the old man. My natural reserve prevented my going immediately down to them, but as soon as she saw me, my partner &c., turned to come to me. Only for a few steps, however. The old man moved a step or two up his garden and held her in conversation as before. I was amused at first to see her efforts to escape. She was like a bird tied to a string who is ever being brought back again to his perch. Then I thought if I made a move to go in to tea it would detach her. But no, I had actually poured out my second cup before she came running in, breathless. "My dear, you can't think what an awfully talkative old man that is," she said. "I should think so, my dear. You seem to have found it very difficult to escape from him." "And so would you. I couldn't be rude, and come right away." "Oh, I should," I said hardily. "I would leave him talking to his cabbages. Besides, it is easy to shut a man up if you don't want to talk to him. You, at least, know how to do that." "Well, we shall see," she said, nodding her head gaily. There was still a little of the fading sunset left when I went out after tea, and I was determined not to put myself in the old gentleman's conversational claws. I had thought about my cowardice with the garden tools and had determined to throw it overboard. I would dig with all the primeval force of Adam, old man, or no old man. So I went down and commenced. I was straightening my aching back after going across the cabbage-bed twice in somewhat devious fashion, and wondering how on earth I should fill the immense trench which seemed to be the only result of my exertions, when I heard a heavy step on the walk of the adjoining garden, and was conscious that the puckered old face of Mr. Squires was bent upon me. I was determined to take no notice of him and went ahead like a navigator. I had not taken off my coat, and I had the habit of carrying a daily increasing number of letters and other papers in my breast pocket. I was not accustomed to dig, and I think I put myself in a more horizontal position than is common to professors of the art when I got hold of a more than usually heavy spadeful of earth. Anyhow there came a time when about fifty letters, postcards, and other documents were shot forth from my pocket and scattered in the shapeless chasm before me. I had to confess myself beaten. I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief, mopped my forehead, and said sheepishly that "I wasn't much used to that sort of thing." I had said the fatal word and the ice was broken. In two minutes I was standing helpless under the old man's power. I picked up my papers six or seven at a time and then paused. "I couldn't be rude' my wife had said, and now I felt the truth of the observation. The old man went on for ever. He reeled out long accounts of agriculture and horticulture in France-stories of his life as a manufacturer-tales of his boyhood and youth. He advised me as to my garden, and dissented in an arguing way from everything I advanced. At last we got upon the subject I happened to be mad upon and then all was over. I forgot my digging, my gardening and my distaste for him with whom I was talking. We argued the sun down and the moon up, but I could not help observing that he did a larger share of the talking than politeness would permit me to monopolize. The evening was certainly far advanced when I saw the figure of my wife flitting down the garden walk. "Can you come to supper, dear ?" she said, in a mild voice. But I knew she was laughing at me. I made efforts to get away from the old man. "Well, I must go in," I said in a sharp brisk voice, moving a step or two. "And that incident that I've just told you is not so wonderful as what happened to me in Yorkshire," he said, taking no notice of my impatience. "What was that?" I asked mechanically. When of course he began again. It was ten o'clock when I got in to my supper. And those who fancy the partner &c., was not triumphant, know nothing of married life. Of a very different class was another old man I knew years ago. He was a person of considerable means, and well respected in his county. He lived in a beautiful place on the side of one of the Gloucestershire hills, which possessed grounds large enough for his daily constitutional, without his having the necessity to go beyond his own boundaries. He had been a lawyer, but had been fortunate enough to retire from what had been always a lucrative, and never an arduous practice, at the early age of forty-five. He was one of the most intellectual and delicately sensitive men I ever came near. When I first had the pleasure of being introduced to him, he was about seventy years old, but he was as straight and elegant in figure as he had been at twenty. There were about him the unmistakable signs of breed. His clear-cut finely-featured face seemed to have been only rendered nobler by the years which had passed over his head. Of remarkably good and pure tendencies by nature, I think he was the most innocent man I have ever met, and innocence combined with fine intellectual powers is rare. Such a combination approaches the perfection of angelic natures. He was reported to write a good deal for the public press, and when I first entered his house he was secluded as usual in the depths of his study. It was not till we were assembled at the dinner-table that I was introduced to him. He spoke to me with the cheerful kindness of a beautiful unsophisticated child. There was no mark of age about him except a certain statuesque pallor of skin, and the dazzling whiteness of his hair. He was as merry as a young man at the dinner-table, and when that meal was over, he linked his arm in mine (it was summer) and drew me with him to the gardens. While I stayed there we had several long conversations. He talked on all subjects-religion, philosophy, poetry, fiction, and what not with an easy calm, as though everything was daylight to him. Some of his friends called him culpably timid, and said he ought to come out more into public life. But he had strict notions as to a man knowing his own line and pursuing that as before his Maker. And he believed he was pursuing his. His was the most charming household in all respects that I ever saw, and all his family have since done credit to the nobility of its influences. In strong contrast to this fine specimen of the old man, was the next, which must also, from reasons of space, be the last I shall mention. He was a wicked old man, who seemed to have no capacity for morality at all, any more than a gorilla. An ape might have gone to church with as much reasonableness as he. His hair did not look venerable, because it was always carefully dyed a jetty black. At a distance he looked but thirty, but it was only by a close inspection that you would have the slightest notion that he had arrived at the human period of the Psalmist. So far from the strength of his four-score years being by any means "labour and sorrow," it was full of gaiety and pleasure. A white hat, tipped slightly on the side of his wicked old head, a carefully waxed black moustache, a rosy cheek, an arm as muscular as a young man's, under the velvet sleeve of his jauntily cut short jacket, a red rose in his button-hole, a diamond circlet round his crimson neck-tie, snowy linen, heavily-jewelled hands, light trousers of the most fashionable cut, and a cane of the latest fashion, were characteristic features of his appearance. But if you looked at his eye you saw no soul there-it was hard, cold, and absolutely unfeeling-a mere lens. This old sinner was never married, and he scoffed at those who were. He had money, dogs and horses, and, of a sort, he had friends. Our business together was always of the most formal description, and our intercourse was not rendered any warmer by my certain conviction that he esteemed me to be a fool quite as much as I did him. His wickedness and villanies were of the real old-fashioned coarse flavour which was greatly relished by the agricultural labourers of the district, and formed. one of the staples of their conversation at their Saturday saturnalia at the public houses. Thank Heaven that we can say that to some extent those wickednesses and villanies are distinctly old fashioned, and that they have too, in a measure at least, succumbed to the "nobler manners, purer laws" of this age. REDBARN. THE ENGLISH IN EGYPT.* [Translated from an anonymous German poem in the "Satyrisches, humoristiches, lyriches kritisches, raisonnesendes, æsthetic-annonnuendes Wochenblatt" for Saturday, September 5th.] It is almost unnecessary to say that this poem was written before Sir Garnet Wolseley had achieved his brilliant success, and at a time when the German press was teeming with derisive articles on the apparent inactivity of our troops.-En. C. L. M. SCRAPS. The initial number of The Institute Magazine published under the sanction of the Council of the Midland Institute, and edited by Mr. Howard S. Pearson, was issued on the 1st ultimo. It is printed by Cund brothers in their usual artistic manner, and is a marvel of cheapness. The subscription being only one shilling for the eight numbers to be issued during the session. The Editor, in an opening Address entitled "A few first words," gives a résumé of the work of the Teachers and Students' Union, and explains the raison d'etre of the new periodical. This is followed by the first portion of the President's address to the Union; a paper replete with interesting matter concerning the past history of the Institute. The remainder of the number consists of the Lists of Prizes awarded in the various departments, and the programme of the lectures for the coming Session. We wish the new venture all success. EDGBASTONIA. Although the circulation of this little Magazine is chiefly gratuitous, and confined, to a great extent, as its name implies, to Edgbaston; it may be obtained at Cornish Brothers and other booksellers in Birmingham, and it is well worthy of perusal † It has now been in existence about a year and a-half, and being printed at the Herald Press, Union Street, the typography, as may be inferred, is first rate. * * The principal features of Edgbastonia are the articles on our local worthies from the pen of the editor, (our old friend S. D. R.) whose contributions to the Mail on similar subjects, a few years ago, attracted so much attention, and afforded so much pleasure to a host of readers. The number for July contains an admirable biographical sketch of our beloved and lamented townsman, Allen E. Everitt, that for August an article anent the author of John Inglesant, and the September number a paper on George Dawson apropos to the bust recently executed by Mr. Williamson. Each article is illustrated by E. C. Mountfort with a portrait of the subject of the memoir. Captain Ludlow's Zululand and Cetewayo which has been published since our last issue, has proved a marked success, and has, we believe, * Mr. C. J. Woodward B. Sc. |