sistance. You must die, unless you will answer my questions truly, and without disguise.»>

<< Surgeon, said the now-exhausted man, in a faint despairing voice, I have done so.

"

"

«Yes, » continued the surgeon, you have partly told me ; but try and recollect yourself; for it is quite clear to me that you have taken something which is the cause of your illness. Where did you take your last meal yesterday? »

"

The man answered, Upon the mountains I ate that which I took with me. »

And you drank?» said the surgeon.

"Some water about noon from the stream of the river, and nothing else. After a moment's pause, the sick man added, «Yes, I took some wine from the boraccio of a man I fell in with on my return home, a cacciatore--a stranger. »

«A young man of short stature?» inquired the surgeon. And it was you who attacked him, and left him on the road? »

The sick brigand indicated that it was from that person he had taken the wine. While his lips moved, and he attempted slowly and languidly to make known his meaning, the surgeon regarded him with a look of extreme anxiety and alarm, and when he fully understood him, he started upon his feet, exclaiming.

<< Then there is no hope for you, Meo: you are poisoned, and must die. Dio buono! it is now too late!»>

As if struck with lightning, the wretched man threw himself back, raising his arm, and throwing open the bed-clothes, lifting his head, and regarding the surgeon with a look that almost made him quail under it. For a minute he remained fixed in the same position, as if suddenly converted into stone; but presently a convulsive trembling seized him, his arm fell, and his head sank upon his bosom. Gasping for breath, and with a look of eagerness and extreme terror, the brigand demanded who the stranger was, and how the surgeon knew what he had asserted. As if some new light had broken in upon the mind of the surgeon, he exclaimed, with some gesticulation, «I see it now, per Dio! the whole affair is clear.»

Then speaking to the patient, he said, «It is the man who, dressed as a shepherd, led the force against you and the band at THE CASALE-it is he who has dogged your steps for the last two months-it is the brother of Rosa and Nina. >>

Those names had scarcely been pronounced when a wild yell burst from the lips of the dying man, and a responsive cry was immediately heard from the distant apartment to which his relatives and friends had retired, and who had caught the sound from the chamber of death. As if animated with a demon, gasping and foaming with unearthly fury, the dying, maddened, and unhappy wretch sprung from his bed, tore away the clothes, and dashed headlong forwards towards the opposite wall, against which he must have beaten out his brains, but at that moment the man, who had until then been sitting on the side of a bed, rose and caught the chief in his arms. The weight of his huge body moving quickly, at once overpowered the strength of the man who attempted to detain him, and both were about to fall to the ground; but a simultaneous rush along the passage brought the relations and friends into the room to assist, and witness a scene which struck all with horror and dismay. Cries of surprise and alarm burst from the men, and shrieks from the women, the echo of which rang through the desolate house, and died away in the bleak and barren space around it. There was a momentary struggle; but suddenly the unwieldy carcass fell to the floor upon its face, and when lifted, a few drops of blood had stained the place where it laid. But life had fled, and the terrible brigand chief, Meo Varrone, was no

more.

(BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.)

VOL. IV.

10

THE DEAD ALIVE.

AN INN STORY.

By Bon Gaultier.

An

Night had long closed in, before I arrived at the tumbledown remnant of a house which does duty for an inn, about half way up the north bank of Lochard. I had been out all day with my sketch-book among the adjoining hills, and now made for my hostelrie «tired both in heart and limb. » intense feeling of loneliness came over me as I pushed through the pass of Ard, a scene which the perilous adventures of Bailie Jarvie have canonised. It was so still:-the stir of the foliage upon the aspen or silver birch, that sounded like the rustle of fairy feet, alone broke the depth of repose that rested on the landscape. It is in such a place as this, with human homes far, far out of sight, almost out of mind, when we have communed for hours with nothing but the grandeurs of earth and air, that we are fully sensible of what Wordsworth has called

«The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills. »

And there rose the mountains on every side, dark, massive, unending, hemming me into a solitude where I seemed to be the only living thing. The echoes of my own footsteps

sounded strange and out of place; and caught at my breath as if there were some spell upon the spot, which it were dangerous to break. As I wound along by the side of the lake, this feeling increased. The soft, low ripple of the water, as it kissed its pebbly boundary, seemed like the prattle of unearthly voices; and my shaping spirit of imagination gave form and life to all the inanimate objects of nature. These things are all very well to dream of by the fireside, but they are often oppressive in reality; and I was glad to gain the point where stood my hostel, upon a promontory that shoots forward a little way into the lake, and by a vigorous exercise of my stick upon the door, to rouse my landlord out of his dose by the chimney corner.

n

You've got company the night, sir, said mine host, a fine old fellow, with whom a stay of some days had put me on the best of terms.

« Ah! I'm glad of that; for, sooth' to say, I was just beginning to grow tired of my own society. But who are they,

John ? »

They! he responded, with a look of surpri:e; our guests, sir, dinna come as thick as misfortunes or poor folk's weans; though that's just near about the same thing. Na, na; one stray comer at a time is a sicht for sair een. Od, if mair were to come drappin' in upon us, the gudewife, and mysel wadna ken what to do with them. »

Ay, ay, John, and who is your new guest? A Cockney bagman, or an Edinburgh writer's clerk, or some other nondescript bitten with the sight-seeing mania, I suppose.»

Really, sir, you'll be the best judge of that yourself. He hasna got the glaiket, gabby way of these Cockney creaturs, and he looks unco dowie upon the whisky, so I am no thinking he'll be in the clerking way either. Neither have I seen any symptoms of a journal, and that's a thing these tourifying persons never want, though Gude kens what they get to put into them. But step ye awa up-stairs, and see what ye can make of him. You'll find a gude fire waiting ye; and there's a famous roast chucky on the spit that's been crying Come eat me' this half hour. »

This satisfactory report of the state of the commissariat gave my step an amazing alacrity as I bounded up stairs, and turned into the sitting-room of the establishment, where, wrapped in a brown study, sat the new arrival, toasting himself in a calm and gentlemanly way before a glorious fire. My entrance did not appear to disturb him in the least; and the exclamation of A sharp night, which I gave in an offhand, jaunty sort of way, while I rubbed my hands vehemently together, elicited no manner of response. Unsocial monster! in a lonely place like this not to jump at the slightest greeting! Never mind, I'll work this surliness out of him, or call me a Dutchman!

་

The table was laid out for supper, but only for one. That was odd he must be a Hindoo not to wish to share his meal with the only other guest in the place, I should have all the dainty bits to myself, however, which was some comfort, seeing I was as hungry as a charity-boy. I kept pacing to and fro, in bland expectation of my approaching feast, and whistling Paddy O'Rafferty, with the gusto of an Irish hodman. The sound seemed to make some impression upon my taciturn companion, for he turned his head to look at me, but apparently saw nothing very extraordinary, as he resumed his contemplations almost immediately, with a look of the most offensive indifference. He was a foreigner, that was plain, by his bilious-looking cutwater, his moustache, and frog-quilted surtout. A German dilettante, perhaps, and did not like my music. Well! it was no business of mine if he was deficient in taste, so I struck up « The girl I left behind me, with a vehemence to which my uncle Toby's loudest lillibullero was a trifle. He took no notice for a time, but I could observe that he was getting fidgety. I had excited him at last, and so I whistled away like a school-boy in a church-yard, with the moon in hiding, and the belfry clock going twelve. At length the man spoke,

Do not whistle, sir, if you value my soul's peace, and you'll oblige me!"

I apologised, and thinking I had now got him into train, opened out into a running fire of the usual common-places.