Jerry, thrusting forth his arms, seized her, and lifting her up, imprinted a burning kiss upon her lips.

"O Sho, don't."

"You beauty, how I have longed to see you!" whispered the happy fellow. Of course his Chinese was not perfect by a long way, but he managed to make her understand, and what he could not utter with his tongue he expressed with his eyes, his only drawback being his inability to kiss her often, as the operation was not only awkward, but absolutely dangerous. After a delicious half-hour, during which he told her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world at least twenty times, she asked for Nan-woo.

"Oh, he's asleep."

"Wake him. Good-bye. I'll come again to-morrow, my lord," said she, kissing her hand in imitation of her lover; then, assuming a demure expression of countenance, awaited the awakening of the bonze.

After shaking the old gentleman until he began to fear he would dislocate his neck, the sailor succeeded in getting Nan-woo to open one eye, and to slowly utter "o-mi-tu-fuh," upon which the deputy bonze repeated the irritation until he got through a good many "o-mi-tu-fuh's;" then he informed him that a person wanted him, and added in English, "If I ketch you a winkin' at her I'll stop your rice, so mind." Not that the bonze was likely to be guilty of such a breach of discipline, but the sailor was so love-stricken, that he would have quarrelled with A-tae's shadow from very jealousy.

After receiving the offering, Nan-woo glanced at the girl, and observed, "Bring another tomorrow; go, you are better;" then squatting upon his mat recommenced his "o-mi-" refrain, assisted in the performance by his deputy, who growled out a deep bass, whistled, or sang a falsetto accompaniment as the whim took him. Not that it mattered to the bonze what he did, provided he kept within the cell, as after Jerry had been with him a week, except when spoken too, he took no more notice of his disciple than he would of a tame kitten.

One of the police-runners was related to A-tae's family; and being a cool, calculating scamp, who did not believe in the supernatural, could not make out how it was that Jerry had left the ravine. Knowing he would receive a large reward if he captured him, he communicated his suspicions to A-tae's brother, a rowdy named Hew-chaou, upon which they determined to keep an eye upon the Buddhist grove, particularly about the ravine; and as winter

had set in, they searched diligently for footprints in the snow.

The girl returned every day, and upon some occasions had the inexpressible happiness of speaking to her lover, when one morning, to her astonishment, she found Jerry out of the cell, and waiting for her at the entrance of the ravine.

"Oh, my lord! O Sho! Hie thee back. If they see you we are lost."

"Nonsense. I've been cooped up long enough, and mean to have a cruise. I can't stand it any longer; besides, Nan-woo's asleep -he spends half his time so now; I think he won't live long. But what makes you look so pale?"

"My lord Sho, for ten days, in fact, since the snow first fell, I have been watched by two men,-one is my brother Hew-chaou, and the other the police-runner who hunted you. Oh, do not expose yourself to these wolves. My brother is a bad man, and would sell your head for a sapeck, and the runner is a tiger.” "I don't fear them, A-tae, but I'm getting lonely and am half-starved. Will you leave this place and go with me?"

"I can't," she sobbed. 'Why not?"

"We should not get ten li before they would track us. Then what would become of you, my lord Sho?"

They had walked up the ravine, and were now just outside the cell, when suddenly the head of the old bonze protruded from the hole, his eyes wide open with astonishment and terror.

"O-mi- come in, you fool! o-mi-tu-fuh, you blind idiot, come in!" saying which he threw his arms about, and behaved in such a ridiculously frantic manner, that out of compassion Jerry kissed A-tae, and wriggled through the hole into the cell.

Nan-woo was a very proper old man, and the sailor's proceedings quite scandalized him, but after a few hours he relapsed into his vegetable state, and things went on as before. One night in the depth of winter the deputy was awakened by the moans of the old fellow, and hastened to his assistance, but after having made him some tea, he retired again to his mat, imagining the malady allayed by the warm drink. However, when day broke he found his senior would soon repeat his last "o-mi," as he was going fast. Thinking the case required religious consolation, he did his best under the circumstances, and as, with all his faults, Thompson was not without some sort of religion, he managed to remember a

prayer or two, which he repeated to the dying bonze, winding up by way of a hymn with

"How doth the little busy bee," 1

repeated slowly. Nan-woo looked at him with a stony expression of countenance, and about eleven A. M., after a faint struggle, with a halfuttered "o-mi-t-"upon his lips, the old bonze breathed his last, "saluting heaven" from the arms of his sorrowing companion.

"Here's a fix. On a lee shore, skipper gone, and nothing but breakers all round. Well, poor old buffer, you saved my life and put up with me, and now you're gone, I'll bury you decently;" saying which he pushed the body through the hole, and having taken it out of the ravine succeeded in burying it in a snowdrift, where the mortal remains were found in the spring, and interred by a brother bonze.

After the death of Nan-woo the sailor set to work and pulled down the rocks which had been piled up in front of the cell fifty years before, when the old bonze entered it, the occupation tending to keep his blood in circulation, and preventing him from thinking of

his loneliness. He knew none of the old women who frequented the place in fine weather would be likely to visit him then, and it was not until his companion had been dead a week that A-tae again made her appearance. Before the snowy weather set in the girl had managed to bring him several articles of warm clothing, and a number of bundles of rice-straw, which he formed into a bed, so his situation was not quite so forlorn as might have been imagined, his great trouble being a fear of starvation; and when A-tae came pattering up the path he gave a cheer, and rushing out caught her in his embrace.

"Please, Sho!—my lord-don't!" "I'm so glad to see you; you can't tell how lonely I have been. The old man is dead, and, but for you, I would have left and risked capture."

He

"Hist! Did you hear a noise?" "Nonsense! It is your imagination." "I fear my brother has followed me. is very suspicious, and wanted my mother to prevent my coming, but I said I must, or I should never have any luck. Hist! I hear it again; 'tis some one moving. Let us hide." Who would hurt you?"

66

My brother would kill me if he found me with you. I know his passionate nature." "Stay here until night falls, and then we

Very inappropriate at the death-bed of a Buddhist bonze.

will dress in the old bonze's clothes, and leave the place. In his winter hoods no one will be able to know who we are, and once at HangChow, there are a thousand chances to reach the sea, where I can ship in a junk, and take you as my wife."

After much persuasion the girl agreed to remain with him, observing that death would be preferable to such misery as they had endured for the last few days.

The words had hardly passed her lips before rock, and, drawing a short sword, plunged it her brother suddenly sprung from behind a into her body.

With a cry like that of a wounded tiger, the sailor jumped at Hew-chaou, and seizing the sword, delivered cut after cut until the rowdy was covered with wounds. After a desperate struggle, during which both fought like demons, the Chinaman, in endeavouring to pick up a stone, received a blow upon the nape of the neck, which stretched him dead. Seeing this Thompson gently lifted up the body of A-tae, and carrying it into the cell, endeavoured to When she became bring her back to life. conscious he asked her where she was wounded, upon which she motioned to her side, and again closed her eyes as if in great pain.

"Poor little thing-my curse on the brute who did it. How could any one with a heart do such a cruel deed?" he observed in English. Then added in her language, " Fear not, A-tae, you will soon be well."

The girl opened her eyes upon hearing his voice, and smiling faintly, begged him not to sorrow for her, she was so happy resting in his

arms.

Thompson gazed upon the loving face, but in spite of vain endeavours to restrain his emotion, his lips quivered, and big tears coursed down his cheeks.

"Don't weep, Yung-Yung-Shŏ." "God--help-me. I deserve to lose yon, as a punishment for my sins.'

"Speak my own language."

"A-tae, my heart is broken, and would I were in your place. I have not loved you as I should. I am not worthy of such love as yours, you pure lily."

Upon hearing this the poor girl lifted her head, laid her cheek upon his, and kissing him gently, said, "Yung-Yung-Sho, I'm-sohappy!" then dropped upon his shoulder, and giving him a look of ineffable love, closed her eyes, and in a short time all her earthly troubles

were over.

When he found that she was dead he clasped her to his heart, and lavished the most endear

ing epithets upon her-"Open your eyes once more! O darling A-tae! Look at me again! Your heart still beats." But the light of the beautiful eyes was dimmed for ever, and the loving little heart would never beat for him again. All day he held her in his arms, and when evening came he lit a lamp-which had been her present-and watched her body through the long winter night. At times, fancying she smiled at him, he would bend over her and listen-but to hear the beating of his own heart,-then he would gently kiss her lips, and resume his lonely watch.

There, in the presence of a woman who had shown by her every action how tenderly and dearly she had loved him, the sailor looked back upon his past life, and contrasted the conduct of the girl before him with that of his former loves. "None of them were half as good as she," he thought, and he vowed henceforth to shun the society of the opposite

sex.

At daybreak he took her once more in his arms, and buried her in the snow near the entrance of the ravine, taking care to arch stones over her in such a manner that no wild animal could get at the body. The snow was falling fast when he did this, and in a short time the tumulus was completely hidden with a veil of spotless purity; then he returned to the hermitage, and having dressed in the winter suit of the bonze, left the ravine. As he passed the place where his lost love lay so silent, he knelt reverently and prayed that she might be in a happier state where she would never have a sorrow; then, with a heavy heart, he wandered forth, going he cared not whither.

HOME, WOUNDED.

[Sydney Dobell, born at Peckham Rye, London, 1824; died at Barton-End, Gloucester, 22d August, 1874. Under the pseudonym of Sydney Yendys he gained a distinguished place amongst modern poets. His chief works are: The Roman; Balder, of which a critic in Fraser's Magazine said, "Genius is unmistakably present in every page;" and England in Time of War-from which we quote. He also wrote in conjunction with the late Alexander Smith Sonnets of the War. Although suffering from the effects of a serious accident he met with amongst the ruins of Pozzuoli, he produced, in 1871, England's Day, which is regarded as one of his most powerful lyrics.]

Wheel me into the sunshine,

Wheel me into the shadow,

There must be leaves on the woodbine, Is the king-cup crowned in the meadow?

Wheel me down to the meadow, Down to the little river,

In sun or in shadow

I shall not dazzle or shiver,
I shall be happy anywhere,
Every breath of the morning air
Makes me throb and quiver.

Stay wherever you will,

By the mount or under the hill,
Or down by the little river:
Stay as long as you please,
Give me only a bud from the trees,
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,
Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it for ever.
Wheel, wheel thro' the sunshine,
Wheel, wheel through the shadow;
There must be odours round the pine,
There must be balm of breathing kine,
Somewhere down in the meadow.
Must I choose? Then anchor me there
Beyond the beckoning poplars, where
The larch is snooding her flowery hair
With wreaths of morning shadow.

Among the thicket hazels of the brake
Perchance some nightingale doth shake
His feathers, and the air is full of song;
In those old days when I was young and strong,
He used to sing on yonder garden tree,
Beside the nursery.

Ah, I remember how I loved to wake,

And find him singing on the self-same bough (I know it even now)

Where, since the flit of bat,

In ceaseless voice he sat,

Trying the spring night over, like a tune,
Beneath the vernal moon;

And while I listed long,

Day rose, and still he sang,

And all his stanchless song,

As something falling unaware,

Fell out of the tall trees he sang among,
Fell ringing down the ringing morn, and rang→
Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair.

Is it too early? I hope not.

But wheel me to the ancient oak,
On this side of the meadow;
Let me hear the ravens croak
Loosened to an amorous note
In the hollow shadow.
Let me see the winter snake
Thawing all his frozen rings
On the bank where the wren sings.
Let me hear the little bell,
Where the red-wing, top-mast high,
Looks toward the northern sky,
And jangles his farewell.
Let us rest by the ancient oak,
And see his net of shadow,

His net of barren shadow,

Like those wrestlers' nets of old, Hold the winter dead and cold, Hoary winter, white and cold, While all is green in the meadow.

And when you've rested, brother mine,
Take me over the meadow;

Take me along the level crown
Of the bare and silent down,
And stop by the ruined tower.
On its green scarp, by and by,

I shall smell the flowering thyme,

On its wall the wall-flower.

In the tower there used to be

A solitary tree.

Take me there, for the dear sake

Of those old days wherein I loved to lie And pull the melilote,

And look across the valley to the sky,

To pick their Easter posies,

And hear the joy that filled the warm wide hour

Bubble from the thrush's throat,

As into a shining mere

Rills some rillet trebling clear,

And speaks the silent silver of the lake.

There mid cloistering tree-roots, year by year,
The hen-thrush sat, and he, her lief and dear,
Among the boughs did make

A ceaseless music of her married time,
And all the ancient stones grew sweet to hear,
And answered him in the unspoken rhyme
Of gracious forms most musical
That tremble on the wall

And trim its age with airy fantasies

That flicker in the sun, and hardly seem

As if to be beheld were all,

And only to our eyes

They rise and fall,

And fall and rise,

Sink down like silence, or a-sudden stream

As wind-blown on the wind as streams a weddingchime.

But you are wheeling me while I dream,
And we've almost reached the meadow !
You may wheel me fast thro' the sunshine,
You may wheel me fast thro' the shadow,
But wheel me slowly, brother mine,
Thro' the green of the sappy meadow;
For the sun, these days have been so fine,
Must have touched it over with celandine,
And the southern hawthorn, I divine,
Sheds à muffled shadow.

There blows

The first primrose,

Under the bare bank roses:

There is but one,

And the bank is brown,

But soon the children will come down, The ringing children come singing down,

And they'll spy it out, my beautiful,
Among the bare brier-roses;

And when I sit here again alone,

The bare brown bank will be blind and dull,
Alas for Easter posies!

But when the din is over and gone,
Like an eye that opens after pain,

I shall see my pale flower shining again;
Like a fair star after a gust of rain

I shall see my pale flower shining again;
Like a glow-worm after the rolling wain
Hath shaken darkness down the lane

I shall see my pale flower shining again;
And it will blow here for two months more,
And it will blow here again next year,
And the year past that, and the year beyond;
And thro' all the years till my years are o'er

I shall always find it here.

Shining across from the bank above,
Shining up from the pond below,

Ere a water-fly wimple the silent pond,

Or the first green weed appear.

And I shall sit here under the tree,
And as each slow bud uncloses,

I shall see it brighten and brighten to me,
From among the leafing brier-roses,
The leaning leafing roses,

As at eve the leafing shadows grow,
And the star of light and love
Draweth near o'er her airy glades,
Draweth near thro' her heavenly shades,
As a maid thro' a myrtle grove.

And the flowers will multiply,

As the stars come blossoming over the sky,
The bank will blossom, the waters blow,

Till the singing children hitherward hie

To gather May-day posies;

And the bank will be bare wherever they go,

As dawn, the primrose girl, goes by,

And alas for heaven's primroses!

Blare the trumpet, and boom the gun,
But, oh, to sit here thus in the sun,
To sit here feeling my work is done,
While the sands of life so golden run,
And I watch the children's posies,
And my idle heart is whispering

"Bring whatever the years may bring,

The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing, And there'll always be primroses."

Looking before me here in the sun,

I see the Aprils one after one,
Primrosed Aprils one by one,
Primrosed Aprils on and on,
Till the floating prospect closes
In golden glimmers that rise and rise,
And perhaps are gleams of Paradise,
And perhaps too far for mortal eyes—
New years of fresh primroses,

Years of earth's primroses,

Forth from the irreparable tomb,

Springs to be, and springs for me

Of distant dim primroses.

My soul lies out like a basking hound,

A hound that dreams and dozes;

Along my life my length I lay,

I fill to-morrow and yesterday,

I am warm with the suns that have long since set,

I am warm with the summers that are not yet,

And like one who dreams and dozes

Softly afloat on a sunny sea,

Two worlds are whispering over me,

And there blows a wind of roses

From the backward shore to the shore before,
From the shore before to the backward shore,
And like two clouds that meet and pour
Each thro' each, till core in oore

A single self reposes,

The nevermore with the evermore

Above me mingles and closes;

As my soul lies out like the basking hound, And wherever it lies seems happy ground, And when, awakened by some sweet sound,

A dreamy eye uncloses,

I see a blooming world around,

And I lie amid primroses

Years of sweet primroses,

Springs of fresh primroses,

Springs to be, and springs for me

Of distant dim primroses.

Oh to lie a-dream, a-dream,

To feel I may dream and to know you deem

My work is done for ever,

And the palpitating fever

That gains and loses, loses and gains,

And beats the hurrying blood on the brunt of a thou

sand pains

Cooled at once by that blood-let

Upon the parapet;

And all the tedious tasked toil of the difficult long en

deavour

Solved and quit by no more fine

Than these limbs of mine,
Spanned and measured once for all

By that right hand I lost,
Bought up at so light a cost
As one bloody fall

On the soldier's bed,

And three days on the ruined wall
Among the thirstless dead.

Oh to think my name is crost

From duty's muster-roll;

That I may slumber tho' the clarion call,

And live the joy of an embodied soul

Free as a liberated ghost.

Oh to feel a life of deed

Was emptied out to feed

That fire of pain that burned so brief a whileThat fire from which I come, as the dead come

May look as she looked when I knew her

In those old days of childish sooth,

Ere my boyhood dared to woo her.

I will not seek nor sue her,

For I'm neither fonder nor truer

Than when she slighted my love-lorn youth,

My giftless, graceless, guinealess truth,

And I only live to rue her

But I'll never love another,

And, in spite of her lovers and lands,
She shall love me yet, my brother!
As a child that holds by his mother,
While his mother speaks his praises,
Holds with eager hands,

And ruddy and silent stands
In the ruddy and silent daisies,
And hears her bless her boy,
And lifts a wondering joy,
So I'll not seek nor sue her,

But I'll leave my glory to woo her,
And I'll stand like a child beside,
And from behind the purple pride

I'll lift my eyes unto her,

And I shall not be denied.

And you will love her, brother dear,

And perhaps next year you'll bring me here All thro' the balmy April-tide,

And she will trip like spring by my side,