whereupon Becky immediately took to her heels, and was immediately followed by her mistress, whose loud indignation at length died a muttering death in the distance. Mrs. Blink being gone, there was dead silence for a moment; and then the landlord, with a puzzled look, jerking his head towards St. Giles, briefly asked counsel of one and all." What shall we do with him?"

This query produced another pause. Every man seemed to feel as though the question was specially put to himself, and therefore did his best to prepare to answer it. Yes; almost every man scratched his head, and suddenly tried to look acute, sharp. "What's to be done wi 'un?" asked two or three musingly; and then looked in each other's faces, as though they looked at a dead wall. At length, wisdom descended upon the brain of the barber. "I'll tell you what we 'll do with him," said the small oracle of the Lamb and Star, and suddenly all looked satisfied, as though the mystery was at length discovered," I 'll tell you what we'll do with him we 'll leave him where he is." Everybody nodded assent to the happy thought. "He'll be just as safe here as in the cage; and that's a mile away. We've only got to tie him hand and foot, and three or four of us to sit up and watch him, and I warrant he doesn't slip through our fingers-I warrant me, varmint as he is, we 'll give a good account of him to justice." The barber was rewarded with a murmur of applause; and such approbation he received all tranquilly, like a man accustomed to the sweets of moral incense. For St. Giles, he had again cast himself hopelessly upon the straw; again lay, seemingly indifferent to all around him. In the despair, the wretchedness of his condition, life or death was, he thought, to him alike. On all hands he was a hunted, persecuted wretch; life was to him a miserable disease; a leprosy of soul that made him alone in a breathing world. There might be companionship in the grave. And so dreaming, St. Giles lay dumb and motionless as a corpse, the while his captors-as they thought themselves-took counsel for his security. "Hush!" said the barber, motioning silence, and then having stood a few moments, listening, with upraised finger, he cried-it 's my belief the rogue 's asleep in that case, we needn't tie him: we've only to watch outside: the night 's warm, the dog's loose, and with a mug or so of ale, I'm good to watch. with any half-dozen of you." The truth is, the barber had been visited by a second thought, that suggested to him the probability of rough usage at the hands of the prisoner, should there be an

attempt to put him in bonds, and he therefore, with a pardonable regard for his own features, proposed to wave the ceremony of tying the culprit. He'll have his share of rope in time," said the barber, much satisfied with the smallness of the jest. And thereupon, he beckoned his companions from the barn; and had already imagined the balminess of the coming ale-for the landlord had promised flowing mugs-when justice, professional justice, arrived in the shape of a sworn constable. Where's this murdering chap?"

asked the functionary.

66

"All right, Master Tipps," said the barber, "all snug; we've got him,

"There's nothing right, nothing snug, without the cuffs," said the constable, displaying the irons with much official pride.— "He's in the barn, there, eh, Master Blink? Then I charge you all in the king's name-and this is his staff-to help me. The landlord, touched by the magic of the adjuration, stepped forward with the lantern; the constable followed, and was sulkily followed by two or three of the party. The barber, however, and one or two of his kidney, budged not a foot. "Isn't it always so?" he exclaimed, "if ever a man puts himself out of the way, and ventures his precious life and limbs, taking up all sorts of varmintif ever he does it, why it's safe for Master Constable to come down, and take away all the honour and glory. I should like to know what's the use of a man feeling savage against rogues, if another man's to have the credit of it? Now you'll see how it will be, it's the way of the world,-oh yes!-you 'll see ;-they'll take this chap, and try him, and hang him,-perhaps put him in chains and all, and we shall never be so much as thanked for it. No, we shall never be named in the matter. Well, after this, folks may murder who they like for me. And isn't it precious late, too! and will my wife believe I've been nowhere but here!" cried the barber; and a sudden cloud darkened his face, and he ran off like a late schoolboy to his task. Poor St. Giles! he knew it not; but, if revenge were sweet to think upon, there was somebody at home who would revenge the wrongs of the vagrant upon the barber. Somebody, who, at deep midnight, would scare sleep from his pillow, even whilst the feloniously accused snored among the straw! And after this fashion may many a wretch take sweet comfort;-if, indeed, revenge be sweet; and there are very respectable folks to whom, in truth, it has very saccharine qualities, for they seem to enjoy it as children enjoy sugar-cane ;-sweet

comfort that, whatever wrong or contumely may be cast upon him in the light of day, there may be somebody, as it would seem, especially appointed to chastise the evil-doer; and that, too, “in the dead waste and middle of the night;" to drive sleep from his eyeballs; to make him feel a coward, a nobody, a nincompoop, in his own holland.

Pleasant is it for the bitter-thinking man who sees a blustering authority-whether grasping a beadle's staff or holding the scales of justice-sometimes to know that there is a louder authority at home, a greater vehemence of reproof, that may make the bully of the day the sleepless culprit of the night! Was there not Whitlow, beadle of the parish of St. Scraggs? What a manbeast was Whitlow! How would he, like an avenging ogre, scatter apple-women! How would he foot little boys, guilty of pegtops and marbles! How would he puff at a beggar!-puff like the picture of the north-wind in the spelling-book! What a huge, heavy, purple face he had, as though all the blood of his body was stagnant in his cheeks! And then, when he spoke, would he not growl and snuffle like a dog! How the parish would have hated him, but that the parish heard there was a Mrs. Whitlow; a small, fragile woman, with a face sharp as a penknife, and lips that cut her words like scissors! And what a forlorn wretch was Whitlow, with his head brought once a night to the pillow! Poor creature! helpless, confused; a huge imbecility, a stranded whale! Mrs. Whitlow talked and talked; and there was not an applewoman but in Whitlow's sufferings was not avenged; not a beggar, that thinking of the beadle at midnight, might not, in his compassion, have forgiven the beadle of the day. And in this punishment we acknowledge a grand, a beautiful retribution. A Judge Jefferys in his wig is an abominable tyrant; yet may his victims. sometimes smile to think what Judge Jefferys suffers in his night-cap.

And now leave we for awhile St. Giles in the official custody of Tipps, who, proud of his handcuffs as a chamberlain of his wand, suffered not the least opportunity to pass without resorting to them. To him handcuffs were the grace of life, the only security of our social condition. Man, without the knowledge of handcuffs, would to Tipps have been a naked wretch, indeed-a poor barbarian, needing the first glimmer of civilisation. Had philosophy talked to Tipps of the golden chain of necessity, to the sense of Tipps the chain would have been made of handcuffs. Hence, the

constable had thought it his prime duty to handeuff St. Giles; and then, he suffered himself to be persuaded to leave the murderer in his straw; the landlord handsomely promising the loan of a cart to remove the prisoner in the morning.

Some two miles distant from the Lamb and Star, where the road turned with a sharp angle, there was a deep hollow; this. place had been known, it may be, to the Druids, as the Devil's Elbow. Throughout the world, man has ungraciously given sundry ugly spots of the earth's face-its warts and pock-marks— to the fiend; and the liberal dwellers of Kent had, as we say, made over an abrupt break-neck corner of earth to the Devil for his Elbow. It was at this spot that, whilst St. Giles was swallowing ale at the Lamb and Star, his supposed victim, the handsome, generous St. James was discovered prostrate, stunned, and wounded. Rumour had, of course, taken his life; making with easiest despatch St. Giles a murderer; for being an outcast and a beggar, how facile was the transformation! But St. James was not dead; albeit a deep wound, as from some mortal instrument, some dull weapon, as the law has it, on his temple, looked more than large enough for life to escape from. Happily for St. James, there were men in Kent who lived not a life of reverence for the law; otherwise, it is more than probable that, undiscovered until the morning, the Devil's Elbow might have been haunted by another ghost. But it was to be otherwise. It was provided by fate that there should be half-a-dozen smugglers, bound on an unhallowed mission to the coast; who, first observing St. James's horse, masterless and quietly grazing at the road's side, made closer search and thence discovered young St. James, as they at first believed, killed, and lying half-way down the hollow. "Here's been rough work," cried one of the men; "see, the old, wicked story-blood flowing, and pockets inside out. He's a fine lad ; too fine for such a death." "All's one for that," said a second; "we can't bring him to life by staring at him: we 've queer work enough of our own on hand-every one for his own business. Come along." "He's alive!" exclaimed a third with an oath; and as he spoke, St. James drew a long, deep sigh. “All the better for him," cried the second, "then he can take care of himself." "Why, Jack Bilson, you'd never be such a hardhearted chap as to leave anything with life in it, in this fashion?” was the remonstrance of the first discoverer of St. James; whereupon Mr. Bilson, with a worldliness of prudence, sometimes worth

uncounted gold to the possessor, remarked that humanity was very well-but that everybody was made for everybody's selfand that while they were palavering there over nobody knew who, they might lose the running of the tubs. Humanity, as Mr. Biison said, was very well; but then there was a breeches pocket virtue in smuggled Scheidam. "Well, if I was to leave a fellow-cretur in this plight, I should never have the impudence to hope to have a bit of luck again," said the more compassionate contrabandist, whose nice superstition came in aid to his benevolence; "and so I say, mates, let us carry him to that house yonder, make 'em take him in, and then go with light hearts and clean consciences upon our business." "Yes; if we ain't all taken up for robbers and murderers for our pains: but Ben Magsby, you always was a obstinate grampus." And Ben Magsby carried out his humane purpose; for St. James was immediately borne to the house aforesaid. Loud and long was the knocking at the door, ere it was opened. At length, a little sharp-faced old woman appeared, and, with wonderful serenity, begged to know what was the matter. "Why, here's a gentleman," said Magsby, "who 's been altogether robbed and well-nigh murdered."

"Robbed and murdered!" said the matron, calmly as though she spoke of a pie over-baked, or a joint over-roasted,—“ robbed and murdered! What's that to us? The public-house is the place for such things. Go to the Lamb and Star." But the woman spoke to heedless ears: for Ben Magsby and his matesere the woman had ceased her counsel-had borne the wounded man across the threshold, and unceremoniously entering the first discoverable apartment, had laid him on a couch.

"There," said Ben, returning with his companions to the door, "there, we've done our duty as Christians, mind you do your's." And with this admonition, the smugglers vanished.

It was then that the little old woman showed signs of emotion. Murder and robbery at the public-house she could have contemplated with becoming composure; but to be under the same roof with the horror was not to be quietly endured so long as she had lungs; and so thinking, she stood in the hall, and vehemently screamed. Like boatswain's whistle did that feminine summons pierce every corner of the mansion: the cupboard mouse paused over stolen cheese-the hearth cricket suddenly was dumb-the deathwatch in the wall ceased its amorous tick-tick-so sudden, sharp, and all-pervading was that old woman's scream. "Why,