pitable, though himself so sober in the Water, if 'e plaize, sir," answered Bonny; a girt strame of water comed down that hollow, all of a sudden this mornint; and it hath been growing stronger ever since." "Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Hales, dropping his gun. "What is the water like, boy?" At length they set forth, with a sickly sun shrinking back from the promise of the morning, and a vaporous glisten in the white south-east, looking as watery "I never seed no water like it afore. as the sea. "I told you so, Steenie," As black as what I does your boots with, said the parson, who knew every sign of sir; but as clear the weather among these hills; we stone in it." ought to have started two hours sooner. If ever we had wet jackets in our life, we shall have them to-day, bold captain." "It will bring in the snipes," said the captain, bravely. "We are not the sort of men, I take it, to heed a little sprinkle. Tom, have you got my bladder-coat ?" "All right, your Honour," his keeper replied; and "see-ho!" cried Bonny, while the dogs were ranging. 66 Where, where, where ?" asked the captain, dancing in a breathless flurry round a tuft of heath. "I can't see him, where is he, boy?” "Poke her up, boy," said the rector; "surely you would not shoot the poor thing on her form!" 66 "Let him sit till I see him," cried the captain, cocking both his barrels ; now I am ready. Where the devil is he?" "She can't run away," answered Bonny, "because your Honour's heel be on her whiskers. Ah, there her gooth! Quick, your Honour !" And go she did in spite of his Honour, and both the loads he sent after her; while the rector laughed so at the captain's plight, that it was quite impossible for him to shoot. The keeper also put on an experienced grin, while Bonny flung open all the cavern of his mouth. "Run after him, boy! Look alive!" cried the captain. "I defy him to go more than fifty yards. You must all have seen how I peppered him." 66 Ay, and salted her too, I believe," said the parson: "look along the barrel of my gun, and you will see the salt still on her tail, eh, Šteenie ?" As he pointed, they all saw the gallant hare at a leisurely canter crossing the valley, some quarter of a mile below them. "What!" cried the rector; "did you see that jump? What can there be to you can see every "Then the Lord have mercy on this poor parish; and especially to the old house of Lorraine ! For the Woeburn has broken out again." "Why, rector, you seem in a very great fright," said Captain Chapman, recovering slowly from his sad discomfiture. "What is the matter about this water? Some absurd old superstition is not it? In Superstition or not," Mr. Hales answered shortly, "I must leave you to shoot by yourself, Captain Chapman. I could not fire another shot to-day. It is more than three hundred and fifty years since this water of death was seen. my church you may read what happened then. And not only that, but according to tradition, its course runs directly through our village, and even through my garden. My people know nothing about it yet. It may burst upon them quite suddenly. There are many obstructions, no doubt, in its course, and many hollow places to fill up. But before many hours it will reach us. As a question of prudence, I must hasten home. Shot, come to heel this moment!" You are right," said the captain; "I shall do the same. Your hospitable board will excuse me to-night. I would much rather not leap the Woeburn in the dark." With the instinct of a gentleman, he perceived that the rector, under this depression, would prefer to have no guest. Moreover, the clouds were gathering with dark menace over the hilltops; and he was not the man if such man there be to find pleasure in a wet day's shooting. "No horse has ever yet crossed the Woeburn," Mr. Hales replied, as they all turned homeward across the shoulder of the hill; "at least, if the legends about that are true. Though a hare may have | feeding him up with a view to that, and leaped it to-day, to-morrow no horse will so are my three daughters." either swim or leap it." "Bless my heart? does it rise like that? The sooner we get out of its way, the better. What a pest it will be to you, rector! Why, you never will be able to come to the meet, and our opening day is next Tuesday." "Steenie," cried the rector, imbibing hope, "it has not struck me in that light before. But it scarcely could ever be the will of the Lord to cut off a parson from his own pack!" "Oh, don't walk so fast!" shouted Captain Chapman; "one's neck might be broken down a hill like this. Tom, let me lean on your shoulder. Boy, I'll give you sixpence to carry my gun. Tom, take the flints out, that he mayn't shoot me. Here, Uncle Struan, just sit down a minute; a minute can't make any difference, you know.” as we are "He must be a thorough young thief," said the captain. "In any other parish he would be in prison. I scarcely know which is the softer 'Beak' called - - you, or Sir Roland." "Tom," cried the rector, 66 run on before us; you are young and active. Inquire where old Nanny Stilgoe lives, at the head of the village, and tell her that the flood is coming upon her; and help her to move her things, poor old soul, if she will let you help her. Tell her I sent you, and perhaps she will, although she is very hard to deal with. She has long been foretelling this break of the bourne; but the prophets are always the last to set their own affairs in order." 66 The keeper touched his hat, and set off. He always attended to the parson's orders more than his own master's. And Mr. Hales saw from the captain's face "That is true," said the rector, who that he had ordered things too freely. was also out of breath. Bonny, how Steenie, I beg your pardon," he said; far was the black water come? You"I forgot for the moment that I should seem to know all about it." have asked you before I despatched your man like that. But I did it for your own good, because we need no longer hurry." Rector, I am infinitely obleeged to you. To order those men is so fatiguing. I always want some one to do it for me. And now we may go down the hill, I suppose, without snapping all our knee-caps. To go up a hill fast is a very bad thing; but to go down fast is a great deal worse, because you think you can do it.” "Plaize, sir, it seem to be coming down a hill; and the longer I looked, the more water was a-coming." "You little nincompoop! had it passed your own door yet - your hole, or your cave, or whatever you call it?" Plaize, sir, it worn't a runnin' towards I at all. It wor makin' a hole in the ground and kickin' a splash up in a fuzzy corner." 66 My poor boy, its course is not far from your door; it may be in among 66 My dear fellow, you may take your time. I will not walk you off your legs, your goods, and have drowned your jack-as that wicked niece of mine did. How ass and all, by this time." are you getting on there now?" "Well, that is a delicate question, rector. You know what ladies are, you know. But I do not see any reason to despair of calling you 'uncle,' in earnest." "Have you brought the old lady over to your side? You are sure to be right Like an arrow from a bow, away went Bonny down the headlong hill, having cast down the captain's gun, and pulled off his red coat to run the faster. The three men left behind clapped their hands to their sides and roared with laughter; at such a pace went the white buck-when that is done." skin breeches, through bramble, gorse, heather, over rock, sod, and chalk. "What a grand flying shot!" cried the keeper. "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be," said the rector, as soon as he could speak. "I would give a month's tithes for a good day's rout among that boy's accumulations. He has got the most wonderful things, they say; and he keeps them on shelves, like a temple of idols. What will he do when he gets too big to go in at his own doorway? I am "She has been on my side all along, for the sake of the land. Ah, how good it is!" "And nobody else in the field, that we know of. Then Lallie can't hold out so very much longer. Lord bless me ! do you see that black line yonder?" "To be sure! Why, it seems to be moving onward, like a great snake crawling. And it has a white head. What a wonderful thing!" "It is our first view of the Woeburn.. Would to heaven that it were our last one ! The black is the water, and the planks, and such like; but the garden white, I suppose, is the chalky scum looked so fair and dry, with its pleasant swept before it. It is following the old slope to the east, that the master laughed track, as lava does. It will cross the at his own terrors; until he looked into Coombe road in about five minutes. If the covered well, the never-failing blackyou want to get home, you must be quick diamond water, down below the toolto horse. Never mind the rain: let us house. Here a great cone rose in the run down the hill or just stop one half-middle of the well, like a plume of black minute." ostrich; and the place was alive with hollow noises. They were sitting in the shelter of a chalky rock, with the sullen storm rising Dig the celery!" cried the rector. from the south behind them, and the "Every man and boy, come here. I drops already pattering. On the right won't have my celery washed away, nor hand and on the left, brown ridges, furzy my drumhead savoys, nor my ragged rises, and heathery scallops overhanging Jack. Girls, come out, every one of you. slidden rubble, and the steep zigzags of There is not a moment to lose, I tell the sheep, and the rounding away into you. I never had finer stuff in all my nothing of the hilltops, all of these life; and I won't have it all washed away, were fading into the slaty blue of the I tell you. Here, you heavy-breeched rain-cloud. Before them spread for Dick, what the dickens are you gaping leagues and leagues, clear, and soft, and at? I sha'n't get a thing done before smiling still, the autumnal beauty of the dark, at this rate. Out of my way, every weald-land. Tufting hamlets here and one of you. If you can't stir your stumps, there, with darker foliage round them, I can." elbows of some distant lane unconsciously prominent, swathes of colour laid on broadly where the crops were all alike; some bold tree of many ages standing on its right to stand; and grey churchtowers, far asunder, landmarks of a longer view; in the fading distance many things we cannot yet make out; but hope them to be good and beauteous, calm, and large with human life. With less avail, like consternation seized every family in West Lorraine. A river, of miraculous birth and power, was sweeping down upon all of them. There would never be any dry land any more; all the wise old women had said so. Everybody expected to see black water bubbling up under his bed that night. Meanwhile this beautiful and grand issue of the gathered hillsprings moved This noble view expanded always the on its way majestically, obeying the laws great heart of the rector; and he never it was born of. The gale of the previous failed to point out clearly the boundary-night had unsealed the chamber of great line of his parish. He could scarcely waters, forcing the needful air into the make up his mind to miss that opportu- duct, and opening vaults that stored the nity, even now; and was just beginning with a distant furze-rick, far to the westward under Chancton Ring, when Chapman, having heard it at least seven times, cut him short rather briskly. 66 rainfall of a hundred hills and vales. "You are forgetting one thing, my dear sir. Your parish is being cut in two, while you are dwelling on the boun- And now, as this cold resistless flood daries." calmly reclaimed its ancient channel, Steenie, you are right. I had no idea | swallowed up Nanny Stilgoe's well, and that you had so much sense, my boy. cut off the rector from his own church; You see how the ditches stand all full of as if to encounter its legendary bane, a water, so as to confuse me. A guinea poor young fellow, depressed, and shatfor the first at the rectory-gate! You tered, feeble, and wan, and heavy-hearted, ought to be handicapped. You call your- was dragging his reluctant steps up the self twenty years younger; don't you?" valley of the Adur. Left on the naked "Here's the guinea!" cried Chapman, rocks of Spain, conquered, plundered, as the parson set off; "two if you like; and half-starved, Hilary Lorraine had only let me come down this confounded fallen, with the usual reaction of a sanhill, considerately." guine temperament, into low spirits and disordered health. So that when he at last made his way to Corunna, and found no British agent there, nor any one to draw Mr. Hales found nothing yet amiss with his own premises; some people had come to borrow shovels, and wheeling supplies from, nothing but the pride of Struan; and this is all that has come of his family kept him from writing to the it." Count of Zamora. Of writing to England "Good God, Hilary!" cried the rector; there was no chance. All communica- and for a long time he could say nothing tion ran through the channels of the dis-else. 'My dear boy, my dear boy, whatever have you done?" tant and victorious army. So that he "Yes, Uncle Struan, don't you underthought himself very lucky (in the pres-stand? Every one must have his ups ent state of his health and fortunes), and downs. I am having a long spell of when the captain of an oil-ship bound for downs just now." London, having lost three hands on the outward voyage, allowed him to work his passage. The fare of a landsman in feeble health was worth perhaps more than his services; but the captain was a kind-hearted man, and perceived (though he knew not who Hilary was) that he had that very common thing in those days, a gent under a cloud" to deal with. And the gale, which had opened the Woeburn, shortened Hilary's track towards it, by forcing his ship to run for refuge into Shoreham harbour. "Do you mean to throw me over, Uncle Struan, as the rest of the world has beautifully done? Everything seems to be upset. What is the meaning of this broad black stream?" "Come into my study and tell me all. I can let you in without sight of your aunt. The shock would be too great for her." Hilary followed without a word. Mr. Hales led him in at the window, and warmed him, and covered him with his own dressing-gown, and watched him slowly recovering. "Never mind the tar on your hands; it is an honest smell," he said; "my poor boy, my poor boy, what you must have been through!" "Whatever has happened to me," answered Hilary, spreading his thin hands to the fire, has been all of my own doing, Uncle Struan." 66 With steps growing slower at each weary drag, he crossed the bridge of Bramber, and passed beneath the ivied towers of the rivals of his ancestors, and then avoiding Steyning town, he turned up the valley of West Lorraine. And the You shall have a cordial; and you rain which had come on at middle-day, shall tell me all. There, I have bolted and soaked his sailor's slops long ago, the door. I am your parson, as well as now took him on the flank judiciously. your uncle. All you say will be sacred And his heart was so low, that he re-with me. And I am sure you have done ceived it all without talking either to no great harm after all. We shall see himself or it. what your dear aunt thinks of it." "I will go to the rectory first," he thought; Uncle Struan is violent, but he is warm. And though he has three children of his own, he loves me much more than my father does." With this resolution, he turned on the right down a lane that came out by the rectory. The lane broke off suddenly into black water; and a tall, robust man stocd in the twilight, with a heavy spade over his shoulder. And Hilary Lorraine went up to him. "No, no, my man; not a penny to spare!" said the rector, in anticipation; "we have a great deal too much to do with our own poor, and with this new trouble especially. The times are hard - yes, they always are; but an honest man always can get good work. Or go and fight for your country, like a man but we can't have you in this parish." "I have fought for my country, Uncle Then Hilary, sipping a little rum-andwater, wandered through his story; not telling it brightly, as once he might have done, but hiding nothing consciously. "Do you mean to tell me there is nothing worse than that?" asked the [rector, with a sigh of great relief. "There is nothing worse, uncle. How could it be worse?" "And they turned you out of the army for that! How thankful I am for belonging to the Church! You are simply a martyred hero." "Yes, they turned me out of the army for that. How could they help it?" Reasoning thus he met his uncle's look of pity, and it was too much for him. He did what many a far greater man, and braver hero has done, and will do, when the soul is moving. He burst into a hot. flood of tears. From The Cornhill Magazine. jine's inheritance was large and her charTHE LOVE AND MARRIAGE OF CATHER-acter of the highest. For these and other INE DE BOURBON. reasons, among the strongest of which CATHERINE DE BOURBON, the only sis- was her brother's unhappy marriage and ter of Henri Quatre, was born on the 7th consequent childlessness, she was a most of February, 1559. A few months later desirable parti. Pretenders to her hand the death of Henri II. precipitated the therefore were numerous. Among scores religious warfare that had been so long of others, she was sought of the dukes of in preparation. In the struggle that en- Savoy, Lorraine, and Wurtemberg, and of sued her nearest relatives took adverse the kings of Scotland and Spain. Philip sides. When she was but three years II. was willing to purchase the uncomold her father, Anthony of Vendôme, fell promising little Huguenot at the price of at the siege of Rouen while fighting in a province and a large and annual subsidy the Catholic ranks. Her paternal uncle, to her brother. To all these suitors, as Condé, a leader of the opposite party, was political emergency dictated, Catherine slain seven years later at Jarnac. And was promised. In the case of the king of her mother, Jeanne d'Albret, one of the Spain, she cut the wooing short by a noblest women of an age singularly pro- prompt and decided refusal. In the other lific of female excellence, remained to the instances, however, she allowed the cablast the guiding spirit of the Huguenots.inet of Béarn to take whatever course Jeanne died of poison there is reason seemed best, being prepared to accept any to think on the 9th of June, 1572. Six husband, however distasteful, at the call weeks afterwards Catherine, who had of duty. In reality that call was not much accompanied her mother to Paris in order to be apprehended. Henri found her too to be present at the marriage of her useful as a lure to think of parting with brother and Margaret of Valois, passed her except under irresistible pressure. through "the massacre." Many of the Besides, valiant though he showed himchild's dearest friends perished therein self in the field, he was the weakest of some before her eyes. It was a fear-men in some things; and an astrologer ful trial for one so young, and another of high repute had warned him to beware trial as fearful was to follow. The next of the children of his sister. By 1587 four years she spent at a court whose things had come to a crisis in France; character is only too faithfully reflected the last and fiercest struggle of the reliin the pages of Brantôme. From the va-gious contest was about to begin. Preried seductions of that court few with-vious to taking the field the leaders drew with hearts untainted; but among busied themselves in seducing each the few was the motherless girl. In her last moments Jeanne d'Albret entrusted her to Madame de Tignonville, a staunch adherent of the family and an exalted Huguenot. How this lady contrived to escape the slaughter we are not told. Escape, however, she did; and that too without abandoning her pupil. And thanks to her care, the latter passed unshaken through terror and unscathed through temptation. In 1576 Catherine joined her brother in the South of France. For the next fourteen years she presided over the court of Béarn, acting as regent during Henri's endless campaigns. Possessing most of his better qualities unalloyed by his failings, she became the popular idol. Nor did Henri ever find a more ardent or valuable supporter. Devoted to her brother and to her faith, and considering their interests identical, she was prepared to sacrifice everything, including herself, thereto. And the politic king of Navarre and his shrewd adviser took full advantage of her enthusiasm. Cather This other's adherents. No day passed with- |