"My man," was said of her husband by Mrs. Belliver with the emphasis of a lofty pride. As a delicate girl, with physical trouble the occupation of her days and thoughts, she had been solaced by her mother: "Bide a bit, my dear. Thee shall 'ev a Man when thee gits married." And in five years of matrimony Mrs. Belliver had accounted them the words of prophecy. She believed in the prophetic, finding symbols in nature and omens in daily happenings. Joe Belliver realized the promised condition every time she looked up blushing to the ruddy face at a height above her.

The husband she had taken represented strength; she worshipped the exuberant health in him. Dimly perceiving marriage to be a state of compromise or a state of war, Joe Belliver compromised. In his essence he was nature's devotee and observer, riding his thirty miles a day on a stiff Dartmoor pony, and knowing all the secrets the moor had to give him, where Nature worked in broad tones and with large effects. His communion with the great silence, where he was but a sentient speck, bred a contempt for prophecy and omen, an impatience of small disputes.

He never went to the little chapel at Badleigh Bridge from choice, but always in pursuance of his theory of compromise. For five years he had spent Sunday in the singing of hymns, and in the digestion of sermons made long to each other by the brethren of the scattered community, and marveled at the strange light these ceremonies awoke in his wife's face and the tears they drew from her eyes. It was mysterious to him that these results were born of a meagre room with white-washed walls, and of a few sing

ing voices overborne by an harmonium. He gazed into the great purple distances as they walked home by the rough track along the river, marveling the more, but not discontent, that she clung closer to him as they walked.

"I veel the blessing, Joe," she might say. "The Lord's above us, an' 'Eaven's ev'rywhere."

All his response would be a closer pressure of the arm.

"Do 'e veel the blessin' yersel', Joe? Zometimes I vancy you dawn't." ""Tis a blessin' to 'ev a li'l 'ooman like you be, Minnie."

Joe vaguely comprehended her sigh, without understanding.

Until five years of such Sunday rites had passed, Joe had never felt his rebellion against usages rising up over his love for his wife. Then it was following a Saturday of full life, when, at Newcombe, he had feasted on the occasion of the October ale, and had his fill of the material, laughing earth, and, riding home against a red sunset, had imagined the world in hilarity, according with his mood. A virile an was he, rousing his wife from megrims, even to her own rare laughter, on his return, and causing in her a temporary abandonment to the ideal of gaiety and strength, and all the human for

ces.

Whether through remembrance as a sunlit cloud, or mere joy in living, such as Joe Belliver felt when he trod the dew in the morning, he began his Sunday a gleeful man, singing, smartened himself into a Sabbath appearance, and set out well satisfied with earth and being, for the day's pilgrimage to Badleigh Bridge. The moor was all a gorgeous sweep of color in its Fall purple. The sky was a barometer to him, and he now forecast a heavy rain in the

West which would not reach them. He endured the harmonium with complacence at the morning service, and was a welcome guest at a new-take dinnertable. The day waxed and waned gloriously and comfortably. Evening came, and the service in the little chapel was illuminated by fleeting candles in tin sconces. Then by some chance a fervor seized upon the people, awakened by the passionate tones of the brother who led them and his burning words. The white walls echoed their cries and groans. Joe Belliver sat amazed watching. The preacher had long left his exhortations; the spirit of the meeting was inarticulate. He came down from his platform, and walked among the benches speaking in the ears of kneeling, sobbing people. The light Joe Belliver did not understand flooded the place, and shone through the streaming tears of his wife at his side. The preacher came to her and whispered.

"Oh, iss," she gasped. "I veel the blessin', praise the Lord!"

To the question he put to Joe a simple lie might have been returned, but Joe did not return it.

"Brother, brother!" said the preacher, pressing his arm. And he went back to the platform and prayed aloud for a brother who had not felt the saving grace, and commanded the prayers of all. Some eyes, turned towards him, saw the deep flush under Joe's brown skin before he bent his head and covered his face. As they broke up he said no word, but walked straight through the group at the door, with his wife hanging to his arm. He looked neither left nor right. Mrs. Belliver had faint knowledge of the battle that raged in him as they took the river path under the increasing night.

"Joe, Joe! You be strange," she said. He strode along. He could formulate no expression of the offence ágainst his dignity. He looked around,

appealing to the hills rising on both sides of the swift-running stream.

"Joe, Joe! What 'ev I done?" To this he could respond with "Nothin'." for hers was not the offence; but he said only the single word and held himself upright.

"Joe, you never bin like this avore, since us was married. Joe! Spaik to me."

"Iss, 'tidden you, Minnie. But I dawn't like vor to be made a vool of, 'vore a passle of vokes."

"Eh, Joe! My Man! To think 'pon thee bein' made any sich thing! Awn'y, the Lord move' Brother Dean. An' the Lord was there, Joe. Oh, Joe, if awn'y thee could veel the Spirit-I sh'u'd be 'appier'n I be now."

"What's the use? What do it main? What's the good o' pertendin'? I reckon I bain't no wuss'n any o' mun. Why sh'u'd mun cry out' pon me?"

"Joe-'tidden no pertendin'. 'Tis real, real! 'Ev vaith, an' belaive, Joe, an' you'd veel the blessin', precious, precious!"

"I got a blessin' avore God an' man, in thee, Minnie. I do belaive-in doin' my dooty, an' payin' my way, an' obeyin' the Ten Commandments. An' I dawn't like vor to be 'old up vor a shaw."

"Joe-my Man! But 'tidden all, Joe. There's Zummat beyon'-the life to come. You knaw I bain't the strongest. Supposin' that aught was to 'appen to me-w'u'd 'e like vor to think that was the end o't? . . . Oh, Joe!"

The cry struck his heart. He relaxed his uprightness. He gathered her in his arms. "Minnie, dawn't talk thicky way. What be zayin'?"

"Oh, I dunnaw." She sobbed and reached up to kiss him. "You'm big an' strong, an' vull of life an' lustiness. You dawn't zee jus' what I zees. "Tis all awn'y vor a little while, Joe; an' I want vor to love 'e vorever, to 'ev 'e vorever, to 'old 'e vorever!"

He thrilled to her passionate words, and was melted, ready to run in any groove.

"Minnie, my dear! Thee can veel my arm aroun' 'e; thee knaw'st how I love thee."

"Iss, Joe. Oh, iss. . . But after, after!"

Clinging to him, she lost speech. They walked slowly on, with arms entwined. That night was a deep blue, with stars shining through into the narow valley. And as they went, the river, rolling over the rocks to its unknown, seemed to endlessly repeat her cry. Spectator of the mystery of her exaltation in the solemn quiet of the moorland night, Joe Belliver was compelled. He was more in tune with the mood of the supernatural than had been possible in the heat and excitement of the little chapel. They had a closer communion of spirit than he had known; he was subdued and awed by a misty glimpse into vast spaces.

Within the familiar constraining walls of the riverside cottage, when he had lit their lamp and saw her moving about the kitchen in preparation of supper, his Ego became dominant again. He became the ineffably stronger, nourishing and protecting, and felt this consciousness when she nestled to him, sitting before the embers of a peat fire on the hearth. He was tolerant, considerate; he worked out in a fresh field the theory of compromise.

She left him with a kiss. He made secure outside the house, and stood in the doorway, looking upon the dim shadowy hills, and the faint sheen of the water. The stillness had given place to a cold, rushing breeze, northwesterly, along the river's course. Upwards the sky was opaque with clouds, а shimmer of lightning breaking through them. The river sang with a low moaning. He decided that long boots would be essential to him on the

morrow, and before he went to bed he placed them ready.

He found her on her knees by the bedside. He heard her saying low, "Forever! Forever!"

The night drew down upon the valley an intense blackness. The singing of the river grew louder; the cold breeze rattled among the few pines behind the house. The shimmer of lightning became a glare. A roll as of distant drums was added to the river's music. Rain pattered on the heather, and shone in the white flashing light. The storm marched, slow and majestic, over the moor, rattled among the crags of Black Tor, and advanced, ever following the river's course.

It fell upon the house of sleep. The thunder crashed and echoed from hill to hill; the lightning hovered about the thatch. It struck one of the meagre pines, and brought it down, stripped and smouldering, to the ground. It lit the lonely moor, and split and tore the clouds above; it pierced the blinds of the upper room, and filled it with a fierce, blue light. A crack that seemed to be tumbling the walls of the house about him woke the sound sleeper, Joe Belliver. His eyes dazed by the brilliant light, he stretched out his arms to his wife, and clasped air. He leaped up. She was not beside him. The open door admitted the cold breeze and the under-sound, beneath the thunder, of rain hissing into the river. the stairs he saw in the kitchen doorway a white figure, arms raised.

"Minnie!" he called.

From

She did not hear but ran out into the day of night, with her hair streaming in the wind, still raising her hands to the heavens where they opened and the unearthly light blazed through. It was but a few yards to the brink of the river, now risen high by the flood-water from the west.

He was close to her as she stepped over and fell, and was whirled down

ward by the frothing torrent. No cry of his was heard above the turmoil of the storm. His mighty jump took him into the water at her side. He clasped her and fought the stream with the burden in his arms. One chance of the struggle took him to the bank, but he caught nothing save grass, uprooted it, went spinning on. Fatigue succeeded a few lurid moments of raging desire The Speaker.

for life. And then the river became a couch of down with a celestial light playing softly upon it and all sounds deadened save its slumber song, "But after, and after!"

They came to rest at the shingle bed at Badleigh Bridge, and a gentle morning was smiling on their close embrace when the first peat-cutter passed that solitary way.

R. A. J. Walling.

There has been some idea mooted of forming an Academy in England on the lines of the Academy of France, but it would never be the same kind of institution, or exercise the same authority. The English temper is not academic, the Royal Academy is proof enough of that. Moreover, Englishmen are indifferent to the use or abuse of their language and the first care of an Academy must be to keep the national language pure, and clear and elegant. The well of English undefiled is sadly muddy nowadays, and any roaring screamer of English or American slang is as welcome to those who call themselves critics as though he wrote like Matthew Arnold or John Morley. Lacking an Academy of Letters, and the writers who would make one, there is in London what is called a Society of Authors, which is supposed to resemble the Société des Gens de Lettres in Paris, but the English Society appears to be chiefly an association for the multiplication and publication of inferior works, and its authority on literature is nil. In addition to these, there are persons who call themselves literary agents; but these have a decidedly antiintellectual influence, and to them is probably, in part, due the enormous increase in the issue of rubbish of all kinds, which is at the present time do

ing so much injury to the English literary reputation.

The number of volumes which pour annually from the English press is, at the present hour, appalling. One house alone produces, in number, enough volumes for the whole trade. Why are these volumes, usually worthless, ever produced? Why do the circulating libraries accept them? Who reads them? Who buys them? Why does one see in the lists of London "remainders" the announcement of volumes originally published at six, eight, ten, twelve shillings to be sold second-hand, perfectly new and uncut, at the miserable prices of two shillings, eighteen pence, one shilling, and even sixpence? Amongst these is sometimes a work of real and scholarly worth, which it is painful to see thus sacrificed, but rarely; for it is rarely that such a work is now issued in London. Where is this to end? With whom does the fault of it lie? Some one, I suppose, must gain by such an insane method of over-production, but I cannot see who it can possibly be. One well-known publisher tells me that he must issue books thus, or starve. He is not in danger of bodily starvation, but the public is mentally starved by such a system.

When the three-volume novel was abolished (a course which I urged long

before it was taken) great things were expected by many from its abolition. I myself hoped that London would adopt the Paris method, and issue novels and all other works, except éditions de luxe, at small prices and in paper covers; not the gaudy, hideous, pictorial, paper cover, but the pale, smooth gray or creamcolored paper, so easily obtainable, with the title of the book clearly printed on its flank. Instead of this result, some unwritten law, as violently despotic as that which used to compel the three-volume issue, has decreed that the London romance shall always appear in a cloth-bound volume at six shillings; the most foolish price that could be selected, too dear to be suitable for private purchase, too low to allow of a handsome edition being issued. There is something grotesquely ludicrous, as well as extremely painful, in seeing the lists of "ten new six-shilling novels," or "a dozen new six-shilling novels," whereby some publishers' advertisement lists are disfigured in the newspapers with every new season. It makes a commerce of fiction in a manner most injurious and deplorable.

Again, no sooner has the six-shilling novel been a year before the public, than the publisher issues the self-same book at two-and-sixpence. Why does he cut his own throat thus? It is to me as inexplicable as why the London drapers sell you a stuff at six shillings a yard in February, but, if you wait till June, sell it you at two-and-sixpence a yard at the clearance sales. Either the stuff is sold at a price unjust and unfair to the purchaser in February, or it is sold at a price unjust and unfair to the vendor in June. From this proposition there seems to me no escape.

It is the same with the six-shilling book as with the draper's stuffs. If the first price be correct, why alter it to the second in a year's time? If the second price be sufficient to pay ex

pense of production, why not start with it?

The draper, moreover, has an advantage over the publisher. If I want a stuff whilst it is a novelty, and when its like has not been worn by shop girls and servant girls, I must buy it at its high price in February; but if I want to read a novel whilst it is at its highest price, I can read it in that form, taking it from the libraries, and wait for a year to buy it at its lower price, if I then care to do so, which it is improbable that I shall do.

Now, why not have from first to last, in London, an edition of a novel similar to that French form which is good enough for Pierre Loti, for Gyp, for Anatole France, for the brilliant Frères Margueritte? Why?

I suppose because our masters, the librarians, will not have it so; or because some other unwritten law lies like lead upon the souls of London publishers.

I read few English books of the day myself, I prefer the literatures of other countries; but it pains me to see such a deluge of worthless verbosity pour from London lanes and London streets where printing presses of yore worked for Addison and Goldsmith, Thackeray and Arthur Helps.

If this stream of pseudo-literature, rarely defiled, is not stopped, it will carry away and swamp all pure English literature under it, as a moving bog covers flocks and pastures, cottages and country seats.

I have asked several London publishers why it is allowed to go on; their answers are evasive and contradictory. They assert that most of the volumes published are paid for by the authors; that they themselves must publish something, or cease to exist as a trade; and that the public does not know good from bad, so it does not matter what is printed. Yet, surely to them, as to the drapers, the apparently insensate