July 15, 1882] dewdrops which hang from every leaf and blade of grass flash back showers of glittering rays, which quiver and vary their glorious hues ere they fall like pattering raindrops on the ground. On the quay stands a meek-faced black goat with her family of three, all as dusky as her self. But the dew which is turning all nature into a fairy scene, is wetting me to the skin, and I am obliged to go below, and take possession of a thick woollen rug in which to envelop myself. As the morning advances, signs of life begin to appear. The door of a cottage is opened, and a woman, in the usual short petticoats and wooden shoes, issues forth with a bucket, and a long pole furnished at the end with a hook. She hangs her bucket on the hook, and dips it into the canal. Then a splashing and mopping begins; bucket after bucket of water is lifted and dashed against the front of the house. Other doors are opened, and the same conduct-to me inexplicable -is pursued, until the whole place is in a swim. When at length the cleansing process has been accomplished to Dutch satisfaction, a plank having been placed from our boat to the quay, the women begin to flock on board with their baskets of eggs and butter, which the steward tells me are very dear. "The Dutch,' he says, 'know how to drive a bargain.' Many of them speak a few sentences of English; and I am impelled to buy some suspiciously green-looking oranges, at an exorbitant price, from an enterprising saleswoman because she accosts me with: Will you buy, my leddy? Scheap! scheap!' It is nearly mid-day before we get through those sluice-gates and drop down towards Rotterdam. We pass other canals, which stretch away from us into the country. There are many of them so narrow that only small craft can ply upon them. The windmills multiply and then suddenly cease, for we are now in a region where they are unavailing; the land lies much below the level of the sea, and is irreclaimable. Most desolate, even in the bright mid-day sun, is the appearance of the shores. We are no longer in a canal, but in a wide sweep of dark turbid water, fringed by a wilderness of sedges and osiers. Flocks of teal and brent rise with harsh discordant cry; whilst water-hens bob in and out amongst the twisted roots of the willows. In the background rises the bare straight highroad against the horizon. Here and there a tiny cottage stands on its platform of brick; at the foot of a flight of steps, a boat lies moored; the only means of exit and egress being by water. The occupation of these lonely dwellers of the marsh is osier-cutting. The osiers are split and made into hoops, an extensive traffic being carried on between Holland and other countries in this commodity. Soon we begin to pass numerous vessels; the water widens, and a forest of masts rises in the distance, and there is Rotterdam. Very quaint and picturesque looks the ancient city with its curious gabled houses, over whose roofs the spires of more than one old church appear. The broad quay is planted with magnificent limetrees, which also rear their leafy branches over the side-walks of the many canals which intersect the town like a network, where busy craft pass up and down. But when the noise and bustle of the day are stilled, and I sit on deck and watch the great round moon lift her yellow face above the tall ships' masts, and softly throw her magic mantle over the scene, I think that Holland, with its ever-present waters, is a land of beauty and wonder. VALENTINE STRANGE. A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY. CHAPTER XXVII-LIKE A GHOST REVISITING OLD HAUNTS. WALKING slowly to his hotel through streets which had a half-awakened air about them, as if they, like himself, had been turning night into day, Mr Lumby was conscious of a singular sensation. It was as if an elastic cord alternately tightened and relaxed itself within his head. The tightening was terrible; the relaxation brought with it a very remarkable feeling of looseness in the brain, as though it had lost its boundaries. These curious symptoms recurred slowly at first; but after a little time the cord began to tighten and relax itself at an astonishing pace, and this, before he had gone far, resulted in a splitting headache and a general sense of stupefaction. 'I have been over-excited,' said the merchant to himself as he passed his hand across his forehead, and stood for a moment bareheaded in the chill morning air. Now I come to think of it, I have been terribly excited. Yes; it has been an exciting time, quite an exciting time. We have had a near shave, Gerard, a near shave.' Rousing himself to a knowledge of the fact that he was standing uncovered in the street, and seeing that a shop-boy had paused in the act of taking down shutters to stare at him, he resumed his hat and walked on. He seemed to take the matter very calmly now, he thought. A minute later last night, and Garling might have been triumphant after all. 'Yes,' he repeated vaguely, it was a near shave.' The tightening and relaxing cord in his head seemed in some inexplicable way to have got hold of that phrase-a near shave' with a tug of dreadful pain-‘a near shave' with a sense of dreadful laxness and a loss of the brain's boundaries, as though it were altogether unfenced, and flowed out loose until the tug came and drew it together again with-'a near shave' for watchword. He was dimly conscious that this physical condition involved a mental condition which was as unusual as itself. The pain in his head was becoming unbearable by the time he reached the hotel. Boots, again amazed by his appearance at this abnormal hour, asked if he could do anything for him. 'A near shave," said the merchant vaguely. 'Shave, sir?' said the Boots. Send for barber, sir, d'rec'ly, sir.' 'No; never mind that,' said Mr Lumby, awakening as if from a dream of fog with a horrible headache and one persistent phrase in it. 'Bring me a cup of tea-strong tea-unusually strong tea.' 'Yes, sir,' said the Boots; 'd'rec'ly, sir.' That was Boots's formula.-Looks awful ill,' he thought, looking after the merchant. 'Odd thing for an elderly cove like him to be out all night two nights running. Ain't it now? And he never was a frisky cove neither-not when he alarm-of a retrospective sort-at the symptoms. was young.' Boots was getting elderly, andIt was no wonder,' he said as he walked briskly remembered Mr Lumby this many a year, and on, trying to forget his headache or to walk had an interest in him. He hurried off now for beyond it. The strain had been very terrible.' the tea, and was curious or interested enough- He was yet too near the edge of the precipice not having much upon his hands just then-to to dare to think much of the terrors he had see it made and to volunteer to take it up him- escaped from. 'A little more of that,' he told self. He was a sort of idealised Boots, and had himself, and I might have gone mad. I must two other actual Boots beneath him. His func- be very cool and wary of excitement now.' tion at his present time of life consisted chiefly He reached the offices, and walked in square in telling the way to everywhere, the cab fare to and upright. If he had been closely noticed, everywhere, and the time of starting of all trains it would have been seen that his eyes were filmy, at all stations-an occupation purely intellectual, and that the flushed colour of his skin was of and making large demands on the mental resources. a different hue from that healthy redness of Mr Lumby in the eyes of Boots was as important complexion which his face commonly wore, proof a person as a prime-minister, if indeed a prime- of a pure life and a good digestion. It wanted minister could have come into measurable dis- a few minutes of the hour, and there were but tance with him. The head of a great City house, one or two of the clerks yet arrived. These, member of parliament for his county, who might as the chief went squarely along, nodding here have been Lord Mayor as often as Dick Whit- and there, noticed nothing unusual in him. Nor tington if he had chosen, was necessarily a figure did any one observe any especial change in in that old-fashioned City hostel, where his father Garling when, two or three minutes later, and and grandfather were remembered as guests before punctual to his hour as ever, he paced slowly him. Boots found the great man sitting on the in, with his hands behind him and his furtive bed, and noticed that he looked not only ill, but eyes bent downwards. bewildered. 'Excuse me, sir,' said the Boots; 'you ain't like yourself at all, sir. Shall I pull your boots off, sir?' He was down upon his knees at this task at once.-'Can't ha' been a-drinking?' he thought, looking up at the venerable face above him. 'Been a-watching by a sick-bed,' he concluded charitably; that's more likely. That's where he's brought that troubled look from.' 'Give me the tea, if you please,' said the merchant, with a sudden awakening look. 'I have a very bad headache.-Boots!' 'Yes, sir.' 'I have business,' said the great man, rising teacup in hand, and speaking and looking a little vacantly, 'important business at I have business' he was bright and clear again-'at ten o'clock. I have time for an hour's sleep. Call me in an hour, and bring me another cup of strong tea. And I will take a hot bath.' He drank the tea, and passed his hand across his eyes; then knitting his fingers, pressed both palms heavily against his forehead, and in that attitude walked twice or thrice across the room and back again. In an hour's time, Boots,' he added, as that functionary was about to close the door-'not later.' Being left alone, he partly undressed, and wrapping himself in a warm dressing-gown, stretched himself on the bed, and almost instantly fell asleep. So profound was his brief slumber, that when at the end of an hour Boots returned, and, beginning to make preparations for the bath, awoke him, Lumby found it difficult to believe that he had been left to himself more than a minute. It cost him a severe effort to rise; and no sooner was he erect again, than the cord within his head began once more to tighten and relax itself, and the aching sense of stupefaction returned. But a bath, a complete change of clothing, and another cup of strong tea, made no bad substitutes for a night's sleep, and he went out refreshed to meet Garling. Looking back at the condition into which he had fallen on first entering the street, nearly two hours before, he felt some Garling had not meant to be here again. He was not an imaginative man by conscious practice, but no man ever had great mental powers without the imaginative faculty being in strong force amongst them, and Garling felt like a ghost revisiting old haunts. He did not greatly care about being defeated, and he thought that curious. It was in remarkable contradiction to his sense of almost absolute indifference that when, in the course of dressing after his employer's departure, he had made preparations for shaving, he was compelled to huddle away his razors and lock them up, in a sudden terror-stricken distrust of his own will. It would be too powerful a temptation-not to him, for his indifference astonished him-to his hand. That, he noticed as a phenomenon hitherto unobserved, or, until now, outside his experience, and thought it would be psychologically interesting to know if suicides were ever committed in that mood and manner. Once or twice, as a matter of mere theory, and not as having much relation to himself, he wondered whether Lumby had left him any loophole of escape. He had left him two hours alone. What might have been done in two hours? To re-secure his fraudulent gains, nothing. To escape?- he had nothing to escape from. His personal liberty was guaranteed already, under certain conditions. One of them was that he should present himself at the offices at ten o'clock. He went thither automatically, with the sense of a ghostly revisiting of old scenes and resumption of old habits accompanying him and growing upon him all the way. He had been sleepless for two nights, and had a feeling of dreaming awake, and of walking in an atmosphere of nightmare, which might take shape at any moment in such forms as only the dreadful hollows of dark night can hold. And so, almost exhausted on either side, the two combatants met again. On Garling's entrance, Mr Lumby arose and locked the door. He had waited in the room which the cashier had always used; and now resuming the seat from which Garling's coming had disturbed him, he waved him to another on the opposite side of the table. It was the seat the regular occupant had been in the habit of offering to visitors. The cashier had an oddly-vivid feeling as he took it, of being now a stranger in the place. There was no bitterness or defeat in this: it tickled him a little, and he suppressed a smile. He was puzzled to define the humour of the situation, but it was there, none the less. Lumby, for his part, between the racking headache which had again attacked him, and the sleepy stupor which dwelt on all his faculties, had to make an effort to decide within himself for what purpose he had called Garling there. There was silence for a space of perhaps half a minute. 'One thing was omitted when we parted this morning,' said the merchant coldly, having regained the lost thread of his thoughts. 'I have your written confession here, and your statement of the funds which lie in your name at the Bank at Madrid. I want now your order for the transference of those funds to the Bank of England, to be placed there to the credit of the House." The sum is a large one,' said Garling, and they will more easily meet the demand if it be made by instalments. Say fifty thousand now, and fifty thousand fortnightly afterwards, until the whole is withdrawn.' 'Say weekly,' said the merchant. 'Very well,' returned Garling. I shall require you to accompany me to the Bank, and to have inquiries wired to their agents in Madrid.' 'Very well,' said Garling again. 'Your being here this morning is a proof that you recognise the futility of any attempt to escape until your restoration is completed. Your only safety lies in obedience. My pledge will not operate a moment beyond your failure or rebellion.' 'I understand,' responded Garling. 'Prepare the necessary drafts,' said the merchant rising, and bring them to me. Before I leave you, surrender your keys. Be ready to accompany me to the Bank by mid-day.' Garling produced his keys, and suppressing an inclination to fling them on the table, laid them gravely down. Where was the use of a demonstration of rebellion when he was bound body and soul? Mr Lumby took them up, unlocked the drawer in which he had placed Garling's confession, withdrew that document, and placed it in the safe, the cashier watching him all the while with wicked furtiveness. Next the merchant laid a heavy hand upon the bell. Ask Mr Barnes to come to me,' he said to the messenger who answered to the summons. After a short pause, enter Mr Barnes, a placid but keen-looking man, with a frame of wiry white hair about a healthy-hued face, and calm gray eyes which looked through gold-rimmed spectacles. 'Mr Barnes,' said the merchant.-Mr Barnes bowed ever so slightly. 'You will take your place in this room, if you please, until you receive further instructions. Attend to these matters in the first instance waving a hand towards the heaped documents and letters on the table and take to-day the general direction of affairs. The matter need not at present be mentioned, but Mr Garling has ceased to hold any connection with the firm.' Mr Barnes was like one thunderstruck by this intelligence. If he had been told that Jupiter had ceased to have any connection with the planetary system, it could not have hit him harder. And in that supposititious case there would have been the refuge of unbelief to fall back upon, whilst here he was bound not to question for a moment. It was not a specified part of the merchant's undertaking with the cashier that his crime should be kept a secret, but there were many reasons which made that seem advisable. Lumby's own self-esteem went strongly in that direction, and the firm had not been accustomed to the employment of fraudulent servants. His pride in the probity of the House seemed smirched by this associate villainy, and he was not wishful to spread such a sentiment in other minds. The temporarily appointed cashier being left to his own amazement, came out of it gradually, with a general verdict of-something wrong somewhere. 'Is it your desire that I should send for the necessary forms, or myself apply for them?' asked Garling, addressing Mr Lumby, in his ordinary business tone. 'As you please,' he answered. 'But be ready to accompany me at noon.-You will open the letters and attend to general business matters, Mr Barnes.' The merchant withdrew into his own room and closed the sliding panel. 'Safe,' he thought, 'quite safe now; and reaching with something of a blinded groping motion for a chair, he sat down and turned himself to the table. How horribly his head ached. It was well he had been able to keep a clear mind. so far, and carry the situation through to this point. Thinking of what the consequences might have been, but for his seemingly accidental resolve to impeach Garling without waiting for further discoveries, he half started from his chair twice or thrice. That awful cord was tightening and loosening in his head again, and he could scarcely see for pain. An hour or two more and he would be free to rest. The excitement had been too much for him, and he would go back to the hotel and sleep it off. Sleep was all he wanted. The strain had been more than he knew of at the time, and he was not so young as he had been. Thinking thus, he sat with his arms lying heavily on the table, and with his head depending downwards heavily. More and more leaden grew the weight of pain, and at length his head drooped on his arms, and he fell asleep once more. AN OLD ENGLISH BATTLEFIELD. THE stupendous character of modern military conflicts, and the altogether different conditions under which the campaigns of these later times have been conducted, are apt to obscure the struggles which a few centuries ago helped to shape the history and destiny of our native land. Among the classic grounds of English history, Bosworth Field claims a foremost place. There the curtain fell on a long and tragic drama, one that for some thirty years had occupied, with bitter results, the whole stage of English history. The last conflict between the rival 'Roses,' it was also the most romantic, and therefore, perhaps, the most interesting; yet, from the circumstance that be favourable. The Duke of Norfolk with four thousand troops encamped on the slopes of the hill north of Sutton; and Sir W. Stanley supported his right with about three thousand more. Such were the positions of the contending forces on the eve of the fight. Hearing of Richmond's movements, the king had moved his forces on the 21st to some ground it had no contemporary historian, and that, therefore, but few authentic details are preserved of the fight, its importance is apt to be overlooked. Shakspeare's dramatic version is of course somewhat fanciful and unreliable, though it has notwithstanding an immortal place in his writings. A brief and quaint account appears in Burton's History of Leicestershire, published in 1622; and at a later period, William Hutton, the indefatig-called Dicken's Nook, behind Sutton Hall to the able Birmingham antiquary, spent a long time in the neighbourhood of the battlefield, and from his researches among the records and traditions of the district, compiled an elaborate account of the conflict. His history is, however, more or less inaccessible and unknown to the general public; hence it seems desirable that the most reliable descriptions of the conflict should be reproduced for the general advantage of modern readers. Shenton Station, on the Ashby and Nuneaton line, is the most convenient halting-place for Bosworth. Crossing the railway by the footbridge south of the station, the elevated ground is reached, known as Ambian Hill, which not only commands an excellent view of the whole area of the battlefield, but was, in fact, the centre of its fiercest struggle. About a mile to the south-west can be seen some meadows, called the White Moors; and here the Earl of Richmond was encamped on the eve of the battle. Landing at Milford Haven on Saturday, August 6, 1485, with about two thousand followers, he had advanced through Cardigan and Welshpool to Shrewsbury, his army increasing considerably en route. He encamped outside Lichfield on Tuesday, August 16; and next day advanced through Tamworth to Atherstone. Two days earlier, Lord Stanley and Sir William Stanley had preceded him with their Cheshire troops, ostensibly to aid the king's cause, yet secretly sympathising with Richmond. It is said they held a private interview with the latter at Atherstone; and on the eve of the great conflict, managed to dispose of their forces so as to be able to declare for Richmond when the crisis came. The latter led his troops from Atherstone over the bridge at Wetherley, encamped on the White Moors, and constructed intrenchments, traces of which remained up to very recent years. The king, hearing of Richmond's landing at Milford, made due preparations to meet him, and advanced to Leicester with about twelve thousand men. Leaving that town on the morning of August 17, and expecting to meet Richmond at Hinckley, he made for Elmsthorp, reaching that place in the evening, and, with his officers, spending the night in the village church. Finding he was too early for his rival, he moved a little to the north-west, and encamped on some high ground called the Bradshaws, close to Sutton, and about a mile due west from our stand-point. About two miles to the south, the tall spire of Stoke-Golding Church is seen; and on the left, a little nearer, the quaint church and village of Dadlington. Half a mile beyond the latter, and about a mile east of Stoke, was Lord Stanley's camp, bounded by a small stream called the Tweed. His lordship had posted his men ostensibly to protect the king's left flank, but in reality to attack it if circumstances should west, addressed his troops as to the expected conflict on the morrow, and there pitched his tents. At four o'clock on the morning of the 22d, Richard was astir, and advanced his men in the direction of his antagonist. The archers formed the front line, commanded by the Duke of Norfolk; and following these, came the king with a compact body of men, flanked on each side by cavalry under the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Robert Brakenbury. These troops covered the northern and eastern sides of Ambian Hill, and there awaited the expected attack. At ten o'clock, Richmond with his seven thousand men crossed the Tweed and the morasses that bordered it, and advanced towards the southern side of the hill. A body of Norman archers led the way, commanded by the Earl of Oxford. Sir Gilbert Talbot held the right wing, and Sir John Savage the left; while Richmond, clad in armour, commanded the centre. And then the fight commenced. 'Lord!' says Graftbury, 'how hastily the soldiers buckled their helms! how quickly the archers bent their bows and flushed their feathers! how readily the billmen shook their bills, and proved their staves, ready to approach and join when the terrible trumpet should sound the bloody blast to victory or death!' Then we are told: The trumpet blew, and the soldiers shouted, and the king's archers courageously let fly their arrows. The Earl's bowmen stood not still, but paid them home again, and the terrible shot once passed, the armies joined and came to hand-strokes.' For an hour the battle raged furiously round this hill, between the men under the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Oxford, the two leaders even engaging in hand-to-hand combat. But a stray arrow killed the Duke, whose son, the Earl of Surrey, with others, made a desperate effort to avenge his death, but in vain. Then Richard ordered Northumberland to advance; but his troops wavered; and at that moment, Lord Stanley came up with his men, and joined Richmond-an ominous movement, the gravity of which Richard was not slow to understand. The crisis was becoming desperate, and needed desperate measures; hence, hearing that Richmond with his body-guard was posted on the other side of the hill, the king determined on a supreme effort-nothing short of an encounter with his rival in person, shouting in a tone of despair: 'If no one will go with me, I will go alone.' Some had urged safety in flight; and according to one account, a fleet horse was brought, with which the king, then in great peril, might have secured his life; but instead of desiring to escape, as Shakspeare represents, he indignantly rejected the proposal. Putting spurs to his own charger, he made a rush at Richmond, followed by his body-guard, including Lord Ferrers, Lord Lovell, Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir Richard Ratcliffe. The Journal fight was short and desperate. With one exception, the king's companions were all cut down, several of Richmond's sharing the same fate; and then the two rivals were about to fight single-handed, when Stanley's men coming up at that critical moment, created a diversion, and the king was immediately surrounded, his horse was entangled in a bog, and as his enemies closed in, he was speedily slain. With the king's death, the battle at once collapsed. Sir Robert Brakenbury's troops made a feeble stand, but soon wavered; the centre did likewise, and fell back. Outflanked, however, by Stanley's troops, they failed to reach their tents, and fled across Radmoor Plain towards Dadlington, fighting as they went, and there the pursuit seems to have ended. On Crown Hill, an eminence which adjoins the present Stoke Station, the king's crown, discovered hidden in a thorn-bush close by, was placed on the head of Richmond by Lord Stanley amid shouts of 'Long live Henry VII. !' Richard's body was dragged from the heap of slain, tied across a horse, and conveyed to Leicester, where it was exposed to view in the town-hall, and then buried in the church of St Mary, in the Greyfriars. Thus perished the last of the Plantagenets. His character had been darkened by cruel murder, and few of his subjects cared to risk their lives in the defence of one so unfit to retain the throne. The result of the fight at Bosworth was therefore, all things considered, generally welcome to the England of that period. of opinion that the last-named belong to a subsequent period. Close to the well where the king is said to have drunk on the eventful morning, was erected in 1812 a cairn of stones about twelve feet high, with an inscription in Latin to the following effect: 'With water from this spring, Richard III., king of England, quenched his thirst whilst very valorously and with bitterest incensement fighting in battle against Henry, Earl of Richmond, about to lose life as well as sceptre before nightfall, August 22, A.D. 1485.' This well, situated at the northern edge of the wood now existing, is an interesting memorial of the memorable battle of Bosworth Field. In 1862, the British Archæological Association, then in session at Leicester, visited the spot; and on the site a paper was read, and a fac-simile of the king's crown and various delineations of that monarch and his insignia, exhibited; but although the proceedings of that day aroused a deep interest in the historical events of 1485, they resulted in no practical steps being taken to commemorate the battle. Since 1862, however, a considerable revival has taken place in antiquarian researches. The impulse which higher education has imparted to such subjects, has awakened an interest in the renowned events of history, and visitors in everincreasing numbers repair to the spots made classic in their country's annals. On many other English battlefields, memorials have been erected to point out to future generations the scenes of ancient struggles for freedom and power; and yet on Bosworth Field, nothing worthy of the name exists. Among our wealthy citizens, proud of their country and of its long and eventful history, there must be those who would regard it as some honour to take part in perpetuating by a suitable monument the spot where one 'decisive' battles in English history took of the place. A TALE OF THE FRENCH COMMUNE. The site of the battle has of course undergone considerable transformation in later times. A canal and railway now intersect its area; the swampy ground has been drained, and a wood occupies what was once a morass, the nature of which had something to do with the dispositions, and perhaps also the result of the conflict. Within living memory, many relics of the fight have been discovered during draining operations. In the churchyard at Dadlington, THE FISHERWOMAN OF HONFLEUR. large numbers of the slain were interred; and a few years since, in digging new graves, piles of skeletons were unearthed, lying five or six deep. The ill-fated king's remains were disturbed much earlier; for when the monasteries were secularised, his tomb was destroyed; and it is said that his body was thrown into the river Soar, and his stone coffin afterwards used as a horsetrough. In 1612, however, Wren states in his Parentalia, that he saw, in Alderman Robert Heyrick's garden at Leicester, a handsome stone pillar, three feet high, inscribed: 'Here lies the body of RICHARD III., Sometime King of England; and at the present day there is a tablet in King Richard's Road, Leicester, stating that 'Near this spot lie the remains of Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets.' But no grave or mausoleum now exists by which his last resting-place can be verified, and hence those royal remains, unhonoured in death, have long since been scattered-how and where, none now can tell. At Bosworth Hall, the seat of Sir Beaumont Dixie, are preserved several alleged relics of the fight such as the suit of armour worn by the king, cannon-balls dug up from the field, and various weapons; although some antiquaries are ON quitting the bureau of the avocat, the young It was perhaps |