ageable as Amy had been; perhaps he never really inquisitorial watch on his expenditure, though even had a spark of inclination for any but her; however in this respect he was capricious, and he took a that may be, Mr Clint did not marry again. Nor savage pleasure in reminding his son that he was did he ill-treat his children after the fashion or to totally dependent on him-that he had no rights.' the extent which their young mother had dreaded. The only thing for which Reginald Clint was In their very early years, he neglected them ever heard to thank God was, that his father had shamefully, and when they came in his way, made his money in trade, though he had chosen he generally swore at them, and occasionally to invest it in land; that it had no cursed beat them, but on this subject he received a penalties attached to its possession, so that he had lesson which availed. The nurses refused to the power of doing as he pleased with it; not like remain in his service, and he found that a trouble- those proud aristocrats, who had to put up with the some result of his violence. It is a fact that infernal impudence and extravagance of their sons: Reginald Clint was less intolerable after his wife's he called property on such terms a curse. Now, death than during her lifetime; forced to restrain his was really property, for he could leave it to a himself, for his own sake, by the removal of the hospital, or to a housemaid, if he chose; and if his one only individual in respect of whom a man son and daughter dared to run counter to him, enjoys absolute immunity. The children were he bound himself to dispose of it in some such passionately attached to one another, and neither way, by the superfluous invocation upon himself of exhibited the least resemblance to their father. future penalties. The recipients of Mr Clint's senWalter, who was sent early to school, and made timents were, generally, his steward-he kept a friends for himself immediately, had much of the large farm in his own hands; a retired attorney brightness, cleverness, and liveliness which had so of no very brilliant repute, who was his nearest soon been stamped out of his young mother; but neighbour; and Mr Martin, the village doctor, his nature lacked the patience, the firmness, and whose professional services he needed rather frethe high tone of hers. He was merry, indolent, quently, and remunerated very grudgingly. Mr changeable, affectionate, difficult to inspire with Clint had taken to solitary drinking and excessive any lofty conviction or elevated motive, tricky-smoking; the latter at an early period; the former as every child who is ill, or capriciously treated, since his wife's death, and for a long time without inevitably becomes-mimetic, impulsive, and very its being known even to his servants. But his good-looking, though not so handsome as his temper and these habits were not calculated to father, or so uncommon in his appearance as his secure health, and Mr Martin was a tolerably fresister. quent visitor at the Firs. He despised and disliked his unmanageable patient, and felt a genuine pity for Walter, for whom he would have gladly foreseen a speedy succession to the property, which, if Mr Clint lived much longer, he considered it but too probable he would never enjoy. The brother and sister met only in the holidays, for years. Miriam had been sent to Miss Monitor's school in her tenth year, in consequence of the death of the housekeeper, who had given her a little elementary instruction. Long before then, the child had come to appreciate her father's character; and though she did not then, or ever, actually hate him, she regarded him with contempt and distaste much stronger than the feelings entertained for him by Walter, whose nature had more softness and less intensity, and whom his father treated much worse. The fact was that Miriam had more character; she sometimes asserted herself, she sometimes carried a point by overt opposition against the gloomy tyrant; but Walter did not. He occasionally deceived his father, but he never defeated him. The caprice, which was as strongly characteristic of Reginald Clint's nature as was his tyranny, exhibited itself towards his son by his refusal to send him to a university, though the boy had been given to understand he was to go to Cambridge on leaving school. But his father changed his mood, which he called his mind, and kept Walter loitering in suspense and idleness at home, until a new source of bitterness arose between them. Walter Clint was precisely qualified by his pleasant surface talents, his good manners, and his good looks, to become popular in a country neighbourhood, and the general dislike to his father did not prevent his making friends. This was gall and wormwood to the unhappy misanthrope of the Firs, and he punished his son for the high spirits which offended him, and the enjoyment which he could not altogether prevent, by keeping him in uncertainty respecting his intentions with regard to him in the future, and by placing him in what he meant to be humiliating straits for want of money. He would make him no regular allowance; he maintained an 'He always was a brute,' thought Mr Martin, on one particular occasion, when his interesting patient had been expatiating on the pleasure it afforded him to reflect that he could punish Walter for the crime of visiting at 'that cursed old hypocrite's house-he alluded to the pious and excellent vicar of the parish, the Rev. John Cooke-by leaving him a beggar-'he always was a brute, and he has been driving himself into extra brutality by drink for so long, that there's really no saying where he may stop-short of such madness as will enable us to lock him up, I am afraid, but not short of the madness of disinheriting this boy, and driving that high-spirited girl, Miriam-a far more dangerous person than her brother to try ill-treatment upon-to desperation. I wish Walter could get away; it would be his best chance in the present and in the future. The life they lead is detestable; it is ruining the boy; and nothing would give him such a chance as absence.' A few days later, a violent quarrel occurred between the father and the son, and Walter left the house. Mr Clint had been half-drunk when the dispute arose it was on the customary score of Walter's having friends in the neighbourhood whom his father did not choose to know; and his violence of language and his threats had surpassed all the unfortunate young man's previous experience. Exhaustion and illness followed this horrible abandonment to the demon which possessed him, and Mr Martin was sent for. That gentleman made good use of the opportunity; lowered his patient by medical treatment until he had no longer the physical power to be violent and abusive, frightened him by a grave and solemn warning that the penalty of indulging in drink and fury to a similar extent on a future occasion would probably be a sudden death; a warning at which Mr Clint, if he had not been prostrate under the effect of physic, would simply have sneered; and then cautiously approached the subject of his future relations with his son. That he should declare he did not care what became of the cursed blackguard, did not surprise or move Mr Martin; but when Mr Clint added that he might go whither he pleased, provided he did not enter his house again, the doctor saw his way. The details of the negotiation which he undertook in sheer kindness of heart, and because the condition of affairs at the Firs was inexpressibly shocking to his sense of decency and propriety, need not be recapitulated here. He had to manage the son as well as the father, and Walter was not the easiest of subjects when it was a question of inducing him to apply himself to the task of embracing a career in life. Mr Martin did, however, achieve a sort of success. Mr Clint agreed to allow his son a sufficient sum to enable him to live in lodgings in London, and study medicine, the only profession which he could be induced to learn, and which he ardently hoped he might in the future be saved from the necessity of practising. Mr Martin gave Walter some introductions to former friends of his own, and the young man began his new life. | All this miserable history had been very imperfectly made known to Miriam ; but she had understood how bitter her father's feelings towards his son were, and how sternly he was bent on gratifying them, when, just a year before the episode of the candidate for the lady's-maid's place occurred, Miss Monitor received peremptory instructions from Mr Clint that Miriam was not to be permitted to see her brother, under any pretext whatever. During the ensuing Christmas vacation, when Miriam passed a dreary fortnight at the Firs, she had made a courageous attempt to induce her father to rescind the sentence of her brother's banishment; but in vain; and she had been forced to console herself with a hope that on her final return home, the now existing unnatural state of things would come to an end. It was not unbecoming vanity which led a handsome clever girl like Miriam to believe that her constant presence must win on her father; but Miriam had not been sufficiently with him to thoroughly understand Reginald Clint. CHAPTER IV.-WALTER'S TRUST. To and fro along the path which wound through the plantation of firs, walked Reginald Clint, so passing the time away, until he should have to go to the station at Drington to fetch his daughter. He was not more amiably disposed than usual. Miriam's brief and easily quelled attempt at opposition had irritated him, coming as it did after he had, with difficulty, made up his mind to the nuisance of having her permanently at home. He had not been hurt at the evidence of the nature of his daughter's feelings conveyed in her request; he had no tenderness for her, and he would have sneered at the idea of her being supposed to entertain any for him; but she had ventured to question a decision of his, and that was not to be endured. She must understand that such opposition must never be made or contemplated again. The permanent institution of a woman in his house who might be bullied ad libitum, had long been wanting to the existence of Reginald Clint: perhaps he did not go quite so far as to deliberately contemplate his daughter's return as a remedy of that deficiency, but his frame of mind was as decidedly menacing to Miriam's future comfort as it could be, when he turned into the road through a gate in the low external wall on the far side of the fir plantation,. and strode away in the direction of Drington. When he reached the railway station, Mr Clint looked sharply about him. He had ordered a dogcart, the only equipage the Firs boasted, to be in attendance on the arrival of the train, and he was almost provoked when he saw it there, and also a hand-cart for the conveyance of Miriam's luggage. It was an opportunity for swearing at the groom lost to him. The approach of the train was already indicated by a puff of smoke in the distance, and Mr Clint passed at once through the booking-officeto the arrival platform. As the train came up, Miriam's handsome head was put out of her carriagewindow; and she nodded and kissed her hand to her father, who stood stolidly still, his hands in his pockets, until the carriage was alongside the platform. 'Dear papa,' said Miriam, as she jumped lightly out-she had been making very good resolutions on the way—how good of you to come and meet me yourself!' He neither touched her nor looked at her. 'Where are your things?' he said. 'Where's your maid?' 'Those are my boxes they're taking out of the van,' said Miriam, trying not to seem taken aback at this strange welcome home; and my maid is here;' she turned towards Rose Dixon, who stood behind her, with a travelling-bag in each hand, and shawls on her arm. 'See to your mistress's things,' said Mr Clint; 'there's a hand-cart and a man just outside the gate, to bring them up to the Firs; he'll shew you the way.-Come along, Miriam;' he walked abruptly away, and his daughter followed him, to the dogcart. 'Jump in,' he said; and took her almost roughly by the elbow. She did so, and he got in beside her, and took the reins. How is she to get home? Must she walk?' asked Miriam. 'The woman? O yes. There's no room for her here. That will do, Wilkins; let him go!' He started the horse; the man jumped up behind, and they were off. 'I'm afraid she will be very tired,' said Miriam timidly; 'it's a hot day, and after the journey' 'What cursed nonsense!' said her father violently. I hope you and Miss Monitor have not been such fools as to hire a maid who requires the treatment of a fine lady, and can't use her limbs. By George, she won't get it at the Firs. She looks a poor, pale, frightened creature. I hate sick servants; and mind I tell you, Miriam, if you've brought one here, she shall be sent packing' I don't think Rose Dixon is at all sickly, sir,' Miriam hastened to say; she was frightened at the thought of how powerless to help Walter her father's caprice might make her at any moment. 'She is not even delicate, she tells me. Only, she is not a common person in either appearance or manner-and’ Her further explanation was cut short by her father's pulling up the horse sharply with an oath. The animal had picked up a stone, and in the necessary objurgations upon him for doing so, and upon the groom for not being sufficiently quick in removing it, the matter dropped. As they started again, Miriam glanced back at the station: a man was pushing the hand-cart, with a pile of boxes, through the side-gate, and Rose was walking along the footpath, a little in front. In another minute the road turned, and Miriam lost sight of her. The incident was small in itself, but so characteristic, so like the experience and the forebodings which the girl was bringing to her detested home, that it overcame all her resolutions. She could not rally her spirits, talk to her father, force herself to assume the lively and confident air by which she had proposed to herself to secure an easy position as by a coup-de-main; she sat by her father's side silent, and hardly heeding the summer landscape through which they drove. When the entrance to the Firs lay close before them, she roused herself, and said: I hope you are glad to see me, papa? You have not said so.' 'I never make speeches about matters of course,' was Reginald Clint's congenial reply. Miriam said no more. Her father pulled up at the entrance of the house, helped her out of the dog-cart, and strode into the hall before her, going straight to his study,' in which he never read, but sulked, drank, and smoked a good deal. A man-servant and two maids appeared, all three strangers to Miriam. She told them briefly that her maid was coming, and desired she might be sent to her room; then ran up-stairs to the rooms which had been her mother's, and which she had called her own since her childhood, locked the outer door, flung herself on the bed in the inner room, and burst into tears. They were not all caused by grief; anger and fear had a large share in their origin. 'I shall never be able to make it better,' she muttered, ‘and if he sends Rose away, it will be worse. The only thing I have to hope for, the only thing I can look forward to, is to get away, and there's only one way of doing that. I'll take that only way, then, the first time I can get it, at any price nothing can be so bad as home and Iny father.' She got off the bed when her tears subsided, and walked from one room to the other. No preparations had been made for her return; none of the prettinesses of a modern young lady's dwelling cheered the dull old-fashioned rooms. There were no flowers, no bright hangings, no draped mirrors, or pretty bookcases-none of the things which mothers provide for the daughters who are coming home to them for good,' and which most fathers would cause to be provided for a motherless girl. Miriam had not expected any preparation, and yet, the dull ugly rooms vexed her. The reception by her father, the silent drive home, the tumult of her feelings, had driven the curiosity which she had been experiencing to a painfully exciting pitch, during the last two days, into the background; she had almost forgotten that as yet she had not discovered her brother's motive in inducing her to engage Rose Dixon, that as yet she did not know who her new maid really was. Rose Dixon had punctually presented herself at the appointed time at Crescent House, Hampstead, and had easily and correctly assumed the functions of Miss Clint's maid. But there had not been a moment's opportunity for Miriam to speak to her new attendant unheard; the girls,' the teachers, and the servants all swarmed about the popular pupil up to the instant of her departure, and Miss Monitor accompanied her to the station. Miriam had observed traces of tears on Rose Dixon's face, and there was a nervous flutter about her which made her young mistress kindly anxious to reassure her, and to shield her from observation. The station was crowded on their arrival, and the noise and confusion sufficiently distracting to render Miss Monitor's recognition of one figure among the crowl improbable. Thus, while that lady was taking two first-class tickets for her ex-pupil and her maid, and making the guard sensible of the propriety of securing seats for them in a carriage with other ladies, a tall woman in a brown silk gown contrived to hover near them, and to press a hand of each unseen. The journey inflicted a severe trial of patience on Miriam. The carriage had three occupants in addition to herself and Rose Dixon. One was a very fine lady indeed, who signified as plainly as look and gesture could convey the sentiment that she objected to the presence of a lady's maid; the other two were giggling girls of less than Miriam's own age, and who watched her with the artless and ill-bred curiosity of their time of life. She had not a chance of exchanging a word, on any but ordinary topics, with Rose Dixon, during the journey, and she had been much surprised when, in answer to her whispered question: "Have you brought me any letter from my brother?' Rose had answered 'No.' The windows of Miriam's rooms were in the front of the house, so that she saw Rose Dixon coming along the avenue, by the side of the handcart, with her luggage. She looked heated and tired, and Miriam longed to run down-stairs, and save her from carrying any burden up to her room, but she wisely restrained the impulse. Presently, there was a knock at the door; Miriam unlocked and threw it open. There stood Rose, deadly pale, and trembling, and looking as if she were going to faint; while the housemaid, a grinning, large-faced Hampshire girl, who had come up-stairs to shew her the way, looked at her in wholly unsympathetic surprise. 'How tired you are!' said Miriam, as she took the travelling-bags from Rose.-'That will do,' addressing the housemaid, against whom she unceremoniously shut and locked the door. Then, for the first time, the two young women confronted one another alone. Miriam had thrown aside her bonnet and shawl, and was a picture of mingled excitement, discontent, and curiosity. Her dark hair was dusty and disordered; her cheeks were smeared with tears; her beautiful eyes were bright, troubled, and pitiful; her strong tall form was shaken with the conflicting feelings within her. Rose was pale to her lips, and looked faint, but she was quiet, and perfectly calm. Pain was plainly to be read in her face, but there was courage there too, and something which told that the habit of endurance was formed in her character. 'Sit down,' said Miriam, pulling a chair forward, and pushing Rose Dixon into it; then standing before her, with a hand on each of her shoulders, she looked into her face. instant longer. Walter has not done it; you must. are you to him?' 'I cannot bear this one promised to explain-he Who are you? What Rose Dixon put her hands up, and gently took Miriam's off her shoulders; then, holding them in hers, she answered, as they, thus at arm's length, looked at each other: 'He left it to me to tell you. I am your brother's wife!' Miriam merely gasped. In the extremity of her astonishment she was quite unable to speak. In one brief moment, all the import, all the consequences of this revelation rushed into her mind. The implacable fury of her father, in the event of a discovery; the risk of the position Rose had undertaken; even the complicated awkwardness of the relation towards the servants in which she was involved the whole concatenation presented itself at once to her keen intelligence, and interpreted itself by the deep frown which instantly set itself upon her brow. 'It was not my doing that you were deceived, Miss Clint,' said Rose, as she dropped Miriam's hands, and stood up. I entreated Walter to tell you the truth, and leave you to choose whether you would protect and shelter me, knowing who I am.' 'His wife !-his wife!' was all Miriam could yet say. Yes, his wife! You surely do not doubt that? If you do, I can prove it. Surely he told you there could be no harm to you, no disgrace in having me with you?' me-I did not understand how imprudent, or I hope I should have had the courage to save him by parting from him; but he has only married a poor girl, not one inferior to him in birth and breeding.' 'What?' cried Miriam impetuously, seizing hold of her. You don't mean to say-though you certainly look like it-that you are a lady?' 'Certainly, I do,' returned the other calmly, and with decision. 'I am a lady-by descent, by birth, and education. I don't think Walter would have married any one who was not so,' she added proudly; and I don't think his sister ought to have suspected him of such a thing.' Now, I don't mind it a bit,' said Miriam, as she hugged Rose with all the warmth of her impulsive repentance; and I see I must have been a fool not to understand it. Never mind your not having any money; neither has Walter, you know. But never fear; we shall contrive to manage papa somehow; and if we don't, some day I mean to have enough for us all. Only, how, in the name of wonder, could you ever think of pretending to be a servant? How could you imagine such a thing?' 'It was Walter's plan,' said Rose; but I knew I could carry it out, from what he had told me of you. I am perfectly competent to be your maid, Miss Clint, as you shall see.' 'Absurd! How can you talk such nonsense? Walter's wife, my own sister-in-law, my maid! My father's daughter-in-law a servant in his house! Of course such a thing is quite out of the question. Only, what are we to say to papa? How am I to 'He did, he did!' said Miriam, recovering herself, account for you?' Miriam began to walk about and passing her hand over her forehead. I do not the room, and to pull her long hair through her doubt your word, but-but I am so bewildered-fingers, as she had a habit of doing when she you will explain-you will tell me. Good Heavens! was troubled. Rose quietly laid aside her bonnet this may be a dreadful thing for Walter.' She and shawl, opened one of the travelling-bags, took spoke the last sentence, almost unconscious that out combs and brushes, laid them on the dressingshe was heard. table, placed a chair before it, and stood with her hands on the chair-back, looking steadily at Miriam. 'Yes,' said Rose, and tears rolled down her pale face, it may be a dreadful thing for Walter, and I fear, I fear, his plan has not been a wise one, but I could not dissuade him from it. He dreaded leaving me quite alone; he clung to the idea of your affording me protection. Believe me, Miss Clint, my assent was most unwilling; I shrunk from asking so much from you; but Walter said you would not blame him for marrying the woman he loved only because she was poor.' 'Nor would I,' thought Miriam, though I am not sentimental, and would not marry a poor man, no matter how much I loved him; but I do blame him; I cannot forgive him for marrying a servant.' In that fact, she felt there was utter ruin for her brother, even apart from any vindictive course which his discovery of it might cause her father to adopt. Her silence chilled and terrified Rose. "Oh,' she sobbed, 'I wish I had not obeyed him -I wish I had refused to do this! It must end ill. I will go away; I will tell him it cannot be.' 'No, no,' said Miriam; 'do not distress yourself so much. You must remember how utterly I am taken by surprise; you must give me time to get over the first shock of this news a little. You do not know my father; I don't think Walter can have made you understand how proud a man he is, and' Rose flushed scarlet. She perceived what was in Miriam's mind. 'Miss Clint,' she said, 'I think you have not quite understood me. Your brother has done a dreadfully imprudent thing in marrying | 'In twenty minutes, dinner will be served,' she said, 'and you must go down and dine with your father. You have promised Walter to befriend me. You cannot betray me yet, and in the meantime the only thing to be done is to let me play my part so as not to be suspected. This evening, you shall know all, and then you shall take your resolution. What you can do for me and for him now, is to let me dress you for dinner, and then to go down with an untroubled face: when you can leave your father, you shall find me here.' 'But you?' said Miriam. 'What are you to do? You cannot dine with the servants. It is an impossible position to maintain.' 'No, it isn't,' said Rose. 'Sit down, and let me do your hair. Miriam obeyed her mechanically. Rose gathered up the great masses in her hand, admiringly, and began to brush out the shining length. I shall ask the servants to let me have some tea up here, on the pretext of having to put your things in order, and then we can arrange for the future, to-night.' The quiet, gentle, blue-eyed little woman was subjugating Miriam by the simple strength of her purpose. Miriam's first dinner in her father's house, as a grown-up young lady come home for good,' must have had some importance for her, but she had little contemplated its being such an ordeal. As she sat opposite to her father, she could hardly preserve her composure, or pretend to eat, so oppressed was she with the secret she had just learned, and with the recollection of what Walter had said about one request he had it in contemplation to make of his father through her. She had never felt so much afraid of her father as now, when she needed to be least so. She was tired, worn out, and for the first time in her life bearing the burden of concealment. Mr Clint was in a somewhat better humour than before, and spoke to her occasionally almost graciously. At the conclusion of dinner, he noticed her look of fatigue, and told her she might retire at once, if she pleased, adding, that she need never trouble herself about him in the evenings he rarely entered the drawing-room. Miriam, even then, could think of the dreary evenings there must be in store for her, and wonder whether he had any notion of procuring companionship of any kind for her; but she made no comment, only rose to leave the room. She stood hesitating for a moment whether she should approach him, but he dismissed her with a nod and a curt'good-night.' Miriam ran impatiently up the stairs, and to her own rooms, where she found Rose, seated in a thoughtful attitude by an open window, looking out upon the dreary lawn, where the sheep were nibbling the grass, their short sharp bites distinctly audible in the still summer evening. "That's over,' said Miriam, and now we shall not be disturbed again to-night.' She drew a low chair to the side of Rose as she spoke, and seated herself, looking up into the sad face of her brother's wife. 'If Walter could only see us now,' she said, 'he would be well pleased. We have some peaceful hours before us, come what may. You will tell me everything now?' 'Everything.' "May I ask you questions?' 'Ask me what you will.' "Then tell me, how long have you known Walter? When were you married to him?' 'I have known him two years; we have been married one.' 'Was Rose Dixon your real name?' No; my real name was Florence Reeve; but Walter could not let me use it; he fears it may have already reached your father's ears. Rose Dixon was my mother's name.' 'I shall call you Florence, when we are alone, and you must call me Miriam.' 'No, no,' said the other earnestly; 'it would be very dangerous. People pronounce names almost unconsciously, and we could not be enough upon our guard.' 'Very well,' said Miriam; 'I believe you are right. You shall be Rose, and I will be Miss Clint.' 'I wonder if you will ever like me well enough to be reconciled to having granted Walter's request?' said Rose. I think I shall like you very much,' replied Miriam frankly; 'only, I am so surprised now, so dumfounded, I do not feel rightly awake, and am hardly able to understand you.' 'I shall be lonely and desolate indeed, if you do not like me,' said Rose nervously, and with trembling lips, 'for Heaven knows when I shall see Walter again.' 'What do you mean? Have you no plan for meeting?' 'He and I parted yesterday-but for the momentary glimpse of him this morning,' said Rose. 'That also he left for me to tell you he does not purpose to see either you or me again. He is going, in a fortnight, to California.' RAILWAY-MAKERS. IN these days of rapid locomotion, when we are transported from place to place on a 'cushioned cannon-ball,' to quote Brother Jonathan, or, as the late President of the Board of Trade would have us believe, in the 'safest place in the kingdom,' who ever casts a thought-as bank succeeds cutting, as cutting is followed by tunnel, as tunnel gives place to viaduct, or as towns and villages roll rapidly by-on the life and labours of the men through whose instrumentality our modern system of railroads, and all its attendant conveniences, has reached its present state of perfection? We enjoy the comfort of speedy transit, our goods are generally conveyed with remarkable regularity, and our letters duly arrive in time for breakfast; yet who that participates in all these, and many other similar privileges, which were denied our forefathers, thinks of the labour-hard, muscular, toilsome labour that has been expended on the line which carries our persons, goods, or letters to their destination? We read in the papers of great men who, by their feats of engineering, render themselves famous, and find a niche in the Temple of Fame; and of men who project new lines of railway, and carry them out, directing by their superior minds the labour of the humbler worker, without whom all the brain-power in the world would be of no avail. Yet how few notice the hard-working, hard-eating, hard-drinking, and hard-spending 'navvy,' who has been an important element in maturing the project of his more richly endowed brother! The very name 'navvy' has passed into a synonym for all that is rough and uncouth; but although it is not far from the truth, there are 'navvies' and navvies. The term, which is a contraction of the word 'navigator,' is generally supposed to have originated in the days of canalmaking, when Brindley and others were trying to supply by water what water itself, in the vaporised form, supplies to-day. Then gangs of roughly-clad men were congregated in various parts of the country to cut the navigation,' and from that the word has been carried on till our time, when it means, in its contracted form, a powerful fellow who, with pick and spade, assists to clear the surface of the soil, and prepare it for the introduction of the 'iron steed.' Whence they come, and whither they go, to shuffle off this mortal coil, when they have escaped the dangers of tunnels, cuttings, &c., few can tell. Some, but not very many, are navvies born, and would consider it a disgraceful thing to forsake their fathers' calling; while the ranks generally are recruited from among the stout able-bodied men who, for a good day's pay, can do a good day's work. Plenty of muscle, with the will to use it, is the first element in the construction of a 'navvy,' and once 'footed,' he learns his other accomplishments with only too great facility. In going among a gang of men employed on a large cutting, it is a matter of surprise to hear the variety of dialects which ever and anon rise to the ear, in language often |