NOW READY, THE MARCH NUMBER OF AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE. EDITED BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ. Contents. I. JAMES THE SECOND; OR, THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. EDITED BY W. HARRISON BOOK THE FIRST.-Chap. V. Sabine.-Chap. VI. A Prison Scene.- II. MYSTERIES OF THE TOILET REVEALED. III. LAUGH! LAUGH! BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ. IV. A NIGHT IN ANADOLI; OR, TRAVEL-TALK AT TERRENDA. BY MAHMOUZ EFFENDI. V. THE CASTLE OF EHRENSTEIN. VI. THE OLD CAMPAIGNER. BY THOMAS ROSCOE, ESQ. VIII. A TALE OF CADIZ. BY MRS. PONSONBY. IX. SIXTY YEARS HENCE. X. LAUNCELOT WIDGE. BY CHARLES HOOTON, ESQ. CHAPTER THE NINTH.-Launcelot's introduction to Mr. Griesback, with certain hostilities which broke out between him and Mr. Sandy Wylie. CHAPTER THE TENTH.-In which Launcelot very ingeniously scrapes out of a duel, with all the honour of having-fought one. CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.-The Pawnbroker's Shop-The Purchase of the Miniature, and a remarkable Adventure to which it led-Mrs. Vogle's interview with a strange Stranger. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. MARGARET GRAHAM. BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ. AUTHOR OF 66 DARNLEY," "RICHELIEU," &c. PART THE SECOND. THE DAYS OF ADVERSITY. CHAP. VI. THE BRITISH LABOURER'S REWARD. Two years and a half had passed, and time had swallowed up many things most precious: hope, happiness, enjoyment, energy, had fled from many, leaving disappointment, sorrow, and the apathy of despair. Spring was now in the place of autumn; but it had been hitherto a cold and dreary spring, with rain and sharp winds and occasional snow; and the moor looked even more brown and desolate than at the close of the year. The winter had exhausted all its wrath upon it, and there seemed no prospect of revival; not a green blade of grass was to be seen springing up amongst the moss and heath, not a young rosy bud upon the bare branches of the trees, the very energies of nature seemed extinguished. Like the season was the fate of one of those persons to whom the reader was first introduced in this tale. Poor Ben Halliday trudged back over the moor, with bent head and frowning brow. His cheek was thin and pale, his eye hollow and dim ; his clothes, once so neat and trim, though plain and suited to his station, were now worn, soiled, and in some parts ragged. But it was not to the neat cottage, with its pleasant little garden, where we have formerly seen him, that Ben Halliday now took his way. He passed through the little wood, indeed; he went beyond the turning which led to the spot where he had passed so many pleasant days; he gazed towards it with a sad and sinking heart; and a murmur rose to his lips, but did not find utterance; "I ought not to grumble,” he said, “I ought not to grumble. Those who should be better off are as bad as I am. God help us all! I wonder what will become of us in the end. We poor people have no business in the world, I can't help thinking. At all events, others seem to think so." And he walked on. The next moment coming up the road which led from the cottage to that which had been his cousin Jacob's, he saw a figure moving through the trees apparently heavy loaded, and yet it was not the figure of a labouring man. It was evening, but not dark; and as the person March-VOL. LXXIX. NO. CCCXV. U who approached was seen and lost every second or two, in passing along the hedge-row, there was that undefinable something in the air and walk which distinguishes the gentleman, totally independent of the clothing which, in this case, could not be seen. Ben Halliday, however, passed by the end of the road before the other pedestrian reached it, and in the sort of despairing mood of the moment, he did not even turn his head to see who it was that approached. As he was walking on, however, a clear, mellow voice sounded on his ear, exclaiming, "Stop, my good fellow! Here! I want to speak to you!" And, looking down the lane, he saw, at about twenty yards distance, a tall, handsome, well-dressed young man, carrying a heavy portmanteau by one of the handles. "I am looking for somebody," said the stranger, "to carry this thing for me a couple of miles; if you will do it, my good man, I will give you a half-crown for your pains.' 66 "I'd carry it ten for that sum," said Ben Halliday, with his face brightening. "That will keep my poor girl in broth for a week." "Good Heaven!" exclaimed the stranger, why surely you are my old acquaintance, Ben Halliday! Do you not remember Mr. Fairfax ?” 66 Oh yes, sir, I remember you well enough," answered the labourer, mournfully; "but times are sadly changed with us down here; and I did not know whether you might remember me. I hardly remember myself as I was then.” "I know there have been sad reverses," answered Allan Fairfax, "but I did not think they had affected you, my poor fellow. I found your cot tage shut up, and could not tell what to make of it; so I was going on to the village, where there is a public-house I hear." Ay, sir, and a bad place it is too," answered Ben Halliday, "not fit for such as you; if there is any thing valuable in your trunk, I would adyou not to go there." vise "I am afraid I must," answered his young companion, wish to go back to Brownswick just at present." "for I do not "You know, sir, I dare say, all about Mr. Graham," said Ben, looking in Fairfax's face, and taking up the portmanteau at the same time. any I do,” answered Fairfax, gravely; "and it has been a sad welcome back to my own country, Halliday, to hear all this. We won't talk more about it just now. Where do you live now, my good fellow ?" "Oh, just up at the village, sir," answered Halliday, "about half a mile on this side the public-house. So, by your leave, I'll just stop for a minute and tell my poor wife that I am going on with your portmantle. It will be glad news to her to hear that I have earned half-a-crown by a light job like this." "Are you not in work then, Halliday?" asked Allan Fairfax, “I should have thought a good fellow like you would have always got employment." "but peo "Oh, yes, sir, I got work enough," answered the labourer; ple don't pay as Mr. Graham did, and they can do with us just what they like, for there are too many of us. Allan Fairfax did not ask any further question; but walked on with his companion, sometimes speaking a few words to him, sometimes in silence; for to say the truth, the young gentleman seemed somewhat moody and strange, sometimes smiling gaily at what was passing in his own thoughts, occasionally plunged into a fit of deep and gloomy meditation. At length a village spire came in sight, and immediately afterwards a group of cot tages appeared at the corner of the road. They were all wretched in the extreme, mere hovels-ay, and hovels out of repair. The winter wind was kept from rushing through the broken windows by patches of paper and bundles of rags. The doors let in the rain, and the thatch protected not what it seemed to cover; the plaster was broken from the mud wall in a thousand places, and hung in loose tatters bagging and bellying out all over each miserable tenement. At the doors of some were seen squalid and dirty children, but half clothed even with their rags; and at another, a gaunt pig was grubbing with its snout amongst a pile of rubbish. Át the entrance of one of the poorest, stopped Ben Halliday; and after gazing at it sternly for a moment, he set down the portmanteau, and looked full in Allan Fairfax's face, saying, in a low tone, "It is here I live now, sir.” If he had spoke for an hour he could not have made a sadder comment on his changed condition; but when he added, "I will just go and tell my wife," Fairfax answered, "No, Ben, I will come in with you." "Oh, don't sir," replied the labourer, "it will hurt you to see." "It will grieve, but do me good," said Mr. Fairfax, in a firm tone; "I am an old friend you know, Halliday. Take in the portmanteau, my good fellow." Ben Halliday did as he was directed, and walking slowly forward opened the door. There was no joy to welcome him; a faint smile, indeed, lighted the features of his wife as she saw him come in; but she was busy tending her daughter, who sat in a wooden chair on the other side of a hearth nearly vacant of fire, though the thin white ashes that strewed it showed that wood had been burning there not long before. The daughter's face was pale and emaciated, with a red spot in the centre of the cheek, and limbs apparently so powerless that she did not even try to approach her father. The eldest and the youngest boy were both absent, and Fairfax afterwards found, that the one was employed at low wages in a manufactory some fifty miles distant, the other gathering sticks in the neighbouring woods and fields. Poverty in the most abject form was evident amidst the once cheerful, laborious family, and the tattered shawl which Mrs. Halliday drew across her chest, when she saw a stranger follow her husband into the cottage, served to show rather than to hide the want of even necessary clothing. To Fairfax, however, as soon as she recognised him, she was still the frank civil countrywoman whom he had before seen, and no word of complaint passed her lips. Patient endurance was in all her words and looks, and that one virtue-she had many beside-had been of more value to her husband than a thousand showy qualities could have been. Had she displayed all she suffered, had she made the worst of every thing instead of the best, had she complained and murmured, Ben Halliday would have given way long before; but she had supported, and strengthened, and cheered him, and though she could not lessen the evils which surrounded them, or hide from him the griefs still in store, she enabled him to bear them with fortitude, if not without repining. Ben Halliday kissed her as tenderly as ever; but one of his first thoughts was for his daughter, to whose side he advanced as soon as he entered, asking, "Well, Lucy, how are you to-night, dear?" "I am better, father," said the girl, in a husky tone broken by a cough; "I shall be quite well when the summer comes and I can get out to help you and mother." "She is very bad, sir," said Mrs. Halliday, speaking to Fairfax in the plain and unreserved manner (which some people might think unfeeling) that is common amongst the peasantry; "she's in a decline, poor thing." "I am sorry to see her so unwell," replied Fairfax; "but I think a little good nourishment might do her good. Here, Halliday," he continued, taking out his purse e; "I do not like the account you give me of the public-house; so I think I shall rest myself here for an hour or two, if you will let me, and then go down to Brownswick again for the night. Run up to the village, my good man; and bring me down something for supper. We'll all sup together to-night. There's a sovereign; bring down plenty of things-eggs and some beer, and probably you can get a pound of tea, and some milk and butter.-I dare say you would like some nice tea or milk, Susan, would not you?" "Oh, that I would," cried the poor girl, eagerly; "I'm sure tea and milk would do me a great deal of good.' "Ben is not good at "I'll run up myself, sir," said Mrs. Halliday, marketing. I'll borrow a basket, and go in a minute." Fairfax gave her the sovereign, adding, in a low voice; "Bring any thing you think will do her good, Mrs. Halliday." But Ben heard him, and said, "God bless you, sir!" with a tear in his eyes. Mrs. Halliday was hardly out of the door, when their cousin Jacob entered, gaunt as a wolf, with his coal-black hair floating wild and tangled about his haggard face. 66 Well, Ben," he said at once, "have you been to old Stumps? I saw you come back-did you go? "Yes, I went, Jacob," replied Halliday, with a sigh; "but it is no good. I told him, I and Bella and the two children, could not live upon seven shillings a week do what we would, and he said he could not help it. If we did not like it, we might leave, for he would give no more. He said, too, that many a man is glad to get it (which is true enough), so why should he give more to me ?" "Hell seize him!" cried Jacob Halliday, vehemently; "who first brought down the wages here? But what did you answer, Ben?" "I said that I must see if I could not get some help from the parish," replied his cousin; "but then he got very high and mighty, and said that I should not have one penny of outdoor relief; that I was an able-bodied labourer at full wages, and in employ, and it was contrary to the rules of the New Law. He made me a little angry, he did; and so I said, then I must come into the union; for it was earthly impossible for a man and his wife and two children unable to earn a penny, to live upon seven shillings a week and pay a shilling a week rent. But that would not do either; for he answered with a sort of laugh, 'You may come in if you like, but I'll answer for it you'll soon be out again, Master Ben. We take care to make it uncomfortable enough in order to keep all lazy fellows out, and the first thing we'll do with you is to part you and your wife and children. He knew he had me there, Jacob, and he is one of the guardians, you know." 66 Ay, I know," answered Jacob Halliday, with a bitter curse; "they've given the sheep to be taken care of by the wolf in their New Law, that's what they've done; but they may find sheep, even, sometimes turn wolves |