chets the pasty must abide with this same soldier and me, and the pie-crust will serve us for bread.'

'Rarely,' said Phabe; I made the paste myselfit is as thick as the walls of Fair Rosamond's Tower.' 'Which two pair of jaws would be long in gnawing through, work hard as they might,' said the keeper. 'But what liquor is there?'

'Only a bottle of Alicant, and one of sack, with the stone jug of strong waters,' answered Phoebe.

Put the wine-flasks into thy basket,' said Joceline, 'the knight must not lack his evening draught-and down with thee to the hut like a lapwing. There is enough for supper, and to-morrow is a new day.-. Ha! by heaven I thought yonder man's eye watched us-No- he only rolled it round him in a brown study-Deep enough doubtless as they all are.-But d-n him, he must be bottomless if I cannot sound him before the night's out.-Hie thee away, Phœbe.' But Phœbe was a rural coquette, and, aware that Joceline's situation gave him no advantage of avenging the challenge in a fitting way, she whispered in his ear, 'Do you think our knight's friend, Shakspeare, really found out all these naughty devices the gentleman spoke of ?"

Off she darted while she spoke, while Joliffe menaced future vengeance with his finger, as he muttered, 'Go thy way, Phoebe Mayflower, the lightest-footed and lightest-hearted wench that ever tripped the sod in Woodstock-park! After her, Bevis, and bring her safe to our master at the hut.'

The large grey-hound arose like a human servitor who had received an order, and followed Phoebe through the hall, first licking her hand to make her sensible of his presence, and then putting himself to a slow trot, so as best to accommodate himself to the light pace of her whom he convoyed, whom Joceline had not extolled for her activity without due reason.

While Phoebe and her guardian thread the forest glades, we return to the Lodge.

The Independent now seemed to start as if from a reverie. Is the young woman gone?' said he.

Ay, marry is she,' said the keeper; and if your worship hath farther commands, you must rest contented with male attendance.'

'Commands-umph-I think the damsel might have tarried for another exhortation,' said the soldier truly, I profess my mind was much inclined toward her for her edification.'

'Oh, sir,' replied Joliffe, she will be at church next Sunday, and if your military reverence is pleased again to hold forth among us, she will have use of the doctrine with the rest. But young maidens of these parts hear no private homilies.And what is now your pleasure? Will you look at the other rooms, and at the few plate articles which have been left?'

'Umph-no,' said the Independent- it wears late, and gets dark-thou hast the means of giving us beds, friend?'

'Better you never slept in,' replied the keeper.

'And wood for a fire, and a light, and some small pittance of creature-comforts for refreshment of the outward man?' continued the soldier.

Without doubt,' replied the keeper, displaying a prudent anxiety to gratify this important personage.

In a few minutes a great standing candlestick was placed on an oaken table. The mighty venison pasty, adorned with parsley, was placed on the board on a clean napkin; the stone-bottle of strong waters, with a black-jack full of ale, formed comfortable appendages; and to this meal sate down in social manner the soldier occupying a great elbow chair, and the keeper, at his invitation using the more lowly accommodation of a stool, at the opposite side of the table. Thus agreeably employed, our history leaves them for the present.

CHAPTER IV.

"Yon path of greensward

Winds round by sparry grot and gay pavilion;
There is no flint to gall thy tender foot,

There's ready shelter from each breeze, or shower.-
But Duty guides not that way-see her stand,

With wand entwined with amaranth, near yon cliffs.
Oft where she leads thy blood must mark thy footsteps,
Oft where she leads thy head must bear the storm,
And thy shrunk form endure heat, cold, and hunger;
But she will guide thee up to noble heights,
Which be who gains seems native of the sky,
While earthly things lie stretch'd beneath his feet,
Diminish'd, shrunk, and valueless.-

Anonymous.

THE reader cannot have forgotten that after his scuffle with the commonwealth soldier, Sir Henry Lee, with his daughter Alice, had departed to take refuge in the hut of the stout keeper Joceline Joliffe. They walked slow, as before, for the old knight was at once oppressed by perceiving these last vestiges of royalty fall into the hands of republicans, and by the recollection of his recent defeat. At times he paused, and with his arms folded on his bosom, recalled all the circumstances attending his expulsion from a house so long his home. It seemed to him that, like the champions of romance of whom he had sometimes read, he himself was retiring from the post which it was his duty to guard, defeated by a Paynim knight, for whom the adventure had been reserved by Fate. Alice had her own painful subjects of recollection, nor had the tenor of her last conversation with her father been so pleasant as to make her anxious to renew it until his temper should be more composed; for, with an excellent disposition, and much love to his daughter, age and misfortunes, which of late came thicker and thicker, had given to the good knight's

passions a wayward irritability which was unknown to his better days. His daughter, and one or two attached servants, who still followed his decayed fortunes, soothed his frailty as much as possible, and pitied him even while they suffered under its effects.

It was a long time ere he spoke, and then he referred to an incident already noticed. It is strange,' he said, that Bevis should have followed Joceline and that fellow rather than me.'

'Assure yourself, sir,' replied Alice, that his sagacity saw in this man a stranger, whom he thought himself obliged to watch circumspectly, and therefore he remained with Joceline.'

Not so, Alice,' answered Sir Henry; ' he leaves me because my fortunes have fled from me. There is a feeling in nature, affecting even the instinct, as it is called, of dumb animals, which teaches them to fly from misfortune. The very deer there will butt a sick or wounded buck from the herd; hurt a dog, and the whole kennel will fall on him and worry him; fishes devour their own kind when they are wounded with a spear; cut a crow's wing, or break his leg, the others will buffet it to death.'

That may be true of the more irrational kinds of animals among each other,' said Alice, for their whole life is well nigh a warfare; but the dog leaves his own race to attach himself to ours; forsakes, for his master, the company, food, and pleasure of his own kind; and surely the fidelity of such a devoted and voluntary servant as Bevis hath been in particular, ought not to be lightly suspected.'

I am not angry at the dog, Alice; I am only sorry,' replied her father. I have read, in faithful chronicles, that when Richard II and Henry of Bolingbroke were at Berkeley Castle, a dog of the same kind deserted the King, whom he had always attended upon, and attached himself to Henry, whom he then saw for the first time. Richard foretold, from

the desertion of his favourite, his approaching deposition. The dog was afterwards kept at Woodstock, and Bevis is said to be of his breed, which was heedfully kept up. What I might foretel of mischief from his desertion, I cannot guess, but my mind assures me it bodes no good.'

There was a distant rustling among the withered leaves, a bouncing or galloping sound on the path, and the favourite dog instantly joined his master.

'Come into court, old knave,' said Alice, cheerfully, and defend thy character, which is well nigh endangered by this absence,' but the dog only paid her courtesy by gambolling around them, and instantly plunged back again, as fast as he could scamper.

How now, knave?' said the knight; thou art too well trained, surely, to take up the chase without orders.' A minute more showed them Phoebe Mayflower approaching, her light pace so little impeded by the burthen which she bore, that she joined her master and young mistress just as they arrived at the keeper's hut, which was the boundary of their journey. Bevis, who had shot a-head to pay his compliments to Sir Henry his master, had returned again to his immediate duty, the escorting Phoebe and her cargo of provisions. The whole party stood presently assembled before the door of the keeper's hut.

In better times, a substantial stone habitation, fit for the yeoman-keeper of a royal walk, had adorned this place. A fair spring gushed out near the spot, and once traversed yards and courts, attached to well-built and convenient kennels and mews. But in some of the skirmishes which were common through the whole country during the civil wars, this little sylvan dwelling had been attacked and defended, stormed and burnt. A neighbouring squire, of the parliamentarian side of the question, took advantage of Sir Henry Lee's absence, who was in Charles's camp, and of the decay of the royal cause, and had,