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is just a trifle too much in touch with the other world. I have never before lighted on a spot so behaunted. Lady Maud and the phantom army across the river I have spoken. There are others as well. The old rectory house is full of them. It is the most delightful house in the world. You

enter it, turn a corner, go up ten steps, turn another corner, go along a passage, turn another corner and go down three steps, and you are lost. I am lost two or three times a day. When this happens I sit down on a step and wait for a guide, and if no one comes within the next half hour or so I cry aloud for aid. Little inconveniences of this kind do not matter here where all is leisure; but in a house which is capable of losing half a dozen people all at once in different directions you may confidently expect now and then to meet persons in strange garb who do not really exist. There is somebody who walks past some of the groundfloor windows just about tea-time. You hear a rustling through the open window, and you glance hurriedly out just in time to see a misty figure go by. There is somebody who sits in the entrance hall in the morning, a boy of about fifteen, some say. There is a restless lady who patrols the stairs and passages. These are harmless enough, but there is another whom I would not meet for worlds. There is a delightful sitting-room looking away over the lawns and river to the west. This was once a bedroom, but one night, or rather one early morning, the sleeper was awakened by a clutch on his throat, and to his alarm saw in the half light a dark figure stooping over him. As he became wider awake it drew itself up, passed through bed and wall and disappeared. Since I heard this tale I do not sleep so well, more especially as I am informed that neither this sitting-room nor the rest of the house is considered to be haunted much. The

haunted room is the one which I have the honor to occupy. It looks harmless enough in the daytime too, a little long room with cheerful wall-paper and a tiny window, a real casement, half covered with a creeper. But at night the open half of the casement looks like an empty frame and I lie awake waiting in some apprehension for a white face to come and fill it, and by way of passing the time of expectation my too active memory brings up every horrible old story that ever I heard.

What slaves we are to our nerves! In theory I do not believe in ghosts, but in practice I am only too ready to be convinced. I sincerely hope that the homicidal ghost will not be the agent chosen for my conversion. If his identity is guessed correctly he is not a person to be encouraged, for he is supposed to be the wraith of the last of the mad monks of Medmenham. I don't suppose he cares greatly whether he is encouraged or not. Oderint dum metuant probably serves him for a motto if he still retains any of his Latinity. Talking of Latinity, I wonder whether the Roman has any idea how important his grim utterance has become as an instance of the consecutive use of dum. Why is it that in books people preparing for an interview with a ghost always fortify themselves with a revolver? Surely the only spirits to which that useful implement could do any hurt would be the household gods, and that would please a malevolent ghost of this kind rather than alarm him. I suppose the idea is that the weapon makes a cheerful noise when fired, and so impresses the spirit of the departed with the great increase in man's moral magnificence that has come about since his day. But in spite of progress and moral magnificence man, with his poor three dimensions, is at a great disadvantage in dealing with a being that comprehends four at will. Passive resistance seems his only

chance of coming well out of the encounter, to say grandly with Teufelsdröckh: "Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a child of freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet while it consumes thee? Let it come then; I will meet it and defy it";-or more humanly with that fine churchman of the old school, when hard pressed by his obstinate parishioners: "My attitude, gentlemen, is to lie on my back and kick." Either way of meeting the enemy commands my admiration, and I wish they may occur to me when the moment of trial comes. Latet anguis in herba; this garden seems to be alive with snakes. There goes the fourth I have seen to-day. Two of them swam across the river. A swimming snake is a graceful but uncanny sight; he goes through the water like a corkscrew with his horrid head upraised as though seeking whom he may devour. Fortunately these are only grass-snakes, but as a cautious Londoner I suspect that there are adders about too. A pretty moral tale of my childhood comes into my mind, which relates how two children clad in shining white robes were put into a garden with instructions to play about as good children should. They were allowed to do anything except dirty their garments and approach a certain old wall. Naturally the bad child not only dirtied its robe hopelessly but also went and climbed about the wall, whereupon it was bitten by an adder. How it all ended I do not remember, but this is just such a wall, and I see in myself a certain likeness to that bad child. It is much too hot to climb the wall, but I am reposing in its shadow, while in the distance I can hear the good child singing a hymn. In the hot weather the Sunday school is held in the rectory garden close to the old sundial, and the opening hymn sounds very pleasant and soothing from afar.

A whimsical idea of an open air cure for English music comes across me; distance and the summer breezes have a most refining effect on the raw effort. But I fear it would not achieve its object; after all, it is not English music that is at fault but that glorious and barbaric power, the British public, which insists on having what it wants even if it has to pay for it. They that pay the piper must call the tune, and if the tune they call is a poor one it is not the piper's fault; he has to live, poor man, in spite of the Voltaires, his critics. I do not know why I should have been betrayed into airing an urban grievance, unless it is that I have not yet got over my indignation at hearing on the first evening of my stay here the bray of a concertina, which, after a few preliminary and unpremeditated rural effects, plunged recklessly into the latest atrocity, a hideous ode written by some cosmopolitan Pindar in commemoration of a victory in the lists of love of some commercial Hieron from the United States; a vile piece of romance by gaslight that had actually driven me out of London for rest and change. But these thoughts are out of keeping with Sunday school, or anyhow the expression of them may become so, and as I am not a great poet I must be careful. I wish I were a poet, a Wordsworth for instance. Then instead of talking nonsense I should be extracting immortality out of my surroundings by, shall I say, four quatrains descriptive of the startling effect produced on a dandelion by the singing of a children's hymn, as witnessed by the recumbent but accurate poet.

But who am I that I should be irreverent? I do not forget that of the two voices "one is of the deep." Let me think of something else. Somebody, I think it was Sydney Smith, said that the further he went West, the more convinced he became of the abiding

truth that the wise men came from the East. I wonder if the evidence is sound. How else should it have come about that I was invited to play for the village team yesterday when the captain found that the eleventh hour had come without its man? I acquired no glory and I helped my side not a whit; one catch indeed came in my direction and I stretched out unwilling hands,to miss it. However the ball smote my thumb with great violence, so I must have conquered my natural timidity to some extent. In days of old when I was a constant cricketer I used to be rather skilful at missing the ball by a few inches only after an obvious effort to reach it, so that to all appearances I was a well intentioned, if unsuccessful, field; but now I am sadly out of practice and my thumb is still painful. I am told that the bowling of the other side was nought. In fine cricketing phase "the trundlers rolled up tosh." That may have been so in fact, but to me the uttermost "tosh" has a habit of being very fast and alarming. I did make one run by accident, but it was not accounted to me for merit; at least it did not appear in my score, and I have no doubt that ethically they were right in calling it a bye, and so do not complain. We were beaten, which I regret, though as a mere substitute I do not feel that the responsibility is mine. One of our umpires was accused of umpiring for his side, which produced a lengthy and heated discussion in the field. Much testimony was borne and great irony brought to bear on the situation, and the heart of the opposing captain was moved within him that he spake, "Well, if you want the game, we'll give it to you now." Thereafter he retired to the deep field and took no further interest in the proceedings for fully half an hour. Nevertheless he returned in time to bowl me out, which was inconsistent of him as his side was winning all along. When Macmillan's Magazine.

a man acts the part of Achilles he ought to do it thoroughly.

I wonder why it is that one's temper is so much more uncertain when one is engaged in amusement than when one is occupied with the affairs of life. I once knew a man who was universally beloved and respected until in an evil hour he was persuaded to make trial of what is known as scientific croquet, an absurd game with boundaries and all kinds of needless difficulties. He rapidly became an enthusiast and less rapidly something of an expert; and in exact proportion as his reputation as a player increased so did his value as a social unit decline, and at last all the ladies in the neighborhood refused to play with him because his language was so unnerving. But when he was not engaged in playing croquet, a thing which became somewhat rare, those who were intimate with him said he was still the wellmannered man he had ever been. I suppose he belonged to that large class of Englishmen who cannot endure to be beaten, a virtue no doubt in great matters, but in small ones something of a nuisance.

Cricket is exhausting; at least I suppose it is the cricket that makes me feel so commonplace. I am dropping into that condition in which a man might easily compose moral maxims and glory in so doing. That I will never permit while I can help it, therefore for a while I will think and say no more.

On the Great North Road, some sixty miles from London, the passenger may observe on the right-hand side an old grey tower which peeps above the trees. It has no architectural claims, but, like the towers of all old churches, is beautiful in its simplicity. To me it is an object of interest, for, in the church of which it forms a part, I was christened more than ninety years ago. Three generations have since passed. That church has always been to me an object of deep reverence, but the tower was a happy-hunting ground for

my brothers and myself at Christmas time, when we climbed up the broken stone steps to the belfry, and captured the sparrows and starlings which in misplaced confidence had sought shelter there.

The old parsonage has been long since pulled down and replaced by a modern mansion. When the time came for its removal, the mind of the Rector was greatly exercised, as were those of his parishioners, through a prevalent tradition that under the corner-stone of the foundation a treasure had been

Its

deposited at the time of building. This legend disturbed the Rector's mind, and as the work of demolition proceeded his anxiety increased. That a treasure was there he had no doubt. amount was a matter of deep thought and great hopes. There was also the question, What should be done with it when found? Conscience whispered, Hand it over to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or whoever the proper recipient of treasure-trove might be. On the other hand, he felt that it would be very useful in the poor-box. Possibly a thought would intrude itself that, if it consisted of coin in current circulation, it would be acceptable towards the expense of the autumn trip to the seaside. His mind distracted by the difficulty of coming to a decision, his Reverence went to bed, having strictly charged William Bass, the gardener, and James Stephens, the clerk, to be at their posts by daybreak next morning, and see that the fateful stone was not removed until he was present. The eventful morning dawned; the Rector, the gardener, the clerk, were all present. The last stroke of the pick sounded; the casket a tin box greatly resembling that in which sardines are packed-was exposed to view, seized, and opened-its contents just 2s. 6d. in copper coins of the reign of his late Majesty George III. In what manner his Reverence disposed of it remains a mystery.

Church and tower were then reflected on the placid surface of a moat, long since filled up, which doubtless in the old time provided fish for the abbot and monks on "Fridays when they fasted." For a monastery formerly existed in the immediate neighborhood, the inscriptions on the slabs which covered their remains, long since illegible, worn down by the hobnailed boots of generations of worshipping Protestants. The moat, some fifty or sixty yards in length, when I was

young, supplied the house with water for all purposes, drinking included. It was of a pale amber color, derived from rotten weeds, and had a slight fishy taste. I remember censuring the water at a friend's house I visited, on the ground that "it had no taste in it."

"Old times are gone, old manners changed"-the latter I think not altogether for the better. Assuredly we were more courteous and less selfish. We rose, too, earlier, and went to bed earlier. Meal-times were not the same. We breakfasted at eight, dined at five, and on the rare occasion of a dinnerparty, the guests, or the majority of them, stayed the night, perhaps two or three nights. Indeed, the state of the roads rendered a return at night impossible. Excepting one devious road that led to Slowton, the village was only accessible by clay lanes, in winter veritable sloughs of despond, impassable by any vehicle but a farmcart. Pillions were not entirely extinct, and there runs a story of Squire Lincoln arriving at the Hall on horseback, an empty pillion behind his saddle whereon his wife ought to have been seated. She had, however, whilst the steed floundered through one of the deep sloughs in Long Lane, fallen off, and the Squire, being rather deaf and by no means careful of his wife, had never missed her. A light cart was despatched for her rescue, and she was brought in, somewhat the worse for wear, in time for dinner. Poor lady! that was not her only mishap. Next morning she wandered forth alone to inspect the Squire's bullocks, and one of them being somewhat obtrusive as she crossed a solitary plank doing duty for a bridge over a ditch, she fell into it, and, being what the sailors call rather "broad in the beam," was unable to extricate herself. Damming up the stream, which trickled over her knees as she lay, she formed a small waterfall until discovered and rescued.