And the `Hilda' went slowly on its way, and knew not that it passed a poet under the Bridge, and guessed not whose were those two feet, that disappeared through the eddying waters, kicking with spasmodic energy; and men pulled into a boat a dripping, panting form, that resembled a drowned rat rather than a Poet; and spoke to it without awe, and even said, `young feller', and something about `greenhorn', and laughed; what knew they of Poetry?

Turn we to other scenes: a long, low room, with high-backed settees, and a sanded floor: a knot of men drinking and gossiping: a general prevalence of tobacco; a powerful conviction that spirits existed somewhere: and she, the fair Sukie herself, gliding airily through the scene, and bearing in those lily hands -- what? Some garland doubtless, wreathed of the most fragrant flowers that grow? Some cherished volume, morocco- bound and golden-clasped, the works immortal of the bard of eld, whereon she loveth oft to ponder? Possibly, `The Poems of William Smith', that idol of her affections, in two volumes quarto, published some years agone, whereof one copy only has as yet been sold, and that he bought himself -- to give to Sukie. Which of these is it that the beauteous maiden carries with such tender care? Alas none: it is those two `goes of arf-an-arf, warm without', which have just been ordered by the guests in the tap- room.

In a small parlour hard by, unknown, untended, though his Sukie was so near, wet, moody, and dishevelled, sat the youth: the fire had been kindled at his desire, and before it he was now drying himself, but as `the cherry blaze, Blithe harbinger of wintry days', to use his own powerful description, consisted at present of a feeble, spluttering faggot, whose only effect was to half-choke him with its smoke, he may be pardoned for not feeling, more keenly than he does, that `. . . fire of Soul, When gazing on the kindling coal, A Briton feels that, spite of fone, He wots his native hearth his own!' we again employ his own thrilling words on the subject.

The waiter, unconscious that a Poet sat before him, was talking confidingly; he dwelt on various themes, and still the youth sat heedless, but when at last he spoke of Sukie, those dull eyes flashed with fire, and cast upon the speaker a wild glance of scornful defiance, that was unfortunately wasted, as its object was stirring the fire at the moment and failed to notice it. `Say, oh say those words again!' he gasped. `I surely heard thee not aright!' The waiter looked astonished, but obligingly repeated his remark, `I were merely a saying, sir, that she's an uncommon clever girl, and as how I were' oping some day to hacquire her Hart, if so be that --' He said no more, for the Poet with a groan of anguish, had rushed distractedly from the room.

NIGHT, solemn night.

On the present occasion the solemnity of night's approach was rendered far more striking than it is to dwellers in ordinary towns, by that time-honoured custom observed by the people of Whitby, of leaving their streets wholly unlighted: in thus making a stand against the deplorably swift advance of the tide of progress and civilization, they displayed no small share of moral courage and independent judgment. Was it for a people of sense to adopt every new-fangled invention of the age, merely because their neighbours did? It might have been urged, in disparagement of their conduct, that they only injured themselves by it, and the remark would have been undeniably true; but it would only have served to exalt, in the eyes of an admiring nation, their well-earned character of heroic self-denial and uncompromising fixity of purpose.

Headlong and desperate, the lovelorn Poet plunged through the night; now tumbling up against a doorstep, and now half down in a gutter, but ever onward, onward, reckless where he went.

In the darkest spot of one of those dark streets (the nearest lighted shop window being about fifty yards off), chance threw into his way the very man he fled from, the man whom he hated as a successful