The peculiar manner, and the rowdy lingo of Mr. Ginn, so familiar to the Dark Student as to excite no attention under ordinary circumstances, impress him vividly to-night. He contrasts him with Sir Philip Sidney, and Roger L'Estrange with Fenelon and Channing, and decides him to be a gross and vulgar caricature of humanity. He accounts him a social barbarian whom no missionary can, or will convert. He calls his speech, jargon; his manner, apish; his life, a farce; his soul-has he a soul?

But

"Life, my young friend," resumes Mr. Ginn, with much philosophical profundity of manner, "is a case. When a man drinks, it's a awful case. Not that a-don't take my toddy_when a-can-moderate, ye understand, an' for the good of the corporation. there's some people who do swill it down dreadful. When a-come across a man of that description, ye know, it does make me savage-well, it does. And when a-catch him a-lickin' his wife-well, now, that's tryin', ye see! a-just drop him!"

He puts up his left hand to impersonate the man that does it, and slaps his clenched fist against the palm, to illustrate the way in which he "drops" him. The Dark Student sinks him down another grade, as a ferocious wretch, and is disgusted.

"Similar to that," continues Mr. Ginn, is a hod-carrier a-come across t'other day. A cussed Irishman, of course. Gets drink somehow; dunno how, for he aint in work. Licks his wife, just for rum an' ugliness, an' drives the children out o' doors. Precious little they git for mudgeon, a-can tell ye. They'll starve yet, or your uncle's no prophet. A-just eatches. A-just catches him at that game, t'other night—woman a hollerin', but keepin' the cries shady, you know, for-a-m blowed if a-ever see the like of them women!they won't get their husbands into trouble by singing out, if they can help it, an' they'll stand any given amount of wallopin' from the brute beasts. Well, ye see, a-detects him a puttin' it on to ber, and a-just tears at him, tail up, yanks him down stairs, an' trims him awful handsome, a-can tell ye!"

"Look here, Ginn," says the Dark Student; "I don't admire your violence. You were just as bad as he was. Just as bad.'

VOL. VI.-2

Dark Student! In the old romances that you love to read, there are stories of strong men who were wont to obey their impulses and do such deeds as this man did, only that their chivalry was far more cruel, and took expiation of the wrong done, never short of heart's blood and heart's life. They were called knights errant. They wore the coat of mail, the barred hel met, and the plume. You read their chronicles with pleasure and with pride. And the point we make against you is, Dark Student, that you cannot see your own ideal of chivalric motives and chivalric deeds, when it leaves the mist of beauty which belongs to distance and time, and stands in the clear, common air of daily life, without the coat of mail, the barred helmet and the plume!

"If y you had given some food to the woman and her children, and let her husband alone, you'd have done better, in my opinion," continued the young man. "But you're more ready to fight than feed, Mr. Ginn."

Mr. Ginn says nothing, but turns away. "You got that basket ready, Charles?" he demands, from behind the counter.

"All right, sa," pipes the answering treble of the boy, as he lifts a covered basket from the floor.

The Dark Student looks at the basket, and Mr. Ginn looks in a furtive way at the Dark Student.

"It's some dirty towels," remarks the caterer, carelessly, feeding thus a supposed hunger of curiosity in the mind of his visitor, "a-goin' to the wash."

But the Dark Student does not heed him. He has taken the cigar from his lips, and is listening.

"What's that noise, Ginn ?" he asks. They both listen intently to a strange sound like dropping water, penetrated at intervals with something like a low moan. Unable to determine its nature for a moment, they then recognize it as sobbing. It evidently comes from the sidewalk, up the steps. The Dark Student walks hastily to the door, followed by Mr. Ginn, and looks up to the street. Mr. Ginn passes him, and discovers a child at the top of the descent, shrinking away from the light.

"Hullo, boy," cries Mr. Ginn, "what's the row? Here, you just come down here."

'What-in-thunder-are you doin' out o'doors this time o' night?" asks Mr. Ginn. "Come now, sonny, don't ye break your heart for nothin', ye know, or yer uncle 'll have to go into mournin', and crape's awful ex-pensive. Dry up-dry up. O Susanna, don't ye cry for me,' is the word. Where's yer mother, an' what's the special difficulty now?-"

It is some time before Mr. Ginn succeeds in reducing the child's grief to a low, stertorous sobbing. It is with some difficulty that he gets him to that state in which he consents to keep his small, dirty fists from his eyes. His face-a pinched, squalid, tear-stained, begrimed face-is expressive of real anguish. He is cold, too, and shivers. Mr. Ginn takes him summarily by the collar, drags him along on the run to the other end of the cellar, seizing a stool on the way, and planting it before the few coals in the range, sets him on it to get warm. Then he gets some victuals on a plate, and brings it to the child. He has to use some persuasion to make him eat what he has brought, which end he effects in his own rough way. The little fellow at last eats, and sobs-the former with some voracity. Some secret thrill, just stirring in the heart of the Dark Student, confesses that Mr. Ginn is not such a bad sort of a person, after all. But he suppresses it, and bides the sequel.

Now, then, my young cove," says Mr. Ginn, briskly, "a-just want to know -cat-e-gorically, where ye come from, and what ye'r a doin' out this time o' night? Where's yer mother?-an' how come she to let ye loose when you ought to be a-bed? Give'n account of yerself. Don't ye be afraid of your uncle, for he's goin' to be good to ye, an' you know he might leave ye some property in his will."

"Don't talk to the child in that way, Ginn," snaps the young man; "he wont understand you. You've asked for his mother half a dozen times already. What

has she to do with him-how do you know he's got one?"

66

'Wh-y! don't a man of your great intellect per-ceive that this boy's mother's that very Irish woman whose husband licks her? He's one o' the chil'ren. An' don't ye recollect givin' that boy a half a dollar out here in College street this very day? Saw ye do it, my-self, from a-window."

"O-h!" murmurs the Dark Student. It has not occurred to him before.

"O-v course," drawls Mr. Ginn. "There's a somethin' in the wind, ye see, and a-am bound to find it out! Why aint ye at home, sonny? Father been a-cuttin' up his pe-culiar didoes again, hey? Out with it!"

The little boy begins to cry again, and sobs out plaintively, in a voice just touched with a slight brogue, that father came home drunk, and he was afraid, and ran away.

"That's it, is it," says Mr. Ginn. "Did he lick yer mother? No? Was a-goin' to, I suppose, soon's he got ready. All right. We'll fix him.”

66

How came you to come down here ?” asks the Dark Student, kindly. "Did you-"

"Never you mind how he came down here," interrupts Mr. Ginn, growing very red in the face. "He follered his nose, probably. Wich is a small one, but ekal to the occasion."

The Dark Student forgets to resent this rude speech in wondering why Ginn colored so when he made it.

"For that's all right, you may bet your life," continues Mr. Ginn, "an' if it aint we'll make it right in the mornin'. Now then, we'll just shut up this shop, an' tortle. Say, you Charley, there's yer week's wages on the counter. can leg it now, an' mind yo'r here dreadful bright an' early on Monday morning, or I'll trim ye till yer skin's white!"

Ye

Off scrambles the mulatto boy with great celerity. Mr. Ginn sees that everything is in order, and then turns down the light. The Dark Student is already on the sidewalk. Mr. Ginn, with his beaver set jauntily on his head, the covered basket on his arm, and the child beside him, follows, locking the door behind.

"Of course you know where he lives," said the Dark Student, absently, refer ring to the boy.

"Don't a-though," answers Mr. Ginn "Well, a-don't know anything else!"

They go up North-Main street, in silence the little fellow trotting along beside them, with an occasional snuffle.

"Ginn," says the Dark Student, suddenly, as they reach the building in which he has his chambers, "do you know that I heard a scream in this quarter to-night?"

"No? Did ye, though?" is the answer; "what else?"

"Why, nothing else," is the reply; "it evidently came from those Irish houses in this alley, but I couldn't find out who made it."

"Well, this boy lives down here," says Mr. Ginn, as they enter the dark lane; "perhaps he knows about it."

The child, upon being questioned, does not know.

The trio stop for a moment before a wooden tenement, from whose half-open door issues a sickly smell, which makes the Dark Student shudder. His companion is of less delicate sensibilities, and has been, perhaps, inured by long endurance of such odors, for he manifests no emotion whatever. He waits, with stolid gravity, to hear some intimation of separation for the night, from the lips of the young man. evidently expects the Dark Student to depart; but no such intention is in that person's mind. He is rather curious to see what sort of a den this squalid boy is nightly kenneled in, and waits Mr. Ginn's escort.

He

"Hadn't we better go in, Ginn?" he remarks, carelessly; "let's see the end of it."

Y-e-s," hesitates Mr. Ginn; "looko'here; ye see that wooden house up the lane, across the street, don't you? House with a-porto-ricor, and pillars? O-v course; say, why couldn't ye just step along there-walk in at the front door-'tain't locked, ye know-into the room, right hand side of the entry— that's my room—and just wait there five minutes, and a-'ll be right along, and tell ye all about it. 'Cause, you know, there's a desperate case o' small-pox in this house, and you'd better not risk comin' in."

The Dark Student listens to this proposition. He sees the house with the portico and pillars. He sees, also, that Mr. Ginn wants to get rid of him.

"Bother, Ginn," he replies, "I'm not afraid of the small-pox; I want to go in with you; I want to talk to the boy's mother. Come, let us go ahead."

Mr. Ginn scowls, and looks dissatisfied.

"O well, a-don't care," he blurts out, "if ye just want to put yerself in danger, a-am willin'; on'y yer uncle wouldn't like to see ye spotted all over, an' yer head lookin' like a huckleberry puddin', and beyond vaccination, ye know. Go ahead, Timmy; and don't miss yer way in the dark, sonny."

ye

Timmy goes ahead, and they follow him up the cavernous gloom of the dark, crazy stairs, slowly groping their way on tip-toe. The boards creak beneath them at every step. The darkness is close and thick around them. Horrible smells, with one dense, sickly odor of greasy boiled cabbage above them all, fill the stifling air. Up one flight into a thicker darkness, where the smells are stronger; five uncertain steps along the corridor, holding by the clammy banister; around a corner up three stairs; around another, where they both stumble upon more stairs; up these, and they pause at length, with no definite idea of the shape and extent of the place where they stand. The house is strangely astir to-night. Subdued movements and deadened tones, which attended their groping ascent, with inarticulate sounds, gruff, muffled voices, and low whispers, now reach them as from a pit below, all blended in one vague sense of a hideous life, awake and moving in the wretched dwelling. What has broken the slumber of this many-peopled den to-night? Listen to the murmurs that infest the darkness! Listen!

The boy has opened a door-it must have been ajar, for it made no sound in opening. They have a consciousness of some cavity, through which creeps a breath of warm, foul air, tainted with a strange, vapid odor. What is it? It flashes upon the Dark Student, and conscience rises in his breast, aghast, and smites him! The dying murmurs seem to swell into a wild, accusing roar. The memory of what he would have done an hour ago sweeps upon him like a whirlwind; a blacker darkness rushes down and floods the impenetrable gloom; and, while his knees tremble, and a cold sweat starts upon his forehead, and thrills of fear creep through his frame, he feels the sense of a dreadful finger, pointing at him from the eclipse around. He perceives the odor of laudanum.

He hears the voice of his companion subdued to a low whisper, bidding the boy wake up his mother, or get a light. H& hears the little bare feet pattering about in the darkness, and then he hears them stumble. There is an incoherent sound of other children's voices from a room within, talking and crying blended. Then there is a low moan, and the child begins to cry. Is it something white, stirring there within on the floor? Hush! another moan; another stir of that white, formless something! The child is still crying, but in a hushed, forlorn way. He hears his companion fumbling in his clothes, and then he sees the blue scratch of a lucifer on the adjacent wall. Another, and another, and the match spits bluely and ignites. Before it fairly flames, Ginn has stepped softly into the room, shading it with his hand. It lights, and the darkness vanishes. Good God! what is this! There is a man lying on his back on the floor, and a woman huddled near him in her nightdress! The light only glares for an instant on her agonized and ashen face, and the glassy stare of her eyes, and then goes out, leaving them in a more dreadful darkness. What is it? what is it? A hundred whispering voices scem to gibber the words upon the air. He had only one glimpse of his companion, in which he had seen him standing with the basket on his arm, and the match in his raised hand; but he had seen him in that moment turn deadly pale, and open his mouth like one who gasped for air. Quick, Ginn, quick! for God's sake! there's something the matter here! The match will not light, Ginn tries another, succeeds, and gets a lamp lighted which he has found on the chimney-piece. The awful secret of the room is laid bare!

They have raised the woman from the floor, and laid her, feebly moaning, in the bed. They have touched the body on the floor. It is moist and warm to their touch, but the life is there no longer. He is quite dead. It is a dreadful sight to see the corpse in its torn, soiled, laborer's clothes, lying there amidst the squalid confusion of the room, the burly limbs all relaxed, and the yellow, rigid, brutal face, and bleared eyes wide open, staring at the low ceiling. A lamp, which had fallen from her hand, lies there beside him, with its tube and wick soaking in a small prol of oil. There is a black

bottle lying on the floor near his hand. Rum, of course. He has drunk himself to death. Take it up! smell of it! No: he drank much rum in his poor, besotted life; but for his last and most effectual draught, he chose another poison. There is nothing in the bottle, now, but the smell of the laudanum that killed him.

You

Take the question to your heart, Dark Student, and meditate it well! Judge between a deed attempted and a deed done; compute the difference, and decide whose is the greater sin ! would, after your manner, have drunken poison from a dainty glass, because you were weary of the world, which had done nothing to weary you-and you knew too little, and cared too little, what it had done. This poor extinguished clod-perhaps, he too, was weary of the world; and I will give you odds that he had some good, substantial, desperate reason for being so, where you had none. He, too, after his coarser manner, drank his poison from a vulgar bottle, with no dark, romantic thought of Aqua Tofana, the subtile poison of Italian vengeance, and fatal wine of the Borgias; but, perchance, with some unutterable, savage, and frightful rage at the life which he had never known how to command, and turn to profit or to honor; and with a violent desire to drown it with the liquid death which is now within him. Think of it! He was a poor, ignorant, besotted, brutalized Irish laborer. Generations past, and a generation present, of a selfism of which yours is but the microcosm and pigmy symbol, resulted in him, as in millions like him, making him all he was, and never to rise above that level, but to sink lower and lower forever. You are not poor, nor ignorant, nor besotted, nor brutalized, nor branded, even in the Christian land where all are free and equal, with the stigma of an alien birth and low condition; nor have you ever done the fair day's work for the unfair day's wages, which cursed him with the unequal curse of the race of Adam. He lies there on the bare floor of this wretched chamber, stark dead, with a hundred reasons for his death written on his miserable visage. You, too, could you have had your way, would have lain thus in to-morrow's sunlight; but not upon a bare floor, nor in a squalid chamber, nor with one excuse legible on your face, or on the his

tory of your luxurious life, for such an act; but only your base and selfish weariness of a world in which men like you should be healers and redeemers -only that excuse which is a pretext and a lie! Think of it, Dark Student! Think of it while the crust around your heart is shattering before an agony and a sorrow not your own. Think of it while you hear the heart-broken moans of the wife who clung to him, and loved him, though beaten and abused; and think of it while you listen to the frightened sobbing of his child!

His child. Ginn has seated himself in horror and stupefaction, and the little fellow cowers near him, terrified, and crying. There is more crying, too, hard by. In an adjoining room there are two little girls. They are to be seen sitting in a trundle-bed, afraid to leave it, and weeping bitterly. None of the children know precisely what has happened. Their childish lamentations, mingled with the low moans of the mother, hardly disturb the fearful inner hush of the room. Ginn gets up, and motioning his companion to silence, takes the boy in his arms, carries him into the room, and, putting him into the bed with them, bids him stay there, and sitting down on the bedside, questions the little girls. They are more intelligent and less stupefied than the boy. He learns from them that mother was in bed, and father came home swearing. He cursed very loud. Mother was frightened, and came into our room. Father didn't come into our room. Father wasn't drunk, because he didn't stagger. Father stopped cursing and swearing, and drank out of a bottle which he took from his pocket. Then he breathed very loud for ever so long. Then he opened the window, and cursed two or three times. Then, in a little while, he fell down very hard. Mother was frightened, and ran in with the lamp to him. Mother tried to lift him up, but she couldn't. Then mother screamed very loud, and fell down, and the lamp went out, and they heard her groan. Nobody came up stairs. We didn't go in to mother, because we were afraid. We sat in the dark, and called for Jimmy. We didn't know where Jimmy had gone to. We don't know any more. What ails father, Mr. Ginn?

Mr. Ginn soothes them as well as he can-tells them to keep quiet-and, coming back, rehearses what they have

told him to the Dark Student. He drank laudanum a little while before you tried it, Dark Student--about the time when your egoistical life had brought you to the conclusion of doing a dreadful something with a razor to that fine throat of yours. And she shrieked just in time to postpone your thirst—that is, just in time to keep you from your purpose, till God could send you here to learn a wholesome and an awful lesson. Learn it well, young

man.

Think of it when you next ponder the philosophy of Each and All; and when you remember that nothing is bound to itself alone, but that everything serves all things, think that the shriek of stricken agony which eased this poor woman's heart, went out on the Autumn night with another ministry for you, and was the angel cry which pierced and dissolved your madness!

He does think of it, and can only stammer out some incoherent words in reply, so miraculous and awful is the thought of it. The thought of it keeps him deathly white, and bathes his forehead with a cold sweat, and makes him tremble. Ginn is white, also; and, when he speaks, there is an emotion in his hoarse and whispering voice, which subdues whatever is gro tesque in his speech, and makes it tragic with simple horror and wonder.

This is a awful case," he says. "Just look at that woman, and them children, and that man there! What'r we goin' to do about it? Where'd he get the pison? Who's the 'pothecary sold it? Its laud'num ye know, an' where's the label on the bottle? 'Taint there! A-just want to know what 'pothecary sells that amount of laud'num to an Irishman like Gilhooley, an' don't put no label on the bottle, ye know!"

The Dark Student does not answer, but he remembers that he himself purchased laudanum that very day at a druggist's near by, where the counter was tended by a boy, who sold it to him without asking any questions, or labeling the vial. If to him, why not to Gilhooley?

"Where'd he get the money, an' he not in work? That's the question," demands Ginn.

A terrible supposition darts into the young man's mind. He goes quickly to the children's room.