victory was won, and proceeded at once to sit
down in peaceful triumph upon his laurels;
the very way to crush them. The enemy,
consisting of a goodly array of the troops in
the pay of His Most Gracious Majesty, came
into the forest, expecting a vigorous resistance
from men armed to the teeth, and opposing
their breasts fanatically to the bayonet. The
regulars were, however, grievously deceived.
The insurgents did not wait even to discover
what the smell of gunpowder was like, but
scampered off at the first sounds of the drum
and fife.

Now, I had pretty hotly joined the movement,
because it concerned very closely the
fortunes of Mrs. Winny Kear, the grandmother
of the sweetheart of my bosom, and the capital
encroacher on the public land. Being sound
in wind and limb, and young in blood, I
endeavoured to oppose myself to timid counsel,
and to stir up the foresters to fight.

"A spy!" cried Mr. Prosser; "he is
bribed to get us into trouble. Lay hold of
him."

They did lay hold of me; they tied me,
gagged me, and dragged me off. Mr. Prosser's
motive was revenge; and the foresters of Little
Dean, who had got hold of me, being the
roughest men of our community, carried the
business a little to extremes. They took me
to a coal-pit which had been recently deserted,
and sent me down there by the windlass. The
man who went down with me discharged me
at the bottom like rubbish from the basket,
and was wound up again.

This might have been, and would have been,
a case of murder, if it were possible for a dozen
countrymen to know a secret, and for none
of them to leave it behind him at an alehouse.
At eleven o'clock that night, Mary Llewellyn,
who had sought me since noon, like a loving
little soul, obtained a mere hint of my
whereabouts. She knocked up Farmer Grimes
who had been then two hours in bed, coaxed
him to go with her into the rain, and let
her down the pit. He went with her and let
her down; he could not go himself, because
she would not have relied upon her strength
to wind him up again. She came down with
a lantern, found me, and put brandy between
my lips—then put something much sweeter
upon my lips. After I got out of that pit, I lost
no time in getting into another; we were
married in Blakeney Church.—Well, well.
Away with melancholy!

Several leaders of the forest outbreak having
been taken and tried, their Commander-in-
Chief, Mr. Prosser, among others, went abroad.
The cases of old Mrs. Winny Kear and
others who had built cottages thoughtlessly
on royal ground, were mercifully dealt with
by the Government, and leases were granted
to them at a peppercorn rent for various terms,
according to the length of time the several
encroachments had existed. Winny fell asleep
in peace, when death arrived to do for her
what she had been doing all her life:—to
gather her for ashes. I cannot say that
since then I have lived in peace. But I
am happy.

SHADOWS.

THE SHADOW OF MARGERY PASTON.

A SUGGESTIVE book, "The Paston Letters;
Original Letters, written during the reigns
of Henry the Sixth, Edward the Fourth, and
Richard the Third:" the private history of
a family of rank, some four centuries ago. In
this collection of ancient memorials of domestic
life, we trace the nature of the contests
between themselves of a poor, ambitious, and
turbulent aristocracy, when the right of the
strong arm was paramount over law; we see
the growth of that power which was derived
from the profitable exercise of industry; and
view the middle classes, amidst the partial
oppression and general contempt of the highborn,
securing for themselves a firm position
and a strong hold, whilst the exclusive claims
of feudality were crumbling around them.
Here we learn how harsh were many of the
domestic relations of parent and child—how
public oppression had its counterpart in private
tyranny. The love passages of the book
are singularly interesting. A humble friend
of the Paston family has won the affections of
one of its daughters. They are betrothed. The
mother insults the "Factor." The brothers
despise him. The power of the Church is
opposed to the union. Yet the ardent girl is
constant—and she triumphs. How she finally
emerged from her persecutions is not recorded.
But the last letter of the angry mother, which
describes these struggles, is thus endorsed:—
"A letter to Sir John Paston from his mother,
touching the good-will between her daughter
Margery P. and Ric. Calle, who were after
married together."

The shadows of the young lady and her
lover arise before us, and we try to piece out
their dim history.

Margery Paston is sitting in the accustomed
solitude of the Brown chamber in her mother's
dowry house at Norwich. Dame Margaret
Paston, her mother, has just returned from
spending the Easter of 1469 in her son's
ruinous castle of Caister. He holds this
castle under a disputed will; and the great
Duke of Norfolk is preparing to dispossess him
of it, not by the feeble writs of the King's
Court at Westminster, but by gun and scaling-
ladder. On the return of the lady she receives
unwelcome intelligence. Her chaplain, Sir
James Gloys, has intercepted a letter
addressed to her daughter. The young lady
is the object of constant anxiety and
suspicion—watched—persecuted. Up to the
age of twelve or fourteen she had seen little
of her parents, but had been a welcome inmate
in the family of Sir John Fastolf, at Caister;
who, in his caresses of the fair girl, indulged