learned in his long exile. The place had chres in Europe. Those that were opened been indicated to him by divine revelation, contained crumbling bones, with charcoal, but independently of this it is evidently one shell beads, and flint weapons; and in one of those grand shrines of nature which man case a bracelet of copper. 'All these are atvainly tries to rival in his temples and cathe- tributed to the Amalekites and other early drals, and which strike awe into the human races, and are carefully separated from the heart, and lead it to lofty thoughts and im- buildings and tombs of later dates, ruins of aginings; and such a place must have had which abound in the peninsula. peculiar impressiveness to a people reared That some of the more ancient sepulin the flats of the Egyptian delta and who chral remains will yet be referred to the had just been stirred by the marvelous expe- Israelites is not improbable ; but it must be riences and excitements of their flight from borne in mind that the region explored is Egypt. It was thus one of the most fitting only that of the three months' journey to spots on earth to be the theatre of the reve- Sinai, and of the encampment of about a lation to man of a new and purer faith, un- year before the Mount. In this length of mixed with the figments of human inven- time little of a permanent character is likely tion, and leading to a worship of the one to have been effected by the Hebrews; and God the Creator.

if their dead were simply buried in the soil, The expedition did not discover any cer- no surface trace may remain of the graves tain indications of the sojourn of the Israel- of those who died. All the indications in ites. The Sinaitic inscriptions, so called, Exodus are also at variance with the idea are now known to be of less ancient date. that the Israelites at this time either erected There are however numerous Egyptian in- permanent buildings or commemorated their scriptions indicating expeditions to work sojourn by durable monuments. The whole the mines of turquoise and copper, and dat- of the arrangements of Moses were based ing as far back as the third or fourth dynas- on the idea of a temporary sojourn and a ty, long before the time of the Exodus; and preparation for a march into Canaan, no it is a curious coincidence that the latest mention is made of any inscription on stone king whose name has been recognized is except the tablets of the law, and the book that of Thothmes III., the last great king of in which Moses is said to have recorded the the eighteenth dynasty, under which the Is- story of the fight at Rephidim (Exod. 17, 14) raelites flourished, and which was succeeded was probably a roll of skin or papyrus. by that nineteenth dynasty under the early The monuments of the children of Israel, kings of which their captivity commenced. if such exist in the Peninsula of Sinai, are

The numerous round stone houses attrib- rather to be sought in those portions of it uted to the Israelites by Arab tradition, are in which the longer sojourns of the forty supposed by the explorers to have been the years' wanderings occurred; and it is to be abodes of the Amalekites. They are built hoped that these may yet be subjected to with thick walls of rough stone, and the scientific scrutiny similar to that already roofs are made with overlapping slabs, and executed for the country between Suez and are said to be exactly similar to the ancient Sinai. As preliminary to this, a reconnois“bothans ” or bee-hive houses of Scotland; sance has been made by one of the party enand they are also similar, in so far as the gaged in the survey, Mr. E. H. Palmer; and overlapping stone arches and thick walls are the results have been given to the world in concerned, to the peculiar houses of Peru his interesting book—“ The Desert of the and- Central and Western America, as de- Exodus.” * He shows the hopeful character scribed by Squier and others. Some of of the inquiry, by the suggestion that the them had been used as burial places, and in numerous tombs at the Erweis el Ebeirig, these were found shell ornaments. There the probable site of Kibroth Hattaaveh-the are also stone circles, like those in so many graves of those who lusted,” may be those other countries, and which contain stone cists of the people who died in the plague at that very similar to those found in ancient sepul- * London, 1871.

place, after the second descent of quails. not to follow the wanderings of an ancient No excavations seem to have been made to people, but to work out a practicable line for test the truth of the suggestion, nor have a high-road or a railway. The result is undetailed surveys been made of the regions questionably to show that the writer of the extending from Sinai to Kadesh, and thence Books of Exodus and Numbers must have to the eastern border of ancient Edom, a traveled through the region which is the region in which the long sojourn of forty scene of his history ; must have personally years seems to have been passed—a sojourn experienced the difficulties of the journey, which, as Mr. Palmer well remarks, is rather and must have been better acquainted with to be regarded as the residence of a numer- the country than any other traveler whose ous pastoral people in the country, than as a works we possess, up to the date of the constant movement from place to place in a ordnance survey. compact body.

The Exodus of the Israelites is not a In the meantime the facts already stated, mere question of curious antiquarian reand still more the study of the maps and search. In that journey they were representphotographs of the survey, cannot fail to atives and examples for us and for all the impress us with the reality of this old ages of the world; and their national migraHebrew history. We have here no mere tion was not only a grand protest against myth, illustrated by the fancies of enthusi- tyranny and injustice, but an important astic pilgrims; but the itinerary of a hard step in the development of God's plans for and eventful march, through a country pre- the salvation of our race. It is well then senting the most marked physical features; that this stirring and beautiful history is and this is now compared with the careful not a romance or even a legendary tale, but measurements and scientific observations of a true record which will bear the applicamen who have traversed it, step by step, with tion of the severest tests of modern science. as prosaic accuracy as if the object had been

J. W. Dawson.

JOHN BANNOCK.

IN WHICH JOHN HIMSELF RELATES IN WHAT

BORS.

CHAPTER I.

open window, and the quiet ticking of the

tall eight-day clock that has ticked in preESTIMATION HE IS HELD BY HIS NEIGH- cisely the same manner for fifty years, alone

break the silence of the summer afternoon. “BRING some more ale, will you ? and Then the head is slowly raised, revealing a be smart about it;” and a pewter pot is coarse and sullen face, framed in a rough hurled across the tap-room, to be flattened beard. One eye is purple and black; any against the bar.

villager would say the eye was so disfigured The landlord of the Ratcliffe Arms picks in a fight. An ugly scratch scars the cheek ; up the cup and smiles, grimly. He takes a village child would tell the same tale. no notice of the demand, but directs a half- The half-shut eyes of the face peer round pitying glance at a shock of tangled brown the room in a drunken stupor. Then a hair, sunk between two arms on the oaken dirty hand is lifted, and the torn cap on the table; then polishes his bar a moment, and, head dashed to the floor. As the dull eyes lighting a clay pipe, seats himself to read look on the cap the throat is distended with with the critical gravity of a British house a wild yell; and the head again falls between holder, allowed by law to cast his vote.

the arms. All is quiet now. The head is still for half an hour; while Outside the boys shout and laugh at their outside the voices of boys at play, the hum thoughtless sport, and a butterfly flutters in of a wandering bee as it dashes against the through the open window and futters out

a

his paper.

again. In a little while the rough head is Devonshire type which soothes, and at the raised once more, the stupid eyes peer round same time charms, the beholder. From the the room ; and, after a hard stare that seems windows of the tap-room in the hamlet of to indicate the return of reason, the man's Tamerton could be seen, calling up thoughts voice, thick and husky, asks :

of heather and harebells, the purple hills of “What time is it, Reub?”

Dartmoor. A brief gleam of the Tamar's The landlord looks up from the paper, waves, flowing by a wall of woods, arrested and answers in a quieting way:

the wandering eye. Down below the village “ About six, Jack. Keep quiet, there's a stretched the fragrant meadows, dotted with good fellow. Take a nap, and you'll be on bleating sheep, with here and there a group your pins in less than no time.”

of tawny cattle standing meditatively in A pause. The landlord assiduously reads pools of water. A little way down the

All this time the reason of the street on which the tavern stood—there is, dazed man, with the stupid eyes, is trying to by the way, but one street-the cottages make clear to itself what has been said. At with overhanging peaks and sometimes last, when the landlord, having forgotten the thatched roof thick with swallows' nests occurrence, is deep in an interesting column, were huddled together, white and clean in the man at the table mutters :

the
rays
of the sun.

The green and what “On my pins ! Why shouldn't I be, eh?” village worth the name does not boast a

The landlord looks up surprised, but, re- green ?-was made the fairer by the shade membering what has passed, makes no of three or four stout, massive oaks, whereon answer and reads on.

were carved the names of some far off on " I'm a-going to get up anyhow,” stutters foreign seas, of others married and settled Jack, supporting himself and leaning on the down to a life of toil and quiet. These table as if he feared it would probably fall grand old trees had stood—well, I will not away into bottomless space. Reuben, the say; for no one has ever told me how many landlord, drops his paper and starts to his years, and in truth no one knows. But feet.

about the age of Tamerton itself there can “Sit down, Jack, there's a good fellow. be no doubt. If you look on a Roman map Don't make a fuss in the house. You may of Devonshire, you will see the name of one as well be quiet as not.”

place, and one place only: that is Tamerton. “Now I ain't a-going to make no fuss. On the green this afternoon in June a I suppose I know what I'm about. If I number of boys, who had been looking out didn't, it isn't the likes o' you as could tell of a window in a large school-room not far me"—this with a pugnacious air. off, ill at ease and pining for the open air, quiet. Don't in any way worry yourself are running and shouting as if they knew'into heart disease "—this sarcastically, the what they never seem to know--that youth, weathercock of his drunken spirit having so brief and careless, must be made the veered round.

most of. Their cries are borne into the low The form of the man—it is clumsy but tap-room to the ears of besotted Jack Banstrongly set-staggers across the room, cau- nock who is looking sullenly out. A belated tiously stopping now and then, knowing it bee humming wings its way past the wincannot reach the window in that trip, then dow. A girlish burst of laughter rises on staggering on. The landlord watches the the air, and a fresh breeze, blowing through transit with a half-amused, half-pitying air. the tall oak before the Ratcliffe Arms, swings

“Now I hope you'll be quiet,” he says the sign above the door. Tick! tick! goes when the drunken man has reached the win- the clock in its old domestic, monotonous dow.

way, looking down approvingly on the clean Jack makes no reply. He is gazing, a bar with its silver-mounted tap and bright strange light in his sleepy eyes, at the boys glasses, on the hams that hang solidly from running and shouting on the green. The the rafters, and the big open fire place that prospect before him was of that beautiful will roar in the winter-time, and bound and

Be

umns.

I want you.

:

blaze up the ancient chimney. The land- And what credit has he done the village lord reads on through the parliamentary Not a bit. He drinks worse and swears news with its “ Hearl hear !” and “ Loud harder than any man in the parish, and his applause " scattered throughout the col- word goes for naught. He brawls and

He smiles occasionally, as a thrifty fights all the days of the week, and shuns man should smile, and in a good-natured the church on the Sabbath. There's no lass way pushes off the cat, that has dared to as will speak to him. There's no lass as jump up on his substantial knee.

will look upon him. But there was a time The man at the window is looking out, when I was thought better of. There's a his rough hair blowing over his face. On a tree over yonder, an oak; you see it? That sudden he turns round, and a voice startles big one, all rough and gnarled like, with the landlord :

the broad branches. It was under that tree “I wish I was a boy agen!” The sen- when the moon was shining one summer's tence is garnished with an oath.

night—when the nights was sweeter to me “What's the matter, Jack? What's the than they be now-I told Mary I loved her, matter now?"

and she said she loved me. Yes, me, who now " I say I wish I was a boy agen. And so be feared and hated by all the folk around. I do. Come here.

Come I was a happy lad then : not even the Squire quick. You must."

up at the big house when he brought home The landlord leaves his paper with a sigh, his young bride last Whitsuntide was more and approaches the man at the window; happy than me with my girl. She died. wondering what queer turn has come over And then everybody said as how I was him now. He feels his arm grasped, and a going to the devil. They said as how I was hoarse voice speaks in his ear, while a big drinking and fighting: which was true. finger is pointing to the green, and a sodden Some whispered as how I was a poacher. face is worked up to a strange, unusual pas- But it was only whispers. They never sion :

caught me. But the whisper was true. I “Do you see them boys on the green? I was a poacher. I be a poacher. That's was a boy once. I had as light a heart as what I be now. And there was a time when any one of them. I could jump and run no boy on the green was brighter and better with the best of them. My eye was as bright and stronger than me. No boy as loved his as any lad's; and I was as happy as a boy parents more. And there was my poor could be. That's the same green as I played mother, God rest her. If she'd a-been living

Them's the same trees I played under. now I should be an honest man, and getting They was standing then. They'll be stand- her bread to eat in my tumble-down cottage. ing when them same boys as is playing now But she is dead. She lies under the sod are in their graves, and other boys be play- yonder in the graveyard. And who let her ing there.

That green was there when I die? The parish let her die. There's not was a boy; and the grass was as long as it even a stone to mark where she was buried. is now, and the daisies was as thick. When I've spent the money that I earned to give you and me be dead that grass will grow as her a headstone in drink, like a dog that I beautiful. And what am I? A poor drunk- be. And was I ever a boy like them on the ard that"

green ? No, I cannot believe it. I could “O no, Jack. You're alright.”

have had no comrades, no lass to love me ! “ Don't stop me.

Don't stop me. I be a But I did, God help me. And she died. poor drunkard, and I know it. But what Do you see the blue river yonder ? The was I then? A brave, stout, bright boy. Tamar? The beautiful water that I used There ! you see the lad yonder that runs to love more than the green land ? No boy faster than the others, and is stronger and knew the channel better than I did. No quicker? When I was a boy I was like boy could sail a boat on it better than I him. Everybody said Jack Bannock was a could, in rough or in calm. I used to know fine lad, and would do a credit to the village. it from Sophill and Maristow down to the

on.

a

a

breakwater, and from Cathole down to threw off the landlord's arm, and seized him
Maker, better than any man in the place. by the collar, his face ablaze with passion.
I knew every cove, and every stream that “Drink my glass! Curse you! It is the
ran into it. I used to row over to Landulph drinking o' that glass, your glass, sold in
at night-fall to hear the chimes of the bells. your house, sold by you, as has ruined me,
Do you think I'd care for the bells now? I and made me what I am. If it hadn't been
used to swim in that river, mornings and for you and your drink I might ha' been an
when the moon was shining; and no lad honest man now. And you talk to me o
better. Didn't I save a child when I was drink when I be mad at the thought o'it.
no more'n ten years old ? And they say I Curse you.

Curse
your

drink.” never had a heart, and be a rough, swearing, And with his whole strength he pushed godless man, and can't get any work to do, the landlord from him, and ran out. and that I'm a poacher. So I be, I own it.

A moment after, two gentlemen rode up, I'm not fit to live. God would be merciful dismounted, and tying their horses to the to me if he killed me. 1-"

hitching-post, entered the tavern. And here the rough fellow broke down, “What is the matter with Bannock, landhid his face in his hands, and would have lord ?” said the first to come in,-a gentle cried like the boy he used to be, if a feeling man dressed in white corded breeches and of manhood had not restrained him. He blue coat,-smiling cheerfully as he beat his only shook a little, and stood there, unwill- boot with his riding whip; “I saw him ing to look up and face the sunshine and chasing down the street like a madman, the boys at play on the green, where once he without a hat, his hair on end, and his eyes was wont to play when the afternoons were as wild as a driven hare's." as fair as this one was. The landlord could “I can't tell you, Squire. He was in here say nothing. A man of few words was he; a moment since, talking rather strangely of quite unequal to the task of soothing the his boyhood. Then he rushed out all of a broken spirit of the poor wretch beside him. sudden before I could stop him.” Not that he was indifferent. No; his stout “ Touch of the deliriums, I presume,” said chin trembled with emotion, and his lusty the Squire, carelessly. arm was about the shoulder of the other “No, no," replied the landlord stoutly, man. He looked out at the boys; then shifted “there was nothing in particular the matter his eyes to the oak before his door; then with him. He was saying he would try to changed his glance to the blue river away in reform, and I hope he will." the distance; but he could say nothing, and

The landlord looked both of the gentlewas silent.

A linnet chirped as it lit on the men bravely in the face, and seemed to sign; chirped, and a man's heart was nigh mean his words, every one of them. to breaking below. A fresh breeze swung

“ But

you will lose one of your best custhe sign, and the bird flew away. The land- tomers,” hinted the Squire roguishly, taplord felt he must say something; the bird ping the landlord confidentially on his broad had gone, and he had a clear field before chest. him.

"I don't care for that. I shall be glad to “Cheer up, Jack. Every cloud has a sil- lose him, if it will make him a better man. ver lining, they say. You'll soon be alright; And there's the making of a good man in never fret, man. You're only a little low. him, sirs.” There's no reason why you shouldn't get “Yes, there is," mused the Squire, with work; and come here o’nights afterwards, his legs apart, rubbing his chin; “ I've often and smoke your pipe, and drink your glass, thought so.” and chat with the boys."

• Making of a good man in him!” said It was a tender chord at that moment to with contempt the second gentleman, turntouch upon. God knows drinking for the ing round from a sporting picture he was future was furthest from the man's thoughts. examining. “I don't believe it. The fellow's

He raised his head with sudden energy, a good-for-nothing, a brawler, a poacher, a

a