grasping Mam roughly by the shoulder, bide her get up, for she was still kneeling with bent head and clasped bands. She sprang to her feet as though a serpent had bitten her, the moment Steve touched her shoulder "Are you men or monsters," she exclaimed, turning suddenly, and facing her tormentors, "that you talk of torturing a poor helpless woman thus? Have you no mothers or sisters of your own to think of, who would shame you out of so terrible a crime? If I must die, et me die quickly: you have the means at hand. What have f done to either of you, that you should condemn me to a death so horrible?"

shriek that burst from her lips. She thought herself alone with death, anì suddenly she felt the touch of something on her shoulder.

Who or what could it be? She was so fast bound that she could not turn her head to look; but the next moment Jamie's voice sounded in her ears, and it seemed to her the sweetest music the had ever heard.

"Oh, Jamie, why didn't thou stay in thy hiding-pace?" said Mam. "Hie thee back, dear, as fast as thou canst go, and don't stir out again till daylight." "I'm frightened, Mam, to be there by myself in the dark. If the Kelpie came home and found me, what would he say? Have the bad men tied thee to the stoup, Mam? Shall I run up into the lighthouse, and try to find a knife again?"

"Look here, Janet Gawne !" exclaimed Black Steve fiercely. "Seven years ago, I swore to be revenged on thee, and this night I'll keep my word I've a long memory, and I never forgive injury; so don't ask for mercy here, lass, because Nay, lad; the bad men would see thee, and then they neither of us knows the meaning of the word. I've longed, would kill thee. But, O Jamie, if thou couldst but undo that times out of mind, to be revenged on thee and thy smooth-knot in the rope just under my arm!" tongued husband; now that the chance has come, I'm not going to let it slip through my fingers." And Black Steve laughed a great brutal laugh of triumph, that seemed to be echoed by a hundred mocking fiends.

Mam Gurlock uttered no further word of any kind, but passively suffered herself to be led to the "stoop," Mr. Cris in so far assisting his friend; after which Black Steve proceeded to ti her to the post as securely as his skill knew how; then, after a few mocking words, they left her to her fate, and crossed to the other side of the rocks, and at once set about their task of patching up the old bort, on which their safety now entirely depended. The stoop to which they had fastened their victim was merely a stout wooden post, fastened down to the rock with iron clamps and screws, to which the larger class of craft that sometimes visited the Skeve Mhoil, in calm weather, might be safely moored, whatever the state of the tide.

Yes, Mam Gurlock was left to her fate, and a very dreadful one it seemed, even to her brave soul, which was not daunted by trifles. The tide was rising fast; already its tiny lapping waves were washing about her feet and ankles; in less than an hour it would cover her head. The wind had died away again with the turn of the tide, and the bank of cloud that had lain low in the north for so long a time, was now creeping up the sky with dark intent, shutting out the stars one after another, and would soon obscure the moon itself. Mam Gurlock's eyes unconsciously followed the unfolding edge of cloud in its slow steady advance. The cloud was advancing, and the tide was rising; and by the time that black canopy had shut out the whole bright moonlit sky, the waters would have closed over ber and she would be reckoned no more among the living. Well, now that Miles was dead, there did not seem much in life to desire. Jamie was safe, and would be well cared for and properly brought up by Miles' relations at Birchallen; still it would have been sweet to see the lad grow up, and to watch the ripening promise of his childhood fulfill itself in the summers yet unborn; but not for her might such happiness be. Then sky and ocean vanished from before her eyes, and she saw the little cottage where she and Miles had spent their happy wedded life-the little happy home which she, alas! would never enter more-with its that hed eaves, where the twittering swallows brooded; and its patch of flower-garden, sweet-scented through all the summer months; she seemed to smell it now; with the stretch of high-road in front of it that led down into Warrendale; and the footway across the moors, that brought you direct to the cliffs, with the sea beating far below; very vividly she saw them all!

How fast the tide was rising! It reached to ber waist already. But a very little while now, and her life, with all its pleasures and pains, would be closed, like a book that is shut up for ever. She had read, and she had heard the minister speak of the dark river that must be passed before the shining land beyond it could be reached; was she hoping too much, she asked herself, to hope that Mil-s-that the husband she had loved so truly on earth, might be there to greet her-all beautiful with the light of immort vity-at the moment her foot touched the golden shore? How much such a hope mitigated the darkness of that terrible hour, she herself could have best told.

Jamie set to work with fingers and teeth to unfasten the knot indicated by his mother, which he was able to reach without difficulty, the back of the stoup resting against a shelf of rock some three feet in height, on which the lad was now standing. The desire of life came back strongly to Mam Gurlock with the presence of her child, and the faint hope of escape which his words had suggested. What she should do next, even if she succeeded in freeing herself from the rope, she did not then pause to consider, for the water was creeping higher every minute, and there was no time to be lost. But the knot was a hard one to unpick, and seemed at one time as though it would withstand all Jamie's efforts; but after a while it began to feel looser to his fingers, and he had just said: "I shall soon have it done now, Mam, when the mother's watchful ears heard footsteps advancing over the rocks.

"Into the water, Jamie!" whispered Mam, turning sick with terror; "and don't speak or stir till I tell thee."

Jamie slipped into the water like a young otter, and crouched under the lee of the rocky ledge on which he had been standing, with nothing but his nose and chin exposed to view; while Black Steve came striding down, to see that his victim was still secure. Having felt at the rope, and satisfied himself that Mam could not possibly escape: "By the seven holy pokers, but this is the finest bit of sport I've had for many a day! How does the water feel this evening, Mistress Gurlock? Cool and pleasant, eh?" said the ruffian, with a laugh which told at once that he was half-drunk. Yes, you're a plucky one; but you'll look rather washed cut, I reckon, at low-water to-morrow. Well, good-by, dear-good-by, and pleasant dreams to you!" and with another brutal laugh, Black Steve turned on his heel, and strolled back slowly over the rocks.

Mam Gurlock breathed once more. "Now, Jamie, lad, try thy hand at the rope again," she said in a low voice; and Jamie scrambled on to the rock, and shook the water carelessly from him somewhat after the fashion of a dog, and set to work again, with nimble fingers and sharp teeth, to free his darling mother. At length the task was accomplished, and for the second time that night Mam Gurlick's bonds fell from her, thanks to the aid of Jamie. Although at liberty, she was as far from safety as ever, unless she could get back unseen into the lighthouse; but how was that to be accomplished? The two men were hard at work patching up the old boat just on the other side of the building, within half-a-dozen yards, in fact, of the outside ladder, up which she must climb undetected, or her life would not be worth a minute's purchase. Then there was Jamie to be considered, who objected strongly to going back to Kelpie's Hole, and in his present frame of mind Mam felt that it would be dangerous to leave him. However great the risk might be, he must keep her company this time; she could not bear to seek the security of the lighthouse for herself, and leave him out there exposed to so many chances of de-tection. They must be saved together, or they must die together.

Having wrung some of the water out of her dress, Mam, fol-lowed by Jamie, proceeded to creep cautiously on her hands and knees round the lower edge of the Skeve Maoil, till she came to a point that was in a direct line with the entrance ladder, and What was that? She could not keep down the smothered in full view of both the men, had they turned their heads to

his revenge to heed the entreaties of his friend.

look. Peering from behind a loose fragment of rock, Mam saw | ute longer; but Steve was too intent on the accomplishment of the two men very intent on the speedy completion of their task, Mr. Cris hammering away with might aud main, while his amiable friend held a huge lantern to light him over his work. Mam felt that she could hardly have a more favorable opportunity, since the noise of the hammering would serve to drown any that might be caused by the movements of herself or Jamie; but, at the best, it was a dangerous proceeding. Fortunately, the moon was now entirely obscured; otherwise their their chances of escape would have been remote indeed. She had chosen this point as the most favorable for her purpose, the ground between the place where she now was, and the entrance to the lighthouse, being thickly strewn with huge boulders, which would serve to hide their advance; while in every other direction it was quite bare and exposed, except immediately at the back of the lighthouse, from which the safest approach might have been made; but there the rocks rose too precipitously, with sharp, serrated edges, and deep holes between, to be ventured over by any one after dark.

Inch by inch, silently and cautiously, Mam Gurlock, with Jamie by her side, but on the side furthest removed from the view of the men, emerged from the shelter of the rock, and crawled across the open space of ground to the next large stone; then, after a minute's rest, forward again to the next sheltering spot; and so from one to the other, ever nearer the desired haven. While they were still some distance from the light house, and at the moment they were half-way between the two boulders, Mam, with her eye ever on the two men, saw Black Steve put down his lantern, and turn his face directly toward the spot they then were. Mam's hand gave Jamie a warning squeeze, and mother and son remained as immovable as though they had been cut of stone, till the danger was over. The blackhaired giant yawned, scratched his head, stretched out his huge arms, and after gazing seaward for a few moments, resumed bis task of lighting his companion. If his eyes rested for a moment on the recumbent figure of Mam Gurlock, it was only as they might have rested on any wave-worn boulder, indifferently and without thought.

Mam crept round to the opposite side of the gallery, and straining her eyes, without hope or expectation, over the dark waste of waters, saw-what? A large boat pulling rapidly and steadily for the Skeve Mhoil! It was only a few hundred yards away, and could be clearly seen, thanks to a momentary break in the clouds, through which the moonlight streamed full and bright. One long incredulous gaze, as though what she saw were merely the phantom of a diseased brain, and then Mam Gurlock, with a sob of heartfelt gratitude, accepted the appearance as a blessed reality. As a signal that the boat was seen, she then began to toll the large, deep-mouthed bell, which was rung by the keepers in foggy weather when the lamps were invisible, and its solemn tones now boomed forth through the quiet night, instinct with dread significance to the two wretches on the rocks below.

But wary Mr. Cris had also seen what was coming, and had passed the alarm to Black Steve; and as the bell gave forth its first stroke, the two men were pushing their boat down the slanting rocks into the sea. Another moment, and they were both pulling with desperate energy for the shore. But the boat had been badly mended, and the water began to come in rapidly, so that Mr. Cris had soon to cease from rowing, and occupy himself in baling; while Black Steve, notwithstanding all his exertions, could make but little headway with the water-logged craft. Five minutes later the strange boat rounded the edge of the Skeve Mhoil, on its way to the landingplace, and next moment a loud shout from its crew announced that the flight of the two men was discovered, and the boat's head was at once put round in pursuit.

redouble their efforts to escape, and then, as if seeing the utter Black Steve and his companion seemed for a minute or two to hopelessness of their case, they at once ceased rowing, and sat quietly on their oars, as though merely waiting for their pursuers to come up to yield themselvcs into their hands. But when the pursuing boat had got within a dozen yards of the other, Mr. Cris leaped suddenly from his seat, and fired both This danger over, Mam and Jamie crept stealthily on their his pistols at the advancing foe; and then, with a wild, inarticway, reaching at last the foot of the lighthouse without discovulate cry of rage and despair, he leaped headlong into the ery; then Mam, taking Jamie on her back, began the ascent of Black Steve, unlike his the ladder. Step by step upward, as silently as a shadow, she waves, and sank to rise no more. had reached the top in safety, and had just swung Jamie round cident on the firing of the two pistols among the crew of the friend, was an excellent swimmer, and before the confusion infrom her shoulder, and passed him in through the little boat was over, he had slipped quietly into the water, and entrance-door, when Mr. Cris, pausing from his work for a moment, turned to contemplate the state of the weather; and coming up after a lengthened dive, struck out boldly for the as he did so, his quick eye caught the outline of something both the men were drowned; and on finding that the lightshore. The impression among the crew of the boat was that dark moving on the ladder. "Look to your prisoner, Steve !" he cried, and drawing a pistol from his belt, fired. The bullet house boat was on the point of going down, orders were at once whizzed past Mam Gurlock's head, but did not touch her, and given to pull back to the Skeve Mhoil. The boat and crew before there was time to fire a second shot, she was safe within proved to be those of a revenue-cutter, which had picked up the light-house, with the little iron door shut and bolted Nose. On hearing his story, preparations had at once been Abel Rushton as he was drifting helplessly past the Giant's between herself and her enemies. She caught Jamie to her made to capture the two villains, and look after the safety of

heart, and murmured a brief thanksgiving to heaven; and then her overwrought nerves gave way, and she fell into a sort of half-swoon, from which she was aroused, after a minute or two, by a violent hammering at the iron door. It was Black Steve, furious at ber escape, trying to force an entrance. She had little fear that he would effect his purpose, for she knew the stout old door would not yield readily. Still, there was a possibility that the door might give way under the assaults of the furious giant; so Mam, followed by Jamie, ascended to the room above, and taking down an old blunderbuss which hung against the wall, more for ornament than use, she proceeded to load it, to the best of her knowledge, from the bag of bullets and the powder-flask in her husband's chest, which Miles always kept there ready for an occasional fowling expedition. Thus armed, Mam Gurlock, taking Jamie by the hand, went up to the lamp-room, determined, should Black Steve break in, and such dreadful occasion arrive, to sell her life as dearly as possible. She stole out into the gallery, and looked down, He was still hammering savagely at the door, but as yet to little purpose, while Mr. Cris, on the rocks below, was swearing at him for a senseless fool, and vowing that they would not have time to finish the boat and get clear away, if he delayed a min

Mam Gurlock and her son.

Leaving two of his crew to look after the lighthouse, the officer in charge of the boat carried Mam Gurlock and Jamie ashore, where a search was at once instituted for missing Miles. After several hours' search, he was found, bound hand and foot, in one of the many caves for which that part of the coast is noted. He stated that he had been set upon by Black Steve and three more men as he was returning from seeing Martio Gilbert safe home; in the scrimmage he had received a blow on the head, which had rendered him insensible for some time; and, on recovering his wits, had found himself tied hand and foot, and left in charge of two out of his four captors. On the landing of the revenue cutter's boat, these men had taken the alarm, and left him.

A few days saw Miles thoroughly recovered from his injuries; but the long and severe strain on the nerves of his wife was a much more serious matter, and several months passsed away before Mam Gurlock was her old joyous, buoyant self again, and could bear to talk calmly over the incidents of that terrible night on the Skeve Mhoil.

The body of Black Steve was washed up a day or two after

wards, several miles down the coast. He had been caught by the current, and carried away and drowned.

The money, in the effort to obtain which Mr. Cris and his friend lost their lives, was found intact on the table of the light-house, where they had left it while occupied with the mending of the boat; and when old Martin Gilbert died, some three years afterwards, the whole was left to Mam Gurlock. Maoy years have elapsed since these events took place; Miles Gurlock, a'grey-headed man, is now head-keeper of the light

66

PAINTING. It is painful to think how soon the paintings of Raphael, Titian, Correggio, and other illustrious men, will perish and pass away. How long," said Napoleon to David, "will a picture last?" "About four or five hundred years!" A fine immortality! The poet multiplies his works by a cheap material; and Homer and Virgil and Dante and Tasso and Moliere and Milton and Shakespeare may bid oblivion defiance. The sculptor impresses his conception on metal or on marble, and expects to survive the wreck of nations, and the wrongs of

visions of the fancy, and dies in the assurance that the life of his works will be but short in the land they adorn.

house on the Skeve Mhoil; while Mam is still alive and hearty, | time; but the painter commits to perishable cloth or wood the and as nice an old woman as you need wish to see. Jamie is grown up into a stalwart man, almost as big as his father was in his younger days. He is a sailor, too, although not in the Greenland trade, being, in fact, the much-esteemed captain of one of our largest ocean steamers. It was from his own lips I heard the narrative, which I have here attempted to set down, the last time I came across with him from-ab, well, never mind from where.

It seems a constant plan of nature to build exquisite structures with worthless and often loathsome materials; the brilliant plant and the phosphorescent light spring from. rottenness; and among the decay of expectations and the mangled relics of happiness, hope blossoms and shines at once a flower and a star.

"ONLY."

ONLY a withered rose-bud!
But she wore it in her hair,
When she, in glorious beauty,
Was like that rose-bud fair;
But as the flow'rets wither

In dewy morning tide,

With all their sweetness round them,
So she, fair rose-bud, died.
And now, alas! she's sleeping

Where the rose-tree's earliest bloom
Scatters its fragrant tear-drops

In sorrow o'er her tomb.

Only an old-time ballad!

But a song she used to sing;

Though worthless, perhaps, to others,
To me a sacred thing.
Ah! that grave! in it the music
Of my heart lies buried deep;
Since that sunny summer morning

When they laid her there to sleep.
Oh, the long, long years I've waited!
Oh, the years that yet may come!
Ere I join the sweet-voiced singer
In our Father's happy home.

Only a few old letters!

Yellow and dim with years;
But oft this faded writing

Hath been baptised with tears.

For she, whose dear hand wrote them,
Lies 'neath the churchyard sod;

Up in the starry heavens

He spirit lives with God.

Oh, that those gates would open,

And she, with outstretched hand,
Would lead me to the glories

Of the far-off better land!

"What

He turned back to Midwinter with a laugh of relief. nonsense have yon been talking!" he said. "And what nonsense have I been listening to! It's the governess at last.”

Midwinter made no reply. Allan took him by the arm, and tried to lead him on. He released himself suddenly, and seizei Allan with both hands-holding him back from the figure at the pool, as he had held him back from the cabin-door on the deck of the timber-ship. The effort was in vain. Once again, Allan broke away as easily as be had broken away in the past time.

"One of us must speak to her," he said. "And if you won't, I will."

He had only advanced a few steps towards the Mere, when be heard, thought he heard, a voice faintly calling after him, once an once only, the word Farewell. He stopped, with a feeling of uneasy surprise, and looked round.

"Was that you, Midwinter?" he asked.

There was no answer. After hesitating a moment more, Allan returned to the plantation. Midwinter was gone.

He looked back at the pool, doubtful in the new emergency, what to do next. The lonely figure had altered its course in the interval it had turned and was advancing towards the trees. Allan had been evidently either heard or seen. It was impossible to leave a woman unbefriended in that helpless position and in that solitary place. For the second time Allan went out from the trees to meet her.

As he came within sight of her face, he stopped in ungovernable astonishment. The sudden revelation of her beauty, as she smiled and looked at him inquiringly, suspended the movement in his limbs and the words on his lips. A vague doubt beset him whether it was the governess, after all.

He roused himself; and, advancing a few paces, mentioned his name. "May I ask," he added, "if I have the pleasure ?"

The lady met him easily and gracefully half way.

Major Milroy's governess," she said. "Miss Gwilt."

ARMADALE.

BY WILKIE COLLINS,

Author of "The Woman in White," "No Name," "Dead Secret,"

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER IX.-CONTINUED.

Midwinter was the first to speak.

CHAPTER X.-THE HOUSEMAID'S FACE.

ALL was quiet at Thorpe-Ambrose. The hall was solitary, the rooms were dark. The servants, waiting for the supper-hour, in the garden at the back of the house, looked up at the clear heaven and the rising moon, and agreed that there was little prospect of the return of the picnic party until later in the night. The general opinion, led by the high authority of the cook, predicted that they all might sit down to supper without the least fear of being disturbed, by the bell. Having arrived at

"Your own eyes have seen it," he said. "Now look at your this conclusion, the servants assembled round the table; and own words."

He opened the narrative of the dream, and held it under Allan's eyes. His finger pointed to the lines which recorded the first vision; his voice sinking lower and lower, repeated the words:

"The sense came to me of being left alone in the darkness. "I waited.

"The darkness opened and showed me the vision-as in a picture of a broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the farther margin of the pool I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of sunset.

exactly at the moment when they sat down, the bell rang.

The footman, wondering, went upstairs to open the door, and found to his astonishment Midwinter waiting alone on the threshold, and looking (in the servant's opinion) miserably ill. He asked for a light, and, saying he wanted nothing else, withdrew at once to his room. The footman went back to his fellowservants, and reported that something bad certainly happened to his master's friend.

On entering his room, Midwinter closed the door, and hurriedly filled a bag with the necessaries for traveling. This done, he took from a locked drawer, and placed in the breast

"On the near margin of the pool there stood the shadow of pocket of his coat, some little presents which Allan had given

a woman.'

He ceased, and let the hand which held the manuscript drop to his side. The other hand pointed to the lonely figure, standing with its back turned on them, fronting the setting sun. "There," he said, "stands the living woman, in the shadow's place! There speaks the first of the dream-warnings to you and to me! Let the future time find us still together-and the second figure that stands in the shadow's place will be mine." Even Allan was silenced by the terrible certainty of conviction with which he spoke.

In the pause that followed, the figure at the pool moved, and walked slowly away round the margin of the shore. Allan stepped out beyond the last of the trees, and gained a wider view of the open ground. The first object that met his eyes was the pony-chaise from Thorpe-Ambrose.

to him-a cigar-case, a purse, and a set of studs in plain gold. Having possessed himself of these memorials, he snatched up the bag, and laid his hand on the door. There, for the first time, he paused. There, the headlong haste of all bis actious thus far suddenly ceased, and the hard despair in his face began to soften: he waited, with the door in his hand.

Up to that moment he had been conscious of but one motive that animated him, but one purpose that he was resolute to achieve. "For Allan's sake!" he had said to himself, when he looked back towards the fatal landscape and saw his friend leaving him to meet the woman at the pool. "For Allan's sake he had said again, when he crossed the open country beyond the wood, and saw afar, in the grey twilight, the long line of embankment and the distant glimmer of the railway lamps beckoning him away already to the iron road.