouched by these manifestations, appears to us like the figure of one of the old Elizabethan poets. Massiveness and substantiality are what he endeavours to achieve in the construction of the poetic fabric; and when his writings are regarded in the bulk it will be perceived that here, at any rate, is one author who has laboured for posterity by endeavouring to leave such work as he has accomplished perfect and unimpeachable. The subtlety of his imagination is not of that distinct character met with in Robert Browning, nor does he exhibit the unique melodiousness of Tennyson; but the range of his vision is almost as high, while there is a grandeur about his plays unsurpassed by any living writer. The short poems which distinguish the singer apart from the dramatist have this advantage, that they bring the reader into a closer communion with the author's own spirit. In

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