has died away, and hearsely mutters in its sleep. I love | into my head to wonder what kind of people dined slone all times and seasons each in its turn, and am apt per-in taverns upon Christmas-day.

haps to think the present one the best; but past or com- Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciing, I always love this peaceful time of night, when longously to look upon solitude as their own peculiar proburied thoughts, favoured by the gloom and silence, steal perty. I had eat alone in my room on many, many anfrom their graves and haunt the scenes of faded happi-niversaries of this great holiday, and had never regarded ness and hope. it but as one of universal assemblage and rejoicing. I had excepted, and with an aching heart, a crowd of pri soners and beggars, but these were not the men for whom the tavern doors were open. Had they any customers, or was it a mere form! A form, no doubt.

dull place with its bough of misletoe sickening in the slightest look or gesture, as though he could read my gas, and sprigs of holly parched up already by a simoon thoughts. From the vast number of objects which pass of roast and boiled. The very waiter had gone home, in rapid succession before our eyes, we frequently select and his representative, a poor, lean, hungry man, was the same for some particular notice or remark, and when keeping Christmas in his jacket. one of these little coincidences occurs, I cannot describe the pleasure that animates my friend, or the beaming countenance he will preserve for half an hour afterwards at least.

I grew still more interested in my friend. His dinner done, a decanter of wine was placed before him. It remained untouched for a long time, but at length with a quivering hand be filled a glass and raised it to his lips. He is a great thinker from living so much within Some tender wish to which he had been accustomed to himself, and having a lively imagination, has a facility give utterance on that day, or some beloved name that of conceiving and enlarging upon odd ideas, which renhe bad been used to pledge, trembled upon them at the ders him invaluable to our little body, and greatly astomoment. He put it down very hastily-took it up once nishes our two friends. His powers in this respect are more-again put it down-pressed his hand upon his much assisted by a large pipe, which he assures us once face-yes-and tears stole down his cheeks, am certain. | belonged to a German student. Be this as it may, it Without pausing to consider whether I did right or has undoubtedly a very ancient and mysterious appearwrong. I stepped across the room, and sitting down be-ance, and is of such capacity that it takes three hours side him, laid my hand gently on his arm. and a half to smoke it out. I have reason to believe that “My friend,” I said, “forgive me if I beseech you to my barber, who is the chief authority of a knot of gustake comfort and consolation from the lips of an old man. ips who congregate every evening at a small tobaccoI will not preach to you what I have not practised, in-nist's hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the deed. Whatever be your grief, be of a good heart-be of grim figures that are carved upon its bowl, at which all a good heart-be of a good heart, pray!" the smokers in the neighbourhood have stood aghast, and I know that my housekeeper, while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious, feeling connected with it, which would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left alone in its company after dark.

"I see that you speak earnestly," he replied," and kindly I am very sure, but-"

I nodded my head to show that I understood what he would say, for I had already gathered from a certain fixed expression in his face, and from the attention with which he watched me while I spoke, that his sense of bearing was destroyed. "There should be a free-masonry between us," said I, pointing from himself to me to explain my meaning-"if not in our gray hairs, at least in our misfortunes. You see that I am but a poor cripple."

I never felt so happy under my affliction, since the trying moment of my first becoming conscious of it, as when he took my hand in his with a smile that has lighted my path in life from that day, and we sat down side by side.

This was the beginning of my friendship with the deaf gentleman, and when was ever the slight and easy service of a kind word in season repaid by such attachment and devotion as he has shown to me!

Whatever sorrow my deaf friend has known, and whatever grief may linger in some secret corner of his heart, he is now a cheerful, placid, happy creature. Misfortune can never have fa len upon such a man but for some good purpose, and when I see its traces in his gentle nature, and his earnest feling. I am the less disposed to murmur at such trials as I may have undergone myself. With regard to the pipe, I have a theory of my own; I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with the event that brought us together, for I remember that it was a long time before he even talked about it; that when he did, he grew reserved and melancholy; and that it was a long time yet before he brought

forth. I have no curiosity, however, on this subject, for I know that it promotes his tranquillity and comfort, and I need no other inducement to regard it with my utmost fervour.

He produced a little set of tablets and & pencil to facilitate our conversation, on that our first acquaintance. Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure and I well remember how awkward and constrained I│now, clad in sober gray, and seated in the chimney corwas in writing down my share of the dialogue, and how ❘ner. As he puffs out the smoke from his favourite pipe, easily he guessed my meaning before I had written half be casts a look on me brimful of cordiality and friendof what I had to say. He told me in a faltering voice | ship, and says all manner of kind and genial things in a that he had not been accustomed to be alone on that day cheerful smile; then he raises his eyes to my clock, -that it had always been a little festival with him—and | which is just about to strike, and glaucing from it to me seeing that I glanced at his dress in the expectation that he wore mourning, he added hastily, that it was not that; if it had been, he thought he could have borne it better. From that time to the present, we have never touched upon this theme. Upon every return of the same day we have been together, and although we make it our annual custom to drink to each other hand in hand after dinner, and to recall with affectionate garrulity every circumstance of our first meeting, we always avoid this one as if by mutual consent.

Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard, and forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will only be interrupted by death, to be renewed in another existence. I scarcely know how we communicate as we do, but he has long since ceased to be deuf to me. He is frequently the companion of my walks, and even in crowded strects replies to my

and back again, seems to divide his heart between us. For myself, it is not too much to say that I would gladly part with one of my poor limbs, could he but hear the old clock's voice.

Of our two friends, the first has been all his life one of that easy, wayward, truant eliss whom the world is accustomed to designate as nobody's enemies but their own. Bred to a profession for which he never qualitied himself, and reared in the expectation of a fortune he has never inherited, he has undergone every vicissitude of which such an existence is capable. He and his younger brother, both orphans from their childhood, were educated by a wealthy relative, who taught them to expect an equal division of his property: but too indolent to court, and too honest to flatter, the elder gradually lost ground in the affections of a capricious old man, and the younger, who did not fail to improve his opportunity,

now triumphs in the possession of enormous wealth. His triumph is to hoard it in solitary wretchedness, and probably to feel with the expenditure of every shilling, a greater pang than the loss of his whole inheritance ever cost his brother.

longer and longer, it wholly disappeared, and now he seldom stirs abroad except to stroll out a little way on a summer's evening. Whether he yet mistrusts his own constancy in this respect, and is therefore afraid to wear a coat, I know not, but we seldom see him in any other upper garments than an old spectral-looking dressing gown, with very disproportionate pockets, full of a miscellaneous collection of odd matters, which he picks up wherever he can lay bis hands on them.

Jack Redburn-he was Jack Redburn at the first little school he went to, where every other child was mastered and surnamed, and he has been Jack Redburn all his life, or he would perhaps have been a richer man by this time-has been an inmate of my house these eight years Every thing that is a favourite with our friend is a past. He is my librarian, secretary, steward, and first favourite with us, and thus it happens that the fourth minister: director of all my affairs, and inspector gene- among us is Mr. Owen Miles, a most worthy gentleman, ral of my household. He is something of a musician, who had treated Jack with great kindness before my something of an author, something of an actor, some- deaf friend and I encountered him by an accident to thing of a painter, very much of a carpenter, and an ex- which I may refer on some future occasion. Mr. Miles traordinary gardener: having had all his life a wonder- was once a very rich merchant, but receiving a severe ful aptitude for learning every thing that is of no use to shock in the death of his wife, he retired from business, him. He is remarkably fond of children, and is the best and devoted himself to a quiet, unostentatious life. He and kindest nurse in sickness that ever drew the breath is an excellent man, of thoroughly sterling character: of life. He has mixed with every grade of society, and not of quick apprehension, and not without some amusknown the utmost distress, but there never was a less self-ing prejudices, which I shall leave to their own developish, a more tender-hearted, a more enthusiastic, or a more ment. He holds us all in profound veneration, but Jack guileless man, and I dare say, if few have done less good, Redburn he esteems as a kind of pleasant wonder, that fewer still have done less harm in the world than he. By he may venture to approach familiarly. He believes, what chance Nature forms such whimsical jumbles, I not only that no man ever lived who could do so many don't know; but I do know that she sends them among things as Jack, but that no man ever lived who could do us very often, and that the king of the whole race is Jack any thing so well, and he never calls my attention to any Redburn. of his ingenious proceedings but he whispers in my ear, nudging me at the same time with his elbow-"If he had only made it his trade, sir—if he had only made it his trade!"

I should be puzzled to say how old he is. His health is none of the best, and he wears a quantity of iron-gray hair, which shades his face and gives it rather a worn appearance; but we consider him quite a young fellow notwithstanding; and if a youthful spirit surviving the roughest contact with the world, confers upon its possessor any title to be considered young, then he is a mere child. The only interruptions to his careless cheerfulness, are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusual ly religious and solemn, and sometimes of an evening, when he has been blowing a very slow tune on the flute. On these last named occasions, he is apt to incline towards the mysterious or the terrible. As a specimen of his powers in this mood, I refer my readers to the extract from the clock-case which follows this paper; he brought it to me not long ago at midnight, and informed me that the main incident had been suggested by a dream of the night before.

They are inseparable companions; one would suppose that, although Mr. Miles never by any chance does any thing in the way of assistance, Jack could do nothing without him. Whether he is reading, writing, painting, carpentering, gardening, flute-playing, or what not, there is Mr. Miles beside him, buttoned up to the chin in his blue coat, and looking on with a face of incredulous delight, as though he could not credit the testimony of his own senses, and had a misgiving that no man could be so clever but in a dream.

These are my friends; I have now introduced myself and them.

THE CLOCK-CASE.

A CONFESSION FOUND IN A PRISON IN THE TIME OF
CHARLES THE SECOND.

His apartments are two cheerful rooms, looking towards the garden, and one of his great delights is to arrange and re-arrange the furniture in these chambers, and put it in every possible variety of position. During I held a lieutenant's commission in his majesty's army, the whole time he has been here, I do not think he has and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678. slept for two nights running with the head of his bed in The treaty of Nimeguen being concluded, I returned the same place, and every time he moves it, it is to be home, and retiring from the service, withdrew to a small the last. My housekeeper was at first well nigh distracted estate lying a few miles east of London, which I had rewith these frequent changes; but she has become quite cently acquired in right of my wife. reconciled to them by degrees, and has so fallen in with This is the last night I have to live, and I will set his humour, that they often consult together with great down the naked truth without disguise. I was never a gravity on the final alteration. Whatever his arrange-brave man, and had always been from my childhood of a ments are, however, they are always a pattern of neat-secret, sullen, distrustful nature. I speak of myself as if ness, and every one of the manifold articles connected I had passed from the world, for while I write this my with his manifold occupations, is to be found in its own grave is digging and my name is written in the black particular place. Until within the last two or three book of death. years, he was subject to an occasional fit, (which usually came upon him in very fine weather,) under the influence of which he would dress himself with peculiar care, and going out, under pretence of taking a walk, disappear for several days together. At length, after the interval between each outbreak of this disorder had gradually grown

Soon after my return to England, my only brother was seized with mortal illness.

This circumstance gave me slight or no pain, for since we had been men we had associated but very little toge ther. He was open-hearted and generous, handsomer than I, more accomplished, and generally beloved. Those

who sought my acquaintance abroad or at home, because | bear that the child should see me looking at him, and yet they were friends of his, seldom attached themselves long I was under a fascination which made it a kind of busito me, and would usually say in our first conversation ness with me to contemplate his slight and fragile figure, that they were surprised to find two brothers so unlike and think how easily it might be done. Sometimes I in their manners and appearance. It was my habit to lead them on to this avowal, for I knew what comparisons they must draw between us, and, having a rankling envy in my heart, I sought to justify it to my self.

We had married two sisters. This additional tie between us, as it may appear to some, only estranged us more. His wife knew me well. I never struggled with any secret jealousy or gall when she was present, but that woman knew it as well as I did. I never raised my eyes at such times but I found hers fixed upon me; I never bent them to the ground or looked another way, but I felt that she overlooked me always. It was an inexpressible relief to me when we quarreled, and a greater relief still when I heard abroad that she was dead. It seems to me now as if some strange and terrible foreshadowing of what has happened since, must have hung over us then. I was afraid of her, she haunted me, her fixed and steady look comes back upon me now like the memory of a dark dream, and makes my blood run cold. She died shortly after giving birth to a child-a boy. When my brother knew that all hope of his own recovery was past, he called my wife to his bedside, and confided this orphan, a child of four years old, to her protection. He bequeathed to him all the property he had, and willed that in case of the child's death it should pass to my wife, as the only acknowledgment he could make her for her care and love. He exchanged a few brotherly words with me, deploring our long separation, and being exhausted, fell into a slumber from which he never awoke.

We had no children, and as there had been a strong affection between the sisters, and my wife had almost supplied the place of a mother to this boy, she loved him as if he had been her own. The child was ardently attached to her; but he was his mother's image in face and spirit, and always mistrusted me.

I can hardly fix the date when the feeling first came upon me, but I soon began to be uneasy when this child was by. I never roused myself from some moody train of thought, but I marked him looking at me; not with mere childish wonder, but with something of the purpose and meaning that I had so often noted in his mother. It was no effort of my fancy, founded on close resemblances of feature and expression. I never could look the boy down. He feared me, but seemed by some instinct to despise me, while he did so; and even when he drew back beneath my gaze-as he would when we were alone, to get nearer to the door-he would keep his bright eyes upon me still.

Perhaps I hide the truth from myself, but I do not think that, when this began, I meditated to do him any wrong. I may have thought how serviceable his inheritance would be to us, and may have wished him dead, but I believe I had no thought of compassing his death. Neither did the idea come upon me at once, but by very slow degrees, presenting itself at first in dim shapes at a very great distance, as men may think of an earthquake or the last day-then drawing nearer and nearer, and losing something of its horror and improbability-then coming to be part and parcel, nay nearly the whole sum and substance of my daily thoughts, and resolving itself into a question of means and safety; not of doing or abstaining from the deed.

While this was going on within me, I never could

would steal up stairs and watch him as he slept, but usually I hovered in the garden near the window of the room in which he learnt his little tasks, and there as he sat upon a low seat beside my wife, I would peer at him for hours together from behind a tree; starting like the guilty wretch I was at every rustling of a leaf, and still gliding back to look and start again.

Hard by our cottage, but quite out of sight, and (if there were any wind astir) of hearing too, was a deep sheet of water. I spent days in shaping with my pocketknife, a rough model of a boat, which I finished at last and dropped in the child's way. Then I withdrew to a secret place which he must pass if he stole away alone to swim this bauble, and lurked there for his coming. He came neither that day nor the next, though I waited from noon till nightfall. I was sure that I had him in my net, for I had heard him prattling of the toy, and knew that in his infant pleasure he kept it by his side in bed. I felt no weariness or fatigue, but waited patiently, and on the third day he passed me, running joyously along with his silken hair streaming in the wind, and he singing-God have mercy upon me-singing a merry ballad, who could hardly lisp the words.

I stole down after him, creeping under certain shrubs which grow in that place, and none but devils know with what terror I, a strong, full grown man, tracked the footsteps of that baby as he approached the water's brink. I was close upon him, had sunk upon my knee and raised my hand to thrust him in, when he saw my shadow in the stream and turned him round.

His mother's ghost was looking from his eyes. The sun burst forth from behind a cloud: it shone in the bright sky, the glistening earth, the clear water, the sparkling drops of rain upon the leaves. There were eyes in every thing. The whole great universe of light was there to see the murder done. I know not what he said; he came of bold and manly blood, and child as he was, he did not crouch or fawn upon me. I heard him cry that he would try to love me-not that he did-and then I saw him running back towards the house. The next I saw was my own sword naked in my hand, and and he laying at my feet stark dead; dabbed here and there with blood, but otherwise no different from what I had seen him in his sleep—in the same attitude too, with his cheek resting upon his little hand.

I took him in my arms and laid him-very gently now that he was dead-in a thicket. My wife was from home that day, and would not return until the next. Our bed-room window, the only sleeping room on that side of the house, was but a few feet from the ground, and I resolved to descend from it at night, and bury him in the garden. I had no thought that I had failed in my design, no thought that the water would be dragged and nothing found, that the money must now lay waste, since I must encourage the idea that the child was lost or stolen. All my thoughts were bound up and knotted together in the one absorbing necessity of hiding what I had done.

How I felt when they came to tell me that the child was missing, when I ordered scouts in all directions, when I gasped and trembled at every one's approach, no tongue can tell or mind of man conceive. I buried him that night. When I parted the boughs, and looked into the dark thicket, there was a glow-worm shining like the visible spirit of God upon the murdered child. I glanced

down into his grave when I placed him there, and still | what a man gained by such a deed, no one better, but I it gleaned upon his breast: an eye of fire to king up to held my peace, and shivered as with an ague. Heaven in supplication to the stars that watched me at my work.

I had to meet my wife, and break the news, and give ber hope that the child would soon be found. All this I did-with some appearance, I suppose, of being sincere. for I was the object of no suspicion. This done I sat at the bed-room window all day long, and watched the spot where the dreadful secret lay.

It was in a piece of ground which had been dug up to be newly turfed, and which I had chosen on that account, as the traces of my spade were less likely to attract attention. The men who laid down the grass must have thought me mad. I called to them continually to expedite their work, ran out and worked beside them. trod the turf with my feet, and hurried them with frantic eagerness. They had fiuished their task before night, and then I thought myself comparatively safe.

Mistaking my emotion, they were endeavouring to cheer me with the hope that the boy would certainly be found—great cheer that was for me—when we heard a low, deep howl, and presently there sprung over the wall two great dogs, who, bounding into the garden, repeated the baying sound we had heard before.

"Blood-hounds!" cried my visitors.

What need to tell me that! I had never seen one of that kind in all my life, but I knew what they were, and for what purpose they had come. I grasped the elbows of my chair, and neither spoke nor moved.

They are of the genuine breed," said the man whom I had known abroad, and being out for exercise have no doubt escaped from their keeper. What noble ani mals they are!"

But he and his friend turned to look at the dogs, who, with their noses to the ground, moved restlessly about,

I slept-not as men do who wake refreshed and cheer-running to and fro, and up and down, and across, and ful, but I did sleep, passing from vague and shadowy round in circles, careering about like wild things, and all dreams of being hunted down, to visions of the plot of this time taking no notice of us, but ever and again liftgrass, through which now a hand and now a foot and now the head itself was starting out. At this point always woke and stole to the window to make sure that it was not really so. That done, I crept to bed again, and thus I spent the night in fits and starts, getting up and lying down full twenty times, and dreaming the same dream over and over again-which was far worse than lying awake, for every dream had a whole night's suffering of its own. Once I thought that the child was alive, and that I had never tried to kill him. To wake from that dream was the most dreadful agony of all.

The next day I sat at the window again, never once taking my eyes from the place, which, although it was covered by the grass, was as plain to me-its shape, its size, its depth, its jagged sides, and all—as if it had been open to the light of day. When a servant walked across it, I felt as if he must sink in; when he had passed, I looked to see that his feet had not worn the edges. If a bird alighted there, I was in terror lest by some tremendous interposition it should be instrumental in the discovery; if a breath of air sighed across it, to me it whis pered murder. There was not a sight or sound, how ordinary, mean, or unimportant soever, but was fraught with fear. And in this state of ceaseless watching I spent three days.

On the fourth, there came to the gate one who had served with me abroad, accompanied by a brother officer of his whom I had never seen. I felt that I could not bear to be out of sight of the place. It was a summer evening, and I bade my people take a table and a flask of wine into the garden. There I sat down with my chair upon the grave, and being assured that nobody could disturb it now, without my knowledge, tried to drink and falk.

They hoped that my wife was well-that she was not obliged to keep ber chamber-that they had not frightened her away. What could I do but tell them with a faltering tongue about the child? The officer whom I did not know was a down looking man, and kept his eyes upon the ground while I was speaking. Even that terrified me! I could not divest myself of the idea that he saw something there which caused him to suspect the truth. I asked hurriedly if he supposed that—and stopped. That the child has been murdered?" said he, looking mildly at me. "Oh, no! what could a man gain

ing their heads and repeating the yell we had heard already, then dropping their noses to the ground again, and tracking earnestly here and there. They now began to snuff the earth more eagerly than they had done yet, and although they were still very restless, no longer beat about in such wide circuits, but kept near to one spot, and constantly diminished the distance between themselves and me.

At last they came up close to the great chair on which I sat, and raising their frightful bowl once more, tried to tear away the wooden rails that kept them from the ground beneath. I saw how I looked in the faces of the two who were with me.

They scent some prey," said they, both together. "They scent no prey!" cried I.

"In Heaven's name, move," said the one I knew, very earnestly, "or you will be torn to pieces."

"Let them tear me limb from limb, I'll never leave this place!” cried I. “Are dogs to hurry men to shame. ful death? Hew them down, cut them in pieces.”

"There is some foul mystery here!" said the officer whom I did not know, drawing his sword. "In King Charles's name, assist me to secure this man."

They both set upon me, and forced me away, though I fought, and bit, and caught at them like a madman. After a struggle they got me quietly between them, and then, my God! I saw the angry dogs tearing at the earth, and throwing it up into the air like water.

What more have I to tell! That I fell upon my knees, and with chattering teeth confessed the truth, and prayed to be forgiven. That I bave since denied and now confess to it again. That I have been tried for the crime, found guilty, and sentenced. That I have not the courage to anticipate my doom, or to bear up manfully against it. That I have no compassion, no consolation, no hope, no friend. That my wife has happily lost for the time those faculties which would enable her to know my misery or hers. That I am alone in this stone dungeon with my evil spirit, and that I die to-morrow!

PERSONAL ADVENTURES OF MASTER HUM.
PHREY.

THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP.

Night is generally my time for walking. In the sum

by murdering a poor child!" I could have told him mer I often leave home early in the morning, and rosm