has unreasonably estranged him, in a cloudless day of May, if he be not happy enough to feel a brotherhood in all things happy -a leaf in bloom, a bird in song then indeed he may call himself lover, but he does not know what is love.

From Chambers' Journal.

A "NAVVY" BALL.

"I doubt it. He had no very near relations. The nearest was an old célibataire of the same name, from whom he had some expectations, but who died shortly after this esclandre, and did not name the Vicomte in his will. M. Victor had numerous connections among the highest families the Rochebriants, Chavignys, Vandemars, Beauvilliers. But they are not likely to have retained any connection with a ruined vaurien, and still less with a niece of his who was the child of a drawing-master. But now you IT came in the way of my work rehave given me a clue, I will try to follow cently to visit a colony of navvies enit up. We must find the Vicomte, and Igaged in the construction of the heaviest am not without hope of doing so. Par- portion of the works on the new line of don me if I decline to say more at pres-railway at present being made between ent. I would not raise false expectations. Settle and Carlisle. The headquarters of But in a week or two I will have the hon- this scattered colony are on the slope of our to call again upon Monsieur." an outlying buttress of Ingleborough Hill, at the foot of which is a deep hole in the limestone, whence issues the headwaters of the Ribble. From some old legend of a suicide, this wild and savage place bears the curious name of Battywife-hole. Three or four hundred navvies are housed in the wooden huts, covered with black felting, that have been set down at hap-hazard on to the slope above the river-head, and there are various settlements bearing outlandish names bestowed upon them by the navvies themselves. Inkermann, Sebastopol, Belgravia, Jericho, Salt Lake City - all these can be reached with no greater exertion than half an hour's wade through the deep, treacherous, oozy bog of which much of the moorland is composed. True, when reached, they are not much to look at, but they are racy of phases of that curious half-savage navvy life, which has in it so much that is interesting to the student of the by-tracks of human life.

"Wait one instant. You have really a hope of discovering M. de Mauléon ?” "Yes. I cannot say more at present." M. Renard departed.

Still that hope, however faint it might prove, served to reanimate Graham; and with that hope his heart, as if a load had been lifted from its mainspring, returned instinctively to the thought of Isaura. Whatever seemed to promise an early discharge of the commission connected with the discovery of Louise Duval seemed to bring Isaura nearer to him, or at least to excuse his yearning desire to see more of her- to understand her better. Faded into thin air was the vague jealousy of Gustave Rameau which he had so unreasonably conceived; he felt as if it were impossible that the man whom the "Ondine of Paris" claimed as her lover could dare to woo or hope to win an Isaura. He even forgot the friendship with the eloquent denouncer of the marriage-bond, which a little while ago had seemed to him an unpardonable offence: While staying in Batty-wife-hole, I behe remembered only the lovely face, so came acquainted with a family which I innocent, yet so intelligent; only the shall call Pollen. The father had been a sweet voice which had for the first time navvy in his earlier days; but having breathed music into his own soul; only saved a little money, had set up a tommythe gentle hand whose touch had for the shop, and was making money. His wife first time sent through his veins the thrill was a robust, powerful, purposeful dame, which distinguishes from all her sex the of immense energy, considerable surfacewoman whom we love. He went forth roughness, and real genuine kindliness of elated and joyous, and took his way to heart. During my stay, I was indebted Isaura's villa. As he went, the leaves on to this burly navvy-woman for several the trees under which he passed seemed good turns, in connection with which stirred by the soft May breeze in sympa- there could be no thought of self-interest. thy with his own delight. Perhaps it was There was a married daughter who lived rather the reverse: his own silent delight in a caravan at the gable of the parental sympathized with all delight in awakening hut, and there were two unmarried daughnature. The lover seeking reconciliation ters, one an extremely pretty girl of about with the loved one from whom some trifle | twenty, the other considerably younger.

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Pollen had taken a letter for me down | evinced in subscriptions to sick funds to Ingleton, and in the afternoon I looked and doctors' bills; clear-headed applicain to see whether he had come back. tion of labour to produce a definite result; His good lady reported his non-arrival, above all, a sense of the right that man adding Afore we comed here, we and master alike have to fair-play and were on the 'Surrey and Sussex; and honest dealing: all these virtues are to this morning, Betsy Smith, a lass as my be found in the kit of the navvy. He is daughter knowed there, comed here to see a man with whom there is some satisfacher mother, as is married on old Recks; tion in working, and a man as to whom and my girls, they be to have a holiday you can attribute any failure in the for to spend wi' their old friend. Well, I attempt to elevate him into a position of bid them tighten themselves up a bit, and permanent comfort and respectability not tak' a basket, and go to the top of Ingle- to any inherent infirmity of nature, but to borough Hill, the three on 'em, for a day's want of early training, and to the potent 'scursion like; and when they'd come influence of strong drink.” back, I'd have tea waitin' an' a cake, and I'd get in a bottle or two of wine, and we'd make a bit of a feast on't, you see, sir, for the lasses mayn't see one another no more in this here life." It seemed as if I had achieved the footing of a friend of the family; and Mrs. Pollen invited me, "if I would not think it beneath me," to look in and participate in the modest festivities of the evening. Beneath me! Why, it was the very thing I desired.

The "lasses" had got down from Ingleborough Hill, and were seated round the huge coal-fire in Mrs. Pollen's keeping-room. It was a state occasion; and the six navvies, who are lodgers, were relegated to their own sleeping-apartment, where I found Mr. Pollen, slightly the fresher from his journey to Ingleton, and having his hair cut by one of his lodgers prior to entering the sphere of gentility in the other room. Mrs. Pollen was painfully polite, and her notions of my capaci ties for rashers of bacon eaten along with buttered toast must have been based on her experience of navvies. The young ladies were at first slightly distrait, but Ingleborough air had given their appetite a beautiful fillip. Mr. Pollen was benignly jocose, with a slight tendency to hiccup. After tea, he entertained me with an historical account of Batty-wifehole, from his first appearance in a van on its soil, exactly three years previous. Shortly afterwards, he said, "some chaps

The navvy population of Batty-wifehole do not keep fashionable hours. Half-past five was the hour named by Mrs. Pollen, and I was punctual. As I came up the road from the "Chum-hole," through Inkermann, to the mansion of the Pollens, the face of the swamp in the watery twilight was alive with navvies on their way home from work. They stalked carelessly through the most horrid clinging mire. What thews and sinews, what stately, stalwart forms, what breadth of shoulder, and shapely development of muscle were displayed by these home-came down to make experimental borings, coming sons of toil! The navvy is a very rough diamond; but when you come to mix with him familiarly, and to understand him, you come to realize that he is a diamond. His character has never been more accurately delineated than in the words which I venture to quote, written by an engineer who knows him to his very marrow. "The English navvy has his bad points. Very bad points, they are, no doubt, but, as a rule, they have all a common origin. The fountain of all, or almost all, the troubles of an English employer of this description of labour is the ale-can. But with these bad points there are many elements of the true pith and ring of the English character. Industry like that of the beehive; sturdy toil such as that which was commanded by the builders of the pyramids, or the brick-building kings of Nineveh; firm fellowship and good feeling,

and they had to bide wi' us in the wan, for there were nowheres else to bide. All that winter there were ten of us living in that van, and a tight fit it were, surely. Of a night I used to have to stand by it for half an hour with the bull's-eye as a guide to the men home-coming through the waste. Sometimes one would stick, and his mates would have to dig him out; there were two chain o' knee-deep water four times a day for the fellows atween their meat and their work.

"It were a winter! The snow lay on the backs of the hill-sheep for two months at a stretch, and many on 'em were frozen as hard as a chip. But we got over it somehow; and in the spring, Recks and me built this cottage, and the works began in fair earnest. There's been a good many deaths - what with accidents, low fevers, small-pox, and so on. I've buried three o' my own. I'm arter a sort the

undertaker o' the place. You passed the lodgers. Sundry smothered and gasping little church down at Chapel-a-dale, near squeakings of a fiddle had been audible the head of the valley. Well, in the three lately from that apartment, the sounds years I've toted over a hundred of us being suggestive of the existence of an down the hill to the little churchyard ly- assertive and pertinacious violin, upon ing round the church. T' other day I which the navvies were collectively sitting, had toted one poor fellow down-he sternly determined that while they lived, were hale and hearty on Thursday, and it should not violate the decorous quiet on Tuesday he were dead o' erinsipalis; incumbent on lodgers whose respected and I says to the clerk as how I thought host and hostess were entertaining visitI had toted well nigh on to a hundred ors. The "lasses," I had noticed, were down over the beck to Chapel-a-dale. He yawning a little after tea, as if the hill-air goes, and has a look at his books, and of Ingleborough had induced a somnifercomes out, and says, says he: Joe, ous tendency. As the tap was heard at you've fetched to t' kirkyawd xactly a the door, a glance of mutual intelligence hundred and ten corps!" I knowed I and a smile of satisfaction passed round warn't far out. They've had to add a the younger ladies, and in truth Mrs. piece on to t' churchyard, for it were Pollen herself did not frown as she chock-full. And there were one poor fel- called: "Come in." Enter a stalwart low I toted down the hill as don't lie in navvy, whose powerful frame contrasted Chapel-a-dale. It were the first summer comically with his shamefaced countewe were here, and a cutting had been nance. He was blushing from ear to ear, opened outside the Dents-head end of the yet there was a twinkle in the big black tunnel. Five men were in a heading as eye of the good-looking fellow that might was being driven in along the track of speak of a consciousness he was not altothe tunnel. There came on such a fear-gether taking a leap in the dark. He bore ful thunderstorm as nobody hereabout a message from the navvy brotherhood in ever saw the like afore or since. The end the other room. He craved humbly of of the cutting was stopped up, and the "Mother Pollen" that he and they should water came tearing down the hillsides be admitted to participate in the festiviinto it, and soon filled it like the lock of ties of the evening, whereunto they ena canal. The chaps in the heading were gaged to contribute by instrumental and caught afore they could get out; as the vocal music, replenishment of the refreshwater rose, three swam into the cutting, ments utterly regardless of cost, and good and tried to scramble out. As the water behaviour. Pollen pronounced at once rose, they got on a wagon that was in the for their admission. Mrs. Pollen only heading, and tried to prop themselves up stipulated for order; and the navvies between some barrels that were on it. trooped solemnly in, and seated themWe could just see one, the tallest on the selves on the extreme edge of a form. two- the face of him just above the Mrs. Pollen offered them wine, of which water, and his hands held afore his all ceremoniously partook; and then the mouth, to fend off the water that came black-eyed navvy took Mrs. Pollen aside, lipping over him every now and then. an interview which resulted in the introHe could get no higher for the head of duction of a pail of strong ale and a botthe working, and it was horrible to see tle of whisky. The navvies were a dehim. But we were tearing like mad at cided acquisition. First, the black-eyed the bank of earth that was blocking the navvy played a lively spring on his fiddle. cutting, and at last we got a hole jumped I may remark, that he had imperceptibly through it, and then the water soon found edged off the form, and had dexterously its own vent, and emptied the cutting. taken up new ground between Miss The shorter of the two men in the head- Pollen and the lass from the "Surrey and ing was drowned, and his mouth stopped Sussex." Then Tom Purgin sang My up wi' clay. He came from Kingscliffe Pretty Jane. Mr. Purgin was a smart in Northamptonsheer, hard by my own ruddy-faced young fellow with black curlnative place; and I got a coffin for the ing hair, and the physical development of poor chap, and toted him down to Ingle- a Hercules. "Tom is the best man on this ton, and sent him home by the railway." section," whispered Pollen to me. A dance I don't know to what greater length Mr. followed-something between a reel and Pollen's gossiping. reminiscences might an Irish jig-in which the black-eyed have extended, if they had not been inter- navvy immensely distinguished himself rupted by a tap at the door communicat- by playing and dancing at the same time; ing with the room inhabited by the navvy while the noise his big boots made in the

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double-shuffle was a Terpsichorean tri- might take up housekeeping. In the umph that may be imagined, but cannot midst of this interesting conversation, be described. The beer-pail was replen- the "Wellingborough Pincer" reappeared ished, the ladies were radiant with good-on the scene. Mrs. Pollen had not bolted humour and enjoyment, the navvies were the door, and he had entered bent on making themselves as agreeable as possi- apologizing all round, and expressing his ble, and the evening altogether was pass-heart-felt repentance for his conduct. It ing most hilariously. struck me at the time that the leading The "Surrey and Sussex" lass was motive for the "Pincer's" apparent consuddenly interrupted in the middle of a trition was a keen anxiety to return to song by a loud knock at the outer door. the neighbourhood of the beer-pail; but Mrs. Pollen rose, and admitted a stranger, he appeared sincere, and his expressions a big navvy in working-dress. This of sorrow were graciously accepted. He worthy had no card, but he "named him- inade the most of his time, and it was a self" as the " Wellingborough Pincer." caution to see what quantities of beer At a glance, one could see that the that man contrived to swallow. But he 'Wellingborough Pincer" was not quite was an ill-conditioned dog in his cups. so sober as he necessarily would have Without the slightest warning, he sudbeen if intoxicating beverages had never denly hit Tom Purgin in the eye. It was been invented. He was a new-comer at good to see that honest fellow's power of Batty-wife-hole, having only arrived that self-restraint. "It will keep till to-morday; and being a Northamptonshire man, row," he said with a pleasant smile, as he he had come to pay a visit to his "townie," wiped some blood from the cut cheekas he had learned Mr. Pollen was. On bone. This was Tom's own quarrel, and Pollen the ties of "townieship" are bind-in his own quarrel he would not brawl in ing; he hailed the "Wellingborough Pin- the presence of the women. But the cer with effusion; and that individual blow had cut short the "Pincer's" stay soon made himself extremely at home, under Mr. Pollen's roof. Again Mrs. resorting with marked freedom and fre- Pollen was upon him; again that deterquency to the beer-can. Our own nav-mined and powerful female grappled him, vies had been obviously chafing at the dragged him across the floor, and sent goings-on of the "Pincer," restraining him forth from the door. Enlightened themselves, however, for the sake of by experience, she this time shot the peace. His conduct was obviously lead- bolt. ing to a shindy. Mrs. Pollen had been absent for some time, engaged in serving some customers; but just at this crisis she came upon the scene, and comprehended its bearings with a quickness which may have been owing to intuition, but perhaps more to experience. To resolve, with Mrs. Pollen is to act. In two strides she had the "Wellingborough Pincer" by the scruff of the neck, and was bundling him toward the door. He struggled a little, but Mrs. Pollen pin ioned him with a vice-like grasp, and with a promptitude and dexterity which won my heartiest admiration, accomplished his ejection. I rather think she threw him out; anyhow, there was a sound as of a heavy body falling; and returning to the bosom of her family, she forbade any of "her men" from following the "Pincer" into the darkness whereunto she had relegated him. Harmony recommenced; the black-eyed navvy and I became confidential; and he told me how he had loved Miss Pollen for a considerable period, how they "had squared it together," and how he only wished that her father had another van in which they

But this "Wellingborough Pincer "was an incorrigible and indomitable nuisance. He would not retire quietly after this his second ejection. He picked himself up, and commenced a persistent hammering on the doors and window-shutters of the hut, accompanying this exercise with a voluble flow of execration of the people who were inside. With difficulty did Mrs. Pollen restrain her navvies from sallying out and inflicting condign punishment on the incorrigible" Pincer." But it was reserved for Pollen himself to vindicate the proud principle that an Englishman's house is his castle. Rising (with some little difficulty) from his seat, he oracularly pronounced the monosyllable "Joe!" At the word there emerged from under the table a powerfully built bulldog, whose broad chest, strong loins, muscular neck, and massive jaw, gave evidence of strength and purity of blood, as did the small red eye of unconquerable ferocity. Silently Pollen moved to the door with Joe at his heels. He threw it open, just as the "Pincer" had commenced to rain on it a fresh shower of blows. "Here, Joe!" was all Pollen's