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round our hearts. Thereupon, there results a marvellous resurrection, and the dead affections rise from their long-tenanted graves for a while, bound, though they be, hand and foot in their grave-clothes, and gaze on the golden pillow of the blushing sun in its setting, till the dews fall thick and fast on the wilderness, and, perchance, a garden of sweet scents and blooming flowers may arise in the very chills of late

autumn.

quickened our pace pretty considerably, for it was a long ride. Montague relapsed into entire silence, so that I did nothing but look about me as well as I could: for I know well, from my own experience, that nothing is so disagreeable as to be bored with a torrent of talk when you are in the midst of a brown study, as people call it. The village was at the other end of a long common covered with patches of furze. There were gravel-pits scattered here and there of "Well, Freeman, what you say is true, I suppose. some size, into which, as Montague told me on his I have wept," and here Montague's face suddenly return, it was his delight, as a child, to jump. Just flushed, and his eyes filled with tears,—“yes, I have at the end there was a clump of large trees and a wept over the memories of my boyish times. We, pond. This also had its boy-history. The pond was men, are none of us now what we were then. We the place where the elders of the school used to skate get to be calculating, and careful, and anxious, and, in winter, and drive off any of the village boys who what is worst of all, we have, as far as this world should dare to intrude on their ice. Many a battle goes, for the most part lost a future. The past has of this kind did he tell me about, especially one, daubed over my future with one unvarious coating of where a smock-frocked youngster actually tripped black.' him up while he was skating, and pushing him, sent "Do not think so," I replied; "for there is him, in a sitting posture, sliding from one end of the nothing of which it may be more truly said, that ice to the other, to the infinite amusement of the thinking makes it so, than this feeling about our village boys, and his own schoolfellows too. But he future. Our recollections of childhood incline us of paid dearly for his joke, for Montague ran after him, themselves to such morbid fancies. For the young and battered him so heartily, that he went home years dawn so brightly and cloudlessly on the memory, roaring, and rather sore with bruises. Close upon that the dull phantoms of after days show themselves this clump the main road turns off to the right, and the more dark by contrast. They pass on, shivering ends at a large iron gate, hanging on two stone in the cold of responsibility, and, pointing to each pillars with bails on the top, where it joins another dark successive link in that iron chain, which binds road which skirts the common, and leads to another us indissolubly to the chariot of the past, seem to village. Here was the school we had come to see. laugh at our impotence; and the captive crouches It was now uninhabited. The master was dead, and terror-stricken at the vision of his self-inflicted cap-it had not been let again. We obtained the key, and tivity. went in. The front before the house was a lawn.

The weary pilgrim slowly wends his way,
Towards the sad death-place of the fainting day,
Where clouds and mist arise;

Nor looks he once, where, forth from thickest night,
The day-star rises, and the dawning light
Gives hope of summer skies.

Look, wanderer, backward to that distant East.
Thy fears are gone-thy heart released-
Attuned thy destinies.

'Tis thence thou shalt have rest.
Look upwards, and be blest.'

"Oh! yes, if we dared do this! But it is hard to believe that the freshness and innocence of childhood can come back. And, surely, if it can, the memory of the dark night which separates the two mornings can never be obliterated. And if one had little, Freeman, of the joys of the child, compared with the most; if trouble and disappointment have made us very early into precocious men, that were an iron discipline. Such an one could never be-never

But here his voice trembled with the tempest of suppressed emotion, and for a moment the struggle was almost terrible, even in its outward expression. But high resolution conquered, and he passed with a deep, prolonged, almost sobbing sigh, into his usual outward impassiveness; and then immediately, half angry with himself for his short-lived weakness, (as he fancied it to be,) he said, in a low abrupt way, "Bah! Idle dreams! unpractical, and so forth. It is astonishing how weak you make me, my dear Freeman, with your visionary speculations. What do you think of the weather?"

The grass was now overgrown and rank. The flower-beds were choked with weeds, and the paths were green with grass and damp. A large blue periwinkle, which had once nearly covered the entrance, was almost eaten up with snails, many of which were creeping in undisturbed indolence about the walls.

"I remember the time when this was as prim and neat as labour could make it," said Montague, with a sigh. These were the first words he uttered after his prolonged silence. "It has changed, you see, with the rest of us."

We went into the house, which was an old place, full of odd corners, through a porch-entrance.

"This room was where we had meals," said he, as we entered by a door on the right, "and I sat here at the end of the table."—the tables still remained in their old places, "and William Cookesby, he sat next me here. A nice fellow he was-my greatest crony at school-very clever-generous to a fault! Poor fellow! he's dead! He caught the typhus-fever when he was walking the hospitals about four years ago, and died in three days. And there's an end of him. Precious little use his knowledge of medicine was to him;" and he gave a sort of coughing laugh to conceal a quivering of the voice.

On we went to the schoolroom. There he showed me the master's desk, still there in its old place, where for every small error in construing, or for looking off the book, if he caught a boy, he would administer sundry heavy inflictions on the hand with his cane. It was a sort of chivalry with the boys not to flinch or to wince under it, but to hold out first one hand, then another, as soon as possible, as if it were rather a joke than otherwise. Some mischievous boy, whose back was turned to the master, and so could do it with safety, would often perform sundry contortions of countenance, attracting thereby the

attention of the rest, who would be sitting with their thumbs to their ears, poring over their books with their eyes, but for the most part with very little else. Then there would be a suppressed titter, and some unlucky fellow, who could not manufacture a sober face in time, would be called up for castigation.

and experience,-how many grains more of wisdom? But! I would give it all back again,-yes willingly I would,-to be able to rejoice with the young heart of my boyhood. But you cannot undo the work of sorrow if you would. Men must be men. Let them make the best of it. I could not take pleasure now in running across the field to tap at the cottage window, but I can take pleasure in the memory of it at the time. For these things remain to us as rich legacies of our youth, and are to us what they were, not what they would be now.

At the right, just before entering the schoolroom, was a door. This opened on to the play-ground, which sloped up to some little gardens at the top. These the boys used to keep and till; and not unfrequently they would in the spring-time pull up some of the large seeds which they had sown, such as "Come up these stairs here," said he, leading me lupins, of which they were specially fond, to see if to a door at the corner of the schoolroom, "and take they were growing. At the end of these gardens was care, for they are steep and dark. Here is the room I an arbour, where the elder boys would secretly read slept in. William Cookesby slept in a bed next to novels when they could get them, and smoke ends mine; and many a quiet chat we had about home of cane till they were sick. In the centre, in a when the rest were fast asleep. Well, he sleeps in his paddock at the back, but still overhanging these little long home now, poor fellow ! He used to tell me plots of ground, stood a large walnut-tree, famous for stories about his sister, who was such a pretty girl, he various thefts made on its produce. Halfway up was declared; and he wished my father would let me go the playroom, where the boys kept boxes, in which with him, and they would have such fun there with all their tops, marbles, and so forth, were stored,— -a me. Up there in that corner slept a large lout of sort of ambitious barn, assuming the airs of a dwelling-a fellow, who used to snore dreadfully; whenever he house. At the end of this play-ground, on the did, first one of us, then another, would throw pillows, opposite side to the arbour, was a gate opening into a shoes, and all kinds of things at him, till he awoke. field. He was very good-natured, and used to laugh, and go to sleep again directly. It was often, too, a great pleasure to us to get out of bed, when the light was out, and make excursions to this window here, especially when the moon was up. The half-fear was itself pleasant, as all danger is when it is easily overcome; and then the moon shining on that ivycovered outhouse opposite, at the end of the courtyard below, was quite a treat. Sometimes an old owl would towhoo, towhit about, and then the more nervous boys would put their heads under the clothes; for the owl's cry is very solemn and ghostlike to children. Bats were always flying about, and we got accustomed to them. But you must be tired, my dear fellow, with all this gossip, and it is time for us to be off, nearly. We will just take a peep at the village."

"Here," said Montague, "it was our great delight to break bounds, merely, of course, because it was forbidden. At dusk the more venturous among us would run across the field, and go to that cottage you see there at the other end; and when we saw the dip lighted for the night, and the old man and his wife sitting quietly down to read or work, we would tap at the window, and enjoy with infinite delight their manifest terror. Then one of us would groan, and tap again, and then quietly steal away. The old man found us out at last, and complained. I shall not easily forget that day. We had a regular trial, and finely flogged we were, among the rest."

On returning, he pointed out a wall which ran at the side of the play-ground, opposite the house and at right angles with the little gardens. "It was one of our punishments to have to march up and down this wail, a spectacle to all from the road who might happen to be passing."

We entered the house again by the same way. Opposite the door there was a sort of large cellar, which had been used for another kind of punishment. Almost every boy had been there. And Montague showed me the various initials cut: his was up in a corner, with the date of the year; near his were the letters, C. L.

"He," said Montague, "took a fancy to the sea; and I have not heard of him for years. He was a nice fellow, but so fond of fighting, that he was always quarrelling to get up something of the sort. He was red-haired, and very passionate. I was put in there, because- However, I do not want to sicken you with all the horrors of this place. How much lies at that man's door who was schoolmaster here, I cannot say. This I know, he nearly ruined my temper, and my mind too. It is strange that after all this I should so love to wander over this 'light of other days,' is it not? It is plain that no horrors can quite destroy the dreams of boyhood. No, Freeman, that I can tell you. For then the commonest bank was a lovely thing to me, and I eyed its little wild flowers with wonder and joy, and gathered the wild thyme to scent my school-books, and clambered up every hillock, delighted with every thing, now I wonder at little. I have got shiploads of knowledge

It was a beautiful place. We went into a little shop, where there was an old woman who knew Montague well. He used to buy apples and tops there when he was at school. We met an old man, hobbling on crutches, and bent nearly double, who, in answer to Montague's inquiries, said, "he had been plagued with rheumatiz six years come Martinmas.' He blessed him with tears in his eyes; for he had, as a boy, often given him some of his pence, and had not forgotten him since. We got into the church, an old country specimen, not remarkable for its beauty. It was choked up with high deal seats; some lined with green baize, rather yellow in many places from wear, and fastened with brass nails; some bare, rotting with damp, and emitting consequently a very fusty smell. The pavement was quite green from damp. Yet even this place had a charm for Montague. After he had knelt in prayer, (as is usual in entering a church,) he asked me in a low whisper, whether I was satisfied; on my nodding assent, we left. After we were safely out, he said, "You observed that seat just in front of the reading-desk, Freeman? Well, there I used to kneel, and join in the service. Once I remember on a hot afternoon I fell asleep, and tumbling off my seat, made a thundering noise in church. I was to have had no end of a castigation, but the old clergyman got me off. He said it was very warm; that he hoped it would be forgiven that once. So I heard no more of it. However, we must be off, and ride sharply too, or we shall be late for dinner."

As we neared the end of our backward journey, we found we had sufficient time, so we slackened our pace, and Montague said to me, "Freeman, you often quote Carlyle in your conversation, and I know you are fond of his writings, and of the German school generally. You quoted one of them just now. Is this safe?

"Do you then object to any sentence I have ever quoted?"

"No, all of them are beautiful, and harmonize with the inmost feelings of the soul. But this makes them in my opinion so specially dangerous."

"To any one whose principles were not fixed, most dangerous, I grant you. But in no living writer scarcely can you obtain such necessary truths for these times, and so strikingly developed, as from the particular writer you have named. And such eclecticism is legitimate and of great profit, when we are about to build on a foundation already deeply laid. To trust ourselves to him without such foundation would be

daring and dangerous indeed. Yet no one of out day appears to me to have rescued so many important

truths from almost universal burial as he. It seems strange indeed, that one who has stood so long and so reverently, to all appearance, on the Vestibule of Truth, has been stayed from entering in, and from worshipping heart and soul in the glorious temple.

"

"There may be good reason for it. But to leave his particular case, is it not in the majority of such instances, that self-worship lies hidden in various forms at the bottom of inquiry, coiled like a large demon-serpent round the vast world of mental investigation? It is a very lowly portal that admits to that same temple of which you spoke, and the music of her chants pierces not, save to ears bending low to

catch them."

are

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low,"

But, though still a dizzy and fearful height, it is
made for the various landslips and the quick wearing
somewhat difficult, even after all allowance has been
away of its very friable materials, to imagine it as
described by Shakspeare:-

"The choughs and crows that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high."

Decidedly Shakspeare's description appears exagge rated in this day, and was probably a leetle poetical "Yes truly, to quote one of these same writers, in his own. Had the utmost flight of his imaginaabout whom you are so frightened on my account, tion, however, suggested the possibility of a pathway 'the true philosophical act is annihilation of self; all for thousands being cut through the very heart of this requisite for being a disciple of Philosophy point mountain, the whole living and breathing world would hither.' This is true in an infinitely high sense. The have scoffed at the romantic absurdity of the idea. hindrances to truth are for the most part moral, not Yet so it now is, and when wars and rumours of wars intellectual; and this is one of the great truths which kept the Doverites in hourly fear of invasion,-a so necessary for the men of this generation. time hardly yet so ancient as to have become history, However, this is too wide a subject for to-day. We may have another opportunity in one of our rambles." On our return, in the evening, after dinner, Miss Montague again played and sang. She selected German songs, and they harmonized well with the sunset which they greeted. For the sun was going down in thin fleecy clouds, which were tinged with a roseate hue, and floated like blushing spirits, circled with bright gold, in the pale greenish yellow of a misty horizon. It was a pensive sky, smiling again

after a season of tears. And the tender memories of that fatherland about which she sang, whispered in strange unison with the quiet slumbering of the weary day. The melancholy notes breathed soft and sweet; and they at times seemed to come to me as if from the old house I have just seen, and strangely raised before me the early histories of Life's young dreams; especially somehow or other in connexion with that school. And my soul whispered within me, "Where is the true fatherland, whence floats the music of perfect and mysterious harmony?"

probably the frequent anticipation of the arrival of Napoleon and his feet from Boulogne did not cause more excitation in the town than the blasting of the rock a few years ago for that excavation which is now the daily pathway of the busy world. Truly, it was a wonderful achievement of science, though these railways, spreading cancer-wise through the loveliest spots of the island, destroy, at a touch, those legends of romance and song wherein so many beautiful old haunts are enshrined.

To return we had twice explored the coast to St. Margaret's Bay, and, roving home over the cliffs, had astonished the natives by our prowess, and bewildered coast-guard station men with our questions. We had admired the magnificent old castle-glorious in its associations and magnificent in its position, however fallen from its high estate of former days— we had contemplated it as it rose dark, stern, and frowning against the moonlit sky, as we gradually attained an opposite summit and descended to the glade below. From every position, and at all hours, had we admired the picturesque beauty of this ruin. Moreover, we had been initiated into its practical utility, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, its possible utility in case of invasion. We had pierced into the depths of its recesses-its mines and counterJune 26th.-A rainy day, dull and windy. The rector mines, its trap-doors, sulphurous caverns, and resaid that Helen Jewell was very ill. He feared shevolving floors: we had ascended to the summit of

I sat in silence, and listened; but far too deeply interested to manufacture civil speeches and empty compliments. I returned thanks by the earnestness of my attention. What a wonder is music, that "concord of sweet sounds?"