waiting for them on the plain, with seven or eight others. The enemy mustered about forty strong, aud, having paused a moment to take breath, they charged us beautifully. At the usual distance, about twelve yards, they took our fire, and still on they came. There was no turning them this time. They remembered where they received their first fire, and were determined not to hazard it again. «Down on your faces at once, or you are killed,» shouted out the most experienced amongst us, and down we dropped like logs, to await the issue. That moment seemed an hour--nearer and nearer we heard their tread approaching us. One foot placed upon us would have annihilated us immediately. I felt almost suffocated, as I plainly could feel the earth shake close to me— in an instant they were on us-and in the next they had passed. This was not the work of three seconds altogether, yet I scarcely remember an hour to have remained so long on my senses. Not one of the party, wonderful to relate, was injured in any degree, although it unnerved a few for further operations. I doubt if I could have held my gun sufficiently steady even to hit an elephant after it for some minutes. At least thirty brutes had passed over our bodies, as we lay scattered on the earth; and I can attribute our preservation to nothing else than the fact that the elephant being well known to be very blind when charging, must have just seen us sufficiently to have mistaken us for logs of wood, which they would naturally endeavour to step over. Our critical situation was perceived by the other party, but they could do nothing to assist us. The danger once over, however, we laughed at it, and braced our nerves with a lengthened pull at the brandy paunée bottle, which had also a great effect in exciting us to revenge, for which the enemy paid pretty dearly shortly af terwards; for before the sun had reached the meridian, twentyseven out of, I believe, the identical thirty that passed over us, bit the dust-three of which fell to my share; and having thus asserted our supremacy in the jungle, we returned to the village, from whence we departed the next morning to our separate duties and dwellings, and all was peace again. " (SPORTING MAGAZINE.)

"

辣

THE GRIMSBY GHOST.

CHAP. I.

In the town of Grimsby-▬

་་

But stop, says the Courteous and Prudent Reader, there any such things as Ghosts? »

"

་་

" are

Any Ghostesses! » cries Superstition, who settled long since in the country, near a churchyard, on a rising ground, « any Ghostesses! Ay, man lots on 'em! bushels on 'em! Why, there's one as walks in our parish, reg'lar as the clock strikes twelve-and always the same round-over church-stile, round the corner, through the gap, into Short's Spinney, and so along into our close, where he takes a drink at the pump,for ye see he died in liquor,-and then arter he's squentched hisself wanishes into waper. Then there's the ghost, of old Beales, as goes o' nights and sews tares in his neighbour's wheats-I've often seed un in seed time. They do say that Black Ben, the Poacher, have riz, and what's more, walked slap through all the Squire's steel-traps without springin on 'em. And then there's Bet Hawkey as murdered her own hinfant-only the poor babby hadn't larned to walk, and so can't appear agin her. »

But not to refer only to the ignorant and illiterate vulgar, there are units, tens, hundreds, thousands of wellbred and educated persons, Divines, Lawyers, military, and especially

VOL. II.

54

naval officers, Artists, Authors, Players, Schoolmasters and Governesses, and fine ladies, who secretly believe that the dead are on visiting terms with the living-nay, the great Doctor Johnson himself, affirmed solemnly that he had a call from his late mother, who had been buried many years. Ask at the right time, and in the right manner only affect a belief, though you have it not so that the party may feel assured of sympathy and insured against ridicule, and ninetenths of mankind will confess a faith in Apparitions. It is in truth an article in the creed of our natural religion corollary of the recognition of the immortality of the soul. The presence of spirits-visible or invisible-is an innate idea, as exemplified by the instinctive night terror of infancy, and recently so touchingly illustrated by the evidence of the poor little colliery-girl, who declared that she sang, whiles, at her subterranean task, but never when she was alone in the dark. »

It is from this cause that the Poems and Ballads on spectral subjects have derived their popularity for instance, Margaret's Ghost-Mary's Dream-and the Ghost of Admiral Hosier not to forget the Drama, with that awful Phantom in Hamlet, whose word, in favour of the Supernatural, we all feel to be worth a thousand pound. »

»And then the Spectre in Don Giovanni?'"

No. That Marble Walker, with his audible tramp, tramp, tramp, on the staircase, is too substantial for my theory. It was a Ghost invented expressly for the Materialists; but is as inadmissible amongst genuine Spirits as that wooden one described by old W. the ship-owner-namely, the figure-head of the Britannia, which appeared to him, he declared, on the very night that she found a watery grave off Cape Cod. Well-after that-go on. »

CHAP. II.

In the town of Grimsby, at the corner of Swivel-strect, there is a litle chandler's-shop, which was kept for many years by a widow of the name of Mullins. She was a care

a

ful, thrifty body, a perfect woman of business, with a sharp gray eye to the main chance, a quick ear for the ring of good or bad metal, and a close hand at the counter. Indeed, she was apt to give such scrimp weight and measure, that her customers invariably manœuvred to be served by her daughter, who was supposed to be more liberal at the scale, by a full ounce in the pound. The man and maid servants it is true, who bought on commission, did not care much about the matter; but the poor hungry father, the poor frugal mother, the little ragged girl, and the little dirty boy, all retained their pence in their hands, till they could thrust them, with their humble requests for ounces or half-ounces of tea, brown sugar, or single Gloster, towards « Miss Mullins, who was supposed to better their dealings, if dealings, they might be called, where no deal of any thing was purchased. She was a tall, bony female, of about thirty years of age, but apparently forty, with a very homely set of features, and the staid, sedate carriage of a spinster who feels herself to be set in for a single life. There was indeed « no love nonsense » about her; and as to romance, she had never so much as looked into a novel or read a line of poetry in her life-her thoughts, her feelings, her actions, were all like her occupation, of the most plain, prosaic character-the retailing of soap, starch, sandpaper, red-herrings, and Flanders brick. Except Sundays, when she went twice to chapel, her days were divided between the little back-parlour and the front shop-between a patchwork counterpane which she had been stitching at for ten long years, and that other counter work to which she was summoned, every few minutes, by the importunities of a little bell, that rang every customer in, like the new year, and then rang him out again like the old one. It was her province, moreover, to set down all unready money orders on a slate, but the widow took charge of the books, or rather the book, in which every item of account was entered, with a rigid punctuality that would have done honour to a regular counting-house clerk.

Under such management the little chandler's-shop was a thriving concern, and with the frugal, not to say parsimonious

habits of mother and daughter, enabled the former to lay by annually her one or two hundred pounds, so that miss Mullins was in a fair way of becoming a fortune, when towards the autumn of 1838 the widow was suddenly taken ill at her book, in the very act of making out a little bill, which alas she never lived to sum up. The disorder progressed so rapidly that on the second day she was given over by the doctor, and on the third by the apothecary, having lost all power of swallowing his medicines. The distress of her daughter, thus threatened with the sudden rending of her only tie in the world, may be conceived; while, to add to her affliction, her dying parent, though perfectly sensible, was unable, from a paralysis of the organs of speech, to articulate a single word. She tried nevertheless to speak, with a singular perseverance, but all her struggles for utterance were in vain. Her eyes rolled frightfully, the muscles about the mouth worked convulsively, and her tongue actually writhed till she foamed at the lips, but without producing more than such an unintelligible sound as is sometimes heard from the deaf and dumb. It was evident from the frequency and vehemence of these efforts that she had something of the last importance to communicate, and which her weeping daughter at last implored her to make known by means of signs.

Had she any thing weighing heavy on her mind?»

The sick woman nodded her head.

u

Did she want any one to be sent for? »

The head was shaken.

Was it about making her will?»

Another mute negative.

N

Did she wish to have further medical advice? »

A gesture of great impatience.

Would she try to write down her meaning?»

The head nodded, and the writing-materials were immediately procured. The dying woman was propped up in bed, a lead-pencil was placed in her right-hand, and a quire of foolscap was set before her. With extreme difficulty she contrived to scribble the single word MARY; but before she could form another letter, the hand suddenly dropped, scratching