The Balcombe Street Mystery.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 278, 29 May 1873, Page 6

The Balcombe Street Mystery.

Rome thirty or forty years since there used to be a great house at the corner of a hilly street, in that day known by the name of" Baleombe street. It may be doubted if anyone could find Baleombe street now. Most likely the commissioners have lons ago come down in that direction, and quietly put Baleombe street out of the world. Oldest inhabitants used to tell how it had once been a fashionable neighbourhood, and there wers dusky traditions of a chief justice, great counsellors, and other men of law, having rather fancied the quarter, it being within an easy walk of Chancery lane. But these legal glories had long departed. Dilapidation was quietly eating its way down the street, down to the tall mansion at the corner. For that matter — showing no signs of outward corruption — it was a very impossible structure indeed, and in the days of its legal jubilee must have been glorified by the presence of the defunct chief justice. It was known disparagingly as Maldon's Folly, though nobody to be aware who Maldon was, or where his foolishness had broken out. Very likely the folly had never been paid for, or perhaps Maldon had paid for it, and been broken in consequence, or had been taken in execution, or otherwise legally incon- ! venienced. Whatever might have been | the secret, the neighbors had always accepted Maldon's Folly as it stood, and asked no questions. It was still a handsome, well-saved edifice, with a high, cavernous porch. M and abundance of florid iron railing, twisted fancifully in the old French fashion. Standing under the shadow of that portico having heard the great knocker pound hollowly, strange influences as of ghostly dinner parties, of heavy le^al merriment and sound judicial port, came floating forth from witliri. Dark and dispiriting was the atmosphere of the entrance hall, li'i'iit from the church window over the landing falling dimly on the great polished knobs and thick Iwibced pillars which formed'the balustrade of tho broad staircase. Overhead there wero vast chambers of reception, where' the deceased chief justice had doubtless sat, and held his levees, and been waited on obsequiously by men learned in the law. This might have bet-'n in the awful front room, which was garnished with huge immoveable structures, in the shape of toppling cabinets and cracking pillar and claw ta'ues, winch it would take the strength of many men to stir. There lived in the old house in Baleombe street a family that was, to a certain degree, in keeping with the tenement ; a lonely family that kept to itself, that saw but few people, and that were written down by neighbors a* odd and queer. Those who knew rhern could say no more than this — that they were a cold, sapless, incomprehensible race, from whom all the kindest juices of human nature had been dried oat. Who knows but that ii-.ing in such a dark, dismal atmospM&re might account for much of these strr.n-jje ways ; perhaps, too, tho having niinf of a str.mge stock (tho grandfather beiiiLj an eccentric who slmnne.l i>irf fellows, and wore bis clothes to rags, and kept on a cocked hat in the house,) had something more to do with their self-contained dryness. This trrandfather had g'ven up his soul in 1 the chief justice's rooms, and the cocked hat was lying still in the drawer of a. bL-ck oak wardrobe, that fronted the mausoleum bed, just in the same manner as Mr. Collier Lytrietin, the grandson, inhaled law all ni-j^'.t long, in the dan-room underne.ith. Yes, there was the dun-room exactly underneath ; and one round of the well-sti'ircode left you at the door of the chief justice's apartment. It was a rerribln shaft, sunk clean through the hou-e through which those who stood in the hall looked up at the sky-liijht in t ! :e roof, as from the bottom of a coal pit. And at the foot of the Avell-staircase was this dun-room, where Mr. Lyttleton, the unemployed barrister, v. r as grinding down his brain r.^aitHt the b-ird, cold, stony law. Every m.»ming, from five until nine, he was holding his brain to that gritty wheel, then lifting his head fora spaco '.vhth 1 he walked to chambers, kept it there well down the whole day until din p. cm 1 ; and, from that time out ayain until midnight ; all which cruel grinding left him, still Mr. Lyttleton, the unemployed ; left him, besides, a tall, stooped, delicate-looking being, with a cold white smile, and thirty-six years of his life gone by. With that cold white smile, however, and a strange, defiant power in his breast, he bad struggled on ever since that ninrht when the grandfather had expired with the cocked bat on his head ; all which season — a season six years long — he had been fighting offpoverty; fighting, t)o, in a cruel, wearing, grinding, domestic war. For there was a Mrs. Daxe who lived in the old house too, and bad a room off the woll-stairease. She was a younger sister of that defunct grandsire, a woman, say, of some seventy years old, but strong and full of life, and furnished with a terrible tongue ; reviling all things. The gloomy house w.-.s hers. It had been left to her by will— hers whatever money there passed out into the world, from that gloomy place. Whatever little money the unemployed could

gather in might go in part to household expenses, fined down to starvation point, and she would make up the balance. She was own sister to the departed miser, and neighbor said to neighbor that she must have chests of gold and silver — huge, iron-bound, crammed ■chests — lying hidden up and down. "What else, indeed, could be the significance of the black carved corner cupboards ; and the vast garde-robes, blacker still, and the pigeon-holes, and the heavy oak case, each on its four twisted legs ; to say nothing of traps where the legs of the bedstead came ? Aye, indeed ; but with thus serving out subsistence to the rest,she had back interest for her money, usurious csnt. per cent., compound interest. All in that matter of reviling coming down the well staircase to revile, bursting in periodically to the dun-room with reviling purport, and making him lift his brain from that grindstone to hear her — passing from him to the other being that lived there, and on her means. Such surprising interest as she had for her money ! That other being was Mary Lyttleton, sister to Mr. Lyttleton ; who was cold as he was ; like him in mind, too, only that with her there was no such thing as hope ; for hope had long since been driven out of her ; ever since, indeed, the day she came under the shadow of that roof, having arrived from a fresh country place, from sweetly-smelling hay and sweeter gar- ' dens full of flowers, in which company she had lived all her life, to be imprisojAfehenceforth and for aye in gaol or c|f mal reformatory. So, from the very first, as had been said, she had cast hope away from her, almost as | soon as the bolt had been shot behind her ; and went through her round of duties in a dull, impassive way. She took her share of reviling with the rest, accepting it with a sort of welcome. It was wonderful to see how Mrs. Daxe throve upon reviling, drawing from it life, and strength, and vigor, in other words, surprising interest for the money. She came down one evening to the door of 'the unemployed's room, and stood outside listening to the grindstone. It was whirring round briskly ; pai tides of brain flying off in sparkles. Case! case! case! statute, point; dictum, precedent, and principle! She was come down, having a weary moment on hand, to work an old lever, to rasp him with a favorite grater. The grater was no other than this : A very good friend had, on the grandfather's death, proffered to the unemployed a place at a desk (mercantile) of the value of two hundred pouuds yearly, which offer the barrister had almost scorned— rhad declined, certainly — from desperate assurance of his own powers, and wild confidence in the walk he had chosen. Better than a desk; welcome consumptive chest and eternal grindstone rather! For this election, however, was to come terrible reckoning ; she who furnished him with bread and meat and drink shrieking at him ceaselessly that one upbraiding cry of " Jordon's place ! Jordan's place ! Why did you refuse Jordan's place ? " Shooting it through the tympanum of his ear into his brain, until that cry came to sound in his ear in the middle of the nights, waking him from his weary dreams. It was astonishing how she worked on him with that grater. The grindstone 4£jisl;orture most sweet and acceptable after it. On this evening she had come down with the grater newly roughed and whetted; and, with that, another instrument which might come hereafter to be of the same profit- There was a dim candle burning, which was wasting the eyesight of him who read ; but it was Mrs. Daxe who furnished it, so there was no reasonable ground of complaint. " Well !" said Martha Daxe, striding in with that strong, youthful stride of hers ; " suck ! suck away ! suck it all in ! suck away until the Day of Judgment, and see what good it will do us. You addle-headed fool, do you mind me ?"

Mr. Lyttleton had lifted his brain carefully from the grindstone, and laid his finger on the particular clause of the Act of Parliament he was grinding his brain upon, to mark it. "Do you mind me?" Grandaunt Daxe continued in a shriek. " When are ye to get me money ? Who is to pay me for my keep of you ? When are you to stop this plundering of me? Answer me !" She pulled away the statutes at large, and the clause in question, from under his finger. " Soon," he said, quite undisturbed ; "soon I am confident. It will all come in a short time." " How long have you been telling me that story ?" she answered ; " beggar that you now and always will be, full of imposter's promises, when are you to have money, I say again ?" "Soon, I am confident, ai I told you before." "Ah-r-r! the same old whining story ! Why didn't you take Jordan's place ? Not a bit sorry for it now : not a bit sorry ; not a bit !" "No," said Mr. Lyttleton quite calmly ; "it was the wisest step I ever took in my life." " 0 hear him, the beggar ! Why don't I turn these paupers into the street ?" V She would not have done it for a hundred pounds. But there was that second grater ready now, and waiting to be used.

" No," she said, fetching it up ; " but I must get my house fuller of them — have more on my hands. Two girls here next week, pauper cousins of your own ; that beggar hunter must needs die and leave them without a penny." A little tinge came for an instant into the barrister's cheek. There had been days once in his life when cousins had come together in that country life, gathering flowers and inhaling that freshly-mown hay together. Cousins, paupers or otherwise, wandering over the green meadows, long, long before that grinding had begun. "Are you going to have them to live with you?" he said, after a pause ; "Conalore and Prue?" "Ay!" Martha Daxe answered, " and a pretty workhouse full we shall have of it. But I shall take it out of them. 0 my ! if I won't take it out of them !" She strode up and down the room, saying that over and over again, Mr. Lyttleton regarding her patiently. "Look at my money!" she said, stopping suddenly before a row of some half-dozen law books ; see how I am swindled ! When will you pay me, I say, for your keep and lodging ? When will you give me my money ?" " You will have it in one day , I am confident of it as I sit here a living man ; so give me peace till then." "The old song," she said, putting by the grater, " the old trumpery tune." And with that she turned away, and strode up the well-staircase again. Much invigorated was she by that short interview. It was as good as an elixir to her, and that prospect of two more shortly to arrive, who would take their share of bitter .tonguing, was specially comforting. Why, taking it in this view, they were only wretched, beggarly curate's daughters (so she put it as she went up the stairs), who, at best, where fit only for tramping the streets (so also she put it(, they might think themselves too well off, the low jades !" "Hi, Ben! Ben Alibone!" she called out down the well-staircase, leaning on her elbows. She had to call twice for that matter, and then a thick-set burly man, with a squint, and in his shirt sleeves, came out of a cabin door, and stood looking up from the bottom. '• "Well !" he said. " Did you hear me call to you ?" she asked " I couldn't come sooner," he answered bluntly ; " what do you want now ? you always think you can take your time with me ; but I won't stand it! Vhat do you want now, I say again?' he answered, leaning himself against the last balustrade ; " unless you are minded to begin a-bullying of me." " Ah-r-r you !" she said, shaking her hand at him. " Ah-r-r yourself!" he retorted, turning on his heel in through the dark cabin door. He knew she had no real business with him beyond that mere pastime of bullying, and so went in without a word more. She had her interest out of Ben Alibone's wages, too. He stood up to her, as he himself put it, and gave her as good as he got. Such a horrid squint as the man had ! But the two low jades, Curate Rhode's daughters — who were te arrive presently in the mean cab, with an old hair«trunk on top — it did seem a hard thing that they should be brought in to leech on old Martha Daxe. Hard, certainly, that she should have that bequest of two fair pieces of flesh, born of £60 a year, and with no inheritance! beyond the old hair trunk! When, three days after, the mean cab came up and set down the two paupers, iliere was a certain commotion among neighbors. "Bolt the door behind you, Ben Alibone,"| was the first greeting; and they passed in, to the music of the rattling of chains. Martha l Daxe, half-way up the wellstaircase, gave them ogre's welcome ; interest wjas to accrue from that moment. One was what (had she an eye to such' things) she would have called a presentable wench. That was Conalore. A tall creature, gracefully shaped, and made to be loved, whose hair ran round her head in ripples, and was gathered at the back like a G-reek's statue. A girl formed for the bright, open country, for the fields and mountains ; but not for the gaol (Alibone gaoler) into which she was entering. In truth, she was no one to play Picciola or Prison Flower, unless with foreknowledge of there being some gentle hand to tend her, and let the sun in upon her, and keep her from withering away in the gaol. Picciola and the unemployed had been together before that, in those sunshiny haymaking days, when there were lighter things to think of than pure brain grinding. That was Conalore. " But there was another — the sister —Prue, the quiet child. The quiet child was a different order of creature, very small, with pale eyes that blinked. A sharp, 'pretty thing, with hair tinted reddishly, and running in a ripple, like her sister's. But if the stately sister was as a Grecian statue,,bere was the little old woman that lived in a shoe. Not dwarfish ; but perhaps sharp as a needle, perhaps cunning as a fox. Quiet child Prue could read a situation and its contingent shapes for months forward, about as well as your general forecast their campaigns, which, as

they do ill enough sometimes, it had best be said ; as well as that ingenious master carries three ches,s games in his head all at once. She bore all her wits about her, did Prue Rhod<% the quiet child. They carao iv on that arrival day, and the first words Prue spoke, whispering to her sister, were, " Hi, for the bastille ! Hi, for the two penitentiary women !" To whom Martha Daxe, as has been said, gave ogre's greeting, glancing on her well-staircase. She even fondled them over, taking Conalore about the waist, to feel what stamina there was in her ; from which embrace the poor statue took a little comfort, though the gaol had already done its work upon her. " Come this way," Martha Daxe said opening the door of the dun-room ; " see your cousin in his workshop, where he makes all the money ! " The unemployed raised his head wearily, and took them all in, with a feeble stare. The whir of the grindstone was still in his ears. "0, cousin Lytteltou ! " Conalore said, running forward to him, " what has changed you so ? You are killing yourself! " Time was — in those country days — when he would have colored up and felt his pulse beat the quicker at such a greeting. But of late there had grown up in that region* where bis heart used to beat, a yellow parchment bundle, of the same shape, bound through and through with red tape cartilages. So he stood quite impassive, and bloodless. Prue, who had been blinking curiously at him all this while, now says abruptly, " So, here it is where all the money is made. How much now ? Sackfuls ? " G-randaunt chuckles delighted. " It is perfect coining, dears," she says ; " there he sits and works, and keeps us all in meat, drink, and clothing." " I thought so ; cousin Lyttelton was always held so clever," Prue answered reflectively ; " he will give us all fortunes when we are married." Conalore's gentle eyes were bent on him tearfully, as he winced and shrunk away from these words. " Dearest cousin," she said, "think more of your own precious health and strength, which you are only destroying ; what is money, compared to life ?" " " Hear, madam !"_ says Martha Daxe ; " only hear madam, and her fine speeches ? favour us, ma'am, with the name of the last new novel; butter your bread with those five sayings ; and, for that matter, his too ! come away ! come up, and leave the gentleman." And with that she took them away up the well-staircase, round through her dismal chambers, railing all the while, until she had left their hearts as heavy as they could well be. Before night she had gotten out of Conalore at least a month's interest in advance With three months' sojourn in the House of Correction, they had fallen quite into the penitentiary ways, taking penitentiary diet, penitentiary discipline, and penitentiary tongue-scourg-ing from the matron of the house, who throve and fattened on it ; but they went about as two broken Magdalenes, under process of being reformed. Which likeness refers mainly to Conalore; and had that fine, wavy hair of hers been clipped close, she would have touched that original even closer. All which time, however, it went pretty much the same with the overworked ; with this addition, that by laying his eyes close, of nights, to such wretched light as was served out to him, they grew to be strained and weak. Of which he made small account ; but worked on desperately — hopelessly and against all hope. Nothing coming, or likely to come. Wear out brain and eyes. Wear out nerves and life ; nothing coming or likely to come. Weariest round from the gaol to chambers, from chambers back again, all to the samo tune. Nothing coming. Whichelo's Trusts was about as well known in the courts as any of the leading cases. Whichelo the uncle had been a dishonest trustee, and Whichelo's minors, whom he had defrauded, were now two threadbare old gentlemen, who had gone through life striving idly to close their fingers upon justice, and take hold of her. But as these were the fine old times when Replication, Rejoinder, Rebutter, and Surrebutter, with other such company, throve and battened on suitors — the threadbare gentlemen had been kept off (and on, too), from minority to majority, and that to old ajre. Trustee Whichelo was fat and opulent, and rather fancied the thing would last out his own time. Many tried their hands at Whichelo's Trusts with about the same profit. Nothing could be made of ifc, such power had Surrebutter and his brethren, until at last the solicitor in the matter, sickening of his speculation, told the threadbare gentlemen that he must have done with it and them, unless indeed they could turn up some poor hardworkiug devil of a drudge who would work the thing for pure nothing, and chance of a reputation. Not so lon&j after then, the two threadbare gentlemen came one morning to Balcombe street, and there found such a drudge, who took the business with a sort of joy and eager hope. No remuneration, but better full hands than idle expectancy. " We shall send you up the papers in the evening," said the threadbare

gentlemen at departing. And accordingly, that evening there came up a cab, filled with old carpetbags and bundle?, in which again were reams of old yellow dried parchments, being the papers in the matter, or Surrebutter and his fellows come on a visit. There was some one living at the top of the house, in a dark nook which she had christened queerly Eaven's Eoost ; and here, after taking her day's share of railing, she would retire and write in a log or day-book- It was the log of the quiet child, kept fast under lock and key, who looked to all things shrewdly, but with an especial eye to the dunchamber. What she wrote was all to the same tune and sing-song. "I hate, I hate," began the log every day, dating from Haven's Roost, " and I like to hate ; it will keep me alive, while undergoing penal servitude, until I turn old and grey, and he run stone blind, which he will as sure an he will die — poor, wretched, noble, hateful, creature ! I should like to have the leading of him about, though I know he would rather fancy Minx Conalore ; Minx Conalore would lead him so gingerly ! O the poor, poor soul : pray, pray that his eyes be kept to him ! " The papers in the matter of Whichelo's Trusts were spread out before him at night, covering the tables, and the floor, and old cabmets. They looked down at him from tops of cupboards, waiting their turn. They were tied up. as it wei'e, with miles of red tape ; and such as were written out on great paper folios, each furnished with a substantial vellum jacket. There were so^e made up like small linen bales, and weighing many, many, many pounds. Surprising, indeed, what a sum the whole would have brought in if put tip to auction as waste paper ! By the light of a miserable candle he was now working through a vast prairie, which was no other than the great deed of trust itself, sweetly engrossed, wherein were numberless other deeds recited and referred to. And as he bent his head close to the prairie and moved the light nearer, he felt his eyes sink in from weakness, as though about to be shut for ever. Two burning arrows were piercing into his brain, and he fell back in his chair, covering up his face. " Oh, I must give up," he said aloud. " I cannot go on. It is only left for me to become blind. And, after that, mad. Fitting end to all." Again he bent forward his head 1o the dim light, and entered on the prairie, but with the same profit. " This is terrible," he said aloud ; " if I had only some help on which to lean ; some one to do the hodman's work, and make abstracts, and so spare these eyes !" He thought for a moment, and went on. " Conalore has turned proud of late. She has scorn for such mean creatures as I. A just scorn. lam a mean, poor-souled drudge, nothing else. Oh, everything is weariness ; everything ! " There was some one listening ac the door ; some one that had come down on tip-toe ; past the chief-justice's-room, down all the way from the Raven's Roost. The well-staircase had not given even so much as a creak ; for she was light of person and lighter of foot. Some one had heard all those out-spoken words, and haJ gone away softly but with secret rejoicing. When he was gone to chambers next day she came down again from, the Raven's Roost. She stood solitary among the papers of the great cause, or what might be rather called the dried bones of it. The room was as a vault full of those dried bones, lying here and there, up and down. Prue had strange powers of thought, the clearest of heads ; brain machinery that could winnow law, or even coarser material. After all, this should not be such terrible caviare to the crown. Suitors, if they were let, or were a degree less lazy, might walk in the steps of their own cause, conveniently enough. These deeds, awful of aspect, are not altogether palimpsests. So Frue Rhode drew near to the mummy-in-chief, lying out on the table, and set herself resolutely to it. She was now entering on the prairie with terrible impediment, at first, by brush and brake, and jungle impenetrable. It seemed all Hebrew, Chaldaic, Sanerit moulded together. She turned it over from front to back. Heavy enough it was. There was engrossed invoice of deeds alluded to within. Conveyance A of the year seventeen hundred and sixty, conveyance B of the year seventeen hundred and ninety.seven, and the rest, which documents must, in all likelihood, be hard by and true enough. Here they were to the right, all tied up together. Here was conveyance of seventeen hundred and sixty, marked A at the top. There was the steps in the cause on the left, master rulings and like, of prodigious length. Taking up which, she proceeded to make her way through without much hardships, working ou for some two hours or so, and then wrote out short compendium or abstract. Then she went away for a turn or so of railing with Martha Daxe, then stole back and did more work. When, then, at the cUse of the October day, Lyttleton came in to be.<rin hi* weary night's round, there was a strange surprise waitiug him The poor man's caudle, which he

would have sought presently to light, was gone, and there was a tall, bright, French lamp, shining radiantly. Grreat miracla this, that quite dazed him with wonder and almost alarm. This fearful extrayaganee, should Martha Daxe come to know it ! But, in real earnest, how had the quiet child contrived it ? She, whose income was not altogether three farthings per annum ? Perhaps she had begged or borrowed, perhaps sold ; perhaps — but such things should not be lightly spokenshe had been prying curiously among the nooks and pigeon-holes, and queer cabinets in old Martha Daxe's room. O the neighbors ! how they talked and whispered concerning the sackfulls left by old Daxe ; all stowed away in strango crannies. Greater surprise still for the overworked when the genial light shows him the abstracts in female hand, so neatly tied up on the desk, correctly done too, and of real assistance. Some one at the door hears him muttering to himself in astonish ment, and enters softly, just as he says aloud. " G-eutle Conalore, after all — her work." " Pah !" impatiently answers Prue, j " never before so wrong ! she is a great lady : too lofty.to think of helping or leading about a poor blind mind." "True, true," he said, "I should have thought of that. And was it you, dearest Prue, that did this ?" "Who else? not Grandaunt Dave, certainly ; no, nor Ben Alibone. Show me more to do. I will be your tin J clerk. " Dear, dearest child," he said, " what infinite goodness, charity rather ! 0 you could help me so !" From that night she did help him wonderfully; but still hia eyesight ebbed away slowly and surely. It came at last to this, that he could not so much as look at paper of nights. No profit, therefore, in the French lamp. But the quiot child held by him, steadily working for him, while Conalore looked on scornfully, for the pair had conceived justly of her. And yet the scent of those country days was not gone — nay, was stronger rather. Says Prue, one night, looking up from a huge deed : " Do you like me as well as Conalore, Cousin Lyttleton ?" "What of Conalore?" he said, absently ; " I scarcely see her at all now. lam too mean a soul for her to think of " " But do you like me as well ?" Prue asked again ; but could get no answer from him. Minx Conalore was, all the while, secretly thinking what great things she was made for, if she could only get lose upon the world. Blind wigmen were not her game. But our poor blind wigmau, for all the help he was getting, was only turning blinder every hour. Daylight work even was no ease to him. It was a case of such tremendous proportions; a Leviathan, enough to swallow the brains of ten strong men. So it was, every day, proving more and more too much for him. The threadbare gentleman came now and again to him, and found business backward. The solicitor in the matter came too, and said that at this rate of pottering they would be twenty years over it. Still he held on, contending desperately with optic nerve and retina. Which pair were destined to have it their own way, as they always must. One year's rigid forbearance from all written and printed paper would be the only basis for a cure. Fretfully, chafingly he took the trial; at times bursting into fits of storm and fury quite strange to his quiet nature, startling that volunteer clerk of his, who sat working with him too. Clerk Prue, not reckoning on this odd mood, looking up at him, "Do I not work enough, cousin ? Drive me on faster, if you will." " Small profit," he answered bitterly, " were you to work those willing fingers to the bone !" " Courage friend," she said, cheerfully, "we must work through it. We shall coin a portion for your wife out of Whichelo's trusts !" He laughed. "Most idle talk," he said, almost rudely, " why do you say such things ? Who would think" of the blind ? They have all the same souls as our stately mistress up stairs. But I can tell you, Prue, for all that, she might not got the blind back to her again, not if she went on her knees. Don't you know," he went on with kindling eyes, " don't you know that if T had coffers, and sacks of money, and jewels — some of those black oak coffers that we know of— and came freighted with these, it would l)e a very different tune ?" " This is intolerable," clerk Prue said, flinging down her pen, " I'll write no more for you ; your head is always running on Conalore, and I tell you she dispises you ; now find out who really loves you !" " You, I suppose," he says, with a sneer, ''you want wages for your work !" " A generous taunt," the quiet child answers, trembling with rage, " now that you have no further use for me ; finish all as you ruay now, I have done with you!" " Forgive me ; forgive me, dearest j Prue !" he said, stopping her : but my j heart is sore ; I am as fretful as a child ;" and with that she stayed and took up her pen readily enough. But it came to the one finale nevertheless. Eetina and optic nerve were ! to win easily. The overworked must !

lay down his arms. With tribulation, with inexpressible woe of soul, with a sickness on him like that of death, poor wit; man gives in. And so, one of tho^e October movnings, th<> menn cab comes up to tlie door again, and all the tawny papers in the matter are put in, under the seat, over the seat ; the boxes outside with coachmen, all to a reviling tune from the threadbare gentlemen, who swear that they have been used scurvily. So drives off the mean cab ; and with it, hope, peace, happiness. Kather has driven up with it, Despair, and another gentleman named Felo-de-se or Suicide, both sitting together inside. Martha Daxe, from the window of the chief justice's room (for she had moved down to that apartment long since), had seen that arrival and departure. For that matter she had known what was coming a long time back ; but had kept her rage (this time real and unaffected) bottled down close until this day. She had all aloDg fancied that something might have come of the great suit ; that it would have brought money clinking in upon those other moneys lying in the iron-bound, crammed coffers. How she raved and las Led herself as she walked to and fro- in the chief justice's room. "He shall go into the streets. He shall. I'll fatten no paupers. He may go to his own workhouse or hospital — anywhere out of this ; the idle, profitless fool." So, towards five o'clock on that evening, she came tramping down to the dun-room to have it all out, and to | vent her bottle^-up fury. There was a terrible storm and contention! Fiercest wrangle ! For the over-worked, now grown defiant and desperate, bearded the old reviler openly. There was word for word, epithet for epithet ; strife most unseeming. The doors were open wide, the sounds floated out into the ball and up the well-staircase to where Prue and Conalore were listening, each at her own door. Graunt Alibone was listening, too, standing cautiously at the dark end of the hall. Great scandal for all the house. But he must tramp. That was the end of it. He may roj in the street if he like ; but must turn out. Blind beggar, she called him. Beg he should, and that from to-morrow morning. Now it had come to the darkness of night, and dark it was to fhe poor pauper sitting lonely in the dun chamber, and thinking what was to become of him. The gentleman, Felo-de-se, who called in tue morning, and was not yet gone away, importuned him sadly. But to no purpose. Still, despair has a clutch on his heart, and is working wearily at his brain. For there is disappointment, a blighting of those certain hopes, with such comforts to keep him company. Famous company they are, and are sitting with him even when the sonorous bell of the old hall clock chimes out eleven and threequarters. By this hour Martha Daxe is fast asleep in the chief justice's room, with those ancient coffers filled up to their lids with money, and doublelocked down; the keys under her pillow. The well-staircase is dark enough, but not so dark to one who knows the way, the old clock-bell just chiming midnight. Who should be on the well-staircase at that hour, stepping softly past the chief justice's room, but such as had fitting business, or were troubled in mind concerning the state of near relations? Ancient ladies, well stricken in years, bearing infirmities, are subject to Heaven knows what sudden ills and paralytic turns. A sharp cry for aid at dead of night might well reach through the thick floors and pannellings of the old house down to the dun-room, and bring up whomsoever was keeping vigil there. Yet folk cry out often in their sleep. As he was coming forth softly from the chief justice's chamber, he came suddenly on Prue, shading a candle with her hand. She startled him exceedingly ; and no wonder. " Did you not hear anything ?" she asked. "It was nothing," he whispered ; " nothing in the world ; she is sleeping soundly ; don't go in, or you will disturb her : good night." He was going down, when she stopped him, laying her candle on the broad balustrade, " Let U3 talk a moment ; so you are going to-morrow ; turned out of doors. 0, that I could go, too ! for I am sick of her. Let me go with you. I can be your scribe, your handmaiden — anything !" " What folly you talk," he said roughly; "I must go out by myself: go where no one shall think of me. I want no scribes nor handmaidens. Let me pass!" and he stole down again to his dun chamber. She looked at him in astonishment. " Cold-hearted wretch !" she said to herself: " let him get stone-blind, for all it is to me. But what can have put him in this mood to night?" She thought for a moment : then she went up- stairs, still conning it over to herself. At her own door she put out the light; and taking off her slippers, stole down again cautiously to the door of the chief justice's room. There she listened. # # # # Mrs. Martha Daxe was old ; and, from her habit of body, might have been clearly set down as a fit subject for apoplexy. That was the way in which the neighboring apothecary accounted for it. Got a fit in the night,

and died without a struggle. There was the whole of it. The thing occurs every day. And so, sir, there is your fe<* ; and lot us the funoral over as girx.n as decency will permit. Prue toll! Lyttleton she must speak with him privately. She did so. She liad a queer smile on her lace, as she closed the door after her. No begging no to be allowed to serve as handmaiden or scribe. More likely the other want to be changed into her bondman for ever. That is, as long as he should live. Alibone, the man, was surly, and went ahout distrustfully, muttering strange things. But he was sent away soon, being paid handsomely, with a considerable bonus over and above his wages. Should we please now to take that whole piece — scenery, actors, all, at intervals of five years' time, and then look out from the boxes at the stage, it will be found that Clerk Prue has wedded the broken, restless, fiery-eyed man, who was once a lawyer ; but who has given up that trade siDce he came into a fortune. He is very quiet and submissive to her, for he knows she has a terrible scourge for him, locked up in a private place — which, to give her full justice, she never brings out. For she loves him well, and does not let her sister Conalore live with her. 0, who shall unravel the mystery of that October night! It must wait the great unravelling day ? Pity that those who said Martha's ghost walked the old house did not stop and question her. Yes, it must wait the great unravelling day, The old walls may not speak now, for they have been knocked down long ago, and there is a new establishment of baths and wash-houses standing in their stead.

A merry party of ladies and gentlemen had a narrow escape from a terrible death among the Thousand Islands at the St. Lawrence recently, but were saved by the presence of mind 'and heroism of one of the ladies. They were out in a yacht at a late hour iv the evening, when the clouded sky rendered it almost impossible to distinguish objects on the water at a short distance. They were sailing about thoughtlessly, and enjoying themselves as such parties are in the habit of doing, when suddenly a dark object loomed up before them, which was evidently a large steamer. A collision seemed inevitable nnless the steamer could be signalled to change her course, as it was impossible for the sailing craft to do so. The party ■were in a terrible dilemma, as except a few matches there appeared to bo no means at hand to procure a light. The young ladies, except one, screamed with, terror, and a fearful catastrophe seemed on the point of consummation. A slight jostling, however, was observed in the direction of the silent youug lady. No one could see what she was doing, but she soon handed a roll of paper to one of the gentlemen. In a moment it was ablaze, the steamer's course was changed, and the party were saved. When they recovered from their fright there was naturally much speculation as to where that important roll of paper came from ; and it finally leaked out that the fair one had heroically sacrificed her bustle to secure the safety of her companions. A singular elopement has just taken place from N ottingham. An elderly gentleman residing at a village near Southwell came to Nottingham, with his wife and only daughter, the carriage being driven by the coachman. They put up at tho Lion Hotel, and thecoachman was ordered to have the carriage Teady to return home at half-past one. At that hour the carriage was not ready, and the coachman could not be found, the daughter being also missing. The gentleman and his wife waited some hours, and, as the coachman did not " turn up," one of the servant at the Lion was engaged to drive the carriage home. It was afterwards ascertained that the coachman and his young mistress hired a cab, and were driven to Loughborough. Nothing has been heard of them since. It is said that the lady, who is about thirty years of age, has in her own right an income of £300 a year, bequeathed to her by her grandfather, who died some years ago. The coachman is said to be almost fifty years of age, and has kft at the village on his master's estate a wife and four children. As may be supposed the affair has caused much excitement and unhappiuess in the young woman's family, and active efforts are boing made to discover the runaway lovers. According to the " Swiss Times " two Anstrian marine officers and a marine engineer have discovered by nnited experiments a method of conveying awa-y under water the smoke from the ste;imengine, instead of through a funnel in the air. They make use of double ventilators which compress the smoke, and force it overboard. For propelling these ventilators they employ, according to circumstances, either water-power — that is, the pressure of the water between the surface of the water and the place where the apparatus is fixed - or, for small vessels, steam-power. The advantages of this discovery are the greater security of ships-of-war, as in armor-plated ships the only vulnerable part, the funnel, will be taken away. Ofher advantages will be the saving of space now occupied by the passage of the fnnnel through every deck, as welJ as security against fire ; complete regulation of the draught, and consequence of that, the application of a method for consuming the smoke, thereby effecting a saving of fuel ; and, fiually, better ventilation of the boiler. For submarine and torpedo ships and monitors this discovery 'vill be of great value, as these last will be rendered quite invulnerable. The ttials that have been made have, it is alleged, resulted in a complete success, even in the smallest details. To get horses out of a burning building, harness them as if for their usml work, and they will follow as if nothing were the matter.