an object. His white hair, too, is unusually thick and ample, and he has black eyebrows, which is strange.

More than half a year has gone since Edwin's disappearance, and Jasper naturally considers himself safe, so safe indeed that, when he avows his love to Rosa, he tells her that had his affection for his nephew been one silken thread less strong he would have swept even him from his path. A faint suspicion of Jasper had before crossed Rosa's mind, and now recurs with redoubled force, but the only object for such a crime-to win her-seems altogether too slight to account for it; so she hides her suspicion. If Neville and his sister suspect him, they say nothing; Mr. Crisparkle is too open and frank to suspect anyone, and Mr. Grewgious acknowledges that he dislikes Jasper, but nothing more. How is the murderer to be brought to justice?

Old habits can seldom be relinquished altogether, and we cannot be much surprised at finding Jasper in the opium den once more. The vision he has, under the influence of opium, and the broken sentences extracted from him by the woman, speak for themselves. As he lies in stupor on the bed the woman exclaims, 'I heard ye say once, when I was lying where you're lying, and you were making your speculations on me, "Unintelligible!" I heard you say so, of two more than me. But don't be too sure always; don't ye be too sure, beauty!' From which we gather, that in the first scene of all, this woman had listened to his comment on herself and companions, and had from that time devoted herself to learn his secret. It explains, too, why she tracked him that Christmas Eve, when she unconsciously warned the generous Edwin of his danger, and explains her exclamation, now, when Jasper leaves her house, 'I'll not miss ye twice!'

She follows him to Cloisterham and falls in with Mr. Datchery, who extracts information from her that rather astonishes him. After bargaining with Deputy to find out where she lives in London, Mr. Datchery in the Cathedral next morning sees the woman's threatening gestures at Jasper, and afterwards hears from her own lips that she recognises him. He returns home for breakfast, opens his cupboard door, takes his bit of chalk from its shelf, adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of the cupboard door to the bottom, and then falls to with an appetite.'

Here the unfinished story breaks off at an exciting moment, and it only remains to consider how Jasper's detection was brought about.

Mr. Datchery doubtless confided all he had learnt to Mr.

Grewgious, and they probably prevailed on the opium woman to allow them, or one of them, to be present at Jasper's next visit, the time of which they could ascertain for themselves. Lieutenant Tartar, disguised as a sailor, might, in the most natural manner, be present at the same time in the den, and the woman's questions (suggested, maybe, by Mr. Datchery) to Jasper, when under the influence of opium, might extract valuable hints as to the manner of the crime, the bestowal of the body, &c., hints which a clever detective like Datchery might well piece together with the evidence obtainable from Deputy and Durdles. Deputy, be it remembered, saw Jasper and Durdles leaving the Cathedral on the night-or rather the morning-of their 'unaccountable expedition,' and could testify to Jasper's explosion of anger at his sudden appearance. Any account given by Durdles of what took place that night would be none too clear, but even he could not have forgotten dropping the key of the crypt-door, and the fact of Jasper having carried the bundle.

But what then? Supposing Jasper to have let fall a hint as to the burial of the body, the crypt would naturally be first thought of as a likely spot. Baffled there, for Durdles could soon tell if anything had been disturbed, attention would be drawn to the two keys carried by Durdles, and finally to that which had been in his dinner bundle, viz. the key of Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. But what could be discovered on opening it? Scarcely a body, for more than six months had elapsed since Edwin's disappearance. Scarcely even bones, for, if the hypothesis that quicklime was used be the correct one, no bones would remain. Indeed, what could remain? What could resist the destructive properties of quicklime?

The answer is the stones of the ring given by Mr. Grewgious to Edwin, and never seen since. We know that Jasper (so the jeweller told Edwin) had a precise knowledge of Edwin's jewellery, and, exactly in accordance with that knowledge, Edwin's watch, chain, and shirt-pin were found at the weir. But Jasper could have had no knowledge of this ring, kept as it was in a case in Edwin's breast, unless, indeed, he examined his pockets after despatching him; which is unlikely, as plunder was by no means his object. It is almost certain, then, that the ring was buried on the body, and even if the action of the quicklime could destroy the case and the gold setting of the stones, it could not possibly affect the stones themselves, which were diamonds and rubies.

These, Mr. Grewgious could readily identify, and Bazzard could prove that the ring was delivered to Edwin. The ring, or the stones, once found and identified, the accumulated evidence of Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Datchery, Durdles, Deputy, Mr. Crisparkle, Rosa, and the opium woman, would, we think, assuredly convict Jasper of Edwin Drood's murder, while his conscience-stricken appearance at the prospect of detection, when the first breath of suspicion fastened on him, would at once popularly condemn him.

In conclusion, let us make a guess at the future of some of the other characters in the book. Mr. Tartar and Rosa would ere long be husband and wife, and we fancy Helena Landless would become Mrs. Crisparkle. Neville, cleared from all suspicion, would have to begin the world anew: Mr. Datchery and Durdles must remain as they are: we would not have them alter one whit. And Deputy? We can, perhaps, imagine (but faintly) his delight at Jarsper's' downfall, and by using our eyes keenly may discern him indulging, as once before, 'in a slow and stately dance, perhaps supposed to be performed by the Dean,' to more fully express his ecstasy.

318

AT ECCLES.

(SEPTEMBER 15, 1830.)

6

'To glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge covering the earth is an easier exercise of believing imagination than to see its beginning in newspaper placards staring at you from a bridge beyond the cornfields,' wrote George Eliot. No one living when Stephenson, ridiculed by nearly everyone, triumphantly floated his sugarbarrels on Chatmoss (where, supporting the railway, preserved by the peaty soil, they still remain) could have foreseen the changes to be worked in the country by the agency of railways. Those who regret the days before that period might do well to study a little of the discontent of those times :- bread famines,' cholera, social disorder, class prejudices, leading to riots sometimes, and much bitterness always, were amongst the evils keenly felt by the halfstarved handloom weavers of Eccles during the twelve preceding years. Now it is a town of 100,000 inhabitants; then it contained only 25,000, in six townships.' In 1819 the new vicar' had married and brought his wife (Emma Ann Hesketh, born 1795) to Eccles, where she worked amongst the people for seventeen years. Dean Stanley's mother, in a letter written January 17, 1832, thus speaks of her:-"There is one person who interests me very much, Mrs. Tom Blackburne, the Vicaress of Eccles, who received poor Mr. Huskisson, and immortalised herself by her activity, sense, and conduct throughout. . . . She has been the ruling spirit evidently, and, under her, her husband has become the very man for the place.' This may be imagined when, after doing his best to put an end to the disgraceful amusements of the place ----bull-baiting, dog-fighting, and low sports-his popularity steadily increased among a people of whom (as may even appear in the course of this short paper) the ruling classes were very distrustful, and not without reason.

Eccles is on the line of railway between Manchester (four miles off) and Liverpool. The wretchedly-built vicarage stood in a garden, in front of which was a field through which the new road with iron rails' was to run. All the village was astonished to see 'smoke rapidly moving along the grass' one day in the summer of

1830. Being in a cutting nothing more was visible, nor when they had seen the engine was the wonder much lessened; and if educated people wondered less, they were more incredulous as to the results of the novelty. Nevertheless the line was finished, and the soldier-premier, the Duke of Wellington, was to represent His Majesty on the opening day of the first passenger railroad in England, September 15, 1830.

In celebration of this experiment, for even then most people only looked upon it as a doubtful thing, the houses of the adjacent parts of Lancashire were filled with guests. Mr. John Blackburne, M.P., asked his brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Blackburne, to stay at Hale Hall, near Liverpool (which his ancestors in the direct line had possessed since 1199), and to go with his party to the ceremony and fêtes in honour of the day.

The invitation was accepted, and Mr. and Mrs. Blackburne went to Hale. Now, however, occurred one of those strange circumstances utterly condemned by critics of fiction as 'unreal,' 'unnatural,' or 'impossible;' only in this case it happened to be true, in spite of all these epithets. Mrs. Blackburne, rather strongminded than otherwise, at all events one of the last women in the world to be affected by imagination, became possessed by an unmistakable presentiment, which made her feel quite sure that her presence was required at home; and she went home at once. There were difficulties in her way; every carriage was required, but she would go. She drove to Warrington, and from thence 'took boat' up the Irwell to Eccles. Canal boats were then regular conveyances, divided into first and second classes. There were no mobs or excitement anywhere on the 14th, and Mrs. Blackburne got quietly to Eccles without any adventures. When there, except that one of her children was unwell, she could find nothing wrong, or in the least likely to account for the presentiment which had driven her home in spite of all the, natural enough, ridicule of her husband and friends at Hale.

To go back was impossible; so she stayed with her children and arranged that they and their small friends should have a little feast in honour of the day. It was to happen otherwise.

Early on the morning of the 15th an incident occurred, the narration of which may throw some light on the temper of the times. Mr Barton, of Swinton, came in to say that a mob was expected to come from Oldham to attack the Duke of Wellington, then at the height of his unpopularity among the masses; for just