precise fashion of his first manly habiliments; and Andrew himself was less methodical and deliberate than usual in his own proceedings, finding something to do, or to seek for, which hurried him hither and thither, with a bustling restlessness very unlike his general clock-work movements. He sat scarce five minutes at his breakfast, and had not consumed half his morning's portion of oatmeal porridge, when he started off to draw out the cart, and harnesss old Dobbin; and the box was locked and brought out-and the boy rigged at all points, like a little hog in armour and the horse and cart at the door -and all ready, though Andrew professed he had believed it later than it really was, by a full hour, and the sooner they were off the better-so cutting short, with peevish impatience, the blubbering adieu of poor Jenny-just as Josiah was beginning to sob out in concert-and saying Up wi' ye, my man," he jerked him suddenly into the cart, and mounting himself, drove off at a rate that caused old Jenny to exclaim, "Lord save us, for certain master's bewitched!" and greatly inconvenienced Dobbin, whose usual paces were every whit as sedate and deliberate as her master's. 66 It is not to be inferred, however, that he continued to urge on the venerable beast to those unnatural exertions throughout the whole five miles. Andrew was so far a humane man, that he was "merciful to his beast," and once out of sight of home, permitted her to fall into her old jog-trot, taking the opportunity, after clearing his throat with sundry hums and ha's, to hold forth very lengthily to his young companion, on the new course of life he was about to enter on-the new duties he would have to fulfil the zeal for learning-aptness, diligence, and perseverance, that would be expected from him-the care he was to take of his clothes, and his new Bible and Prayer-book, and the caution with which it would behove him to select intimates among his schoolfellows, many of whom might be wild, riotous chaps, given to such wicked ways as Andrew trembled to think of. The boy had listened to this edifying exhortation-which had held on through four interminable miles, for Andrew was always soothed and inspired by the sound of his own droning preachments-just as he had been wont to listen to the Rev. Mr. Leadbeater's hydra-headed sermons in silence indeed, but with most disconsolate yawnings and twitchings, and indescribable fidgetings-but when his father came to the head of Schoolfellows, his attention was instantly excited, and suddenly brightening up, and skipping over the prohibitory clauses of the discourse, he broke in on it with an inquiry of→ whether the boys were like to be good hands at hoops and marbles? An interruption so ill-timed and incongruous, would have drawn down a sharp rebuke on the heedless of fender, but just as it was breaking from Andrew's lips, a sudden turn of the road brought them to the top of the last hill overlooking the town of C, which now opened at a short distance in full view of the travellers. There the father remembered he was to leave his boy-so the severe words died away upon his lips,-and the child looked, for the first time in his life, on the wonderful labyrinth of houses, churches, markets, and manufactories, that constitute a considerable county-town; and his amazement and delight broke forth with inexpressible vehemence.-" Ay,it's all very fine, my man!" said the father, shaking his head-"A fine thing to look at, yon great city; and ye've seen nothing like it afore, poor innocent lamb; but God keep ye from the evil ways that are in it, and from the tents of the ungodly!" So groaned Andrew; but nevertheless he drove on with his precious charge towards the tents of ungodliness, for he had worldly and ambitious views for the boy, and they were not to be forwarded in the desert. The road wound quite round the brow of the hill in a somewhat retro from the land!" concluding the third repetition with a sonorous " Amen !” which was softly re-echoed by the tremulous voice of the unconscious child, who, having been accustomed at home and at church always to repeat the word after the clerk or his father, now chimed in mechanically with the pious aspiration. "Amen!" quoth Andrew, and whipt on Dobbin, though rather perplexed at having to make his way through the closewedged multitude. Andrew Cleaves, though a severe, was not a cruel man: Though a zealous advocate for the extreme rigour of the law, he took no delight in witnessing the actual execution of its dread sentence; neither did he desire that his innocent com grade direction, so as to alter the otherwise precipitous descent,into one more gradual and easy. On one side arose a wall of chalky cliff-on the other a steep slope of slippery down so Andrew guided old Dobbin slowly and carefully round the promontory's brow; and on doubling the point, an unexpected and unwelcome sight saluted him. Just beneath, on a sort of green platform half way down the declivity, had stood from times beyond the memory of man, an awful fixture, from which the eminence derived its designation of "Gallows-Hill." Round that fatal tree, and quite down the remaining descent, and ranged, ledge above ledge, up the chalky summit, the whole population of C-panion should thus prematurely beseemed now assembled; yet such was the stillness of the vast multitude, that no sound, indicative of the scene they were approaching, had reached the ears of Andrew or his son, till they came in full sight of it. Andrew Cleaves instinctively tightened his rein and halted abruptly, and the boy jumped up and caught hold of his father's arm, but uttered not a word, as he looked down breathlessly on the condensed living mass. At last he drew a long deep inspiration, and looked round in his father's face, the seriousness of which had darkened into unusual severity. Rather in answer to his own momentary surprise, than in reply to the boy's inquiring looks-Andrew uttered, in his deepest, lowest tone-" Ay, I see how it is 'Sizes are over, and there's execution going forward.-So perish the guilty from the land!" an Andrew Cleaves would have been a sturdy champion for that faith, in the strength of which the valiant Bishop Don Hieronymo urged on the slaughter of the Infidels, with the shout of "Smite them, for the love of God!" And under the Jewish dispensation, he would never have spared Agag, whatever he might have done by "the best of the sheep and oxen." So now twice overyea, three several times, he fervently ejaculated" So perish the guilty hold a sight so awful. Therefore he pushed on as fast as possible, hoping to get clear of the crowd before the arrival of the Sheriff and the mourn ful cavalcade, which was slowly approaching. As they passed close to the foot of the gibbet, Josiah, glancing upwards at the fatal tree, shrunk close to his father, as if he would have grown into his very side; and now their onward progress became more difficult-almost impossible. The fatal cart was close at hand, and the curious people thronged about it to catch a passing view of the condemned, It was in vain that Andrew urged on the old mare with voice and lash: she could not force a passage through the living wall, so he was fain to take patience and draw up to the side of the road, till the sad pageant had passed by. The crowd which had arrested his progress, impeded also the advance of the cart with its wretched burden; and dur ing the time of its tedious approach, Andrew gathered from some of the bystanders, that the criminal, who was that day to meet an ignominious and untimely fate, was a mere youth, having barely attained his 20th year; that he had been a boy of fair promise, till seduced by bad company, and evil example, into irregular ways, and lawless practices; which, proceeding from bad to worse, had at last involved him in the crime for which he was about to suffer, and which would surely bring down to the grave with sorrow the grey hairs of his unhappy parents, whose only child he was. "Maybe they'll have to blame themselves for the ill deeds of their offspring. Maybe they'll have fallen short in setting him a good example, and in bringing him up in the fear of the Lord, and the renunciation of sin and Satan," sententiously observed Andrew, firmly compressing his lips, and contracting his dark brows into their sternest and most awful expres sion. "You're quite wrong there, master," indignantly retorted a woman, who was squeezed up close to the side of the cart, and whose hardfavoured countenance exhibited an expression little less saturnine than Andrew's; and, to use the vulgar phrase, far more "evil."—"You're quite wrong there, any way. Better Christians and honester folk never broke bread than that poor lad's parents; ay, and better parents too, though maybe a thought too proud and fond of him, for pride will have a downfall; and I always told 'em Joe wanted a tight hand over him; but it's too late now.-God help 'em, poor souls, I say." "Amen! Mistress," quoth Andrew. "Nevertheless, punishment is wholesome, for example's sake; and it's right guilt should suffer; and verily the parents of the lad, if they be, as you say, pious Christians, should rather rejoice in their affliction, and praise the Lord, that he is cut short in his wickedness." "I say, ' praise the Lord!' indeed, that their only child should come to the gallows! A fine thing to praise God on!" growled the woman-yet more indignantly. "I wonder what some folks' feelings are made of? I say, 'praise the Lord,' indeed!" "Woman!" snorted Andrew; but his expostulatory sentence was cut short by her angry vehemence, as she continued in a taunting key,"Maybe you'll like, for exam ད ple's sake,' to see that pretty lamb by your side with the rope round his neck some day. Maybe you'll praise the Lord for that, master!" and so saying, she stretched out her long bony arm, and laid her hand on the shoulder of the shuddering child, and when Andrew turned to rebuke her, and their eyes met, the expression of hers struck into his heart such a sensation of strange uneasiness, as caused him suddenly to draw the child beyond her reach; and long afterwards, for many and many a day, and when months and years had passed by, and the recollection of that scene had faded, and no particular circumstance occurred to revive it, that woman's face, and that peculiar look, would come across him, and again strike to his heart the same feeling of indefinite horror, which impelled him, at the moment he actually encountered it, to snatch the boy from within the evil influence of her touch. But at the time that painful sensation was as momentary as vivid, for all farther altercation was cut short, by the pressure of the living mass, among which a general agitation, and a low confused murmur took place, as it fell back on either side, to make way for the fatal cart. The woman left off, in the midst of a volley of revilings on Andrew's hard heartedness, in her anxiety to press back in time to secure a snug place near the gibbit, where she might see all in comfort. And Andrew held his peace, and drew still closer to the road-side, as the cart came slowly on; and as vulgar curiosity was not one of his besetting sins (Andrew Cleaves was by no means a vulgar mind, nor was his character a common one)-his eye followed not the broad eager gaze of the multitude, but looking downward, with serious and not unbecoming solemnity, he raised his head only for an instant, and as it were involuntarily, first as the cart came abreast of his own vehicle, and the wretched criminal was so near, that in the deep stillness which had succeeded that prelusive murmur, his short, quick, laborious respiration, broken at intervals by a convulsive sob, was distinctly audible; and transient as was Andrew's involuntary glance, the object it encountered was not one soon to be forgot ten. It was a sight, indeed, to touch a father's heart; and who could have beheld it unmoved? The culprit, as has been said, was a mere youth. He appeared scarcely to have numbered twenty summers. A tall slim lad he was, almost effeminate in the transparent delicacy of his complexion, the profusion of fair silky hair which waved in disorder about his blue-veined temples, and the sickly whiteness of his long thin hands, one of which hung lifelessly over the side of the cart, in which he sat erect and stiffened, as if under the influence of some benumbing spell, (his eyes only wandering with a bewildered stare,) and seemingly incapable of attending to the Clergyman, who was seated by his side, occasionally reading to him a few sentences from the book of Common Prayer, and mildly exhorting him to join in some pious ejaculation, or penitential verse. the distance of a few furlongs. All this while not a word had passed between the father and son; but just before they entered the town, Andrew looked round upon his child, who had remained, as it were, glued on to his side, both his little arms fast locked round one of his father's. He was very pale, and trembled like a leaf, and when his father spoke to him, and he tried to answer, the attempt produced only a deep choking sob, that burst out, as if his very breath had been pent up for ages; one or two hysterical catches succeeded, a broken word or two, the brimming eyes overflowed, and then the little heart was relieved and lightened-Oh, would the burden of elder bosoms was as easily breathed out!-And he slackened his grasp of his father's arm, and began again to breathe and prattle freely. Andrew fairly enough improved the opportu At such times, indeed, the wretched boy looked for an instant towards the book of prayer, and his lips mov-nity of that awful sight they had just ed, but no articulate sound proceeded from them. Those quivering lips were parched and deadly white, but a spot of vivid crimson burnt on his hollow cheek, and the expression of his large blue eyes, distended to an unnatural roundness, was exceeding ly ghastly. Occasionally he looked quickly and eagerly from side to side, and in one of those hurried glances his eyes met Andrew's, and at that moment his frame was convulsed with a universal tremor, and he faintly articulated the word "Father!" Right glad was Andrew Cleaves when the cart with its miserable burden, the Sheriffs with their attendants, and the whole dismal train, having passed onward, the people thronged after them to the place of execution, and he was once more at liberty to pursue his way, which witnessed, by pointing out to his in silver, and was to receive the stipend of twopence every Monday morning. He was moreover enjoined to keep an exact account of his expenditure, and his father presented him for that purpose, with a long narrow ledger-looking account book, all ruled and lined with red ink, under the heads of pounds, shillings, and pence. Andrew's last charge was abruptly put an end to, by the rumbling of his cart wheels over the stones of the High Street; and in two minutes, they had turned out of it into the Market-place, then through a long, narrow, back street, and at length drew up before a tall red house, with a bright green door, having on it a large plate of resplendent brass, whereon was engraved with sundry flourishes, "THE COMMERCIAL ACADEMY FOR All matters concerning the admission However cogent were the motives which decided Andrew Cleaves to decline the Rev. Mr. Jerk's proffer ed hospitality, he was by no means in haste to get home that day. He had business to transact with sundry corn-factors and graziers, and various other persons in C, and altogether found-or made, so much to detain him there, though his concerns were wont to be more expeditiously transacted, that it was evening before he remounted his rumbling vehicle, and put Dobbin in motion, and quite dark before he reached the door of his own cottage. It was a cold eve、 ning too-a cold, cheerless, bleak March evening, and an east wind and a sleety rain had been driving in his face all the way home; and as he approached the cottage, its bright blazing hearth glowed invitingly through the low casement, and reflected a red cheerful light on the half-open door, and streamed forward like a clew of welcome along the narrow gravel walk to the entrance wicket. And yet Andrew was in no haste to re-enter his comfortable home-Some hearts may guess why he lingered on the cold heath-Such as have felt the pang of returning to an abode, when all is as it was-except-that the light of life is extinguished-the jewel gone-the shrine left desolate. But at last poor old Jenny came hurrying out at the sound of the cartwheels, with her humble welcome, and wonderment at his late return, and offers of assistance in unharnessing Dobbin, that her master might the sooner come in and warm himself. Her well-meant kindness was rather gruffly declined, so she was fain to retreat within doors, and leave 66 Master," as she muttered to herself, in not the best of humours," to please himself his own way;" (the most difficult thing in the world, by the by, to some folks in some moods,) and when at last he approached the fire-side, and she ventured a cautious question as to how he left the dear child? she was snapt off with an injunction to mind her own business, and not trouble him with foolish questions. So, having set down his supper on the small table already pre |