shall tell her to-night that the search has been all in vain? Who shall tell her the same to-morrow, with feebler and feebler attempts to keep hope alive? They shall not need to tell her; their silence is enough. And yet, for one more proof of how much the human heart can endure -fair Phoebe does not die. Fifty-five years have gone by. Fifty and five years, as we mortals measure the mystery of time. Carlinoe is a much larger village now, almost a town; having prospered with the prosperity of the neighbouring mines. It has crept farther up the hill, and there are many more large houses; while from the midst of them springs the tall spire of a modern church. The old church was unroofed one stormy night a good many years ago; and having long been complained of as too small, was left a ruin, and the present edifice arose in the village. Thus human works change and pass away; but the people themselves far more quickly; for what are they now who some half century ago were the lads and lasses, the men and matrons of Carlinoe? It is a spring afternoon; and a number of children are at play on the shore of the creek; some building sand-houses, others otherwise amusing themselves. But from the rocks above is heard the voice of a mother, calling out that her boy and girl must come away, and that it is time for the rest to go home too; and accordingly most of the children break up their games, and scatter homeward in various directions. Three boys of them, brothers, climb the path that skirts the back of the houses, and then leads up into the moor; fine stout boys, the youngest eight, the eldest about fourteen, who think nothing of their four miles walk, twice every day; for they live in a small house on the high ground not far from the upper part of the glen, and come in every day to a school in the village. Besides their two sisters, who are grown up, and their father and mother, their old grand-aunt lives in the house with them; about whom they have heard that, long ago, ever so long before any of them was born, she used to be called "Fair Phoebe"; which seems very odd, and not the less so because they have been warned against asking questions on the subject. They also know that their grand-aunt never was married, and has lived a great while in the house. They are grandchildren, by the father's side, of Phoebe's brother and Stephen's sister; both long dead. Shortly before reaching their home, the boys' path, which hitherto wound amongst the blossoming furze scattered here and there in golden patches, descended into a sudden hollow or gully, communicating with the glen, and adding to the glen-rivulet a slender thread of water, which in summer was almost hidden by the grass. Whilst crossing this, they heard themselves loudly called to; and turning a little way to the left, found Charley Cox, a lad whom they knew, standing, in company with a man, at the foot of a tall grey rock, netted with ivy-fibres, which formed part of one side of the gully; and endeavouring in vain to induce a rough little terrier dog to enter a fissure in it, less than a foot in width, and about three feet in height, reaching down to the ground, but almost concealed by brambles. Charley told them that his terrier had run up into the chink by chance, and brought back some queer-looking thing in his mouth, which on examination looked like a hat-band, very wet and dirty, to which was attached an old fashioned metal clasp, so tarnished that one could not tell exactly what it was made of: there it lay, they could look at it themselves; and what he wanted now was that Bob, the youngest of the boys,-who, Charley said, was no coward, he knew, should try to make his way into the fissure in the rock. After some of the brambles had been torn and trampled down, and two or three stones dragged away from the entrance, it was found that Bob (who was, in truth, a very manly little fellow), bending his knees and keeping his elbows close to his body, could manage to squeeze in sideways. Charley had asserted that he would have more room when once fairly in, and this was soon confirmed by a hollow voice from the invisible Bob, and then the anxious party at the opening could hear his cautious feet splashing on the wet floor of the passage still farther up. In a little while the footsteps returned, and then Bob's voice sounded again, startlingly close to them; and, lastly, Bob himself squeezed out into the air, looking very much flurried, as well as soiled all over with slime and wet. The consequence of Bob's description of what he saw within, or thought he saw, for there was but a very little glimmer of light from above, he said, was that Charley ran off for more assistance, whilst the man and the three boys, quitting the hollow and making a circuit, reached the high ground behind the summit of the rock. They had hardly arrived there, when Charley returned, and two men along with him, carrying two pickaxes, a spade, a coil of rope, and a lantern. They were now standing on a sort of high ridge between the gully from which Bob had entered the fissure and the large glen; and close beside them opened a pit mouth, about ten feet across, and almost overgrown with bushes and briars. On finding that this was the place to which they were brought, one of the men said, angrily, "that it was no use poking down there; it was an old trial-shaft not fifteen feet deep; he had often sounded it himself, and knew it could have nothing to do with the cranny below." Charley, however, persuaded them to let him down into it by means of the rope, and found that, at a depth of about twenty feet deep, he did indeed reach a shelf of slate which seemed to be the bottom; but on looking more closely and groping about with his hands, he found that this, in one place, sloped away under the side of the pit which caved above it, and there ended with a sharp edge over a dark and unfathomable hole, from which there came up a moist cold air, along with a sound like water dripping a great way down. On this discovery being communicated to those above, it was at once resolved, amid much excitement, to make further researches. A lighted candle, the door of the lantern being left open, was first let down into the lower hole, and as it remounted unextinguished, one of the men, with the lantern in his hand, was carefully lowered into the same mysterious gulf; Charley being now not at all unwilling to allow a substitute to take his place on the rope. In the mean time, Bob's father and mother are wondering why their boys have not returned from school; and at last their father goes out in search of them, and walks on and on until he reaches the village, without finding any trace of the absentees. After making inquiries at the schoolhouse and elsewhere, he returns, with some anxiety in his face, through the glen; hoping that they may have taken that way home. This path led him hard by a cottage where some kinsfolk of his resided, and on drawing near it he became aware that it was the scene of some unusual bustle. Full of fears on the score of his missing children, he pressed eagerly to the door, but almost the first objects that greeted his sight within were his three boys, safe and sound, though pale and agitated-looking, as he now observed most of the other people in the house were also; and there was quite a crowd of the neighbours assembled in it. He learned that a dead body had been discovered in a pit not far off, and had been carried to this as the nearest house. It was in no degree decomposed, they told him, but all wet and slimy with the water of a pool in which it lay, as well as with the drippiness of the moist rocks above and around it; some mark of injury had been noticed on the hinder part of the head, but none elsewhere. Two women had piously laid it out in the next room; they had wiped the dress without disturbing it in the least,-for no doubt the coroner would come,-and had washed the face, and put aside the clammy hair. But what was strangest of all, was that no one had yet recognised it, though the features were little altered from what they must have been in life; and no one could even give the least guess as to who it might be, nor had heard of any person being missing. "Would he not go in and see the body? Poor fellow! he could not have been above twenty years old, from his looks." The April night closed in upon valley and upland; and the crowd at last slowly dispersed, carrying the marvellous news to be talked and shuddered over in their various homes. The women who had laid out the corpse resolved to watch by it all night; and placed a lighted candle near where it was stretched on a low mattress. They had not sat here longer than an hour, when they heard the outer door unclosed; and immediately afterwards the door of the room in which they were was opened, and an old woman entered, bent and white-haired. In compliance with a feeble gesture from their visitor, one of the watchers lifted away a cloth which concealed the face of the corpse, and disclosed the pale, handsome features gleaming in the candle-light, and the damp locks of chestnut. The lifeless form was that of a tall, slight, almost boyish, youth, in trim though greatly soiled clothes; and there was something like a bunch of discoloured ribbons fastened to the breast of the coat. The old woman raised her bowed frame upright—as those who now watched her with speechless amazement, and who knew her well, had never seen it raised before-gazed on the body for a few seconds with an awful, indescribable look, advanced a step, and then, with no other sound than a loud sigh, sank together on her knees, her head falling forward and resting on the breast of the corpse. Strange mystery of Time! Strange Life of all of us who move too and fro here for a little while! When next morning came, there was no lack of memories and tongues to revive the old story of Master Stephen and Fair Phœbe; and to explain how Stephen must have climbed the precipitous bank behind his house to find a short way back to the church. And to this day you may here it all told if you visit Carlinoe, by those who, of their own knowledge, can add that the dead hand which the dying hand clasped was found to have on its little finger a Wedding-ring. They will show where the water, whose preserving qualities were so strangely discovered, oozes from a fissure in a tall rock; and, if you ask for it, will point out the grave where Stephen and Phoebe were buried on the same day, within the ruined walls of the old church; from which eminence, too, if the weather be favourable, you may enjoy a fine prospect of the village on its slope, the tide ebbing or flowing among the green islands of the creek, and the broad ocean beyond, stretching from east to west without visible limit. LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. STEAL his arrows, break his bow, Mischief is his cherished aim, Which, though blind, he seldom misses; Friendship is a safer guest, When without disguise we find her: 9 VRICHZY OF RADZIVIL. A TALE OF THE TIME OF CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA. BY THE AUTHOR OF "KARL of the Hartzberg,' ," "ULLI, THE CARIB," "SPANISH TREASURE SEEKERS," &c. &c. &c. Concluded from Vol. xxx., p. 244.) Frans and his companion consulted, and though the first remonstrated, Vrichzy, to indulge his beloved young master, prevailed. This fatal and weak compliance wrought a great change in his fortune; for there was, by this time, a prowler on the watch he little heeded. Neither of them imagined what the next few minutes produced. Passick, following up his design of eavesdropping, had found his way, unnoticed, into the dungeon of the unfortunate princess; and had contrived, with some difficulty, to slip the secret door, which enabled him to hear, unless the party conversed in whispers. Owing, however, to the darkness, and the stiffness of the spring, he did not succeed in opening the door until the last part of the proposition to see the princess was acceded to; and what reached him was too indistinct for him to catch the exact meaning. However, there was enough to arouse suspicion, and, with his accustomed promptitude, he would have succeeded in thwarting the conspirators, and defeat their whole project, had he acted upon the idea that first presented itself, which was to retreat instantly and give the alarm, and take on himself the risk of stopping those with the warrant. He knew that the princess was not asleep, for she had sighed after his entrance. Therefore, closing the opening by slipping in the stone, which was ingeniously contrived, he crept into a part which he deemed most favourable both to surprise and cut off their retreat in case it should prove necessary, as well as effect his own, so as to reach the warden first and sound the alarm. Passick's knowledge of the locality, however, was not so correct as he imagined, and therefore the position he had selected proved ill chosen. He heard the grating of the door, as it swung on its hinges; and then his ear caught the salutations of the imprudent Luboski and the princess. A conversation now ensued which was enough for him he ground his teeth in deep mortification, made towards the open door-intend ing to give the alarm, when some one, owing to Passick being on his knees, or the utter darkness, stumbled over him. An oath and a cry of alarm escaped the individual, who just saved himself from falling. Passick knew the voice at once. For a second he was panicstricken, and his presence of mind fled. Instead of following up his first resolve of springing out, and shouting as he passed on, trusting to his knowledge of the locality to assist him, he sprang up, uttering, in tones of exultation N. S. VOL. XXXI. |