

No. 42.]

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1876

[Price: ONE PENNY



Scarcely weeping, scarcely sighing, she is sitting sad and lonely : The book that she was reading lies un closed where it was flung : There is a bitter sorrow, one life-trouble, and one only,

That can cast so deep a shadow on a face so fair and young. Draw near: she will not see you. Grief has blinded her, poor creature :^ Her eyes may rest upon you —no im pression lingers there : But note her figure's symmetry, note every perfect feature. And mark the sunlight glancing in the ripples of her hair.

O'er the brow of yonder mountain the orb of day is sinking, Her glances pass beyond it, through the wilderness of thought; Her little hand supports her aching fore head —she is thinking Of what was once the world to her and what to-day is naught. A little fitful day-dream that was pleasant while it lasted : A cruel, rude arousing to a world that would not dream,

Had left her naught to cling to, save a hope that now had fasted So long, that it had starved to death and left despair supreme. She had waited with a patience, that was something more than human, And her eyes were ever fastened on the long-expected goal; Now a heart of stone had bruised and crushed the tender heart of woman, And she turned and crushed her rival in the anguish of her soul. That very day she met him as the husband of another —

Oh! 'twas a hard, hard struggle, but she had the strength to vein. She met him calm and smiling, and she forced herself to smother The outward signs of agony that gnawed the heart within.

Did he look below that smiling face and read the thoughts ? I wonder 1 Did he recognise the passions that were working far beneath ? '•, Did he view that fair exterior as a. sonny gleam ere thunder ? '. Did he deem that beauty but the I flowers that deck the funeral wreath ? I know not if her eyes could pierce the calm, cold self-reliance, That settled, scarce perceptibly, around her shrinking form, I know not if his ear could catch the half tone of defiance That murmured in her greeting like the breathings of the storm. For him she had forsaken home and friends and maiden duty, Contented, for his single sake, from all the rest to part; [ Outcast and solitary now, with her for gotten beauty, The venom of his thanklessness is curd ling at her heart. What wonder if she sought revenge ? —a helpless woman's vengeance, I Yet, striking to the heart it seeks a deeper blow than all— »What fiendish rack, what horrid art of I torture's hideous engines | Could pain him as it pained his eye to I gaze upon her pall ? -, I The sun that set upon her grief now gildß the eastern heaven, > And lights into an aureole each floating golden curl — Oh ! may her rash percipitance, forgotten and forgiven, Be buried 'neath the tombstone of the i T»oor deluded girl.

He came, as he had promised he would meet her on the morrow, k Prepared with all the sophistry his false I heart could devise ; I What sophistry of his had power to lift the weight of sorrow ! That pressed upon that ashen brow and sealed those hidden eyes ? I ,Tis when wo see some valued friend lie cold and pale before us, We think of many an idle word, a long forgotten strife', Which then was scaicely reckedof, but stern memory now brings o'er us I Each coldness and unkindness in the moments of his life. ijßut if in that stilled heart a thorn thou I ruthlessly hast planted ; I If ye have quarreled, and thy pride hath [ stood in friendship's way ; j If thou hast ere denied the love for which ! that bosom panted, p. Thou never canst forgive thyself—God i- pity thee that day. JCHis grief was better for his tears, his love for her was firmer I lhan ever, as he pressed her lips with one last reverend touch, |And as he turned him at the door he seem ed to hear a murmer: * 'Tis writ, Her sins are blotted out, for she hath loved much. 1 —G.H. JESSOP.



We were very quiet, Mary and I, as we strolled out of the churchyard, down one of the lanes, and then crossing a style, we went through a couple of fields and sat down on another stile, with the high hedge on either side of us and the meadow that they were beginning to mow at the otker end, one glorious bed of flowers, and soft, feathery grass.

'_ ' Polly,' says I at last, breaking the silence, ' ain't this lovely ?' 'And you feel better she says, putting her hand on mine.

' Better !' I says, taking a long draught of the soft, sweet-scented air, and filling my chest, ' better, old girl; I feel as if I was growing backward into a boy.' 'And you fifty last week !' she says. ' Yes,' I says, smiling, ' and you forty seven next week.' And then we sat thinking for a bit. ' Polly,' I saya at last, as I sat there drinking in that soft breeze, and feeling it give me strength. ' it's worth being ill, only to feel as I do now.'

For you see I'd been very bad, else I dare say I'm not the man to go hanging about churchyards and watching funerals. I'm a stoker and my work lies in steamers trading to the East. I'm come home from my last voyage bad with fever, and had been carried home to die, as my mates thought, and it was being like this and getting better that had set me thinking so seriously and made me so quiet. JSTot that I was ever a noisy sort of man, as any one who knows me will say. And now, after getting better, the doctor had said I must go into the country to get strong ; so, as there was no more voyaging until I was strong, there was nothing for it but to leave the youngsters under the care of the eldest girl and a neighbor and come and take lodgings out in this quiet Surrey village. Polly never thought I should get better, and one time no more did I ; for about a month before this time, asl lay hollow-eyed and yellow on the bed, knowing, too, how bad I looked, for I used to make young Dick bring me the looking-glass every morning, the doctor came as usual and, like a blunt Englishman, I put it to him flat:

' Doctor,' I says, ' You doti'fc think I shall get better ?' and I looked him straight in the ha.

'Oh come, come, niy man ! lie says, smiling, ' don't look at the black side of it like that.

1 None of that, doctor,' I says, out with it like a man. I can stand it. I've been expecting to be drowned or blown-up half my life, so I shan't be scared at what you may say. ' Weil, my man,' he saysj your symptoms are of a very grave nature. You see the fever had undermined you before you came home, and, unless——'

'All right, doctor, I says, 'I understand. You meant that unless you can get a new plate in the boiler she won't stand another voyage

' Oh, come ! we wou't look upon it ag a hopeless case, he says. • There's always hope.' After a little more talk he shook hands went away.

Next day when he cams I had been thinking it all over, and was ready for him I don't believe I was a bit better. In fact I know I was drifting fast, and I saw it in his eyes as well. I waited till he had asked me his different questions, and then, just as he was getting up to go, I asked him to sit down again, 1 Polly, my dear,' I says, 41 want a few words with the doctor ;' and she put her apron up to her eyes and went out, closing the door after her very softly, while the doctor looked at me curious-like, and waited forme to speak.

• Doctor,' I says, " you've about given me up. There, don't shake your head for X know. Now, don't you think I'm afraid to die, for I don't believe I am; but look here. There's seven children down stairs, and if I leave my wife a widow, with tha few pounds I have been able to save, what's to become of them ? Can't you pull me through ?' •My dear fellow,' he says honestly, 'I've done everything I can for your case.' • That's what you think doctor,' I says. • Bat look here. I've been at sea thirty years, and in seven wrecks, It's been like dodging death with me a score of times. Why, I pulled my wife there regularly out of the hands of death, and I'm not going to give up now. I've been ' 1 Stop, stop,' he says, gently. ■' You re exciting yourself.' • Not a bit.' I says though my voice was quite a whisper. ' I've had this over all night, and I come to think I must be up and doing my duty.' ' But my good man —'he began. •Listen to me, doctor,' 1 says. 'A score of times I might have given up and been drowned,, but I made a fight for it and was saved. Now I mean to make a fight for it right here, for the sake of the wife and bairns. I don't mem to die doctor, without a struggle, I believe this

here, that life is given to us all as a treasure to keep. We might throw it away by oui' own folly at auy time ; but there's hundreds of times we might preserve it, and we never know when we can save it tell we try. Give's a drink of that water.'

He held the glass to my lips and I took a big draught, and went on, he seeming all the time to be stopping to humor me in my madness.

' That's better, doctor,' I says, ' Now, look here, sir, speaking as one has sailed the seas, it's a terrible stormy time with me. There's a lee shore close at hand, the fires are drowned out, and unless we can get up a bit of sail, there's no chance for me. Now, then, doctor, can you get up a bit of sail ?'

' I will go and send you something that will quiet you,' he said rising. ' Thankey, doctor,' I says, smiling to myself. ' And now, look here. 'I'm not going to give up till the last, and when that last does comes, and the ship's going down, why, I shall have a try if I can't swim to safety, if that fails, and I can really feel that it is to be, why, I hope I shall go down into the great deep calmly, like a hopeful man, praying that Somebody above will forgive me all I have done amiss, and stretch out His fatherly hand 'to my little ones/ He weDt away and I dropped to sleep, worn out with my exertion.

When I awoke, Polly was standing by the bedside, watching me, with a bottle and a glass on the little table. As soon as she saw my eyes open, she shook up the stuff and poured it into a wine class.

' Is that what the doctor sent ?' I says. 1 Yes, dear; you were to take it, directly.' •Then I shan't take it,' I says. 'He's give me up, and the stuff's only to keep me quiet. Polly, you go and make me some beef-tea, and, make it strong.'

She looked horrified, poor girl, and was about to beg me to take hold of the rotten life-belt he'd sent me, when I held out my shaking hand for it, took the glass, and let it tilt over —there was only about a couple of teaspoonfuls in it—and the stuff fell on the carpet. I saw the tears come in her eyes, but she said nothing—only put down the glass, and ran out to make the beef-tea.

The doctor dint come till late next day, and I was lyiag very still and drowsy, half-sleep-like, but I was awake enough to hear him whisper to Polly, ' Sinkng fast; and I heard her give such a heart-broken sob that, as the next great wave came on the sea where I was floating, I struck out with all my might, rose over it, and float ed gently down on the other side. And it was a grim, hard fight ; a dozen times I could have given it up, folded my arms, and said good-by to the dear old watching face safe on shore ; but a look at that alvays cheered me, and I fought on again and again, till at last the sea seemed to go down, and in utter weariness I turned on my back to float restfulyl with the tide bearing me shoreward, till I touched the sands, crept up them, and fell down, worn out, to sleep in the sun— safe!

That's a curious way of putting it, you may say, but it seems natural to me to mix it up with things of seagoing life ,and the manner in which I Have seen so many fight hard for their lives. Ifc was just like striving in the midst of a storm to me, and, when at last I fell into a deep sleep, I felt surprised-like to find myself in my own bed, with Polly watching by me; and when I stretched, out my hand and took hers, she let loose that which she had kept hidden from me before, and, falling on her knees by my bedside, she sobbed for joy. 'As much beef-tea and brandy as you can getj him to take,' the doctor says that afternoon; and it wasn't long before I got from slops to solids, and thenfwas sent, as I told you, into the country to get strong, while the doctor got no end of praise for the cure he made.

I never said a word though, even to Polly, for he did his best ; and I don't think any medicine would have cured me then.

I was saying a while back that I pulled my wife regularly out of the hands of death, and of course that was when we were both quite young, though, for the matter of that, I don't feel much different, and can't well see the change. That was in one of thejCape steamers when I first took the stoking. They were little, ramshackle sort of boats in those days, and how it was that more weren't lost i*; puzzles me. It was more due to the vreather than the make or fiding of the ships, I can tell you, that they used to find their way to port, and yet the passengers, poor things, knowing no better, used to take passage, ay, and make a voyage too, from which they never got back! Well, I was working on board a steam er, as they used to call the ' Equator', and heavy-laden, and with about twenty pas sengers on board, we started down channel with all well, till we got right down off the west coast of Africa, when there came

one of the heaviest storms I was ever in. Even for the well-found steamer, such as they can build today, it would hav6 been a hard fight, but with our poor, shaky, wooden tub, it was a hopeless case from the first.

Our skipper made a brave fight of it, though, and tried hard to make for one of the ports ; but, bless you, what can a man do when, aftor ten days knocking about, the coals run out, and the fires that have been kept going with wood and oil, and everything that can be thrust into the furnaces, are drowned; when the paddle-whnels are only in the way, every bit of sail set is blown clean out of the bolt-ropes, and at last the ship begins to drift fast for a lee shore?

That was our case, and every hour the sea seemed to get higher and the wind more fierce, while I heard from more than one man how fast the water was gaining

My mate and I didn't want any telling, though. We'd been driven up out of the stokehole like a pair of drowned rats, and came on deck to find the bulwarks ripped away, and the sea every now and then leaping aboard, and washing the lumber about in all directions.

The skipper was behaving very well and he kept us all at the pumps, turn and turn in spells, but wo might as well try to pump the sea dry, and when, with the water gaining fast, wo told him what we thought, he owned it was no use, and wo gave up.

We'd all been at it, crew and passengers, about forty of us altogether, including the women —fire of them they were, and they were all on dack, lashed in a sheltered place, close to the poop. And very pitiful it was to see them fighting hard at first and clinging to the side, but only to grow weaker, half-drowned as they were ; and I saw two sink down at last, and hang drooping-like from their lashings, dead, for not a soul could do them a turn.

I was holding on by the sbrouds when the mate got to the skipper's side, and I saw in his blank white face what ho was telling him. Of course wo couldn't hear his words in such a storm, but we didn't want to, for his lips said plain enough :

' She's sinking !' Next moment there was a rush made for the boats, and two of the passengers cut loose a couple ot the women ; place was made for them before the first boat was too full; she was lowered down, cast off, and a big wave carried her clear of the steamer, I saw her for a moment on the top of the ridge, and then she plunged down on the other side out of our si'^ht — and that of every body else ; for how long she lived, who can say? She was never picked up or heard of again. Giving a bit of choer our chaps turned to the next, and were gotting in, when there came a wave like a mountain, ripped her from the davits, and, when I shook the water from my eyes, there she was hanging by one end, stove in, and the men who had tried to launch her gone, skipper and mate as well. There were only seven of us now, that I could see besides the three women lashed to the side, and only one of them was alive; and for a bit no one moved, everybody being stunned-like with horror; but there came a lull, and feeling that the steamer was sinking undor our feet, I shouted out to the boys to come on, and wo ran to the last boat, climbed in, and were casting off, when I happened to catch sight of the women lashed under the bulwarks there.

• Hold hard !' I roars, for I saw one of them wave her hand.

' Come on, you fool !' shouts my mate, ' she's going down !'' I pray I may never be put So it again like that, with all a man's selfish desire iorglife fighting against him. For a moment I shut my eyes, and then began to lower; but I was obliged to open them again, and, as I did so, I saw a > wild, scareed face, with long wet hair clinging round it, and a pair of little white hands were stretched out to me as for help.

'Hold hard!' I shouts

' No, no !' roared out two or three, ' there isn't a moment;' and, as the boat was being lowered from the davits, I made a jump, caught the bulwarks with my hands, snd climbed on board, just as the boat kissed the water, was unhooked, and floated away. Then, as I crept, hand-over-hand, to the girl's side, whipped out my knife, and was cutting her loose, while her weak arms clung to me, I felfc a horrible feeling of despair come over me, for the boat was leaving us ; and I, what a coward I was at heart, as had to fight with myself, so as not to leave the girl to her fate and leap overboard and swim for my life.. I got the better of it, though, went down on my knees, so as not to see the boat, and got the poor trembling, clinging creature loose.

'Now, my lass ,' I says, 'quick'—and I raised her up —'hold on by the side while I make a rope fast around you.'

And when I stood up to hail the boat — the boat as warn't there, for in those brief moments she must have capsized, and we were alone on the sinking steamer, which now lay in the trough of the se.s»

As soon as I got over the horror of the feeling, a sort of stony despair came over me; but when I saw that pale appealing face at my side, looking to me for help, that brought the manhood back, and, in saying encouraging things to her, I did myself good.

My first idea was to make something that would float us, bat I gave up that direct ly, for I conld feel that 1 was helpless;and, getting the poor girl more into shelter, I took a bit of tobacco in a sort of stolid way, and sat down with a cork life-buoy over my arm, one which I had cut loose from where it had hung forgotten behind the wheel.

Bat I never used it, for the storm went down fast, and the steamer floated still, water-logged, for three days, when we were picked up by a passing vessel, half starved, but hoping. And during that time my companion had told me that she was the attendant of one of the lady passengcrs on board; and at last, when wo parted at the Capo, she kissed my hand, and called me her hero, who had saved her life—poor grimy me, you know. We warn'fc long, though, befcrj we met again, for somehow we'd settled that we'd write; and, a twelvemonth after, Mary was back in England, and my wife. That's why I said I took her like out of the hands of death, though in a selfish sort of a way, being far, you know, from perfect. But what I say, speaking, as Edward Brown, stoker, is this: Make a good fighc of it, no matter how black things may look, and leave the rest to Him. —[ 4 Once a Week.'



A xouNa han whose countenance betrayed deep emotion, went yesterday to the PoUce headquarters, and in a hoarse and hollow voice asked for detectives for one. A. guardian of the public peace having been indicated to him, he said to the official, in a tone which left no doubt of his earnestness :

' Mister, I want to be arrested, remand ed, held to the Grand Jury, found a true bill against, arraigned, assigned counsel, tried, convicted, sentenced, refused a new trial, and hanged. '

' Why so, Cap ?' replied the unmoved officer.

' Because,' said his conscience-stricken i,t;rlocutor, ' because I've killed a maD.'

' Well, continued the officer with a faint show of interest, ' that's all right: what did you kill him for P'

' I will tell you a damning story of my guilt,' said the man eagerly. I had a happy home up on the Bowery with garden-sass in the front yard, and the blessed presence of my children round my hearth. That house, sir, was frequented by (here adark look of a demoniac expression contorted his features in a momentary spasm) by men who '

1 Ah, who were after your wife ?' said the detective, delicately, out of respect for the man's too apparent grief ; ' and so the old woman's skipped out with him ? Want the guilty pair arrested and all the points given to the press ?'

4 No, no no !' answered the man.bnt, there was one man with a little satchel under his arm that wanted to sell the patent double-refined, self-adjusting, back acting rotary, revolving, compensatory combined stove-lifter, bed-key, boot-jack corkscrew and potaloe-masher, and after he had called every day for a few mouths I just killed him, and buried his corpse in the backyard. Send the flaming minis ters of justice with me, and J will find the remains ; then drag me to the deepest dungeon beneath the Central Station moat and feed me upon its loathsome vapora, and wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire.'

The officer rose, and, with the remark, ' I keep house myself,' wrung1 his hand, said, • that's all right,' and took him forth and narrated his simple and touching story to the multitude without. Tnree cheers were given the hero, and it was resolved to run him for Mayor, if the Supreme Court ordered anew election.—[Chicago Tri bune.

•Why is it, my dear sir, snid Waffle's landlady to him the other day, 'that you newspaper men never get rich ?' '1 do not know,' was his reply, 'except it is that dollars and sense do not always tra vel together.'

'The light fantstic toe 1 is rather hard on blonde hair.

Rheumatism is alsvajs a joint affair, and, yet there is only one party to it. Startling discovery of a little three-year old—'Why, papa, there's a hole in your hair.

Horrible times ! There's hardly a family in the land put kneeds bread'

'I am so lame from the rail-road crash of last week I can hardly stand/ said a limping, hobbling, fellow.—'Well, then, I hope you intend to sue for damages,' said his friend.—' Damages ! No, no ; I have had damages enough by them. If I sue for anything, it will be for repairs 1' The cheapest entertainment—To enter* tain a doubU ■ • -•■