to the doctrine of predestination, what availeth prayer? more awful yet, what availeth repentance? Man was permitted to fall,* that his weakness might plead his claim for mercy in the end. It is the tempter that is predestined to eternal punishment, his nature being eternal; but man's probationary state of time and change admits hope to the very last, that he may work while there is light, for the night cometh when no man can work.'

"Yet," said Abou-Cazem, thoughtfully, "we prove that predictions, as regarding this life, are often verified."

"They are so," replied the Missionary. "But," added he, with pious fervour, "the arm of divine Providence still riseth gloriously above all !"

The singular circumstance forming the subject of the above sketch, was detailed as a fact, in the public prints of some years ago, something to the following effect:

At the time of the plague in some city of Asiatic Turkey, a certain merchant, the number of whose household, including himself, amounted to eleven; on their having all been carried off by the visitation, found himself remaining as the eleventh in the house. Thus situated, he prepared for his approaching fate, in accordance with a prediction of his nativity, that "he must beware the eleventh!" Nevertheless, the following morning found the merchant still alive, and in health; but a robber who, tempted by the calamitous state of affairs, had entered the undefended house, was discovered a corpse at the entrance of the apartment, a victim of the pestilence. Thus it should seem, fulfilling the prediction, as the eleventh, in the house, while the merchant escaped.

She may pass from thy arms in one short hour.

Come! we'll ride at night,

O'er the billows white,

Where the weeping moon sheds her saddened light;
And I'll steal from the stream

Each wave-kissed gleam,

To weave thee a robe of its silvery beam.

Come, my spirit sighs

For thy love-lit eyes,

To fling back the light of the laughing skies:

But the mournful wail

Of the perfumed gale

Brings an echo alone to my love-fraught tale.

*For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope.-Rom. chap. viii., v. 29.

....

".... there met Him two possessed with devils and they cried out, 'what have we to do with Thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?"-Matt. chap. viii., v. 28, 29.

OR, THE MAN FROM BELOW.*

CHAPTER XXV.-PAUL SUSPECTED OF PLAYING PAUL PRY.

PERSONS Who have suddenly found themselves in grievous perils, will be able to enter into Paul's feelings, when, after having several times crept out to reconnoitre, he still observed the colliers at their post. The condemned criminal who the night before his execution has been carried back in dreams to his days of innocence, and felt his head resting on his mother's lap, scarcely wakes with more horror to face the dread realities of the coming day, than did our little hero in this conjuncture. Overwhelming weariness from time to time plunged him in sleep-not sweet and balmy, such as he used to enjoy in Mr. Wilkinson's caravan, but troubled, broken, and ghastly, as if tasted in company with the nightmare; but ever and anon he would start from it with palpitating heart and sensations of the keenest alarm.

At length, going forth once more to reconnoitre as the dawn began to break, and casting a cautious and scrutinising glance around, he could discover no trace of the enemy. Trusting they had retired altogether, he experienced a strong impulse of joy, and yielded up his whole heart to the cheerful effect of light. There is something wonderfully absorbing in a summer's dawn. The earth seems to rise from the bed of darkness like a joyous bride, and puts on her attire and ornaments one by one in the face of heaven; while a breeze, sweeter and more soothing than incense, breathes around her, elating and intoxicating the senses; and nowhere is this delight more sensibly felt than in England. I have witnessed the fiery dawn of the tropics, where the sun, bursting up impatiently from behind some mountain or the ocean, inundates the whole face of nature at once with his bright and glaring refulgence. I have also watched in the southern portions of our own zone the rapid birth of the morning, but have nowhere observed that modest mingling of light and obscurity, that delicious tempering of the cool of night by the day's earliest beams, that gentle and slow diffusion of warmth which begets vapours, and calls them up from fen and lake to diversify the aspect of our universal mother.-I say I have nowhere witnessed this so completely as in England. Much of the beauty our country possesses we may impart to it because it is ours; but the veriest stoic, take him from what realm you please, would be smitten with admiration, and feel his pulse quickened, as he gazes on the loveliness of a summer morning in England. Paul, however, was not a stoic. Forgetting the colliers and everything else, he descended from the windmill, and walking out upon the heath, from which the delicate perfume of heather and wild flowers spontaneously exhaled, he muttered to himself, "This is nation pleasant." We always associate agreeable and beautiful objects with those we love, and on this occasion the exquisite face of Kate Pevensey, the gentle and friendly looks of Mrs. Wilkinson, and the playful and sportive figure of little Fanny swept in a sort of magic dance over his fancy. His heart was full, and his eyes were considerably moister than usual. He already thought himself on the threshold of his mother's cottage, and in the enjoyment of that tenderest of all pleasures, a mother's embrace, which we seldom know how to value till it has gone from us for ever. Paul was what is vulgarly called a rough customer, but he had, for all that, a heart in his breast which soon vibrated wildly as he drew near home. But he was not destined long to enjoy this luxury of pleasant thoughts; his exit from the windmill had been observed, and he had proceeded but a little way in what he supposed to be the direction of Ulraven, when several men rising from amid the furze-bushes and heather, rushed upon and seized him with an extraordinary superfluity of

*Continued from Vol. II., page 335.

I

oaths and imprecations. Every opprobrious epithet in the language was applied to him at once-he was called a little rascal, a little scoundrel, a little villain, a little traitor; and was threatened with instant death by being cast headlong into some coal-pit.

Paul stood perfectly aghast. The ruffians into whose hands he had fallen looked more like fiends than men, their begrimed countenances being distorted by rage, and their eyes flashing fire as they spoke. Without at all understanding why they abused him, he protested he had done no harm; they, however, would not hear him; and one of them, more brutal than the rest, struck him a blow in the mouth, which in a moment filled it with blood. Even this, however, did not silence the poor boy, who, remembering what he had last night heard in the windmill, expected they were now going to murder him; he began, therefore, to cry bitterly, and begged of them to spare his life, but they said he was a spy sent by the magistrates to watch their movements, and dragged him away with the intention of putting him immediately to death. They, however, first wished to discover who had sent him, and as they could not frame a set of proper questions themselves, they thought it would be best to devolve this duty upon their leader.

But where was he? They would, of course, condescend to explain nothing to Paul, but forced him along, sometimes by dragging, at other times by kicks, till they reached a long, low, slated building, looking the very picture of dreariness and discomfort, situated in a narrow ravine lying considerably beneath the general level of the moor. It was a miserable beer-shop, where the more dissipated and blackguard of the colliers spent their Sundays and all their idle hours during the week. Nothing can possibly look more comfortless than a place of vulgar debauchery by the day. At night, the lights, the bustle, the excitement caused by drinking, the satisfied looks of the landlord and his satellites, the forced and unnatural merriment of his customers, impart to the rural pothouse an air of joviality, which, to the coarse and uneducated, may wear the aspect of enjoyment. But the very house itself seems to share in the morning the shabbiness, palor, and headach of the drunkards that frequent it. The rooms appear ashamed of the light of the sun; so that the shutters are often left half closed, that the in-dwellers may move to and fro in congenial obscurity.

Paul's fears when he was pushed into the alehouse were much too great to allow him to observe anything; and yet the dismal air of the place produced its full effect upon his mind. It seemed more hideous than a thousand gaols. In a corner of the naked parlour, occupying a broken arm-chair, was a man whom Paul soon recognised as the speaker of the preceding night. He looked more than half asleep, and his drowsiness only rendered him the more ferocious in feeling and aspect. As the ruffians, with Paul, burst into the room, he sharply raised his head from his breast, on which his chin had been comfortably reposing, and eyeing the whole group with a supercilious look, said— "What the devil have you brought here ?"

"A spy," was the answer.

"How do you know that ?"

"We catched him a getting out of the windmill."

“Oh, indeed, and what have you," he said, turning to Paul, "to say for yourself, you little blackguard. Who sent you amongst us ?"

"Nobody, sir," replied Paul.

"Then what business had you there ?"

"I lost my way, sir, and crawled into the old mill to sleep."

"And why did not you crawl in here ?"

"Because I did not know there was no such place, sir."

"What, could'nt you see?"

66

No, sir; it was too dark."

"And where were you going?"

"To Ulraven."

"For what purpose?"

"To see my mother."

"What's her name ?"

"Kate Pevensey."

"Oh! oh! so you are the little rascal that brought about the accident in the shelving pit, are you?"

"Yes," replied Paul, with increasing terror and alarm.

"Well, you've put your foot into it, I can tell you; for if we don't hang you as a spy, the masters will hang you for having injured their property and killed their slaves."

Paul shuddered, and grew, if possible, a shade or two paler than before, but answered only with a low groan.

“And where have you come from now?" returned his interrogator.

Paul mentioned the name of the place where he had lost sight of the Wilkinsons.

A grim smile passed over the man's face as he continued.

"And didn't you travel north in company with a rascally Irishman ?"

"He was a very good man, sir."

"Oh, he was, was he? I suppose you think so because he gave you something to drink on the way?"

66

Yes, and something to eat too, sir."

"Which he stole, I suppose ?"

"No, indeed, sir; Mr. Maguire was very honest."

"Mr. be d-d; he was a bog-trotting Paddy. Don't Mr. me such fellows. Didn't you hear something in a public-house, about a rising in the north, where there was a parcel of pot-bellied farmers puzzling their thick heads over pots of beer?"

"Yes, sir; and Mr. Macguire said as how he should like to join the fighting." "Oh, devil doubt him. He'd like it that he might have the chance of knocking some Saxon on the head; but come now, as you see I know all about you, tell me how the magistrates came to send you here as a spy."

66

Indeed, sir, I don't know no magistrate, sir; and nobody sent me, sir. After Mr. Macguire parted from me on the road, and gave me a shilling to buy something to eat, I began to think about my mother, sir-and lost my road, and could'nt find no place else to sleep, sir; so I got into the windmill, and was wakened at night by a very great noise, sir-and was so frightened I could not sleep a wink the rest of the night, sir; and that's the whole truth."

"Well," answered the man, "I happen to know that is the whole truth, and so we shan't do you any harm. But you must stay with us for many reasons. First the magistrates would hang you if they could catch you, and next you might let your tongue go, and get some of us hanged, so you must stay with us, say, till this business is over. After which you had better make the best of your way towards the south.

To this Paul said nothing, but in great despair looked about the room, where there were several hungry-looking tables and chairs strewed with fragments of tobacco pipes and tobacco dust, and with the marks of quart and pint pots half dried upon them. In one or two cases, the pots themselves were there, but carefully emptied. His captors, who were probably no ways sorry at not having to hang Paul or throw him down a coal-pit, now suffered their attention to revert to themselves, and called for a quantity of purl, a favourite morning drink with colliers. Blackguards are not always destitute of feeling, and the very ruffian who had struck Paul in the mouth now bade him sit down, and pushing his pot towards him, cried :

“Drink, my hearty; I'm sorry I pitched into you on the heath, but it was all a mistake, d'ye see?

Paul accepted the amende honourable, drank a little of the purl; and then, with the careless indifference natural to boys, inquired if he couldn't get anything to eat, "because he was nation hungry."

66

Ring the bell, and they will bring you something," was the answer.

Paul did so; and having got and eaten a quantity of bread and cheese, felt in better spirits, and drawing close up into a corner and leaning his head against the wall, soon, in spite of the noise, fell fast asleep.

In this country, conspirators eat as well as other people and they are quite right-great excitement and exertion require adequate supplies to keep up the steam; and as the ancients maintained with their usual respect for naturethat even the fervour of love itself could not be kept up without victuals, so we may boldly, after their example, affirm that men can't fight, conspire, or commit crimes without a proper supply of beefsteaks and beer. To be hungry is generally to be gloomy and pusillanimous. Heroism is a quality of the stomach, and it is wonderful to observe how much buffeting about our delicate microcosm can endure when it has been properly replenished and saturated with succulent animal and vegetable juices. Set a hungry man about anything and he will almost infallibly break down. In fact, it is a well-known axiom in natural philosophy that none but Scotchmen can fight before breakfast. Your true man from the north of the Tweed is used to short commons, and can put up with them; but he is a sort of solecism in the animal economy of the world, and we believe has no parallel, except occasionally among the New Zealanders, who keep their appetites for their enemies, that they may be able to eat up their day's work after they have finished it.

About eight o'clock Paul was roused from his nap by preparations for breakfast. Mutton chops and beefsteaks hissing hot from the gridiron made their appearance on every table, with lots of bread and foaming tankards of ale; and as plenty often renders men hospitable, the colliers were not unwilling to let their little prisoner share their grub. They put a nice chop before him, therefore, and bade him fall-to, which he did nothing loth, and when he had finished his task and washed it down with a little ale, he began to think his companions rather fine fellows on the whole. To be sure, they were going to kill somebody, but as he was clearly not the person he felt a considerable weight removed from his mind. He did not say so to himself, perhaps, but he probably felt that it would be much better for them to kill anybody else than him, especially as there was little chance of their victim being anybody he knew.

CHAPTER XXVI.-THE DAGGER AND THE LAW.

In the court-house of a neighbouring town several magistrates were sitting on the bench, examining certain witnesses, some of whom denied, while others deposed to the guilt of an accused person, who belonged to the class of colliers, and had been implicated in the first excesses of the great strike which was now agitating the whole north of England. Say what we will, there is a natural and almost necessary antipathy between the voluntary functionary of the law and the poor. The humbler classes don't feel or believe that the laws were made for them; on the contrary, they are fully persuaded that they are their greatest enemies, save always and except those who administer them. No doubt this is an anomalous state of things-no doubt it is deeply to be regretted that the laws should not command universal veneration; but I am stating facts, without undertaking to account for them, and I know that, throughout the millions who inhabit this country, the opinion is deeply implanted that our laws were fabricated by the oligarchy exclusively for their own benefit. If this be an error, which I am not prepared to admit, it is only to be eradicated by a long course of beneficence and justice on the part of the governing classes; and upon this course they do not as yet seem disposed to enter. The day of reform may be coming, but it is not yet come; and in the meantime magistrates are regarded with no respectful or friendly feelings in any part of this empire.

Had a stranger stepped into the court-house above mentioned, he would have become immediately conscious that an unpleasant feeling pervaded it. The magistrates, seated aloft on their crimson cushions, with their jolly port-wine