so acute, that the terrified wife hastened to her master, who was still reading in his study, and implored him see and give his aid to the sufferer.

Throwing aside the paper he had been studying, Middleton hurried to the garret, when he found the poor man's pangs so grievous, and his state so alarming, that, after prescribing such immediate remedies as he thought likely to alleviate his anguish, he descended to the stable, saddled his horse, and rode off for the apothecary, who resided at some distance, and with whom he returned in as short a time as possible to the lodge. On their arrival they found the patient still worse, labouring under much agony of body, and sinking when these attacks left him into a depressing conviction that his last hour was come, during which his speech was occasionally rambling and incoherent, though it generally bore reference to his gardening pursuits. By proper applications he soon obtained considerable relief, but his persuasion that death was approaching remained unaltered. "O dear doctor!" he ex

claimed, "it's too late; my stomach be like a hotbed sowed with mustard and capsicums, and my kidney-beans be all burnt up as black as a coal."

"You are terrifying yourself without a cause," said the apothecary, "there is no immediate danger; the powder of ipecacuanha has produced good effects already, which the emetic tartar will complete, and I shall order you an emollient decoction of marsh-mallows, to lubricate the excoriated coat of the stomach."

"O doctor! I don't care about the coat of my stomach, it be hot enough to do without. It be no use, doctor, no use. Man be a poor bulbous creature, adequate to all sorts of contiguous disorders, and born to be mowed down like the grass. My hay-time be come, and it do seem to me, at this very moment, as if I heard Death whetting his scythe to have a cut at me, and saw his vision right afore me.'

He fixed his eyes upon the apothecary, who drew back, apparently not liking to be mistaken for the principal, where he was only the agent.

"The Lord be good unto us all!" resumed the patient, "we be all of us a sort of quadruped flowers with two foot-stalks, only we be planted and put into the ground in this here world, in order to rise up in that 'ere, just as if I were to put a bulb-root into the lower garden and it were to shoot up atop o' the lawn border. After I be earthed round, I do hope I shall rise up all the fairer and whiter, like celery, and be finally transplanted into heaven, there to become a Jerusalem artichoke, and a star of Bethlehem."

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"My good Robin!" said his master, "compose yourself, you have been assured that you are in no danger; but, even were it otherwise, you can have nothing to apprehend, for few, I believe, have passed through life so innocently as yourself."

"Ah master, master! the best of us be but poor idiomatical creatures, but I trust nobody won't meddle nor make with me in the other world in the way of doing me any harm. If I could just get into the gardens of Paradise,

with my spade, rake, and dibble, I might be of use in helping the other angels to dress the borders, and brush away the worm-casts, and plant edgings of box and thrift, and dung the melon-beds, and such like. Dear heart! dear heart! I fear there wont be no Cæsar nor Mark Antony to clip, and that's an infectious thought that keeps a worrying o' my heart like a maggot in a nut.”

"I trust, Robin, that you will find favour and acceptance whenever your hour is come, but I repeat once more that your life is in no present danger."

"Well, sir, well; it be kind of you to say so, and to talk balm of Gilead to me; but I have a sort of angular, exotic feeling about my heart that tells me otherwise. If it were the will o' Heaven I should like to have stopped a little longer in this here garden, that I might have been audibly employed in saving the winter vegetables, and planting out lettuces, and cleaning the fruit borders, and shifting the auriculas, and potting the carnation-layers, and

planting out my pipings, and looking a'ter my bulbs, and such like. And there's the privethedge wants clipping: but it can't be helped, we that is annuals can't expect to be evergreens that never dies. I have only one request to make of you, dear master, afore ever I drop to the ground, and as you were always kind and good to me, I do hope you'll grant it."

"That I will Robin, if it be in my power."

"Then promise me that you won't never let that thick-headed, succulent fellow, Tom Penfold come anigh Cæsar and Mark Antony to clip 'em. They be quite visions of glory now, and it be a great comfort to me to think that I do leave 'em in greater beauty and more incongruous order than ever I found ’em in.”

"This promise I willingly make you, and here is my hand upon it," said Middleton. "Thank you, dear master, thank you,” cried Robin, returning the pressure.

"I shall now die all adequate and identical." Having thus satisfactorily made up his worldly affairs, the patient, who had obtained a temporary respite from his pangs, turned to his