by claim, effort by effort, and power by power. Right dwells with the most powerful, and the limits of our power are our laws. Indeed, there are certain common bounds, which men have concluded to measure the pulse of the world's circulation. Honourable name! truly a valuable coin, with which those can trade well who understand how to lay it out! Conscience,-oh, yes, truly! a capital scarecrow, to frighten sparrows from the cherry-trees !also a well-written bill of exchange, with which the bankrupt gets on a little longer in his need. In fact, very praiseworthy forms, to keep fools in respect, and the mob under the slipper, that the clever may manage them more easily. Without doubt, right merry forms! They seem to me like the fences that my peasants draw very cunningly round their fields, that no hares may get in; yes, truly, no hares! But the gracious lord gives his steed the spur, and gallops over the yielding harvest. Poor hares! It is a sad thing that there must be hares in this world. But the gracious master wants hares. Then boldly away! He who fears nothing, is not less powerful than he who fears every thing. It is now the fashion to have buckles to your trowsers, that you may make them wider or narrower at your pleasure. We will have a conscience made for us after the newest fashion, that we may tighten it, or lay it aside at our pleasure. So quick! boldly to the work. I will extirpate all around me that prevents my being lord. Lord I must be, that I may get that by force for which goodness fails me !-(Exit.) (To be continued.) MEMORY. OUR pleasure with this fleeting moment dies not By the sweet memories which re-create C. C. THE KING'S COLLEGE MAGAZINE. AUGUST, 1841. ELLERTON CASTLE; A Romance. BY "FITZROY PIKE." CHAPTER THE FOURTH. A VILLAGE PRIEST-INCREASING TROUBLES-THE GHOST APPEARS IN FLESHLY PERSON, UNFOLDING A TALE THAT MATERIALLY CHANGES THE CURRENT OF OUR HERO'S LIFE. THE sun had risen upon another day; its early beams cast long shadows from the hills, and tinged with its light the sparkling brook of the village. It caused the flowers to spread their tender petals and drink the morning dew; it awoke the lark to his early song and man to his early labour. Incense of prayer and pious gratitude ascended to Heaven from the midst of each humble cottage that formed part of the village of Ellerton; but from no man's lips proceeded an aspiration more holy or more pure than from those of the village priest: he implored a blessing on his own labours for the welfare of his flock; for each one of his people, in turn, he employed the voice of human mediation, Having completed this, daily his earliest, duty, he walked forth into the little garden that surrounded his dwelling, and there, seating himself in a bower of honeysuckle and jasmine, the work of his own hands, gave himself up to those pleasing meditations which the beauty and freshness of nature cannot fail to awaken in such minds as his. The bees were buzzing from flower to flower, wetting their wings in the dew, and shaking it off only to make room for more; the birds sang merrily among the trees; the insects chirped among the blades of grass; and man, as he went forth to labour, was not less happy than all these. Father Francis, the village priest, was not many years distant from his grave; yet he did not, as many teach to be right, long to enter it: he loved the world his God had made, he loved man that his Creator loved, he saw nothing so hateful in nature that he should desire to behold its face no more; but, although life was not to him a burden, he was ready at any time to part with it; no sordid, no base motive-nought but the purest benevolence and charity bound him to earth. The old man's hair was white and flaxen, serenity was seated on his high forehead, and the expression of his noble features was mildness and universal love. His outer garment of black reached to the ground, with long falling sleeves, according to the custom of the period; but that which others made a vehicle for foppery, was on him grave, and becoming to his character. Thus sat Father Francis, with his hands clasped unconsciously together, when the sound of footsteps broke in upon his meditations. He raised his head, and perceiving that his visitors were Heringford and Kate Westrill, rose to greet them with a father's affection. "Wherefore, my children, do ye thus visit me?" inquired the priest, after the first salutations were over, and they were walking together upon the turf; "have ye met with affliction, and seek comfort; there is One who will listen to your voice; from him alone proceeds all consolation." "Good father," replied Heringford, "we are indeed troubled; but it is advice, not comfort, we would ask of thee." "And hath trouble overtaken this innocent?" asked the good old man, taking Kate affectionately by the hand, and drawing her towards him. "Father," cried Kate, "we are in doubt and affliction; it is thou who watchest over us; to thee, therefore, have we come.” "It is not I, my child, that watch over thee," replied the priest; "I do but teach from whom ye should seek assistance;—but let me hear thy sorrows, if haply I can lighten them." "Yester even,” replied Heringford, “I opened to Kate Westrill a bosom, the feelings of which thou long hast known; she answered me as I could have wished: without delay, I sought her father. Andrew, her brother, was with him; he laughed me to scorn, and, at his instigation, the old man, in fear and weakness, denied his daughter to one whose birth was unknown. - Until my parentage is discovered, Kate Westrill is never to be mine." 66 My children," said the good priest, "I will not undervalue your sorrows, nor preach that ye should forget your love. I have known," cried he, with the deepest emotion, "I have known a lover's feelings, I have felt the pangs of disappointment ;-that was long since-in the merry days of my youth; but, even now that my hair is white with age, I cannot look back upon the time unmoved." Tears coursed themselves down the old man's furrowed cheeks as he thus spoke of the past, but he soon regained his composure. "Father," replied Heringford, "I know that thou hast had much affliction; I know that, even now, men hunger after thy life, saying that the infection of the Lollards is upon thee, that thou art no true priest; I know how thou endurest this, and yet more, without a murmur; but thine is a nature superior to ours." man; "Nay, my son," replied the old "there is one power in us all that enables us to bear up against sorrow; he that desireth it increased must seek that increase from above, and it shall not be denied him." The old man was about to speak further, when a person was seen running towards them. He was soon recognised to be Willie Bats. "What," exclaimed the priest, (( can occasion this unusual visit? Are we to be disturbed by another of his frivolous dreams?" "If so," replied Heringford, "I hope it may be one that will carry him some miles from hence.-Well, Willie, what was thy dream?" 66 "One that bodes thee no good, Master Edward," replied Bats, who had now come up to them; a fearful dream of murder and bloodshed." "Doth it stamp me murderer?" asked Heringford. "No," replied Willie, "but it numbereth thee with the murdered." "Let us hear it." "Ye will not betray me?" asked Willie, looking timidly round. "Betray thee! for dreaming!" exclaimed Kate, in surprise. "It is not a dream," replied Willie; "yet when I tell it, ye will think it one. It is this that I have to say-but-Mistress Kate must not hear it; she will be alarmed." "Not I," replied Kate, curious to know what was coming, while she little thought what it was she so boldly ventured to hear. “Then listen—come close-closer, lest enemies be about; and they know how much I am able to tell. Last night, about an hour before midnight, I went to the chapel of Ellerton castle, warned that I should find a treasure. I had commenced digging, when I heard the tread of an armed man approaching. I knew not where to hide myself, and fled into the tomb of Dame Beatrice. There, I heard the man, as he spoke to himself, and discovered him to be Sir Richard, who has so long been absent. At one time he spoke of those who rested in the vault; and, though I, alas! rested not, I groaned, lest he should discover me. He took me for his wife, and trembled. Then two other men came; one was Andrew Westrill—” Kate started, but preserving her attitude of attention, continued in fear that which had commenced through curiosity. Willie Bats resumed his narrative. “The other man was a stranger: I looked at them all through the cleft in the tomb: the sight of their grim faces alarmed me, and I shrunk back. I could not hear all they said, but I know Westrill and his companion agreed, for a reward, to take thy life this day. I thought to alarm them all, as I had Sir Richard by my groan, and therefore exerted myself to the utmost. Raising the coffin of Dame Beatrice at one end, I let it fall with its full weight upon the stones; then listened again. Sir Richard was alarmed, but afterwards suspected something, and leapt into the tomb. I crouched in a dark corner, and was not observed. When he returned, they talked again, in whispers, but I gathered their plan to murder thee this night as thou walkest, according to custom, in the wood on the hill. And now, Master Edward," continued Willie, "laugh no more at my dreams; call me no longer, in derision, treasure-hunter;' for had I not dreamt, and hunted treasures, what would thy life be at this moment worth?” Here Willie ceased from his narrative, undoubtedly the longest and the most important on which he had ever ventured. The effect on the minds of his hearers was various. Kate Westrill, dumb with astonishment and terror, leaned passively on the good priest's arm, and the old man's hands were united, in outward token of deep and anxious prayer. Heringford was harassed by a |