disadvantage. And as, possibly, she compassionated the daily anxieties which she must have perceived me to suffer on her account, she resolved to put an end to my distress. She soon, indeed, found means to relieve me from my troublesome and perplexed situation; for while I was distracted with various inventions to supply her with pleasures, she very kindly--betrayed me to one of her former lovers at Oxford, by whose care and diligence I was immediately apprehended and committed to gaol.

"Here I first began seriously to reflect on the miscarriages of my former life; on the errors I had been guilty of; on the misfortunes which I brought on myself; and on the grief which I must have occasioned to one of the best of fathers. When I added to these the perfidy of my mistress, such was the horror of my mind, that life, instead of being longer desirable, grew the object of my abhorrence; and I could have gladly embraced death as my dearest friend, if it had offered itself to my choice unattended by shame.

"The time of the assizes soon came, and I was removed by habeas corpus to Oxford, where I expected certain conviction and condemnation; but, to my great surprise, none appeared against me, and I was, at the end of the sessions, discharged for want of prosecution. In short, my chum had left Oxford, and whether from indolence, or from what other motive, I am ignorant, had declined concerning himself any further in the affair."

"Perhaps," cries Partridge, "he did not care to have your blood upon his hands; and he was in the right on't. If any person was to be hanged upon my evidence, I should never be able to lie alone afterwards for fear of seeing his ghost."

"I shall shortly doubt, Partridge," says Jones, "whether thou art more brave or wise."- "You may laugh at me, sir, if you please," answered Partridge; "but if you will hear a very short story which I can tell, and which is most certainly true, perhaps you may change your opinion. In the parish where I was born--" Here Jones would have

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silenced him; but the stranger interceded that he might be
permitted to tell his story, and in the mean time promised
to recollect the remainder of his own.

Partridge then proceeded thus: "In the parish where I
was born there lived a farmer whose name was Bridle, and
he had a son named Francis, a good hopeful young fellow:
I was at the grammar-school with him, where I remember
he was got into Ovid's Epistles, and he could construe you
three lines together sometimes without looking into a dic-
tionary. Besides all this, he was a very good lad, never
missed church o' Sundays, and was reckoned one of the
best psalm-singers in the whole parish.
now and then take a cup too much, and that was the only
He would indeed
fault he had."-" Well, but come to the ghost," cries Jones.

"Never fear, sir, I shall come to him soon enough,' answered Partridge. "You must know then, that farmer Bridle lost a mare, a sorrel one, to the best of my remembrance; and so it fell out that this young Francis shortly afterward being at a fair at Hindon, and as I think it was on-I can't remember the day; and being as he was, what should he happen to meet but a man upon his father's mare. Frank called out presently, stop thief; and it being in the middle of the fair, it was impossible you know for the man to make his escape. and carried him before the justice: I remember it was justice So they apprehended him, Willoughby of Noyle, a very worthy good gentleman; and he committed him to prison, and bound Frank in a recognizance, I think they call it,-a hard word compounded of re and cognosco; but it differs in its meaning from the use of the simple, as many other compounds do. Well, at last down came my Lord Justice Page to hold the assizes; and so the fellow was had up, and Frank was had witness. To be sure, I shall never forget the face of the up for a judge, when he began to ask him what he had to say against the prisoner. He made poor Frank tremble and shake in his shoes. Well, you fellow, says my lord, what have you to say? Don't stand humming and hawing, but speak out. But, however, he soon turned altogether as civil to Frank,

and began to thunder at the fellow; and when he asked him, if he had any thing to say for himself? the fellow said, He had found the horse. Ay! answered the judge; thou art a lucky fellow: I have travelled the circuit these forty years, and never found a horse in my life: but I'll tell thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for thou didst not only find a horse, but a halter too, I promise thee. To be sure, I shall never forget the word. Upon which every body fell a laughing, as how could they help it? Nay, and twenty other jests he made, which I can't remember now. There was something about his skill in horse-flesh, which made all the folks laugh. To be certain, the judge must have been a very brave man, as well as a man of much learning. It is indeed charming sport to hear trials upon life and death. One thing I own I thought a little hard, that the prisoner's counsel was not suffered to speak for him, though he desired only to be heard one very short word; but my lord would not hearken to him, though he suffered a counsellor to talk against him for above half an hour. I thought it hard, I own, that there should be so many of them; my lord, and the court, and the jury, and the counsellors, and the witnesses, all upon one poor man, and he too in chains. Well, the fellow was hanged, as to be sure it could be no otherwise, and poor Frank could never be easy about it. He never was in the dark alone, but he fancied he saw the fellow's spirit." "Well, and is this thy story?" cries Jones. "No, no," answered Partridge. "O Lord have mercy upon me! I am just now coming to the matter; for one night, coming from the alehouse, in a long, narrow, dark lane, there he ran directly up against him; and the spirit was all in white, and fell upon Frank; and Frank, who is a sturdy lad, fell upon the spirit again, and there they had a tussel together, and poor Frank was dreadfully beat; indeed he made a shift at last to crawl home; but what with the beating, and what with the fright, he lay ill above a fortnight; and all this is most certainly true, and the whole parish will bear witness to it."

The stranger smiled at this story, and Jones burst into a loud fit of laughter; upon which Partridge cried, "Ay, you may laugh, sir; and so did some others, particularly a squire, who is thought to be no better than an atheist ; who, forsooth, because there was a calf with a white face found dead in the same lane the next morning, would fain have it that the battle was between Frank and that, as if a calf would set upon a man. Besides, Frank told me he knew it to be a spirit, and could swear to him in any court in Christendom; and he had not drunk above a quart or two, or such a matter of liquor, at the time. Lud have mercy upon us, and keep us all from dipping our hands in blood, I say!"

"Well, sir," said Jones to the stranger, "Mr. Partridge hath finished his story, and I hope will give you no future interruption, if you will be so kind as to proceed." He then resumed his narration; but as he hath taken breath for a while, we think proper to give it to our reader, and shall therefore put an end to this chapter.

CHAPTER XII.

IN WHICH THE MAN OF THE HILL CONTINUES HIS HISTORY.

"I HAD how regained my liberty," said the stranger; “but I had lost my reputation; for there is a wide difference between the case of a man who is barely acquitted of a crime in a court of justice, and of him who is acquitted in his own heart, and in the opinion of the people. I was conscious of my guilt, and ashamed to look any one in the face; so resolved to leave Oxford the next morning, before the daylight discovered me to the eyes of any beholders.

"When I had got clear of the city, it first entered into my head to return home to my father, and endeavour to obtain his forgiveness; but as I had no reason to doubt

his knowledge of all which had past, and as I was well assured of his great aversion to all acts of dishonesty, I could entertain no hopes of being received by him, especially since I was too certain of all the good offices in the power of my mother; nay, had my father's pardon been as sure, as I conceived his resentment to be, I yet question whether I could have had the assurance to behold him, or whether I could, upon any terms, have submitted to live and converse with those, who, I was convinced, knew me to have been guilty of so base an action.

"I hastened therefore back to London, the best retirement of either grief or shame, unless for persons of a very public character; for here you have the advantage of solitude without its disadvantage, since you may be alone and in company at the same time; and while you walk or sit unobserved, noise, hurry, and a constant succession of objects, entertain the mind, and prevent the spirits from preying on themselves, or rather on grief or shame, which are the most unwholesome diet in the world; and on which (though there are many who never taste either but in public) there are some who can feed very plentifully and very fatally

when alone.

"But as there is there is scarce any human good without its concomitant evil, so there are people who find an inconvenience in this unobserving temper of mankind; I mean persons who have no money; for as you are not put out of countenance, so neither are you clothed or fed by those who do not know you. And a man may be as casily starved in Leadenhall-market as in the deserts of Arabia.

"It was at present my fortune to be destitute of that great evil, as it is apprehended to be by several writers, who I suppose were overburthened with it, namely, money." -"With submission, sir," said Partridge, "I do not remember any writers who have called it malorum; but irritamenta malorum. Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum.”—“ Well, sir," continued the stranger, "whether it be an evil, or only the cause of evil, I was entirely void of it, and at the 3 L

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