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ble death of Lord Frederick Douglas and the Swiss guides and two English gentlemen on the Matterhorn.

Mr. Whymper does not seem to be an imaginative man; his book reads like the conscientious work of a practical observer-an artist, too, one who can, with pencil as well as peu, illustrate his ideas. He declares that he saw-and he draws it, too-a cross in the sky, very luminous, large, and distinct, after that dreadful event. What a message, personal, and yet removed from our sphere, was that vision!

On the day that the dreadful news came to New York of the death of President Lincoln, many persons declared that they saw a "banner in the sky." It was very warm for the season, and the western heavens had been brilliant for many sunsets. I remember the occasion and the sunset; it was not unlike our flag, that floating mass of crimson streaked with white, and the deep blue of the adjoining sky. Whether Mr. Church got from it his idea of the "Banner in the Clouds," I do not know; it certainly was suggestive of that lovely picture.

Every one who has observed sunsets has been struck, no doubt, with the frequent resemblance to animals in the floating clouds: dogs' heads, swans, eagles, and lions, seem to particularly attend at the soirée of the departing monarch.

Hamlet alludes to this cloud-zoology in his conversation with Polonius, whose easy conscience first saw that it was "backed like a weasel," and then was 46 very like a whale." There was an old superstition that clouds over the sea looked like fish, while clouds over the mountains took the form of birds; that clouds on the plains resembled buffalo and lions and deer. But clouds are too far off to be influenced by what passes beneath them; they look like every thing by turns and nothing long. They are the most changeable things in Nature-her wild and beautiful caprices.

Howells speaks, in his delightful book on Venice, of the sunsets in that most dreamy eity. He describes one of them as being like the tears and smiles of an angry beauty. There is every thing in Venice to make beautiful sunsets-water and architecture-which helps along a sunset wonderfully, although it may sound absurd to say so. To look at a sunset after seeing St. Marks, with all its pomp of color, its porphyry and verde-antique columns, its Saracenic gates, its horseshoe-shaped trellises, its scarlet and gold, its amethyst and ruby, is merely to continue the idea. You are great, you are lifted up, therefore you are better able to appreciate the sunset. Then the Campanile rises so graciously against the western sky

"The last to parley with the setting sun!" I saw a wonderful sunset in Venice, but I should have to get Tintoretto and Titian and Paul Veronese to describe it for me Ah! who would not like to have lived in that century! to have looked at the sunset when the world was all agitation, passion, picturesqueness, tumult, emperors, popes, doges, when people dressed in purple and fine linen, and Beauty sat on a Venetian balcony and

kissed her hand furtively to the cavalier in the gondola? There were some splendid sunsets in those days, no doubt

"The first in beauty shall be first in might."

The sunsets at Newport are often very beautiful. I saw one once in the summer of 1872, which was imperial in splendor. It was a world on fire; the crimson glories shot up from east and west, from north and south; there was no difference of glory in the westthe sun might have set in any quarter of the heavens. This phenomenon I have seen before, but have never had it explained. In the days of superstition it would have been considered an omen dire and fearful. It presaged nothing but a very hot day. Another feature of its splendor was its long duration. The sun died very slowly that night, and the glories of his curtained death-bed remained visible for an hour.

The last of these sunsets was seen from the deck of a steamship, just outside of the harbor of Brest. To those who are starting on a sea-voyage nothing is so cheerful and beautiful as a sunset such as this was-" a crystalline splendor, clear but not dazzling " -filled the west, and illuminated for us the receding shores of la belle France and the Channel Islands. We thought of Mary of Scotland, as she tearfully bade adieu to this lovely land. We thought, as we looked out to sea, of home and kindred, between whom and us lay the dread ocean. How many, how contradictory, how incoherent, are the ideas which cross one's mind, as such a scene, under such circumstances, flits before the "visual orbs." Security, peace, tranquillity, and gentle hope, these were our dreams and emotions-but, alas ! the promise was delusive. We were caught next day in a circular storm, the sea became like peasoup, we were tossed on the highest and most sickening waves, nor did we see another sunset until we entered the harbor of New

York, where a wintry sky, clear and cold, and uncompromising, welcomed us to duty and to work, after a vacation in Europe which had been all recreation and pleasure:

"In vain our pent wills fret,
And would the world subdue;
Limits we did not set,

Condition all we do."

We cannot command our sunsets, nor the spirit in which to meet them; both must be accidental; but one thing is certain-it is an hour most dear to the whole human race. Toward the western heaven the poet looks for his inspiration; there the sighing lover looks, dreaming of his future; there the woman carries her disappointments, her sorrows, which she never tells; there the scholar looks, as he demands of himself courage to unfold a new idea. "Is not doubt the hand trembling, yet careful, that turns the telescope of earnest inquiry upon the heavens of truth?" "There look those who wear the purple," and wonder if to-morrow will be safe or sorrowful; thither look the dying, as if through those gates, which will soon open for them; there looks the tired laborer, thanking Heaven that another day's work is done; there looks the soldier, as he treads the disputed field; and the mother gathers

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NE of the saddest tragedies, if it be one,

the strangest mysteries, if it be

one, dimly recorded in historic annals, is that of the Princess Charlotte Sophia, of Brunswick. The story, though an old one, is still but little known even in the dominions of the empire. The new light which a recent Russian writer has let in upon the facts has induced us to recall them at the present time.

On the 27th of January, 1689, the Czar Peter the Great was married, somewhat against his will, to Ewdokija Feodorowna Lapuchin, the daughter of a powerful Russian noble. On the 18th of February of the following year, his eldest child, Alexis Petrowitsch, was born and baptized.

Owing to the absence of maternal carePeter, having quarreled with his spouse over a serious affair, had banished her to a convent very soon after marriage-the prince Alexis was left to himself, and, until his thirteenth year, was almost wholly neglected. During this interval, his mind lost all sense of decency and respect, and his unrestricted mode of living entailed upon him some of the worst of habits. When, at length, he was intrusted to the care of a learned German, Henry Huyssen, he made but small progress in the way of improvement. Euclid and algebra were found to be ill-suited to his wild and willful nature. But the poor tutor combated with the difficulties of his position about ten years, and then surrendered his princely pupil in disgust.

Meanwhile, the czar, who seems not to have been able to keep out of matrimony, had taken secretly unto himself another spouse, the daughter of a poor woman, and already famed as much for her modest deportment as for her attractive beauty. Nothing was more common in Russia and in all the Asiatic kingdoms than marriages between sovereigns and their subjects; but that an impoverished stranger, who had been discovered amid the ruins of a plundered town, should become the absolute sovereign of that very empire into which she was led captive, is an incident which fortune and merit have never before produced in the annals of the world. The charming captive, whose name was Martha, thus became, after her elevation to rank, Catharine I. of Russia.

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It was quite natural that the future empress should wish to secure to her own children the right of succession to the throne. To reach this end, she poisoned the mind of the czar against his eldest son, and, in consequence of which, Herr Huyssen was ordered to give an account of the intellectual progress of his pupil. Of course the report which he made was unfavorable; whereupon the tutor was sent back to Germany, and the prince was banished into the interior of Russia. Here the latter demeaned himself with so much unreason that his imperial sire resolved to marry him forthwith.

An embassador was sent to Germany intrusted with the delicate mission of reporting on the charms of all the high-born maidens of the Rhine-land. The list was forwarded to the court, and the crême de la crême, being selected by the czar, were honored with invitations to appear personally before him. Of course he reserved the right of rejecting all bidders.

In this matrimonial game money was no object; but beauty, grace, and mental culture, were every thing. Those who were so fortunate as not to be chosen were returned to their mammas, bearing the gifts of diamond necklaces and rings as compensation for their trouble. His majesty's choice fell upon the Princess Charlotte Sophia, of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, daughter of Duke Louis, the head of a branch line of the reigning house of Brunswick. Accordingly, the nuptials were celebrated at Targow, in the palace of the Queen of Poland, on the 25th of October, 1711. The bridegroom was in his twenty-second year, the bride in her eighteenth.

The Princess Charlotte was one of those soft and dreamy beauties, with fair blue eyes and a head full of romance, so often met with in Germany. At the time of her marriage she was little more than a child in years, and none the less so in manners and modes of thought. Alexis, on the contrary, was wholly given up to low, sensual pleasures, and mean, vicious company. At their earliest interview he had conceived an antipathy to his betrothed, and had no desire at all to marry.

As might have been expected under such cumstances, there was no love wasted by theoung couple. From a state of indiffer

ence the

prince lapsed into one of savagery, and on eve act toward ry occasion he did not hesitate to his wife in the most brutal manner. When, at length, he received into his palace a former istress, by the name of Eufrosine, and his wi fe made complaints to the czar, the prince was sorely enraged, and beat the princess most cru ment in return from the czally. A chastiseaffair worse. Charlotte, dair only made the gretted her sorrowful plight, and in tears, rereleased from her brutish lord.' longed to be wrote to her father, Duke Louis,

She even

him to take steps for dissolving her entreating But Louis was as proud and haughtmarriage. was weak, and would take no steps as she throw that fortune which, he believe to overlikely to make of his offspring an emd, was However, he was not wholly insensible tress. the tortures of her situation. "Keep a watc? hful eye on my daughter," he beseeches the cza br in

a letter recently disclosed, "for she is a lamb in gentleness, and ill-suited to the rough ways of a hot and hasty cavalier. I pray thee be pleased to restrain thy imperial son, and keep back the evil reports which come daily to my ears."

The birth of two children-Natalia, who died prematurely, and Peter, afterward Czar Peter II-did not soften the evil tendencies of Alexis; on the contrary, it was the signal for a most terrible climax. While the princess was yet suffering from her confinement, Alexis, more in a fit of devilish wrath than of intoxication, struck her so savagely with his cane, that she fell senseless to the floor. Those who stood near thought that she was dead; and a few hours later her physician sent word to the czar that his daughter-in-law had been carried off by a sudden attack of hysterics!

Peter the Great received the intelligence of the princess's death on the 20th of October, 1715, and, being then at Schlusselburg busily employed on his works, he set out instantly for the capital. On the way he himself was seized with illness, and was forced to take to his bed. In the midst of his grief the announcement came that the empress had been delivered of a prince, which speedily changed sadness into joy. In the ensuing confusion, poor Charlotte was almost forgotBut rumor had already sounded her dread alarms, and Alexis, fearing the wrath of his father, had fled to his country-house.

ten.

Meanwhile a grand carnival proclaimed the new birth. Splendid entertainments, balls and fireworks, followed one another in rapid succession, and universal hilarity prevailed. Elsewhere, a coffin robed in black, and followed by only a few attendants, was borne into the fortress of St. Petersburg, and deposited in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. Later a horseman rode to the royal palace and announced that the remains of Princess Charlotte Sophia, consort of the heir-apparent of all the Russias, were interred.

Time elapsed, and it soon appeared that the czar had not really forgotten the gentle girl who, deserving a better fate, had missed her road to happiness; neither had he failed to notice the absence of his son. The death of the neglected wife was a sore affliction to Peter's mind; but he hoped that it might be the means of reforming the prince. Accordingly he wrote him a letter, accusing him of murder, but promising forgiveness if he would only amend his conduct. "I desire your answer personally or in writing," the letter concludes, or I must deal with you as a criminal." Alexis replied, "I intend to embrace the monastic life, and I request your gracious consent to that effect."

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your sire, I pronounce against you my everlasting curse; and, as your sovereign, I can assure you I shall find ways to punish you; which I hope, as my cause is just, God will take it in hand and assist me in avenging it."

When entreaties failed, the envoys had recourse to strategy. One of them offered a large sum of money to Eufrosine if she would induce Alexis to throw himself at the feet of his father. She plied her art of persuasion so well that on the following day the prince set out for Moscow. Upon his arrival the great bell tolled; a gloomy council was convened in the castle; and the clergy said mass in the cathedral. In solemn tones the czar pronounced malediction on his son Alexis, deprived him of succession to the throne, and even disinherited him in the presence of the whole assembly. "Never was prince forgotten," says the royal record, "in so sovereign and authentic a manner."

A trial for high - treason followed this awful humiliation; and, on the 7th of July, 1718, it was publicly announced that the Grand-duke Alexis had died in prison, "in consequence of over-excitement." Recent research proves that he was murdered by a German named Weide, at the order of Peter the Great.

At this point the tragedy may be said to end;

and the mystery, if such it was, to begin. Twenty years later, Chevalier Bossu published in Paris a book which is now a rare curiosity, entitled "New Travels in North America in a Series of Letters," in which he affirmed that he had seen the Princess Char| lotte, "who was thought to have died long ago," at a plantation in Louisiana. She was, he said, there well known by her own name; and that he had the full particulars of her romantic career. From these statements, corrected by the recent researches of Kersakoff, who, having had free access to imperial records at St. Petersburg, has at length disclosed the truth, we shall briefly complete one of the strangest stories in existence.

As early as 1714 the Countess of Königsmark, mother of Maurice of Saxony, and an attendant on the Princess Charlotte, urged the latter to escape from Russia in the guise of a servant. But the plan was frustrated. In the following year, and amid the joy which announced the birth of a son of Catharine, the princess, having somewhat recovered from the assault already mentioned, was secretly placed on board a Prussian vessel, and landed on the southern shore of the Baltic.

At the same time the countess and the physician played a bold game. A sham burial was originated. A wax figure, skillfully moulded, was placed in a coffin, which, while the bells were tolling, was hurried away and For a while the affair was dropped, and consigned to a sepulchre in the Church of the czar departed on a journey into Germany Saints Peter and Paul. There were but few and France. The grand-duke, fearful of his mourners, and the ceremony was brief. A life, fled, accompanied by his mistress, to false announcement was speeded to the capiquarters unknown. Seven months passed tal, and no one, in the excitement of the away, during which time the czar heard noth-hour, paused even to give it reflection. ing from his son. One day two Russian envoys overtook Alexis in Naples, and placed in his hands a letter from his father. “If you do not return home," it read, "by virtue of the power I have received from God as

At the proper season, the princess, having recovered and regained sufficient strength, proceeded to Strasburg, and thence to Paris. Here she disposed of her jewelry, and, in company with Swiss emigrants, set sail for

America. She arrived at New Orleans, where | folding it away in his pocket, exchanging a she was recognized and saluted by Count d'Aubaut, a member of the French diplomatic service, who had formerly known her well, and, we may add, become enamored of her at St. Petersburg.

The count was a handsome fellow, but very shy. He had not the courage, even when confident that some unknown cause had estranged her from her husband, to ingratiate himself in the princess's favor. But day and night he was haunted by her matchless beauty, and yet circumstances compelled them to remain longer apart.

After a while the princess, still regarding her Swiss companions as in one sense her guides, followed them from their first landing in New Orleans to a place fifty miles up the river. Here she purchased a small plantation, and, with the help of others, planned to cultivate it. Count d'Aubaut had not ceased to dog her footsteps. Wherever she went he pursued, until a bright idea entered into his mind.

Having assured himself of her determination to remain always in America, the count hastened back to New Orleans, and from the governor-general, who was his near relative, obtained a perpetual ownership of a large tract of land bordering on the Mississippi, together with a release from his diplomatic service.

This tract of land happened to adjoin the estate of the Princess Charlotte; and, having erected a small dwelling for himself, he looked forward to the day when perchance Fortune might permit him to enlarge it for the reception of his idol.

The days and the weeks passed by, and the count had succeeded in winning the friendship of the princess. This friendship daily became more intimate; and, while the princess no longer hesitated to disclose the story of her misfortunes, the count became most sincere in his expression of sympathy. He was not blind to perceive that his own eminently handsome appearance, his perfect and graceful manners, and his fine culture, made a deep impression upon the heart of the lonely lady; and the courtesy and confidence with which she always received him made him bold to sue for her heart and hand. But no; she resolutely refused any offer of marriage.

Count d'Aubaut was in despair, and to tarry longer in the presence of one whom he could not claim as his own was death itself. Abandoning his estate, and bidding farewell to the princess, he returned to New Orleans, where he engaged passage on board a vessel bound for Marseilles. In less than an hour the ship was to sail, and the count had already ended his preparations for departure. With an idle turn of mind he paced to and fro upon the deck; a small package lay there, on which a half-sheet of a newspaper, the Mercure Hollandois of the year 1718, had been placed by some strange hand. dropped, and rested for a moment on a fateful paragraph; and there he read, as one not sorrowful, of the death of the Grand-duke Alexis at St. Petersburg!

His eyes

It is easier to imagine his feelings than to describe them. Grasping the paper and

few words with the commander of the vessel, and making arrangements as to his luggage, he leaped into a small-boat and was rowed ashore. Not ten hours had elapsed before he was again at the feet of the princess.

Only a few words were interchanged, and her doom was sealed. There was no obstacle in the way; and she had shed her last tear before the portrait of him whom she loved even amid hatred. Two months later the Princess Charlotte, with simple ceremony, became the Countess d'Aubaut.

How suddenly, at times, a change falls upon a scene of happiness and contentment; and how unexpectedly the bitter enters into the sweet! Only a few brief years had sealed the union of a loving couple when Count d'Aubaut fell dangerously ill. "There is no

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hope of a recovery," said the physician to the faithful wife, save in a speedy return to Europe." The princess-for surely fortune may not alter her rank!-was quick to heed. Gathering together her all, she, her husband, and their little daughter, sailed first to Le Havre, and thence to Paris.

At Paris she lived in the utmost retirement, nursing her husband and caring tenderly for her child. Occasionally she would wander unattended through the garden of the Tuileries, without disclosing either her name or her singular fortune. One day during one of these solitary promenades she was unexpectedly joined by her daughter, to whom she addressed a few words in German. A gentleman who happened to be passing by was thus attracted to her. For a single instant their eyes met, and she knew that her secret was discovered, for the gentleman was no other than Count Maurice of Saxony, temporarily sojourning in Paris.

She could not prevent him from addressing her by her own name, nor refuse his company to her own humble lodgings. But she exacted his promise not to betray her secret to any one before three months should have elapsed.

induced by the governor-general to repair, on board a Dutch vessel, to the Isle of Bourbon, where they resided for many years. In 1754 the count was removed by an epidemic fever, and his death was soon followed by that of his child.

In the succeeding autumn, 1755, the widow, whose cup of sorrow was now filled to the brim, went to live in the Faubourg Montmartre, near Paris, but six years later she retired to Brussels, at the invitation of some: of her old friends. The story of her misfortunes, though made known to a precious few, reached the ears of Ferdinand Albert II., Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, who allowed her an annual pension of sixty thousand florins.

Although constantly beset by troubles on all sides, and even persecuted by the Romish propaganda, she resisted all invitations to again join her family. By deeds of charity, she endeared herself to the poor of Brussels, and finally died, a steadfast believer in Protestantism, in September, 1772, aged seventyeight.

Perhaps this is all that will ever be known of the story of the sorrowed wife of the Grand-duke Alexis. For many years after her death, the most remarkable incidents of her career were concealed from the public; and, until recently, historical researches were powerless to recall them. There can be no doubt that her eventful life was surrounded with even darker mystery than has yet been cleared up. But, even as it is, its romanticism imparts to it an air of falsehood; while, on the other hand, the knowledge of sworn testimony makes the seeming fiction more remarkable than truth. The poet, if not the historian, may yet pay honest tribute to the memory of the ill-starred Charlotte of Brunswick,

GEORGE LOWELL AUSTIN.

A WELSH MINING FEUD.

Once a week Count Maurice found him- DR. PETER WILLIAMS, the recently-de

self at the abode of the princess, to whom he was in the habit of bringing sundry good things for her happiness. At last, however, he found during one of his visits no need of calling again. The whole family, "tempted of the devil," said Count Maurice, had fled to parts unknown! Half in anger and half in despair, the count discovered the princess's secret to King Louis XIV., who at once wrote an autograph letter to the Queen of Hungary, the eldest daughter of Duke Louis of Brunswick.

In this missive he assured her of the safety of her sister, and added, "The king will not prove chary of his best services to induce the princess, who seems to have been pursued by some ill-fortune, to return to that family which has long mourned her decease."

I know not what confidential method the king resorted to to insure the fulfillment of his promise. But certain it is that, when the Count d'Aubaut and his wife were again discovered by the officials of his majesty, it was not in France, but in Louisiana! They had returned thither in a vessel sailing direct from Nantes.

After long intercession, the couple were

ceased coroner of Flintshire, Wales,

was at the time of his death the oldest coroner in Great Britain. He was very deaf, very old, and brimful of "yarns " connected with his official experience. What he termed the "Buckley Mountain Feud" was one of the most interesting and sanguinary of the many cases in which his professional services had been called in requisition.

What is called Buckley Mountain is an elevated table-land about three miles east of the market-town of Mold. Its inhabitants were formerly a savage, quarrelsome race, divided like the Scottish Highlanders into "clans." There were the Williamses, the Joneses, the Hugheses, the Griffiths, the Morgans, and the Shepherds, and bitter family feuds often raged between them. Coal-mining and coarse-stone pottery manufacture employed most of the adult males; and it was no infrequent occurrence to see the military ordered from Chester to suppress their internecine conflicts. The soil is mostly freehold, and the coal-mines are worked on the principle of shares-each mine being divided into thirty-two shares, and each share being designated "a half an ounce."

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At one time eight relatives of the name of Hughes were associated with an equal number of the name of Roberts in working what was termed the Great Ash Mine, so named from the fact that the shaft had been put down close to an immense ashtree. The coal lay deeper here than in most other sections of the mountain, but it was a thicker seam, and of superior quality, and the Hugheses and the Griffiths were hence esteemed particularly fortunate all over the mountain. There were a good deal of rivalry and frequent quarrels among them; but it was mostly good-natured rivalry carried on by boasting, feats of strength, and physical prowess. But when it became widely known that Evan Hughes, a handsome, stalwart young man of twenty, and Samuel Griffiths, an equally lithe and promising young Hercules, were bitter rivals for the heart of Miss Anne Shepherd, everybody in Buckley knew there was strife a-brewing.

Anne was the daughter of a stone-pottery manufacturer, who, without education, had risen from the ranks, and accumulated a handsome fortune. Wealth did not make him arrogant. He was still "hail fellow, well met!" with every hard-toiling miner on the mountain; and he did not hesitate to state, when in his cups in the Red Lion parlor of a night, that Sam Griffiths and Evan Hughes were the two brightest young men on the mountain, and that he would be satisfied with either of them for son-in-law.

Sam and Evan had wrestled, and run, and jumped, and pitched the stone, with varying success, and with eager animosity. Nothing but Anne's threat that she would discard the first one who made a blackguard of himself kept them from open and deadly hostilities. Both knew she was a girl of pluck, and would keep her word, and hence their fierce spirits were kept in the outward bond of peace.

Meantime, the Great Ash Colliery was turning out well; the seam was promising, and the "dip" was very gradual and uniform. It was, therefore, resolved to sink another shaft directly north of, and about two thousand feet from the Great Ash Shaft; and it was estimated that, by the time this new shaft was put down, the workings would be driven from the Great Ash to meet it, and thus secure perfect ventilation by means of an "upcast" and a "downcast" shaft. Evan Hughes and Sam Griffiths were employed to sink the new shaft, which was christened the Great Oak. They took alternate shifts of four hours, one "boring," while the other, assisted by an old bank's-man, named Bill Conway, drew up the clay and stone with a rope and windlass. When they descended to the limestone, each man drilled his blast-hole with a hand-hammer, like that used by stonedressers, drilling it about twelve inches deep, and then charging it with coarse blastingpowder. No fuse was used for igniting the charge; but a copper-pointed "needle was placed on the powder, and allowed to stand until the hole was tightly stemmed with clayslate. Then the needle was carefully withdrawn, and the hole filled with a finer grain of powder. The "shot" being thus far prepared, the man below sung out for the cord, when one end of a tightly-twisted line was

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let down the shaft, and then securely stemmed into the top of the shot-hole. The bottom end of the line being now secured, and surrounded by fine powder, and the other end in the hands of the bank's-man, the man below gave the usual signal, and was forthwith drawn to bank. A red-hot ring, three or four inches in diameter, was then taken from the "hut" fire; the end of the cord was quickly passed through it; the ring shot down the shaft, and the blast was fired.

One fine spring day Sam and old Bill Conway were at bank, and Evan below had just prepared his blast in the manner described, and had given the signal to be hauled to bank. It was nearly noon, and a half-witted son of the old bank's-man was walking quietly along behind an adjoining hedge with his father's dinner. He heard the "shot" fired, and hurried to the pit-heap. There he saw Sam Griffiths jumping and swearing around; he saw the smoke pouring up the shaft; he saw his father's little dog; but he saw neither his father nor Evan Hughes.

"Where's fayther and Yeaven?" asked the poor, half-witted lad.

ance.

Sam's blood was up, and he struck poor Dick on the cheek and blacked his eye. The lad ran home, and Sam went half-way to the Great Oak Shaft, howling wildly for assistThe fearfully - mutilated bodies of young Hughes and the old man Conway were brought to bank, and a few hours after Coroner Peter Williams held an inquest. Sam Griffiths was the only important witness. He testified that Bill Conway, being old and stupid, had, at Evan Hughes's signal to "wind up," gone for the red-hot ring by mistake. That, seeing the old man's terrible blunder, he (Sam) had rushed from behind the "hut," where he had been asleep, to prevent the mischief, but that he had only arrived in time to see the glowing ring shoot down the shaft. Almost instantly, the old man had discovered his fearful error, and, stricken with horror and remorse, he had plunged head-first down the shaft just as the smoke and débris from the blast were rising. "It was all the work of half a minute," he said to the coroner and jury; "and it was all over before I could reach the spot. As for 'shouting,' I was struck speechless with fear." The jury accepted the explanation there was none other to offer-and, though the silly lad Conway, by his curious antics and expressive pantomime, seemed to have something on his mind, he did not understand the nature of an oath, and was consequently not

sworn.

There were imposing funeral-services in Buckley on the following Sunday. The village maidens, with white handkerchiefs on their heads, and sprigs of rosemary, rue, and balm, in their hands, walked before Evan Hughes's coffin, singing pathetic dirges, until the graveyard was reached; but Anne Shepherd had been seized with a fit when she beard the fatal tidings, and was unable to attend the young man's funeral.

Time passed. The Hughes family began to repine less for the untimely end of the pride of their family. The Great Ash and the Great Oak Shafts were now each in operation, and the workings underground had

been materially extended. Another cousin filled Evan Hughes's place, and there was still a sharp rivalry between the eight Griffiths and the eight Hugheses.

In order to make plain what is to follow, a short explanation of the mine is necessary. The two shafts, then, occupied each an end of the long side of a parallelogram — the Great Ash, or "downcast shaft," at the south, and the Great Oak, or "upcast shaft," at the north. From each shaft a drift two hundred feet long ran due east, and the parallelogram was completed by running another drift north and south, joining the ends of these two easterly drifts. They had thus cut clear round a rectangular mass of coal, two thousand feet long by two hundred feet broad, which they would work away by sections and pillars until it was exhausted. The air that descended the Great Ash Shaft, had it been permitted, would have rushed along the straight gallery and right up the Great Oak Shaft, without ventilating the three other sides of the parallelogram where the men were working; but there were massive doors placed close to the foot of each shaft in the straight gallery between them, to divert the air through the workings. There was a large escape of gas from the coal-face, and the pure air that descended the Great Ash Shaft consequently ascended the Great Oak very much charged with carburetted hydrogen. The mine was worked on two shifts. On alternate weeks the Hughes party went down the Great Oak Shaft at 4 A. M. and worked till 12 M., while the Griffiths party descended the Great Ash at 4 P. M. and worked till midnight. Each party had their own doorkeeper, whose sole duty it was to see that the door was kept shut at all times, or closed instantly after any person connected with the mine had passed through it. Although there was a considerable escape of gas, the air-current was so direct and strong that the men worked with open oil-lamps; and, albeit, there had been pretty severe blowers," as sudden spurts of local gas are termed, no danger was apprehended by either of the gangs who owned and worked the mine.

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It was now three years since Evan Hughes met his sad fate; and on a fine May morning there were great rejoicings in the village. Bunting waved from every available flag-staff, and the gutters in front of the four ale-houses literally ran beer. The Griffiths were in high feather, for Sam and Anne Shepherd had been married in the morning. Long before noon the bride's proud sire was purple in the face with pledging the young couple, and with urging others to do likewise. Gayly-dressed groups of youths and maidens danced round the May-pole on the village green, and everybody was in a supreme state of enjoymentall except Mrs. Hughes, poor Evan's mother, and Hannah, his twin sister. The merrymaking palled on their hearts. It recalled the lost one-the flower of the flock who had so miserably perished, and who to-day might have been Anne Shepherd's husband. Therefore, they retired early in the evening, and by closing doors and windows tried to exIclude the sounds of merriment. While the day's festivities were being prolonged far into the night, the mother and daughter re

tired to rest. Sleep fell upon their sad eyes; and each woman dreamed a dream-a dream so marvelously uniform in detail that it was as if the two had sat and watched the same tableau.

They saw the three men sinking the Great Oak Shaft; they saw Evan charge and prime his shot, and then attach the end of the "firing-cord;" they heard him give the signal to be hauled to bank; they saw old Bill Conway begin to turn the windlass; they saw Sam Griffiths steal out of the "hut" with the red-hot ring and slip it down the rope; they saw the old man quit hold of the windlass in horror; and they saw the powerful young murderer dash the old man down the shaft in the face of the shower of stones thrown up by the explosion.

Mother and daughter awoke in the solemn midnight and discussed their dream with trembling and with awe. And they clung to each other, and comforted each other, and tried not to believe it. Just then John Hughes, the husband and father of the two women, entered; and after some banter-he was in liquor-the women again slept.

"It was a most extraordinary circumstance," Coroner Williams used to say, "but both these women dreamed the self-same dream over again.”

In the morning Mrs. Hughes met Dick Conway, the idiot lad, took him aside, and questioned him about what he saw that day when he lost his father. He indicated by dumb show how some one was thrown down the shaft, and how some one else was struck on the face, meaning himself.

Mrs. Hughes shortly after died. The doctors who attended her were not agreed respecting her malady; but Dr. Jones, of Mold, was certain that her mind was gone, and that she was the victim of hallucinations. Hannah, the twin daughter, now devoted herself exclusively to her father. She would frequently descend the Great Oak Shaft while he was at work, and carry ale, hot coffee, tea, etc., to him; and consequently she achieved a kind of envied notoriety on the mountain for her bravery in descending the coal-mine. She had several admirers; but her kind words and light looks seemed reserved for her father. On his part, he repaid her with an affectionate admiration that approached idolatry; and it was his boast that when his head was laid low Hannah would be a lady.

On a dark December midnight, a few months after her mother's death, Hannah Hughes and the idiot lad Conway stole quietly away from Buckley village and proceeded toward the Great Oak Shaft. Her father and his companions would have stopped work at twelve o'clock, and the two nocturnal pedestrians avoided the road by which the miners would return to their homes. When Hannah and Dick reached the pit-heap all was still as the grave. The horse had been loosed from the "gin" windlass, and lay sleeping in his straw, and not a star cheered the gloomy Tault of heaven. Hannah soon obtained a light; the stable-door was opened; the ginhorse was harnessed and hitched into the accustomed shafts for raising the coal; the young woman took her seat on the "corve," or basket, and told Dick to "lower away."

Into the black, yawning pit she descended without fear or trepidation, and when the bottom was reached she stepped briskly out of the "corve," proceeded to the air-door near the bottom of the shaft, and securely propped it open. Then she walked along the two thousand feet that separated her from the Great Ash Shaft, and, reaching the airdoor there, securely propped it open. The air-current now shot direct along the shortest route between the two shafts, and by its violence extinguished her light; but she returned undismayed by the darkness or the inequalities of the rugged tramway, until she reached the shaft where she had descended. Then she shouted to Dick, who started the horse, and she was wound up until she reached the bank in safety. The horse was now unhitched and returned to the stable, and the girl and the crazy lad made quick progress homeward.

Before daybreak, every man and woman on Buckley mountain was plunged into a paroxysm of grief and wailing. The Great Oak and Ash Colliery had exploded, and, with the exception of the door-keeper, every man of the Griffiths gang, who had gone to work at 4 A. M., was torn and scorched into shreds and patches and scoria of humanity. As far as the coroner could gather from the doorman's ante-mortem statement, he had gone down the pit as usual, but had almost immediately been horror-struck to discover that the door was open and that the air was blowing straight along the Great Ash Gallery instead of coming along the eastern workings. Thereupon, he had slammed the door and had run as fast as he was able to shut the door at the other end of the gallery. The miners, meantime, had returned into their workings and were shouting and swearing about the air. When both doors were closed, the air returned into its proper course, carrying with it all the gas that had accumulated during these four hours. Of course, it ignited like a spark of gunpowder, and with irresistible force swept through the mine and burst up the two shafts with a gigantic tongue of flame and a report like Titanic artillery.

The idiot boy had remained out of bed in expectation of some catastrophe, and when he saw the two vivid flashes and heard the heavy reports, he danced around the village street, crying "Hoorah! hoorah ! for Hannah Griffiths and me! Who's got a black eye now? Hoorah!"

By this demonstration of crazy Dick, Hannah was suspected, and she made an open confession of the terrible crime to Coroner Peter Williams, stating, at the same time, that she had been incited to the deed by the double dream and the certainty that Samuel Griffiths had murdered her twin brother. She was lodged in Flint Castle to await her trial, but evaded her probable fate by suicide. JAMES WIGHT.

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persons to squabble for a time, and then to leave off for good? The very essence of squabbling is that it is incessant, or at any rate intermittent. Then, nothing else is so full of delusions-not even love. To a non-squabbler, one who squabbles is like

"He that would stem a stream with sand, Or fetter flame with silken band," or attempt something equally futile. Some of the features of squabbling are almost refreshing in their extreme strangeness. Take aside any individual squabbler; withdraw him out

of ear-shot of the cne or more of his fellowcreatures whom he is in the habit of exercising the cunning of his trade with, and then twit him sharply on the subject. We will imagine a few of his retorts, leaving out the remarks which call them forth, as too obvious for specification:

"Ia squabbler? Heavens! are you crazy? Why, I'm the most peaceable creature on earth! It is absurd for you to preach to me; go and talk to them! Why can't they leave me alone, I should like to know? I never uttack any one; what you heard me say was simply in self-defense!"

Still there is a raison d'être in all things. No doubt if people realized the futility of their ostensible ends in squabbling, they would give up practice then and there; but is it quite certain that would be a safe course to pursue? Is it not owing to the reckless destruction of spiders that we are inflicted so insupportably by flies? "Always hesitate to pull down," says somebody, "unless you are ready with something better to build up." On reflection we find there are too many of our acquaintance of undoubted brains who indulge in squabbling, for there not to be some sort of reason or advantage in the pursuit. Surely so venerable and wide-spread an institution must have "something in it," notwithstanding that squabbling has its unpleasant side, even as medicine, surgery, and the gallows, have theirs. Of course all serious quarrels, wherein important interests constitute the bone of contention, must here be left quite out of the question. There is something in the very sound of the word which proclaims it petty. "Squabbling!" The poor, mean, little dissyllable seems to say: "I am a mongrel begot by ridicule and born of contempt. Not those who practise what I describe ever stood sponsors at my christening. Though whole hours are devoted to me in kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, I am always banished from the latter the moment any company arrives; and if from long habit I so far forget myself as to thrust my nose in before visitors, they invariably rise and depart in all haste, leaving their hosts a prey to shame and vexation-who nevertheless instantly take me again to their embraces; and, strange to say, while condemning me in the bitterest language-often cursing me with terrible oaths-and laying on each other the blame of having called me in, they yet remain completely devoted to me both then and ever after."

Persons who are sane on all other subjects talk the wildest folly upon this. We have said very few squabblers admit that they squabble at all, and those who do admit it claim that they squabble purely for the reformation or improvement of the squabblee. A mother is constantly nagging away at a daughter-unmarried, of course-of say six-and-twenty winters. The latter looks worn and blighted. It is wonderful that after all those years mamma should not have found out that the system is a failure, and either changed it, or tried the effect of no system at all, since

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