cross it-then the door of the very room he was in was softly opened, and two men, one of whom was the host and the other his son, appeared on its threshold.

"Leave the light where it is," whispered the host, "or it may disturb him and give us trouble." "There is no fear of that," said the younger man, also in a whisper, "we are two to one; he has nothing but a little knife about him-he is. dead asleep too! hear how he snores!".

"Do my bidding," said the old man, sternly; "would you have him wake and rouse the neighbourhood with his screams?"

As it was, the horror-stricken dealer under the bed could scarcely suppress a shriek, but he saw that the son left the light in the outer room, and then, pulling the door partially after them to screen the rays of the lamp from the bed, he saw the two murderers glide to the bed-side, and then heard a rustling motion as of arms descending on the bed clothes, and a hissing, and then a grating sound, that turned his soul sick, for he knew it came from knives or daggers penetrating to the heart or vitals of a human being like himself, and only a few inches above his own body. This was followed by one sudden and violent start on the bed, accompanied by a moan. Then the bed, which was a low one, was bent by an increase of weight caused by one or both the murderers throwing themselves upon it, until it pressed on the body of the traveller. There was an awful silence for a moment or two, and then the host said, "He is finished-I have cut him across the throat-take the money, I saw him put it under his bolster."

"I have it, here it is," said the son; "a purse and a pocket-book."

The traveller was then relieved from the weight that had oppressed him almost to suffocation, and the assassins, who seemed to tremble as they went, ran out of the room, took up the light, and disappeared altogether from the apartment.

No sooner were they fairly gone, than the poor dealer crawled from under the bed, took one desperate leap, and escaped through the little window by which he had seen enter the unfortunate wretch who had evidently been murdered in his stead. He ran with all his speed to the town, where he told his horrid story and miraculous escape to the night watch. The night watch conducted him to the burgomaster, who was soon aroused from his sleep and acquainted with all that had happened.

In less than half an hour from the time of his escape from it, the horse-dealer was again at the murderous inn, with the magistrate and a strong force of the horror-stricken inhabitants and the night watch, who had all run thither in the greatest silence. In the house all seemed as still as death, but as the party went round to the stables, they heard a noise; cautioning the rest to surround the inn and the outhouses, the magistrate with the traveller and some half dozen armed men ran to the stable door-this they opened, and found within the host and his son digging a grave.

The first figure that met the eyes of the murderers was that of the traveller. The effect of this on their guilty souls was too much to be borne; they shrieked and threw themselves on the ground, and though they were immediately seized by hard griping hands of real flesh and blood, and heard the voices of the magistrates and their friends and neighbours, denouncing them as murderers, it was some minutes ere they could believe that the figure of the travel

ler that stood among them was other than a spirit. It was the hardier villain, the father, who, on hearing the stranger's voice continuing in conversation with the magistrate, first gained sufficient command over himself to raise his face from the earth; he saw the stranger still pale and haggard, but evidently unhurt. The murderer's head spun round confusedly, but at length rising, he said to those who held him, "Let me see that stranger nearer; let me touch him-only let me touch him!" The poor horse-dealer drew back in horror and disgust.

"You may satisfy him in this," said the magistrate, "he is unarmed and unnerved, and we are here to prevent his doing you harm."

On this, the traveller let the host approach him, and pass his hand over his person, which when he had done, the villain exclaimed, "I am no murderer!-who says I am a murderer ?"

"That shall we see anon," said the traveller, who led the way to the detached apartment, followed by the magistrate, the two prisoners, and all the party which had collected in the stable on hearing what passed there.

Both father and son walked with considerable confidence into the room, but when they saw by the lamps the night watch and others held over it, that there was a body covered with blood, lying upon the bed, they cried out, "How is this? who is this?" and rushed together to the bed-side. The lights were lowered; their rays fell full upon the ghastly face and bleeding throat of a young man. At the sight, the younger of the murderers turned his head and swooned in silence; but the father, uttering a shriek so loud, so awful, that one of the eternally damned alone might equal its effect, threw himself on the bed and on the gashed and bloody

body, and murmuring in his throat, "My son! I have killed mine own son!" also found a temporary relief from the horrors of his situation in insensibility. The next minute the wretched hostess, who was innocent of all that had passed, and who was, without knowing it, the wife of a murderer, the mother of a murderer, and the mother of a murdered son-of a son killed by a brother and a father, ran to the apartment, and would have increased tenfold its already insupportable horrors by entering there, had she not been prevented by the honest townspeople. She had been roused from sleep by the noise made in the stable, and then by her husband's shriek, and was now herself, shrieking and frantic, carried back into the inn by main force.

The two murderers were forthwith bound and carried to the town jail, where, on the examination, which was made the next morning, it appeared from evidence that the person murdered was the youngest son of the landlord of the inn, and a person never suspected of any crime more serious than habitual drunkenness; that instead of being in bed, as his father and brother had believed him, he had stolen out of the house, and joined a party of carousers in the town of these boon companions, all appeared in evidence, and two of them deposed that the deceased, being exceedingly intoxicated, and dreading his father's wrath, should he rouse the house in such a state, and at that late hour, had said to them that he would get through the window into the little detached apartment, and sleep there, as he had often done before, and that they two had accompanied him, and assisted him to climb to the window. The deceased had reached the window once, and as they thought would have got safe

through it, but drunk and unsteady as he was, he slipped back; they had then some difficulty in inducing him to climb again, for in the caprice of intoxication, he said he would rather go sleep with one of his comrades. However, he had at last effected his entrance, and they, his two comrades, had gone to their respective homes.

The wretched criminals were executed a few weeks after the commission of the crime. They had confessed every thing, and restored to the horse-dealer the gold and the paper money they had concealed, and which had led them to do a deed so much more atrocious than even they had contemplated.

MACFARLANE.

STAGE COACH ADVENTURE OF MR. GEOFFREY CRAYON IN ENGLAND.

Ir was late in the month of December, that I was making a tour in Yorkshire, in the course of which, I rode for a long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, from their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or friends, to eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded, also, with hampers and game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the coachman's box, presents from distant friends, for the impending feast.

I had three fine rosy-cheeked school-boys, for my fellow passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit, which I have observed in the children in this country. They were return