ourselves so thoroughly that we had not the
remotest idea in what direction it was to be sought.
In this dilemma I desired my attendant to ride
up to a farm-house I saw at the end of a valley
we were then traversing, and inquire the way to
the frontier inn. The man rode off, was absent
a considerable time, and at length returned with
a curious smirk on his countenance.

"I've made a strange discovery up there,
colonel," he said. "An old acquaintance of your
honour owns that farm-house, and a good bit of
land hereabouts, he tells me."

"Indeed, Oscar," I replied. " Who is it?
What is his name?"

"Michael Szelády, your honour," answered
Oscar.

"Szelády!—what?—our deserter from
Szentes!" I exclaimed. " Are you sure you
are not mistaken?"

"Positive, colonel," returned Oscar; " and he
bade me say that if you would only please to
favour him with a visit, he should consider it the
greatest honour that could happen to him. But
here he comes."

He pointed to the farm-house, and as he spoke
a stout well-dressed farmer, mounted upon a
fine bay, rode towards us. Oscar was right—it
really was Szelády. The ex-dragoon saluted
me respectfully, and invited me very cordially to
rest a few hours at his farm, promising to guide
me himself afterwards to the frontier inn of
which I was in search. When we arrived at
the farm-house, a comely smiling woman, in
whom I had little difficulty in recognising
Carlin, came to meet us, with an infant in her
arms, and two other urchins shyly clinging to
their mother's dress. Michael presented me to
his wife and children, and conducted me into
his house.

After an excellent dinner, succeeded by some
capital wine and cigars, I requested Michael to
tell me by what means he and Carlin had
succeeded in making their escape from the stable at
Szentes. I assured him that he might confide
in me without fear. Although an Austrian
army occupied the country, he was now beneath
the protection of the Turkish flag, and I should
not demand his extradition.

"I am sure of that, colonel," returned
Michael. " I didn't serve three years among the
Lichtensteiners without learning the difference
between an officer and a gentleman, and a
scoundrel who betrays poor wretches for the
price of blood. If I had not felt easy upon
that score I should never have made myself
known to Oscar there, whom I recognised as
an old comrade the moment he rode up.

"You ask how Carlin and I made our escape.
Well, the fact is, we never made our escape at
all, but were in the stable, or rather under it,
all the time you were searching for us. You
may well look surprised; but this is how it
came about. In many of the houses in Hungarian
towns—particularly those of the better
class, and of ancient date—there is generally
some secret place large enough to be used for
purposes of concealment. In my father's house
at Szentes, there was a chamber situated beneath
the stable, filled with piles of brushwood and
fagots, and communicating with one of the
stalls by a trap-door, artfully let into the floor
behind one of the partitions. The thing was so
cleverly arranged, that you might have looked
long without finding it even if you had known
of its existence, but in the hurry and surprise
which must have followed our unexpected
disappearance, it was almost certain to elude
discovery.

"My mother told me about this place when she
visited me in the stable, but our great difficulty
was to find an opportunity of raising the trap,
secure from intrusion, and to restore it, after
leaving, to its old position. For this purpose
the priest, an old friend of my father, laid the
little plot of reintroducing Carlin, and then after
a bit coming back to see if our interview was
finished. At his second visit he replaced the
trap behind the partition, swept the earth and
litter back over the spot, and made the best
of his way out of the town with my mother and
sister.

"Carlin and I waited below until the troops
had quitted Szentes, and did not venture to
leave our concealment until we found the town
in Görgei's possession. We agreed that
Hungary, henceforth, was no place for me. My
mother collected her property, and we came
over to Moldavia, where I purchased this farm
and married Carlin. We live here happily and
in comfort, and are very prosperous; and here
we hope, if Providence will, to pass the
remainder of our days."

I repeated my assurance to Michael that
I should do nothing to disturb his happiness,
and cautioned Oscar to be careful not to let
fall any hints among his comrades. My caution
was probably superfluous, as I judged from
Oscar's significant grin in reply, that Michael
had already adopted means to ensure his silence.
Still, he promised inviolable secrecy, and he will
be the more likely to keep his promise, as when
I last heard of him he, too, had passed under the
sceptre of the Sultan, having married Michael's
sister, and settled as a horse-breeder near his
brother-in-law, among the Moldavian hills.

GOING TO THE PLAY WITH SHAKESPEARE.

Now that the theatres are alive with holiday
fun and glitter, and going to the play is every
wise man's business, why shouldn't we ask what
going to the play was like when Shakespeare
himself was alive?

In some respects, we manage things more
easily than our Elizabethan forefathers. We
have not, at night, to lay our heads on wooden
bolsters, and our bodies on pallets of straw; or
to cluster, when the snow falls, round log fires
where the wind rumbles down great vaults of
chimneys. But they were great things that
were done by people who lived so uncomfortably,
and fair representatives of the outward