and shook hands over and over again, and then duties, with dear calicoes and prints, rich machine sat down to eat and taik and drink, all of makers and agents, sallow cheeks of peasant which they did with a relish. When the second boys and girls, condemned to night work, and day bell rang, they got up with the rest, and, in slavery. The Great National Railway Line has earnest conversation, took their way to our never paid the government a single copeck. It train, got in, and sat down side by side. I found has, however, made large fortunes for several my new friend even more primitive than the American contractors, who, for a fixed sum per other. As the train started, the crossing was verst, furnish engines and carriages, and keep the resumed, and then I had to undergo another line in repair. Their contract is now about to fire of questions. Endeavouring to amuse these terminate, but it has been of so extraordinary a patriarchs as well as I could, the time passed character as to make it one of the curiosities of until we were approaching a station two hours Russia. Nicholas himself always recommended from Bullagonie. strangers to see the American railway contract, as one of his greatest curiosities. It must be said, however, that if the American contractors were cute enough to make an amazing bargain, they have kept the line in splendid order, and up to this moment it is not too much to say that there are not better carriages, finer engines, and a better plant in the world, than are to be found on the Petersburg and Moscow Railway.

"How different," said one, "is this from the old road to Moscow! It took seven days and about a hundred horses. Now, we do it without horses in twenty hours."

"Yes," said the other, "and see how fast it goes with such a heavy load. I cannot understand how the steam drags it along. This gentleman says that in England the steam is stronger, and they go sixty versts an hour; but it is a romance.'

"It is wonderful, but"-and a bright idea seemed to come into the speaker's head-"the most wonderful thing to me, is, that here I am going to Petersburg and you to Moscow, and yet here we are in one carriage. Railways are wonderful things. I cannot understand it."

There was general laughter, and the simple old man, who had spoken in good time, was put out at the station, there to wait the next day's train. Many tales of this kind are told of the bewildered notions of the peasantry concerning railways.

AMONG THE HORSE-KEEPERS AT MOSCOW,

But my travel now extends more than five hundred English miles beyond the railway, and at Moscow I must give myself up to the tender mercies of yeamshicks, tarantasses, hack-horses, indescribable and unknown roads, filthy inns, and abominable station-houses. In an evil hour I had made a business engagement in the south of Russia, which would require more than twelve months' residence on the spot; and as the climate and country were said to be fine, and a firstclass residence, with other good things, were promised, I took my whole family with me, The country through which this railway runs | determined to make a pleasure trip of it, if is a weary waste of bog and stunted wood. The possible. So, I had with me a wife, and half a eye and the mind sicken at the eternal sameness dozen young children, also a handy man, who of the dreary prospect, as hour after hour passes had just arrived from England seeking work, and there is no change for the better. A dozen and who went to assist in the practical part of or two apparently of mud heaps, in reality of the business I had undertaken. This man wooden huts, in the centre of a barren plain, turned out an invaluable friend for a rough stand for a village. A stranger might pass journey, and an excellent comrade in all outmany such without knowing them to be human door sports. He had broad shoulders, and habitations. Beavers are better housed. If we the most powerful arms I ever saw. The only look narrowly, we may perceive that the ground difficulty I had with him was to keep him from for some distance around these places has been using his arms like sledge-hammers on Russcratched over, and that the vegetation is of ryesians of every degree for real or imaginary and beet, struggling out of the hungry earth. outrages on our dignity as true-born Englishmen. The want of fences, trees, parks, animal or And as he did not understand one word of human life, makes it difficult to believe that Russ, he was constantly the prey of false imagisuch growths represent cultivation. The prin- nations. cipal stations are tastefully surrounded with A journey of eight hundred versts in Russia gardens and trees, and have in their neighbour- is an undertaking of some risk for able-bodied hood excellent dwelling-houses for the super-men; but if females and children are added, intendents and workmen engaged in the engine depôt; but the moment we pass these oases, the desert begins again.

The Tvere station is the most important on the line; for, here is the navigable commencement of that long river, the Volga, from which comes much wealth of grain, flax, hemp, timber, and all kinds of raw produce, not forgetting the sturgeon, and, to a Russian, its delicious "eckra," or caviare. At Tvere, also, the traveller by rail may see, as he passes, two or three immense cotton-mills, suggestive of protective

there is need of more than ordinary care in deciding on the best method of taking it. So, in an English lodging-house, on the second day of my arrival in Moscow, I held after-dinner consultation with four or five experienced Englishmen, who had accomplished similar journeys. Each was loud on behalf of the particular plan he had himself adopted. One was clearly in favour of the government diligence as far as it went. But as this involved constant travelling without stopping for five nights and days, at a cost of twenty-five roubles each, on the chassée ;

Off we went to the quarter where the posting establishments of these people are situated. There was no difficulty in finding it, but as I crossed the bridge and went down into the low quarter sacred to yeamshicks and their teams, I felt inclined to cross myself, like a good One of our captors questioned me on the way; Russian. It was getting dark; the streets, but I prudently replied in their official language, houses, and people had a villanous, black, hang- by simply putting a rouble into the hands of each dog look. I could almost have turned back, soldier. That explained everything. When we but it was too late. We looked like customers, got into the presence of the district magistrate, and, before we could turn round, were sur- an officer in blue clothes and brass buttons (a. rounded by some twenty or thirty rival yeam-chinovnick), I made no reply to any of his quesshicks, who rushed out upon us from yawning twisted wooden gateways and small tumbledown houses.

"Be pleased to ask them how this affair hap-police-office as fast as an "isvostchick" could pened." take me, with the pleasant sense of another ten roubles gone. Making my way to the chief officer on duty, I said, "Pray excuse me, your honour. My wife has been here about a diamond ring ?"

On the way home, I asked the English interpreter what was done with the other six roubles ? "Hush!" he said; "I suppose they have neg-woman. Now, will you be so kind as to stop lected to give back the change."

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

Published at the Office, No. 26, Whần giơn đire, suami. Printed by C. Wataiso, Beaufort House, Strand.

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

No. 133.]

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1861.

A STRANGE STORY.

[PRICE 2d.

placed within reach of my knowledge. In this they resemble the diamond; when the chemist

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. has found that the diamond affords no other sub

CHAPTER XXXIV.

I WALKED on slowly and with the downcast head of a man absorbed in meditation. I had gained the broad place in which the main streets of the town converged, when I was overtaken by a violent storm of rain. I sought shelter under the dark archway of that entrance to the district of Abbey Hill which was still called Monkgate. The shadow within the arch was so deep that I was not aware that I had a companion till I heard my own name, close at my side. I recognised the voice before I could distinguish the form of Sir Philip Derval.

"The storm will be soon over," said he, quietly. "I saw it coming on in time. I fear you neglected the first warning of those sable clouds, and must be already drenched."

I made no reply, but moved involuntarily away towards the mouth of the arch.

"I see that you cherish a grudge against me!" resumed Sir Philip. "Are you, then, by nature vindictive ?"

Somewhat softened by the friendly tone of this reproach, I answered, half in jest, half in earnest,

You must own, Sir Philip, that I have some little reason for the uncharitable anger your question imputes to me. But I can forgive you on one condition."

"What is that ?"

stance by its combustion than pure carbonic acid gas, and that the only chemical difference between the costliest diamond, and a lump of pure charcoal, is a porportion of hydrogen, less than

part of the weight of the substance-can the chemist make you a diamond?

"These, then, the more potent, but also the more perilous of the casket's contents, shall be explored by no science, submitted to no test. They are the keys to masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, which no mortal can pass through without rousing dread sentries never seen upon this side her wall. The powers they confer are secrets locked in my breast, to be lost in my grave; as the casket which lies on my breast shall not be transferred to the hands of another, till all the rest of my earthly possessions pass away with my last breath in life, and my first in eternity."

“Sir Philip Derval,” said I, struggling against the appeals to fancy or to awe, made in words so strange, uttered in a tone of earnest conviction, and heard amidst the glare of the lightning, the howl. of the winds, and the roll of the thunder-"Sir Philip Derval, you accost me in language which, but for my experience of the powers at your command, I should hear with the contempt that is due to the vaunts of a mountebank, or the pity we give to the morbid beliefs of his dupe. As it is, I decline the confidence with which you would favour me, subject to the conditions which it seems you would impose. My profession abandons to quacks all drugs which may not be analysed; all secrets which may not be fearlessly told. I cannot visit you at Derval Court. I cannot trust myself, voluntarily, again in the power of a man, who has arts of which I may not examine the nature, by which he can impose on my imagi

Your analysis of the contents," returned Sir Philip, dryly, "would leave you as ignorant as before of the uses to which they can be applied. But I will own to you frankly, that it is my in-nation and steal away my reason." tention to select some confidant among men of science, to whom I may safely communicate the wonderful properties which certain essences in that casket possess. I invite your acquaintance, nay, your friendship, in the hope that I may find such a confidant in you. But the casket contains other combinations, which, if wasted, could not be re-supplied; at least, by any process which the great Master from whom I received them

Reflect well, before you so decide," said Sir Philip, with a solemnity that was stern. "If you refuse to be warned and to be armed by me, your reason and your imagination will alike be subjected to influences which I can only explain by telling you that there is truth in those immemorial legends which depose to the existence of magic."

"Magic!"

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133

"There is magic of two kinds-the dark and fearful tempter. Did you now possess what at evil, appertaining to witchcraft or necromancy; this moment you desire, how bitterly you would the pure and beneficent, which is but philosophy, repent." applied to certain mysteries in Nature remote from the beaten tracks of science, but, which deepened the wisdom of ancient sages, and can yet unriddle the myths of departed races.”

"Do you still refuse my demand ?"
"I refuse."

"If then you really need me, it is you who will repent."

I passed from the arch into the open space. The rain had paused, the thunder was more distant. I looked back when I had gained the opposite side of the way, at the angle of a street which led to my own house. As I did so, again the skies lightened, but the flash was comparatively slight and evanescent; it did not penetrate the gloom of the arch; it did not bring the form

of the outer buttress to the gateway, I descried the outline of a dark figure, cowering down, huddled up for shelter, the outline so indistinct and so soon lost to sight, as the flash faded, that I could not distinguish if it were man or brute. If it were some chance passer-by, who had sought refuge from the rain, and overheard any part of our strange talk, "the listener," thought I, with a half smile, "must have been mightily perplexed."

"Sir Philip," I said, with impatient and angry interruption, "if you think that a jargon of this kind be worthy a man of your acquirements and station, it is at least a waste of time to address it to me. I am led to conclude that you desire to make use of me for some purpose which I have a right to suppose honest and upright, because all you know of me is, that I rendered to your relation services which cannot lower my cha-of Sir Philip into view; but, just under the base racter in your eyes. If your object be, as you have intimated, to aid you in exposing and disabling a man whose antecedents have been those of guilt, and who threatens with danger the society which receives him, you must give me proofs that are not reducible to magic; and you must prepossess me against the person you accuse, not by powders and fumes that disorder the brain, but by substantial statements, such as justify one man in condemning another. And, since you have thought fit to convince me that there are chemical means at your disposal, by which the imagination can be so affected as to accept, temporarily, illusions for realities, so I again demand, and now still more decidedly than before, that while you address yourself to my reason, whether to explain your object or to vindicate your charges against a man whom I have admitted to my acquaintance, you will divest yourself of all means and agencies to warp my judgment, so illicit and fraudulent as those which you own yourself to possess. Let the casket, with all its contents, be transferred to my hands, and pledge me your word that, in giving that casket, you reserve to yourself no other means by which chemistry can be abused to those influences over physical organisation, which ignorance or imposture may ascribe to―magic.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

ON reaching my own home, I found my servant sitting up for me with the information that my attendance was immediately required. The little boy whom Margrave's carelessness had so injured, and for whose injury he had shown so little feeling, had been weakened by the confinement which the nature of the injury required, and for the last few days had been generally ailing. The father had come to my house a few minutes before I reached it, in great distress of mind, saying that his child had been seized with fever; and had become delirious. Hearing that I was at the mayor's house, he had hurried thither in search of me.

I felt as if it were almost a relief to the troubled and haunting thoughts which tormented me, to be summoned to the exercise of a familiar knowledge. I hastened to the bedside of the little sufferer, and soon forgot all else in the anxious struggle for a human life. The struggle promised

"I accept no conditions for my confidence, though I think the better of you for attempting to make them. If I live, you will seek me your-to be successful; the worst symptoms began to | self, and implore my aid. Meanwhile, listen to me, and

"No; I prefer the rain and the thunder to the whispers that steal to my ear in the dark from one of whom I have reason to beware."

So saying, I stepped forth, and at that moment the lightning flashed through the arch, and brought into full view the face of the man beside mc. Seen by that glare, it was pale as the face of a corpse, but its expression was compassionate and serene.

I hesitated, for the expression of that hueless countenance touched me; it was not the face which inspires distrust or fear.

yield to remedies prompt and energetic, if simple. I remained at the house, rather to comfort and support the parents, than because my continued attendance was absolutely needed, till the night was well-nigh gone, and, all cause of immediate danger having subsided, I then found myself once more in the streets. An atmosphere palely clear in the grey of dawn had succeeded to the thunderclouds of the stormy night; the street-lamps, here and there, burned wan and still. I was walking slowly and wearily, so tired out that I was scarcely conscious of my own thoughts, when in a narrow lane, my feet stopped almost mechanically before a human form stretched at full length in the centre of the road, right in my path. The form was dark in the shadow thrown from the neighbouring houses. "Some poor drunkard," thought I, and the humanity inseparable from my