her side, treading the crisp snow with trembling foot, as she bends her steps towards a new asylum; her heart still light, cheered by immortal hope, and an implicit confidence in the word of One who hath promised to protect the fatherless and the orphan.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.

THE HISTORY HEREIN PROGRESSETH ONLY TO THE SATISFACTION OF WILLIE BATS, YET IS OTHERWISE NECESSARY THOUGH UNIMPORTANT.

THUS stood affairs at Ellerton when Heringford, as soon as possible after the death of Esther, hastened to the village. Kate had been gone some days; none knew the place of her concealment. There was one clue alone;-Cicely had promised to her swain, that if he executed vengeance upon Spenton, she would reveal, in strictest secrecy, where she was to be found, that reconciliation might on the instant be effected. Visions of victory and glory were in the head of Willie Bats; already had imagination circled with bays his narrow brow, and placed his thin grey locks in competition with the fiercest; already did his soul look forward to the immortal glory which after-ages would lavish on the name of Bats-Bats the Avenger, Willie the Scourge of Vice, Willie Bats the hero, at whose name the Spentons of every succeeding generation should tremble and turn pale! Woe, woe, a thousand times woe to the unhappy wight against whom was directed the raging fire of Willie's indignation! Woe to him whose punishment was a task assigned to the consenting lover! Woe, woe to Spenton! Illstarred wretch! Unlucky for him the hour when Willie Bats was born! unlucky the years that nurtured and strengthened the destined avenger! unlucky for him that future moment when the consummation of vengeance should take place! Oh, at this instant, doth not Spenton tremble? If it be true that men are darkened by the shadows of approaching fate; if it be true that a presentiment of ill can warn the victim of suffering to come; doth not the devoted head of Spenton shake like the slender-stalked leaf of the aspen? do not his devoted limbs shiver and quake as the shadow passeth upon them? If they do not,-if Spenton be unmoved, unconscious, then is the doctrine of presentiment most false, most erroneous, most unjustifiable; for Spenton ought to tremble.

Sir Edward Heringford, having learned from Willie Bats the extent of his misfortune, crossed the village green and entered the wood. Vexed at his new disappointment, anxious for Kate's welfare, and irresolute as to what steps he should take to ensure or promote it, he cared not whither he wandered. Yet, insensibly, he struck into the same paths that, of old, he and Kate had loved to tread; no birds sang now, no wild fruits ripened, no green leaves decked the trees. The walks were yet the same; the whole was not so much changed but that old associations could be traced. There was the spreading tree under which they had loved to sit,the bank, still green, on which they had told their love,—last summer. How changed was all since then! It was winter now; and the brightness of the summer flowers, whose bloom the lovers cherished, fled not sooner before the season of destruction, than the happiness of that fond pair before the chill breath of persecution. For his own danger Edward would have cared but little, had not Kate Westrill shared it; against him alone the plots would have been directed, had not Spenton arisen, and, by bestowing upon her his vile love, made sorrow her lot also. Thus as he thought, his indignation was yet more violently excited against the wretch, whom, on raising his eyes, he beheld standing in his path.

Heringford's sword was speedily unsheathed when he saw the villain near, but the weapon was as speedily returned, on a second glance at his antagonist. Spenton's appearance, pitiful as it was, has already been described; his thin weazen face and pinched up nose were now rendered by the cold yet sharper; his teeth chattered; and his meagre body was doubled up, as much by fright as frost. His small grey eyes were bent anxiously upon Edward to watch his offensive motions, as a spell-bound animal might watch the snake preparing to devour it. His whole appearance was so mean and contemptible, that Heringford felt it would be only disgrace to himself were he to acknowledge such a man as this to be worthy his resentment.

With cringing gesture Spenton was preparing to proceed, when, through the leafless bushes from an adjoining path, rushed Willie Bats. Eager as a bloodhound for his prey, on came the avenger; with his full weight he threw himself upon the enemy and bore the little body of Spenton to the ground, where, himself falling upon it, the astonished victim gasped for that needful breath squeezed from him by the superimposed weight of his corpulent and solid antagonist.

It is said by philosophers that the lighter will always rise above that which is heavier; Spenton discovered, to his cost, that this theory is open to exceptions, for he, far lighter than Willie Bats, in vain endeavoured to be uppermost.

The immortal Willie, flushed by the buoyancy of his spirits, and the very severe exercise of manual dexterity and strength in thumping his enemy, panted for breath. Heroic being! Obedient lover! Mean is the honour our recital can afford to one whose acts were so daring and so brave. No; his life is for the poet to celebrate; his deeds are worthy of the epic page. The poet alone ean, in the hearer's mind, lend force to the hard blows that passed; alone a poet can describe how the undermost gasped for breath knocked out of him,-how the uppermost panted for breath expended in the work. Willie rested, as a giant, from his labours, but would not leave his prey: remaining upon him, and spreading each arm and leg upon the earth for support, he rested. Alas, that even the most ardent sometimes feel fatigue! for the exertions of Spenton were now successful, and he succeeded in rolling over his antagonist.

Spenton, now uppermost, meditated a more tragical termination to the contest than hitherto had seemed likely to ensue. He drew from his belt a long dagger; it gleamed an instant in the air, and would have ended the career of the valiant Willie, had not another hand, till then neutral, intervened. Edward Heringford had enjoyed the contest, so long as fists and fleshly weapons only were employed, but naked steel was far more serious; grasping, therefore, the upraised hand, he wrenched the dagger from its grasp and flung it into the brushwood. Spenton was thus thrown once more upon his own natural resources. The weight of his foeman, however, was too trifling to cause Willie Bats much inconvenience, whilst that courageous lover, having recovered his strength, mauled his adversary more severely than before. One alternative remained; and Spenton, no longer chained to the ground, sprang to his feet, and fled with all speed through the forest. Here he triumphed. The rotund Willie was never celebrated for fleetness of foot, and, before he could raise himself from his extended posture, the foe was out of sight.

"Let him go," said Willie, hot and breathless, "let him go; I have done my duty by him; my character is redeemed; the charming Cicely is appcased; and I am satisfied."

"He will never forgive thee this disgrace," said Edward.

"Never mind that," replied Willie Bats; "Cicely will forgive me now, and will forget her anger. Little do I care what else befals me."

"Art verily a hero, Willie; when wilt thou see thy Cicely?"

"Foolish! foolish !" cried Willie, as a thought now struck him; "she will see me when she is told of this, but no man knoweth where to find her; how, then, is she to be told?"

Here was a problem to solve, abstruse as that of the Delphian cube: pity that Willie Bats had not thought of it before! In gloomy mood, Willie accompanied Edward back to the village, after having duly divested himself of the dust and dirt that remained as a consequence of his mode of contest.

At the entrance to the village Edward parted from his companion, and went to his own home.

Heringford's cottage differed not from the generality of cottages in the village. There were some with more pretension, there were many inferior to it. It was built, like the rest, of stones from a neighbouring quarry, and thatched with straw. There were latticed windows, and creeping plants around them, now leafless; a garden before, an orchard behind, with turf plots and well-swept walks; there were birds' nests under the eaves of the roof; there was moss upon the mellow thatch, over which spread the branches of a beech that, in summer, shaded the spot. Lifting the latch, Edward entered the brick-paved kitchen, and found, pensively gazing into the crackling fire, his old housekeeper, Alice.

Alice had been a servant formerly to Edward's reputed parents, and, when his wife died, old Heringford advanced the favourite domestic to that authority in the management of the household which, by this event, became vacant. After the old man's death, the care of Alice became a part of Edward's duty, as bequeathed to him by his foster-father.

Alice was not very old, for she had entered the service of the house that now sheltered her at an early age; she was not young, for, before Edward's birth, she had been a widow of some years' standing, after having shared the delights of the state matrimonial during two complete lustra,—a period of experience to which, in doubtful matters, she loved often to refer.

She wore a long gown of dark-coloured stuff, with a deep stomacher of similar material, and a plain cap of white linen on her head; every thing about herself, and every thing within her jurisdiction, was clean and orderly.

The noise made by Edward in entering disturbed her reverie, and she looked hastily round: perceiving who caused the interruption, she rose, with mingled respect and affection, to welcome her

young master.

"Art thou well, Alice, and happy?" asked Edward, after the first greeting.

"I should be better pleased," replied the housekeeper, "if my young master were less seldom at home: it is lonely enough to live here and work only for myself. Time hangs heavily when there is nought to occupy one's hands or one's attention."

"It is because this house is now so lonely," replied Heringford, "that I am thus often absent. Shake not thy careful head, my good Alice; I go not into the world to seek society in riot and dissipation; that is no cure for lonesomeness: the solitude of a life cannot equal in misery one interval between such sallies. No, Alice; the laugh of one I love, resounding within these walls, would soon render them cheerful; the society of her who to me is all in all, would put a happy end to solitude."

"Success to thee, Edward ;" said the old housekeeper. "Mistress Kate is the prettiest and kindest-hearted girl in the village: she is well worthy of thy love. Oh, I could tell thee many a tale of Kate Westrill, that would make thy young heart beat."

"Tell me, tell me, good Alice," said Edward. "It will be music to mine ear."

"I may not," replied Alice, "for she would not wish them known; but I have seen her bend over the dying, and heard her sweet voice comforting their sorrows and praying for them, so like an angel of heaven, that I have sighed and wished that, when I die, such an one as Kate may be at my bedside to cheer the parting from this world. I have known her voice bring happiness into a house of sorrow, and reconcile those to life who had deemed its joys, to them at least, lost for ever. I have known her part with all her little store to lend assistance to the distressed. I have seen her wearied with active toil in their behalf, all, as she thought, in secret; but I have watched her thine eye of love may have observed some of this, but very little; since from thee, of all others, she strove to keep it secret,-I cannot see why; for, before I married, I always strove to let the departed Philip know every thing that could raise me in his estimation. But people were wiser in those times than they are now. Times are altered strangely!"

So said old Alice then; and so have all old women said from