Hush, my dear friend-let me throw this great-coat over you." bloo "But I must speak," said I, my senses still wandering" Where am I?-who are you? A Yes," replied I, gazing at him in- I had not as vet opened my dudt. Good God, h eyes, being daunted at the idea of encountering the dreary darkness of the grave. But my courage being somewhat augmented by the foregoing events, I endeavoured to open them, This was impossible; and, on examination, I found that they were bandaged, my head being encircled with a fillet. On endeavouring to loosen it, I lost my balance, and tumbled down with a hideous noise. I did not merely fall upon the bottom of the coffin, as might be expected; on the contrary, I seemed to roll off it, and fell lower, it it were, into some vault underneath. In endeavouring to arrest this strange descent, I caught hold of the coffin, and pulled it on the top of me. Nor was this all; for, before I could account for such a train of extraordinary accidents below ground, and while yet stupified and bewilder ed, I heard a door open, and, in an in stant after, human voices. "What, in Heaven's name, ca can be the meaning 3 $19 XIX. The coffin that I was in. The coffin," said he, smiling, “I suppose it remains where it was put the day before yesterday." I rubbed my eyes ide you bluoW with vexation, not 3X Knowing what to make of these per plexing circumstances. I mean, said I," the coffind that is the coffin I drew over upon me when I fell," wond "I do not know of any coffin," ant swered he, laughing heartily: "but I know very well that you have pulled be so inhuman as to make the scoundrels bury me again midson biss.d 70 Now, Stadt, rejoined he, with smile, you are a strange fellow. You were angry at the men for raising you and now you are angry at me for endeavouring upon yourself my good mahogany ta interring your their error by re 1 “How the deuce was I to know that, my dear boy? odw beadreborum -Very true. Go on, doctor, and excuse me for interrupting you so often." Well," continued he, the men carried you last night to deposit you in your long home, when, as fate would have it, they were prevented by a rdiculous fellow of a tailor, who, for a trifling wager, had engaged to sit up alone, during the whole night, in the church yard, exactly at the spot where your grave lay. So they brought you back to the College, resolving to inter you to-night, if the tailor, or the devil himself should stand in their way. Your timely resuscitation will save them this trouble. At the same time, if you are still offended at them, they will be very happy to take you back, and you may yet enjoy the foli city of being buried alive." ble; there it lies."19 And, on looking," But you forgot that I was to come I observed the large table which stood alive "bad I in the middle of the hall, overturned upon the floorais Doctor Wunderdudt (her was sprofessor of anatomy to the college) now made me retire, and had me put in bed till clothing could be procured. But I would not allow him to depart till he had unravelled the strange web of perplexity in which I Estill found myself involved Nothing would satisfy me but a philosophical solution of the problem, "Why was I -not buried alive as I bad reason to exIpect The doctor expounded this -intricate point in the following manEnero quote a sedt guig bolwond "The day before yesterday," said the "I informed the resurrectionists in the service of the university, that I I was ins wants of a subject desiring them at the same time to set to work "with all speed. That very night they returned, assuring me that they had fished up one which would answer to a hair, both being young and vigorous. In order to inform myself of the quality of what they brought me, I examined the body, when, to my indignar tion and grief, I found that they had disinterred my excellent friend, ME Frederick Stadt, who had been buried the same day." 1 דו -i Such was a simple statement of of the fact, delivered in the Professor's goodhumoured and satirical style; and from it the reader may guess what a narrow escape I had from the most dreadful of deaths, and how much I am indebted, in the first instance, to the stupid blundering of the resurrec aralortionists, and, in the second, to the tai"What!" said I, starting up from lor. I returned to my own house as the bed, did they disinternmehsoon as possible, to the no small mory the scoundrels." a bansah od goar tification of my cousin, who was pro"You may well call them coun-ceeding to invest himself with all that drels," said the professor," for pre-belonged to me. I made him refund eventing a gentleman from enjoying without ceremony, and altered my will, the pleasure of being buried alive. The which had been made in his favour Ideed was certainly most felonious; not forgetting in so doing his refusal and, if you are at all anxious, I shall to let my body remain two days longer To have them reported to the Syndic, and unburied A day or two afterwards I tried for their impertinentinterference. saw a funeral pass by, which, on inquiBut to proceedre No sooner did I vob-vry, Llearned to be Wolstang's. He died serve that they had fallen upon you suddenly, as I was informed, and some than I said, My good men, this will persons remarked it as a curious event never do. You have brought me here that his death happened at precisely my worthy friend, Mr. Stadt. I can- the same moment as my return to life. not feel in my heart to anatomize him, This was merely mentioned as a passso just carry him quietly back to this ing observation, but no inference was old quarters, and I shall m pay you his deduced from it. The old domestic price, and something over and above."" in Wolstang's house gave a wonderful "What!?' said I, again interrupting account of his death, mentioning the the doctor," is it possible you could hour at which he said he was to die, full, Dean only attest by my own word, except indeed the affair of the coming alive, which everybody in Gottingen knows of. If any doubt the more uns likely parts of the detail, I cannot help it. I have not written this with the With respect to myself, I excited a view of empty fame, and still less of great talk, receiving invitations to dine profit. Philosophy has taught me to with almost respectable fami- despise the former, and my income honour renders the latter an object of no imDedi-portance. I merely do it to put my fellow citizens on their guard against the machinations of the old fellow with the snuff-coloured surtout, the scarlet waistcoat, and the wooden leg. Above all, they should carefully abstain from signing any paper he may present to them, however plausible his offers may be. By mere thoughtlessness in this respect, I brought myself into a multitude of dangers and difficulties, from which every one in the same predicament may not escape so easily as I have done. I shall concludes with acknowledging that a strong change has been wrought in my opinions; and that from ridiculing the doctrines of the sage of Samos,I am now one of their firmest supporters In a word, I am what I have designated myself, Yeddi A MODERN PYTHAGOREAN." Bad you see on guitar border of Towear blow doidw sao qu bedant -boog a'zoaastor ed ai berovilsh to Buorogir bas gavor quied dood nieda b. ¿olym formae bas bowomed up sitt to say motor of 2.10 sodw 16.9 ti a.t -25 I m sdqLord yods tadw to yell teo. eds it bad I THE COUNTRY CURATE nodwybod odt to.me I do. od base to IEs. 15 bad god tada bauot Itsiny bus cit of 99.32-a de 2 ed ai bat biCHAPTER VI.it doellooze ym berstuiaib -COTEST 9ft to gribuul! Siqut: ede beinud used bad odw bes2 dobor -Est odt ut bon si ai base The Smugglers, end a q of Lommuter I .1 [ -7 AMONG all the youths that attended Divine service at church of St Alphage, there was none, at least in my day, to be compared, either in point of manly beauty or rustic accomplish-tell. All that I know is, that at his ments, with Will Brockman. Will death he left his widowing possesswas the only son of his mother, and sion of a comfortable dwelling, situated she was a widow. His father, who, on the extremel edge of any parish of I to use the colloquial phraseology of bea sum in ready money, the amount of this coast, had followed the sea from which no one accurately knew of the bhis childhood, perished one ne stormy-dwhole and sole property in a barge and onight, in a vain though gallant attempt a pinnace together with a couple of 3 to bring assistance to a vessel in dis-shares in a neat dugger, famous for its tress; and Will, who was then an in-91 fast sailing, and called the Dreadought. Possessed of this fortune, Mrs Brockman naturally became an object of desire to such of her late husband's companions as were bachelors. The father of her boy had not been in his grave a year, before she was immog sets. b dr fant, formed from that hour the only solace of a kind-hearted and amiable mother. The elder Brockman had, it appeared, been successful in his speculations. Whether these were always such as to defy scrutiny, or whether, RED OF M ad bin un to Tuod ".yab oma cit a gu gainate I bias"! to W≫ in common with the rest or his townsmen, he deemed it no act of dishonesty to defraud the revenue saoften as circumstances would allow cannot 19 portuned on all hands to change her condition; but to such proposals she turned a deaf ear, and transferring to her son all the love she ever felt for her husband, she continued in her widow ed state up to the hour of her decease. At the period of which I now write, Will bad attained his three-and-twen tieth year; in height, he measured rather more than six feet. His form, though apparently slender, was well knit and put together; his step was light and free, and gave notice of a sur passing degree of agility and vigour; no man along the coast could pull a better oar, or more skilfully manage a rudder or a sail, when the wind was high and the sea rough. Will's hair was of a raven blackness, and hung about his temples and forehead in thick short curls; his eye was of the hue of the sloe when it is fully ripe; his complexion wasa clear olive, slight ly tinged with vermilion; and his skin, notwithstanding a frequent exposure: to the elements, as well in summer as in winter, still retained the purity and delicacy of its texture. Yet he was not critically beautiful. His was a countenance which pleased more be cause of its general expression of good humourand high courage, than that the features were strictly regular; for his nose was perhaps too long, and his mouth rather too wide. But then his teeth were pieces of the brightest and most polished ivory, and there was a beam in his eye, and a lightening up of every feature when he smiled, which few maidens could watch with in difference. Such was Will Brockman when first I saw him, about four years. after my arrival in the parish; and I must say, that when he stood in the church-yard, in his jacket and trowsers of fine blue cloth, his white stockings and well-cleaned shoes, I could not wonder at the degree of honest pride with which his widowed mother re garded him. The events of his short life, previ ous to the commencement of our ac quaintance, may be related in few words. Like other youths brought up by the sea-side, Will early exhibited all predilection for a maritime life; and as Mrs Brockman appeared to consider the coasting trade, and the business of a dredger, as of all others the most perilous, she determined to send her son into the service of a company of mer chants, whose ships navigated between London and the Baltic. At the age of thirteen he accordingly entered upon his apprenticeship. This expiring in four years he was taken when sevens teen years old, as an able seaman on board the Neptune, where his attention to his duties, and his general activity and intelligence, soon recommended him for favour and promotion! fe had hardly reached his twentieth year, when he received the appointment of second mate his preferment to the rank of first mate occurred the year after and when he and I met for the first time, he was on leave of absence of an indefinite extent, waiting till the brig Britannia should be fitted out for service, of which he was to be put in command. Right joyous had the widow's heart been many days before he made his appearance, at the prospect of once more having her boy under her roof, safe and sound from the perils of the deep. No fewer than five years had elapsed since her arms last embraced him; and now he was to return to them loaded with honours, and what was of far more weight in her eyes, worthy to be honoured by all good men. Happy woman was she, when, at a late hour on Saturday night, her brave and handsome son burst into her parlour; and proud was her bearing when she entered the house of God, leaning upon his stalwart arm, on the morning after. There dwelt in the parish at this time a family of the name of Petley, of whom, from the father down to the youngest child, no one thought well. The old man was by trade a marketgardener, but he paid so little attention to the cultivation of his land, that it would have been matter of surprise how he contrived to live, had not his neighbours been pretty well assured, that he looked to it but little for a subsistence. He was a widower. His domestic circle consisted of three sons and a daughter, the eldest about thirty, the youngest, Harriet, hardly nine teen. The boys professed to be fishermen. They owned a boat among them, with which they made frequent voyages, no one cared to inquire whither; but if these voyages were made în search of fish, they were generally far from being successful. The fact, in deed, was, that fishing constituted mere excuse for the prosecution of another, and a more perilous vocation. They were smugglers,» daring, intre ped, unprincipled smugglers-men who were known to carry arms about their persons whenever they set out upon an adventure, and who profess ed, and professed truly, not to set their own lives, or the lives of others, at a pin's value. They were anculof vio lence from their youth up, dissolute fu their habits, proud and bold in their deportment, and what in the eyes of their neighbours at least, was worst of all, they were men without one particle of honour. No one herded with them, no one dared to trust them. They stood perfectly alone, for they bad on various occasions betrayed a companion in illicit transactions, and were universally shutined in consequence. frams Of the daughter Harriet, it grieves me to speak in the terms which truth requires. Never have my eyes rested upon a female face or form more per fectly beautiful: Her brown hair hung in glossy ringlets over her neck, and parted upon a forehead purerand whiter than the purest alabaster, in which every blue vein could be distinctly traced, like streaks in the polished marble, Her eye of dark hazel could languish or laugh, as suited the humour of the moment, with equal effect; her little mouth spoke volumes, as the smile or the sneer curled it; her fi gure, neither tall nor short, was a piece of the most exquisite symmetry. Yet, with all these outward charms, Harriet was a bad girl; and she was not the less bad, that she was absolutely chaste. Cold, calculating, and hypocritical, she had been taught from her childhood to square every action, and to fashion every look, according to the dictates of interest. All the lads in the parish admired her, and almost all had, for a time, dangled after her. But they gradually ceased to court one, who favoured their addresses, only so far as she found them pliable; and who made no other use of her power over them, than to entangle them into a ruinous connexion with her brothers. Young Brockman had been so long absent, that of the character of this family he knew nothing. The sons had all been his school-fellows; one was about his own age; and when they last parted, no such stigma was known to attach to them. It was therefore but natural that he should meet their advances with the cordiality of other days, and freely accept their invita tion to come and partake of the produce of the farm. This was given after divine service, on the very first Sunday which he spent amongst us; and coming as it did, from the ruby lips of Harriet, no one could feel surprise that it was not declined ; for with the precipitancy of his years, Will's admiration grew at once into passion, and before he had exchanged two sentences with his old acquaintance, he became her devoted slave.h From that unlucky hour, Will bes came a constant visitor at the house of John Petley. His mother, from whom the state of his feelings could not long remain a secret, did her best to break off the connexion. She took, I believe, the injudicious course which most mo thers take, when their sons and daugh ters chance to ferme an improper at. tachment; that is to say, she never neglected any legitimate opportunity of speaking slightingly of Harriet, nor greatly scrupled to invent one, when it occurred not of its own accord. Buth her plans proved as fruitless as sucha plans generally prove, and the more she railed at the object of his attenɔ tions, the more devotedly and warmly attached to that object he became. Matters went, indeed, so far at last, that she absolutely longed for the ar rival of the communication which was again to separate her from the only being upon earth whom she truly loved pi so firmly was she convinced, that her? son's intercourse with the Petleys could end in no good, and would probably lead to his ruin. 八期 Nor had much time elapsed before the consequences of his misplaced at tachment began to appear in the habits and behaviour of young Brockman. Whole days were now spent ats Petley's house, and some of the lowest and worst characters along the coast were his companions. Many a time his mother sat up, in expectation of his return, till long past midnight; and when he did return, was shockedp to find him in a state of outrageousine W briety. His money, too, began to run short; cards, of which the good woman' entertained a grievous horror, became his favourite diversion; and a rumour gradually gained ground that much of it was lost at play. When Sunday morning came round, he had always some excuse ready, why he should”! |