mine, who corroborated the story both by their
intimate knowledge of the relator's veracity,
and by having heard from other members of his
family—who were equally ear-witnesses of the
fact—precisely the same account of it.

The following is the narrative of Mr. G.:

Mr. G. loquitur:

"I was living, when I was about eighteen,
with my grandmother and my sisters, in a solitary
house in Yorkshire. I am particular in
describing to you the sort of house, and its
situation, because that has something to do
with the story. It was a kind of old manor-house,
square and solid, that stood on the highest
part of a wide and barren wold. There were no
large trees near the house, only a few shrubberies;
and even these were removed away from
the mansion, which was still further isolated by
a wide paving of large flag-stones that went
entirely round it. Any one who placed himself
on a kind of gazebo which terminated the nearly
flat roof, could not only see all round the immediate
vicinity of the mansion, but might detect
any moving thing to a considerable distance. In
short, nothing could be more bare and bleak than
the situation of the house, and, at the same time,
less calculated for concealment of any kind.

"One moonlight night, in the late autumn,
when the general bareness of the scene was increased
by the thinness of the departing foliage,
the family were assembled in the large drawing-room.
Suddenly, about nine o'clock, a maid-servant
rushed into the apartment, and called
out, ' Oh, sir! oh, ma'am! we've all been hearing
the voice of the poor little black boy. He
is calling out ' Massa George!'"

"To make this intelligible, I must tell you
that we had had a little black fellow over from
our property in Jamaica, an orphan. This lad
was especially considered my servant, and had
attached himself to me in a most remarkable
manner. I had, a week or two before my story
commences, been obliged to leave him, on account
of his being laid up with fever, at Liverpool,
whither I had gone on mercantile affairs. He
always had been in the habit of calling me
' Massa George!' and it was this well-known
appellation in the well-known voice of the black
that the maid-servants now declared they heard
reiterated outside the kitchen window.

"'But you may hear it yourself, sir!' exclaimed
the maid. ' Though where the poor lad
is we cannot find out.'

"Our whole party, upon this, dispersed to
different windows, which having opened, we, in
effect, all heard, in no long time, the voice of
poor little Dick, singing out, 'Massa George!'
At first, we did not doubt that Dick, having
got better, had left Liverpool, and was really
somewhere near the house. We therefore
searched all about the garden and shrubberies,
but no Dick was to be found. Outhouses there
were none to examine, for offices and stables
were alike collected under the roof of our mansion,
which was farm and manor-house all in
one. We re-entered the house. We went into
all the rooms. We went up to the gazebo. For
miles around the country lay quiet in the moon-light,
and so distinct that even a doe might have
been seen stirring anywhere about it. But
nothing was to be detected. We unchained the
house-dog, and let him roam round the premises,
He bayed the moon a little, seemed uneasy,
listened, howled, and sneaked back to his kennel.
Having thus done all we could to find the black
boy or detect a trick, we felt an uneasy conviction
of something strange stealing upon us. The
voice, too, instead of ceasing, floated about the
house more wildly than at first. Never shall I
forget that cry! ' Massa George! Massa George!'
In every tone of the boy's well-known voice, it
came upon the perfect stillness of a breathless
October evening, in a manner which I can hardly
attempt to describe. At times it seemed to go
off into the distance, retreating and retreating,
till it was all but inaudible. Then, the faint
smothered tones seemed, by degrees, to gather
themselves up, and to approach the house again.
Sometimes the cry ceased altogether, then suddenly
seemed sounding in our very ears. And
there was an impatience, an agony in the
sound, which was heartrending. 'Mas—sa—
Ge—orge!' in a long, wailing manner, was repeated,
as if the boy implored me to come to
him, to pity him, to help him. And this not for
a few minutes, or for half an hour, but for above
two hours. At length the sounds became fainter
and fainter, and only sobbed at intervals upon
the air, till everything subsided into the silence
of the night.

"The next post from Liverpool brought the
news of poor little Dick's death, The letter
said, 'He suffered much at the last; and he
never ceased to cry, " Massa George!" for two
hours before he expired.' Those two hours were
the very same during which the voice was crying
out round our house in Yorkshire."

HOW THE VICTORIA CROSS WAS WON.

I WELL remember with what pomp and circumstance
of courtly parade that grand gala-day
of Valour was held in Hyde Park one hot
June morning of 'fifty-seven. The Victoria
Cross was then given away, for the first time, to
some dozens of bronzed, scarred, and bearded
Crimean heroes. They thought the little medal
in gun-metal, with the British Lion standing
impossibly on the crown, and " For
Valour" written underneath, was the highest
compensation for the loss of arms and legs,
and for wounds that will ache at every shifting
of the wind all their lives long. Since then,
many more have received that small, bronze-
coloured decoration; but quietly, and without
public recognition. Indeed, the Cross of
Valour has rather passed out of sight lately;
although Mr. DESANGES has done his best
to make it popular again, by his Victoria Cross
Gallery in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London.
It is not a thing that should be suffered to die
away; for, each act of valour for which the cross
was awarded was as fine as any of those old classical
deeds which are still taken as the culminating