in the distance. It was so cold and cheerless a day, that not even a donkey, the hardiest defier of wind and weather, was to be seen in the whole wide range of the sky-bounded common, for even he had sought a shelter in some unseen hollow. Nothing but the hardy butcher and his sleetblinded horse stirred amid the wild solitude of that wintry scene. Slowly and heavily did the horse move, until it came to a stand-still near the guide-post, towards which the road slightly ascended. “Thou hast had a hard day, poor beast!" said the gallant butcher, leaping out of his cart into the snow, which was full knee-deep; "and hast load enough without carrying me. Come, another mile further, and we shall be within sight of home." The poor animal pricked up its ears as if it understood every word; and, encouraged with a kind, cheering pat, struggled along, straining every nerve, the deep ruts filling up and falling in as fast as they were made by the bright wheels; and on it went until stopped by sheer exhaustion beside the old crumbling guidepost. "Well done, Brown Bess!" said the jolly butcher, again patting his horse; thou hast weathered the worst of it, and shalt have the best feed the stable affords when we reach home; there is no hurry, old girl!" and he again patted the faithful animal, examined the girth, saw that the harness sat easy, and was about to proceed, when he saw something lying at the foot of the guide-post. He stepped aside to examine it, and beheld-the dead body of a child! which was naked, except a thin covering of flannel." They had hard hearts who left thee here," said the butcher, taking out his handkerchief, and gently wiping away the snow from its little head and face; then selecting the largest and cleanest sheep-skin, he wrapped the body gently up in the woollen covering, and placing it carefully in the cart, slowly and thoughtfully resumed his journey through the wind an

snow.

When the butcher reached the neighbouring village, his first act was to deliver the body of the child into the constable's hands. "Lose no time,” said the butcher to this legal functionary, "for as the snow had hardly covered it, it cannot have lain there long, nor can those who left it there be far off. When I have put up my horse, and taken a mouthful of refreshment myself, I will assist you in the search lose no time, but set out at once with such force as you can muster." The constable spoke about a magistrate, a warrant, a summons, a coroner's inquest; but these the butcher showed could at any time be got, and that while he was busied in obtaining them the guilty party might escape; but if a pursuit was at once set on foot, owing to the depth of snow, the heaviness of the roads, and the slow progress any one would make, there was no fear, either through the trace of their footmarks or so few people being out on such a day, but what some tidings of their whereabout might be picked up; for it was his opinion that they must be somewhere within two or three miles of the neighbourhood. It was at last decided that the butcher, when ready, should set out with his man, retrace their steps, and first give warning of what had happened at the Union Workhouse. Meantime the constable and his two deputies were to commence their search at once, by carefully examining every hovel, haystack, and rickyard on that side of the common which lay nearest the guide-post.

The night was moonlight, although not a silver ray was visible through that thick woolly haze which intervened like a cloudy curtain between heaven and earth. It was a kind of dim, grey, ominous light, nowhere darkened by those deep masses of shadow, which, when the sky is clear, give such rich variety to a moonlit landscape. It seemed neither like day nor night, but one wearisome, monotonous, undeveloped dawning; as if the day stood still, and waited

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for the night to awake, that still slept grey, and cloudy, and silent, upon the cold snowy confines of the unawakened world. The wide hedgeless common was unbroken by a single shadow; nor was the beautiful tracery of a naked branch reflected upon the snow, which still fell, flake by flake, deeper and deeper over the untrodden solitude. Full two hours had now passed away since the short-lived day died, when a loud, deep, thundering knock rang through every wretched room in the Union Workhouse, causing the miserable inmates to pause as they held the uplifted spoon between the cup and lip, and left off sipping the sumptuous potation of oatmeal, hot water, and salt. The first summons was not answered speedily enough for the somewhat hasty and choleric butcher; and when the little grating (not a foot wide) was opened in the forbiddinglooking door, and a thin, starved, skeleton-skinned face was seen between the bars, the butcher called down a deep imprecation on his eyes and limbs, and added, "If I'd been a poor devil of a pauper, starving for want of relief, a pretty time you'd have kept me here this cold snowy night; why, they would have to half knock the door down before you'd let 'em in.”

"Poor paupers don't knock that way, sir," answered the thin, half-starved inmate; "they are over frightened when they come to ask for relief;" and he opened the door.

66 Where's your master-Pinchgut, or what do they call him?" continued the butcher. "Tell him, Bull, the butcher from Rampton, wants to see him directly."

The man disappeared through one of the cold, uncharitable doors to do the butcher's bidding.

"I picked up a dead child to-night on the common, at dark hour," commenced the straight-forward butcher, when the master of the Union-house made his appearance. "The

poor little thing had nothing on it but a slight strip of flannel, and looked as if it was scarcely a month old, and I've come to inquire if you've seen anybody about to-day with a child. Our constable and his men are on the lookout about the outskirts of the common, and they thought it best that I should come as far as here."

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Why you see, sir-that is-there was," stammered forth the master of the Union-house, changing colour as he spoke, and looking deeply confused; a young woman did leave the Union to-day with her child; we have no right to keep them, you see, when they insist upon going; and I cannot say but it may have been her, for she has long been very flighty."

"Good God!" exclaimed the butcher, stamping his stout oaken walking-stick upon the floor; "flighty as the poor creature might be, she could never have the heart to strip the little thing all but naked, and leave it there to die on such a day as this-it cannot be her!"

Why, as to that, you see," replied the master of the Workhouse," she had very little to cover herself with; for the Poor-law compels us to take the clothes from them which the Union provided, and we must obey the law, or answer for it before the commissioners."

"Then you are a d-d cold-hearted rascal," continued the butcher, uplifting his heavy stick, and with one blow felling him to the ground, as he would have done a bullock; adding, "I would serve the cursed commissioners the same if they were here, and let a poor woman go out almost naked on such a day as this!" And, consigning them to Sathanus, he quitted the Workhouse, no one daring to detain him.

On the bleak north side of the common, and scarce half a mile from the down-falling weather-beaten finger-post, stretched several fields (if such a name may be given to the

enclosed spaces which, but a few years before, had formed a part of the vast common, but were now parted off with a stoop-and-railed fence, which every few yards was broken down and open); the boundary line hardly distinguishable, saving here and there by a row of perishing and sickly quicksets, which seemed as if they refused to grow and form a hedge on what had so long been a broad, windy, unenclosed, unclaimed range, for the cattle of the neighbouring poor. Chartered, perhaps, and granted to them at first by some good old forgotten Anglo-Saxon king, and inclosed by the chicanery of some selfish all-grasping hole-in-a-corner clique, who will no doubt one day be rewarded according to their deserts. Here and there a thatched hovel had been erected; further on stood the remains of a haystack or two, now covered with the thick fallen flakes, and scarcely discernible in the dull, hazy moonlight from the snow-covered hillocks which on every hand heaved up amidst this ridgy and broken portion of the ground.

In one of these miserable hovels which the very cattle had forsaken-for the roof was open to every wind of heaven, having long since been carried away to kindle the fires of some wandering gipsy tribe,-while the naked and dilapidated beams which stretched over head were deeply encrusted with snow, and you could not look upwards towards the cold, cheerless, leaden-coloured sky, without a shudderso desolate and comfortless was the spot,-into this wretched down-coming, miserable building, the constable had entered, attracted by a low, stifled, and scarce audible sobbing, and led thither by the trace of partially obliterated footmarks in the field. In one corner sat the figure as of a woman; her naked elbows 'resting on her knees, her face buried in her hands, over which fell her long, dishevelled hair, partially covered with snow, while she herself was half-buried

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