to smile!-the first instance on record of his having given way to levity of demeanour. Lady Knownothing was there too, and before the evening was over she knew a few things that surprised but did not in the least convince her. Oh, no! she knew everything so thoroughly that there was no possibility on earth of increasing her stock of knowledge! Truly it was a happy party, and Mr. Sudberry enjoyed himself so much that he volunteered the Highland fling in the drawing room— George whistling the music-on which occasion he (Mr. S.) swept nearly half the tea-service off the table with his coat-tails, and Mrs, S. was so happy that she didn't care e a button and said so! But this was not the end of it yet, by any means. That winter Hector and Flora Macdonald visited London and were received by the Sudberrys with open arms. The result was that Lucy became intensely botanical in her tastes, and routed out the old plants. Of course Hector could not do less than assist her, and the finale was, that these two scientific individuals were married, and dwelt for many years thereafter in the Highlands. Strange to say, George and Flora fell in love with each But why say more? We do not mean to write the history of these two families. It is enough to say, that every summer for many years after that the Sudberrys spent two or three months in the Highlands with the Macdonalds, and every winter the Macdonalds spent a similar period with the Sudberrys. On the former of these occasions Fred renewed his intercourse with Mr. McAllister, and these two became so profoundly, inconceivably, deep and metaphysical, besides theological, in their converse, that they were utterly incomprehensible to every one except themselves.

Best of all, Jacky became a good boy! Yes; that day on the hills with Peter was the beginning of it-old Moggy, Willie, and Flora, were the continuation of it-and Jacky became good, to the unspeakable joy of his mother.

L

1

any

Old Moggy lived to a fabulous age, and became at last as wrinkled as a red herring. For all we know to the contrary, she may be alive yet. Willie lived with her and became a cultivator of the soil. But why go on? Enough has been said to show that no ill befell individual mentioned in our tale. Even Mrs. Brown lived to a good old age, and was a female dragon to the last. Enough has also been said to prove that, as the old "we little know what great things from little things may rise.”

song

"

has it,

(End of Freaks on the Fells.)

JOHN LINWOOD.

BY THOMAS MILLER.

THE

HE tale I now tell is no invention of the imagination, coloured by fancy, but one in which I was a sorrowing actor, together with several others of my thoughtless schoolfellows, many of whom departed this life long years ago. We were all born at a river-side town, in one of the English midland counties, christened in the same font at the grey old church, and had played together from the time we were first able to walk. I do not think there was more than two years' difference in any of our ages. We were all children of one neighbourhood, and a stone could be thrown from any of the chamber-windows, where we first saw the light, into that broad majestic river, which, after winding for miles through a sweet green pastoral country, emptied itself into the sea. We were as familiar with ships, and boats, and sailors, as village children are with common wayside-flowers. There was always a smell of tar hanging about the air of that old water-side street, and in some places great high warehouses threw their broad dark shadows far out upon the river, and made us think it would be very terrible to be drowned there, where all looked so black and silent. Many people were drowned in the course of a year, through falling over the sides of the ships,-out of boats when they stood on the seats to scull-attempting to go on board in the dark-overreaching themselves while dipping their pails or pitchers when they went for water, and the tide ran strongmissing ropes, or falling from the wharves. Death seemed ever to stand keeping eager watch where the doors of Danger were always open.

In the little yards, courts, and alleys, that opened behind the shops and houses in that long river-side street, many sailors and their families resided, and sometimes he who went out at the entrance of one of those passages, cheerful and browned with health in the early morning, would be borne in at night, on the shoulders of his shipmates, a corpse. The missing of a rope, the slipperiness of a plank, might leave one less in that ship's crew, or a wife husbandless, and children fatherless, in one of the

little houses in those courts and alleys. And sometimes, as they bore the body along, they had to stoop to avoid the clothes-lines, where hung the clothes, clean and white, which the wife had made ready for him to take with him on his voyage, and which he would never be able to wear again. Children with wondering eyes would stand afraid, peeping in at the open door, through which they had carried the body, and other children within doors would be heard crying, because their father was drowned; and the little ones of all, that could but just talk, would soon understand that he would never bring them any more pretty toys to play with, as he did after returning from a voyage.

Yet, with these sorrowful scenes before our eyes, well aware of the danger and its consequence, and in spite of the warnings we received from our parents and friends, we were constantly at the river-side, bathing, boating, or getting into mischief. Now I am older and better able to judge, I see too clearly that the course of this disobedience often sprang from pride, as there were the sons of sailors amongst my playfellows, and they considered it cowardly to be afraid of the water.

I believe now that it requires a braver heart to bear being taunted with cowardice, rather than disobey and do that which we know to be wrong, and that the boy who would sooner be called a coward, than disobey the commands of his parents, displays the greatest moral courage. John Linwood-I write down his real name in sorrow, for I believe there is not even a distant relation living, either on the father's or the mother's side now, but that the grave has long since closed over them all— was one of my earliest playmates; we sat on the same form at school, were partners in keeping rabbits and birds, and had a little plot of gardenground between us, into which we transplanted the choicest flowers we found in our rambles through the fields and woods. He was the only child living out of three. I remember I was just tall enough to peep into the little coffin, as he stood holding my hand and crying, where his pretty sister lay-she who used to play with us, with her golden-coloured hair blowing all about her sweet face, and through which her blue eyes often peeped out as from under a veil. I placed the bunch of flowers they gave me for the purpose on her hand, and when we laid her in the little grave, beside her brother in the old churchyard, there was only John left to shout and play in that great rambling house, which those childish voices-then hushed for ever seemed to fill with happiness. His parents were God-fearing people, and knelt at the great footstool of Mercy to thank Him "who giveth and taketh away," for still sparing them one child.

I remember since, and must have noticed it then, though it strikes my

mind very differently now, how his fond mother would sit with her eyes fixed upon him while he bent over his books, or while we were preparing our fishing-tackle, or any other thing to afford us after-amusement. I believe, from what I can recall of the expression of her face, and the silent motion of her lips, that at such times she was often in her heart praying that he might be preserved to comfort her in her old age, and be delivered from temptation and danger. Nor did we ever go out together, if his father was in the way, without receiving a warning not to get into mischief, nor run wantonly into danger.

Though at home an affectionate and dutiful boy, when out with us, John was at times very obstinate and daring. He once climbed the crumbling walls of a ruined castle to gather a root of wild wall-flowers that grew on the battlements, while the stones and rubbish came rattling down about his ears; and, though several boys tried to accomplish the same feat after he descended, not one was able to ascend higher than where the ivy grew around the empty mullions of the windows. He would climb the rigging of a ship, and stand on the topmast with the vane between his knees. He had fixed his heart on being a sailor when he was old enough, yet knowing what pain it would give his parents, if he expressed a wish to go to sea, he rested contented by making me his contidant. We have gone out together in the coldest day in winter, for miles along the river-banks, where only the lapping of the waves and the wailing of the plover could be heard, so that we might harden ourselves, against we were old enough, to go out to Greenland a whaling, for many Greenland whalers lived in the courts and alleys of that old riverside town, and some of their sons had gone out as cabin boys. If we saw a large sheet of ice in the river, we called out "a whale! a whale!" unmoored a boat, and, not without difficulty and danger, brought it ashore. we stuck the boat-hook into the ice, we called that “harpooning him.”

At another time, after discovering a cave in a wood, we talked about leaving home, and living there like Robin Hood, and his daring outlaws of old; we made ourselves bows and arrows, and knowing nothing about the game laws, thought it would be quite jolly to live on the hares and rabbits we might shoot and roast in the cave, and we became such capital marksmen that we could stick an arrow in a wide gate-post, if we stood pretty near, and had three or four tries. The only thing we did really hit that was alive was a lame gander of Nanny Harrison's, which she was compelled to kill, and several weeks' pocket-money had to be sacrificed to pay the old woman. We looked very foolish at one another, when, after paying her the last shilling she demanded, she said, "You may go shoot the old grey goose now, if you can hit her, if you'll

pay the same price." I have no doubt the sum we had to put down weekly, to keep the old woman from telling our parents that we had wounded her gander, put a stop to our notions of turning outlaws.

Along the shores of that old river lay scores of acres of warp-land, which the tide covered at high water, and which at low water lay as smooth as glass, and as soft as paste, until hardened by the sun. And on this smooth shore, that spread out like a sheet of wax, often thirty or forty feet in width from high-water mark, John, with a stick, would draw such spirited horses, often larger than real horses, as astonished us, so life-like were the outlines. At full gallop he would make their tails and manes stream out like jagged thunder-clouds careering over a stormy sky; and by a few touches give the fiery eye and dilated nostril, which, if we tried for hours, we could not imitate. Wellington, with his plumes streaming backward, and driving a whole army before his uplifted sword, while his war-horse trampled the fallen foes under foot; Napoleon crossing the Alps, his cloak blowing backward in the wind, were as easy for him to draw with a stick, on that smooth, soft sloping river-shore, as it was for us to write "Evil communication corrupts good manners," in round hand in our copy-books at school. Hawksley, who was apprentice to a sign-painter, said, that when his master had to paint a new sign-board for the "Black Horse" public-house, John drew the outline of the horse for him, and when we asked him if he did it, instead of either saying yes or no, he replied, "I was by when he painted a portion of it." Though he was not more than twelve years of age, the sign-painter offered to take him apprentice without any premium, and the man was considered very clever, and painted all the signs of the ships, and ferry-boats, that were hung out of the public-houses, for miles, in the little towns and villages on both sides of the river. If you wanted to know how high a whale could spout out the water, you should see his sign of the "Jolly Whalers," and the water it blew out was higher than the topmast of the ship; and he made such mountains of waves, that when the sign swung to and fro in the wind, you could almost fancy you heard his seas roar again.

Then John was always inventing new games, and when we went to bathe far away from the town, where the shore sloped gradually from the high willow and sedge-covered banks, and left a margin wider than any high road you ever travelled over, we used to play at Robinson Crusoe and the savages. To make us look like real savages, while bathing, we rubbed ourselves over from head to foot with the fresh riverwarp, which dried on our skins in a few minutes, and left us all a deep brown colour, no doubt very like that of many of the real savages. Then