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From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.

A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.

CHAPTER LIV.

IN all the British army- then a walking wood of British oak, without a yard of sapling there was no bit of better stuff than the five feet and a quarter (allowing for his good game leg) of Major, by this time Colonel, Clumps. This officer knew what he had to do, and he made a point of doing it. Being short of imagination, he despised that foolish gift, and marvelled over and over again at others for laughing so at nothing. That whimsical tickling of the veins of thought, which some people give so and some receive (with equal delight on either side), humour, or wit, or whatever it is, to Colonel Clumps was a vicious thing. Everything must be either true or false. If it were true, who could laugh at the truth? If it were false, who should laugh at a falsehood?

lame heel, that the officer who had brought the news, being one of his own subalterns, wisely retired into doubts about it, and hinted that nobody knew the reason, and therefore that it could not be true.

"If I mention that absurd report about young Lorraine," thought Colonel Clumps, when writing to Lady de Lampnor, "I may do harm, and I can do no good, but only get myself laughed at as the victim of a stupid hoax. So I will say no more about him, except that I have not seen him lately, being so far from headquarters, and knowing how Old Beaky is driving the staff about." And before the brave Colonel found opportu nity of taking the pen in hand again, he was heavily wounded in a skirmish with the French rear-guard, and ordered home, as hereafter will perhaps appear.

It also happened that Mr. Capper's friends, those two officers who had earned so little of Mabel's gratitude by news of Hilary, were harassed and knocked about Many a good man has reasoned thus, too much to find any time for writing letreducing laughter under law, and him- ters. And as the Gazette in those days self thenceforth abandoned by that law-neglected the smaller concerns of the less element. Colonel Clumps had always army, and became so hurried by the taken solid views of everything, and the march of events, and the rapid sequence longer he lived in the world the less he felt of battles, that the doings of junior inclined to laugh at it. But, that laugh- officers slipped through its fingers until ter might not be robbed of all its dues long afterwards, the result was that and royalties, just nature had provided neither Coombe Lorraine nor Old Applethat, as the Colonel would not laugh at wood farm received for months any news the world, the world should laugh at the of the young staff-officer. Neither did Colonel. He had been the subject of he yet present himself at either of those more bad jokes, one-sided pleasantries, homesteads. For, as the ancient saying and heartless hoaxes, than any other man runs, misfortunes never come alone. in the army; with the usual result that The ship in which Hilary sailed for Engnow he scarcely ever believed the truth, land from the port of Cadiz - for he found while he still retained for the pleasure of no transport at Malaga-the "Flower his friends a tempting stock of his native of Kent," as she was called, which confidence in error. So that it came to appeared to him an excellent omen, was pass that when Colonel Clumps (after the nipped in the bud of her homeward voybattle of Vittoria, in which he had shown age. She met with a nasty French priconspicuous valour) was told of poor Hil-vateer to the southward of Cape Finisary's sad disgrace, he was a great deal terre. In vain she crowded sail, and too clever and astute to believe a single

word of it.

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It is ludicrous, perfectly ludicrous !" he said, that being the strongest adjective he knew to express pure impossibility. A gallant young fellow to be cashiered without even a court-martial! How dare you tell me such a thing, sir? I am not a man to be rough-ridden. Nobody ever has imposed on me. And the boy is almost a sort of cousin of my own. The first family in the kingdom, sir."

The Colonel flew into so great a rage, twisting his white hair, and stamping his

tried every known resource of seamanship; the Frenchman had the heels of her, and laid her on board at sundown. Lorraine, and two or three old soldiers, battered and going to hospital, had no idea of striking, except in the British way of doing it. But the master and the mate knew better, and stopped the hopeless conflict. So the Frenchmen sacked and scuttled the ship in the most scientific manner, and, wanting no prisoners, landed the crew on a desolate strand of Gallicia, without any money to save them.

This being their condition, it is the

proper thing to leave them so; for noth-fold women had taken a fancy for pheasing is more unwise than to ask, or rather ant boiled with artichoke; - willy-nilly, to "institute inquiries," as to the doings the parson found it a momentous duty of people who are much too likely to re- now to shoot. quire a loan; therefore return we to the South-Down hills.

And who went with him? There is no. such thing as consistence of the human The wet, ungenial, and stormy summer mind; yet well as this glorious truth was of 1813 was passing into a wetter, more known, and bemoaned by every one for cheerless, and most tempestuous autumn. his neighbour's sake-not they, not all On the northern slopes of the light-the parish, nor even we of the enlarged earthed hills the moss had come over the philosophy, could or can ever be brought herbage, and the sweet nibble of the to believe our own eyes that it was Bonsheep was souring. The huddled trees ny! But, in spite of all impossibility, it (which here and there rise just to the was; and the explanation requires relevel of the ridge, and then seem polled lapse. by the sweep of the wind-rush), the Is it within recollection that the rector bushes also, and the gorse itself, stood, once shot a boy in a hedge? The boy or rather stooped, beneath the burden of had clomb up into an ivied stump, for perpetual wet. The leaves hung down purposes of his own, combining review in a heavy drizzle, unable to detach them- with criticism. All critics deserve to be selves from the welting of the unripe shot if they dare to cross the grand aims stalks; the husk of the beech and the of true enterprise. They pepper, and key of the ash were shrivelled for want are peppered; but they generally get the of kernels, and the clusters of the hazel- best of it. And so did this boy that was nut had no sun-varnish on them. The shot in the hedge. Being of a crafty weakness of the summer sun (whether order, he dropped, and howled, and his face was spotted overmuch, or too rolled so piteously, that poor Mr. Hales, immaculate) and the humour of clouds, although he had fired at a distance of and the tenor of winds, and even the more than fourscore yards from the tendency of the earth itself to devolve latent vagabond, east down his gun in into eccentricity, these, and a hun- the horror of having slain a fellow-creadred other causes, for the present ture. But when he ran up and turned state of the weather were found, according to where they were looked for. On one point only there was no contradiction, things were not as they ought to be.

him over to search for the fatal injury, the boy so vigorously kicked and roared, that the parson had great hopes of him. After some more rolling, a balance was struck; the boy had some blue spots under his skin, and a broad gold guinea to plaster them.

Even the rector of West Lorraine, a man of most cheerful mind, and not to be put down by any one, laying to the will Now this boy was not our Bonny, nor of the Lord all his failures, and to his own fit in any way to compare with him. But merits all good success,- even the Rev. uncivilized minds are very jealous; and Struan Hales was scarcely a match for next to our Bonny, this boy that was the weather. Sportsmen in those days shot was the furthest from civilization of did not walk in sevenfold armour, for all the boys of the neighbourhood. fear of a thorn, or a shower, or a cow- Therefore, of course, bitter jealousy dab; nor skulked they for two hours in a raged betwixt him and the real outsider. rick, awaiting the joy of one butchering Now the boy that was shot got a new minute. Fair play for man, and dog, pair of boots from the balance of his and gun, and fur and feather, was then guinea, and a new pair of legs to his the rule; and a day of sport meant a day nether garments, under his mother's of work, and healthful change, and fine guidance. And to show what he was, exercise. Therefore, Mr. Hales went and remove all doubts of the genuine exforth with his long and heavily-loaded penditure, his father and mother comgun, to comfort himself and refresh his bined and pricked him, with a pin in a mind, whatever the weather might be stick, to the Sunday-school. Here Madge about, upon six days out of every seven. Hales (the second and strongest daughThe hounds had not begun to meet; the ter of the church) laid hold of him, and rivers were all in flood, of course; the converted him into right views of theolair was so full of rheumatism that no ogy, hanging upon sound pot-hooks. man could crook his arm to write a ser- But a far greater mind than Bill Harmon, or work a concordance. Two sick 'kles could own was watching this noble

experiment. Bonny had always han- graceful modesty he ascribed his present kered kindly after a knowledge of "pictur- proud position, the realization of his books." The gifts of nature were hatch-fondest hopes, neither to his well-known ing inside him, and chipped at the shell integrity, industry, strict attention to of his chickenhood. He had thrashed business, nor even the quality of his baBill Harkles in two fair fights, without con. All these things, of course, contribany aid from his donkey, and he felt uted; but "what was the grand elethat Bill's mind had no right whatever to ment of his unparalleled success in life?" be brought up to look down on him. A cry of "white stockings!" from the Bramber pig-sticker was sternly suppressed, and the man kicked out. grand element of his success in life was his classical education !"

"The

This boy, therefore, being sneered at by erudite Bill Harkles, knew that his fists would be no fair answer, and retired to his cave. Here he looked over his many pickings, and proudly confessing Nobody knowing what was meant by inferior learning, refreshed himself with this, thunders of applause ensued; until superior wealth. And this meditation it was whispered from cup to cup that having sound foundation, satisfied him till Bottler, when he was six years old, had the next market-day-the market-day at been three months at the Grammar Steyning. Bonny had not much busi- School. He might have forgotten every ness here, but he always liked to look at word he had learned, but any one might things; and sometimes he got a good see that it was dung dug in. So a dozen pannier of victuals, and sometimes he of the farmers resolved at once to have got nothing. For the farmers of the bet-their children Latined; and Bonny in his ter sort put off their dinner till two inmost heart aspired to some education. o'clock, when the prime of the market was over, and then sat down to boiled beef and carrots in the yard of the White Horse inn, and often did their best in that way.

What was the first step to golden knowledge? He put this question to himself obscurely, as he rode home on his faithful Jack, with all the marrow-bones of the great feast rattling in a bag behind him. From the case of Bill Harkles he reasoned soundly, that the first thing to do was to go and get shot.

Of this great "ordinary" great at any rate as regards consumption-Farmer Gates, the churchwarden, was by ancestral right the chairman; but for sev- On the following day — the month beeral market-days the vice-presidency had ing August, or something very near it, in been vacant. A hot competition had the year 1812 (a year behind the time we raged, and all Steyning had thrilled with got on to), Mr. Hales, to keep his hand high commotion about the succession to in, took his favourite flint-gun down, and the knife and fork at the bottom of the patted it, and reprimed it. He had fiotable; until it was announced amid gen-ished his dinner, it had been a good one; eral applause that Bottler was elected. It and his partner in life had been lamentwas a proud day for this good pigman,|ing the terrible price of butcher's meat. and perhaps a still prouder one for Bon- She did not see how it could end in anyny, when the new vice-president was in-thing short of a wicked rebellion, when ducted into the Windsor chair at the foot of the long and ancient table; and it marked the turning-point in the life of more than one then present.

The vice-president's cart was in the shed close by, and on the front lade sat Bonny, sniffing the beauty of the "silverside," and the luscious suggestions of the marrow-bone. Polly longed fiercely to be up there with him; but her mother's stern sense of decorum forbade; the pretty Miss Bottlers would be toasted after dinner, and was one to be spied in a pig-cart? No sooner was the cloth removed, than the chairman proposed, in the most feeling and eloquent language, the health of his new colleague. And now it was Bottler's reply which created a grand revolution in Steyning. With

the price of bread was put with it. And the rector had answered, with a wink to Cecil, "Order no meat for to-morrow, my dear, nor even for the next day. We shall see what we shall see." With this power of promise, he got on his legs, and stopped all who were fain to come after him. He knew every coney and coney's hole on the glebe, and on the clerk's land; and they all would now be out at grass, and must be treated gingerly. He was going to shoot for the pot, as sportsmen generally did in those days.

With visions of milky onions, about to be poured on a broad and well-oiled back, the rector (after sneaking through a furzy gate) peeped down a broad trench of the steep hillside; here he spied three little

pot!

sandy juts of recent excavation, and on conscientiously filled that sphere, though each of them sat a hunch-backed coney, he was captain of the Bible-class. And proud of the labours of the day, and hap- now he had taken the measles so long, pily curling his whiskers. The rector, that they had put him to earth the celery. peering downward, saw the bulging over Here was an opening, and Bonny seized their large black eyes, and the prick of it; and though he made very queer work their delicate ears, and their gentle chew- at first, his native ability carried him on, ing of the grass-blade. There was no till he put a fine polish on everything. chance of a running shot, for they would From eighteen-pence a week he rose to pop into earth in a moment; so he tried two and threepence, within nine months; to get two of them into a line, and then and to this he soon added the empty bothe pulled his trigger. The nearest rab-tles, and a commission upon the greasebit fell dead as a stone; but the rector could scarcely believe his eyes, when Even now, all has not been told; for through the curls of the smoke he be- by bringing the cook good news of her held, instead of the other rabbit, a ragged sweetheart, and the parlour-maid dry boy rolling, and kicking, and holloaing! sticks to light her fire, and by showing a "Am I never to shoot without shoot- tender interest in the chilblains of even ing a boy?" cried the parson, rushing the scullery-maid, he became such a faforward: "another guinea! A likely vourite in the kitchen, that the captain of thing! I vow I will only pay a shilling the Bible-class defied him to a battle in this time. The sport would ruin a bish- the wash-house. The battle was fought, and victory, though long doubtful, perched op!" But Mr. Hales found to his great de- at last upon the banner of brave Bonny; light that the boy was not touched by a and with mutual esteem, and four black shot, nor even made pretence to be so. eyes, the heroes parted. He had craftily crept through the bushes After this, all ran smooth. The rector from below, and quietly lurked near the (who had enjoyed the conflict from his rabbits' hole, and after the shot, had study-window, without looking off, more darted forth, and thrown himself cleverly than he could help, from a sermon upon on the wounded rabbit, who otherwise "Seek peace, and ensue it "), as soon as must have got away to die a lingering he had satisfied himself which of the two death in his burrow. The quickness and boys hit the straighter, went to an ancient skill of the boy, and the luck of thus bag- wardrobe, and examined his bygone huntging both rabbits, so pleased the rectoring-clothes. Here he found an old scarthat he gave him sixpence, and bade him follow to carry the game and to see more sport. Bonny had a natural turn for sport, which never could be beaten out of him, and to get it encouraged by the rector of the parish was indeed a godsend. And in his excitement at every shot, he poured forth his heart about rabbits, and hares, and wood-queists, and partridges, and even pheasants.

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Why, you know more than I do!" said the rector, kindly laying his hand on the shoulder of the boy, after loading for his tenth successful shot. "How ever have you picked up all these things? The very worst poacher of the coming age; or else the best gamekeeper."

"I looks about, or we does, me and Jack together," answered Bonny, with one of his broadest and most genuine grins; and the gleam of his teeth, and the twinkle of his eyes, enforced the explanation.

"Come to my house in the morning, Bonny," said the rector. And that was the making of him. For the boy that cleaned the knives and boots, had never

let coat, made for him thirty years ago at Oxford, but now a world too small; and he sighed that he had no son to inherit it. Also a pair of old buckskin breeches, fitter for his arms than his legs just now. The moths were in both; they were growing scurfy; sentiment must give way to sense. So Bonny got coat and breeches; and the maids with merry pinches, and screams of laughter, and consolatory kisses, adapted them. He showed all this grandeur to his donkey Jack, and Jack was in two minds about snapping at it.

This matter being cleared, and the time brought up, here we are at West Lorraine in earnest, in the month of October 1813; long after Hilary's shocking disgrace, but before any of his own people knew it.

CHAPTER LV.

"WHAT a lazy loon that Steenie Chapman is !" said the rector, for about the twentieth time, one fine October morn"He knows what dreadful weather ing. we get now, and yet he can't be here by

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nine o'clock! Too bad I call it; too Madge whispered into the ear of her sisbad a great deal. Send away the teapot,' ter. "Done," replied Cecil, with her Caroline." hand before her mouth. Meanwhile Bonny was giving them the benefit of his train of reasoning. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes very bright, and his forehead a field of perplexity.

But, my dear," answered Mrs. Hales, who always made the best of every one, "you forget how very bad the roads must be, after all the rain we have had. And I am sure he will want a cup of tea after riding through such flooded roads."

"Tea indeed!" the parson muttered, as he strode in and out of the room, with his shot-belt dancing on his velveteen shooting-coat, and snapped his powderflask impatiently; "Steenie's tea comes from the case, not the caddy. And the first gleam of sunshine I've seen for a week, after that heavy gale last night. It will rain before twelve o'clock, for a guinea. Cecil, run and see if you can find that boy Bonny. I shall start by myself, and send Bonny down the road with a message for Captain Chapman."

"They'se all a-grubbing in the house," he reflected; “and they ain't been and offered me a bit to-day. There's ever so many more on the tree; and they locked up the scullery cupboard; and one 'em called me a little warmint; and they tuck the key out of the beer-tap.”

on

With all these wrongs upward, he stretched forth his hand, and pretty Cecil trembled for her shillling; shillings being very scarce with her. But the boy, without quite having touched the apple, drew back his hand; and that withdrawal perhaps was the turning-point of his life. "He gived me all this," he said, look"The huntsman came out of the back-ing at his sleeve; "and all on 'em stitched kitchen, Cecil, about two minutes ago,' ," it up for me; and they lets me go in and said Madge, who never missed a chance out without watching; and twice I'se of a cut at Bonny, because he had been out with him, shutting! I 'ont, I thrashed her pet Bible-scholar; "he was 'ont. And them bright apples seldom routing about, with his red coat on, for be worth ating of." scraps of yellow soap and candle-ends." "What a story!" cried Cecil, who was Bonny's champion, being his schoolmistress; "I wish your Dick was half as good a boy. He gets honester every day almost. I'll send him to you, papa, in two seconds. I suppose you'll speak to him at the side-door."

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Sturdily he arose, and gave a kick at one of the posts of the apple-tree, and set off for the gate as hard as he could go, while the virtuous vein should be uppermost.

"What a darling of honour!" cried Cecil Hales, jumping after him. "A Bayard, a Cato, an Aristides ! He shall have his apple, and he shall have sixpence; and unlimited faith forever. Bonny, come back. Here's your apple for you, and sixpence; and what would you like to have best in all the world now?"

"To go out shutting with the master, miss.'

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"You shall do it; I will speak to papa, myself. If you please, Miss Madge, pay up your shilling. Now come back, Bonny; your master wants you."

"You are a little too late for your errand, I fear," answered Margaret, pulling her purse out; "while you were pursuing this boy, I heard the sound of a grand arrival."

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"So much the better!" cried Cecil, who (like her mother) always made the best of things. Papa has been teasing his gun for an hour. Bonny, run back, and keep old Shot quiet. He will break his chain, by the noise he makes. You are as bad as he is; and you both shall go."

In an alley of the kitchen-garden sat Bonny upon an old sea-kale pot, clad in his red coat and white breeches, and deeply meditating. Before him, upon an espalier-tree, hung a tempting and beautiful apple, a scarlet pearmain, with its sleek sides glistening in the slant of the sunbeams. “I'll lay you a shilling he steals it," The rector of all men the most hos

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