way up, unable to move, clinging at some grass,
and benumbed with fear. The first lad ran to
the artillerymen's barracks for a rope. When
he came back the younger boy was gone. They
searched and found his crushed body between
some rocks on the shore.

The Scarcliff fishermen are fine fellows, but
I fear they are given to fiction. I heard one
the other day talking to two of Mouther's
young gentlemen about gunnery. They were
leaning against the big Russian gun on the
north cliff. The mariner was discoursing on
a certain revolving cannon lately invented,
and he ended by assuring his young friends
that the longest distance he had ever known a
shell thrown was five-and-thirty miles, but then that
was a peculiar case. The other day I fell into
conversation with a long-limbed old pilot who
was on the watch on the cliff for a certain
schooner loaded with slates, that he and his
mate had heard of the night before when they
were laying their lobster-pots out there yonder
beyond that second point where the sea was
running so high. No, there was no waiting for
turns with the pilots at Scarcliff, if he could only
just set eyes on the schooner he'd be off with his
boat in a jiffy. He'd been out till two o'clock
with the lobster-pots and only got two lobsters.
It was owing, he thought, to the Northern
Lights, and heavy they was all night, dancing
and capering, and the sky all in a flame wi'em,
wonderful for them as had never seen it. Those
lights didn't bode no good just about the Equinox.
Yesterday the sun crossed the line, about
meridian, and the Northern Lights, coming
after, boded bad weather. Did I see that
Whitby steamer down there trying to get to the
pier for passengers? She'd better take care what
she was after or she'd get aground. It was a
burning shame she wasn't obliged to take a
pilot. Yes, she'd lost her way in the fog near
Whitby several times, and she'd do it once too
often. You better get off, my gentleman. That
pier was not well built and would go some
winter. It was caulked, there was no ventilation
in it, wind and water must have vent,
and when a heavy sea came under it, it would
lift off all the planking and play old Harry
with it. No, he had never been in the Baltic,
but he had been off Cape Horn three weeks
trying to get round by Patagonia and Terra-
fuegar. That was with Captain Bell of Whitby,
and then he proposed to try the Straits of
Magellan, as ain't barely navigable. Three
hundred miles long they was, and a ugly shop to be
in, sure enough. Shore at the Horn was rocks
tremendous high. What vessel was that? only
a light collier. What cargo was the most
dangerous? Well, copper ore; linseed was
bad too, it shifted so; coals was good, a
vessel was always lively with coals, and timber
wasn't bad; but it was all screw colliers now,
they went home with water for ballast, and got
it pumped out with a donkey engine directly
they arrived at Shields. I hadn't got the price
of half an ounce of 'baccy about me, had I?

I am almost afraid the fellow was a humbug,
and that the schooner for which he was looking
out was the Flying Dutchman or some such
shadowy craft; for the next day I met him he
had forgotten me, and began talking about a
"track" that a parson had just given him. Very
pretty reading it was, and uncommon thirsty
weather it was to be sure. He was not
communicative about the schooner, but thought she
must have "blown away" in the night, worse
luck, for he hadn't the price of a screw of
'baccy in his pocket.

The outdoor sights at Scarcliff are sometimes
especially characteristic. The other day in a
side street I came upon a truck drawn by three
sailors. An artful-looking man in a
dreadnought was the spokesman, and his assistant
was a little, fair, podgy man in a blue jersey,
who held in his hand a cigar box with a slit in
the lid ready for contributions. On the truck
lay a huge blubbery fish, about ten feet long,
with a small head and a vacant eye. A crowd of
nursemaids, children in buff shoes, and wondering
excursionists surrounded the dead monster.

"But what is it?" said some one, after
pinching the ambiguous fish all over.

"Well, if we was to say it was a whale,"
said the podgy exhibitor, "we should be
saying the thing that wasn't right, but it's the
whale specie. It's a GRUMPUS."

"Yes, that's what it is," said the artful man,
pointing to a red wound in the creature's head;
"here we struck him, and this 'ere is the place
where he throws up the water."

"Ah! puffing like a grampus, that accounts
for it," said I.

"'Xactly so," said the podgy man. "This
is a grumpus; we don't charge anything reg'lar,
but any coppers as gemmen likes to give, goes
in this 'ere box. Thank you, sir."

The swallows are collecting on the roofs. It
is time to migrate. The wind gets daily fresher
and colder. Every one is leaving Scarcliff. At
the hotel doors the railway buses are loading
with tin boxes and perambulators. A fly just
now passed with two sponge-baths sprawling on
the roof. Children are leaving by whole vans
full. The fantastic set at Mouther's are being
bottled into flies. A few weeks more and
Scarcliff will be a howling wilderness. The lodging-
house keepers will have to let lodgings to
each other; the shop-keepers to sell to each
other. I hope they will like it. They have
fed on us long enough. The Mouthers only
grin at the windows, but the Crowthers follow
their lodgers to the station, and, like good
homely people as they are, shake them by the
hands, and "tuck them up," to use a nursery
phrase, in their respective carriages.

          THE GREY MONK'S MISERERE.

     THE grey monk patters a midnight prayer
          "Miserere Domine!"
     Along the corridor, down the stair
          A light foot creepeth stealthily.
     Pausing, he crosses himself in dread
          (Never a footstep there should be)
     As near his cell comes that stealthy tread
          At the midnight hour so warily.

     The grey monk murmurs in gasping prayer
          "Miserere Domine!"
     When the step that comes adown the stair
          Stops at his door familiarly.