Old Keddy's called

"Oh, Punch's. Punch," he explained.

"Oh!" I said, pleased to find that such liberties could be taken with a master's name.

"My name's Pinter," he continued, "Pinter major. I'm in Upper Remove. My minor's just come. In your form."

"Your minor?" I repeated, humbly, for I hadn't an idea what he meant, and really thought it was some allusion to the mining districts, or perhaps to some young lady, whose name being Wilhelmina had been abbreviated to

Mina, of which I remembered an instance in the case of the sister of one of Old Carter's boys. It puzzled me, however, to think how Miss Mina Pinter, if there were such a person, could be in my form at Holyshade. I was too frightened to ask him any questions.

Yes," he replied, not appreciating my difficulty. "You'll be next to him, most likely.' "Him" meant his minor, and certainly of the masculine gender.

He now opened a large door and removed his hat. I followed his example. An indistinct hum of voices fell on my ear, with a strong one occasionally predominating. We were in Upper School, in the first division of which, cut off from the next section by heavy red curtains, sat the Lower Fourth Form boys, engaged in construing to a tall master.

The præpostor pointed out a seat to me, but before I took my place the master asked

"What's your name?"

66

'Colvin, sir," said I, very hot and uncomfortable. Whereat there was a titter.

Then the Pinter major (Pinter minor was next me, and was his younger brother-I soon discovered that, by boldly asking him his name) delivered Dr. Courtley's message, which was frankly announced by the master to the boys.

At this there was no titter. On the contrary. Only a quarter of an hour more schooltime remained (the eleven o'clock school commenced at ten minutes past, and lasted till a quarter to twelve, and sometimes till twelve), and nearly ten minutes of this was occupied by an official inquiry into, what might now be termed, "Colvin's case."

So many had had a hand in, or a foot at, my hat, that, on Holyshadian principles of honour, everyone feeling himself affected by the charge, offered himself on this occasion.

This happened in all the Upper School forms from the Middle Division Fifth downwards, until the story of My Hat began to assume the form of the familiar alphabet which recounts the history of "A was an apple-pie." B had bumped

at it, C had cut it, D had danced on it, E had egged others on, I had helped them, I had injured it, J had jumped on it, K had kicked it, and so on.

Thus, by twelve o'clock, at least sixty or seventy boys were waiting, with me, to hear what the Head Master had to say to them.

They were summoned to the furthest part of the schoolroom, where Dr. Courtley, standing in a sort of reading-desk, received them.

He was very strong on the "barbarity and brutality of thith protheeding, and athtonithed that any Englith gentlemen could have been guilty of thutth a blaggaird-yeth, he would thay thutth a blaggaird acthun. He withed it to be clearly underthtood that Mathter Colvin had named nobody"-no great merit on my part, by the way, as I was unacquainted with a single name, except Pinter's and the Biffords', whom I had not yet seen-"and therefore," continued Dr. Courtley, with severe emphasis and with considerable dignity, "I trutht there will be no mean or bathe attempt at retaliathun; but I intend to mark my thenthe of thith ungentlemanly conduct, by an impothithun. You will write out, and tranthlate

What it was to be I lost, as Pinter major, who was attending, officially, as the præpostor charged with the delivery of the Doctor's message, whispered to me that I should at once ask Old Smugg (Good heavens! even Dr. Courtley had a nickname!) to remit the punishment. He urged me so strenuously, that, plucking up a prodigious amount of courage, I stepped forward, and addressed the Head Master in a husky and tremulous voice.

"Go it!" whispered Pinter major, prompting me behind.

I felt that all eyes were on me, and I did more than warm with my subject; I glowed with it into quite a perspiration, and, adopting Pinter major's whispered advice, I determined to "go it," or, as it were, die on the floor of the House. Looking up at the Head Master, I made this remarkable request :"If you please, sir, will you let them off?" I was

Dr. Courtley considered. trembling with agitation.

-

"Well," he said, slowly, "it'th a noble thing to athk. It'th the part of a gentleman and a Chrithtian. I conthent." As if by inspiration a hearty cheer was given.

The Doctor held up his hand. "But mind," he went on, "never let me hear of thith again. If I do, depend upon it, ath it'th a dithgrathe to the thchool, it thall be motht theverely punithed. Now you can go."

No sooner had he disappeared, which he did by a side door as rapidly as possible, than the delighted boys insisted upon "hoisting" me, a peculiar Holyshadian fashion of celebrating the triumph of anyone of their boating heroes, and closely resembling the old ceremony of chairing a member, or an Irish crowd's method of elevating, on their shoulders, a popular counsel, after the successful issue of a State Trial.

I had begun that day at Holyshade without a friend: before the night I was hand and glove with the whole school.

But I made no friend here like Austin Comberwood, from whom I heard about the middle of the half, informing me that he was leaving England for his health's sake, and was to be accompanied as far as Nice by Mr. Venn, who was to act as his private tutor for some months to come. Austin added that he thought Mr. Venn had obtained some appointment abroad, and intended to live on the Continent. I was more interested in reading that Alice was, just now, the guest of the Cavanders, than in any news about Mr. Venn.

ON the north bank of the sacred Nerbudda, about twenty miles from the mouth, there is a little village called Bhadbhut, which, with the exception of one month in every eighteen years, exists in the quiet placid way natural to Hindu villages. The houses are of mud; there is no bazar, and the only substantial building in the place is the white temple overlooking the river. No one of higher authority lives here than the village patels, who can scarcely read or write, and the village accountant, who does those offices for them; and their only subordinates are a few Bhils, who act as village watchmen, and are distinguished from their non-official brethren only by the bows and arrows they carry. But as that particular month approaches the village begins to grow, and by the time the new moon is visible it is a town. There is a bazar, broad and long, lined with the shops of grain-sellers, and cloth-sellers, and spice-sellers, and sweetmeat-sellers, and braziers; there is street after street of new houses; on the shore there is a perfect fleet of boats, each with its one short mast, supporting a mighty sweeping yard three times the length of itself, and new boats arriving can hardly make their way among the swarms of bathers.

The explanation of the change is that the Jatra has begun. A year composed of lunar months, like that of the Hindu calendar, is very rickety, and continually wants patching; and it is prescribed that when the month Bhadarava's turn to be intercalated comeswhich happens in eighteen years-then for the space of the second Bhadarava a Jatra is to be held at Bhadbhut. Now the most extraordinary thing about a Jatra is the absence of anything extraordinary. That so many people should

come so far to see so little, that they should be so happy in doing nothing, and take so much trouble about it, is really surprising.

The belief that there is particular virtue in bathing in the Nerbudda at this particular time and place partly accounts for the assemblage, but what have holy pilgrims to do with merry-gorounds, which are as crowded as the temple and what means the roaring trade in brass and copper pots? But it is neither religion nor traffic that brings all these people together; thousands come only for the fun of the thing, and what the fun is, is the greatest puzzle to a European. There are the merry-go-rounds, certainly; nor are they confined to youth: a full-grown man will mount a small green wooden horse, and ride as if his only object in life were to catch the yellow one in front of him; and old men who are past such severe equestrian conflicts will still take a seat in the cars that travel an inner and more sober circuit. Dancing and singing and story-telling go on too. Nautches are not to be seen, but there is a simple amateur dance, accompanied with the voice. Legs and lungs qualify anyone to take part. Violent music, proceeding from a tent, may induce a few thousands to pay a small fee to go inside and see two or three wooden figures making foolish bows. Less sensational, but more artistic representations of scenes from holy legends, with Krishna often as the central figure, are also to be seen. But the great sight of all is to see how many people are doing nothing at all. The hum of voices goes on all night, and even an hour or two before dawn in every quieter spot a firmament of glowing cigarettes shows how many are unwilling to waste these precious hours in sleep.

The ordinary pilgrim's attendance at the temple is very brief. The crowd pour in at one door and out at another immediately. To continue passing through and through, from the calling of the god in the morning till the terrible voice which is supposed to send him to sleep at sunset, is a work of merit. Near the temple sit the holy mendicants and ascetics, almost naked, smeared all over with mud, wearing their hair and beard uncut, and looking altogether perfectly hideous and perfectly self-satisfied. Some of them are very distinguished-as he who has come down from Benares, measuring the whole distance with his prostrate body; and he who lies all day on a plank, studded with nails points upwards; and he who has held his hand up in the air for twenty-five years, till the finger

nails have grown so long that he appears to be holding up a bunch of snakes, and the muscles of the arm perfectly rigid. This wretched man will consent to bring his hand down again (he says he would have to soak the muscles in oil for three weeks in order to do so), if anyone will feast for him three thousand Brahmans.

Truly there is not much that is pleasing in a Jatra-childish amusements and miserably corrupt superstition. Still, Anglo-Saxons at least must admire that hundreds of thousands of persons are content to take their holiday where no liquor is allowed to be sold, and that, great as are the crowds, there is no quarrelling, and, helpless and unprotected as the people are, scarcely any crime.

B B

No. 166.-VOL. XXVIII.

THE trials of tourists wandering from one uncomfortable hotel to another, and experiencing the vicissitudes of wind and weather which all travellers are heir to, and the apparently equal trials of those who expose themselves to ridicule by quietly remaining in their houses, were eloquently put before us when the last holiday season set in. It is satisfactory to reflect that a third course is still open, and that it is possible to find the golden mean between the two extremes of perpetual motion and "masterly inactivity." Instead of running restlessly to and fro from picture galleries in one town to churches and palaces in another, from canals in Holland to sunrises at the top of the Righi, why not come quietly to anchor at once in some pleasant spot combining beauty of landscape with an agreeable climate, a fresh scene with an entirely new entourage, and thus spend the yearly holiday; for to have a holiday in autumn now-a-days is as much a necessary of life to a grown man as vacations at Christmas and mid-summer were in his boyhood.

To go abroad unhampered by the incubus of English servants, to stay in one place for a couple of months and there live the life of the country, waited on by the servants of the country, and associating exclusively with its people, is to put yourself in the way of obtaining an accurate knowledge of both country and people to be had in no other manner, whilst, as a hygienic proceeding, the cheerful villa in which these weeks or months may be passed will probably be found more satisfactory than a dismal lodging-house at a second-rate watering place, where the tenant is not unlikely to be favoured with the reversion of a scarlet or typhus fever.

We have such a villa in our own mind close to the beautiful city of Tours, a

little French country-house just the size for comfort, looking down over the luxuriant meadows and valley of the Chosille, a situation so healthy that it is known as the sanitarium of Tours, unvisited even by cholera when that frightful scourge was an epidemic elsewhere. The house is built in the style of architecture prevalent in France more than a century ago, and stands in the midst of fruitful vineyards, the soil being so dry that five minutes after a torrent of rain the garden walks retain no traces of it. The complete absence of damp can be recognized by the present condition of a pictorial paper on the walls of the drawing-room-which paper was put on more than a hundred years ago, and not a morsel of it has peeled off.

In this retreat we have ourselves passed more than one delightful season, and if we could persuade any of our readers to follow our example and spend next autumn among the vineyards of Touraine, we are confident they would acknowledge themselves our debtors for the introduction.

Most civilized countries, whether in ancient or modern times, have possessed their own particular Elysian fields, the favourite spot where it is the ambition of the inhabitants at some period of their lives to have a niche wherein to build their nest. Now, in the imagination of every Frenchman terrestrial paradise is the Touraine; "le jardin de la France" is his Eden, and if even a Parisian indulges in a dream of country life it is always in Touraine that his château en Espagne is reared. An outsider cannot comprehend the magic charm which attaches the French so strongly to this province. As far as scenery is concerned prettier landscapes are to be found in France, and although a great wine country, better wine is