all this time, he had held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where Mrs. Dowler was.

Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her night-cap, ran down into the front drawingroom to make sure that it was the right party. Throwing up the window-sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into the chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to get up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman.

Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an india-rubber ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as Mr. Pickwick threw up the the other, when the first object that met the gaze of both was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair.

"Watchman," shouted Dowler, furiously; "stop himhold him-keep him tight-shut him in, till I come down. I'll cut his throat-give me a knife-from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock, I will!" and breaking from the shrieking landlady and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seized a small supper-knife, and tore into the street.

But Mr. Winkle didn't wait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into the road, took to his heels, and tore round the Crescent, hotly pursued by Dowler and the watchman. He kept ahead; the door was opened as he came round the second time; he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler's face, mounted to his bedroom, locked the door, and piled a washstand, chest of drawers, and table against it.

A FELLOW that married a shrew once said:
"Woman's love is like Scotch snuff,
We get one pinch, and that's enough.'

THE DEATH OF ARNKEL.

EDMUND GOSSE.

ACROSS the roaring board in Helgafell,

Above the clash of ringing horns of ale, The guests of Snorri, reddened with the frost, Weighed all their comrades through a winter night, Disputing which was first in thew and brain, And courteous acts of manhood. Some averred Their host, the shifty Snorri, first of men, While some were bent to Arnkel, some to Styrr. Then Thorleif Kimbi shouted down the hall : "Folly and windy talk! The stalwart limbs Of Styrr, and that sharp, goodly face of thine, All-cunning Snorri, make one man, not twain,— One man in friendship and in rede, not twainNor that man worthy to be named for skill, Or strength, or beauty, or for popular arts, With Arnkel, son of Thorolf, the grim ghost. Wit has he, though not lacking therewithal In sinew. See to it, comrades, lest he crush The savage leaders of our oligarchy,— Vast, indolent, mere iron masks of men, Unfit for civic uses. His the hand To gather all our forces like the reins Of patient steeds, and drive us at his will, Unless we stir betimes, and are his bane."

So, from his turbulent mouth the shaft struck

home,

Venomed with envy and the jealous pride

Of birth; and ere they roared themselves to rest, The chieftains vowed that Arnkel must be slain. Nor waited many days; for one clear night Freystein, the spy, as near his sheep he watched,

Saw Arnkel fetching hay from Orlygstad,

With three young thralls of his own household folk,
And left the fold, and crept across the fell, .
And wakened from their first sweet midnight sleep
The sons of Thorbrand, and went on, and roused
Snorri, who dreamed of blood and dear revenge.
Then, through the frosty moonlit night they sped,
Warmed to the heart with hopes of murderous play,
Nine men from Snorri's house; and by the sea
At Alptafjord they met the six men armed
With Thorlief. Scarcely greeted they, but skimmed
Along the black shore of the flashing fjord,
Lit by the large moon in a cloudless sky;
Over the swelling, waving ice they flew,
Grinding the tufts of grass beneath their sleighs,
So silent, that the twigs of juniper

Snapped under them, sharp, like a cracking whip,
Echoing. And so to Orlygstad they came.

But Arnkel saw them through the cold, bright air, And turned, and bade the three young thralls haste home,

To bring back others of their kith to fight.

So, maddened by base fear, they rushed, and one,
Or ever he neared the homestead, as he fled,
Slipped on the forehead of a mountain-force,
And volleying down from icy plane to plane,
Woke all the echoes of that waterfall,

And died, while numb with fright the others ran.

But Arnkel bowed, and loosened from his sleigh
The iron runner with its shining point,
And leaped upon the fence, and set his back
Against the hay-stack. Through the frosty night
Its warm, deep odor passed into his brain.
But Snorri and his fellows with no word

Sprang from their sleighs, and met below the fence,
And reaching upward with their brawny arms,

Smote hard at Arnkel. With the runner he,
Cleaving with both hands, parried blow on blow,
Till, shaft by shaft, their spears splintered and
snapped;

Nor would they yet have reached him, but that he,
Gathering a mighty stroke at Thorlief's head,
Dashed down his runner on the icy fence
And shivered it, while backward Thorleif fell,
Bending the slimness of his supple loins,
Unwounded. Then a moment's space they stood
Silent. Then from the hay-stack at his back
His glittering sword and buckler Arnkel seized,
And like a wild cat clomb the stack, and stood
Thigh-deep astride upon the quivering hay,
Raining down thrusts and blinding all his foes
With moony lightnings from the flashing steel.
But Thorleif clambered up behind his back;
And Snorri, with his shield before his face,
Harried him through the wavering veil of hay;
And Styrr, like some great monster of the falls,
Swayed his huge broadsword in his knotted fists,
And swept it, singing, through the helm and brain,
And deep sank Arnkel on the bloody stack.

They wrapped his corse in hay, and left him there;
To whom within the silence of the night

Came that dark ghost, his father, whose black face
Affrights the maidens in the milking-stead;
And till afar along the frozen road

The tinkling of the sleighs he heard, and knew
That all too late, the thralls of Arnkel came.
He hung above the body of his son,
Casting no shadow in the dazzling moon,
Cursing the gods with inarticulate voice,
And cursing that too-envious mood of men
That brooks no towering excellence, nor heeds
Virtue, nor welfare of th' unsceptred state.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

CLIFFORD HARRISON.

[These lines were written on an incident of the Russian campaign under Napoleon in the winter of 1812. The young Prince Emilius, of Hesse-Darmstadt, was one of Napoleon's allies, and had led to the field in his service a thousand of his own men. After the burning of Moscow, he shared in the terrible retreat. Pursued by the Russians, they marched for days through the snow-drifted forests and plains, until of the thousand men ten alone remained. These lines are supposed to take up the story after the men have been wandering for days in the snow.-C. H.]

ΟΝ

the snow-
7-on in the snow-

Ninded and numbed, the soldiers go.

With footfall silenter than theirs

Death dogs their steps, and, unawares,
Strikes down his victims, one by one.
Pursuit is distanced, doom begun.
Frost-bitten fingers, stiff with cold,
Seem frozen to the gun they hold.
The icicles hang on beard and hair;
The breath like smoke goes out in the air,
Till reason and thought begin to wane,
And only the dull, blind sense of pain,
And the instinct of duty till death, remain.
On in the snow— -on in the snow-
The cruel, drifting, deadly snow—
They march in silence, with muffled tread,
Till one of them stumbles and drops behind,

dead!

And the others shudder, and glance around-
For they hear, growing nearer, an ominous sound
In the woods-the dismal howl

Of the wolves that after them stealthily prowl.
By open waste, by dreary wood,

By rivers black and frozen flood,
On in the snow-on in the snow-
Ever, with thinning ranks, they go.

The Prince Emilius looked on his band,