"My master," said he, "returned from Somersetshire yesterday. By some means or other, he had got intelligence that Miss Hickson's marriage was to be to-day. His melancholy all the morning has been distressing beyond everything. About nine o'clock he grew quite wild, and mystified us all by ordering me to call four hackney-coaches! I did not dare to thwart his humour. When they arrived at the door, he began to derange everything in the house, and stowed the coaches with many valuable articles which fell in his way; such as cabinets, work-tables, pictures, glasses, books, and cases of jewels. He and I then got into one of the coaches, having ordered the others to follow us to Willesden. We passed along that lonely lane in utter silence; and I was once or twice afraid that the men would be suspicious about the strangeness of our proceedings, and refuse to go on. In this, however, I was wrong; for, as I have since found, they were very curious to know what we were after, and this feeling would have carried them at least double the distance. On arriving at the gates of the churchyard, my master stopped the train; and alighting, he opened the first coach-door, and without uttering a syllable, deliberately took from it a splendid Buhl cabinet, with which he walked into the opposite lane, and threw it over the fence into Mr Hickson's garden. Next came a lady's work-box; that also flew in the same direction; till by degrees, losing patience, he ran like a madman from coach to coach, strewing the ground with a diversity of articles, till he had emptied the coaches. He then took a pocket-book out, into which I had seen him in the morning put bank-notes, and pieces of paper which I think they call Exchequer Bills. This also flew over into the garden; and I shall never for

get his looks as he bawled out, 'Take them! take them! It was for these things you sought me. There! there!' At length, exhausted with fatigue and anguish, he fell with his face to the earth, and lay as one dead. You know the rest."

Poor fellow! there was something grand, though fantastical, in the manner of this despair. In the morning he was calmer, but obstinately silent. His reason seemed alienated: I fear the worst.

Half a year has elapsed since the above affair occurred. It is said that the marriage between Major Haggerstone and Isabella Hickson was mutually deceptive. He was in desperate circumstances, and thought to retrieve them; and she expected a handsome provision, and an elevation in society. They have of course detected each other, and are separated, if the Major's desertion of the girl can be allowed to go under that name.

Fairfax has had every advantage which skill and attention could furnish; but his malady seems settled. He is at present a quiet, inoffensive boarder in one of the private asylums in the neighbourhood of London."

CHARLES OLLIER.

Killcrop the Changeling.

A LEGEND OF OLD LONDON.

BEFORE the city walls of London were generally removed, and when several portions of the embattled bulwark with its high tower were yet remaining, that part of the plain, old-fashioned road leading from Barbican to the Bars by Faun's Alley was denominated Pickaxe Street; in which ominously sounding part of London there was an old house, long since destroyed, which had at a former period been inhabited by one Jonah Gumphion, an eminent undertaker, who displayed what he called the sign of "Both Ends," in two large wooden models of a cradle and a coffin, which swung above his door.

The house itself was built of brown bricks, but round the windows were rich borders of red ones; and some parts of the erection were garnished with white stone.

Jonah Gumphion died in debt at the conclusion of his lease; and the tenement which he occupied being part of a property then waiting an award of the Court of Chancery in the cause of Clutch versus Readyclaw, neither party paid any regard

to the state of the habitation, and thus it daily grew less worth disputing about. The windows, in which many of the panes were either lost or fractured, became darker and darker by time, and dust, and cobwebs; the tiled penthouse over the shop fell into decay, and the tiles themselves fell into the street; the shop window was shut up, but the shutters were broken and mouldering away; the narrow door, covered with ten years' soil, looked as if it had not been unclosed for ages; and a cloud of obscurity hid the once white and richly traced fanlight which appeared above it.

About the time our story commences, the building presented this lamentable spectacle, and many and terrible were the reports concerning it; for the common people believe, that to shut up a house and leave it to decay, is as sure to generate fairies, goblins, and spirits in the deserted chambers, as the keeping in of a glass-house fire for an hundred years is to produce a Salamander in the ashes. Added to this argument, it was urged that the last occupant was one who was familiar with death; that he had received many a corpse into his dwelling; that it was very probable some of them had returned; and finally, that it certainly was so. All this had no trifling effect on the character of the building; and the haunted house of Pickaxe Street was so well known throughout the neighbourhood, that every one prophesied, that to whichever of the two contending parties the property should be decreed, they would find it of little or of no value, since they could neither inhabit it themselves, nor would any one else venture to lodge in it, though it were offered rent free.

The consideration of these points led the legal advisers of Messrs Clutch and Readyclaw to per

suade their clients conjointly to advertise for some bold and adventurous person to reside in Mr Gumphion's vacant residence, until their suit should be decided; to which, as it was but too evident that such a consummation was even yet at a very distant period, they with some hesitation consented; and the following advertisement was accordingly inserted in the Postman:

"This is to give notice, that if any person will undertake to lodge for a time in the dilapidated house known by the sign of 'BOTH ENDS,' of late in the occupation of Mr JONAH GUMPHION, Undertaker, deceased, No. 107, PICKAXE STREET, nigh unto the THREE CUPS INN, he shall be found in all provisions and furniture, and rewarded for his trouble. It is not to be believed what many people say concerning this house, for such reports are idly raised by ignorant or interested individuals; but it is recommended that none apply but a bold and undaunted person, who will not be intimidated from his purpose in living there. More particulars may be known of Mr ZACCHEUS DEMUR, Attorney in FURNIVAL'S INN, or of Mr MOSES MORTMAIN, Attorney of NEW INN, Solicitors in the Cause of CLUTCH against READYCLAW in Chancery, for whom this offer is made."

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which took place in October 1748, caused the crew of the "Devourer," a first-rate man-of-war, to be paid off. One of these disbanded veterans was an ancient and valiant mariner, called Noah Fluke. In the sea-fight off Toulon, which took place four years previously, of which he was both an active and triumphant eyewitness, his faithful friend and superior officer,