lows is prevented by the presence of Bernardo and Marcellus. They treat him as a Prince, while he insists on treating them as friends. Even the person of Francesco, the honest soldier, adds a touch to the opening scene -"it is bitter cold, and I am sick at heart."

The tragedy of Hamlet recalls the words of Brutus in Julius Cæsar, The Fortnightly Review.

which were written about the same time:

Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream: The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in counsel, and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.

Lewis Campbell.

Tibbitts stood looking over the top of his gate. His eyes, wind-bleared and sun-blinded by the seasons of eighty long years, regarded the glory of the May sunset with the utter indifference of one who has spent all his life surrounded by beauty and quite unaware of it. His gnarled hands, crippled by rheumatism, rested heavily on the top of his stout ash stick, and one ear inclined towards the open cottage door behind him. Beside him, in the border, the Sweet Nancies nodded their pretty heads behind a fairy fringe of London Pride; but his glance went over them to the "taters" beyond. Presently he spoke with exasperated patience.

"Be Oi to have anny tea, or be Oi not?"

"I'm a-gittin' th' kattle to boil."

The voice, shrill but sweet, had a note of apprehension in it. Tibbitts turned and stalked up the little path. The cottage was spotless, his meal was ready, and Marj'y, her brown hair brushed as smooth as it would lie, her cheeks flushed a lovely carmine from her late occupation of pushing sticks under the refractory "kattle," was as pretty a picture in her "laylock" print as ever one might wish to see, but Tib

bitts looked round with slow displeas

ure.

"Well, of arl th' idle little passels-" after which it will be something of a surprise to be told that Marj'y was to Tibbitts as the very apple of his eye.

Marjy's rosy under-lip quivered indignantly a moment, and then set to a rigid silence. Her "grandf'er's" tea was not ready, and it was her fault. Had she not lingered by the wall, where the linaria hung its quivering lavender veil and the velvet wallflowers shook their spicy breath to the May wind, and risked the certainty of an unboiling "kattle" for the chance of a halting word and an eloquent look? And that "grandfa'er's" tea should have been late to-day was just one of those untoward incidents of which, as Marj'y dimly perceived sometimes, her life held an undue share. Meanwhile grandf'er transferred the amber liquid in his cup to his saucer (milk in the country is a luxury obtained with a difficulty inconceivable to the dweller in towns), and worked his toothless jaws through a truly surprising pile of bread and butter. Marj'y seized a moment she mistakenly regarded as propitious.

1 Berkshire variant, probably of "baggage."

"Oh," said Tibbitts, with suspicious suavity, "be gwaine?"

"No," said Marj'y quickly, "I ha'e no gown." At which Tibbitts sat straight up for the first time in ten years.

"No gown! Why, Oi be durned, Oi be! No gown! An' it be Kursmas at far'st 'at Oi bowt you a beyewtey! Fowerteenpence a yard Oi paid for't. As foine a gown as ivver Oi see."

"That!" said Marj'y, her delicate nostril all a-quiver with scorn, the corners of her flower-like mouth curling, "that! Why, 'tes a gray lenseywoolsey, fet fur frost and snow!"

"An' whatn's wrong wi' the gown you be wearin'? Es that fet fur frost an' snow?"

Marj'y leant against the door-post, with wide eyes fixed upon the glory of a golden sunset, barred in black by a line of elms, where the baby rooks rocked fearlessly in their airy cradles at the top and the starry clusters of the peeping oxlips gleamed amongst the grass at the bottom. Dimly she was aware that these things were beautiful, though no one had ever told her so. In some way that Marj'y could not understand they sharpened the faint remorse dawning in her heart.

"I be half vexed I arsked," she told herself softly. "But-'tesn't as if he couldn't. Ef I'd 'a' thought he couldn't, I'd never ha' arsked!" And then the

"An' why not? "Tes fettin' fur a laborer's lass. An' what be you wishful to go in?"-with that dangerous lapse into suavity that even yet Marj'y could not read aright. It deceived her now, as always.

"Theer's a blue muslin i' Ward's window," she said, wistfulness and appeal softening the forget-me-not blue of her eyes. ""Tes on'y fi'pence the yard, and twelve yards-'tes but five shillun', grandf'er." And tragedy, indeed, lay behind the lack of that five shillings.

But in Tibbitts the tragedy lay in being asked for it.

"Five shillun'!" he echoed slowly, "an' only five shillun'! Be you fair crazed, Marj'y Tibbitts? Whar be Oi to get five shillun'? Five shillun'! Do you know what it be to 'arn five shillun'? You 'at never 'arn'd two in your life?"

He pushed away his chair and stumped out, the flush of indignation on his withered cheek, the light of wrath in his eye, the eye that, in spite of the hundred thousand wrinkles of

earlier in the day rose before her eyes, a picture of herself in the blue muslin, with her "summer hat," made new once more with the white ribbon her one hoarded sixpence would buy, and a net fichu, that had belonged in prehistoric times to her "gramma," folded about her shoulders. Had not the Lady Ermyntrude from the castle worn a fichu just like it last Sunday in church, and "what be good enough fur she be good enough fur me!" Marj'y told herself, profoundly ignorant that the familiar fichu, which only the Lady Ermyntrude's example induced her to tolerate, represented the very latest Parisian mode. The vision was a bitter one, and Marj'y's eyes suffused.

"I'll nut go-with him-in a laylock print!" she resolved with bitter scorn. Yet to stay at home and let some other maiden, better provided with gowns, take her place, was the heart-wringing alternative. Marj'y's eyes brimmed

over.

Meanwhile old Tibbitts stood in the lean-to outhouse at the back of the cottage, where the hens sleepily ruffled their feathers as they sat aroost in one

corner, and his old dog blinked up at him from his bed of sacking in the other. Rover was the only one in all the world who enjoyed Tibbitts' confidence-Rover was dumb. The door was locked behind him, and he stood a long, long time before, with a sudden effort, he plunged his knotted arm elbow-deep in the thatch.

Slowly, with hands that shook, and eyes and ears all vigilance, he unwrapped the treasure he brought forth. A piece of sacking, a thick wad of newspaper, a roll of flannel-and then a small wash-leather bag. Out of the bag, and very, very slowly, he took-five shillings. He laid them in a row on a dusty ledge against the wall, and a beam from the full May moon slid in over the top of the wooden door and silvered them again. Tibbitts turned his back on them as they lay glittering quietly in the dusk. "She be arl Oi hev," he said.

It was a poor excuse to offer to the raging disapproval of his own act that shook him in its grip, but it sufficed. Quickly, lest vacillation seize him, he rolled his treasure up again and thrust it deeper than ever into the thatch. Then he locked the door behind him, leaving Rover in charge, and set out to take his one recreation in eighty years, his evening stroll "down village," the five shillings hidden in his gnarled hand.

Half way down "th' street" a comely dame, with a scarlet shawl about her shoulders and a spotless apron swathing other ample proportions, stood knitting by a gate. Behind her a row of polyanthus, such polyanthus as one only sees in cottage gardens, made a velvety line of rich color alongside the bricked pathway that led upwards to her open door. As she saw Tibbitts, his smock hanging loosely on his spare figure, coming with bent back and failing knees down the cobbled paving, she smiled.

"Evenin,' Marster Tibbitts," she said cordially.

an

"Evenin', Mist'éss Wilsden," swered Tibbitts, pulling up. "Foine spring flowers, them be!"

"Ay," said Mist'ess Wilsden, with the gratified glance of proprietorship over her shoulder. "Be you passin' th' 'Fox,' Marster Tibbitts?"

"Nay," said Tibbitts, a twinkle in the blueness of his eye, "Oi be taalkin' ti you."

It was a joke, as jokes go in rural circles, but Mary was instantly aware of something behind it. She gave it the broad smile of recognition it merited, and waited. She had not to wait long.

"Tamfield fair's a week Wednesday," said Tibbitts slowly.

"Ay," assented his hearer. "Be gwaine?"

"Nay! Oi be bidin' whoam."

"Well, and best so, Marster Tibbitts," with a comfortable sigh. "You an' me's done wi' fairin' an' such-like foolery, hevn't us? But Marj'y'll be gwaine?"

"Nay. Marj'y's bidin' whoam, tu. Leastways she says she be!" "Eh? And how's that? Marj'y meant to go, she telt me herself. She's goin' wi'- -"here she checked herself, for Marj'y's projected cavalier was the one cavalier in the village her "grandf'er" was certain to forbid her.

"Marj'y's sot on a new gown," said Tibbitts slowly, by no means failing to connect that same new gown with the name Mist'ess Wilsden had just so cleverly suppressed. "Five shillun' she hed the faace to arsk for, not ten minutes sin'."

"An' you be unwilling to give it?"

"Well, five shillun' be five shillun,' Mary, an' hard to come by," a touch of deprecation in his voice. "But Marj'y's done a deal fur you, one waay an' another lately, an' oi thought maybe," a half shamed hope stirring in his

heart that Mary might fall in with the sound of the suggestion before he had time to explain himself further-that even yet he might carry back those shining shillings to their nest in the thatch, "Oi thought, maybe, you wouldn't mind."

But that half-shamed hope died, scorched and shrivelled to nothing in the blaze of scorn and indignation that lit Mary's full dark eye.

"Well, Marster Tibbitts," she said slowly, "that you be a hard man an' a graspin' I've heard, an' so you be! But that you be a beggin' man

"Nay, Mary, don't 'ee take it so," said Tibbitts quickly, and then, overwhelmed at an accusation the most shameful that can be hurled at a selfrespecting rustic, he opened a knotty shaking hand and showed the five shillings lying within. They spoke far more clearly than he could.

"Well, I never did," said Mary softly.

"You see," said Tibbitts, aware of her instant comprehension, "you be a warm woman, Mary Wilsden, the repitation won't do you no harm."

"No, Jim Tibbitts, an' it won't do you no harm neither," answered Mary with some tartness. "Gi'e it her yourself, man."

"Nay, Mary, Oi be 'gainst that, Oi be," with a long slow shake of his gray head, "'twould larn her ti arsk. Young folks larn ti arsk so easy."

And to "larn" Marj'y not to ask that he might be spared the agony of refusal had been Tibbitts's policy from the first, if anything so rudimentary as the rustic intelligence can be credited with a policy. Only all the old man's simple scheming had gone to hide the fact from Marj'y, which was a pity.

Mist'ess Wilsden proved an able accomplice. By her aid the dress was not only bought but made. This was not a matter of any great difficulty,

since the north country lass's instructions to her dressmaker, which for succinctness and clearness have seldom been equalled and never surpassed-mak' it walkin' length and stridin' width, wi' a gurt broad hem an' a flahnce on"-would have accurately expressed Marj'y's ideas. Only that Mist'ess Wilsden prevailed upon her to put three little frills and not one big one on the hem. And when it was finished and Marj'y stood arrayed in her summer hat, her net fichu and her blue muslin, one might have searched the broad midlands, mansion and mudhut too, and not found Marj'y's equal.

"I'd let your grandf'er see," suggested Mary not too hopefully.

"Nay," said Marj'y with a sudden resentful quiver of her rosy underlip, "it be nawthin' to grandf'er. Grandf'er cares nawthin' ef Oi go fairin' i rags."

"Don't you be too hard on your grandf'er," said Mist'ess Wilsden, with what Marj'y regarded as unnecessary sharpness, since the "hardness" was clearly all the other way.

Fair was the day of Marj'y's fairing, subtly mixed of triumph and joy the draught to which that day she set her rosy lips. Sweet is social success to the feminine soul, whether lady or laborer's lass in outward presentment, dear the recognition of the fact that though her lines are cast by circumstances in lowly places, circumstance is aware of her error and about to repair it. For Bob was Marj'y's superior in social station, a master among men, a farmer and a farmer's son, belonging to a class whose rigid exclusiveness your true rustic knows and the generality of folks only faintly suspect. Of "book larnin'" Bob had just enough to enable him to put his name to a receipt and to keep his primitive accounts of sales of corn and cattle. But of learning better worth having Bob had his full share. Earth and heaven

lay around him in an open book, whose hieroglyphics none deciphered more surely than he. He had an eye for a horse that could not be equalled in all Berkshire, from which had already accrued to the house of Brunsell no small advantage, and, its usual concomitant, an eye for a pretty girl as well. That he had the sturdiness to set aside convention, the insight to realize Marj'y's sweetness as well as her beauty, the courage to ignore her station, and the honesty to "mean well" by his little sweetheart, was a good thing for Marj'y.

Rustic wooings are independent of words. Their open appearance at Tamfield together, Bob driving her out and home again in his gig, his eagerness to purchase for her all he could persuade her to admire, though Marj'y, in her shy delicacy, could only be prevailed upon to choose a necklace of blue beads to match her gown, were enough and more. Then came that exquisitely subtle taking for granted of all the preliminaries, of which only the rural wooer is truly master, the mingled over-indifference and unsteadiness of the prelude to some happy plan "When you and I be wed, Marj'y!" that changed the sighing of the soft summer wind to a roar in the little pink ears that heard it, and set the dim hedges dancing in wavy indistinct lines about her-and then her granf'er's voice over the top of her own cottage gate:

"Be that you, Marster Brunsell?" Bob gasped as if someone had dashed cold water in his face. For Tibbitts had deliberately and of malice aforethought flung at him the deadliest insult the rural vocabulary holds, since the title "Master," as all the rural world knows, is the mark of the servitor and the dependant, whilst "Mr." is the undisputed right of his betters. By its use Tibbitts had "evened" his superior with himself,

even as his courtship of Marj'y was "evening" him. It says much for the strength of Bob's affection that he neither lost his temper nor his hold of Marj'y's hand.

"Yas," he said slowly. Bob could "talk Lunnon" with the best of them should occasion demand, but in moments that did not matter the vernacular came easiest.

"And be you a-walkin' out wi' Marj'y?"

Bob felt Marj'y shrink and tremble; rural methods are rarely impeded by considerations of delicacy. He drew her closer to his side.

"Yas," he replied deliberately "I be." "Then," said Tibbitts with acrid decision, "Oi be 'gainst it, so Oi be. Pay your debts loike honest marn, an' then go coortin. That's what Oi say, so Oi

do."

"Oi paid up every shillun' quarterday," said Bob, outraged astonishment blazing in his blue eyes, "so Oi did."

"Nay," said Tibbitts with a grim chuckle, "fur you han't paid Oi! 'Leven pound seven your feyther owed me five year last har'st, fur rick-thatching' an' extrys gen'ally. There be no paper, 'tes one honest marn wi' another, ses Oi, so Oi did, but an honest 'ooman be harder ti foind."

Whether his

Bob's face changed. mother believed the old man's claim he did not know. The fact remained that, since no claim in writing existed amongst her husband's papers she steadily ignored it.

"Marster Tibbitts," he said slowly, "I acknowledge the debt. 'Tes a just one an' it shall be paid."

"Ay,' said old Tibbitts, "when you be master. Pay Oi and then come a'ter Marj'y. not afore. But so long as you darsn't pay up loike honest marn you be man an' not master, Marster Brunsell."

Bob quivered all over. Behind that intolerable and repeated insult lay the