THE EXAMINER. 29

ca Nee ea EE RAPER Fe AS NR ARM Saks AE RED et

his arms around the wretched man, who clutched con- theengine! I have seen you everywhere—every where! | My muscles involuntarily contracted, 1 seemed 1 vulsively at any object within his grasp. |Ah! ah! I see you now !—you are following us!—fol- shrink into a ball, as I felt by the winding up, as it we -

“Save me!” he screamed; “save me, for dear God’s lowing us through the night !—but you shan’t catch us! of the muscular power of his arms, that he ‘was plirioat sake !” }—you shan’t—you shan’t !” in the act of flinging me down the high embankment

But I was paralysed. With one superhuman effort And the maniac started up, and with a how] like a we were then shooting across. All at once he screan- Westhorpe tore the wretch from his crouching position, | wild beast urged on the levers, and, actually screaming ed out,— a and with limbs which appeared to work and swell with with terror, tugged and strained at any portion of the} “D 'D ! there’s the lights—the green ‘ron muscles, tossed the strong man like a child in his/ rattling machinery he could reach, as though to increase signal tostop! Stop !—ha—ha—ha—stop! D — the arms, and shouted a maniac yelling laugh. ‘the speed. ‘station, we'll go through it! Through—through walls

“Help! help!” screamed Jeffries; “oh! oh! my wife I shrunk cown—why should I not confess it ?—per- | houses, streets ! Stop!—ha—ha—ha !” r ; at home!” fectly cowed. At that moment we flew intoa tunnel. I held my breath, I was still grasped in his arms. My

These were his last words. iThe glare of the lantern and the half’ opened furnace{head spun round and round, blue and yellow flashes

“Then go home to her!” shrieked V/estiorpe, and, flickered on the vaulted roof as we traversed the dismal] appeared to illume my brain; the quarter mile stones with another demoniac laugh, he heaved the struggling passage, amid what appeared a squall of hot damp air, ‘seemed tumbling past, one on the top of the other; the victim high into the air, andi heard the dull, dead, and shewed Westhorpe, his limbs twitching and every sway of the engine increased; it rocked, anj bounded, plashy dint with which he was dashed to pieces on the feature convulsed with terror, clinging to and struggling and roared down the incline leading to the station. | stony ground. on the engine. ‘saw gleaming past the lights in the baggage and en-

Westhorpe turned suddenly round. “ Mad!” he A moment, and we were again beneath the open gine sheds. I heard the exulting scream of the maniac, shouted, ai the full pitch of his voice,—* mad !—I be- night. ‘mingled with shouts, and whistles, and the ringing of lieve you!—I am!--I am!—mad! mad! mad!” He, The paroxysm appeared to have passed away for the belf&S, which seemed to rise on every side. | saw th clenched my collar, and drew me to him—I was a mere. moment, and the maniac again turned to me. ‘dusky lines of standing carriages: | saw ihe glitter of child in his arms. | You saw her face, eh? wasn’t it ghastly? It was'the brilliantly lighted station: I saw the flying groups

“ Mad!” he repeated? —“ yes!—I tried long to keep it just so she looked out of her coftin—just !” ‘upon the platform; [saw pillars, lamps, engines ; on down !—oh, I fought with it!—wrestled with it! And I said a couple of words. 1 know not what. ‘mass—one confused, gleaming, shooting mass ! J gasp I said to myself, No, I am not mad, when 1 knew I was!; “J’]] shew her something,” muttered the madman, ed; then witha yell which seemed to transform ail Mad! £ believe you!—I am mad!—I feel it now'—I aftera pause. “I think she’ll like to see it.” ‘nature into that wild, ghastly, death shriek, we—we know the pleasure of it! God! who would be sane—ha! Another pause. ‘ dashed—on ha! ha!—-if he knew what a life a madman’s is ?” | Qpon this,” he said at length, and I received a care-| On nothing!

He unloosened his grasp of me, and 1 shrunk into a‘ fully tied brown paper parcel from his hand. He turned! “ Now, then, tickets, please! Gentlemen, get your corner of the space before the boiler, almost unable to away when he had given it, as though unable to watch tickets ready! D station, gentlemen! ‘Ten articulate. The paroxysm appeared to pass away for the opening. “Untie it,” he said with his back to me. minutes allowed for refreshment, gentlemen *” the moment, and he stood muttering. Then catching’ Ididso. The first envelope was one of brown paper;' I started up with a stammering cry. up the spade, he set himself to trim the fires anew. A. under it was another of somewhat more delicate texture.| “Holla! holla! what’s the matter with you? You've thrill of horror again passed through me; we were go- then came wrapper after wrapper, until [ thought as I,been groaning and moaning in your sleep for the last ing at a pace to which all others that 1 had ever travel- undid them with a trembling hand, that the whole half hour.” led were child’s play. I tried to compose myself to my packet would prove a mere bundle of waste paper. I “ Westhorpe! Westhorpe !” T gasped. fate. Ifthe engine did not leap off the rails, it was evi- was deceived, however. I came at length toa care-- “The man’s asleep still! What the deuce do you dent that, sconer or later, we must arrive at the obstruc- fully folded envelope of silk paper. I tore it open, nean by Westhorpe? Rouse up, man, and let us have tion which would, as with ore mighty blow, smite us sheltering it from the rush of air, and, to my utter a-'some stout and sandwiches !” into dust for ever. mazement, found its contents to be—a half dozen with-| I sank back.

Again he turned round to me, and, drawing me to- ered blades of grass! An involuntary exclamation, “ It was a dream, then!” I muttered. wards him, looked into my face. The madman had the escaped me. | “ Ay, a railway nightmare,my boy! Did not I warn mastery. Supporting himself by a side-rail, he gazed’ “ Have—you—done it ?” muttered Westhorpe, gnash;| you of that beefsteak pie at Leeds? But what was it atme. O that lustrous, bloodshot eye!—that ghastly, ing the very words between his teeth. ‘allabout? You were thinking of some of your expres- working, twitching visage! At length he spoke, slowly,, “Grass!” I exclaimed; “here’s nothing but grass!” ising work, were you not ?” nay, calmly,— He bounded round, clutched the withered herbage in| “I was. Thank God it was but a dream: as you

“ We are now going faster than ever mortal man tra- his hand, and, holding it aloft in the air, shouted,— —_ Say, a Railway Nightmare !”

— omen the rae . p yew + On | “See, Mary Slane, see! Grass from your grave,

e paused, and the frightful swaying of the engine, Mary! Grass pulled by your murderer, Mary ! O God! T , and the lightning-like play of the rattling mechanism, night after night are cheese upon the se that co- JOHNNY BEEDLE’S COURTSHIP. fearfully attested his werds. -vered you, and whenever I left it I carried the grass 4 OE ghotiye age Saat OD

“ How fast do you think we are going 2” inquired the against my heart! O Mary, Mary! mercy—pity! Shy, | SRP on Sl ere eee maniac, still speaking with the greatest apparent calm-'I loved you! indeed—indeed, Mary, I did! 1 would e ness. have been a good husband, Mary; indeed, indeed, |

1% }

« Not much undera hundred miles an hour,” I gasped.; would! but it was not to be—my lost, lost Mary!

BY JOHN NEAL.

We sat and sigh’d,

RRR AONE EO MEET 8

“ Full that,” he replied. “ Now tell me, do you think spirits can fly as fast?”

of red light. I imagined that in his present mood I could soothe

him down, and regain that moral mastery over him which the sane, by coolness and self-possession, so fre- quently acquire over the victims of mental disease. Cheered by this gleam of hope, I looked him steadily in the face, and began to speak in mild, coaxing accents—

* Do you think we need trouble ourselves to keep the engine at such speed ?”

danger in a mile an hour less.” I paused, completely puzzled. What were the train

of ideas passing in the madman’s brain? “ You have been ill ?” I continued, in the same coax-

ing, fondling tone.

spoke with apparent langour and difficulty.

“ Particularly within the last three days?” I resumed. and then covering his face with his hands, he burst in-

He paused; the moon at the moment burst from be-.

hind a silvery cloud, and shone gloriously down upon

Never shall I forget the sepulchral tone in which the us, upon the dusky country side, the speeding, gleaming, question was put. He paused, but without, however, roaring machine, and the distorted face and foaming) appearing to wait for an answer, and looked wistfully lips of the engine-driver. at the furnace door, its dimensions marked by four lines.

As he paused he appeared to listen. I watched him narrowly. The expression of his face changed, he clasped his hands, raised them; and the countenance which a moment ago was harrowed and convulsed by mad terror, its every muscle racked and riven, gradually

relaxed; a smile stole round the mouth—you could see

it beneath the froth which still oozed from the lips; and then every feature became instinct and dilated with a yearning, grateful joy.

“I forgive you! Oh—oh, Mary, Mary, say those

“T fear we must,” he said, sadly; “there would be words again! God biess you, Mary! your face is like

an angel’s now! Do, do say them again,—‘I forgive you!”

He listened, and, Heaven help me! I listened too, for the spirit’s voice. I heard but the roaring of our

iron race. Not so Westhorpe; his face gleamed and “No—yes, yes—oh, very, very ill;” Westhorpe his eye again sparkled.

“ God’s thanks, Mary! God’s thanks, I am pardoned!”

He started back, and exclaimed fiercely, *Til—no, toa loud fit of weeping ; and in a moment sunk down, a

not ill—drank !” “Drunk!” I echoed, mechanically: a flash of light

crossed me—the man was suffering under delirium tre- Ahead of us sparkled the lights of D were miles—many miles away; but minutes at our pre-

niens.

ness. “Drunk! yes!—I’ve been drunk since her death: I shall be till my own! Drunk or mad—there’s little

sobbing, quivering mass, upon the engine mat. Now was my time—now or never. I looked forth. They

«“ Yes, drunk!” he shouted, with all his former wild- sent pace, would shoot us in splinters through the walls

of the station. Westhorpe lay sobbing hysterically; I had enough of acquaintance with the locomotive to

difference! I tell you I must drink—it lays her—it know the mechanical process of shutting off the steam, keeps her off from me! She haunts me—she perse- and grasping the handle of the lever, I turned the tide

cutes me, and [ must have drink !—drink !”

He darted back, struck his forehead with his clench-; The wheels

of the fierce vent from the mechanism. io the ruffles.

ad not spun round a single turn, when

ed fists, and then suddenly producing a small, empty Westhorpe, as if by instinct, sprung up, and, with a roar

phial, he turned away his head, and in a half smothered voice said, “ Read the label.”

I did.

“ Prussic Acid—Peison.”

He sprung round as though he had been shot.

“| didn’t give it to her!—I didn’t—she took it of her own aceord! Before God she did!—but she took it be- cause I said she should meyer be my Wife. Iam her inurderer!—her murderer, though I didn’t give the poi- eon! T murdered the only woman I ever loved—I did! God help me! Oh, Mary—Mary Slane!—but you're revenged! You have never left me since! you hung over my bed at night—you walked at my side in God’s

sunlight in the streets—you sat with your clammy hand'a Titan’s. With one bound he w

of hoarse fury, dragged me from the machinery. One of his huge hands was clutched round my throat—l writhed under the workings of his iron muscles—while with the ether he wrenched the lever, and I felt the steam set on again. I groaned faintly. He relaxed his hold of my neck, and grasping me by both shoulders,

Twining my leg round his, by a sudden wrench I suc- ceeded in flinging him backwards with a heavy crash,

partly upon the engine floor, partly upon a box destined |

to contain grease, tools, and other useful implements in case of accidents. The advantage was but for 2 mo- ment: I felt his strength rising beneath my weight like his feet, grasp-

in mine in the theatre—you looked in my face over the/ing me, a struggling mass, in his arms. glass ag | drank burning spirits—you rode with me on; “There, go after Jeffries” he roared.

‘face not to be grinned at ina fog. Indeed, as regards ‘beauty, some folks think she can pull an equal yoke with Patty Bean. For my part, I think there is not ‘much boot between the two. Any how they are ©)

drew me to him. I made one effort, one struggle. nigh matched that they have hated and despised each lother like rank p'ison ever since they were school ca's.

2 sceemalieen dduibsiliemmmmaiaiaal LPR A PREIS

And leok’d upon each other, and conceiv'd

Not what we ail’d ; yet something we did ail ; And yet were well; and yet we were not well ; And what was our disease we could not tell ; ‘Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look. {[DanieL HymeEn’s ‘TRiuMPi After my sleigh ride last winter, and the slippery tric! I was served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect me of hankering after the women egain ina hurry. To ‘hear me curse and swear and rail against the whole feminine gender, you would have taken it for granted that I should never so much as look at one again to all eternity. O, but I was wicked—‘ Darn and blast their ‘eyes! says I; ‘blame their skins, torment their hearts, and darn them to darnation.” Finally, I took an oath and swore that if I ever meddled or had any dealings ‘with them again, (in the sparking line, I mean,) I wish { might be hung and choked.

But swearing off from women and then going into a meeting house chock full of gals, all shining and glis- tening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like ‘swearing off from liquor and going into a grog shop. i's all smoke. :

I held out and kept firm to my oath for three whole ‘Sundays, forenoon# afternoons and intermissions com- plete. On the fourth there were strong symptoms of a ‘change inthe weather. A chap avout my size was ‘seen on the way to the meeting house, with a new pa- ‘tent hat on; his head hung by the ears on a shirt coliar;

his cravat hada pudding in it, and branched cut in front in a double bow-knot. He carried.a straight back ‘and a stiff neck, as a man ought to when he has ell his

best clothes on; and t time he spat he sprang his body forward like a jack knife, in order to shoot clear

Squire Jonee’s pew is next but two to mine, and when [stand up to prayers and take my coat tail under my ‘arm, and turn my back to the minister, I naturally look right straight at Sally Jones. Now Sally has got a

Squire Jones had got his evening fire on, and et himself down to reading the great Bible, when he heard a tap at the door.

‘Walk in. Well, John, how der co? Git Out, Pompey.’ a

‘Pretty well I thank you, Squire, how Co you do®

‘Why so as to be crawling;-—-ye ugly beast will ye hold yer vop ;—hau! up a ehairand sit ye down, Jolin’

pascal ek i cseilamile