men of the neighborhood, Mr. Harries, of Llwynddu. He had intended coming home from some distance away on the very day of the fair at Llanon, and he was to bring with him certain sums of money. Now, at the fair he got a warning message not to take the money home that night, as he valued his life, unless he did so in company with some men prepared to defend themselves against thieves. Luckily there was no occasion to run the risk, for it did quite as well to put the money in the bank at Llanon; and he stayed in the town that night, and nothing more was heard of the business. I was half inclined to think I had myself dreamt what had happened to me that night, but there was one thing to make me believe it - Mrs. Martin was gone. It was a couple of years before we heard the rest of it. Then that young Phillip, who was so wild, was convicted for sheep-stealing, and executed. He was the last in our parts to suffer before the new act came in, and during his last days he confessed many things to the chaplain of the gaol. Amongst them was this. He and some others had a plan to lie in wait for Mr. Harries, of Llwynddu, that night of the fair at Llanon, as they knew he was expected to bring home large sums of money. Of course they meant to rob him, and they watched for him all night on both roads. I have no doubt the man I met with his face covered was going across country to the highroad in readiness, and the others stayed in the wood. The servant-boy of Capelly knew something of what was going on, and threw the light of the lantern on me to show his friends I was not the person they wanted. When they were talking together Mrs. Martin came up, and, thinking the boy was frightening me with his tricks, got very angry and took the lantern from him, and said he should not go with me any farther. Phillip also told the chaplain that Mrs. Martin was Will Duntze. He (Will Duntze) had been against the robbery all along, but they did not know then he had sent to stop Mr. Harries coming, and he was wise to leave the place be fore they did, for when they found it out, they swore, if he came back, they would tell the parish constable who he was, and be even with him. Years went by after this about seven, I think — when one spring morning I was in the fields, a boy from Trawsnant came up to me. He said he was sent by Mrs. Martin, who had come back once more to old Mary Duntze's cottage, and was lying sick there, to ask this great favor from me to go and see her before she died. I had no heart to refuse, and indeed there was no danger going of a morning like that, although the place had still only an indifferent name. True enough, there was Mrs. Martin lying on the bed, and one look showed me there was mortal sickness in her face. I am sure she was glad to see me, although she said little, and the tightly closed lips looked stern, and the eyes under the shaggy eyebrows darker and more searching than ever. She said aloud she wished to speak a few words with me alone. Old Mary Duntze (who died soon after this) was very ill in bed, too, in the other end of the cottage; but there was a neighbor taking care of them. 66 Yes, yes, I'll go, Mrs. Martin, fach," she said, in a whining kind of voice, but lifting up her hands and making signs to me as if Mrs. Martin was off her head, and going only a step out of sight behind the curtain. Mrs. Martin turned her head and gave one look that I had no difficulty in understanding. "I think you shall go outside for a while," I said. "I will stay a little with them here ;" and she had to go, although she seemed very dissatisfied. I shut the door after her and came back to Mrs. Martin. She looked at me keenly. "I think you know who I am?" she said. "I think I do," I answered; "but no one shall hear a word about it from me." "I know that," said Will Duntze, for we can call him so now; "you saved me once from being taken, and I never forgot it. Others, too, were very kind. I came back here straight again; it Mr. Powys is a good and merciful gentleman, and did more for me at the trial than any of them. I have seen him through the hedge many times, and longed to say a word to him, only I did not dare to show myself. You can tell him that when I am gone." "I will, indeed," I said, "and-I think you need not have been afraid." Perhaps not," he said, in that hard way of his, which yet in reality was not from want of feeling. There had been too much "perhaps" in his life, poor fellow; too little certainty that any one would stand his friend. She seemed as if I could not die away from "Yes," he said slowly, "I am hoping about that; but I have not been one of those to go to church and hear the Bible read. I do not know how it will be. It has been hard upon me here — it will be harder upon me there, perhaps." Then, in answer to what I said to comfort him, But I have other things to say," he "I spoke of the chance of his recov went on; "look, I have got money' ery, and asked if I should bring a docand he put out his hand from under tor; but there was no doctor nearer the poor bed-clothes eagerly with bank than Trecelyn, and I think we both felt notes held in it. "Take them," he it would be of no use. He was sinking said: see, there are four of them fast. Then I spoke a little of death and - £40 in all. You can read and see of our merciful Saviour and his forgivethat they are right. If I keep them ness. here, they will steal them from me, every one, and my poor old mother is too far gone to have them now. I shall not last many hours, I think; but I should like her to be in comfort till she dies, and then let us be buried together decently in the churchyard, for we came of good people once. Ask Mr. Powys from me not to let them take me anywhere else to bury me; they will let it alone with a word from him- mind to say, too, I did not forget all he did at the trial. I could have taken the game in his woods often since then-I had plenty of chances; but I never touched anything of his, never once, after he had been so kind to me. After that, use the money what remains of it for yourself, in any way you like. Don't think to give any of it to the people here -they would only spend it in evil ways; and indeed you need not be afraid to use it; it is all honestly come by. I worked for a long time with a drover in the north of England, and I might have got on well at last but for my health; I have gone through many hardships, and led a rough life of it all along, and so my health has been getting worse and worse for years, and when I felt I could not last much longer "I had not many good chances," he went on, "and I was not bad like some of them-always meaning to do mischief. I minded my own business, but they were a bad lot. I was young, and they led me to do many things. I was never afraid of Mr. Powys - I cannot think why, for he was a magistrate ; and if I could only have been put under gamekeeper or something to him when I grew to be a young man, I might have done very well; but I am afraid God will be harder upon me than Mr. Powys." "No, never that," I said. "God is too merciful for that, and the Bible tells us that he will not refuse pardon to any one who is sincerely sorry for what he has done wrong. Christ forgave his friends who had deserted him, andand the worst sinners, much worse than you have been " (somehow I did not like to name the thief on the cross to him, poor fellow), "if only they were sorry." He and other gentlemen, however, set to work about the place soon after, and a few good cottages were built and old "I am sorry," said Will Duntze, in a ones pulled down. Some of the worst husky voice. I do not remember now what else he said, but he was very good about everything, and I cannot help thinking many who pass for very respectable here will come off worse in the world to come than he who had so much punishment in this life. I think what I said was a comfort to him, and when at last I came away he held my hand in a long grip, looking at me as steadily as ever for all the death pallor on his face. As I turned at the door, I met his eyes once more following me, still with a strange, almost tender look in them, so large and understanding as they were. The tears were in my own, and I hoped it was not the last time I should see him; but he died that night at twelve o'clock - very quietly, they said. Of course we did with his money all that he wished, and he was respectably buried in the parish churchyard. I went to his funeral, and we sang a Welsh hymn as we came down the hill taking him to his last resting-place on earth. The rest of the money was laid out wisely and to good purpose. I asked to see Mr. Powys the day after Will Duntze died, and he took me to the library, where I told him about all this from beginning to end, winding up by saying I hoped he would not be very angry with me. Being always so much with Miss Lucie and up at the court, I was used to speaking quite easily to him. I can see him now, looking at me with his benevolent smile. "No, not very angry, Mary," he said. "I am glad you were able to give the poor fellow some comfort at the last. I never heard anything against him of which I thought much harm, except, of course, about that sheep; and, even supposing he was guilty, the punishment he suffered was about enough for that. But, all the same, you had better not be taking up with any more of those folks at Trawsnant, or you may be getting us all into trouble one of these days." people were got off somehow, and the rest were reformed and frightened into better behavior when they were more watched. For years, now, Trawsnant has been as quiet and respectable as any other part of the parish, and a very different school to learn in from what it was in the days when poor Will Duntze was young. From The Leisure Hour. "WATERS TURNED INTO BLOOD." THE phenomena of blood-red rivers, lakes, and seas, are naturally enough viewed as alarming and portentous events. The occasional discoloration of the Arctic Ocean, the Red Sea, and other waters, as well as of the Polar and Alpine snows, will be in the minds of most readers. One of the most recent and remarkable of such occurrences is reported from Port Jackson, the harbor of Sydney. Here, a short time since, the waters suddenly presented in places the color of blood. The event caused no little astonishment to the inhabitants of Sydney, and it has since been made the subject of a paper by Mr. Thomas Whitelegge in the records of the Australian Museum (vol. i., No. ix.). On being informed of the somewhat alarming event, Mr. Whitelegge went to Dawe's Point, and got a bottle of seawater. He soon found that a minute red-colored organism was present in large numbers. At first he thought the little stranger was a species of Peridinium-one of the "minims of nature ” formerly thought to be midway between the animal and plant world, and having decided affinities with the fungi, but now by English biologists placed among animals. It was, however, subsequently found to belong to the allied genus Glenodinium. The invasion or rapid development of this almost invisible little creature destroyed in the course of a few days half of the shore animals. Nearly all the bivalves in the place which it affected died, the oyster of minute organisms similar to those which have produced a like phenomenon at Sydney is a very natural one, and will doubtless occur to all those who hold that miracles often imply the use of secondary means. beds being seriously injured, mainly, it is believed, owing to the molluscs having swallowed it in that uncritical fashion in which a gaping shellfish takes in what is good, bad, and indifferent, though the sea fortunately seldom con- The family to which Glenodinium betains anything noxious to the life it longs is noted for appearing suddenly in nourishes. The event indicates a dan- extraordinary multitudes. The "red ger to which oyster fisheries are liable, snow" which sometimes colors extenand may account for the disappearance sive tracts in Arctic and Alpine regions, of oysters from localities where they and is occasionally found in England, is were once numerous. Nor does the an undoubted form of vegetable life, interest stop short at oysters. Many and would seem to be a Palmetta. In persons will be reminded of the Ten this form it is sometimes found on walls Plagues of Egypt, which began with the in London suburbs, and is known under changing of the waters of the Nile into the name of "gory dew." The colorblood. By the Nile, and by wells which ing matter in nature is in fact often are supplied from the Nile, the whole of more organic and vital than was once Egypt is supplied with water, as there supposed. The little flagellate or whipis, under ordinary circumstances, neither like creatures which have caused such rain nor, consequently, any independent a commotion in Sydney give, as we spring in the country. The suggestion have seen, a crimson hue to the waters; that the sudden and sanguine discolora- others color the lakes and slow rivers tion of the Nile was due to the presence with beautiful browns and greens. THE CLIMATE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. - 2.7 degrees. All the great changes of temMr. R. H. Scott has contributed an article, perature occur in winter, and accompany entitled "Notes on the Climate of the Brit- sudden thaws. As regards bright sunshine, ish Isles," to Longman's Magazine. The the Channel Islands are by far the most author gives some amusing instances of the favored. On the mean of the whole year, distortion of facts at seaside stations, where Jersey secures thirty-nine per cent. ; but from the observers are anxious to prove the ad- the Bristol Channel to the coast of Norfolk vantages of their own towns over those of there is but little difference in the amounts their rivals. Taking the whole year round, recorded. In cities like London the defithe warmest spot is the Scilly Isles, which ciency is due to smoke. The statistics reare a degree warmer than either the west of lating to fog are not yet completely disCornwall or the Channel Islands; while the cussed, but so far as they go they show that coldest region on the coast is the extreme in winter the foggiest district is the east north-east of Aberdeenshire. In winter coast of England. Next come London and very little difference of temperature is met Oxford, which are about equal. With rewith all along the east coast; but the cold-gard to rainfall, the east coast stations reest part of England lies round the Wash.ceive on an average of the whole year about With regard to the variability of tempera-half as much as those on the west coast, the ture, or the difference of the mean temperature of an entire day, the equability of the temperature of these islands is very great. The only locality for which a more uniform temperature has yet been published is Georgetown (Demerara); the figure for this place is 11 degrees, while for London it is amount being about twenty-five inches on the east coast, thirty to forty inches between Sussex and Devonshire, and fifty inches to the south of Cornwall. In the west of Ireland the amount rises to seventy or eighty inches, owing to high land near the coast. The driest hour almost everywhere is noon. Nature. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |