A YANKEE IN A COAL SCREEN. In order to load the coal boats on the Lehigh Canal, a short but steep inclined plane of about 150 feet in length, is made at the chute which runs from the station house on the side of the mountain to a large circular revolving screen. To the loaded car is attached a rope which draws up an empty one, and, arrived at the screen, the lower end of the car is suddenly unbolted, and the coal is shot with great velocity into a hopper; this conveys it directly into a screen, which has three large chambers, through which coal of as many sizes is riddled out, and shot, by scuppers, into just as many boats, waiting for the different descriptions of the article. A few months since, a Yankee of the genuine breed, quite inquisitive, but more verdant than a Yankee ought to be, gained the station house, and gazed with wonder at the contrivances. He particularly admired the swiftness with which the loaded car descended and emptied its load, and the velocity with which it returned to give place to another. Shortly his attention was attracted by seeing one of the laborers mount a full car that was about to make the descent. "Going to slide?" inquired he. "Yes, going to chute; won't you go?" "Wal, I guess I'd rather stop a while, and see you do it." The car swiftly descended, and ere it reached the hopper, the passenger jumped off safely. Do you do that often?" inquired he of one of the laborers in the station house. "Oh, yes, continually;" was the waggish answer,"you know most all the boatmen are single men, and as they often have orders for 'family coal, we always send down a married man with every car of that kind, to let 'em know." "Wal, now, deu tell?" uttered the Yankee. The more the Yankee looked at the aparatus, the more did he become convinced that it would be a great thing to go down the steep in that way-something that he could tell" to hum." Plucking up courage, he aproached the superintendant. "That beats slidin' down hill, don't it?" HAILED BY A BROTHER.-What, not going to call? Not going to say How d'ye do, brother? This is a shameful breach of fraternal duty. stoop down and grasp the sides of his vehicle for support. The place where the laborer had leaped off was reached, but the Yankee was not in a position to jump; he had to hold on, and, running down a descent three times as steep as that which he had come, a sudden click shot the bolt, and, with a violent jerk, out went the contents, Yankee included, into the hopper. "Murder! get me out! stop the consarn!" shouted our hero, as he felt himself sliding down the hopper to the cylinder. "Murder! stop the consarn! I'll be killed!" But the motive power of "the consarn" was water, which has no sympathy with those who pursue knowledge under difficulties, and those who saw, were too far distant, and too much convulsed with laughter to yield assistance. Into the screen he slid, landing on the top, and as he felt himself revolving with the coal, he grasped the wires in desperation, to prevent himself from being rolled to the bottom-around the wheel he went, and his sensibilities were touched up by a plentiful shower of fine coaldust riddled through from all the chambers. He managed to get one eye open, and saw with delight that the cylinder was only about fifteen feet in length, and he forced his way forward to the opening with desperation, but it was not altogether successful; another revolution of the wheel had yet to be borne, and the next time he reached the bottom, he was shot out of the scupper into the boat beneath. To the screams of laughter with which his advent was hailed, our hero said not a word, but rubbing the dust out of his eyes and surveying his torn apparel and bruised and vein" to know as to what quality scratched limbs, he "raised his of anthracite he had been delivered, when, smashing his remnant of a hat over his eyes, he stumped off, muttering-" broken and screened, by thunder!" Brudemer carried it to his lips to conceal a horrid smile, which he could not suppress, but he suddenly cast it from him with a shudder of terror, as if it had been living fire. Now, the chaplain had examined it that very evening after vespers, and while his hands were still moist with holy water. Quickly recovering from his emotion, Brudemer requested permission to accompany the lady in a boat on the lake, when resuming the conversation, he said, "I was guided to your castle by an old man, who in great haste demanded to see the lord of Clairmarais. He waits at the postern to communicate to him an important secret, and one which concerns you nearly. I am informed of the motives which impel him so earnestly to see your lord. It is, as he assures me, to reveal a mystery to him; a mystery which will produce great changes in the manor of Clairmarais. The lady,' said he, caused me to be driven ignominiously forth from the castle. She threatened me with a dungeon if I returned. The ingrate! I will deprive her of the titles and the riches of which she is so proud.' For more than an hour the breeze had ceased to bear to the castle the last tones of the cur"As I would not give credit to his threats, he relafew, when suddenly the blast of a horn was ted to me that his wife was the nurse of the Count heard at the postern of the castle. A page, who D'Erin's daughter, that the infant had died, he alone hastened to ascertain the cause, returned and in- having knowledge of the fact, that he had substituted formed his mistress that a knight of lofty bear- you, his own child, in the place of the young Couning, calling himself the Lord Brudemer, craved tess, who was dead, and that you had been brought her hospitality; when, as custom demanded, she up and married as the daughter of the Count D'Erin. proceeded with her own hand to prepare the hippocras, which He has furnished me with numerous and creditable proofs of was always offered to a guest in token of welcome, and she had scarcely poured the beverage into a goblet, when the Lord Brudemer was introduced by the page. "I lost my way in the domain," said he. "A short time since I bewailed the alarm of my steed, which, separating me from my train, bewildered me amidst marshes and ravines hard by this forest, but since I have the happiness of being admitted to the presence of such marvellous beauty, I regard fatigue, danger and anxiety no longer." At first there was something rough and disagreeable in the voice of the stranger, but the impression was speedily removed by the grace of his manner. It was not surprising, therefore, that the lady of the castle should find an inexpressible charm in the society of her guest, when it is considered that she had no other companions than vassals of lowly birth, whose discourse was confined to tedious recitals of the battles and tourneys in which the old Lord, her husband, had mingled, and who shone far more as a warrior in the field than as a galliard in the hall. Skilfully availing himself of these advantages, Brudemer "This secret once known, the Lord of Clairmarais will hasten to repudiate a vassal, the daughter of an ignoble hind who has deceived him." The lady wrung her hands in despair. "Listen," continued Brudemer," the old man wrapped in his mantle, sleeps at the postern-this dagger-come." "My father!" "-No, you are right,' replied Brudemer with quiet irony, who knows? They may perhaps admit you among the tirewomen of the new bride of the Lord of Clairmarais. At the worst, you may but be condemned to a convent." The lady suddenly started up, and giving her hand to Brudemer, they landed and took their way to the postern. After having pursued the amusement of the chase all day, the Lord Clairmarais turned his steps towards the warm hearth, and the side of his beautiful dame, whither his wishes now hastened him. So eager was he to arrive, that he left his attendants somewhat behind him, when suddenly his horse refused to advance, soon mingled in his conversation more of flattery and tender-reared, and exhibited signs of great alarm. The old lord was ness than even the chivalric manners of the time permitted, while the lady, usually so proud and disdainful, subdued by a power which she could not resist, listened at first without indignation, and afterwards with an emotion which constantly increased. Placing himself, as if accidentally, in a position which concealed the movement from the tirewomen, he took possession of a fair hand, which was not withdrawn, and raised it tenderly to his lips. It would be difficult to describe the sensations of the lady-a fierce and terrible fire circulated in her veins-it pressed upon her brow, it struggled in her heaving chest. In her confusion, the lady of Clairmarais permitted the veil which she was embroidering to fall. "Oh! if such a scarf were granted to me," said Brudemer, "if she whose fair hands have fashioned it would accept me for her champion, how many lances would I shiver in her honor on the battle field and in the tournament." She snatched it up with a convulsive movement, saying, "'tis yours." The excursion on the lake. Returning to the Castle. fowed to dismount, when, to his grief and surprise, he found the foster-father of his wife extended on the ground, motionless, and with a ghastly wound in his breast. The attendants gathered around him, and remedies were instantly applied which proved not ineffectual. He opened his eyes, raised himself with great effort, and applying his mouth to the ear of the Lord Clairmarais, he murmured with u faltering voice some words which caused the Castellan to shudder with horror. He fell back and expired. The old lord, without uttering a word, proceeded immediately to the oratory, where he found his wife. Her brow covered with a deadly pallor, she was seated before a small table, and the better to conceal her dreadful agitation, she affected to be playing a game at chess with Brudemer. The latter, upon beholding the Lord of Clairmarais, uttered a loud shout of horrible laughter. The lady partook of this execrable hilarity-such a laugh could only be extorted by the most terrible suffering. The Lord of Clairmarais no longer doubted his calamity, for up to this moment he would not give credit to the crimes of which the dying old man had accused the lady. "Satan, I abandon to thee the parricide, the faithless wife, and the castle which she has profaned with her presence." "I accept the offering," said Brudemer, and at the same moment a crown of fire flickered around his head, and upon the snowy shoulders of the lady, he laid two terrible hands, armed with hellish talons. More than two hundred years had passed since the Lord of Clairmarais had died, in the odor of sanctity, in the Abbey of St. Bertin, when a friar of the order of St. Benoit, inquired of a resident of St. Omer, the name of a castle surrounded by immense marshes. "It is the castle of Clairmarais, an accursed spot, haunted by Satan. If we are to believe the old people, the demon who inhabits the castle is named Brudemer, and he forces those foolish persons who venture thither, to play at chess, staking their souls against the domain, and all the treasures it contains." The monk listened in silence-and after a few moments of reflection, he proceeded, with a firm step, towards the diabolical castle. He encountered no obstacle, and forthwith established himself in an oratory richly furnished, where he perceived a small table, on which was placed a chess-board, with the various pieces of the game. While the monk examined these objects, which the increasing darkness began to render somewhat indistinct, a vivid light suddenly illuminated the oratory, and at the same instant he was surrounded by a crowd of servants, pages and tirewomen, clothed in an antique fashion. All performed their various duties in silence, their very footsteps being inaudible, and their forms casting no shadow when they passed before the light. Soon afterwards there slowly approached a lord, richly apparelled, who bore emblazoned on his doublet in armorial guise a shield, with two forks sable, with this device," Brudemer." On his arm leaned a female, still young, whose lovely countenance was covered with a mortal paleness, while eight pages followed, bending beneath the weight of four coffers filled with gold. Brudemer placed himself at the chess-table, and signed the monk to be seated opposite. The latter obeyed, and the two commenced playing, without a word. By a skilful combination, the monk believed he had given mate to his adversary, when the pale lady, who had remained behind Brudemer, leaning upon the back of his huge arm chair, bent towards him and pointed with the finger to a pawn. The face of the game was at once changed, and the monk now found himself in danger of being vanquished. He now began to repent of his temerity-a cold sweat bathed his forehead, and he would have given the whole world to have been at that moment safe in his convent. Suddenly, as by a celestial inspiration, he perceived that a new combination could still secure to him the game, and he pushed forward the pawn whieh accomplished it, when the shouts of laughter which echoed around him were changed into terrific yells, and then he saw and heard no more. The monk having passed the entire night in prayer, at length hailed the approach of day with a joy that can be easily imagined. He found in the place occupied the evening before by the pale lady, a skeleton covered with the fragments of a female garb. Remaining the undisputed possessor of the castle and the wealth it contained, he caused a monastery to be erected on the unhallowed spot, and was appointed the superior. At present but a few faint vestiges can be discovered of the cloister, which was destroyed at the epoch of the revolution. Such is the legend of the Demon's Game of Chess. How much do we regret that we cannot recount it in the simple patois and with the apparently sincere credulity of the good old dame who related it to us one autumnal night, in a poor hovel, while the wind rushed through the forest of Clairmarais. A SONNET ABOUT A NOSE. Noses are always "touched" when lips are kissing; I know a nose, a nose no other knows, "TWO THOUSAND PIGS." IN a village not many miles from Pittsburgh, there dwelt a barber, who was in moderate circumstances, and possessed, moreover, of a beautiful and "pecooliar lipth," as he called it. In this town, as in larger places, it was the peculiar province of the police to arrest all swine running at large, or loafing in secret, and either sell the same for the benefit of the poor, or deliver them to the owner for a small compensation. It happened that the barber, whom we shall designate as Fisher, had made some purchases at one of these sales, without procuring the necessary buildings for the reception of his obstinate charges. Not knowing what to do, he proceeded to the residence of a widow lady, Mrs. Y., to obtain the temporary use of a pen in which to put them, addressing her thus: "Mitheth Y., I come to athk you if you kin lend me your pig pen for a very few dayth?" "My pig pen? why, Mr. Fisher, what can you want with my pig pen?" "I have juth been purchathin' thome thwine-two thouth and pigth at conthableth thale, and want to put them in your pen." "Why, Mr. Fisher, my pen won't hold so many pigs as you have. What on airth did you buy them for?" "I bought them for my own family uth, madam, and I'm thertain the pen will be thuffithiently large for them." "My pen will only hold twenty common sized ones." "Well, if it will hold twenty hogth, it will thurely hold two thouth and pigth." "Two thousand pigs! why, it won't hold the twentieth part of them." "Underthand me, madam; I don't thay two thouthand pigth,but two thouth and pigth." "I hear you; two thousand pigs for a family of six. I doubt the man's demented. Two thousand pigs in that pen! he's crazy!" "Gude save us, ye ha' no eaten ony o' the snaps?" "Just twelve of them;" answered the young man, "what's wrong?" "What's wrong? they're medicine for bairns; ilka yin's a a dose for a wean: it has twa grains o' jalap and ane grain o' calomel in't. Ye've got pheesiek enow for yince, I'm thinkin'." It was enough. How much he paid, or whether he paid at all, we never heard, and how he spent the afternoon we know not; but the next day he was seen wandering perturbedly through the streets pale and sorrowful-a warning and a spectacle. "What is the price of this silk?" inquired a lady of a shopman. "Seven shillings," was the reply. "Seventeen shillings? I'll give you thirteen." "Seven shillings is the price of the silk, madam," replied the honest shopman. "Oh! seveu shillings! I'll give you five. |