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PART THIRD. FINDING.

CHAPTER THIRTIETH.

HOME AGAIN-FAME.

Home again! home again!

From a foreign shore;

And oh ! it fills my heart with joy,

To seek my friends once more.

SONG.

Blow the trumpet, spread the wing, fling thy scroll

upon the sky;

Rouse the slumbering world, O, Fame, and fill the

sphere with echo!

M. F. TUPPER.

YEARS had passed, fraught with more change than we have yet spoken of, to all the actors in this tale, when he, who had left his native village a dissatisfied and ill-used lad, stood once more upon his native land -a tall, sturdy, dark-bronzed man, to whom had fallen a share (though a small one,) of the world's good fortune: enough to enable him without shame to seek old ties and faces once familiar; yet not sufficient to lift him in any sort above those memories of younger days.

No one certainly would have traced any resemblance

between the Will Darby of the sunny nook at Piert's Rest, taking his farewell of the baby Rose,-and the hardy mate of the good ship Grace (lying in the Docks), from the deck of which he now sets foot for the first time since that runaway scheme, these nineteen years or more.

With mixed feelings enough the man looks forward to revisiting the old scenes, scarcely knowing whether pain or joy predominates, anxious to learn what changes those years have wrought,-permitting now the thoughts free vent that he has so long stifled. Be certain, it is not inclination that holds Will Darby in town some days after his arrival, where to his knowledge he has no friend nor kin. But there are duties to be fulfilled; and it was the first lesson he learned in his career, that duty must be first with him who would not be last in the race. So Will stayed; and as the affairs of the ship were not dependent wholly upon him, and as other people were in no particular hurry to leave London, day after day found him still there, with many hours of each unoccupied -yet the business unconcluded.

"Who and what is this great 'Horse-tamer' that I see in all the papers, and everywhere about ?" Darby asked one morning of an acquaintance at the Docks. "Not a step can one stir, but on every wall and hoarding one meets those monster letters, six feet high, staring one in the face. In the paper, first thing when I take it up, there it is-two columns all about him this morning; and hang me, if there isn't a great picture of him in my berth yonder at the hotel."

"What! haven't you seen him yet ?" was the reply. "Ah! you must go and see that. It is the most

wonderful exhibition that ever was,-the most wonderful, without exception."

"What's it all about? What does he do ?"

"The Whisperer,' they call him; it's said he does all by whispering into the animal's ear. He tames, breaks the wildest horses you know in a miraculous short time. No one knows, or even guesses, his secret, though he's been offered hundreds. Fool if he would, you see, when he makes his thousands by it! Rich ?' -Ah! as rich as a Jew; he must be, for he gets what he asks, and he is just the rage now. Lords and dukes, and princes, and ladies too, are running after him like mad."

"What's his name, then ?"

"Name? Here it's in the paper-Steyne, 'Philip Steyne, Esq.' He doesn't like these names they give him,- Whisperer,' and 'Tamer,' and the like, so I'm told."

"Steyne-" and Darby mused. "I knew that name a long time ago. What was he, I wonder ?"

"Poor, quite;

worked in these very Docks as a labourer. Hey there's Jim McCarthy there, he knew him well, the fellow will run on by the hour; but for Heaven's sake don't start him now, he'll never stop. He did Mr. Steyne some good service when he met with an accident here, working when a lad; and it seems he did not forget it, and when the sun shone for him, he helped McCarthy into the place he's got there, and did the right thing by him. But we'll go and see the wonderful man. Where is he? Oh, aye I see-long prices, nothing under two guineas; but it's worth seeing, so we'll go to-night if you will."

Darby assented, wondering vaguely, and almost

THE WHISPERER."

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ridiculing his own imagination, that could connect the playmate-lad of the village with the world-renowned man, to whom all London was flocking-to admire and to marvel at! Yet, far from dispersing, the shadowy vision gained substance-haunted him even more; as that night, within the theatre of exhibition, dazzling with the beauty, splendour and gaiety, that thronged it to the very doors, Darby at length beheld the object of all this curiosity. In the athletic and finely developed figure, the dark, sad, yet striking face, the proudly careless air of the man, now bowing to the deafening thunders of applause which greeted him, the mate saw little to remind him of his early friend; yet his eyes strained more eagerly, and he listened intently for the voice which only awaited silence to make itself heard.

What could there be in common with the polished sentences, the well-toned utterance of the cultivated man, and those of the careless boy. No; Darby smiled at the absurdity of his fancy; yet as the exhibitor turned his face momently upwards, and passed his hand across his brow with a gesture that, though slight, was habitnal, the idea returned upon the sailor with full force, and never again quitted him.

·

Through all the fearful interest of the evening's display-when the rampant animal, snorting and furious, led on by the united efforts of four experienced men, was resigned into the hands of the daring tamer, to be reproduced by him, in some brief twenty minutes or half hour, gentle, subdued, submissive to his touch-when in their very presence, a less dangerous animal-merely by apparently spoken words and caressing motions-was in like manner rendered docile; and when the gifted ex

hibitor, in a short address, urged upon them the inutility and folly of harsh measures, as totally opposed to such results, all failed to cure Darby of that anxious fever of suspense. He believed, hoped, feared, and doubted, all at once; but in vain he waited-to approach the favourite that night was impossible. He was surrounded, carried, spirited away, by a host of emulative admirers, to his carriage: and not till the next morning did Darby gain an audience of his younger playfellow, whom he had fought, and shaken hands with, twenty years ago.

A strange meeting-different, indeed, to any Darby had once dreamed of.

That handsome, well-appointed house; that room, where the perfection of quiet taste is combined with comfort the appliances of wealth and study around him-strike him at once with a sense of the difference in their position, so great, that though poor Darby knows now who is that grave, thoughtful, yet selfpossessed man, now rising to meet him as a stranger

knows it is the little Philip of long ago, younger by some years than he-old as he looks now, and sad, and dignified-yet no wonder he hesitates, holds out his hand, then drops it, and returns Philip's kindly bow, yet does not take the chair he offers.

"You don't know me—it isn't likely-how should you? - perhaps I ought not to have come. We were only boys-it's years ago now-my name's Darby-"

The half-raised hand was taken and held in a firm grasp for some minutes; neither spoke; a servant had entered, made some addition to the breakfast, table and left the room, before Steyne said, "Yes, it is