Crawfordsville Review, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 18 April 1857 — Page 1

VOLUME VIII.

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THK KnrGOF DENMARK'S bride.

•T TM BON. mm. yonro*/

iWbri

irtis brought to the Danish King (He***!) That th« love of hie hurt'lay suffering, Aad pinsd for the comfort hiB voice would bring (OhI bh* as rhooon top w*b«»ltwq!) -Better he loves each golden cnrl *dh the broir of that Scandinavian girl, Than his rich crown jewels of ruby and pearl ^^And his Koao of the Isles is dying

TMrt* nobles saddled with speed r,: ,, (15vb*t!) fs Each1 one mounting a gallant stood Which he kept for battle and days of need

(Oil

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(HUBBT)

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They have fainted, and faltered and homoward gone Sty little fair page now follows alone— •Tor strength and for courago trying! .. Ths King looked back on tbat faithful child "Wan was tho face that answering smiled

They crossed the drnwbridgo with clattering dini Then ho dropped and only the King rode in here his Roso of tho Isles lay dying

jngblewa blast on his bugle horn ILEXOE?) er came but faint and forlorn eturned on tho cold gray morn, the breath of a spirit niching. portal stood primly wido Vi j"horned the Kir.p from that weary ride ', in tho light of the dawning day, •-Fp»TC sweet form of the wolcomer lay, -"tVho had yoarnod for his voieo while dying

Tho panting Bteed with a drooping crcst, Stood weary bp Kins returned from her cliambor of rest,' fiilek sobs choking in his breast, ^Vnd that dumb companion eyeing—. .Ria tears gushed forth which hestrovo to ch eck Ho bowed his hoad on liia chargcr's nock— "0 steed that every nerve didst strain, Dear stood, our rido hatli been in vain

To the hall whoro my lovo lay dying 1"

THE FLUTE OF LACED EJION.

irr nrv. cdwaud c.

Jones.

Tho Lacedasmonians usualy advanced to action, by the sound of tho flute. Not with tlio clangor loud and long,

Of cymbnl and of drum, Not with tho tempest burst of song, Docs Lnccdojmon coino But dulcet warbling* of the flute,

Announco tho steady trend, Of those who mightiest in pursuit, By iron souls are led.

You might suppose tl.cv wished to lull r, An infantto its rest, hp A swyonado so beautiful, W Wo\\14 charm a maiden's breast...

And yet tilatprelude soft as dow, Was droppings of a shower, •Wliich to a mnddcjiing whirlwind grew,

Ere fled a singlo hour.

Oh, Lacednomon's olded band, Thy flutes of silver sound. •x Tench mo however firm my stand,

Upon Life's battle-frround,— Ilowover rcsoluto the blow, 1 deal in pressing on. My inmost spirit should •but know,

1

A quiet under-i.v»:»o

With gentle words but iron blows, The conflict should procced, And when thocadcnco purest flows,

More sterling prove tho deed, *5 Collected norvo and steady brow, An aim and purpose high,

May all rcdooin our manhood's vow, Mid bursts of raolody.

1 Toledo blado if wroatliod in flowers, Has not an edgo loss kcon, 'Than if aloft tho spectro towers, -J**..

In all its fearful sheen,

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They act tho truest and tho best, Their arrows farthost shoot Who bring to bear the Grecian's test",'

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And fight behind tho flute. .-_v

|fir Grai vis treated like infants. When the head becomes heavy it'is cradled and it is generally well thrashed to render it fit for use,

Mrs. Partington says she has noticed that whether flour was dear or cheap, she invariably had to pay tho same money for half a dollar's worth.

9ST The substance of a verdict of a rcccnt coroner's jury, on a man who died in a state of inebriation, wis Death by hanging —round a rumshop." say, my little son, where does the right hand road go?" 'Don't know, sir it haint been nowhere since we lived here."

I^T The man who huug himself to an axletrce with a cord of wood, has been cut down with a sharp-set appetite by the fast man.who tired down a wagon-wheel.

An exchange has discovered that

schotisclie is a coruption of the words "Scotch itch," and the famous dance owes its name to a person afflicted with the Scotch plague aforesaid. Awful!

A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED.

A.

take,

bids *s -motion too web* Ttnxo!)s.{.

Spurs "were Btruokin foaming flank— £.j Worn-out chargers staggered and sank— ...., Bridles were slackened, and girths were burst But ride as they would, tho King rode first,

For his Rose of the Isle3 lay dying!

Ilis nobles are beaten, one by one,,

to

THE moist difficult likeness I ever had

not even excepting my first attempt in the art of Portrait-painting was a likeness of a gentleman named Faulkner. As far as drawing and coloring went, I had no particular fault to find with my picture it was the expression of the sitter which I had failed in rendering—afailure quite as much his fault as mine. Mr. Faulkner, like many other persons by whom I have been employed, took. it into his head that he must assume an expression, because lie was sitting for his likeness and, in consequence, contrived to look as unlike himself as possible, while I was painting him. I had tried to divert his attention from his own face, by talking with him on all sorts of topics.

We had both traveled a great

deal, and felt interested alike in many subjects connected with our wanderings over the same countries. Occasionally, while we were discussing our traveling experiences, the unlucky set-look left his countenance, and I began to work to some purpose but it was always disastrously sure to return again, before I had made any great progress—or, in other words, just at the very time when I was most anxious that it should not re-appear. The obstacle thus thrown in the way of-the satisfactory completion of my portrait, was the more .to be deplored, because Mr. Faulkner's natural expression was a very remarkable ono: I am not an author, so I can not describe it. I ultimately succeeded in painting it, however and this was the way in which I achieved my success:

On the morning when my sitter was coming to me for the fourth time, I was looking at his portrait in no very agreeable mood—looking at it, in fact, with the disheartening conviction that the picture would be a perfect failure, unless the expression in the face represented were thoroughly altered and improved from nature. The only method of accomplishing this successfully, was to taake Mr. Faulkner, somehow, insensibly forget that he was sitting for his picture. What topic could I lead him to talk on, which would entirely engross his attention while I was at work on his likeness?—I was still puzzling my brains to no purpose on this subject, when Mr. Faulkner entered my studio and, shortly afterward, an accidental circumstancc gained for me the very object which my own ingenuity had proved unequal to compass. I'l

While I was "setting" my pallet, my sitter amused himself by turning over some portfolios. He happened to select one for special, notice, which contained several sketches that I had made in the streets of Paris. He turned over the first five views rapidly enough but when he cainc to the sixth, I saw his face flush dircctly and observed that he took the drawing out of the portfolio, carried it to the window, and remained silently absorbed in the contemplation of it for full five minutes. After that, he turned round to me and asked, very anxiously, if I had any objection to part with that sketch.

It was the least interesting drawing of the series—merely a view in one of the Streets running by the backs of the houses in the Palais Royal. Some four or five of these houses were comprised in the view, which was of no particular use to me in any way and which was too valueless, as a work of Art, for me to think of selling it to my kind patron. I begged his acceptance of it, at once. He thanked me quite warmly and then, seeing that I looked a little surprised at the odd selection he had made from my sketches, laughingly asked me if I could guess why he had been so anxious to become possessed of the view which I had given him? "Probably"—I answered—"there is some remarkable historical association connected with that street at the back of the Palais Royal, of which I am ignorant." "No"—said Mr. Faulkner—"at least, none that I know of. The only association connected with the place in my mind, is a purely personal association. Look at this house in your drawing—the house with the water-pipe running down it from top to bottom. I once passed a night there—a night I shall never forget to the day of my death. I have had some awkward traveling adventures in my time but that adventure—! Well, well! suppose we begin the sitting. I make but a bad return for your kindness in giving me the sketch, by thus wasting your time in mere talk."

One op the Definitions!—An exchange He had not long occupied the sitter's says that "bridal ctl'velopes," iftrich are so chair (looking pale and thoughtful), when extensfeely advertised for sale, means, h0 returned—involuntarily, as it seemed— "simply, night-gowns. to the subject of the house in the back

A member of'the Irish Parliament street. Without,Xhope, showing any unmet the reproach of selling his country by due curiosity, I contrived to let him see iUkanWin#t tliaf Ua MUinfpV (A Aili Jam lri^AVAcf in ilimfF •ell.

aet toe reproacn oi selling ms country oy uuc uuriusuy, «v« 'thanking God that he had a country to that 1 felt a deep interest in every thing he now said. After two or three preliminary hesitations, he at last, to my great

The tobacco crop in Tennessee and

Kentucky, it is thought, is entirely destroyed, and great apprehension is felt as to the

19" A paper out West has for a motto: "Good will to all men who pay up promptly. Devoted tonews, fun and—making money."

'WST To one who said, „I do not believe there, if an honest man in the world," another replied: "It is impossible that one should know all the world, bat quaet jM)M&le that one may know huBB$&"

joy, fairly, started on the narrative of his adventure. In the interest of his subject he soon completely forgot that he was sitting for his portrait—the very expression that I wanted, came oyer his face—my picture proceeded toward completion, in the right directiorrr&nd to"the test purpdse. At tx€ij fresh touch, I felt inore kn4 more' ceiftaip I waa now getting the bette? of my grand difficulty and I enjoyed the additional gratification of hav.

ing my work lightened by the recital of a true story, which possessed, in my estimation, all the excitement of the most exciting romance. J-

This, as nearly as I can recollect, is, word for word, how Mr. Faulkner told me the story:—

Shortly before the period when gamb-ling-houses were suppressed by the French Government, I happened to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, a very dissipated life, in the very dissipated city of our sojourn. One night, we were idling about the neighborhood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betake ourselves.— My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's but his suggestion was not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, by heart had lost and won plenty of fivefranc pieces there, "merely for the fun of the thing/' until it was "fun" no longer and was thoroughly tired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a social anomaly as a respectable gambling-house.

For Heaven's sake"—said I to my friend —"let us go somewhere where we can see a little genuine, blackguard, poverty-strick-en gaming, with no false gingerbread glitter thrown over it at all. Let us get away from fashionable Frascati's, to a house where they don't mind letting in a man with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or otherwise."—"Very well," said my friend, "we needn't go out of the Palais Royal to find the sort of company you want. Here's the place, just before us as blackguard a place, by all report, as you could possibly wish to see." In another minute we arrived at the door, and entered the house, the back of which you have drawn in yoof*sketch.

When we got up-stairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the doorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gamblingroom. We did not find many people assembled there. But., few as the men were who looked up at us on our entrance, they were all types—miserable types—of their respective classes. We had come to see blackguards but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism— here, there was nothing but tragedy mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes, fiercely watchcd the turning up of the cards, never poke thc fl&bfey5.fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked' liis piece of pasteboard persevefingly, to register how often black won, and how often red—never spoke the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vulture eyes, and the darned great coat, who had lost his last sous, and still looked on desperately, after he could play no longer—never spoke.

Even

the voice of the croupier

sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place to laugh I felt that if I stood quietly looking on much longer, I should be more likely to weep. So, to excite myself out of the depression of spirits which was fast stealing over me, I unfortunately went to the table and began to play. Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won—won prodigiously won incredibly won at.such a rate, that the regular players at the table crowded round me and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to break the bank.

The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances —that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practiced it so incessantly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coolly pocket, without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short, I had hitherto frequented gambling-tables—just as I frequented ball-rooms and opcra-hous-es—because they amused me, and because I had nothing better to do with my leisure hours.

But, on this occasion, it was very different— now, for the first time in my life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My success first bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost, when I attempted to estimate chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I left every thing to luck, and staked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win—to win in the face of every recognized probability in favor of the bank. At first, some of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my color but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One after another they left off playing, and breath]gpsly looked on at my game. Still, time aker time, I staked higher and higher and still won. The excitement in the room rose to fever-pitch. The silence was interrupted, by a deep, muttered-chorus of oaths and exclamations in different languages^ every time the gold ]yr*B dboveled

across to my side of the table—even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury of astonishment at my success. But one man present preserved his self-possession and that man was my friend. He came to my side, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfied with what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say, that he repeated his warnings and entreaties several times and only left me and went away, after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents and purposes gamblingdrunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for him to address me again that night.

Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried: "Permit me, my dear sir!—permit me to restore to their proper place two Napoleons which you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir!—I pledge you my word of honor as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours! never! Go on, sir Sacre miUe bombes!— Go on boldly, and break the bank!"

I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me wi? inveterate civility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout. If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, as being rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, bloodshot eyes, mangy mustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayed a barrack-room intonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I ever saw—even in France. These little personal peculiarities exercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In the mad excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to "fraternize" with any body who encouraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier's offered pinch of snuff clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world the most glorious relic of the „Grand Army that I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy—"Go on, and win! Break the bank —Mille tonnerres! my gallant English comrade, break the bank!"..

And I clicl go on—went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of an hour the croupier called out: "Gentlemen! the bank has discontinued for to-night." All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank," now lay in a heap under my hands the whole floating capital of the gamblinghouse was v.*ailing to pour feto m~j pocKet.s!

Tie up the money in your pocket-hand-kerchief, my worthy sir," said the old soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. "Tie it up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army your winnings are too heavy for any breeches pockets that ever were sewed.— There! that's it!—shovel them in, notes and all! Credief what luck!—Stop! another Napoleon on the floor Ah sacre petit polisson dc Napoleon have I found thee at last? Now, then, sir—two tight double knots each way with your honorable permission, and the money's safe. Feel it! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon ball—Ah, Bah! if they had only fired such cannon balls at us at Austerlitz—nom d'unc pipe! if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do I ask what Simply this to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle of champagne with me, and toast the goddess

Fortune

in foaming gob­

lets before we part!" "i— Excellent ex-brave! Convival ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means!— An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another English cheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah.! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Bravo! the Englishman the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France!— Another glass AJi, bah f—the bottle is empty! Never mind! Vive le vin.' I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound of bon-bons with it!"

No, no, ex-brave never—ancient grenadier! Your bottle last time my bottle this. Behold it! Toas»away! The French Army!—the great Napoleon!—the present company! the croupier! the honest croupier's wife and daughters—if he has any! the Ladies generally! Every body in the world!

By the time the second bottle of champagne was emptied, I felt as if I had been drinking liquid fire—my brain seemed all a flame. No exccss in wine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly-excited state Was my stomach in a particularly disordered condition Or was the champagne particularly strong "Ex-brave of the French .Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration. "I am on fire! how are you You have set»me on fire! Do you hear my hero of Austerlitr? Let us have a third bottle of champagne to put the flame out!" The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until expected to see them £lip out of their sockets placed his dirty forefinger by the side of his broken nose solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!" and immediately ran off into an inner room.

CRAWFORDSVILLE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA, APRIL 18, 1857. NUMBER

The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran, seemed to havc^a magical effect on the rest of the company present. With one accord they all rose to depart. Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication but finding that my new friend was benevolently bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings. Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went away in a body. When the old soldier returned, and Eat down again opposite to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating his supper in solitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.

A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed a portentously solemn look and when he spoke to me again, his speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by no apostrophes, or exclamations. "Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidential tones—"listen to an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistress of the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for cookery!) to impress on her the necessity of making us some particularly strong and good coffee. You must drink this coffee in order to get rid of your little amiable exaltation of spirits, before you think of going home— you must, my good and gracious friend!— With all that money to take home to-night, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits about you. You arc known to be a winner to an enormous extent, by several gentlemen present to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy and excellent fellows but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they have their amiable weaknesses! Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understand me! Now, this is what you must do—send for a cabriolet when you feel quite well again—draw up all the windows when you get into it—and tell the driver to take you home only through the large and well-lighted thoroughfares. Do this and you and your money will be safe. Do this and to-mor-row you will thank an old soldier for giving you a word of honest advice."

Just as the cx-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, the coffee came in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handed me one of the cups, with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank it off at a draught. Almost instantly afterward, I was seized with a fit of giddiness, and felt more completely intoxicated than ever. The room whirled round and round furiously the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing up and down before me, like the piston of a stcam-en-gine. I was half-deafened by a violent singing in my ears a feeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiotcy, overcame me. I rose from my chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance and stammered out, that I felt dreadfully unvrell—so unwell, that I did not know how I was to get home. "My dear friend," answered the old soldier and even his voicc seemed to be bobbing up and down, as he spoke—"My dear friend, it would be madness to go home, in your state. You would be sure to lose your money you might be robbed and murdered with the greatest ease. I am going to sleep here do you sleep here, too—they make up capital beds in this house—take one sleep off the effects of the wine, and go home safely with your winnings, to-morrow—to-morrow, in broad daylight."

I had no power of thiuking, no feeling of any kind, but the feeliVig that I must lie down somewhere, immediately, and fall off into a cool, refreshing, comfortable sleep. So I agreed eagerly to the proposal about the bed, and took the offered arms of the old soldier and the croupier—the latter having been summoned to show the way.— They led me along some passages and up a short flight of stairs into the bedroom which I

waB

to occupy. The ex-brave

shook me warmly by the hand proposed that we should breakfast together the next morning and then, followed by the croupier, left me for the night.

I ran to the wash-hand stand drank some of the water in my jug poured the rest out, and plunged my face into it—then sat down in a chair, and tried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the glaring gas-lights of the "Salon" to the dim, quiet flicker of one bedroom candle aided wonderfully the restorative effects of cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little like a reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of sleeping all night in a gam-bling-house my second, of the still greater risk of trying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone at night, through the streets of Paris, with a large sum of money about me'. I had slept in worse placcs than this, in the course of my travels so I determined to lock, bolt, and barricade my door.

Accordingly, I secured myself against "Vt"

all intrusion looked under the bed, and into the cupboard tried the fastening of the window and then, satisfied that I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upper clothing, put my light, which was a dim one, on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood ashes and got into bed, with the handkerchief full of money under my pillow.!

I soon felt, not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not even close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my body trembled —every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I to&sed, and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now, I thrust my arms over the clothcs now, poked them under the clothes now, I violently shot my legs straight out, down to the bottom of the bed now, I convulsively coiled them up as near my chin as they would go now, I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back now, I fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain I groaned with vexation, as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.

What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out some method of diverting my mind, I felt ccrtain that I was in the condition to imagine all sorts of horrors to rack my brains with forebodings of every possible and impossible danger in short, to pass the night in suffering all conceivable varieties of nervous terror. I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room—which was brightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window—to sec if it contained any pictures or ornaments, that I could at all clearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre's delightful little book, "Voyage autour de ma Chambre," occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enough to relieve tho tedium of my wakefulness by making a mental inventory of every article of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand, may be made to call forth.

In tho nervous, unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it much easier to my proposed investor th^n to make my proposed reflections, and soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fanciful track—or, indeed, thinking at all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and did nothing more. There was, first, the bed I was lying in— a four-post bed, of all things in the world to meet witli in Paris!—yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poater, with the regular top lined with chintz—the regular fringed valance all round—the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts, without particularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then, there was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had spilt, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then, two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trowscrs flung on them.— Then, a large elbow chair covered with dir-ty-white dimity: with my cravat and shirtcollar thrown over the back. Then, a chest of drawers, with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then, the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then, the window—an unusually large window. Then, a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was the picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowncd with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy sinister ruffian, locking upward shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward —it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to l^e hanged. At any rate he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.

This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward, too—at the top of the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, and I looked back at the picturc. I counted the feather's in the man's hat they stood out in relief three, white two, green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was of a conical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been favored by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn't be at the stars such a desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer.— It must be at the high gallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possession of his conical crowned hat, and plume of feathers?— I counted the feathers again three, white two, green/

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While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual employment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlight shining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night in England —the night after a pic-nic party in a Welsh valley. Every incident of the drive homeward through lovely scenery, which the

moonlight mado lovelier than ever, eamo back to my remembrance, though I had never given the pic-nic a thought for years though, if I had tried to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothing of that scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tell us we are immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently than memory? Here was I, in a strange house of the moat suspicious charactor, in a situation of uncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem to make the cool exercise of my recollection almost out of the question nevertheless remem« bering, quite involuntarily, placcs, people, conversations, minute circumstances of every kind, which I had thought forgotten for-, ever, which I could not possibly have recalled at will, even under the roost favora« blc auspices. And what cause had produced in a moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect? Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.

I was still thinking of the pic-nic of our merriment on the drive home of the sentimental young lady, who would quote Childe Harold because it was moonlight, I was absorbed by these past scenes and past amusements, when, in an instant, tho thread on whioh my memories hung, snap* ped asunder my attention immediately came back to present things more vividly than ever, and I found myself, I neither knew why or wherefore, looking hard at the picturc again.

Looking for what? Good God, tho man had pulled his hat down over his brows No! Tho hat itself was gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the'feathcrs three, white two green? Not there!— In place of the hat and feathers, what dusky object was it that now hid his forehead—. his eyes—his shading hand? Was the bod moving?

I turned on my back, and looked up.— Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddv again?, or, was the top of the bod really movingdown—sinking slowly, regularly, silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole' of its longth and breadth—rightfdown upon me, as I lay underneath?

My blood seemed to stand still a deadly paralyzing' coldness stole all over me, as I turned my head round on the pillow, and determined to test whether the bed-top really moving or not, by keeping my» eye on the man in the picturc. The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowsy outline of tho valanco above me was within an inch of being'} allel with his waist. I still looked breathlessly. And steadily, and 6lowly—very slowly—I saw the figure, and the line of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moved down before it.

I am, constitutionally, any thing but timid. I have been, on more than one occasion, in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession for an instant but, when the conviction first settled on my mind that the bed-top was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked up for one awful minute, or more, shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where I lay.

Then the instinct of self-preservation came, and nerved me to save my life, while there was yet time. I got «ut of bed very quietly, and quickly dressed myself again in my upper clothing. The candle, fully spent, went out. I sat down in the armchair that stood near, and watchcd the bedtop slowly descending. I was literally spell-bound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turned round if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. Tho whole life in me, was, at that moment, con» centr&ted in my eyes.

It descended—the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, came down—down— close down so close that there was not room now to squeeze my finger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at tho sides, and discovered that what had appeared to me, from beneath, to be the ordi-" nary light canopy of a four-post bed was in reality a thick, board mattress, the substance of which was concealed by the valance and its fringe. I looked up, and saw the four posts rising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge wooden screw that had evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary preases are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it came down there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid a dead and awful silence I beheld before me—in the nineteenth ccntury, and in the civilized capital of Franco—such a machine for secret murder by suffocation, as might have existed in the worst days of the Inquisition, in the lonely Inns among the Hartz Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of Tcstphalia! Still, as I looked on it, I could not move I could hardly breathe but I began to recover the power of thinking and, in a moment, I discovered the murderous conspiracy framed against me, in all its horror. {Concluded on fourth page,)