having been first compelled to take an oath never to reveal to him the ignominy she had endured. A detailed account of Victor's captivity-which lasted more than thirteen months-is extant; but it records nothing more interesting or dignified than miserable intrigues to obtain the change of some attendants, fury against Charles and the government, and groundless hopes of foreign intervention. Theresa, the only human being now in his power, he subjected to insults and cruelty, extending even to blows; and he alleged, in explanation of this treatment, that her refusal to counsel him on the summit of Mount Cenis had brought on him all his calamities. In the following April he was, by his own request, transferred to Moncalieri for the benefit of his health, now rapidly declining; but the infirmities of his old age, and maladies, exasperated doubtless by rage and grief, continued to gain ground, till he became doting and bed-ridden, spending all his time in building houses of cards. In the beginning of October his power of utterance failed, and he was supposed to be dying; but, before the closing scene, a brief interval of speech and consciousness was accorded the sufferer, who then appeared resigned, spoke of his past violence with sorrow, and expressed forgiveness of all his enemies, especially naming. the marquis and Charles, who was kept by the influence of those about him, from his father's death-bed. On the last day of the month Victor was fast sinking; the sobs of the marchesa, and the prayers of the capuchins, who alone watched his last hours, were mingled with the jarring noise of busy workmen; for D'Ormea, on learning that his old master was in extremis, despatched orders for the immediate removal of the prison wall, that no trace of it might offend the king's eye when he came to attend his father's obsequies. Towards evening, a monk who knelt by the bedside, uncertain whether the dying ear could take in his exhortations held up the crucifix, and said, "Sire, if you hear me-if you forgive others that you yourself may be forgiven, kiss this sign of our salvation." Victor embraced it with fervour, and soon after expired. On the 1st of November, 1732, the Marquis di Borgo arrived at Moncalieri to receive the formal announcement of the king's decease; and a few days afterwards the remains of Victor Amadeus were laid with royal pomp in the vaults of the Superga, the monument of his crowning victory, and the mausoleum of his house. CHAPTER XL. HUE AND CRY.. AT the end of a gusty wild October afternoon a man leading two horses was marching up and down the little plot of short turf at the top of the Hawkslynch. Every now and then he would stop on the brow of the hill to look over the village, and seemed to be waiting for somebody from that quarter. After being well blown he would turn to his prome firs, through which the rising southwest wind, rushing up from the vale below, was beginning tomake a moan; and, hitching the horses to some stump or bush, and patting and coaxing them to induce them, if so might be, to stand quiet for a while, would try to settle himself to leeward of one of the larger trees. But the fates were against all attempts at repose. He had scarcely time to produce a cheroot from his case and light it under many difficulties, when the horses would begin fidgeting, and pulling at their tails to the wind. They clearly did not understand the necessity of the position, and were inclined to be moving stablewards. So he had to get up again, sling the bridles over his arm, and take to his march up and down the plot of turf; now stopping for a moment or two to try to get his cheroot to burn straight, and pishing and pshawing over its perverseness; now going again and again to the brow, and looking along the road which led to the village, holding his hat on tight with one hand-for by this time it was blowing half a gale of wind. Though it was not yet quite the hour for his setting, the sun had disappeared behind a heavy bank of wicked slatecoloured cloud, which looked as though it were rising straight up into the western heavens, while the wind whirled along and twisted into quaint shapes a ragged rift of light vapour, which went hurrying by, almost touching the tops of the moaning firs. Altogether an uncanny evening to be keeping tryst at the top of a wild knoll; and so thought our friend with the horses, and showed it, too, clearly enough, had any one been there to put a construction on his impatient movements. There was no one nearer than the village, half-a-mile and more away; so, by way of passing the time, we must exercise our privilege of putting into words what he is half-thinking, halfmuttering to himself— I "A pleasant night I call this, to be out on a wild goose chase. If ever I saw a screaming storm brewing, there it comes. I'll be hanged if I stop up here to be caught in it for all the crackbrained friends I ever had in the world; and I seem to have a faculty for picking up none but cracked-brained ones. wonder what the plague can keep him so long; he must have been gone an hour. There steady, steady, old horse. Confound this weed! What rascals tobacconists are! You never can get a cheroot now worth smoking. Every one of them goes spluttering up the side, or charring up the middle, and tasting like tow Well, I suppose I shall get the real thing in India. "India! In a month from to-day we shall be off. To hear our senior major talk, one might as well be going to the bottomless pit at once. Well, he'll sell out, that's a comfort. Gives us a step, and gets rid of an old ruffian. I don't seem to care much what the place is like if we only get some work; and there will be some work there before long, by all accounts. No more garrison town life, at any rate. And if I have any luck- a man may get a chance there. "What the deuce can he be about? This all comes of sentiment, now. Why couldn't I go quietly off to India without bothering up to Oxford to see him? Not but what it's a pleasant place enough. I've enjoyed my three days there uncommonly. Food and drink all that can be wished, and plenty of good fellows and good fun. The look of the place, too, makes one feel respectable. But, by George, if their divinity is at all like their politics, they must turn out a queer set of parsons-at least if Brown picked up his precious notions at Oxford. He always was a headstrong beggar. What was it he was holding forth about last night? Let's see. The sacred right of insurrection.' Yes, that was it, and he talked as if he believed it all too; and, if there should be a row, which don't seem unlikely, by Jove I think he'd act on it in the sort of temper he's in. How about the sacred right of getting hung or transported? I shouldn't wonder to hear of that some day. Gad! suppose he should be in for an instalment of his sacred right to-night. He's capable of it, and of lugging me in with him. What did he say we were come here for? To get some fellow out of a scrape, he said— some sort of poaching radical fosterbrother of his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound. And we couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at the public, where I might have sat in the tap, and not run the chance of having my skin blown over my ears, and my teeth down my throat, on this cursed look-out place, because having been first compelled to take an oath never to reveal to him the ignominy she had endured. A detailed account of Victor's captivity-which lasted more than thirteen months-is extant; but it records nothing more interesting or dignified than miserable intrigues to obtain the change of some attendants, fury against Charles and the government, and groundless hopes of foreign intervention. Theresa, the only human being now in his power, he subjected to insults and cruelty, extending even to blows; and he alleged, in explanation of this treatment, that her refusal to counsel him on the summit of Mount Cenis had brought on him all his calamities. In the following April he was, by his own request, transferred to Moncalieri for the benefit of his health, now rapidly declining; but the infirmities of his old age, and maladies, exasperated doubtless by rage and grief, continued to gain ground, till he became doting. and bed-ridden, spending, all his time in building houses of cards. In the beginning of October his power of utterance failed, and he was supposed to be dying; but, before the closing scene, a brief interval of speech and consciousness was accorded the sufferer, who then appeared resigned, spoke of his past violence with sorrow, and expressed forgiveness of all his enemies, especially naming. the marquis and Charles, who was kept by the influence of those about him, from his father's death-bed. On the last day of the month Victor was fast sinking; the sobs of the marchesa, and the prayers of the capuchins, who alone watched his last hours, were mingled with the jarring noise of busy workmen; for D'Ormea, on learning that his old master was in extremis, despatched orders for the immediate removal of the prison wall, that no trace of it might offend the king's eye when he came to attend his father's obsequies. Towards evening, a monk who knelt by the bedside, uncertain whether the dying ear could take in his exhortations held up the crucifix, and said, "Sire, if you hear me—if you forgive others that you yourself may be forgiven, kiss this sign of our salvation." Victor embraced it with fervour, and soon after expired. On the 1st of November, 1732, the Marquis di Borgo arrived at Moncalieri to receive the formal announcement of the king's decease; and a few days afterwards the remains of Victor Amadeus were laid with royal pomp in the vaults of the Superga, the monument of his crowning victory, and the mausoleum of his house. TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. BY THE AUTHOR OF CHAPTER XL. HUE AND CRY.. AT the end of a gusty wild October afternoon a man leading two horses was marching up and down the little plot of short turf at the top of the Hawkslynch. Every now and then he would stop on the brow of the brill to look over the village, and seemed to be waiting for somebody from that quarter. After being well blown he would turn to his prome firs, through which the rising southwest wind, rushing up from the vale below, was beginning tomake a moan; and, hitching the horses to some stump or bush, and patting and coaxing them to induce them, if so might be, to stand quiet for a while, would try to settle himself to leeward of one of the larger trees. But the fates were against all attempts at repose. He had scarcely time to produce a cheroot from his case and light it under many difficulties, when the horses would begin fidgeting, and pulling at their tails to the wind. They clearly did not understand the necessity of the position, and were inclined to be moving stablewards. So he had to get up again, sling the bridles over his arm, and take to his march up and down the plot of turf; now stopping for a moment or two to try to get his cheroot to burn straight, and pishing and pshawing over its perverseness; now going again and again to the brow, and looking along the road which led to the village, holding his hat on tight with one hand-for by this time it was blowing half a gale of wind. Though it was not yet quite the hour for his setting, the sun had disappeared behind a heavy bank of wicked slatecoloured cloud, which looked as though it were rising straight up into the western heavens, while the wind whirled along and twisted into quaint shapes a ragged rift of light vapour, which went hurrying by, almost touching the tops of the moaning firs. Altogether an uncanny evening to be keeping tryst at the top of a wild knoll; and so thought our friend with the horses, and showed it, too, clearly enough, had any one been there to put a construction on his impatient movements. There was no one nearer than the village, half-a-mile and more away; so, by way of passing the time, we must exercise our privilege of putting into words what he is half-thinking, halfmuttering to himself I "A pleasant night I call this, to be out on a wild goose chase. If ever I saw a screaming storm brewing, there it comes. I'll be hanged if I stop up here to be caught in it for all the crackbrained friends I ever had in the world; and I seem to have a faculty for picking up none but cracked-brained ones. wonder what the plague can keep him so long; he must have been gone an hour. There steady, steady, old horse. Confound this weed! What rascals tobacconists are! You never can get a cheroot now worth smoking. Every one of them goes spluttering up the side, or charring up the middle, and tasting like tow Well, I suppose I shall get the real thing in India. "India! In a month from to-day we shall be off. To hear our senior major talk, one might as well be going to the bottomless pit at once. Well, he'll sell out, that's a comfort. Gives us a step, and gets rid of an old ruffian. I don't seem to care much what the place is like if we only get some work; and there will be some work there before long, by all accounts. No more garrison town life, at any rate. luck And if I have any -a man may get a chance there. "What the deuce can he be about? This all comes of sentiment, now. Why couldn't I go quietly off to India without bothering up to Oxford to see him? Not but what it's a pleasant place enough. I've enjoyed my three days there uncommonly. Food and drink all that can be wished, and plenty of good fellows and good fun. The look of the place, too, makes one feel respectable. But, by George, if their divinity is at all like their politics, they must turn out a queer set of parsons—at least if Brown picked up his precious notions at Oxford. He always was a headstrong beggar. What was it he was holding forth about last night? Let's see. The sacred right of insurrection.' Yes, that was it, and he talked as if he believed it all too; and, if there should be a row, which don't seem unlikely, by Jove I think he'd act on it in the sort of temper he's in. How about the sacred right of getting hung or transported? I shouldn't wonder to hear of that some day. Gad! suppose he should be in for an instalment of his sacred right to-night. He's capable of it, and of lugging me in with him. What did he say we were come here for? To get some fellow out of a scrape, he said— some sort of poaching radical fosterbrother of his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound. And we couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at the public, where I might have sat in the tap, and not run the chance of having my skin blown over › my ears, and my teeth down my throat, on this cursed look-out place, because that mean? Upon my soul it looks bad. They may be lynching a J. P. down there, or making a spread eagle of the parishconstable at this minute, for anything I know, and as sure as fate if they are I shall get my foot in it. "It will read sweetly in the Army News- 'A court-martial was held this day at Chatham, president, Colonel, Smith, of Her Majesty's 101st Regiment, to try Henry East, a Lieutenant in the same distinguished corps, who has been under arrest since the 10th ult., for aiding and abetting the escape of a convict, and taking part in a riot in the village of Englebourn, in the county of Berks. The defence of the accused was that he had a sentimental friendship for a certain Thomas Brown, an undergraduate of St. Ambrose College, Oxford, &c., &c.; and the sentence of the Court-' "Hang it! It's no laughing matter. Many a fellow has been broken for not making half such a fool of himself as I have done, coming out here on this errand. I'll tell T. B. a bit of my mind as sure as "Hullo! didn't I hear a shout? Only the wind, I believe. How it does blow! One of these firs will be down, I expect, just now. The storm will burst in a quarter of an hour. Here goes! I shall ride down into the village, let what will come of it. Steady now, steady. Stand still, you old fool; can't you? There, now I'm all right. Solomon said something about a beggar on horseback. Was it Solomon, though? Never mind. He couldn't ride. Never had a horse till he was grown up. But he said some uncommon wise things about having nothing to do with such friends as T. B. So, Harry East, if you please, no more tomfoolery after to-day. You've got a whole skin, and a lieutenant's commission to make your way in the world with, and are troubled with no particular crotchets yourself that need ever get you into trouble. So just you keep clear of other people's. And if your friends must be mending the world, and poor man's plastering, and running their heads against stone walls, why, So muttering and meditating, Harry East paused a moment after mounting, to turn up the collar of the rough shooting coat which he was wearing, and button it up to the chin, before riding down the hill, when, in the hurly-burly of the wind, a shout came spinning past his ears, plain enough this time; he heard the gate at the end of Englebournlane down below him shut with a clang, and saw two men running at full speed towards him straight up the hill. "Oh! here you are at last," he said, as he watched them. "Well, you don't lose your time now. Somebody must be after them. What's he shouting and waving his hand for? Oh, I'm to bring the cavalry supports down the slope, suppose. Well, here goes: he has brought off his pal the convict I see Says he, you've 'scaped from transpor- All upon the briny main, There goes the gate again. By Jove, what's that? Dragoons, as I'm a sinner! There's going to be the d-st bearfight." Saying which, Harry East dug his heels into his horse's sides, holding him up sharply with the curb at the same time, and in another moment was at the bottom of the solitary mound on which he had been perched for the last hour, and on the brow of the line of hill out of which it rose so abruptly, just at the point for which the two runners were making. He had only time to glance at the pursuers, and saw that one or two rode straight on the track of the fugitives, while the rest skirted away along a parish road which led up the hill side by an easier ascent, when Tom and his companion were by his side. Tom seized the bridle of the led horse, and was in the saddle with one spring. "Jump up behind," he shouted; "now then, come along." "Who are they?" roared East-in |