"Where? There's never no cur here!"

"You lie, you oaf-no-why-Doctor-How many hounds are there here?"

"I can't see," says Tom, "among those bushes."

"Can't see, eh? Why don't those brutes hit it off?" says Trebooze, drawling, as if he had forgotten the matter, and lounging over the fence, drops into the stream, followed by Tom, and wades across.

The hounds are all round him, and he is couraging them on, fussing again more than ever; but without success.

"Gone to hole somewhere here," says Peter.

"***!" cries Trebooze, looking round, with a sudden shudder, and face of terror. "There's that black brute again! there, behind me! Hang it, he'll bite me next!" and he caught up his leg, and struck behind him with his spear.

There was no dog there.

Peter was about to speak; but Tom silenced him by a look, and shouted,―

"Here we are! Gone to holt in this alder root!"

"Now then, little Carlingford! Out of the way, puppies!" cries Trebooze, righted again for the moment by the excitement, and thrusting the hounds right and left, he stoops down to put in the little terrier.

Suddenly he springs up, with something like a scream, and then bursts out on Peter with a volley of oaths.

"Didn't I tell you to drive that cur away?"

"Which cur, Sir ?" cries Peter, trembling, and utterly confounded.

"That cur! *** Can't I believe my own eyes? Will you tell me that the beggar didn't bolt between my legs this moment, and went into the hole before the terrier?"

Neither answered. Peter from utter astonishment; Tom because he saw what was the matter.

"Don't stoop, Squire. You'll make the blood fly to your head. Let me ""

But Trebooze thrust him back with curses.

"I'll have the brute out, and send the spear through him!" and flinging himself on his knees again, Trebooze began tearing madly at the roots and stones, shouting to the half-buried terrier to tear the intruder.

Peter looked at Tom, and then wrung his hands in despair. "Dirty work-beastly work!" muttered Trebooze. "Nothing but slugs and evats !-Toads, too,-hang the toads! What a plague brings all this vermin? Curse it!" shrieked he, springing back, "there's an adder! and he's gone up my sleeve! Help me! Doctor! Thurnali! or I'm a dead man!"

Tom caught the arm, thrust his hand up the sleeve, and seemed to snatch out the snake, and hurl it back into the river. "All right now!-a near chance, though!"

Peter stood open mouthed.

"I never saw no snake!" cried he.

"Look

Tom caught him a buffet which sent him reeling. after your hounds, you blind ass! How are you now, Trebooze?" And he caught the squire round the waist, for he was reeling.

"The world! The world upside down! rocking and swinging! Who's put me feet upwards, like a fly on a ceiling? I'm falling, falling off, into the clouds-into hell-fire-hold me!-Toads and adders and wasps-to go to holt in a wasp's nest! Drive 'em away, get me a green bough! I shall be stung to death!"

And tearing off a green bough, the wretched man rushed into the river, beating wildly right and left at his fancied tormentors. "What is it?" cry Campbell and Scoutbush, who have run up breathless.

"Delirium tremens. Campbell, get home as fast as you can, and send me up a bottle of morphine. Peter, take the hounds home. I must go after him."

"I'll go home with Campbell, and send the bottle up by a man and horse," cries Scoutbush; and away the two trot at a gallant pace, for a cross-country run home.

"Mr. Tardrew, come with me, there's a good man!--I shall want help.”

Tardrew made no reply, but dashed through the river at his heels.

Trebooze had already climbed the plashed fence, and was running wildly across the meadow. Tom dragged Tardrew up it

after him.

"Thank 'ee, Sir," but nothing more. The two had not met since the cholera.

Trebooze fell, and lay rolling, trying in vain to shield his face from the phantom wasps.

They lifted him up, and spoke gently to him.

"Better get home to Mrs. Trebooze, Sir," said Tardrew, with as much tenderness as his gruff voice could convey.

"Yes, home! home to Molly! My Molly's always kind. She won't let me be eaten up alive. Molly, Molly !"

And shrieking for his wife, the wretched man started to run again.

'Molly, I'm in hell! Only help me! you're always right! only forgive me! and I'll never, never again—”

And then came out hideous confessions; then fresh hideous delusions.

Three weary up-hill miles lay between them and the house: but home they got at last.

Trebooze dashed at the house, tore it open; slammed and bolted it behind him, to shut out the pursuing fiends.

"Quick, round by the back-door!" said Tom, who had not opposed him for fear of making him furious, but dreaded some tragedy if he were left alone.

But his fear was needless. Trebooze looked into the breakfastroom. It was empty; she was not out of bed yet. He rushed upstairs into her bed-room, shricking her name; she leaped up to meet him; and the poor wretch buried his head in that faithful bosom, screaming to her to save him from he knew not what.

She put her arms round him, soothed him, wept over him sacred tears. "My William! my own William! Yes, I will take care of you! Nothing shall hurt you,-my own, own!" Vain, drunken, brutal, unfaithful. Yes: but her husband still.

There was a knock at the door.

"Who is that?" she cried, with her usual fierceness, terrified for his character, not terrified for herself. "Mr. Thurnall, Madam.

house?"

Have you any laudanum in the

"Yes, here! Oh, come in! Thank God you are come! What is to be done?"

Tom looked for the laudanum bottle, and poured out a heavy dose.

"Make him take that, Madam, and put him to bed. I will wait downstairs awhile!"

66 Thurnall, Thurnall!" calls Trebooze: "don't leave me, old fellow! you are a good fellow. I say, forgive and forget. Don't leave me! Only don't leave me, for the room is as full of devils

as

An hour after, Tom and Tardrew were walking home together. "He is quite quiet now, and fast asleep."

"Will he mend, Sir?" asks Tardrew.

"Of course, he will: and perhaps in more ways than one. Best thing that could have happened-will bring him to his senses, and he'll start fresh."

"We'll hope so,-he's been mad, I think, ever since he heard of that cholera."

:

"So have others but not with brandy," thought Tom: but he said nothing.

"I say, Sir," quoth Tardrew, after a while, "how's Parson Headley?"

"Getting well, I'm happy to say." "Glad to hear it, Sir. did have our differences. one."

"He did."

Silence again.

He's a good man, after all; though we
But he's a good man, and worked like

"Never heard such beautiful prayers in all my life, as he made over my poor maid."

"I don't doubt it," said Tom. "He understands his business at heart, though he may have his fancies."

....

"And so do some others," said Tardrew in a gruff tone, as if half to himself, "who have no fancies. . . . . Tell you what it is, Sir: you was right this time; and that's plain truth. I'm sorry to hear talk of your going."

"My good Sir," quoth Tom, "I shall be very sorry to go. I have found place and people here as pleasant as man could wish : but go I must."

"Glad you're satisfied, Sir; wish you was going to stay," says Tardrew. "Seen Miss Harvey this last day or two, Sir?"

"Yes. You know she's to keep her school?" "I know it. Nursed my girl like an angel."

"Like what she is," said Tom.

"You said one true word once that she was too good for us." "For this world," said Tom; and fell into a great musing. By those curt and surly utterances did Tardrew, in true British bulldog fashion, express a repentance too deep for words; too deep for all confessionals, penances, and emotions or acts of contrition; the repentance not of the excitable and theatric southern, unstable as water, even in his most violent remorse: but of the still, deep-hearted northern, whose pride breaks slowly and silently, but breaks once for all; who tells to God what he will never tell to man; and having told it, is a new creature from that day forth for ever.

CHAPTER XIX.

BEDDGELERT.

The Waterwitch is
The said crew

THE pleasant summer voyage is over. lounging off Port Madoc, waiting for her crew.

are busy on shore drinking the ladies' healths, with a couple of sovereigns which Valencia has given them, in her sister's name and her own. The ladies, under the care of Elsley, and the far more practical care of Mr. Bowie, are rattling along among

children, maids, and boxes, over the sandy flats of the Traeth Mawr, beside the long reaches of the lazy stream, with the blue surges of the hills in front, and the silver sea behind. Soon they begin to pass wooded knolls, islets of rock in the alluvial plain. The higher peaks of Snowdon sink down behind the lower spurs in front; the plain narrows; closes in, walled round with woodlands clinging to the steep hill-sides; and, at last, they enter the narrow gorge of Pont-Aberglaslyn,-pretty enough, no doubt, but much over-praised; for there are in Devon alone a dozen passes far grander, both for form and size.

Soon they emerge again on flat meadows, mountain-cradled; and the grave of the mythic greyhound, and the fair old church, shrouded in tall trees; and last, but not least, at the famous Leek Hotel, where ruleth Mrs. Lewis, great and wise, over the four months' Babylon of guides, cars, chambermaids, tourists, artists, and reading-parties, camp-stools, telescopes, poetry-books, blue uglies, red petticoats, and parasols of every hue.

There they settle down in the best rooms in the house, and all goes as merrily as it can, while the horrors which they have left behind them hang, like a black background, to all their thoughts. However, both Scoutbush and Campbell send as cheerful reports as they honestly can; and gradually the exceeding beauty of the scenery, and the amusing bustle of the village, make them forget, perhaps, a good deal which they ought to have remembered.

As for poor Lucia, no one will complain of her for being happy; for feeling that she has got a holiday, the first for now four years, and trying to enjoy it to the utmost. She has no household cares. Mr. Bowie manages everything, and does so, in order to keep up the honour of the family, on a somewhat magnificent scale. The children, in that bracing air, are better than she has ever seen them. She has Valencia all to herself; and Elsley, in spite of the dark fancies over which he has been brooding, is better behaved, on the whole, than usual.

He has escaped-so he considers-escaped from Campbell, above all from Thurnall. From himself, indeed, he has not escaped; but the company of self is, on the whole, more pleasant to him than otherwise just now. For though he may turn up his nose at tourists and reading-parties, and long for contemplative solitude, yet there is a certain pleasure to some people, and often strongest in those who pretend most shyness, in the digito monstrari, et diceri, hic est:" in taking for granted that everybody has read his poems; that everybody is saying in their hearts, "There goes Mr. Vavasour, the distinguished poet. I wonder what he is writing now? I wonder where he has been to-day, and what b has been thinking of."

66