ice. There had been no such frost for years, and every skater in the township must needs turn out day by day or night by night (according as their avocations bound them, or their want of avocation left them free) to revel on Parker's Mill-pond, a space of water some dozen acres in extent, which, being sheltered by thick-wooded slopes from the wild wind, had frozen marble smooth. Ned was not much of an expert, but the fleet passage through the stinging air at once inspired and soothed him, and he was there night after night amongst the crowd who sped to and fro in the coming and going of numberless torchlights and the steadier glare of cresset fires which burned upon the bank. Saturday afternoon left him free for an hour or two of daylight, and he set out for the pool. As he reached the edge there was a great noise of applause, and a huge horseshoe line of spectators was formed upon the ice to watch the evolutions of some skilled performer. Ned, dangling his skates in his hand, walked over drearily enough to see what might be seen, and shouldering through the crowd at a place where it was less dense than at most points, beheld his enemy, who, with half his world for onlookers, was rollicking hither and thither with an enchanting grace and surety. His habitual swagger became him here, and was converted into a beauty. He circled, poised on the outer edge, at apparently impossible angles, soaring like a bird on even wing, waving and darting with a bold and sweet dexterity, and moving, as it seemed, more by volition than by mere force of skill and muscle.

And as he skimmed the ringing ice, followed by the hurrahs and hand-clapping of the crowd, restored to all his old kingship, Ned looked on, and was aware of such an inward volcano of rage and hatred as scorched his heart within him. There is no speaking of these things. The mere truth is that these extreme rages of great passion, whether they be of love or hate, are so rare that no words have been coined for them. We find words for the commonplace, because all men and women have felt it. But the little hate is as common as glass, and the great is, happily, as rare as the Koh-i-noor.

With that phenomenal and unnamable hate Ned Blane watched his blackguard rival as he swam in perfect grace and Mercurial swiftness on the frozen surface of the pool. The mere presence of the man was enough; but the popular applause choked him as if with sulphurous ashes.

There was at the south end of the sheet of

water a mill-wheel, now frozen and set, but it had been working until yesterday, and near it the ice was known to be quaggy and unsafe. The bases of the horse-shoe line were drawn away from this unsound spot of ice, and in the middle of it was a low post with a cross piece upon it, and on the cross piece was pasted a strip of paper, whereon was printed the word dangerous. Now that day, as every day of late, Hackett had been drinking, and this sign of danger lured him nearer and nearer. He had but enough brandy aboard to spur him to his physical best, and he did things in spirituous recklessness which he would not have dared to do had he been altogether sober, for in that state his nerves were apt to turn aghast at very simple matters.

But now he was so sure of everything that, in spite of warning cries, he must needs go swimming and sailing nearer and nearer to the warning-post, trusting to his own swiftness to carry him harmless over the treacherous ice. And Blane, since one must needs tell the whole truth about him, stood looking on in a devilish satisfaction in the certainty that by-and-by the ice would give way with him, and maybe drown him, and so rid the earth of a villain grown phenomenal.

Crash! Hackett was through, and the ice starred right to the feet of the horse-shoe line. The people started backward with a wild stampede, which set the solid floor waltzing like the slow movement of free water beneath free wind. Ned Blane held his ground.

"Drown!" he said within himself.

Then in one mere second-for at such times fancy will busy herself, and will get through more work than she will do in a common year-he saw all that might happen from this unnamable villain's death, and justified himself to let him die, and exulted in the thing that lay before him.

Up came Hackett, spouting and screaming with struggling arms, and down again he went like a stone. The crowd yelled and screamed, and went silent. He came up again and clutched at a square of ice, and went down with it. And then and there, with one incredible lightning flash, Blane read his own heart, and snatched his own salvation.

EPILOGUE.

ON a spring morning the wind was clanging and the bells were pealing, and rent clouds charged over the chill blue field

of the sky at such a pace that the random gleams of sunshine cast between them swept hill and dale with a bird-like speed. The strong sunshine breasted the heathy hills and climbed them at a flash; the surly shadow crept in its rear, and the new bright racer leapt behind the gloomy edges of the cloudy shade, as if eager to annihilate it.

Shadrach, standing at the door of his mother's cottage, clad in his Sunday best, with a white favour in his coat, and his hands enshrouded in monstrous gloves of Berlin thread, fixed his new hat with an air of resolution, as if prepared to hold to it in any extremity of the wind's boisterous jollity.

"I tek it," he said, turning round to Hepzibah, who stood behind in a summery costume of white muslin and a very triumph of a bonnet, "I tek it as a kind of a honour as ain't often done the likes of huz."

"I should think thee didst and all," answered Hepzibah. She spoke almost snappishly, being engaged with a hairpin and a refractory glove-button, but she looked up a second later with a frank and smiling face.

"Yes," said Shadrach's mother, hovering about Hepzibah and touching her here and there with decided fingers, and retiring with her head on one side to observe the artistic effect of each stroke. "It's a thing as you'd ought to remember to your dyin' day, Shadrach. To be tied by the same words-it's a noble honour, Shadrach, and I hope as it bespeaks well for your future."

"Ankore to that, I says, ma'am !" said Hepzibah's mother, who was weak, like Shadrach, whilst Shadrach's mother was jerkily decided, like Hepzibah. "Hepzibah," she added solicitously, "you're lookin' a bit coldish a-ready. You'll be froze in that bookmuslin afore you reach the church. Thee'dst better have a shawl across thy shoulders." Rubbidge!" said Shadrach's mother. "The wind 'll keep 'em warm enough. It's time we started, ain't it, Shadrach ?”

66

Shadrach, with difficulty unbuttoning his coat, drew from an inner pocket a great turnip of a watch and consulted it with pride.

"Theer's a good three-quarters yet," he answered. "Theer's no use in arriving before iverybody. Master Ned and his good lady 'll be on the stroke o' time, I bet. Nayther too soon nor yet to late, that's Master Ned's method."

"Well, then, shut the door, and sit down," said his mother; "and for goodness mercy's

sake let me button up thy coat! Thee'st leave all thy finger-tips i' the button-holes." "Theer's a many curious things as comes to pass," said Hepzibah, seating herself with a slow, angular precision, and spreading out the book muslin with careful hands, as nobody 'ud iver dream on, and this is one of 'em."

"Ah!" returned Shadrach, "Master Ned's got the wish of his heart at last, and I'm gay and glad on it. Her held him off and on a longish time, though. Her might ha' got it over this time last year, without seemin' anyhow uncommon. I've no mind to speak ill o' them as is departed

"Departed!" repeated his mother, cutting him short with an air of disdain. "I wonder how you can use such a word about such a creetur! A tavern railer, as was took by a judgment! And thee mayest say what thee likest, Shadrach, I shall niver think it anythin' but a straightfor'ard flyin' i' the face o' Providence as Master Ned should ha' tried to fish him out again. He was meant to be drowned, an' he was drowned; and what's meant to be wool be, in spite of all the Master Neds i' the world. And as for 'departed,' all I got to say is, you might know better than try to turn your own mother's stomach on your weddin' mornin'."

"I used the word," said Shadrach meekly, "because I didn't wish to be too hard upon him."

"Let him rest, poor creetur!" put in Hepzibah with unexpected gentleness. "He was a fine figure of a man, but he'd got a bit too much of his grandfeyther and his feyther in him. He had nothin' to do with the makin' of either o' them, so far as I know, and Them Above 'll know how far he was to be made to answer."

"That is ondoubtedly the way to look at it," returned the Bard, "ondoubtedly the way to look at it." His Berlin-gloved hands groped indeterminately at his tail pockets, and catching Hebzibah's eye he looked confused, and sent a wandering glance around the apartment.

"What ha' you got there?" demanded Hepzibah.

The Bard's glance became more and more confused.

"What is it, Shadrach ?" asked the bridegroom's mother.

"It's a line or two," replied the blushing Bard. "Nothin' particular; but I was afeared I might ha' lost it. It's a thing as I knocked off last night a-walkin' home from the pit."

"What's it about?" said Hepzibah, clasp

ing her knees with her hands, and looking from her own mother to Shadrach's with a beaming face.

"It's about Master Ned and Zyber and me," replied the Bard, avoiding his bride's glance and addressing the society impersonally.

"Thee and me!" cried Hepzibah rapturously, rising in her chair and thumping back again. "Let's have it."

Shadrach produced the manuscript from his tails and read:

"It takes a heart fired from above

To risk your life for them you love, What must it be although too late To strive to save the life you hate? Yet such it was with Edward Blane Who always bore the hero's name.

"It was the act of Master Ned
Which let his humble friend be wed
Because Hepzyber was so fond
Her never could unloose the bond.
Till Master Ned should married be,
Her would not wedded be to me.

"I hope good luck may come to all,
Whate'er their station may befall,
And all about the English nation
Be happy in their place and station;
As I am sure I am in mine
To be Hepzyber's valentine."

This, by immediate and unanimous consent, was voted Shadrach's chef d'œuvre, and before the day was out his mother had confided it to the printer's hands. It was issued I may say, though I run beyond the temporal limits of my story to make the announcement, for private circulation only, and to this day framed copies of it, yellow with age, decorate several mantelpieces in the district.

"Time we was off, Shadrach," said Hepzibah, when the tumult of enthusiastic comment had subsided.

They passed out at the door and over the windy heath, the bridegroom sheepishly arming the bride.

"We shall have a run for it yet, I declare," cried Shadrach's mother. "There's the carriage a-drivin' to the church. I can see the white faviour on the coachman's bosom."

The wind-swept music of the bells rolled round them, and as they reached the gate, panting in indecorous haste, Mary Hackett stepped from the carriage and greeted them with a smile. The last ray of cloud was borne away by the boisterous wind, and the sky shone clear, as if for a happy omen.

HIGH

and war,

Salle des Pas Perdus can be considered to belong to old Paris. So the Avenue de Constantine must lead us away to the Rue de la Cité (formerly Rue de la Lanterne, de la Juiverie, and du Marché Palu), which crosses the island from the Pont Notre-Dame to the Petit Pont. Neither of these bridges is now of the slightest interest, but in the last century the Pont Notre-Dame, built in 1500, defended at the ends by tourelles and lined on either side by quaint gabled houses, with open shops beneath, was especially picturesque. One of its bridge-shops belonged to the famous picture-dealer Gersaint, and had a

the bridge, and by the spot where the ancient Porte de la Cité stood, was the Prison de Glaucin, where St. Denis, the Apostle of the Gauls, was immured. From very early times this cell was transformed into an oratory, and as early as 1015 the knight Ansolde and his wife Rotrude founded a convent of secularcanons opposite it, in honour of Monsieur Saint Denis. The oratory, under various names, St. Catherine, St. Denis de la Chartre, and St. Symphorien, existed till 1704, when the building was given to the Academy of St. Luke. The conventual church contained, till its demolition in 1810, a group by Michel Auguier

representing St. Denis in prison receiving the sacrament from the Saviour himself, and over the portal was inscribed, "Icy est la chartre en laquelle saint Denis fut mis prisonnier, où notre Sauveur Jésus le visita et lui bailla

Notre-Dame.

son précieux corps et sang. Il y a grand pardon pour toutes personnes qui visiteront ce saint lieu." The site of St. Denis de la Chartre is now covered by the new wing of the Hôtel Dieu.

The street which opened opposite St. Denis first bore the name of Micra Madiana-the little Midian-from its Jewish inhabitants. It was afterwards called Rue de la Pelleterie, from the trade which at one time almost exclusively occupied it. At the end of the street was the church of St. Barthélemy, which served as a chapel to the palace of the Merovingian kings, and which Hugues Capet endowed with the relics of St. Magloire, Bishop of Dol. It became a parish church in 1140; its rebuilding in the style of Louis XVI. was begun in 1775, but it was unfinished at the Revolution, when it was totally destroyed, together with the neighbouring church of St. Pierre des Arcis and that of St. Croix, which had become parochial in 1134.

On the right of the broad Avenue Constantine, which leads from the Palais de Justice, across the centre of the island, to the Rue de la Cité, on the site now occupied by the great Caserne de la Cité, was the Ceinture St. Eloi, containing the vast monastery of St. Eloi, which the sainted goldsmith founded in a house facing the palace which he had received from Dagobert, and placed under the government of St. Aure, who died there of the plague in October, 666, with 160 of her nuns. The monastery of St. Eloi was bestowed in 1629 upon the Barnabites, for

whom its church was rebuilt in 1703. Church and monastery were alike destroyed in 1859 to build the barrack. At the entrance of the precincts of St. Eloi, opposite the palace, at the angle of the Rue de la Vieille Draperie

and de la Barillerie, stood, till 1605, a pyramidal monument, marking the site of the paternal home of Jean Chastel, razed to the ground by decree of Parliament.

The street which ran along the side of the northern walls of St. Eloi was called, from its inhabitants, the Rue de la Draperie. Opposite where it fell into the Rue de la Juiverie, as the second part of the Rue de la Cité was formerly called, stood the church of La Madeleine, into which a Jewish synagogue was converted in the reign of Philippe Auguste, and which consequently ob served the custom of reciting the office of Good Friday upon every Friday in Lent to the intention of the conversion of the Jews. From the thirteenth century the curé of La Madeleine bore the title of arch-priest, which secured him a supremacy over all other curés of the diocese: the little church was also the seat of the oldest of Parisian confraternities-la grande confrerie de NotreDame aux seigneurs, prêtres, et bourgeois de Paris, which had the archbishop for its abbot and the president of Parliament for its dean, and possessed 25,000 livres of rental. La Madeleine was sold and pulled down at the Revolution, but a pretty side door belonging to it, which opened from 1512 upon the Rue de Licorne, continued in existence here till 1843, when, on the opening of the Rue de Constantine, it was adapted to the presbytery of St. Severin. A little farther down the Rue de la Juiverie, on the western side, was the Halle de Beauce, a corn exchange, which existed from immemorial times till the sixteenth century. Beyond this the Rue de la Calandre opened westwards, and here, in the "Maison des Paradis," St. Marcel, bishop of Paris, is said to have been born in the fourth century, in honour of which, on Ascension Day, the chapter of Notre-Dame visited it, in solemn procession, annually. In the Rue de la Calandre, at the house called from its sign, du Grand Coq, Theophraste Renaudot, in 1630, printed the first Parisian newspaper, La Gazette de France.