For when the evening shades came down
His wearied spirit thence had flown.

WILLIAM ILOTT.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] 3d September, the anniversary of his greatest victories.

[From Household Words.]

MY WONDERFUL ADVENTURES IN SKITZLAND.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE BEGINNING IS A BORE--I FALL INTO MISFORTUNE.

I am fond of gardening. I like to dig. If among the operations of the
garden any need for such a work can be at any time discovered or
invented, I like to dig a hole. On the third of March, 1848, I began a
hole behind the kitchen wall, whereinto it was originally intended to
transplant a plum-tree. The exercise was so much to my taste, that a
strange humor impelled me to dig on. A fascination held me to the task.
I neglected my business. I disappeared from the earth's surface. A boy
who worked a basket by means of a rope and pulley, aided me; so aided, I
confined my whole attention to spade labor. The centripetal force seemed
to have made me its especial victim. I dug on until autumn. In the
beginning of November I observed that, upon percussion, the sound given
by the floor of my pit was resonant. I did not intermit my labor, urged
as I was by a mysterious instinct downward. On applying my ear, I
occasionally heard a subdued sort of rattle, which caused me to form a
theory that the centre of the earth might be composed of mucus. In
November, the ground broke beneath me into a hollow and I fell a
considerable distance. I alighted on the box-seat of a four-horse coach,
which happened to be running at that time immediately underneath. The
coachman took no notice whatever of my sudden arrival by his side. He
was so completely muffled up, that I could observe only the skillful way
in which he manipulated reins and whip. The horses were yellow. I had
seen no more than this, when the guard's horn blew, and presently we
pulled up at an inn. A waiter came out, and appeared to collect four
bags from the passengers inside the coach. He then came round to me.

"Dine here, sir?"

"Yes, certainly," said I. I like to dine--not the sole point of
resemblance between myself and the great Johnson.

"Trouble you for your stomach, sir."

While the waiter was looking up with a polite stare into my puzzled
face, my neighbor, the coachman, put one hand within his outer coat, as
if to feel for money in his waistcoat-pocket. Directly afterward his
fingers come again to light, and pulled forth