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heard the voice of Fate, after long silence, announcing a terrible consummation.

"A long and fearful tragedy has passed before my eyes," said the widow, to Mary Stanley; "but I feel that the catastrophe is fast approaching. John Manesty will never be taken alive, depend on that. He cannot, however, escape-he cannot escape! His last journey has come. He is flying, with whirlwind speed, to death. Dreadful reprobate as he is, I cannot help pitying him. My heart is overladen. Bear with me, Mary!" continued she, bursting into a passionate flood of tears.

The deepening mystery which hung over Mrs. Yarington drew Mary Stanley from her own sorrows, for not even these could hinder the strong emotion of curiosity. She burned with impatience to learn the strange facts concealed in the widow's bosom. But so bitter seemed the sufferings of the latter, that Mary viewed them with silent respect; and Mrs. Yarington, after endeavouring without success to regain her composure, retired to the solitude of her own room. meditations there are known only to herself and Heaven.

Her

In the morning, she appeared more calm and collected, though something in her deameanour seemed to indicate that her serenity was forced. She inquired of the servants if any fresh news had been heard of Manesty. On their answering in the negative, she expressed surprise, adding, "He cannot escape: the world is not wide enough to afford him a hiding-place. Wretched man! he will never sleep again, unless it be the final sleep."

"And Hugh," said Mary Stanley-" surely Hugh can be in no danger? He is too good-too honourable to be implicated in the deeds of his father."

"His father!" echoed Mrs. Yarington. 66 Manesty his father?"

Why do you call John

"Alas!" responded Mary, "perhaps I have betrayed his confidence. You, dear Mrs. Yarington, will not, I am sure, take advantage of my want of caution."

"Did he tell you this himself?" asked the widow.

"Yes."

"Poor Hugh! What must be his agony!" ejaculated Mrs. Yarington. "For many years," continued she, "the great longing of my heart has been to visit Wolsterholme Castle. This could not be gratified, because the place had fallen, by purchase, into the hands of John Manesty, and because I heard he visited it frequently. I have already told you, that not for worlds would I stand in presence of that But when his career shall be over-when the grave has closed on him--I would fain again see Wolsterholme. It was the haunt of my youth, Mary. Will you go thither with me?"

man.

"Willingly," responded Miss Stanley.

"And Hugh shall go with us too," said Mrs. Yarington. "The place is deserted, vacant, and in ruins; but I am told its quaint and formal garden still exists; and one of the rooms, called the gardenroom, has been kept in repair by John Manesty. That he should go to this room once a-year, and seclude himself in it, is the only good thing I know of the ruthless merchant. God knows he had reason enough to make an annual vigil there! To stand once more in that room, with young Manesty and you, Mary, by my side, will indeed be balm to my heart."

"You have often, by obscure hints, dearest Mrs. Yarington," said Mary, "roused my curiosity. You speak of Manesty and Hugh, as if in your hands, and yours alone, some all-important secret touching them was deposited."

"Not of themselves only," responded the widow.

"Of whom else?" interrogated Mary. "Speak." "Of myself."

"Then why not confide in me?" pursued Miss Stanley. "You know how my life is bound up in that of Hugh. I cherish, moreover, a deep and affectionate interest in yourself. Judge, then, how torturing to me is this suspense."

"I may not speak," hurriedly exclaimed Mrs. Yarington, "while John Manesty lives. After his death-for his speedy doom is inevitable-we will go to Wolsterholme. Something will be found in the garden-room to corroborate my story. Then and there, you shall know all."

HILDEBRAND; OR, THE DAYS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.*

THE time of Elizabeth is a period of which chroniclers on the one hand, and romance-readers on the other, have been as yet little disposed to tire. Those have proved golden days indeed, at least to literature; and these volumes convey a token that the old rich veins of English character, hazardous adventure, and glorious historical association characteristic of that day, have not, even up to this late hour, been worked out and exhausted.

The writer who has here ventured to construct a romance of the Elizabethan era, under the title of Hildebrand, is probably younger and less experienced than some of the popular artists by which many of the events of that time, and several of the leading lights of the golden age, have already been depicted; but he has a sufficient grasp of the subject, enough knowledge of its various bearings, and of the agencies by which, if successful, he must work his spells over the sensibility and imagination of readers, to justify his choice. Indeed, he may not unnaturally have conceived that the splendour which invests his dramatis personæ is alone sufficient to cover, at least, as many deficiencies as he has to answer for; and that with ordinary skill, and a due regard to the picturesque and the animated in incident, no narrative could lack interest which brings bodily before us such undying favorites as the great Elizabethans. No doubt, to the magic which belongs to the names of Cecil and Burleigh, Essex and Leicester, Raleigh and Drake-not to glance scarcely at the sovereign lady of the land, who is in herself a tragi-comedy, and to say nothing at all of Shakspeare, the subject greater than sovereigns-to the magic of these and other illustrious names, this story may owe a considerable portion of its charm. But apart from the spirit with which the more palpably historical portion of the tale is conducted, and the frequent dexterity and power with which remarkable persons and events are sketched, (the character of Sir Walter having more especially tasked the author's best powers of discrimination and enthusiasm, and constituting indeed his most continuous and effective effort,) there is in the story of the young Hildebrand and his voyages, a dash of good old English adventure not inadequately represented; and far more assuredly, is there in the development of Spanish character, and the portrayal of powerful passion and exquisite sentiment in the devoted and hapless Inez, contrasted with the tenderer and more regulated heroism, more enduring though less ill-fated, of the English maiden Evaline-a quality of romance, wanting neither in the capacity to excite pity or terror, to kindle curiosity, or sustain sorrow!

* An Historical Romance. By the Author of the King's Son. 3 vols.

THE PRUSSIAN PADDY GRENADIER.

BY R. B. PEAKE.

PART II.

Ir was a small, oddly-shaped chamber into which the Jew and the grenadier were introduced; on various shelves were placed crucibles. Seated at a furnace, in a corner of the room, was an aged Jew, of sallow complexion, intent in his employ over a melting-pot, and he was with a large blow-pipe increasing the heat of his fire. He started and trembled on perceiving a tall soldier in uniform. A word, however, in Hebrew, from Shadrach, restored him to composure.

Shadrach now inspected the pearl necklace, and made Pat Doyle an offer of a sum about the twentieth part of its value. As that sum exceeded the amount of rent due by Charlotte Baumer to her landlord, he readily agreed to take it. The two Jews exchanged glances that plainly intimated that Mr. Doyle had stolen the pearls. Shadrach, however, paid him the stipulated sum.

"Now, while your hand is in," said Patrick, "what will you give me for this?" and he drew out the silver candlestick. A price was immediately offered, and accepted, when, to the Irishman's surprise, Shadrach took up a strong hammer, and in a trice beat the candlestick to pieces, and in five minutes the whole of them were in the meltingpot, and the sallow old Jew was puffing out his lanky cheeks with more energy than ever with the blow-pipe, at the same time holding his beard away from the fire, for fear of singeing that worshipful appendage.

In the meantime, one of the priests, accompanied by the verger, went to the commissary of police, and made a deposition as to the robbery and sacrilege that had been committed, as it was conjectured, by an exceeding tall grenadier; a police spy was sent instantly to the entrance of the Jews' suburb, and a second to the barracks, and there posted near the gate to watch the soldiers on their return for the evening parade.

The substance of the observations of the two police-officers to their principal was as follows, and entered on the minute-book:

:

Ferdinand Buncker deposed, that he saw a tall grenadier emerge from the Jews' Quarter; that the grenadier occasionally looked behind him as if to notice whether he was observed; that he then entered a small café, where he drank two glasses of brandy, in payment for which he tendered a florin; he then hastily made his way to the Riverstreet, where he ascended the staircase of the house No. 28; that shortly afterwards he came forth accompanied by a female, by name Charlotte Baumer, mender and cleaner of lace, who walked with him to the gate of the barracks.

The major of the regiment on guard had placed Corporal Muller at the gate, the moment he heard of the robbery, and each grenadier as he entered was ordered to file to the right into the guard-room, where the police-officer was stationed, who had directions of the major to search every soldier minutely and individually.

Claus Schroeder, police-officer, deposed that he, by the orders of

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the major, searched the pockets and persons of several grenadiers in the guard-room, at the entrance of the barracks; that on the first half dozen soldiers there were found only a few kreutzers and groschens, but on examining one Patrick Doyle, a foreigner in the service, he discovered a Frederic d'or, a ducat, and several florins. For the possession of this money the said Patrick Doyle could not satisfactorily account; on a more minute examination, a single pearl was found in a corner of the pocket of Doyle.

In consequence of this, Pat Doyle was escorted by a guard of his comrades, led by Corporal Muller, to the congée-house, or black-hole of the barracks, to pass the evening as agreeably as was compatible with his situation.

In the meantime, a powerful stir was made amongst the Romancatholic population, at the gross insult and sacrilege committed at their sacred shrine. And the following morning a requisition, signed by the bishop and other dignitaries of the church of Posen, demanded that the delinquent should be delivered over to the civil power, to be dealt with according to his crime.

As the military commandant at Posen considered this to be an unprecedented case, (in war time in other countries excepted, when he and half his regiment had plundered churches and convents wholesale,) he consented to the wishes of the papist clergy, and after the due forms, Patrick Doyle was delivered up, and was placed to take his trial for the offence.

In the interim the police had been active; the single pearl that had become detached from the necklace, gave them a clue. The Jews' Quarter was so closely assailed, that friend Shadrach was induced, unwillingly it must be said, to appear as evidence against the Irishman. There could not now remain a shadow of hope for him, and the more bigoted portion of the papists were anticipating with some feelings of exultation and excitement, a public burning of the tall foreign grenadier in the market-place.

The day of trial came. The court was crowded; the novelty and enormity of the case had powerfully interested the Roman catholics, to which persuasion the principal judge and the advocates employed to prove the guilt of the prisoner, belonged.

The fine tall broad-chested Milesian was gazed at as a sort of wild beast, when he denied his guilt. The trial proceeded, during which, one of the advocates, rather incautiously, asked the prisoner in what religion he had been brought up.

The advocate

"The Roman catholic," answered Pat, undauntedly. had been in hopes that Doyle as coming from Great Britain, would have professed the Protestant faith, and this might have given him an opportunity of exercising his eloquence and pious learning on the doctrines of heresy and schism, and he was perfectly prepared with argument founded on history, from the time that the monastic system was warmly resisted by Vigilantius, who thus incurred the enmity of Jerome, down to modern periods. The simple answer, therefore, of Mr. Doyle, completely upset the effect of an ocean of the advocate's learning.

The trial went on-the evidence was adduced; the verger-old Mrs. Mabel M'Gregor were examined; Shadrach proved the sale of

the pearl necklace and the candlestick. There was not a doubt on the matter to a single person in the whole court.

The prisoner was called on for his defence, when Pat Doyle, drawing himself up with astonishing self-possession, denied the commission of any theft, saying, that the Holy Virgin, from pity to his poverty,

HAD PRESENTED HIM WITH THE OFFERINGS!

Mrs. M'Gregor had certainly deposed that she heard the prisoner ejaculate, as in prayer, the words, "BLESSED VIRGIN, HELP MY POVERTY."

As this was the only defence Pat Doyle had to offer, the court, affecting some little deliberation, doomed him to death as a sacrilegious robber.

Just at this time, Frederic the Second was personally superintending, with his accustomed activity, an inspection of all his regiments in quarters, rapidly travelling from place to place.

In a brief report from Count Ferhbellin, the colonel of the regiment to which the Irishman belonged, the colonel minutely detailed this singular case, to his majesty. On the king making some further inquiry, with the very extraordinary memory (which he and other crowned heads have possessed) he recollected the tall, finely-formed grenadier, whom he had previously noticed at Berlin.

In Prussia, in 1784, (and it may be the law of the present time,) whatever number of sons a peasant had, they were all liable to be taken into the military service, except one who was left to assist in the management of the farm. The rest were decorated with badges from their childhood, to mark that they were destined to be shot at, whenever honourably called upon by their country. The army of Frederic the Second amounted to 220,000 men, including 40,000 cavalry. The maintaining so large a body of troops in a country naturally unequal to it, occasioned such a drain from the population, and such a withdrawal of strength from the tillage of the earth, that Frederic the Second endeavoured to save his own peasantry by bringing as many recruits as he could from other countries.

These foreign recruits remained continually in the regiments in which they were placed; but the native Prussians had every year some months furlough, during which they returned to the houses of their parents or brothers, and worked at the business of the farm, or in any handicraft in which they might have been brought up. Every foreign recruit was, therefore, of value in the eyes of the government.

His Majesty Frederic the Second, reigned absolute through all his dominions; he was a little jealous of the increase of catholicism, although all religions were tolerated. And as the Bishop of Posen and a conclave of popish divines had decidedly made up their minds that this despoiler of their church should become a terrible example, so his majesty of Prussia secretly determined that he would thwart their mild intentions.

To strengthen their case, the Roman-catholic clergy pressed his majesty to confirm the sentence of the court as a public warning. Frederic appointed a day, when he received the bishop and the most influential of the priesthood. His majesty listened with laudable patience to the facts and the arguments; but when it came to the point of defence which the prisoner had set up, that the Madonna had presented him with the offerings, the sagacity of his majesty predominated,

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