CHAPTER XLVI.

Round a great fire in the Town Hall were huddled a number of half-naked creatures, who had been driven out of their dilapidated homes; some of them had seen children or relatives perish in the flood they had themselves so narrowly escaped, and were bemoaning them with chattering teeth.

Little spoke them a word of comfort, promised them all clothes as soon as the shops should open, and hurried off to the lower part of the town in search of Ransome.

He soon found the line the flood had taken. Between Poma Bridge and Hillsborough it had wasted itself considerably in a broad valley, but still it had gone clean through Hillsborough twelve feet high, demolishing and drowning. Its terrible progress was marked by a layer of mud a foot thick, dotted with rocks, trees, wrecks of houses, machinery, furniture, barrels, mattresses, carcasses of animals, and dead bodies, most of them stark naked, the raging flood having torn their clothes off their backs.

Four corpses and two dead horses were lying in a lake of mud about the very door of the railway station; three of them were females in absolute nudity. The fourth was a male, with one stocking on. This proved to be Hillsbro' Harry, warned in vain up at Damflask. When he actually heard the flood come hissing, he had decided, on the whole, to dress, and had got the length of that one stocking, when the flying lake cut short his vegetation.

Not far from this, Little found Ransome, working like a horse, with the tear in his eyes.

He uttered a shout of delight and surprise, and, taking Little by both shoulders, gazed earnestly at him, and said, “Can this be a living man I see?”

“Yes, I am alive,” said Little, “but I had to work for it: feel my clothes.”

“Why, the are dryer than mine.”

“Ay; yet have been in water to the throat; the heat of my body and my great exertions dried them. I'll tell you all another day: now show me how to do a bit of good; for it is not one nor two thousand pounds I'll stick at, this night.”

“Come on.”

Strange sights they saw that night.

They found a dead body curled round the top frame of a lamppost, and, in the suburbs, another jammed between a beam and the wall of a house.

They found some houses with the front wall carried clean away, and, on the second floor, such of the inmates as had survived huddled together in their night-clothes, unable to get down. These, Ransome and his men speedily relieved from their situation.

And now came in word that the whole village of Poma Bridge had been destroyed.

Little, with Ransome and his men, hurried on at these sad tidings as fast as the mud and ruins would allow, and, on the way, one of the policemen trod on something soft. It was the body of a woman imbedded in the mud.

A little further they saw, at some distance, two cottages in a row, both gutted and emptied. An old man was alone in one, seated on the ground-floor in the deep mud.

They went to him, and asked what they could do for him.

“Do? Why let me die,” he said.

They tried to encourage him; but he answered them in words that showed how deeply old Shylock's speech is founded in nature:

“Let the water take me—it has taken all I had.”

When they asked after his neighbors, he said he believed they were all drowned. Unluckily for HIM, he had been out when the flood came.

Little clambered into the other cottage, and found a little boy and girl placidly asleep in a cupboard upstairs.

Little yelled with delight, and kissed them, and cuddled them, as if they had been his own, so sweet was it to see their pretty innocent faces, spared by death. The boy kissed him in return, and told him the room had been full of water, and dada and mamma had gone out at the window, and they themselves had floated in the bed so high he had put his little sister on the top shelf, and got on it himself, and then they had both felt very sleepy.

“You are a dear good boy, and I take you into custody,” said Ransome, in a broken voice.

Judge if this pair were petted, up at the Town Hall.

At Poma Bridge the devastation was horrible. The flood had bombarded a row of fifty houses, and demolished them so utterly that only one arch of one cellar remained; the very foundations were torn up, and huge holes of incredible breadth and depth bored by the furious eddies.

Where were the inhabitants?

Ransome stood and looked and shook like a man in an ague.

“Little,” said he, “this is awful. Nobody in Hillsborough dreams the extent of this calamity. I DREAD THE DAWN OF DAY. There must be scores of dead bodies hidden in this thick mud, or perhaps swept through Hillsborough into the very sea.”

A little further, and they came to the “Reindeer,” where he had heard the boon-companions singing—over their graves; for that night, long before the “cock did craw, or the day daw,” their mouths were full of water and mud, and not the “barley bree.”

To know their fate needed but a glance at the miserable, shattered, gutted fragment of the inn that stood. There was a chimney, a triangular piece of roof, a quarter of the inside of one second-floor room, with all the boards gone and half the joists gone, and the others either hanging down perpendicular or sticking up at an angle of forty-five. Even on the side furthest from the flood the water had hacked and plowed away the wall so deeply, that the miserable wreck had a jagged waist, no bigger in proportion than a wasp's.

Not far from this amazing ruin was a little two-storied house, whose four rooms looked exactly, as four rooms are represented in section on the stage, the front wall having been blown clean away, and the furniture and inmates swept out; the very fender and fire-irons had been carried away: a bird-cage, a clock, and a grate were left hanging to the three walls.

As a part of this village stood on high ground, the survivors were within reach of relief; and Little gave a policeman orders to buy clothes at the shop, and have them charged to him.

This done, he begged Ransome to cross the water, and relieve the poor wretches who had escaped so narrowly with him. Ransome consented at once; but then came a difficulty—the bridge, like every bridge that the flying lake had struck, was swept away. However, the stream was narrow, and, as they were already muddy to the knee, they found a place where the miscellaneous ruin made stepping-stones, and by passing first on to a piece of masonry, and from that to a broken water-wheel, and then on to a rock, they got across.

They passed the coiner's house. It stood on rather high ground, and had got off cheap. The water had merely carried away the door and windows, and washed every movable out of it.

Ransome sighed. “Poor Shifty!” said he; “you'll never play us another trick. What an end for a man of your abilities!”

And now the day began to dawn, and that was fortunate, for otherwise they could hardly have found the house they were going to.

On the way to it they came on two dead bodies, an old man of eighty and a child scarce a week old. One fate had united these extremes of human life, the ripe sheaf and the spring bud. It transpired afterward that they had been drowned in different parishes. Death, that brought these together, disunited hundreds. Poor Dolman's body was found scarce a mile from his house, but his wife's eleven miles on the other side of Hillsborough; and this wide separation of those who died in one place by one death, was constant, and a pitiable feature of the tragedy.

At last they got to the house, and Little shuddered at the sight of it; here not only was the whole front wall taken out, but a part of the back wall; the jagged chimneys of the next house still clung to this miserable shell, whose upper floors were slanting sieves, and on its lower was a deep layer of mud, with the carcass of a huge sow lying on it, washed in there all the way from Hatfield village.

The people had all run away from the house, and no wonder, for it seemed incredible that it could stand a single moment longer; never had ruin come so close to demolition and then stopped.

There was nothing to be done here, and Ransome went back to Hillsborough, keeping this side the water.

Daybreak realized his worst fears: between Poma Bridge and the first suburb of Hillsborough the place was like a battle-field; not that many had been drowned on the spot, but that, drowned all up the valley by the flood at its highest, they had been brought down and deposited in the thick layer of mud left by the abating waters. Some were cruelly gashed and mangled by the hard objects with which they had come in contact. Others wore a peaceful expression and had color in their cheeks. One drew tears from both these valiant men. It was a lovely little girl, with her little hands before her face to keep out the sight of death.

Here and there, a hand or a ghastly face appearing above the mud showed how many must be hidden altogether, and Ransome hurried home to get more assistance to disinter the dead.

Just before the suburb of Allerton the ground is a dead flat, and here the flying lake had covered a space a mile broad, doing frightful damage to property but not much to life, because wherever it expanded it shallowed in proportion.

In part of this flat a gentleman had a beautiful garden and pleasure-grounds overnight: they were now under water, and their appearance was incredible; the flood expanding here and then contracting, had grounded large objects and left small ones floating. In one part of the garden it had landed a large wheat-rick, which now stood as if it belonged there, though it had been built five miles off.

In another part was an inverted summer-house and a huge water-wheel, both of them great travelers that night.

In the large fish-pond, now much fuller than usual, floated a wheel-barrow, a hair mattress, an old wooden cradle, and an enormous box or chest.

Little went splashing through the water to examine the cradle: he was richly rewarded. He found a little child in it awake but perfectly happy, and enjoying the fluttering birds above and the buoyant bed below, whose treacherous nature was unknown to him. This incident the genius of my friend Mr. Millais is about to render immortal.

Little's shout of delight brought Ransome splashing over directly. They took up the cradle and contents to carry it home, when all of a sudden Ransome's eye detected a finger protruding through a hole in the box.

“Hallo!” said he. “Why, there's a body inside that box.”

“Good heavens!” said Little, “he may be alive.”

With that he made a rush and went in over head and ears.

“Confound it” said he as soon as he got his breath. But, being in for it now, he swam to the box, and getting behind it, shoved it before him to Ransome's feet.

Ransome tried to open it, but it shut with a spring. However, there were air-holes, and still this finger sticking out of one—for a signal no doubt.

“Are ye alive or dead?” shouted Ransome to the box. “Let me out and you'll see,” replied the box; and the sound seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth.

Little had his hatchet in his pocket and set to work to try and open it. The occupant assisted him with advice how to proceed, all of which sounded subterraneous.

“Hold your jaw!” said Little. “Do you think you can teach me?”

By a considerable exertion of strength as well as skill, he at last got the box open, and discovered the occupant seated pale and chattering, with knees tucked up.

The two men lent him a hand to help him up; Ransome gave a slight start, and then expressed the warmest satisfaction.

“Thank Heaven!” said he. “Shake hands, old fellow. I'm downright glad. I've been groaning over you: but I might have known you'd find some way to slip out of trouble. Mr. Little, this is Shifty himself. Please put your arm under his; he is as strong as iron, and as slippery as an eel.”

The Shifty, hearing this account given of himself, instantly collapsed, and made himself weak as water, and tottered from one of his guards to the other in turn.

“I was all that once, Mr. Ransome,” said he, in a voice that became suddenly as feeble as his body, “but this fearful night has changed me. Miraculously preserved from destruction, I have renounced my errors, and vowed to lead a new life. Conduct me at once to a clergyman, that I may confess and repent, and disown my past life with horror; then swear me in a special constable, and let me have the honor of acting under your orders, and of co-operating with you, sir” (to Little), “in your Christian and charitable acts. Let me go about with you, gentlemen, and relieve the sufferings of others, as you have relieved mine.”

“There,” said Ransome, proudly; “there's a man for you. He knows every move of the game—can patter like an archbishop.” So saying, he handcuffed the Shifty with such enthusiasm that the convert swore a horrible oath at him.

Ransome apologized, and beckoning a constable, handed him the Shifty.

“Take him to the Town Hall, and give him every comfort. He is Number One.”

This man's escape was not so strange as it appeared. The flood never bombarded his house—he was only on the hem of it. It rose and filled his house, whereupon he bored three holes in his great chest, and got in. He washed about the room till the abating flood contracted, and then it sucked him and his box out of the window. He got frightened, and let the lid down, and so drifted about till at last he floated into the hands of justice.

Little and Ransome carried the child away, and it was conveyed to the hospital and a healthy nurse assigned it.

Ransome prevailed on Little to go home, change his wet clothes and lie down for an hour or two. He consented, but first gave Ransome an order to lay out a thousand pounds, at his expense, in relief of the sufferers.

Then he went home, sent a message to Raby Hall, that he was all right, took off his clothes, rolled exhausted into bed, and slept till the afternoon.

At four o'clock he rose, got into a hansom, and drove up to Woodbine Villa, the happiest man in England.

He inquired for Miss Carden. The man said he believed she was not up, but would inquire.

“Do,” said Little. “Tell her who it is. I'll wait in the dining-room.”

He walked into the dining-room before the man could object, and there he found a sick gentleman, with Dr. Amboyne and a surgeon examining him. The patient lay on a sofa, extremely pale, and groaning with pain.

One glance sufficed. It was Frederick Coventry.

“What! you alive?” said Little, staring.

“Alive, and that is all,” said Coventry. “Pray excuse me for not dying to please you.”

Ere Little could reply, Mr. Carden, who had heard of his arrival, looked in from the library, and beckoned him in.

When they were alone, he began by giving the young man his hand, and then thanked him warmly for his daughter. “You have shown yourself a hero in courage. Now go one step further; be a hero in fortitude and self-denial; that unhappy man in the next room is her husband; like you, he risked his life to save her. He tells me he heard the dam was going to burst, and came instantly with a ladder to rescue her. He was less fortunate than you, and failed to rescue her; less fortunate than you again, he has received a mortal injury in that attempt. It was I who found him; I went down distracted with anxiety, to look for my daughter; I found this poor creature jammed tight between the tree he was upon and a quantity of heavy timber that had accumulated and rested against a bank. We released him with great difficulty. It was a long time before he could speak; and then, his first inquiry was after HER. Show some pity for an erring man, Mr. Little; some consideration for my daughter's reputation. Let him die in peace: his spine is broken; he can't live many days.”

Little heard all this and looked down on the ground for some time in silence. At last he said firmly, “Mr. Carden, I would not be inhuman to a dying man; but you were always his friend, and never mine. Let me see HER, and I'll tell her what you say, and take her advice.”

“You shall see her, of course; but not just now. She is in bed, attended by a Sister of Charity, whom she telegraphed for.”

“Can I see that lady?”

“Certainly.”

Sister Gratiosa was sent for, and, in reply to Little's anxious inquiries, told him that Sister Amata had been very much shaken by the terrible events of the night, and absolute repose was necessary to her. In further conversation she told him she was aware of Sister Amata's unhappy story, and had approved her retirement from Hillsborough, under all the circumstances; but that now, after much prayer to God for enlightenment, she could not but think it was the Sister's duty, as a Christian woman, to stay at home and nurse the afflicted man whose name she bore, and above all devote herself to his spiritual welfare.

“Oh, that is your notion, is it?” said Henry. “Then you are no friend of mine.”

“I am no enemy of yours, nor of any man, I hope. May I ask you one question, without offense?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you prayed to God to guide you in this difficulty?”

“No.”

“Then seek his throne without delay; and, until you have done so, do not rashly condemn my views of this matter, since I have sought for wisdom where alone it is to be found.”

Henry chafed under this; but he commanded his temper, though with difficulty, and said, “Will you take a line to her from me?”

The Sister hesitated. “I don't know whether I ought,” said she.

“Oh, then the old game of intercepting letters is to be played.”

“Not by me: after prayer I shall be able to say Yes or No to your request. At present, being at a distance from my Superior, I must needs hesitate.”

“Right and wrong must have made very little impression on your mind, if you don't know whether you ought to take a letter to a woman from a man who has just saved her life—or not.”

The lady colored highly, courtesied, and retired without a word.

Little knew enough of human nature to see that the Sister would not pray against feminine spite; he had now a dangerous enemy in the house, and foresaw that Grace would be steadily worked on through her religious sentiments.

He went away, sick with disappointment, jealousy, and misgivings, hired a carriage, and drove at once to Raby Hall.

Mrs. Little saw her son arrive, met him in the hall, and embraced him, with a great cry of maternal joy, that did his heart good for a moment.

He had to tell her all; and, during the recital, she often clasped him to her bosom.

When he had told her all, she said: “Much as I love you, darling, I am ready to part with you for good: there is a cure for all your griefs; there is a better woman in this house than ever Grace Carden was or will be. Be a man; shake off these miserable trammels; leave that vacillating girl to nurse her villain, and marry the one I have chosen for you.”

Henry shook his head. “What! when a few months perhaps will free my Grace from her incumbrance. Mother, you are giving me bad advice for once.”

“Unwelcome advice, dear, not bad. Will you consult Dr. Amboyne? he sleeps here to-night. He often comes here now, you know.” Then the widow colored just a little.

“Oh yes, I know; and I approve.”

Dr. Amboyne came to dinner. In the course of the evening he mentioned his patient Coventry, and said he would never walk again, his spine was too seriously injured.

“How soon will he die? that is what I want to know,” said Henry, with that excessive candor which the polite reader has long ago discovered in him, and been shocked.

“Oh, he may live for years. But what a life! An inert mass below the waist, and, above it, a sick heart, and a brain as sensitive as ever to realize the horrid calamity. Even I, who know and abhor the man's crimes, shudder at the punishment Heaven inflicts on him.”

There was dead silence round the table, and Little was observed to turn pale.

He was gloomy and silent all the evening.

Next morning, directly after breakfast, his mother got him, and implored him not to waste his youth any longer.

“The man will never die,” said she: “he will wear you out. You have great energy and courage; but you have not a woman's humble patience, to go on, year after year, waiting for an event you can not hasten by a single moment. Do you not see it is hopeless? End your misery by one brave plunge. Speak to dear Jael.”

“I can't—I can't!”

“Then let me.”

“Will it make you happy?”

“Very happy. Nothing else can.”

“Will it make her happy?”

“As happy as a queen.”

“She deserves a better fate.”

“She asks no better. There, unless you stop me, I shall speak to her.”

“Well, well,” said Henry, very wearily.

Mrs. Little went to the door.

“Wait a moment,” said he. “How about Uncle Raby? He has been a good friend to me. I have offended him once, and it was the worst job I ever did. I won't offend him again.”

“How can you offend him by marrying Jael?”

“What, have you forgotten how angry he was when Mr. Richard Raby proposed to her? There, I'll go and speak to him.”

“Well, do.”

He was no sooner gone than Mrs. Little stepped into Jael's room, and told her how matters stood.

Jael looked dismayed, and begged her on no account to proceed: “For,” said she, “if Mr. Henry was to ask me, I should say No. He would always be hankering after Miss Carden: and, pray don't be angry with me, but I think I'm worth a man's whole heart; for I could love one very dearly, if he loved me.”

Mrs. Little was deeply mortified. “This I did NOT expect,” said she. “Well, if you are all determined to be miserable—BE.”

Henry hunted up Mr. Raby, and asked him bluntly whether he would like him to marry Jael Dence.

Raby made no reply for some time, and his features worked strangely.

“Has she consented to be your wife?”

“I have never asked her. But I will, if you wish it.”

“Wish it?”

“Why, sir, if you don't wish it, please forbid it, and let us say no more at all about it.”

“Excuse me,” said Raby, with his grandest air: “a gentleman may dislike a thing, yet not condescend to forbid it.”

“That is true, sir; and an ex-workman may appreciate his delicacy, and give the thing up at once. I will die a bachelor.”

“Henry, my boy, give me your hand—I'll tell you the truth. I love her myself. She is a pattern of all I admire in woman.”

“Uncle, I suspected this, to tell the truth. Well, if you love her—marry her.”

“What, without her consent?”

“Oh, she will consent. Order her to marry you: she will never disobey the Lord of the Manor.”

“That is what I fear: and it is base to take advantage of her in that way.”

“You are right, sir,” said Henry, and ran off directly.

He found Jael, and said, “Jael, dear, couldn't you like Uncle Raby? he loves you dearly.”

He then appealed to her heart, and spoke of his uncle's nobleness in fearing to obtain an unfair advantage over her.

To his surprise, Jael blushed deeply, and her face softened angelically, and presently a tear ran down it.

“Hallo!” said Henry. “That is the game, is it? You stay here.”

He ran back to Mr. Raby, and said: “I've made a discovery. She loves you, sir. I'll take my oath of it. You go and ask her.”

“I will,” said Raby; and he went to Jael, like a man, and said, “Jael, he has found me out; I love you dearly. I'm old, but I'm not cold. Do you think you could be happy as my wife, with all the young fellows admiring you?”

“Sir” said Jael, “I wouldn't give your little finger for all the young men in Christendom. Once I thought a little too much of Mr. Henry, but that was over long ago. And since you saved my life, and cried over me in this very room, you have been in my head and in my heart; but I wouldn't show it; for I had vowed I never would let any man know my heart till he showed me his.”

In short, this pair were soon afterward seen walking arm in arm, radiant with happiness.

That sight was too much for Henry Little. The excitement of doing a kind thing, and making two benefactors happy, had borne him up till now; but the reaction came: the contrast of their happiness with his misery was too poignant. He had not even courage to bid them good-by, but fled back to Hillsborough, in anguish of spirit and deep despair.

When he got home, there was a note from Grace Carden.

“MY OWN DEAREST HENRY,—I find that you have called, and been denied me; and that Mr. Coventry has been admitted into the house.

“I have therefore left Woodbine Villa, and taken lodgings opposite. Sister Gratiosa has convinced me I ought to labor for the eternal welfare of the guilty, unhappy man whose name it is my misfortune to bear. I will try to do so: but nobody shall either compel, or persuade me, to be cruel to my dear Henry, to whom I owe my life once more, and who is all the world to me. I shall now be employed nearly all the day, but I reserve two hours, from three till five, when you will always find me at home. Our course is clear. We must pray for patience.

“Yours to eternity, GRACE.”

After reading this letter, and pondering it well, Henry Little's fortitude revived, and, as he could not speak his mind to Grace at that moment, he wrote to her, after some hours of reflection, as follows:

“MY OWN DEAREST GRACE,—I approve, I bless you. Our case is hard, but not desperate. We have been worse off than we are now. I agree with you that our course is clear; what we have got to do, as I understand it, is to outlive a crippled scoundrel. Well, love and a clear conscience will surely enable us to outlive a villain, whose spine is injured, and whose conscience must gnaw him, and who has no creature's love to nourish him.

“Yours in this world, and, I hope, in the next,

“HENRY.”

Sister Gratiosa, to oblige Grace stayed at Woodbine Villa. She was always present at any interview of Coventry and Grace.

Little softened her, by giving her money whenever she mentioned a case of distress. She had but this one pleasure in life, a pure one, and her poverty had always curbed it hard. She began to pity this poor sinner, who was ready to pour his income into her lap for Christian purposes.

And so the days rolled on. Raby took into his head to repair the old church, and be married in it. This crotchet postponed his happiness for some months.

But the days and weeks rolled on.

Raby became Sheriff of the county.

Coventry got a little better, and moved to the next villa.

Then Grace returned at once to Woodbine Villa; but she still paid charitable visits with Sister Gratiosa to the wreck whose name she bore.

She was patient.

But Little, the man of action, began to faint.

He decided to return to the United States for a year or two, and distract his mind.

When he communicated this resolve, Grace sighed.

“The last visit there was disastrous,” said she. “But,” recovering herself, “we can not be deceived again, nor doubt each other's constancy again.” So she sighed, but consented.

Coventry heard of it, and chuckled inwardly. He felt sure that in time he should wear out his rival's patience.

A week or two more, and Little named the very day for sailing.

The Assizes came on. The Sheriff met the Judges with great pomp, and certain observances which had gone out. This pleased the Chief Justice; he had felt a little nervous; Raby's predecessor had met him in a carriage and pair and no outriders, and he had felt it his duty to fine the said Sheriff L100 for so disrespecting the Crown in his person.

So now, alluding to this, he said, “Mr. Sheriff, I am glad to find you hold by old customs, and do not grudge outward observances to the Queen's justices.”

“My lord,” said the Sheriff, “I can hardly show enough respect to justice and learning, when they visit in the name of my sovereign.”

“That is very well said, Mr. Sheriff,” said my lord.

The Sheriff bowed.

The Chief Justice was so pleased with his appearance, and his respectful yet dignified manner, that he conversed with him repeatedly during the pauses of the trials.

Little was cording his boxes for America when Ransome burst in on him, and said, “Come into court; come into court. Shifty Dick will be up directly.”

Little objected that he was busy; but Ransome looked so mortified that he consented, and was just in in time to see Richard Martin, alias Lord Daventree, alias Tom Paine, alias Sir Harry Gulstone, alias the Quaker, alias Shifty Dick, etc., etc., appear at the bar.

The indictment was large, and charged the prisoner with various frauds of a felonious character, including his two frauds on the Gosshawk.

Counsel made a brief exposition of the facts, and then went into the evidence. But here the strict, or, as some think, pedantic rules of English evidence, befriended the prisoner, and the Judge objected to certain testimony on which the prosecution had mainly relied. As for the evidence of coining, the flood had swept all that away.

Ransome, who was eager for a conviction, began to look blue.

But presently a policeman, who had been watching the prisoner, came and whispered in his ear.

Up started Ransome, wrote the Crown solicitor a line, begging him to keep the case on its legs anyhow for half an hour, and giving his reason. He then dashed off in a cab.

The case proceeded, under discouraging remarks from the Judge, most of them addressed to the evidence; but he also hinted that the indictment was rather loosely drawn.

At last the Attorney-General, who led, began to consult with his junior whether they could hope for a conviction.

But now there was a commotion; then heads were put together, and, to the inexpressible surprise of young Little and of the Sheriff, Grace Coventry was put into the witness-box.

At the sight of her the learned Judge, who was, like most really great lawyers, a keen admirer of beautiful women, woke up, and became interested.

After the usual preliminaries, counsel requested her to look at that man, and say whether she knew him.

Grace looked, and recognized him. “Yes,” said she, “it is Mr. Beresford; he is a clergyman.”

Whereupon there was a loud laugh.

Counsel. “What makes you think he is a clergyman?”

Witness. “I have seen him officiate. It was he who married me to Mr.—” Here she caught sight of Henry, and stopped, blushing.

“What is that?” said the Judge, keenly. “Did you say that man performed the marriage ceremony over you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“When and where was that?”

She gave the time and place.

“I should like to see the register of that parish.”

“Let me save you the trouble,” said the prisoner. “Your lordship's time has been wasted enough with falsehoods; I will not waste it further by denying the truth. The fact is, my lord, I was always a great churchgoer (a laugh), and I was disgusted with the way in which the clergy deliver the Liturgy, and with their hollow discourses, that don't go home to men's bosoms. Vanity whispered, 'You could do better.' I applied for the curacy of St. Peter's. I obtained it. I gave universal satisfaction; and no wonder; my heart was in the work; I trembled at the responsibility I had undertaken. Yes, my lord, I united that young lady in holy matrimony to one Frederick Coventry. I had no sooner done it, than I began to realize that a clergyman is something more than a reader and a preacher. Remorse seized me. My penitence, once awakened, was sincere. I retired from the sacred office I had usurped—with much levity, I own, but, as heaven is my witness, with no guilty intent.”

The Judge, to Grace. “Did you ever see the prisoner on any other occasion?”

Grace. “Only once. He called on me after my marriage. He left the town soon after.”

The Judge then turned to Grace, and said, with considerable feeling, “It would be unkind to disguise the truth from you. You must petition Parliament to sanction this marriage by a distinct enactment; it is the invariable course, and Parliament has never refused to make these marriages binding. Until then, pray understand that you are Miss Carden, and not Mrs. Coventry.”

The witness clasped her hands above her bead, uttered a loud scream of joy, and was removed all but insensible from the box.

The Judge looked amazed. The Sheriff whispered, “Her husband is a greater scoundrel than this prisoner.”

Soon after this the Judge withdrew to luncheon, and took the Sheriff along with him. “Mr. Sheriff,” said he, “you said something to me in court I hardly understood.”

Then Raby gave the Judge a brief outline of the whole story, and, in a voice full of emotion, asked his advice.

The Judge smiled at this bit of simplicity; but his heart had been touched, and he had taken a fancy to Raby. “Mr. Sheriff,” said he, “etiquette forbids me to advise you—”

“I am sorry for that, my lord.”

“But humanity suggests—Tell me, now, does this Coventry hold to her? Will he petition Parliament?”

“It is very possible, my lord.”

“Humph! Get a special license, and marry Grace Carden to Henry Little, and have the marriage consummated. Don't lose a day, nor an hour. I will not detain you, Mr. Sheriff.”

Raby took the hint, and soon found Henry, and told him the advice he had got. He set him to work to get the license, and, being resolved to stand no nonsense, he drove to Grace, and invited her to Raby Hall. “I am to be married this week,” said he, “and you must be at the wedding.”

Grace thought he would be hurt if she refused, so she colored a little, but consented.

She packed up, with many a deep sigh, things fit for a wedding, and Raby drove her home. He saw her to her room, and then had a conversation with Mrs. Little, the result of which was that Henry's mother received her with well-feigned cordiality.

Next day Henry came to dinner, and, after dinner, the lovers were left alone. This, too, had been arranged beforehand.

Henry told her he was going to ask her a great favor; would she consider all they had suffered, and, laying aside childish delays, be married to him in the old church to-morrow, along with Mr. Raby and Jael Dence?

Oh, then she trembled, and blushed, and hesitated; and faltered out, “What! all in a moment like that? what would your mother think of me?”

Henry ran for his mother, and brought her into the room.

“Mother,” said he, “Grace wants to know what you will think of her, if she should lay aside humbug and marry me to-morrow?”

Mrs. Little replied, “I shall say, here is a dear child, who has seen what misery may spring from delay, and so now she will not coquet with her own happiness, nor trifle with yours.”

“No, no,” said Grace; “only tell me you will forgive my folly, and love me as your child.”

Mrs. Little caught her in her arms, and, in that attitude, Grace gave her hand to Henry, and whispered “Yes.”

Next day, at eleven o'clock, the two couples went to the old church, and walked up the aisle to the altar. Grace looked all around. Raby had effaced every trace of Henry's sacrilege from the building; but not from the heart of her whose life he had saved on that very spot.

She stood at the altar, weeping at the recollections the place revived, but they were tears of joy. The parson of the parish, a white-haired old man, the model of a pastor, married the two couples according to the law of England.

Raby took his wife home, more majorum.

Little whirled his prize off to Scotland, and human felicity has seldom equaled his and his bride's.

Yet in the rapture of conjugal bliss, she did not forget duty and filial affection. She wrote a long and tender letter to her father, telling him how it all happened, and hoping that she should soon be settled, and then he would come and live with her and her adored husband.

Mr. Carden was delighted with this letter, which, indeed, was one gush of love and happiness. He told Coventry what had taken place, and counseled patience.

Coventry broke out into curses. He made wonderful efforts for a man in his condition; he got lawyers to prepare a petition to Parliament; he had the register inspected, and found that the Shifty had married two poor couples; he bribed them to join in his petition, and inserted in it that, in consideration of this marriage, he had settled a certain farm and buildings on his wife for her separate use, and on her heirs forever.

The petition was read in Parliament, and no objection taken. It was considered a matter of course.

But, a few days afterward, one of the lawyers in the House, primed by a person whose name I am not free to mention, recurred to the subject, and said that, as regarded one of these couples, too partial a statement had been laid before the House; he was credibly informed that the parties had separated immediately after the ceremony, and that the bride had since been married, according to law, to a gentleman who possessed her affections, and had lived with him ever since the said marriage.

On this another lawyer got up, and said that “if that was so, the petition must be abandoned. Parliament was humane, and would protect an illegal marriage per se, but not an illegal marriage competing with a legal one, that would be to tamper with the law of England, and, indeed, with morality; would compel a woman to adultery in her own despite.”

This proved a knock-down blow; and the petition was dropped, as respected Frederick Coventry and Grace Little.

Coventry's farm was returned to him, and the settlement canceled.

Little sent Ransome to him with certain memoranda, and warned him to keep quiet, or he would be indicted for felony.

He groaned and submitted.

He lives still to expiate his crimes.

While I write these lines, there still stands at Poma Bridge one disemboweled house, to mark that terrible flood: and even so, this human survivor lives a wreck. “Below the waist an inert mass; above it, a raging, impotent, despairing criminal.” He often prays for death. Since he can pray for any thing let us hope he will one day pray for penitence and life everlasting.

Little built a house in the suburbs leading to Raby Hall. There is a forge in the yard, in which the inventor perfects his inventions with his own hand. He is a wealthy man, and will be wealthier for he lives prudently and is never idle.

Mr. Carden lives with him. Little is too happy with Grace to bear malice against her father.

Grace is lovelier than ever, and blissfully happy in the husband she adores, and two lovely children.

Guy Raby no longer calls life one disappointment: he has a loving and prudent wife, and loves her as she deserves; his olive branches are rising fast around him; and as sometimes happens to a benedict of his age, who has lived soberly, he looks younger, feels younger, talks younger, behaves younger than he did ten years before he married. He is quite unconscious that he has departed from his favorite theories, in wedding a yeoman's daughter. On the contrary, he believes he has acted on a system, and crossed the breed so judiciously as to attain greater physical perfection by means of a herculean dam, yet retain that avitam fidem, or traditional loyalty, which (to use his own words) “is born both in Rabys and Dences, as surely as a high-bred setter comes into the world with a nose for game.”

Mrs. Little has rewarded Dr. Amboyne's patience and constancy. They have no children of their own, so they claim all the young Littles and Rabys, present and to come; and the doctor has bound both the young women by a solemn vow to teach them, at an early age, the art of putting themselves into his place, her place, their place. He has convinced these young mothers that the “great transmigratory art,” although it comes of itself only to a few superior minds, can be taught to vast numbers; and he declares that, were it to be taught as generally as reading and writing, that teaching alone would quadruple the intelligence of mankind, and go far to double its virtue.

But time flies, and space contracts: the words and the deeds of Amboyne, are they not written in the Amboyniana?

One foggy night, the house of a non-Union fender-grinder was blown up with gunpowder, and not the workman only—the mildest and most inoffensive man I ever talked with—but certain harmless women and innocent children, who had done nothing to offend the Union, were all but destroyed. The same barbarous act had been committed more than once before, and with more bloody results, but had led to no large consequences—carebat quai vate sacro; but this time there happened to be a vates in the place, to wit, an honest, intrepid journalist, with a mind in advance of his age. He came, he looked, he spoke to the poor shaken creatures—one of them shaken for life, and doomed now to start from sleep at every little sound till she sleeps forever—and the blood in his heart boiled. The felony was publicly reprobated, and with horror, by the Union, which had, nevertheless, hired the assassins; but this well-worn lie did not impose on the vates, or chronicler ahead of his time. He went round to all the manufacturers, and asked them to speak out. They durst not, for their lives; but closed all doors, and then, with bated breath, and all the mien of slaves well trodden down, hinted where information might be had. Thereupon the vates aforesaid—Holdfast yclept—went from scent to scent, till he dropped on a discontented grinder, with fish-like eyes, who had been in “many a night job.” This man agreed to split, on two conditions; he was to receive a sum of money, and to be sent into another hemisphere, since his life would not be worth a straw, if he told the truth about the Trades in this one. His terms were accepted, and then he made some tremendous revelations and, with these in his possession, Holdfast wrote leader upon leader, to prove that the Unions must have been guilty of every Trade outrage that had taken place for years in the district; but adroitly concealing that he had positive information.

Grotait replied incautiously, and got worsted before the public. The ablest men, if not writers, are unwise to fence writers.

Holdfast received phonetic letters threatening his life: he acknowledged them in his journal and invited the writers to call.

He loaded a revolver and went on writing the leaders with a finger on the trigger. CALIFORNIA! Oh, dear, no: the very center of England.

Ransome co-operated with him and collected further evidence, and then Holdfast communicated privately with a portion of the London press, and begged them to assist him to obtain a Royal commission of inquiry, in which case he pledged himself to prove that a whole string of murders and outrages had been ordered and paid for by the very Unions which had publicly repudiated them in eloquent terms, and been believed.

The London press took this up; two or three members of the House of Commons, wild, eccentric men, who would not betray their country to secure their re-election to some dirty borough, sided with outraged law; and by these united efforts a Commission was obtained. The Commission sat, and, being conducted with rare skill and determination, squeezed out of an incredible mass of perjury some terrible truths, whose discovery drew eloquent leaders from the journals; these filled simple men, who love their country, with a hope that the Government of this nation would shake off its lethargy, and take stringent measures to defend the liberty of the subject against so cruel and cowardly a conspiracy, and to deprive the workmen, in their differences with the masters, of an unfair and sanguinary weapon, which the masters could use, but never have as YET; and, by using which, the workmen do themselves no lasting good, and, indeed, have driven whole trades and much capital out of the oppressed districts, to their own great loss.

That hope, though not extinct, is fainter now than it was. Matters seem going all the other way. An honest, independent man, who did honor to the senate, has lost his seat solely for not conniving at these Trades outrages, which the hypocrites, who have voted him out, pretend to denounce. Foul play is still rampant and triumphant. Its victims were sympathized with for one short day, when they bared their wounds to the Royal Commissioners; but that sympathy has deserted them; they are now hidden in holes and corners from their oppressors, and have to go by false names, and are kept out of work; for odisse quem loeseris is the fundamental maxim of their oppressors. Not so the assassins: they flourish. I have seen with these eyes one savage murderer employed at high wages, while a man he all but destroyed is refused work on all hands, and was separated by dire poverty from another scarred victim, his wife, till I brought them together. Again, I have seen a wholesale murderer employed on the very machine he had been concerned in blowing up, employed on it at the wages of three innoxious curates. And I find this is the rule, not the exception. “No punishment but for already punished innocence; no safety but for triumphant crime.”

The Executive is fast asleep in the matter—or it would long ago have planted the Manchester district with a hundred thousand special constables—and the globule of LEGISLATION now prescribed to Parliament, though excellent in certain respects, is null in others, would, if passed into law, rather encourage the intimidation of one man by twenty, and make him starve his family to save his skin—cruel alternative—and would not seriously check the darker and more bloody outrages, nor prevent their spreading from their present populous centers all over the land. Seeing these things, I have drawn my pen against cowardly assassination and sordid tyranny; I have taken a few undeniable truths, out of many, and have labored to make my readers realize those appalling facts of the day which most men know, but not one in a thousand comprehends, and not one in a hundred thousand REALIZES, until Fiction—which, whatever you may have been told to the contrary, is the highest, widest, noblest, and greatest of all the arts—comes to his aid, studies, penetrates, digests the hard facts of chronicles and blue-books, and makes their dry bones live.

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