paused to say, in a falsetto shriek, "The streets were all right, gentlemen; it was the editor who was all wrong."

After quietly laying

Everybody laughed except Will Tunster. down his knife and fork, he turned round to the gentleman in the spectacles, and said, "I hope I'm not goin' to be rude, sir—Mr. Snooks; but if you have anything to say as you object to my hearing, I'll leave th' room."

Mr. Crooks's reply was an inquiring glance at the company.

"There's no need to stare; ole I've gotten to say is, that I havn't had a forrin edication, and if there's to be ony parlyvooin, if it's the same to you, sir, I shall be glad if you'll tell us the English on it after."

The truth is, Mr. Crooks being a local lecturer was continually on the watch to impress the local ignoramuses among whom he managed to scrape together a living. Unlike Mr. Johnson, he did not confine himself to a single Latin quotation; but he larded his pompous talk with scraps of all the tongues he had come across. Windgate Williams swears he heard the impostor in his closing peroration to a scientific lecture tell his gaping pit-village audience that tempus fugit in vino veritas, usque ad nauseam must be the end of all who did not look progress fairly in the face, but he would beg them to join him in hoping that the mauvais sujet, ad horrendum, tout ensemble, would be the lot of that glorious country which placing its semper idem on the wave of time had sailed to the highest pinnacles of a never dying future.

But this is by the way.

Mr. Crooks was angry at honest Will Tunster's protest, and would have at once given that presumptuous mail driver a moral rebuke, had not Williams verbally stepped between the two with "All right, sir-all right--I'll interpret for you, Mr. Tunster, if necessary-but I claim your attention for a moment-I must have my revenge—you forgot to tell our friends, Mr. Crooks, what you did on that same evening when I had taken too much brandy, as you say."

"Did! I went home to Mrs. Crooks,” said the lecturer.

"Oh, no," said Mr. Williams, laughing; "he was here all night, I assure you came home with me- -we toasted each other in this very room till midnight-then my friend left-half an hour afterwards thought I heard a noise in the backyard-sober as a judge I waswent out with a light-'No more, thank you-no more, thank you,' said a voice, in a sort of bubble-and-squeak style-I looked everywhere-still the voice 'No more (bubble), thank you,' as if a man were speaking in the act of drinking-at last I thought of the duck

pond, two yards by three, about a foot deep-turned the light in that direction-Crooks lying on his back, with the water bubbling into his mouth whenever he moved at every bubble he said, 'No more, thank you '-ah, ah-thinking, no doubt, somebody was insisting upon his drinking eau-de-vie-I beg your pardon, Mr. Tunster-brandy, sir, brandy."

Will Tunster leaned back in his chair and roared most rudely.

66

Dang my buttons, but that's a good un-well done, lecturer."

"Go away, sir-don't be so familiar," said Crooks, wiping his spectacles, and glaring without them at Will.

"Familiar! That's good! I've always paid to hear thee lecture! But dang it, Mr. Williams has made me laugh for nowt more than thou ever did for twopence."

"Don't be angry, Crooks-I knew a fellow once who got awfully drunk, and then throwing himself upon the floor bemoaning his lot because he could not drink any more, hiccupped, 'I can't drink any more, throw the rest over me.' Now, gentlemen, I am not going to indulge you to that extent; but I can offer you some very fine old whisky, and I hope you will not spare it."

"Bravo!" said Will, and "Hear, hear" the Doctor.

The steaming punch which Mrs. Smick brewed, and brought up in an old-fashioned china bowl after supper, put everybody into excellent humour, except the Doctor, who was vainly struggling against gloomy forebodings. But even Horatio smiled genially when Mr. Windgate Williams handed him a long pipe and bade him smoke his cares away. Jacob was in high spirits; the news of the morning had almost turned his head; he fired off jokes at everybody, to the evident delight and admiration of Mr. Williams. Will Tunster laughed and danged his buttons at Jacob's wit, and Mr. Crooks, who had been accustomed to talk a great deal, sat uncomfortably in his seat, and jerked out some random remarks whenever an opportunity occurred. These opportunities were few indeed, for Mr. Williams was also fond of talking, and he rattled away at such a high-pressure rate that Will Tunster laughed more at the manner of his speech than at the matter thereof.

At length, a question arising as to the best method of brewing punch, Mr. Crooks made it a peg on which to hang the heads of a lecture on chemistry which he had recently delivered; and as his lectures were always dribbling from him, he threw off, with scientific garrulity, the compilation of several volumes of facts and theories about matter; its physical properties, the attraction which determines chemical combination, single elective affinity, changes produced by

chemical action, chemical nomenclature, theories of combus tion, &c.

Meanwhile Mr. Williams and the Doctor entered into a confidential chat; the end of which appeared to be very satisfactory to the Doctor, who smiled benignantly upon Jacob. The latter, while pretending to be listening to Mr. Crooks, was occupied with his own thoughts.

"It's a danged good lecture. I've heard some on it before at Crossley Institute. Give us thy hand, lecturer; thou art not such a bad sort when thou doesn't speak in foreign languages."

The lecturer smiled and took Will's hand, whereupon Mr. Williams in a short speech proposed Will's health; "And the future Mrs. Tunster" added the Doctor out of the midst of a cloud of smoke.

Will said he was very much obliged to all, and begged to drink their good healths in return; as for t' future Mrs. Tunster, he was sure that if she know'd he was in such edicated company and that her health had been drunk, she would like him to say "Thank you, same to you" on her behalf, and he therefore begged to do it; and he might inform them that Mrs. Tunster wasn't such a myth as the Doctor seemed to think, as he laughed so much abaht it; however, he would not sit down without giving them th' health of Mr. Doctor Johnson and his good leddy.

The Doctor replied-all my readers will readily believe that he did so genially and in appropriate terms-and then toasts and sentiments and songs became the order of the evening.

Mr. Crooks made sundry efforts to introduce a discussion upon astronomy, and failing to secure any attention for his second-hand views of the Atomic theory, or the phenomena of Affinity, he laid down his pipe and recited the well-known scene from "Speed the Plough," where the Farmer tries to make himself agreeable to Sir Philip Blandford, at the conclusion of which Will Tunster applauded most lustily; and Mr. Crooks, steaming with the exertion and delighted with his own performance, said to Will, "Vous chantez ?"

"Sha'n't I?-by jingo, but I will;" and the countryman rattled his glass and cheered again, and proclaimed it as his opinion that Mr. Crooks was a real good un.

"Mr. Crooks would like to hear you sing," said Mr. Williams.

"Well than, dang me, as I havn't th' oud bugle here, he shall; it's mony a long day sin' I've sung, but there's an oud song of the same tune as Mary on the banks of sweet Dundee,' and a bit like it as I heered ith' fair which, as Mester Crooks has gin us a bit in th' farmin loine, and as I'm goin to be sommat i' that way, maybe you'll loike.”

Will therefore stretched out his legs, unbuttoned his plush waistcoat, and bellowed, in a minor key, the following ditty :

Young William was a ploughboy

In famous Lincolnshire:
Young William was a ploughboy
For more than fower long year;
Till by the pressgang he was ta'en-
As I will tell to you-
Before that he'd arrived at

The age of twenty-two.

Young Mary was a milkmaid

In that same famous shire:
Young Mary was a milkmaid

For more than fower long year.
She loved the gay young ploughboy,
Whistling behind his team;
When to their joys an end was put,
As quickly it shall seem.

Ben Swasher was a captain,
All dressed out in blue:
Ben Swasher was a captain

Of a famous pressgang crew.
Says he "We'll have young William,
The ploughboy brave and true;"
And on they marched to capture him,
Which quickly they did rue.

The ploughboy they did lure away,
By a message from his love:
The ploughboy they did lure away,
Into a lonely grove;

And there out dashed upon him,

The pressgang brutally,

And Will did wage a deadly fight,

All for his liberty.

Before young William was secured,
Two men had gasped their last:
Before young William was secured,
Two men had breathed their last.
But William he was put on board
A ship that very night,
And sail'd away unto the wars
Before the morning light.

Now the Captain came to Mary,
For to make love to her;

He came unto young Mary,
With precious gold, a store;

But when she knew her ploughboy
A pressëd man was he,
She seized his betrayer,

And stabbed him mortally.

Young William he returned,

In about ten year, or more:
Young William he returned,
All from a foreign shore.
They pointed to the churchyard,
And there he found his bride;
And over her a stone, which said—
"Of a broken heart she died."

Young William heav'd a deep sigh,
This painful sight to see;
Young William heav'd a deep sigh,

A deep sigh heaved he ;

"Oh Mary! dearest Mary!

With you I'll quickly lie,"

And then upon the cold, cold ground,

He laid him down to die.

It was now past midnight. The Thunderbolt had twice rolled in to see if Mr. Windgate Williams would require anything more, as her mawther was going to bed. Mr. Crooks fell asleep over Will Tunster's song, and Jacob at its conclusion thought it was time to bring their pleasant evening to an end. Mr. Williams insisted upon their all having one nip at parting, and further, taking the hands of Jacob and the Doctor, commenced to sing, very piano, the opening of "Auld Lang Syne," which the party struggled through much to Will Tunster's satisfaction, who vowed they were all good uns, and his only regret was that he had not brought th' oud bugle.

When Jacob reached the inn where he had ordered a bed for the night, he found a note waiting for him. It was evidently written in a disguised hand; nobody knew who had left it; but it was to be given "to the good-looking young man who had ordered a bed there, and who was in the house with a countryman in the morning." Jacob opened the note, and read as follows:-"I saw you in the fair to-day; keep my secret as you have sworn. Tom Titsy is innocent, and if the worst comes to the worst I will save him."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

JACOB'S ASPIRATIONS AND WILLIAMS'S ADVentures.

On the day following the supper party at the Grove, Jacob learnt what the readers of this history already know of the events which had occurred at Middleton since the day when he turned his back