"I cannot say I know, but I have sometimes thought,' replied the lay-brother. "Come thou also with us, then, and let us know what thou thinkest.' "Accordingly we all proceeded to the monastery of Iveron, where a cell was appointed me, which I was to share with a priest to whom I had more than once spoken, and who begged hard to be put in charge of me. "I know not what was the end of the consultation; but long afterwards they told me that my uncle had been an outlaw, the head of a terrible band of men who were illaffected towards the Government of the country-that he had assumed the life of a hermit for the sake of concealment, and had so perfectly blinded the monks to his real character that they thought him a pattern of holy asceticism-that his wonderful psalm in the night had led to the general belief that he sacrificed sleep to devotion-that all the while he had been the recognised leader of many rebellious movements in the country, which he had concerted, with other subordinate leaders, in secret midnight conferences held on the neighbouring peninsula-that the authorities had obtained information of this, and a band of Government troops had surprised the rebels on the terrible night I have told you of, and had taken several prisoners; finally, that my uncle had escaped, though with his death-wounds on him, and had been rowed over by a few followers, who, however, had been taken on their way back, and had given such information as afterwards reached the monks. But they would never tell me what was done with his body; though, I think, from some hints I heard, that they bore it far out to sea, and buried it in the waters. Whatever he was, I love his memory. I am sure he must have been driven by force of circumstances to that wild life and that cruel death." Just at this point of the story, the order was given to haul down the flying-jib, and we were imperatively ordered off the bowsprit. During the whole course of the young man's narrative I had been utterly insensible to external things. My eyes were immovably fixed on the water beneath us, rising and falling in overlapping masses on either side of the resistless bow, like earth from a plough-share. But now I raised them on one of the fairest of cities rising up before us a great amphitheatre of palaces, extending upwards, terrace above terrace, until lost in the beauty of mountains. "What glorious city is this?" cried my companion, in the rapture of admiration. I had never seen it before, but a thousand tokens taught me to answer at once: "Genova la Superba !" A GLEAM FROM THE PAST. BY HARRY A. CARTWRIGHT. Touch'd with a soft and tender grace, In the action, the word, and the tone, He looks in her fair young face, And the hard lines fade from his own. Oh he listens with eager ears, He answers with faltering tongue, His mind is busy with by-gone years, That come like the echos of song. Faint, faint sounds in the distance there, And the old man, no longer grey, Like the change in a fairy-scene From the present has past away, And the days come back that have been; And his heart leaps up once more: A moment he seems to rejoice, And his being thrills to the core At the sound of a woman's voice.. The sound of her voice and her smile, Death, relaxing, yields to the charms, And restores, for a little while, A dear lost form to his arms. He gazes-the maiden's cheek blushes, His withered and trembling hands. "Like-like-so like," he murmurs To her who sleeps under the ground! Ah! she died in far-off summers, But I started—thought she was found. "Found! and the present vanished away," And memory loosened its hold, Tears from the grey eyes stole away, And he whispered-" old, old, so old. "God bless you! forgive-forgive me! Like-so like to the face I knew ; Oh let it again smile on me, For the fancy seems still as true. "Oh! a kiss from the lips so fair, And the vision were perfect now!" And the maiden stoop'd by his chair, And she kiss'd his wrinkled brow. AN ARTICLE WITH AN OBJECT. BY JOVEN. By the time this article appears, the overworked and the under-worked will alike be thinking of their annual migration. The heat and glare of the city, becoming daily more intolerable, will drive them away, whether they rush forth keenly and eagerly in search of honest and wholesome enjoyment, or proceed in a stately and decorous fashion to "kill time" in the country, since time is beginning to kill them in town. The coast will again be invaded, by an army innumerable, irresistible, with endless balances at its banker's. Stipple, who now has one of the loveliest nooks in England almost entirely to himself-and who draws his honest little pictures in a solitary little way-will see, ere long, as he returns from his happy and innocent labour, the travelling-carriage, dire messenger of Doom. Next morning, the hats will be out and around him. As he sits sketching under the limestone crags, he shall hear merry tinkling laughter above his head; and, casting up his astonished eyes, shall see that the laughter emanates from beings whom to see is to adore-whom to hear is to become hopelessly enslaved. Not for thee, oh Stipple, are such beings: neither, oh Stipple, for me. Go on with thy pencil, my friend-even as I myself will agitate my eager quill: at a distance indeed we may worship and admire; but they? Serenely unconscious, they walk along their path of life-a roseate path, by bullion strewn, that leads to an establishment and a position. Yes, the crags, and the sands, and the glistening pebble-beaches receive their visitors once more. The god of the sea, even Poseidon the mighty, gives once more his grand "At Home," his summer party, whereat the name of the guests is Legion. Guests of all kinds there be: divisible, however, for my present purpose, into two great classes-those who have money to spare, and those who have not. The present article is intended for the former. Have I, then, suddenly become a Millionaire? Has fortune opportunely slain my uncle in the Opium Trade? Have those shares of mine in the Cheap Claret Cup Company (Limited) risen to a miraculous premium? I would it were so ; but so it is not. Why then do I speak to the rich? Erewhile, there dwelt within me something of the Bohemian spirit, something of the Gipsy blood. I was nothing if not indecorous and unconventional. Is the old leaven gone so soon? Time alone can show: meanwhile, to the rich I speak-to the rich by the sea-side. Thou stately father, with "Merchant" written on thine ample form, thine ample seals, come! I would fain clutch thee! Thou dignified and graceful individual, who art a ruler of men, and hast castles, and shooting-boxes in the heathery North, and country-houses in the Sussex weald; lend me thine ear, for I need it. Lady fair, with the silver locks, and the gentle look of a calm old age: make not your will until you have heard me out. And let Arabella listen, for I am to speak of romantic deeds: and Walter, who looks languid, but has a heart in him and a brain-(I wish he would give them fairer play, let the one beat a little faster, the other think a little more freely): and Reginald, who was at Lucknow, and who was better there than he is at Scarborough: listen, oh ye of the Upper Ten. My talk shall be full of reverence for you; for I would fain obtain monies from you. "For myself?" says a rather promising Cynic. Well, my P.C., when I do send round the hat, I shan't ask you! I write this article with a definite object, apart from, and infinitely above, the merely professional feelings with which I am to supply a given quantity of matter for a given wage. It is one of the happiest privileges of a man of letters that oftentimes, in the mere exercise of his profession, he may do solid and substantial good. The cause which I am to plead is a very pure and noble one, though I must just plead it in my own way-which is not a matter-of-fact or orderly way-if I am to plead it at all. Briefly, I want to tell those of my readers who have money to spare, these two facts: Fact the First, which is a sad one; in 1860 there were 1,379 wrecks on the coast of the United Kingdom, involving the loss of 536 human lives. Fact the Second: the National Life-boat Institution depends upon voluntary subscriptions for extending its means of action. I need not, I think, draw the deduction for you. It seems to me to be very plain. I do not say that all those lives might have been saved: I do say that many of them might, had the funds of the Institution been more ample than they are. Now, I know that the demands upon English Givers have lately been very large. When a few weeks of hard weather threw thousands of Londoners on the streets, the subscriptions that were raised were more glorious to this country than the gaining of ten battles. When, in the far East, men who had lately risen against us to slay us, sat starving-enduring a famine partly caused by their own default (as, indeed, the sufferings of the London poor were in no slight degree directly traceable to their own mad improvidence), the heart of England rose up at the news, and her magnificent generosity | There is dirty weather brewing. On and on we again welled out, in the old free flood. Two go, passing one competitor after another, until such subscriptions have seldom to be made in a single year. Nevertheless there are many, and amongst them, I trust, there may be some who will read these lines, whose appetite for doing good is still unstinted, but who, amidst the many applications for their bounty, hardly know to which request to yield. It is to these I speak it is on these that I want to urge the claims of the National Life-boat Institution-claims, as it seems to me, distinct and special on this seafaring, sea-loving race. More or less, the dear old fresh sea-wind has strengthened us all. More or less, it tingles through the nerves of every one of us. This people, from time immemorial, has made the sea its play-fellow, and exulted in its free life. Our dearest names have gained their glory from it. It has been the scene of the most gallant deeds ever done by our race, and of the most terrible sufferings most heroically endured. Strength, and empire, and freedom, and joy, it has brought to us from of old, and brings yet. Also, it brings misery, and desolation, and despair. If I now say for myself, that the sea has given me some of my grandest joys, and has caused me one of my deepest pangs, there are thousands in like case who can say the same. And every guinea given to this Institution may help to save a life: may do more: may not merely save the sailor himself from death, but the sailor's mother's heart from breaking, too. I have here two little sea-pieces to place before you. In the first, you will see an English yachtsman's jollity and joy, out on the sea, sailing for pleasure and sport through bad weather or fine. In the second, you will see a little cabin-boy, "who had got wounded in the head and whose face was covered with blood." I have seen that face very often of a night since I read the story. at last the little Wild-flower alone remains to conquer. A fierce race it is, but at last we head her, and lead the fleet. Meanwhile, the weather has grown worse: the wind comes in heavier puffs, the sea rises, and the yacht "jumps like a greyhound in the slips." A rough night is before us, bnt we make everything fast on deck, and descend with a view to the salmon. "He appeared to leer pleasantly at us as he was deposited upon the table; but scarcely had the captain made the first flourish of the fish-slice over his devoted head than the little ship gave a convulsive jump :" the salmon, with an expression of the wildest jollity, leaps right into one gentleman's shirt front and strikes another on the nose! "At last we were forced to polish him off in detail, so wherever a bit of him was found, it was punished on the spot." And now, though the night drew on, and the darkness closed in, the little ship put forth her full speed. At half-past eleven the Blackwater Bank light ship "shimmered like a star through the haze of rain and wave-drift." The full surge of the Atlantic has now to be met. Our gallant foes must be near us, and some, from their superior size, ought to beat us in such heavy weather. Eager to hear and watchful to see were we through the hours of darkness for aught that could betoken the whereabouts of our powerful rivals: but nought smote the ear save the howl of the tempest through the rigging, or the eye but the white glare of seething foam as we dashed it in triumph from our path. Dark and cold and weary were those hours; but we heeded them not: our little bark was bounding along like a wilful, breathing, living thing, frolicking with the storm as if in very wantonness. At length an almost palpable darkness enshrouded us: it made the heart beat from its intensity. There accompanied it a cold moaning blast that reached the very vitals: the hoarse roar of the storm was lulled as if in fear; it became softer and more fitful, until at last it was a sullen throb-it was the dying gasp of the night. Up from the east came glinting tiny pale grey streaks; by and and bye, rosier and warmer pillars of light gradually reared their heads above the horizon; golden streaks scintillated playfully from wave to wave; then a great flood of glorious sunshine burst over the sea and up through the heavens; and the young day was born, as it were, in a moment. The change from that dark cold hour It is a lovely morning in July, the morning after the Royal St. George's Regatta. Kingstown Harbour is bright and beautiful with the taper masts and snowy canvas of a whole fleet of yachts. An "ocean race" is about to begin, from Kingstown to Cork, a race that will try the mettle and the seamanship of those that enter on it. Seventeen yachts are to contend; the largest a schooner of 140 tons, the smallest a cutter of 25. At half-past ten they are off, with a fair working breeze from the North-west and every stitch of canvas set. We-you and I, reader-are on board the Sybil, neither a Levia--thrilling in its touch as the hand of death-to than nor a Minnow, but a comfortable yacht of nine-and-thirty tons. We are somewhat late in starting, for we are detained by a Salmon that we have ordered for our ocean meal; but at last the noble fish is received on board, and when we round Wicklow Head we have made up for lost time and are in the middle of the fleet. There is rough work before us, for the wind has been drawing round off the land from Northwest to West and has now settled down at South-south-west, "a regular dead noser." the bright, life-imparting, balmy breath of morning, I shall never forget. With the sun's earliest ray the very waters seemed to teem with new-born life. Porpoises gambolled joyously around us, gulls screamed a discordant matinwelcome, ill-favoured cormorants sped their rapid flight, and guillemots and puffins, as they plumed themselves for the fray, croaked in merry conceit." Now to work again. "Speedily the canvas rose fold over fold above the hardy little Sybil; her storm-mantle of the night was swiftly cast aside, and en grande tenue, like some dainty beauty in Rotten Row, she was careering proudly over the long Atlantic swells." It was high time; for, at a few minutes past five, lo and behold our two most dreaded antagonists, the Kingfisher (90) and Peri (80) are visible-and a-head! Others are near us, but with these two will our last desperate struggle have to be. And now for a long day's work: we run between the Saltee Islands with perilously little water: for two hours we are abreast of the Hook Tower light, near the entrance to Waterford Harbour, in a "terribly ugly cross sea;" so that it is all we can do to hold our own, until at last we dash suddenly "through a weak spot in the running water," and are again away. "Our second night's vigil commenced, and never was the first glint of dawn more longingly watched for. At two A.M. the wind flew round to north by west. At the first wink of daylight we discovered the Kingfisher and Peri just ahead of us. With a rattling cheer all hands were turned up, and now commenced the tug of war in right | earnest: every rope and sail was overhauled, and not a precaution that could secure another inch of speed was neglected in our little ship." Queenstown is at length in sight: both Kingfisher and Peri are still ahead: the race seems lost; "in fact, to ordinary observers, it was all over but shouting: but we had a man at the helm who had not yet expended half his cunning lore of the sea. I have sailed many a match, but I never saw a more brilliant piece of helmsmanship in my life than on that morning. The race was won by steersmanship and steersmanship alone!" Let us shout-never mind the ruined salmon, never mind the weary nights, the chopping seas, the howling winds; for behold the race is ours, and behold here are the times at which we pass the flag-ship, goal of victory: Kingfisher .... 5 25 O A.M. We have sailed two hundred miles round the Irish coast, and we have won the ocean-race by three minutes! I have been all the more liberal in my quotations for the reason that very few of my ladyreaders are at all likely to "take in" the periodical in which this fresh and graphic sketch appears. It is a pet periodical of mine: it contains a great deal of vigorous, manly, and pictorial writing, and its name is- Bell's Life! I have given this sketch to illustrate one of the aspects in which the sea presents itself to us-its most pleasant and delightful aspect, with just enough of peril to spice the enjoyment. I maintain that we all like to read about races and regattas, whether we understand them or not. I am but a "land-lubber" myself, though I was never guilty of the painful impropriety of being sea-sick (I have been to sea, sir!); but I revel in nautical books, and where their technicalities are most utterly unintelligible, my enjoyment of them rises to its highest pitch. And now, leaving this joyous summer aspect of the sea, I have to suggest, by another sketch, the kind of scenes through which our lifeboatsmen pass. It is a sad, short, painful story; but, to my mind, very eloquent with the eloquence of fact. The vessel it concerns was called the "Lovely Nelly," of Seaham. The year of grace 1861 came in on our English north-eastern coast in storm and fury. For the two last days of the dying year a tempest had been brewing; and on New-Year's day, when we quiet city-folks were exchanging "compliments of the season," many anxious eyes were turned to seaward, and many an anxious heart grew sick as the wind rose, and rose, and still rose. Many vessels, southward-bound, put about, and had to run as far as Leith Roads for shelter. Soon after daybreak, on the first of January, the coastguard men on Tynemouth Point, looking out to seaward, saw a vessel, deeply laden, with a flag of distress flying. She was struggling to get to the northward, but struggling in vain, and rapidly driving in upon the coast. The coastguardmen followed her along the shore, and, as they went on, the people of the villages turned out to join them; so that, ere long, each headland had its anxious crowd, looking, pitying, trembling. It was a very sad sight to see. The vessel's sails had mostly been blown away, and she grew more and more unmanageable amid the terrible seas that broke around and over her. At length, abandoning the desperate effort to get to the northward, her crew, as the last chance of life, ran her on the Whitley Sands. She was SO deeply laden, that when she struck she was still three-quarters of a mile from the shore. It was impossible to reach her with rockets. Only one hope remained-the Life-boat! As fast as they could run through the driving wind and rain, coastguardsmen and fishermen made off for Cullercoats, where was stationed the Percy life-boat. Six horses were fastenened to her carriage, and down they came at a gallop to the sands. She was speedily manned-thank God no life-boat is ever useless for want of brave men to form her crew! The men pulled out as for their own lives, and not a moment too soon did they reach the ship, which was now broadside on to the sea, her crew in the rigging, and the waves breaking over her half-mast high. Cleverly and deftly was the life-boat laid alongside; the vessel was grapnelled, and the boat held to her by a strong rope. Instantly the crew made towards their deliverers; but even as they left the rigging, three of them were swept into the sea. The life-boat was handled with a glorious skill; two of the crew were at once picked up, and as the third man went down to his death a strong hand seized him, with a grasp of iron, by his hair, and dragged him up to life. Two other men were got into the boat : did any remain on board the ship? Yes: how overlooked, how so left to die, we know not-but the little cabin boy remained. The boy's cry for help grew very pitiful: “he had got wounded in the head, and was covered |