but the 'Lament,' heard from afar, struck her dumb for an instant; and before recovery was possible, came the news of her husband's captivity. Now the fire kindled by her wrongs burst into flame, the floodgates of her wrath were burst in her desire for instant vengeance; if smitten, she would return the blow with signal vehemence. The situation here is a fine one, and our actress made the most and best of it; self-contained, there was no ranting, but such an exhibition of suppressed power as is rarely witnessed on the stage nowadays. being one of the final performances of Dowton, The Garrick Theatre was at this period under the management of Conquest and Gomersal-the Gomersal. Conquest being the principal low comedian, was announced to appear as Jerry Sneak in Foote's now almost forgotten farce, The Mayor of Garratt. It was a most amusing performance. In 1852, on the death of Rouse, Mr B. O. Conquest became the proprietor of the Grecian Theatre in the City Road, and conducted its affairs with much success until his death in July 1872, at the age of sixty-eight. The evening's entertainments concluded with Howard Payne's drama entitled Clari, the Maid of Milan, Freer and Mrs Pope enacting the chief parts. Freer was admirable as Rolamo; but the leading lady failed to convey the remotest idea of the betrayed maiden; she sung the song of 'Home, sweet Home,' plaintively and with expression; never, theless, the entire assumption was a huge mis-duced-a raised platform was erected, which take. Let us now step across the water once more, and take a glance at the dramatic doings on the Surrey side. Can any of my readers call to mind the various excellences of that thoroughly good actor Elton? I dwell upon his histrionic exploits with affectionate remembrance. Though Occasionally engaged at the larger houses, his home was on the minor stage, where he was always a welcome favourite. It must, I think, have been about 1834 when I saw him play William Tell at the Victoria before one of the most enthusiastic audiences that ever graced a theatre. Unlike Macready, the original exponent of the part, he was small in person, and not by any means robust, did not, in fact, look the character, as did his friendly rival at Drury Lane; at once engaged upon the scene, the genius of the man magnified the actor, until his proportions seemed to grow almost heroic. A fine elocutionist, endowed with a rich melodious voice, exquisitely modulated, he threw such an amount of patriotic fervour into his declamation, that gratification was imminent, and applause compulsory. The looking-glass curtain and the juggler Ramo Samee, who performed in front of it, were additional attractions. I next met with Elton at the Rotunda in the Blackfriars Road-rather a notable place in those days-where he was engaged to deliver a Curse of lectures on Shakspeare's plays with Lostrations. These were admirably rendered, and obtained much success. An amateur at this on, and eager and willing to learn, in order that I might plant my foot on the lowest rung if the professional ladder, I profited greatly by Es instructions. Only twice subsequently did I have the pleasure of seeing him act, and these erformances took place on the Surrey stage. The first occasion was made remarkable by its encircled the pit; and this was traversed by the procession from one side of the stage round to the other. Nor was good acting wanting. Thomas Archer-the original Gessler in William Tell, was the Jew Eleazar; N. T. Hicks appeared as Leopold-his first stepping-stone to popularity; Gann was the Cardinal; and Mrs Selby played Rachel the Jewess. This cast was scarcely inferior in talent to that of Drury Lane. Consequent on the prosperous issue of this venture, the management wisely resorted to the facile pen of Mr J. T. Haines, who furnished them with an excellent historical drama in Richard Plantagenet. In brilliancy of effects, this production successfully vied with its predecessor. We had nobles and knights armed cap-à-pie in complete steel and in coats of mail, with richly caparisoned horses; in short, all the gorgeous paraphernalia of a mediaval pageant. Nor was the attractiveness of this costly display at all diminished by the relative merits of the company engaged. We had Charles Hill, a Surrey favourite; Palmer, from Astley's; Haines, Marshall, and Suter, as principal members; and Miss Richardson, who now became leading lady. Beyond question, the main dramatic interest centres itself in the characteristic portraiture of the insurgent leader Wat Tyler. Haines-of robust habit-invested the part with his own vigorous personality, and made it exceptionally prominent. But indeed the cast all round was equal and efficient; and yet, with all these approved adjuncts, which brought crowded houses nightly, the management failed in recouping themselves, and the theatre closed in the following March. Mr Haines, the author of Richard Plantagenet, was not only a most prolific author, but also a very successful one, some of his productions running for hundreds of nights consecutively; CHAPTER XI.-ARMED AND LIKE A GIANT. 'LIFE,' said Val Strange, repeating the dictum of the dyspeptic philosopher, would be tolerable if it were not for its pleasures. Fully equipped for the slaughter of pike, and intent especially upon the beguiling of one wary monster, Val stood upon the river-brink, and employed all the arts he knew, and employed them all in vain. In the summer-time, a lover of rural scenery in search of placid beauty might have gone further than the spot and fared much worse; but under the gray, cold mist which lay upon it now, it looked not altogether inviting. Reginald Jolly, stamping his half-frozen feet upon a shelf of rock near at hand, and carrying himself as one who is without interest in anything the world can offer, gave a grunt in answer which might have been either affirmative or negative. The speech which followed the grunt set the matter at rest. "If you class this with life's pleasures,' the diminutive man sadly, 'I am with you. us go home, like reasonable people.' I should like to catch that fellow,' said wistfully. said Let Val 'He knows that,' said the little man, and in his fishy mind derides you. He is aged, and the years have made him wise.' 'I'll take another cut at him,' Val returned.'Where are you going? Stop and help to carry him. He weighs half a hundredweight at least.' 'You'll be able to carry all you catch of him,' returned Reginald. He scorned the devices of the angler when you were in the cradle. I am going to the mill, to sit by the manager's fire and thaw my bones. When you are tired of luring the ancient Esox of the stream, you'll find me there.' 'I'll come along at once,' said Val reluctantly, 'since you are bent on going.' He got his tackle together whilst the little man executed a grotesque dance with his hands in his pockets; and all things being ready, they marched side by side down stream. After travelling some half-mile through damp and rimy grasses, they came in sight of a raw-looking mass of building on the other side of the river. 'What an ugly thing it is,' said Reginald, nodding at it, that paper-mill.' 'Yes,' said Val; 'most things seem to be ugly, if you make money out of them. I mean-that things out of which one makes money are generally ugly. This was my uncle's doing. It spoils the landscape, but it's a valuable property.' There were two or three barges lying in front of the building, and in one of them a boy was making pretence to do something, conscious of the eye of the proprietor. Val hailed him, and ordered him to bring over a punt. The boy obeyed; and the two friends crossed the stream, and landing, entered the manager's room, where a cheerful fire blazed on the hearth. The manager was absent; but Val on his own property was of course at home. He stirred the fire, and drawing forward a chair, seated himself. 'Anything to eat and drink?' asked the little man. 'I'm starving.' 'Sherry and sandwiches,' said Val, producing them as he spoke. 'I say, Reginald attacked the provender. Strange,' he said, arresting a sandwich midway to his mouth, you haven't seen my sister, have you?' 'No,' said Val, stirring the fire again, and sitting with the poker in his hand. 'Yes; I have. I met her out riding once, about a fortnight ago, I think.-Why do you ask?' 'I don't know,' returned the little man, with his mouth full. 'I was thinking of her just then. I haven't told you the news yet, I fancy. She's going to be married.' 'Ah!' said Val carelessly. happy man?' "Who do you think?' 'And who's the "They haven't known 'Lumby?' said Val. each other long, have they?' 'Three or four months, perhaps,' said Reginald. 'It's rather sudden; but you never saw a man so gone in all your life.' He laughed, irreverent of the tender passion. I like Lumby, though,' he added. 'He's a good fellow, and I suppose he's a good match. If he weren't,' pursued the candid youth, 'the governor wouldn't have stood it. She's had lots of chances; but they were all a poverty-stricken lot who came. It's hard lines to be poor when you go into the matrimonial market.-You're not a marrying sort of man, are you, Strange?' 'No,' said Val, toying with the poker still; 'I think not. I don't know. I shall marry some day, I suppose.' 'It's a sort of thing,' said Reginald, with much philosophy, that runs in families.' 'Lumby is a good fellow,' said Val, balancing the poker. "I like Lumby.' I suppose he's rich?' inquired Reginald. 'Will be,' answered Val shortly.-'Let's go home.' 'Wait a bit,' returned the other; 'I want to get warm.-What's the matter with you? You look as sulky as the pike which still lies among his reeds.' 'I should have liked to catch that fellow,' said Val, brightening up a little. "There are two sides to everything,' said the young philosopher. He's happier as he is.' Val threw the poker into the fireplace with a clang. Come along!' he cried, rising. 'Let us go home. This place makes me dull, I think.' Reginald, with some protests, arose; and the two left the mill and struck out afoot across the fields. Val was a little preoccupied, and conversation languished. They came, after a walk of two miles, to Strange's house; and having washed and made some alterations in dress, they went to luncheon. 'It's a rather odd thing,' said Reginald, 'that you and I should have been chums so long, and that you should never have met my people.' 'I don't know,' said Strange, who was unusually depressed. 'I shall see them to-morrow.' We shall have quite a houseful,' pursued the other. 'Old Langton's there, and the three girls. Nice girls. I'm in love more or less with all three of 'em; but I can't afford it. Now, you might marry one of 'em, if you liked-you, "with lands in Kent and messuages in York," can marry whom you will.' 'Oh, said Val abstractedly, 'I sha'n't marry.' 'You never,' said Reginald, 'did what you said you would do; and you generally do what you say you won't do. I'll bet all I'm worth, you marry within five years.'-Strange made no response to this challenge.-'Within three years,' pursued the challenger. Within two. Come, now!' 'I don't know,' said Val, rousing suddenly, 'that I ought to go to-morrow to your place, Jolly.' 'Why?' asked his companion. 'Henderson has been at me for a week past,' said Val; 'I've seen no accounts for a quarter of a year. They'll take a day or two, and''Pooh!' said Reginald, taking advantage the pause. 'I've asked you three times. you of If don't like to come, say so.' 'Don't like to come?' cried Val, positively flushing in his warmth. 'I'll forgive you that, old man. Never mind. Let business slide for a while. I'll be with you.' After this little burst, he fell again into moodiness; and his companion finding him intractably dull, retired to the billiard-room, and there solaced himself with a book and a cigar. Dinner-time came, and Val was in wild spirits, talking with random brilliance; but in the evening he faded back to his afternoon condition. 'What is the matter with you?' cried his companion at last, throwing away a book, and taking his stand on the hearth-rug. 'I'm hipped,' said Strange. 'If you had come out of that lovely Neapolitan climate into this beastly English winter, you'd feel the same. To think that I might have stayed there, and that I didn't! To think I might go back now, and that I don't! What fools we are, to be sure!' 'Apropos,' said the philosopher with a grin, 'how it soothes a man to speak in the plural number. It's easy to say, "What fools we are;" hard to acknowledge, "What a fool I am." Isn't it, Val?' you'd be, you bald-headed little beggar—think, and tremble!' Whatever cause disturbed Val Strange's peace of mind, it was certainly not clear to himself. Perhaps he was merely suffering from the ennui which inevitably results from an aimless life. It is beyond dispute that he was in an abominable temper, and this was all the more remarkable from the ordinary placidity and sweetness of his ways. He threw a boot at his valet, and drove that obsequious friendly attendant from the chamber in bodily fear; then laughed at his own anger, and sat down by the bedside to gnaw his moustache, and think gloomily about nothing in particular. It was not in the nature of the attack itself, or in the nature of the man affected by it, that this unpleasant mental condition should last long, and in the morning Val descended in his customary spirits. Yesterday's mists had cleared away from the fields as well as from his mind; the wintry air was keen and bracing; the drive, to youth and recovered jollity, a real pleasure. Reginald introduced his friend with all due cere mony. 'Mr Strange,' said Mr Jolly, after the first few commonplaces of conversation had passed, ‘I am told that you have quite a wonderful collection of British birds.' "There's something of the sort at my place, I believe,' said Val. 'I have no doubt that mine is but a poor exhibition after yours; but I should like you to see it.' 'I took them over from the late proprietor,' said Mr Jolly, waving his hand, as they entered a long chamber which contained the collection. 'I think I shall complete the collection, and hand it over to the British Museum or some kindred institution. This,' indicating a moth-eaten owl, 'is the renowned '-he fixed his double-glasses, and failing at a casual glance to make out the Latin inscription, bent lower, murmuring the renowned the renowned-in short, a species of bird with which you are no doubt familiar.' The inscription was indecipherable, and Mr Jolly was the least thing in the world embarrassed. His 'I am like Hamlet,' said Val; 'I can tell a hawk from a hernshaw when the wind is nor’-nor'-west.' 'Exactly,' returned Mr Jolly-'exactly.' manner was a little abstracted.-'Oh, by the way,' he cried, suddenly turning upon his guest with a smile of surprise, 'I fancy, Mr Strange, that you and Gerard Lumby are old friends. Reginald has told me so, if I remember aright.' "We were at Rugby and Oxford together,' Val answered. 'A charming fellow Lumby,' said Mr Jollya charming fellow. Frank, unaffected, English.' He spoke with an approach to fervour. 'He's a good fellow,' said Strange-'a very good fellow.' 'Well,' returned Val, 'what a fool I am.' 'Are you?' asked Reginald, with provoking coolness. It was not to be wondered at that Val at once departed for his bedroom with a mere 'good-night.' His friend looked after him with sly humour in every wrinkle of his comic face. I think I can lay my finger on the affected pot,' he mused. 'Here's another man in love. Things are a bit rough with him. Perhaps she's to great a swell-perhaps somebody else is in the way-perhaps she has pronounced the fatal "No." Anyway, he's in love, and unprosperous. He will marry some time. He won't marry. The mere mention of an engagement to be married sets him off, and he spends a whole afternoon and evening in brooding about somebody else's luck and his own ill-fortune. I wonder if ever I shall be taken that way? Oh, my dear young man, if ever you are attacked with that com- 'Every way,' said the genial elder-'every way. plaint, turn hermit till it's over. For if Strange You travel like tornadoes. You do everything laughable, and Lumby comic, think what off the reel, whether you storm a fort, make a 'You moderns,' said the host with great geniality, are terrible fellows. I have been young myself; I have heard the chimes at midnight. We thought we travelled at a good pace in those days, but you leave us far behind.' How? inquired Val. tour round the world, or engage yourselves to things. Five-and-twenty thousand pounds a be married. Nothing takes so long a time as it year! You amaze me, Mr Strange-you amaze used to take.' 'What does he want to find out about Gerard?' Val asked himself. Believing in the extreme subtlety of his own approach, Mr Jolly advanced behind his mask of genial candour. me.' 'Except dinner,' responded Val. Mr Jolly had forgotten the collection of British 'Except dinner,' laughed the host. 'Exactly-birds by this time; but Val, mischievously feignexactly. In all other matters, you go headlong, ing an interest in it, went carefully round among Your friend Gerard, for instance, has quite amazed the feathered creatures, and examined them with us all.' It was Mr Jolly's constant misfortune great minuteness, until the joke began to pall, that he could not find the juste milieu. He was when he released his host, long since weary, but always on this side of the line or the other, and unable gracefully to escape. The room in which in any mood, transparently unreal. the collection was arranged opened upon the garden, and Mr Jolly led the way thither. Strange had not yet encountered Constance a second time; but he saw her now standing at a window which opened flush upon the lawn. Almost for the first time in his life he felt awkward, and his legs and his arms seemed a little in his way. He felt her eyes upon him, and had a ridiculous contest within himself as to whether or not he ought to bow to her, as though he were a schoolboy, or an aspiring shopman whose study of the Book of Etiquette-priced at sixpence, and written by a Member of the Aristocracy-had as yet been incomplete. And this was Val Strange, whose eligible bachelorhood had introduced him to rank and beauty half over England, and who was rumoured quite a killing personage among the fair. It was surely somewhat surprising. Constance threw open the window and made way for them to enter. 'He might write like Cæsar-"I came, I saw, I overcame." It was very sudden; but when young people are so impetuously resolved, what can old people do but yield. And after all, an honest love-match is the best thing. I don't pretend to have any scorn for money. I could very well have endured to see my daughter married to a wealthy man.' "Ah!' thought Val to himself, he wants to know the true extent of Lumby's fortune. What an ingenuous, artless old file he is!' A smile, quickly suppressed, played on Val's features, and he added aloud: People think too much of money in affairs of that sort, nowadays, Mr Jolly. And Lumby has a nice little competence, after all.' | Mr Jolly turned upon him a countenance of swift amazement, and his jaw fell. Yes,' he said, tremulously-whilst, in the words of the great soothsayer, an ice-taloned pang shot through brain and pericardium'-'a nice little competence.' Would it be necessary to break off the match? A nice little competence merely, was not what he wanted. Was it possible that rumour had deceived him? The Lumbies kept no style after all, and a mere two thousand a year might keep them going as they were. What if the wealth were all a bubble? It could not be true. Val, with an inward laugh, came to his relief. A very nice little competence indeed.' He could 'not resist the temptation to a little solemn chaff at this unskilful fisherman's expense. 'Forgive me, Mr Jolly, if I exercise so much freedom as to compliment you upon your generosity and unworldliness. But even in these extravagant days, a young couple may do very well on fiveand-twenty thousand a year.' 'My dear,' said her father, 'this is Mr Strange, an old friend of Gerard's.-This is my daughter, Mr Strange.' Mr Strange bowed, and plunged into small-talk, whereof he was accounted a master. Constance answered with a pleased and pleasing vivacity, and Val's unaccountable awkwardness vanished. The great slow Gerard had none of the polite arts, and no capacity for small-talk in the world. When he had a chance of spending an hour with Constance, he sat and adored; and being adored, young ladies, is dull work in the long-run, let me tell you, unless you adore in return. Then ah, then!-who shall say how much of heaven's own colour is flashed across the sober gray of common hours! The proverb says that Love begets Love. But that is only true when Love can surround its object with sweet observances, not when it can do nothing but sit and worship with devout eyes and hungry heart in the presence of other people. And since that day when Gerard had pleaded his own cause with such success, he had never seen Constance alone; and even if he had, might scarcely have dared to plead it anew in like manner. And so the influence he had gained, faded, and was lost; and a noticeable thing came out of it, for no influence that ever the world saw set a-rolling yet, stood still before it had set something else in motion. Gerard had broken beyond the magic circle of maidenly reserve, and it was no longer absolutely sacred. And beside that was this fact-that 'You amaze me!' said the disinterested parent. Constance, being disposed of in the matrimonial 'I thought,' he added with a touch of emotion, market, and her disposal being known to the which seemed to him quite proper in the cir- world she moved in, was not liable to miscon cumstances, of nothing but my daughter's happi-struction if she surrendered herself to pleasant The unskilful fisherman breathed again; but even now the smile he forced was all awry." 'You are surely jesting, Mr Strange. Five-and-twenty thousand a year is a large fortune. The Lumbies live as modestly as I do, and I am not a wealthy man.' Fact, I assure you,' said Val lightly. That's the tune to which old Lumby's annual income may be said to dance in to him. I don't suppose he spends much more than a tenth part of it. He is saving everything for Gerard.' ness.' 'Of course,' said Val, smiling to think of the fright he had given him. And after all,' said Mr Jolly, with easy stoicism, 'wealth and happiness are separate human speech with nice people of the sterner 1 weapons of coldness and hauteur and the rest, and no man could come to heart-wreck any more because of her. Observe also, that if all men were to be henceforth accounted safe from her, she also thought herself safe from any assault which Love might make. For was she not engaged to be married to Gerard? And what made the thing safer yet than safety need be, was that Val Strange was Gerard's friend. And again -to heap up reasons- -what reasonable young woman thinks that every pleasant man with whom she talks is going to fall in love with her? On Val's side, love was far enough away to begin with-or at least seemed so. He acknowledged Constance's beauty, as any but a blind man would have been obliged to do. He felt something of the fascination of her manner, but as yet not in an alarming degree. He thought Gerard a man to be congratulated, but not as yet a man to be envied. Gerard was so near a neighbour, that he came over only as a privileged guest, and stayed his hour or two, and went away again; or made one in a shooting-party, dined afterwards at Mr Jolly's table, and rode home to sleep. Val on the other hand was in the house, and saw much more of Constance than did her accepted lover. She too saw more of him than of Gerard. There was no fancy of unfaithfulness to her mind. Her lover bored her, that was all, and the other man amused and interested her. And so the tragedy began. One day, Constance and Milly-who by this time were fast friends, and bound in the bonds of an enduring sisterhood, after the manner of young ladies who have known each other intimately for a week or two-rode to the meet to see the hounds throw off. Mr Jolly, who had never jumped a hedge in his life, used to announce with a pensive sigh of regret, that his hunting days were over, and he and Val were escort to the ladies. Gerard was at the meet, but for some reason unknown, forbore to follow the hounds. Strange had taken his place at the side of Constance, Mr Jolly was pompously playing at politeness with Milly, when Gerard rode after them and joined Constance, assuming the position to which his right entitled him. Val fell behind, and on a sudden, black Jealousy rose up in his heart, armed and like a giant. And with that the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw, and trembled at the precipice upon whose edge he stood, the abyss into which that same black giant threatened to toss him. For when Society has done its absolute best with a man, when it has given him a knowledge of the classics and taught him a foreign language or two, and dowered him with social gifts, and has in short polished him, until he scarce knows himseif in his new-found brilliance, it has left him at bottom where he was before, and the passions are with him still, eternal and ineradicable. Fear, and Remorse, and Hate, and Rage, and Jealousy, and Love, with all the rest, live on in spite of civilisation, and make life noble as the soul guides them, or make life ignoble as they guide the soul. All human history is built on them, all human life environed with them. They fire the deathless lines of Eschylus, and sprinkle with dews of Hermon and of Tophet great Shakspeare's page; and with them the masters of fiction still awe and melt us; and the merest yokel who reads the daily papers may see them alive among us to this day. And with two of that Titanic band it was Val Strange's lot to fight, until he won or fell; for in a battle with the passions there is no drawn-fight possible. Love and Jealousy came out of their hiding-places, and called Honour to the conflict. Lumby was Val's friend; but with Val, friendship was not, as it is with some rare man here and there, a passion. Yet he was fond of Gerard, and would have done much for him. He watched the accepted lover from this time in all his interviews with Constance. He could not doubt the worship in Gerard's eyes; but he saw no responsive glance in the maid's when she looked at her declared wooer. He saw that Constance brightened when she talked with him, that her whole manner was changed and triste when Gerard sat by her. 'It is a mere sale for money,' he cried within himself, raging. She does not care for him. If I were free to plead, she might listen. She might learn to love me. She will never care for him.' Gerard was blind to Constance's weariness in his own presence, and had no jealousy for Val's advances. He was like Othello-once to be in doubt was once to be resolved-and he was himself so loyal-hearted, that by nature he and Suspicion dwelt in opposite camps, and held no communion. And so the tragedy went forward. A FEW NOTES ON SIBERIA. PERHAPS the leading idea which the name of Siberia calls up in the popular mind is associated with its unpleasant notoriety as the chief penal settlement of Russia, to which criminals and social and political offenders of every kind are being continually drafted off in hundreds. It is a country about which little was formerly known, and probably that little was sufficient for the demand. In our maps it was conspicuous simply by its blankness; and the public mind, any adequate knowledge of the country went, was as blank as the maps. Indeed, until a comparatively recent period, it may be said to have been an unknown land. Yet, notwithstanding all its physical drawbacks, the country is showing signs of improvement, its valuable produce in minerals and furs being alone sufficient to give it a position of some importance in the commercial world. We take the opportunity, therefore, of the publication of a book on the subject, entitled Frozen Asia, by C. H. Eden, F.R.G.S. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), to lay some information on Siberia before our readers. For present purposes, Siberia may be defined geographically as an immense crescent-shaped tract of country, circling along the northern borders of Asia, and presenting its hollow or concave edge to the Arctic Ocean. So vast a country is far from being uniform in its physical characteristics, the degree of its sterility varying with its latitude and configuration. Its southern margin, adjoining the confines of Turkistan and the Chinese Empire, is in general |