and then I became conscious of nothing but
the strange veil-like misty rain, and, looking
through this veil where it drew away thin and
transparent, I saw my own body asleep on a
couch in Mr. Volt's laboratory, with Mark
Stedburn beside it, loosening my necktie and
shirt collar and sprinkling water on my face.
Then the veil shrivelled up and was gone, and
I was sitting on the sofa with Mark's hand on
my pulse.

"You're all right now, old fellow, eh?" he
said, kindly.

"Let me go back to London, Mark. I have
had such queer ideas since Mr. Volt's funeral,
that I don't feel myself."

"Funeral! Why, here is Mr. Volt. Do you
know how long you slept under the 'hatchis'?"

"I woke once, I know, two months ago, and
went to London. You haven't given me that
stuff again since I came back, have you?" I
stammered in doubt.

"You had one dose precisely ten minutes ago,
and it is now nine o'clock to the minute," said
Mark, holding up his watch in confirmation.
"—Singular preparation, is it not?"

"I hope," said Mr. Volt, "you are now
thoroughly convinced of the reality of the impressions
produced by ' hatchis.' They were
sequent and recurrent, I believe, as those to
which you restrict the term reality; were they
not? And they took place independently of
your will, I think?"

"Quite so," I rejoined, " but still they differed
from reality in this important particular,
that whereas phantasy told me you had committed
suicide, I wake up to find you resolutely
and persistently alive."

Mr. Volt much wished to argue this point,
but Mark insisted that our time was out, and
dragged me away from the tower to his house
to supper.

"He is one of the cleverest chemists we have
in the country," Mark explained, as we walked
home.

"But he surely is not sane?"

"He is only mad on one point," returned
Mark, " and I humour him in that for the sake
of his intelligence in other respects; but rest
assured that, although we frequently exchange
ideas, in the common acceptation of the phrase,
I have no earthly intention of exchanging outward
ideas with Mr. Volt, in his sense of the
term."

THE WITCH.

I THINK I'd like to be a witch,
   To sail upon the sea.
In a tub or sieve, in storm or shine,
   Mid wild waves flashing free.

I'd catch the billows by the mane,
   The bounding billows and strong,
Goad them, and curb them, or trample them down,
   Or lull them with a song.

I'd churn the sea, I'd tether the winds,
   As suited my fancy best,
Or call the thunder out of the sky,
   When the clouds were all at rest.

I'd wreck great ships if they crossed my path,
   With all the souls on board,
Wretched, but not so wretched as I,
   In the judgments of the Lord.

And then, may be, I'd choose out one
   With his floating yellow hair,
And save him, for being like my love,
   In the days when I was fair.

In the days when I was fair and young,
   And innocent and true;
And then, perhaps, I'd give him a kiss,
   And drown liirn in the blue.

In the blue, blue sea, too good to live
   In a world so rotten and bad,
I think I'd like to be a witch,
   To save me from going mad!

AN ENGLISH PEASANT.

IF there be any class of the English people
that is pre-eminently unknown to itself and
to all other classes, it is that of the farm
labourer. The squire or other great landed
proprietor of the neighbourhood knows them
after a certain fashion, as he knows his
cattle; but of the labourer's mind he has as
little idea as he has of that of the animal
which he bestrides in the hunting-field. He
knows the peasant to be a useful drudge,
like the horse that draws the plough, but
unlike the horse, to be a burden upon the
poor-rates, either present or prospective.
Furthermore, he suspects him to be a
poacher; and in his capacity of magistrate
deals out the harshest justice (or injustice)
towards him, if the suspicion ever comes to
be verified. The squire's lady, and the clergyman's
lady, and the fair matrons and spinsters
of the Dorcas Society, or managers of
the Penny Clothes Club, know the labourer's
wife as the grateful and very humble recipient
of eleemosynary soup, coals, flannels,
medicines, and other small mercies that are
great in their season. The parson knows
the labourer and his family better perhaps
than anybody, if he be a true parson, and
does his duty by his flock; but it is doubtful
whether even he, however zealous and
truly christian-like he may be, penetrates
into the arcana of the labourer's mind, or understands
what the poor man really thinks of
his condition in this world, or his prospects
in the next. The farmer who employs him
ought to know him better, but he does not.
The farmer's only concern with him is on a
par with the concern he has for his inanimate
tools—for his plough, his spade, or his
harrow, which he buys as cheaply as he can,
uses as long as possible, and throws away
when they are worn out. He employs the
labourer when he is young and strong, and
gets as much work out of him as he can, for