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3, THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW. | BY CHARLES MACKAY, L.L.D.

Late or early home returning,

In the starlight or the rain,

- I beheld that lonely candle

| Shining from his window-pane. Syer o’er his tattered curtain

Nightly looking, I could scan, Aye inditing— Writing—writing,

| The pale tigure of a man;

. Still discern behind him fall

T’he same shadow on the wal).

in Far beyond the murky midnight, i By dim burning of his oil, ' Filling aye his rapidgeaflets, — I have watched him at his toil ; . Watched his broad and sunny forehead, Watched his white industrious hand, Ever passing And repassing ; Watched, and strove to understand What impelled it—gold or fame— : Bread, or bubble of a name. / .

Oft I’ve asked, debating vainly In the silence of my mind, What the services he rendered To his country or his kind; i Whether tones of ancient music, } Or the sound of inodern song, Wisdom holy, Humors lowly, Sermon, essay, novel, song, | Or philosophy sublime, ‘Filled the measure of his time.

Of the mighty worid at London, He was portion unto me, Portion of my life’s experience, fused into my memory. Twilight saw him at his folios, Morning saw his fingers run, Laboring ever,

v Wearying never | : Of the task he had begun! Pjacid and content he seemed, . Like a man that toiled and dreamed.

No one sought him, no one knew him, Undistinguished was his name! Never had his praise been uttered By the oracles of fame. Scanty fare and decent raiment, a Humble lodging, and a fire— These he sought for, These he wrought for, And he gained hia meek desire ; Teaching men by written word— Ciinging to a hope deferred.

So he lived. At last I missed him; 7 Still might evening twilight fall, ‘s But no taper lit his lattice— Lay no shadow on his wall. in the winter of his seasons, p Jy the midnight of his day, *Mid his writing, And inditing,

Death had beckoned him away—- Ere the sentence he had planned "ound completion at his hand.

4 But this man, so old and nameless, Left behind him projects large, Schemes of progress undeveloped, Worthy of a nation’s charge; Noble fancies uncompleted, Germs of beauty immatured, Only needing Kindly feeding To have flourished and endured : Meet reward in golden store To have lived forever more.

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Who shall tell what schemes majestic Perish in the active brain ? What humanity is robbed of, Ne’er to be restored again ? W hat we lose, because we honor Overmuch the mighty dead, And disspirit Living merit, i Heaping scorn upon its head ? Or perchance, when kinder grown, Leaving it te die—alone! .

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THE EXAMINER.

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Thrilling Tale of Circumstantial Evidence.

{From Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, January 13, 1849.]

EXPERIENCES OF A BARRISTER.

4 THE MARCH ASSIZE.

SomeTaine more than half acentury ago, a person, in going along Holborn, might have seen, near the corner of one of the thoroughfares which diverge towards Rus- sell Square, the respectable-looking shop ofa glover and haberdasher named James Harvey,a man generally esteemed by his neighbours, and who was usually con- sidered well to dointhe world. Like many London tradesmen, Harvey was originally from the country.— He had come uptotown when a poor lad to push his fortune, and by dint of steadinesa and ae and a small property left him by a distant relation he had been able to get into business on his own account, and toat- tain that most important element of sucess in London— ‘a connection.’ Shortly after setting up in the world, he married a young woman from his native town, to whom he had been engaged ever since his school-days; and at the time our narrative commenced he wasthe fa- ther of three children.

James Harvey’s establishment was one of the best frequented of its class in the street. You could never pass without seeing customers going in or out. There was evidently not a little business going forwad. But ‘although, to all appearance, a flourishing concern, the |proprietor of the establishment was surprised to find ‘that he was continually pinched in his circumstances. ‘No matter what was the amount of business transacted over the counter, he never got any richer. | At the period referred to, shopkeeping had not attain- ed that degree of organisation, with respect to counter- ;men and cashiers, which now distinguishes the great ‘houses of trade. The primitive ti) was not yet super-

seded. This wasthe weak point in Harvey's arrange- ‘ments; and not to make a needless number of words ‘about it, the poor man was regularly robbed by a shop- ‘man, whose dexterity in pitching a guinea into the drawer, so as to make itjump, unseen, with a jerk into his hand, was worthy of Herr Dobler, or any other mas- ‘ter of the sublime art of jugglery,

| Good-natured and unsuspicious, perhaps also not suf- | ficiently vigilant, Harvey was Jong in discovering how jhe was pillaged. Cartwright, the name of the person | who was preying on his employer, was nota young man. ‘Iie was between forty and fifty years of age, and had ‘been in various situations, wiere he had always given {gatisfaction, except on the score of being somewhat gay ‘and somewhat irritable. Privately, he was a man of loose habits, and for years his extravagances had been paid for by property clandestinely abstracted from his 'too-confinding master. Slow to believe in the reality lof such wickedness, Mr. Harvey could with difficulty ‘entertain the suspicions which began to dawn on his ‘mind. Atlength all doubt was at an end. He detect-

‘ed Cartwright in the very act of carrying off goods toa

by saying, that as the ship in which he had ep

passage was to sail on the day after his siete enn ferred incurring a slight additional expense rather thea that his wife—who was now, with failing Spirits, nurs. ing an infant—should be exposed to coarse A880Cja— tions and personal discomfort. In the expectation, how- ever, of being only one night in the hotel}, Harvey was unfortunately disappointed. Shipmasters, especially those commanding emigrant vessels, were then, as now habitual promise-breakers; and although each succeed. ing sun was to light them on their way, it was fully a fortnight before the ship stood outto ges, By that tyme a second and more dire reverse had occurred in the fortunes of the luckless Harvey.

Cartwright whose appetite for vengeance was but whetted by his first success, hed never lost sight of the movements of his victim; ard now he had followed him to the place of his embarkation, with an eager but unde- fined purpose of working him some further and more deadly mischief. Stealtl: ily he hovered about the house which sheltered the unco iscious object of his malicious hate, plotting, as he afterwards confessed, the wildest

schemes for satiatimg his revenge. Several times he

made excuses for calling at the hotel, in the hope of observing the nature of the premises, taking care, how- ever, to avoid being seen by Mr. Harvey or his family. A fortnight passed away, and the day of departure of the emigrants arrived without the slightest opportunity occuring for the gratification of his purposes. Theship

was leaving her berth ; most of the passengers were on

board; Mrs. Harvey and the children, with nearly the

whole of the laggage, were already safely in the vessel :

Mr. Harvey only remained on shore to purchase some trifling article, and to settle his bill at the hotel on re- moving his last trunk. Cartwright had traeked him all day; he could not attack him in the street; and he finally followed him to the hotel, in order to wreak hie vengeance on lim in his private apartment, of the situa- tion of which he had informed himself.

Harvey entered the hotel first, and before Cartwright came up, he had gone down 2 passage into the bar te settle the bill which he had incurred for the last two days. Not aware of the circumstance, Cartwright, in the bustle which prevailed, went up stairs to Mr. Har- vey’s bedroom and parlour, in neither of which, to his surprise, did he find the occupant; and he turned away discomfited. Passing along towards the chief staircase, he perceived a room of which the door was open, and that on the table there lay a gold watch and appendages. Nobody was inthe apartment: the gentleman who oc- cupied it had only a few moments before gone to his bedchamber for a brief space. Quick as lightning @ diabolical thought flashed through the brain of the vil- lain, who had been baffled in his original intentions.— He recollected that he had seen a trunk in Harvey's room, and that the keys hung in the lock. An incon- ceivably short space of time served for him to seize the watch, to deposit it at the bottom of Harvey’s trunk, and to quit the hotel by a back stair, which led by a short cut to the harbour. The whole transaction was done

;considerable amount. The man was tried atthe Oldjunperceived, and the wretch at least departed unno-

{Bailey for the offence; but through a technical infor-|

jmality in the indictment, acquitted.

_ Unable to find employment, and with a character |gone, the liberated thief became savage, revengeful, tand desperate.

lirregularities, he considered bis late unfortunate em-

|ployer as the cause of his ruin; and now he bentall the

energies of his dark nature to destroy the reputation of ithe man whom ae had betrayed and pluadered. Ofal! ithe beings self-delivered tothe rule of unscrupulous

(ine : | |malignity, with whom it has been my fate to come pro- |

Instead of imputing his fall to his own|

ticed.

Having finished his business at the bar, Mr. Harvey repaired to his room, locked his trunk, which, being of a small and handy size, he mounted on his shoulder, and proceeded to leave the house by the back stair, in or- der toget as quickly as possible tothe vessel. Little recked he of the interruption which was to be present- ed to his departure. He had got as far as the foot of the stair with his burden, when he was overtaken by a waiter, who declared that he was going to leave the house clandestinely without settling accounts. It is

fessionally in contact, I never knew one so utterly fien-' proper to mention that Mr. Harvey had ineurred the en- idish as this discomfited pilferer. Frenzied with his|mity of this particular waiter in consequence of haying

\imaginary wrongs, he formed the determination to Ja- | bour, even if itwwere for years, to ruin his victim. No-

‘thing short of death should divert him from this the dar-'

lling object of his existence,

|proceeded to his work. Harvey, he had too good rea- {30n to know, was in debt to persons who had made him advances ; and by means of artfully-concocted anony- ee letters, evidently written by some one conversant

with the matters on which he wrote, he succeeded jn}

‘alarming the haberdasher’s creditors, The consequences | were —demands of immediate payment, and, in spite of \the debtor’s explanations and promises, writs, heavy Jaw jexpenses, ruinous sacrifices, and ultimate bankrupicy. ‘It may seem almost too marvellous for belief, but the story of this terrible revenge and its consequences is no fiction. Every incident in my narative is true, and the

\whole may be found in hard outline in the records of

ithe courts with which a few years agoI was familiar. | ‘Phe humiliated and distressed feeling of Harvey and (his family may be left to the imagination. When he jfound himselfa ruined man, I daresay his mental suffer- |!ngs were sufficiently acute. Yet he did not sit down ‘in despair. ‘T'o re-establish himself in business in Eng- ‘land appeared hopeless; but America presented itself (a8 @ scene where industry mizht find a reward; and by :the kindness of some friends, he was enabled to make | Preparations to emigrate with his wife and children.-—|

out of his slender resources, given him too small a gra- tuity onthe occasion of paying a former Dill, and not aware of the second bill being settied, the waiter wag

ce, ‘rather glad to have an opportunity of charging him | Animated by those diabolical passions, Cartwright,

with afradulent design. Invain Mr. Harvey remon- strated, saying he had paid for everything. The waiter would not believe his statement, and detained him ‘till he should hear better about it.’

‘Let me go, fellow; 1 insist upon it,’said Mr. Harver, burning with indignation. ‘I am already too late.’

‘Not a step. till | ask master if accounts are squared.’

At this moment, while the altercation was at the hottest, a terrible ringing of bells was heard, and above stairs was a lond noise of voices, and of feet running to and fro. A chaimbermaid came hurriedly down the stair, exclaiming that some one bad stolen a gold watch from No. 17. and that nobody ought to leave the house till it was found. The landlord also, moved by the hurricane which had been raised, made his appearence at the spot where Iiarvey was interrupted in his exit.

‘What on earth is ail this noise about, John? ia- guired the landlord of tic waiter.

‘Why, sir, I thought it rather etrange for any gentle- man to leave the house by the back way, carrying hie own portmanteau, and so I was making a little breeze about it, fearing he had not paid his bill, when al) of a sudden Sally rushes down the stair and ssys as kow No. 47 has missed his geld watch, and that ne one

ter to lh | Sas . 08 a Ir , ers . ; east Love.—_The first Conversation. at..tolland| Towards the end of F ebruary he quitted London for one} should quit the hotel.’ : rn ‘ ’ . : ae ¥ = . " Rsenie e's a f of the great seaports, where he was to embark for Bos-| No. 17, an old, dry-looking military gentleman, im Louse ed upon [ ¥e. um Moore compares tie, se a : : { , ; 3 oo — -

FL OUBE bora . Upon Nrst 109 Po 4 oe” AG (ton. On arriving there with his family, Mr. Harvey {a particularly high passion, now showed himself on the \ 1G x potato, ‘ because it San — wd eyes.” caer up his abode atthe principal hotel. This, in alscene, uttering terrible threats of legal proceedings | woe - ‘ ° : } use ecomes i eet cise ea rn : ‘ . (Ti . | _" ” — ae A; uegltf ” rainer,” €Xc aimed Byron pecause | comes al Wei innan of straitens d means, wae doubtless jmprucent: but ecoinst the house fee the joss b sistamed.

eae hy PARING.”

‘he ofterwarde ttemnted te 1; ¢' eire i the ofterwards ettempted to explain the circumstances!

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Harvey was