THE SHOWMAN'S COURTSHIP.

eive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold; and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that rare beauty.

verses,

Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle and a leg with a noble swell; for nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs, and their smoke-like fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. They are, my lads. Continuez! These women had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset! so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads-actually! Their supple persons moved as nature intended; every gesture was ease, grace, and freedom. What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment.

66

THE SHOWMAN'S COURTSHIP.

["ARTEMUS WARD."}

29

[CHARLES FARRAR BROWN, who wrote and lectured

under the pseudonym of "Artemus Ward," was born

at Waterford, Me., 1832, died in London, 1867.]

Thare was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her father's farm jined our'n; their cows and our'n squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forreds; the measels broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy's and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin-house, and the nabers used to obsarve, "How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!" It was a surblime site, in the spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy's and mine) with their gowns pin'd up so thay couldn't sile 'em, affecshunitly Bilin sope together & aboozin the nabers.

Altho I hankered intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsunt tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzum. I'd try to do it, but my tung would kerwollup up agin the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast African or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old fashioned wheat Flale agin a barn door.

'T was a carm still nite in Joon.

All na

Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said, "How do you do?" and smiled a welcome. Fine, hoow's yoursel?" answered the dark lass, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face. "What'n lord are ye?" continued she. "Are ye a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke." Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, sotto voce, "His lordship is a vis-ter was husht and nary zeffer disturbed the count." "I dinna ken't," was Jean's resereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on mark; "but it has a bonny soond." "What the fense of her farther's pastur. We'd been mair would ye hae?" said the fair beauty, rom ping threw the woods, killin flours & driwhose name was Christie Johnstone. Then vin the woodchuck from his Nativ Lair (so appealing to his lordship as the likeliest to to speak) with long sticks. Wall we sot thar know, she added: "Nobeelity is just a on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, Boond itsel, I'm tauld." The Viscount find- blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool ing himself expected to say something on house when it was fust painted, and lookin a topic he had not attended much to, ans- very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm wered drily: "We must ask the republicans; was ockepied in balinnsin myself on the they are the people that give their minds to fense, while my rite woundid luvinly round such subjects.' And yon man," asked her waste. Jean Carnie, "is he a lord, too?" "I am his lordship's servant," replied Saunders gravely," not without a secret misgiving whether fate I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid had been just. "Na!" replied she, not to to see what effeck it would have upon her. be imposed upon. "Ye are statelier and It evidently didn't fetch her, for she up and prooder than this ane." "I will explain," "sedsaid his master. "Saunders knows his value;

a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount."

CHARLES READE.

I cleared my throat and tremblinly sed,
Betsy, you're a Gazelle."

"You're a sheep!"

Sez I, "Betsy, I think very muchly of

you."

"I don't b'leeve a word you say-so there

CROCODILE SHOOTING ON THE NILE.

At an early hour yesterday morning, while yet the dew was on the grass, and on everything else green enough to be out at that matinal hour, I saddled my Gothic steed Pegasus, and took a trot for the benefit of my health. Having eaten a whole straw bed and a piece of an Irishman's shoulder, during the night, my architectural beast was in great spirits, and as he snuffed the fresh air, and unfurled the remnants of his warlike tail to the breeze of heaven, I was reminded of that celebrated Arabian steed which had such a contempt for the speed of all other horses that he never would run with them, in fact he never would run at all. | Having struck a match on that rib of Pegasus which was most convenient to my hand, I lit a cigar, and dropped the match, still burning, into the right ear of my fiery charger. Something of this kind is always necessary to make the sagacious animal start; but when once I get his mettle up he never stops, unless he happens to hear some crows cawing in the air, just above his venerable head. I am frequently glad that Pegasus has lost his eyesight, for could he see the expression on the faces of some of these same crows, when they get near enough to squint along his backbone, it would wound his sensibilities fearfully.

31

man who detected a crocodile, and the crew had now been for two days on the alert in search of them. Buoyed up with the expectation of such game, we had latterly reserved our fire for them exclusively, and the wild duck and turtle, nay even the vulture and the eagle, had swept past or soared above us in security. At length, the cry of "Timseach, timseach!" was heard from half-adozen claimants of the proffered prize, and half-a-dozen black fingers were eagerly pointed to a spit of sand, on which were strewn apparently some logs of trees. It was a covey of crocodiles! Hastily and silently the boat was run in-shore. Řwas ill, so I had the enterprise to myself, and clambered up the steep bank with a quicker pulse than when I first levelled a rifle at a Highland deer. My intended victims might have prided themselves on their superior nonchalance; and, indeed, as I approached them, there seemed to be a sneer on their ghastly mouths and winking eyes. Slowly they rose, one after the other, and waddled to the water, all but one, the most gallant or most gorged of the party. He lay still until I was within a hundred yards of him; then slowly rising on his finlike legs, he lumbered towards the river, looking askance at me with an expression of countenance that seemed to say: 66 He can do me no harm; however, I may as well have a swim." I took aim at the throat of this supercilious brute, and, as soon as my hand steadied, the very pulsation of my finger pulled the trigger. Bang! went the gun; whiz! flew the bullet; and my excited ear could catch the thud with which it plunged into the scaly leather of his neck. His waddle became a plunge, the waves closed over him, and the sun shone on the calm water, as I reached the brink of the shore, that was still indented by the waving of his gigantic tail. But there is blood upon the water, and he rises for a moment to the surface. A hundred piasters for the timseach!" I first work, "The Crescent and The Cross, or Romance and exclaimed, and a half-a-dozen Arabs plungRealities of Eastern Travel," 1844, is the best of his pro-ed into the stream. There! he rises again,

R. H. NEWELL,

CROCODILE SHOOTING ON THE
NILE.

[As a traveler, novelist, and historical writer, MR. ELIOT WARBURTON, an English barrister (1810-1852), was a popular author. He had a lively imagination and considerable power of description, but these were not always under the regulation of taste or judgment. His

ductions. Mr. Warburton thus describes his first shot

at a crocodile, which, he said, was an epoch in his

life.]

We had only now arrived in the waters where they abound, for it is a curious fact that none are ever seen below Mineyeh, though Herodotus speaks of them as fight ing with the dolphins at the mouths of the Nile. A prize had been offered for the first |

and the blacks dash at him as if he hadn't a tooth in his head. Now he is gone, the waters close over him, and I never saw him since. From that time we saw hundreds of crocodiles of all sizes, and fired shots enough at them for a Spanish revolution; bat we never could get possession of any, even if we hit them, which to this day remains uncertain. I believe each traveler, who is honest enough, will make the same confession.

THE KELP-GATHERER.

burst of the roused-up ocean, as it dealt the last stroke upon the groaning timbers of the wreck, and scattered the whole pile far and wide, in countless atoms, upon the boiling surface of the deep. And again, without turning in thought to the far-away homes at which the tale of the wanderers was never told-to the pale young widow that dreamed herself still a wife, and lived on, from morn to morn, in the fever of a vain suspense—to the helpless parent, that still hoped for the offices of filial kindness from the hand that was now mouldering in a distant grave; and to the social fireside, over whose evening pastimes the long silence of an absent friend had thrown a gloom, that the certainty of woe or gladness could never re

move.

333

their advantage. Among those who emigrated was the family under whom the Reardons held their little cottage; and with them it was that the young man determined to try his fortune in a happier region. Having arranged their affairs so as to secure his widowed parent against absolute poverty, they separated with many tears, the mother blessing her son as she committed him to the guardianship of Providence, and the son pledging himself to return to her assistance so soon as he had obtained the means of providing her the comforts necessary for her old age.

His success, though gradual, was complete. The blessings of the young Tobias fell upon the work of his hands, and his industry, because well directed, was productive, even beyond his expectations. Instead of lingering like many of his fellow-exiles in the sea-port towns, where they were detained by idleness and that open

tune may be found without the pain of seeking, young Reardon proceeded at once into the new settlements, where human industry is one of the most valuable and valued commodities. In a little time he was enabled to remit a considerable portion of his earnings to his poor mother, and continued, from time to time, to increase his contributions to her comfort, until at length the abundance of his prosperity was such as to enable him to relinquish the pursuit of gain, and to fulfil the promise he had made

Among those nameless tombs, within the space of the last few years, the widow of a fisherman, named Reardon, was observed to spend a great portion of her time. Her hus-mouthed folly which persuades men that forband had died young, perishing in a sudden storm which swept his canoe from the coast side into the waste of sea beyond it; and his wife was left to inhabit a small cottage near the crags, and to support, by the labour of her hands, an only child, who was destined to inherit little more than the blessing, the virtue, and the affections of his parent. The poor widow endeavoured to procure a subsistence for her boy and for herself by gathering the kelp which was thrown upon the crags, and which was burned for the purpose of manufac-at parting. turing soap from its ashes; while the youth employed his yet unformed strength in tilling the small garden that was confined by a quickset hedge at their cottage side. They were fondly attached, and toiled incessantly to obtain the means of comfort, rather for each other than for themselves; but, with all their exertions, fortune left them in the rearward of her favour. The mother beheld, with a mother's agony, the youthful limbs and features of her boy exhibit the sickly effects of habitual privation and habitual toil; while the son mourned to see the feebleness of a premature old age begin to steal upon the health and vigour of his parent.

In these difficulties a prospect of certain advantage and probable good fortune induced the young man to leave his mother and his native country for some years. The distresses and disturbances which agitated that unhappy land pressed so heavily upon the fortunes of many families of the middle as well as the lower rank, that great numbers were found to embrace the opportunity of improvement which the colonization of the New World held out for VOL. VIII.

He did not return alone. With the full approbation of the poor widow, he had joined his fate to that of a young person in the settlement where he dwelt, whose dispositions were in every way analogous to his own, and who only excelled him in the superior ease and comfort of her circumstances. Previous to his return he wrote to the poor widow, to inform her that in less than two months from that time, with the blessing of Providence, her daughter-in-law, her two grand-children, and her son, would meet beneath the roof of her ancient dwelling.

Fancy, if you can, the anxiety with which the poor widow looked out for this long-expected time. The assistance which the affectionate exile had been able to afford her was such as to raise her to a state of comparative affluence in her neighbourhood, and to render her independent of the hard and servile toil by which she had been accustomed to gain a livelihood. Her cottage was wholly changed in its appearance, and had the honour of being frequently selected for a night's lodging by her landlord's agent and other great men who passed 172