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street and to the end of his tether. Up to the last moment he had not despaired of being able to save himself, and he had struggled for dear life. But now he knew that all was over, and that he must die. With panting breast, and back against the wall which closed the street, he seized his broadsword with both hands, and waited for his pursuers. But they dared not approach him. A terrible expression of despair and power was in that strange white face. The hunted man stood immovable, at bay. All was quiet, very quiet, as on the day in the cemetery when Patrick Inish, pointing to the murderer of his master, had called "Murder! Hellington! Murderer!" The howling wind and the splashing rain seemed to carry these words to the ear of the murderer. . An arrow whizzed through the air, and buried itself in the left breast of the fugitive. For a second he remained motionless.

Then his hands opened, and the sword slid from his grasp. Like a caged eagle's wings, his arms rose slowly and then fell powerless by his side; a deathly pallor covered his face like a veil; a trembling went through his whole frame; once more his arms rose feebly and again dropped, and at the same moment he fell heavily forward on his face, breaking in his fall the arrow that had pierced his heart.

On the day after the murder of the gotairo, the foreign consuls in Yokohama received a visit from the Governor, who informed them, in a business-like way, of the tragic event. The Governor paid a longer visit to the English consul than to his colleagues, as, after telling of the murder of the gotairo, he added there that the chief of the

assassin's band had been recognised after his death as a foreigner, and was supposed to be the missing Jervis, the murderer of Daniel Ashbourne. A Japanese officer, formerly stationed in Yokohama, had gone so far as to affirm this positively. Under these circumstances the Governor thought it his duty to inquire whether the Consul would take the trouble to ride up to Yedo, or whether he preferred to have the dead body brought down to Yokohama in order to examine it.

Mr Mitchell expressed himself in favour of the former course, adding that he would leave at once. To this the Governor replied that a mounted escort would be placed at his disposal in half an hour.

Mitchell had at first intended to ask Thomas Ashbourne to accompany him, but he abandoned the idea. Poor Djusanban had become a sad and quiet man since the death of Daniel Ashbourne, and Mitchell wished to spare him the painful sight of the slain murderer of his brother. He therefore asked young Gilmore to go with him; and the latter agreeing to it, the two Englishmen, followed by four Japanese officers, arrived after a sharp ride of three hours in Yedo, where the chief of their escort led them to the palace of the Tycoon.

It was already dark when they approached the vast building surrounded by strong walls, which, according to Japanese ideas, made it an impregnable fortress. Having passed the drawbridge they were requested to dismount, as nobody except the Tycoon had the right to enter the palace on horseback. A young officer joined them, and, bowing politely, asked the Consul and his friend to follow him, and led them, without any more words, to the place where the dead man lay.

A gloomy silence reigned in the vast deserted courtyards. Not a human being was visible. At last the party reached a wooden shed, at the door of which were two Japanese servants, with paper lanterns ready, who led the way into a dark room in which the atmosphere was damp and heavy, and at the end of which they placed themselves right and left of a shapeless mass covered with ragged Japanese matting. The officer pushed the cover off with his foot, and a white naked body became visible, as the servants held their lanterns over the quiet face.

"Jervis!" whispered Mitchell and Gilmore. He did not look like a murderer. Death had softened and ennobled that pale countenance which, even at the last moment, had been so terrible to his enemies. A wonderful expression of peace had come over it. On the left side of Jervis's breast there was a little bluish spot, showing where the arrow which pierced his heart had broken off.

The body was buried the next morning in the same place where the other murderers had been laid. There, in the burial-place of criminals that one place on earth where he had still a right to be -Jervis Hellington has now lain for twenty years.

Thomas Ashbourne and Patrick Inish have long disappeared from Japan, and only a few will remember even their names. Inish is dead. After many years Ashbourne conquered the grief which weighed on him. He has returned home, and every year during the season he goes to London, where at the club he meets friends from the East with whom he talks about the " good old Japanese times."

His youthful merriness and lightheartedness he has lost, with many other things belonging to youth; he has become a silent but not a sad man. For years he has not pronounced the name of Jervis.

But in Japan, about the lonin who attacked the gotairo in the midst of his guards in the open street and killed him, a legend has been formed. The Tycoon is overthrown: the Mikado, the legitimate emperor of Japan, rules again upon the throne of the realm of the Rising Sun. His former enemies figure in the history of to-day as hateful rebels; but those who, twenty years ago, first dared to begin the fight for the good cause, and who died for it, are revered as martyrs and heroes.

Not far from the spot where the nine lonin were buried like criminals, there stands now a little temple erected in memory of those who gave their lives for the Mikado. Around the temple is a wellkept little garden, full of blossoms and perfume during the summer.

Over one of these graves, a little apart from the rest, grows a beautiful camellia tree, of which the red and white flowers begin already to blossom in the winter. And that is the grave of the leader of the lonin. Nobody knows his name; his origin is lost in darkness, like the origin of the heroes of the old days; but the voice of the people, always eager for miracles, relates how his terrible look frightened the murderers who pursued him, until at last, struck by a poisoned arrow, he fell prone and gave up his fearless soul,-as becomes the hero who, dying, kisses the earth, so that she alone, the loving mother, may look into his face when death conquers him.

A SKETCH FROM SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE.

THE shadow of an inscription seems to us always to fall across the pretty English scenery lying round Leamington, and the inscription is, "Sacred to the Memory of Shakespeare and Scott." Associations with the greatest of Englishmen and the most brilliant of Scotchmen interlace, like the branches of the famous avenue of limes that leads through Stratford churchyard to the door of the church, for Kenilworth is at no great distance from Stratford. That is why the excellent Leamington hotel of the "Regent" is so largely patronised by Americans in the season; and why, should you drop in to the "Shakespeare" Shakespeare" or the "Falcon" of Stratford somewhere about the hours of high noon, you may probably lunch in their public parlours to a lively symphony of popping champagne-corks. For the pilgrimage to English shrines of immortal genius is become more especially a transatlantic institution. When the tide has once fairly set in, there is no stemming it; and it goes on swelling year after year, while wild Western men and fast-living stock-jobbers from Wall Street follow the lead of the cultivated Bostonians. Perhaps the pilgrims are generally more conscientious than enthusiastic, and they do their sightseeing and romancing in businesslike fashion. They economise "limbs" and time, and are lavish of carriage-hire; and though they have the chief points in some highly condensed guide - book at their finger-ends, they might break down in an examination on the plays or the novels. They might with advantage take a leaf out of the Sketch-Book' of their own

illustrious countryman. Washington Irving seldom wrote anything more delightful than his dreamily romantic little monograph on "Stratford-on-Avon," and he loved to take life leisurely, as he went lounging along the Warwickshire field-paths. But there can be no doubt that the Americans thoroughly enjoy their own peculiar manner of holiday-making, where the sense of a serious pursuit gives a flavour to perpetual picnicking, and where the spirits are kept in constant exhilaration by the neverending velocity of movement. And in their predilection for this particular resort, more of uneducated Englishmen might do well to imitate them. For with Englishmen, Shakespeare is something more than a household word: Scotchmen are catholic in their reverence for his memory, while of course they swear by the name of Scott; and South Warwickshire, although with small pretensions to grandeur of scenery, is nevertheless one of the most enticing districts in England, with that homely luxuriance that is so singularly winning.

Of Leamington itself there is little to be said. On revisiting it lately, in successive seasons, we confess to having been disenchanted of some of the rosy recollections of a happy childhood. We saw nothing of the comfortable donkeys in scarlet trappings that used to carry us, some time in the consulship of Plancus, along sylvan lanes to charming villages. The gardens of the pump-rooms, with their shady avenues of limes, throwing umbrageous foliage over the sluggish course of the Leam, seemed to have shrunk into a very commonplace grass enclosure, where the stalks of

brick chimneys towering in the background dwarfed the straggling trees in the park. The magnificent limes may have been felled, or possibly they may never have existed save in our fond childish imagination; but it is certain that Leamington has greatly changed for the better or the worse-since the days of the once celebrated Dr Jephson, commemorated, by the way, in the "Jephson Gardens." The town seems to be eminently prosperous it has spread in all directions over the adjacent pastures, swallowing up hedgerows and wildflowers in bricks and mortar; smart terraces and rows of semidetached villas are tenanted by retired Indian civilians and wellto-do men, overdone with large families, who appreciate the educational advantages of the college. It has actually suburbs with their own sanitary bounds. Its activity in "lighting" is shown by lines of gas-lamps, illuminating what used to be sequestered rural retreats, and shedding a sustained lustre on the tramways which communicate with the adjacent borough of Warwick; and there is a conspicuous monument to a public-spirited alderman who had assured the place an inexhaustible supply of pure water. And judging by the colouring and the odour of the Leam-an odour that overpowers the fragrance of the lime-blossoms--that gratitude to the civic dignitary is by no means misplaced.

But if there is little to be said of Leamington, and less to be seen in it, it is a most eligible centre for sundry delightful excursions. The Avon is an enchanted and enchanting river-the very type of an unpretending English stream, glorified by nature and favoured by fortune. It is literally out of the running, in point of picturesqueness, if we contrast it with

such unbridled Scotch torrents as the Tummel or the Garry, famous in Highland song, for it scarcely seems to flow at all. It goes dozing and napping among reeds and beneath weeping alders and willows; it sleeps alike in the shadow and the sunlight, save where it breaks and flashes in unwonted agitation over the artificial cataracts near some venerable mill. Nevertheless it has rare beauties of its own, thanks to the varied wealth of green which everywhere adorns it. It takes its gentle course through verdant meadows, where the sleek cattle are half lost in rich herbage and rumination, when they have not sought refuge in the shallow pools from the troublesome flies and the swarming midges. Old halls and quaint cottages are mirrored in its placid surface; and you may see the grayling leaping in the shadows of the trees, each twig and leaf on the boughs being reflected as by the art of the photographer. We said the Avon was an enchanted stream, because its course seems to have been arranged to please the fancy. With the single exception of the keep of Kenilworth, it associates itself with all that is romantic in the scenery round Leamington. It winds its way through the park of Stoneleigh, seat of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, where perhaps the amateur of arboriculture may study to the best advantage the oaks that are the glory of the Warwickshire hedgerows. Passing within easy reach of the knoll of Blacklow, whither Piers Gaveston, the luckless favourite of the second Edward, was led to execution by his feudal enemy of Warwick, it sweeps under the amphitheatre of wood and limestone ridge that backs up the picturesque mansion of Guy's Cliff. It reflects the embattled river front

of Warwick Castle; it flings its arms fondly round the terraces of Charlecote; and finally, and before the excursionist from Leamington takes leave of it, it flows within a very few yards of the quiet resting-place of Shakespeare. In fact, go whither you will, through all that South Warwickshire country, the poet, the dreamer, and the artist ought to be equally at home. For the poet there should be inspiration, not only in the associations, but in the contemplation of tranquil nature in an indolent exuberance of beauty; while with the artist the difficulty must be the embarrassment of riches, as subjects shaping themselves into pictures crowd upon him at every turn.

Warily distrusting any signs of settled weather, we should advise the visitor to avail himself of the first fine day for the indispensable excursion to Stratford. Everything there depends on the sunshine, with the fitful lights and flickering shadows, for of course the expedition embraces the environs. To the west of the town is Shottery, to the east is Charlecote; and for various reasons it may be best to begin with the former place, which lies at the distance of about a mile on the country side of the railway station. At Stratford, all things except the church have felt the touch of time's effacing fingers, followed up by man's indiscreet restorations, and even the church bears marks of his handiwork at Shottery almost everything remains as it was. A pleasant footpath leads across the fields to one of the most primitive of scattered hamlets. When we visited it last May, the orchards were in full bloom, the apple-trees were covered with their flush of pink and white, and the blossoms were falling like snowflakes from the

came

white-sheeted cherries. There was a wealth of the old-fashioned flowers that Shakespeare loved in the gardens surrounding venerable cottages. As for the quaint old dwelling once inhabited by Ann Hathaway, it must be almost exactly as it was when the wild young woolcomber went courting thither, though thatchers and tilers have been busy with the roof. Indeed, unless you build in the solid northcountry fashion, with granite or freestone, there seems to be nothing like wood for standing weather. There is the venerable double cottage, gable-end on to the shady road, with the bulging eaves and the lozenged little windows, and the interlacement of the massive beams of blackened oak. It is but one of the innumerable cottages in similar style which we upon in each nook and corner of the county, many of them dating at least from the days of the Tudors. There is a gay, old-fashioned garden, of course, and an orchard running up the hill, where William Howitt has pictured the poet reposing and day-dreaming. -"his custom always of an afternoon," as it was that of the murdered majesty of Denmark. And in the days of his hot youth, when he was one of the company of hard drinkers in Stratford, who challenged, as the old stave tells us, all the villages around, going on roving commissions like our modern cricket teams, we can imagine how pleasant it must have been after a carouse to cool his forehead and let his fancies run riot under the spreading fruit-trees of Shottery. For we cannot doubt that he was ashamed of the follies that stained him, as of the friends, or rather the boon companions, who fell so infinitely beneath his level; and that he drained the aleflagons as he broke the Lucys' park pales, in the sheer exuberance of

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