from praying she may be happy, happier than she is now. Poor Rachael!"

A merry but somewhat vulgar voice broke incredibly harsh and loud, as it seemed, upon young Hathorn's reverie.

"Good day, Master Robert."

Robert looked up, and there stood a young farmer in shooting jacket and gaiters, with a riding-whip in his hand.

"Good morning, Mr. Hickman."

"The Mistress is come home, I hear, and it is your harvest-home to-day, so I'll stop here, for I am tired, and so is my horse, for that matter." Mr. Hickman wasted the latter part of this discourse on vacancy, for young Hathorn went coolly away without taking any further notice of him.

"I call that the cold shoulder," thought Hickman: "but it is no wonder; that chap wants to marry her himself, of course he does— not if I know it, Bob Hathorn."

It was natural that Hickman, whose great object just now was Rose Mayfield, should put this reading on Robert's coldness: but in point of fact, it was not so; the young man had no feeling towards Hickman, but the quiet repugnance of a deep to a shallow soul, of a quiet and thoughtful to a rattling fellow. Only just now gaiety was not in his heart, and as Hickman was generally gay, and always sonorous, he escaped to his own thoughts. Hickman watched his retreat, with an eye that said, "You are my rival, but not one I fear I can out-wit you." And it was with a smile of triumphant conscious superiority that Richard Hickman turned round to go into Mrs. Mayfield's house, and found himself face to face with Rachael, who was just coming out of it with the basket full of linen in her hand. Words cannot paint the faces of this woman and this man, when they saw one another. They both started, and were red and white by turns, and their eyes glared upon one another; yet, though the surprise was equal, the emotion was not quite the same. The woman stood, her bosom heaving slowly and high, her eye dilating, her lips apart, her elastic figure rising higher and higher. She stood there wild as a startled panther, uncertain whether to fight or to fly. The man, after the first start, seemed to cower under her eye, and half a dozen expressions that chased one another across his face left one fixed there-Fear! abject fear!

ADVENTURES OF BENJAMIN BOBBIN THE BAGMAN.

BY CRAWFORD WILSON.

CHAPTER II.

GUILTY, OR NOT GUILTY—ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL.

NOON fulfilled the augury of the morning. As it advanced, the conversational powers of our neighbours seemed also to progress; and politics, cheap bread, religion, and early crops, were the allengrossing topics. My self-introduced friend (for he did introduce himself to me by the symphonious name of Myles Riordan) gave the gentlemen present now and then a taste of his quality, sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet, but always good-humoured. In such a peculiar style were his observations couched, that I found they possessed the faculty of perplexing every subject upon which they exercised themselves, and laying their hearers by the ears. "What a cranium," thought I, as I looked at him, "for the manipulations of the phrenologist! If the bump of controversy, recognised as the organ of combativeness, be not largely developed in your head, the science must be possessed of little potency."

Then how he enjoyed each joke! not with a loud boisterous laugh, but with a sly, silent delight, that shook his rotund sides, and added another hue to the healthy colour of his complexion! And then his eye-or rather the eyes of which I discoursed before; the eyes that I had dreaded, and feared to encounter;-why they became the very fountains of mirth, and laughed in unison with his lungs; but as my reader has only been introduced to him in his rougher style, I shall now take the liberty of presenting him to his or her notice, as he appeared full of life and merriment beside me.

In age, Mr. Myles Riordan seemed to have passed the half-way post on the racecourse of life by some two or three lengths. His running had evidently been of a fast character, and he appeared to have carried weight for age; his perpendicular I estimated at about five feet ten inches, his zone at three-quarters that measurement. His face was almost a circle, expressive, and goodhumoured in the extreme; his hair was slightly grizzled, bushy, and naturally curled-his whiskers were with the things that are not, yet should have been; his nose was cocked, querulous, and of a what-do-you-take-me-for order; his eyes as before described; his mouth small, and always surrounded with smiles; his tout ensemble of a very prepossessing description. From what I could see of him, his good-nature and conversational powers appeared unlimited, with a love for good wine, good dinners, good jokes, and good company, to match in every particular. In short, he seemed to be one of those few men, whom we sometimes meet, who are formed expressly for the purposes of driving away melancholy,

cheating care, engrossing Irish whiskey, and making every one happy around them.

Mr. Riordan was still a perfect puzzle to me; I mean that it was beyond my power to surmise correctly what his vocation, profession, trade, or occupation might be "Can he be an attorney?" thought I,-" no, no, he is too jolly by far, too volatile -too"-I was almost going to add, humane looking-but although I thought it at the time, like Lord Hamlet-"I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down;" therefore, for "humane," be kind enough to read "happy." Then I bethought me of a detective! ah! that was nearer the mark; but who ever saw a detective so Falstaff-like in proportions-there again the web became tangled. A sea-faring man! say an admiral-that was worse still-he was by far too vigorous to hold such a high position in the British Navy. I tried a few more similitudes, but, like Sir Charles Coldstream in his general observations upon nature, I found "there was nothing in them," so I cast aside the attempt as being utterly unavailing, almost as much so as any hope of learning the precise resting-place of the ill-fated ship the President, or the chilly whereabouts of the brave and enterprising Sir John Franklin.

I was aroused from my reverie by the uncorking of a flask, one called by my Irish friend, "a patent heart regenerator." At his earnest solicitation I partook of its contents, and in a few moments afterwards came to the conclusion, that "patent brain muddler" would have been a better title; but, like many others in this wide, wide world, perchance I erred in my opinion, from the want of experience. Strange to say, what made me drowsy gave him energy; but I afterwards learned, that the mistake was altogether my own, in having taken it upon an empty stomach, and starting upon so long a journey like the pilgrims of yore-fasting.

Whilst I have been digressing, Mr. Riordan had been talking, and that in a key sufficiently loud to be heard, not only by the people in the carriage, but I believe by the driver at the engine. He always improved his subject, at least he gave himself credit for so doing; so, replacing the cork in the flask, he looked at it affectionately, and then, addressing the passengers generally, and myself particularly, he said, in a melancholy tone,

"That flask was the bane of its late owner, and when he died he left it to me as a legacy. I should first inform you that its owner was my uncle, and a better fellow never stretched legs beneath mahogany, or showed the foot of a tumbler to the ceiling. I'll tell you about him. He was universally considered to be a very handsome man; you may judge of the style of his beauty, when I tell you,"-and here the funny eyes had full play,-" that his likeness and mine are both suspended over the mantel-piece in his sister's house, and she confesses herself unable to tell which is his, unless she turns to the backs of them where our names are written. You may smile, gentlemen, but never believe me if it is not the case. Had he lived until now, I should doubtless have

the advantage of him, but he did not live: in the language of the old song,

'He drank himself out of the world,
To go to a world of spirits.'

Well, 'Requiescat in pace,' as they wrote on his tombstoneand he deserves to rest now that he is under the sod, for that was more than he ever did when he was over it.

"The last time he used this article-or substantive, more properly speaking-professionally, was in the Jury-room of the Tullamore Court-house, where he, it, and eleven enlightened jurymen, were locked up without food or fire until they could come to a unanimous decision, respecting the tucking up of an unfortunate bog-trotter. The eleven jurymen were for hanging him, getting over the matter speedily, and going home to their wives and suppers. But my philanthropic uncle had his wife there with him-this was the lady-freshly primed with the best mountain dew; so he was adverse to the motion upon practical grounds. When the foreman found that there was no chance of their agreeing, he rolled himself up in his great-coat in dudgeon, and laid himself down to sleep in a corner. The others were in a pretty pickle, as refreshments were denied them, and cards not considered admissible. My uncle suggested the propriety of bribing the sentinel, and obtaining a pack, offering at the same time to play the best of them at double-dummy for his opinion upon the verdict in question. But hard as the fate of Prometheus was the obdurate heart of the guard, and neither threats nor promises could induce him to swerve from his duty, or even minister to the desponding eleven the one solitary comfort. Now my uncle was a remarkable man, an active, enterprising, and inventive man, a regular Newton, with a talent for drinking in lieu of that for abstruse reflection; so what do you think he did? why thishe challenged each and every one of them to the antiquated game of tossing-the best two out of three for their yea or nay. If they all won, he was to join with them in their verdict of guilty, if, on the contrary, he was the victor, the man was to be acquitted. What extraordinary luck he had to be sure! He used an old wornout penny for the purpose, with a cross where the head should have been, and nothing for the tail. Would you believe it, gentlemen? he won every toss, and that in a short space of time. I wish he had left me that penny, but he did not; it might have proved a better legacy than this 'patent heart regenerator.' I searched for it after his death, but to no purpose: the fates were unpropitious, and the coin was lost.

"Now the foreman being asleep, the night cold and dreary, with hard forms for a seat, an empty table for an ornament, and whitewashed walls for a prospect, to some must convey an idea of cold comfort; so it would have proved to my uncle, were it not that the ten votes lately won in his favour, and a knowledge that this flask was full in his pocket, counterbalanced the evil. Under these circumstances he was not wretched, like the others; on the

contrary, he was happy. Business having been despatched in the summary way I have named, the jurymen betook themselves to sleep, with light minds, quiet consciences, and frozen extremities; my uncle to a peaceable contemplation of the fireless grate, and the imbibing of his usquebaugh. It was strong-very-he had fasted long, and as he never gave in whilst a drop remained, he devoted himself to its extinction in a systematic and gentlemanly manner. Hours passed by; the solitary candle went out, and all was silence and darkness.

Early in the morning the foreman awoke, and having gazed for a moment at the snoring figures around him, resumed his position, with the wholesome determination of enjoying another hour's repose. As he tossed restlessly in an attempt to make his position a comfortable one, something glittering upon the floor arrested his attention; he took no notice of it at first, but as it lay before his eyes, he found it impossible to rest as long as it was there; he got up to remove it,-need I say it was this flask?

"He approached my uncle-I see, gentlemen, you are already anticipating a fearful dénouement, and you are right; but then the anticipation falls far short of the sad reality. He gazed at him for a moment in a very unenviable state of mind, and then, in the excitement of his overwrought feelings, uttered a cry so terrible, that the Morpheus-cradled ten started simultaneously to their twenty feet. The noise also aroused the slumbering sentinelhe opened the door of their temporary prison, and admitted his own visible man. My poor uncle was the centre of all attraction; upon him twice twelve freshly-opened eyes were fixed in speechless wonder. He sat upon a chair-a wooden chair, the only one in the room; his head had fallen back almost at right angles with his body-his neckerchief was all awry-his legs stretched helplessly towards the place where fire ought to have been, and his arms hung down by his side, like those of an unstrung automaton. No one ventured to touch him-the subject was too appallingthere he sat-motionless as sleeping infancy."

"Dead ?" asked one or two eager listeners, breathlessly. "No," laughingly exclaimed my friend, "but drunk. I told you that the anticipation would fall short of the reality."

Various incubi seemed to have been lifted from our several breasts at this tantalizing announcement. Some laughed, others frowned, but we were all silent, the jocund Hibernian chuckling at our discomfiture. At length I ventured to ask, by the way of a change, how the trial terminated.

"Oh! the man was acquitted."

Acquitted ?" said one or two, rather dubiously.

"I give you my honour it's a fact: the miraculous conversion of the ten to my uncle's opinion, together with the dread of another such night of horrors, had a healthful effect upon the mind of the foreman; so when they had taken their seats in the jury-box and were called upon for their verdict, they astonished judge, counsel, and prisoner, by declaring in the face of the most damnatory evidence that he was 'Not Guilty!""