to betake himself with all convenient speed to the profundities of the Red Sea, threatening him with the canonical pains and penalties in the event of non-compliance. The stranger thanked him cordially for his attention, but declared that he was perfectly comfortable where he was, and besides that he was no special admirer of the cold water cure! Finally the bothered and baffled ecclesiastic had recourse to his carnal weapon, and grasping the red hot tongs, made a grab at the proboscis of the unwholesome and nameless interloper! It was, however, a bootless essay ! The fiery utensil fell short of the mark, and recoiling upon the sconce of its wielder, singed away the few gray hairs, which, like a coronet of snow circled his bald climax! "Verily the mantle of Saint Dunstan hath not lighted upon my unworthy shoulders," exclaimed the honest confessor, as he sunk down exhausted into his easy chair, and drained a copious bumper of Rhenish to brace his relaxed and shaken nerves!

The Advocate who beheld this scene with profound indifference, not to say contempt, next interposed his offices.

Addressing the unbidden visitor, in the most cool and business-like manner, he introduced himself as the legal adviser of the Baron of Boddam, and as such entitled to investigate the validity of any demand made either upon his person or property. "Without hinting a suspicion as to who you are, or what you may be," said the grave and formal practitioner,-"I have to certiorate you that in this realm no one is above or below the law; she does not make fish of one and flesh of another, but treats with kindred impartially, peer and peasant, devil and demi-God!" "Do you mean any thing personal by that last allusion, ?" exclaimed the unknown, somewhat pettishly. "If you do, I can tell you that I did not come here to be insulted by any rascally pettifogger in or out of Christendom! I simply claim the implement of a regular agreement. My own is all that I require, and my own I am determined to have!

The stranger-for so he must be termed, in default of a more definite designation—did not seem to relish the lawyer's imperturbable selfpossession, which amounted almost to stolidity. He hitched and wriggled about in his seat, as if the cushion thereof had been replete with thorns; but at length, unable to refute the averments of his opponent, he at last drew forth the deed. "There," said he, dashing it down with an irate flourish, "there is the document, and you may make a kirk and a mill thereof, as the denizens of this churlish region say. I defy you to ferret out a single flaw or mistake. It would be somewhat surprising if you could, seeing that the bond is an exact counterpart of the one which con veyed away the soul of the renowned Doctor Faustus. The regularity of that transaction was never questioned by the most famous members of the Italian bar, and I humbly flatter myself that what held good there, will hold better in Scot land!"

"That is to be seen, neighbor," was the quiet rejoinder; and unfolding the parchment, the law. yer, having first wiped and adjusted his spectacles, proceeded to bestow upon it a rigid inspection.

During this process, the Baron looked the very incarnation of anxiety. The stranger pretended to be unconcerned, but ever and anon cast the tail of his inexplicable eye upon the reader, as i he was not quite free from harm from that quarter. As for the excellent Father Bethune, he sat looking faggots and halters at the mysterious one, and rapping out, every other minute, one of his thriftless adjurations.

It was close upon the midnight hour ere Mr. Flawfinder concluded his explorations. When he had done so, he pitched the writing from him with a contemptuous pshaw, and snuffing carelessly at a pouncet box, declared that it was worth no more than the value of the raw materiai. "If you get a groat for it, as a covering for a drum," quoth he, “you may think yourself preIcious well off."

Mr. Flawfinder blandly waved his hand, and "And wherein is the deed defective, I should requested the personage, whoever he was, not to like to know?" exclaimed the now thoroughy put himself into a flurry about nothing. "Ac-alarmed bondholder.

cording to my instructions," said he, "you hold "Why, I could march a troop of archer a certain mortgage, or bond, over that chattel of my constituent, commonly called 'his soul.' Now I demand an inspection of that instrument, before its conditions be carried into effect. If executed in a legal and formal manner, you may do with the Baron what you please; if not, I defy you to touch him with the tip of your little finger!"

through a dozen holes in it with ease,” was curt rejoinder. "But to say nothing more, neglects to state the place and date of subscrip tion, and lacks the signature of witnesses, so thei according to the lex loci contractus, it is esse tially and incurably null and void! Get out ví my sight, you miserable, bungling vagabond continued the indignant pleader. "You woul

have the assurance to speak of the lawyers of Italy and Scotland in the same filthy breath! Begone, you scoundrel, and the next paction you make, secure the services of a person who knows something about such matters!"

Just as the excited advocate had concluded this tirade, the bell of the castle struck twelve! All of a sudden both fire and lamps were extinguished, as if by some stifling, noxious vapour. A clap of thunder, overwhelmingly sonorous, shook the castle from its very foundation, and was followed by a shriek of mingled rage and chagrin, such as never was uttered by mortal

Foice!

After a season, the clear moonbeams became once more visible, and disclosed a scene of strange devastation. The wall adjoining the great window, was shattered as if by the action of lightning, several massive stones being dislodged and precipitated to the ground. Upon the table lay the shrivelled and charred remains of the ominous indenture, nothing of its contents remaining save the blood-engrossed signature of KentigernKeith!

A CENTIPEDE IN TAHITI.-One evening we were sitting in the American hotel playing a game at enone, while nearly the whole native population of the place was walking up and down before the house. It was about half-past seven o'clock, and we heard the girls outside there was suddenly a quick repetition of loud laughing and talking with one another, when screams in a female voice. We of course threw down our cards, and ran to the door to see what was the matter. We had not far to go. Just before the entrance we found a group of persons, and in the centre a young lady particle of dress she had on; and when she was hard at work stripping herself of every had accomplished this-a matter of hardly five seconds-she was surrounded by a crowd of young girls who wrapped their parens around her. The dress was left untouched in of common sense is the matter?" our captain the middle of the street. "What in the name cried, seeing that no one would even go near the garments. The answer was short and perfectly satisfactory. "A centipede," the natives cried; and they all tried to get their naked feet as far away as possible from the place where the much-fear ed insect was. The girl had felt the monster in her dress, and Next morning the mangled corpse of old Dr. had thrown off her things as quickly as posFoxglove was discovered in the court-yard. sible, to get rid of the danger of being stung What had brought him to the castle at such an by this, in fact, very poisonous insect. Having antimely season, was never thoroughly discovered, centipede as yet, I gave chase, and gathered already a bottleful of such enormities, but no but itis conjectured that having witnessed the ar- up the whole of the girl's dress without the ival of the Advocate, he came an eaves-dropping least remonstrance from the natives. I carried to try and find out the nature of his mission, for it, followed by the two skippers, into the he was ever of a prying disposition. The miser- American hotel, to unkennel the enemy. It ble creature had been crushed to death by one was rather a delicate thing to search a lady's of the disrupted blocks of granite; and thus his wardrobe in such a way, but a naturalist may mpious imprecation uttered so many years be-ed; and it was not long before we caught the go to many places where others are not allowore, was accomplished, it is to be feared, to the animal. I got it at last in a tumbler half full ery letter! of brandy, and with a cover upon it the prize was safe.-Gerstaecker's Journey Round the World.

*

As Fergus died intestate, the Baron succeeded > his plethoric hoardings as next of kin, and a rge per centage thereof he devoted to masses ›r the repose of the defunct.

["Such," concluded Dr. Pittendrum, "is the gend of Boddam Castle, and should any question Le verity thereof, the rent wall stands there to eak for itself!"]

Parents cling to their child, not to his gifts. Did you ever find a "professional" win a game entirely to his "flukes?" of billiards of you without assigning your defeat

Did you ever find a Continental shopkeeper whose "prix fixe" might not be proved a lucus-anonentity?

Did you ever start upon a railway journey without hearing the immortal observation "Now we're

The improbabilities of experience are many, the off?" ipossibilities are few.

Literature is a garden, books are particular ews of it, and readers are visitors.

Let every one protect himself from a sullen, otistical spirit, for there can be none worse. No man is wholly intolerant; every one forgives tle errors without knowing it.

which in practice did not prove to be completely Did you ever know an "alarming sacrifice," one of principle?

Did you ever in your life hail a City-bound omnibus that wasn't going "almost directly" back to Bayswater?

Did you ever know a penny-a-liner who, in Did you ever know a pic-nic go off without speaking of a fire, could abstain from calling it awful apparition of a

wops?"

"the devouring element?"

PART II. HONESTY THE BEST POLICY.

NATHELESS, frequent were the pinnacles and precipices that stood up, gray in their craggy nakedness, although the great majority were covered with ivy, or mantled by overhanging screens of bramble or other creeping brushwood, while ever and anon a spruce fir, or other golden-leaved tree, or haply a scarlet mountain ash (the dear rowan-tree of the north,) would vary, by its richer tint, the every-shaded green.

The bottom of the ravine was a series of tiny cataracts, rolling down a kind of starlike descent, formed by numerous huge masses of rock, tumbled confusedly together, and fixed in the most wild and grotesque positions.

and slippery to the tread. But at the point where the column of water fell asunder thus into rain, a most lovely Iris bent her manytinted brow from tree to tree across the hollow.

At another place the whole body of the stream was projected from a high horizontal shelf of rock completely hollowed out beneath, and fell with a dead sound into the centre of a deep circular pool. You could walk quite round behind the falling water, and in the farther point of the rock-roofed recess a rude seat had been hewn in the soft stone. Bob Whyte and I sat down together, and enjoyed a cheroot and a discussion with regard to the geologic phenomena around us.

Here

Upon one side of this dell, and down the opposite, a rude footpath had been worn by the feet of pilgrims of the picturesque, which, however, to render it passable required in some places the aid of ladders several fathoms One vast block there was that appeared in height. These, composed of stout beams almost to dangle by two corners across from of wood, wedged between rocks, were conprecipice to precipice, while the water foamed structed by the villagers. The whole aspect and bubbled through beneath. Another of the place, in short, was less like what you stood up on one point, like a ponderous weight on the chin of an expert balancer; whilst another again had been arrested just on the bank of a lofty ledge, over which the stream made a frantic bound beside it and looked as

if the next heavy rain would hurl it and destruction sheer down into the black pool many

fathoms below.

would expect to meet with in nature than what you would look for in the fantastic designs on a tea-tray, or the imaginative scenery of a romantic melo-drama.

For hours we rambled over this ravine, climbing trees, chipping rocks, collecting inpices and into caves. Finally, emerging at sects and wild flowers, scrambling over preci

the sky. Then, hurriedly descending, we again traversed it, till we came to a beautiful clear pool with a rounded grassy bank, from which an old tree stooped its branches till within a couple of feet of the water's surface.

And yet, amid all this ruggedness, vegeta- the upper end of the chasm, we roved about tion was most luxuriant; there was not a lit-upon the hill-side till the sun had sunk low in tle bank of sand brought down by the stream in winter that the summer sun had not changed into grass and flower-bearing soil nay, from every hollow and crevice of these isolated masses of stone shot forth knots of grass, with intermingled wild flowers of white, yellow, or blue. Sometimes the ravine narrowed to a strait, through which the water had barely room to make a hurried gush; elsewhere it expanded into rounded cup-like hollows, down into which the sun shone most joyously, the bottom being occupied by a rock-encircled bank of grassy ground, or a deep pool, which on one side washed the base of a precipice, on the other shoaled away to a beach of white pebbly sand.

Nor less eminent in beauty and wildness of aspect were the waterfalls. Some of them were of a most striking and original description, if I may apply the latter term to a natural object. In one instance there was a round pit-like place, with inaccessible, yet completely leaf-concealed sides, and into this was pitched a branch of the stream, from a height so great that it was broken up by the air into myriads of drops, and fell a drizzling shower upon the large stones at the bottom, rendering them continually dark, mossy, wet,

*Continued from page 532, vol. 3

As soon as we had raised our heads above the surface, and while swimming about, exulting in the delicious refreshment of this bath after our travel, we observed an individual on the bank lay down a fishing rod, and, with an inquiry as to the temperature of the water, plunge in along with us, and we soon all three were laughing, splashing, and diving about, springing from the branches of the overhanging tree into the pool, and capering away in all directions. When we had our full of this, we donned our toggery" again, and, shoul dering our boxes of scientific specimens, whilst our new companion slung his wellfilled basket across his haunch, away w started together down the ravine to the in where we had bespoken dinner.

แ

As we went, I took cognizance of the sp pearance and conversation of our companion. He was a slight, middle-aged looking mas with features well marked and decided, whoe habitual expression appeared to be a smile o good humor dashed with a degree of conde scension. He wore a sporting suit of ligh cotton stuff that fitted admirably; everything

about him was evidently clean and neat, and from his bosom to one pocket hung a slender and very graceful gold chain. He displayed, as he talked, a very correct taste, abundance of information on all subjects, and a firm though unassuming way of stating his opinion. From all these circumstances I concluded him to be one of that class of beings entitled to be called "gentlemen" by more than their own assumption of the name.

He had been enjoying a day's sport, he told us, in the upper portion of the stream, and his heavy basket bore witness to his

success.

Twenty minutes after reaching our inn, a most respectable country dinner was set before us, during which the stranger and Bob kept up the spirit of the conversation. When we had concluded the repast, we drew the table to the open window, and sat down to a bottle of admirable sherry, which had been cooled in the stream at the foot of the inn garden.

lar descent, and which passed, there has been again a progressive ascent-the ebb as it were in the tide of his fortunes. This crisis was very marked in my case, and I rejoice to think that it happened in my youth, for I have seen it occur in old age. Misfortunes of every kind were heaped upon me-sudden poverty struck me—and my aged and only parent and I, saw no prospect but wretchedness.

"Now, then," thought I, "all my dreams of honorable independence, nay, of scientific distinction in the world, are dashed to the ground, and I must forego those darling studies and pursuits in which my hopes were bound up, to go out and earn, with toil of body and heaviness of spirit the bread of sorrow for myself and the one who has none but Heaven and me to depend on. O must I leave this dear land, of which my very heart seems part and parcel, and go to scrape gold from among the sun-scorched sands of feverguarded climes ?"

The friends of prosperity forsook me, and The window looked to the west, and the I skulked on the shady side of the street, view of a magnificent summer sunset, the whilst they strutted in the sun and contemptfeelings of rest after much fatigue, of a satis- uously looked the other way. Nay, my own fied appetite, and of the delicious, warm calm-relations no longer received me with common ness of the evening, combined with the rich flavor of the wine, and its exhilarating effect upon our spirits, rendered us as happy as it is possible for care-beset mortals to be.

Our discourse was of lighter scientific objects later discoveries-recent works their

authors-phrenology-mesmerism-supernaturalism. Illustrative of the last topic, the stranger related an anecdote, which certainly was a curious one, and shall, in all probability, make its appearance in these reminiscences some day or other.

PART III. BOB WHYTE'S EXTRAORDINARY STORY. [IN connexion with the remarkable narrative which follows, the author begs the reader to acquit him of

any desire to compel his belief in the truth of the position there laid down, but he would at the same

time ask, if he himself cannot call to mind some

particular circumstances or occasion, when his ima

gination had so played with his senses, as to render him, for the time being, a believer in the supernatural.]

kindness; the very bread I ate, which came from them, was given with a grudge, felt and shown if not expressed, and many a taunt was flung at the fool that had aimed at a rank for which by nature and fortune he was totally unfit, and had miserably failed-of

course.

All this was bitter-bitter! I felt it cut into my very soul: moreover, I was smitten with a severe and prostrating illness, from a wound received in dissection, and was now but slowly recovering comparative health.

A friend I had too-ours was a schoolboy friendship-he was my most intimate companion-my more than brother-with whom hood-in whom I had placed more confidence I had lodged, studied, and grown up to manthan in any other being-from whom I had no hope or purpose concealed: bright pros distress (alas! for love without wings!) this pects were opening before him, and in my friend forsook me, and laughed and gloried in the act-he called it "cutting the connexion."

But all this I thought I could bear up There was a pause thereupon, and, he hav- against, and I did so, hoping with patience ing requested my friend to relate any instance and self-denial to surmount my difficulties— of a similar kind that had come under his at least to fall before them disputing every knowledge, Bob White, while the pensive lan-inch of ground, and returning to all, scorn for guor of the ebbing and dewy twilight was falling upon us, filled his glass, and slightly sipping as he went on, narrated Episode No. II., in the shape of

THE FOOTSTEP.

I think there is one particular period in the life of every man to which he can look back as the most miserable he has ever seen, a point to which there was in his affairs a regu

scorn. But the hand of fate was heavy on me. Another visitation came and crushed my spirit utterly. I bowed to the dust before it, and became as those who have no hope.

There was one I loved, and she was fairoh, how very fair! Do not doubt this from the fact that she doted on a being so uncouth as I am. She was the centre to which all my thoughts did gravitate-the golden evening to the morrow of my hopes.