repelled whatever might have savoured of
intrusion. Thus it came about, that beyond the fact
that his mother had been from Hungary, I knew
little or nothing about my new friend's antecedents.
He had, I gathered from various hints,
been bred up in some foreign university a— fact
which perhaps accounted not only for his slight
accent in speaking English, but for the scar on
his cheek; some relic, doubtless, of a student's
duel among the Burschen of Germany.

The long winter was nearly over, and our body
of workmen, reduced as soon as the hard frost
and deep snow had put an end to our operations,
was being daily recruited. I noticed, however,
that most of the men who came, sometimes from
a long distance, to join our band of pioneers,
preferred to attach themselves to tne gang
directed by Theodore, the tall Obermann. Since
that first night of young O'Dwyer's arrival, I
bad never seen anything peculiar in Theodore's
manner. A sensible, trustworthy person, he was
the most useful of the native workmen, but he
was, as a rule, singularly free from the exuberant
vivacity and fiery emotions of his countrymen.
He and his men were in constant communication
with O'Dwyer, of course, and sometimes
it happened that a Pole who was missing for
a couple of days was said to have been
despatched as a messenger by the latter. But as
the errand was always plausibly accounted for
by the truant's return with writing-paper, iron
chain, a new spade, or the like, I disturbed
myself little on the subject.

About this time, rather a startling incident
occurred. One of our labourers, who had been
sent to Lublin to buy something or other of
which we were in need, came into camp wounded,
and with ugly stains of blood on his sheepskin
pelisse. Luckily the blood flowed from nothing
worse than a smart flesh wound in the arm, and
the hurt was soon bandaged, while a notable
crone from the village, famous for her cures of
sick cattle and bruised human patients, undertook
to make " an eight-day job of it." But the
man's story was alarming. It seems that he had
met, half way towards Lublin, with a party of
Russian light horse; that they had shouted to
him to stop; and, on his appearing to hesitate,
had galloped towards him, recklessly firing off
their pieces, one ball from which had taken effect.
But the wounded man, with a sort of instinctive
distrust of Muscovite mercy, had plunged into
the thorny thicket, where even Cossacks could
not follow, and had made his way, groaning and
faint, to the sheds of his own people.

On inquiry, I learned that the Russian troops
were scouring the country, arresting travellers,
searching for arms among the villages and
chateaux, and doing considerable mischief on
those estates whose owners were under
suspicion. Thus much the peasants knew from the
personal testimony of those of their own class,
but there were dark and half-defined rumours ot
detected conspiracies in the towns, of
widespread  projects for revolt, and of corresponding
severities on the part of the government.

All this was very disagreeable news to me.
Tranquillity is, as I well knew, the vital
atmosphere of commercial success, and our line, the
South Polish, depended to no small extent for
its funds upon the guaranteed subsidy of the
imperial authorities. An outbreak in Poland
would injure my employers' interests, and would
probably put an immediate stop to my own
salary. Yet, as I said to O'Dwyer, I could not
find it in my heart to blame the people, should
they resolve at any risk to fling off the dominion
of the Muscovites. During the fifteen months
I had spent in Poland, I had seen so many petty
acts of dull tyranny and cruel persecution
directed against those who dared to speak or
think contrary to the usages of Holy Russia,
that I half despised the Poles for their long
submission

"You see," remarked I to O'Dwyer, as we
went down together to examine a bridge, the
wooden piers of which had been overturned by
the sudden freshet of thawed snow— "you see,
these folks have not the sturdy independence of
John Bull. How they stand the sway of the
grey-coated bullies for one day puzzles me. A
clever race, too, with brave hearts and quick
wits, if they had but common sense—yet they let
the Czar treat them like cattle in a pen, and
their spirit seems broken. Ah, if they were
but English!"

"Yes, as you say, if they were but English!"
exclaimed O'Dwyer, so passionately that his
voice actually quivered with emotion; " if they
were English, there would be no slaves among
them to look with jealous dislike upon the
noble; all, then, would be free-born men alike,
ready to win or die for their country, and ——
Who fired?"

For a gun was suddenly discharged from the
thicket hard by, and the sharp report sent the
dead leaves swirling down from a dusky-red
beech beside me. The first idea which suggested
itself was, that some prowling Cossack had fired
at us, moved by the desire of plunder, but we
soon saw a stout-made man in a black coat, and
wearing tinted spectacles, come pushing his way
through the brambles, and eagerly pick up a
dying bird which his shot had brought down.

"Passer rubicellus! the red-throat sparrow,"
he exclaimed, with exultation; "a male bird,
and a noble specimen."

I nudged O'Dwyer's elbow, and whispered
that the stranger was, no doubt, a naturalist.

M. Prevoust, the owner of the gun and slayer
of the unfortunate red-throated sparrow, soon
became on very friendly terms with us. He
was, indeed, an agreeable, well-informed
person, a Frenchman, and one of the most active
enthusiasts for science that I have ever met
with. He had, I gathered from his discourse,
been head clerk of some firm in the wine
trade at Bordeaux; but, on coming into
possession of some small inheritance, had
abandoned the desk to devote all his time to his
cherished pursuits. With his hammer, his gun,
and his blowpipe, he had wandered over Europe,
geologising in one district, collecting birds and
reptiles in a second, and in a third performing