e wild beasts than men, one after
another the king's enemies dropped into the vault, attacking him,
unarmed as he was, and killing him with many wounds. How the queen
ultimately revenged herself upon the king's assassins is matter of
history; but the story is chiefly interesting for its record of the
heroic devotion of Catherine Douglas, who was renamed Kate Barlas, from
the circumstances of her chivalry, by which name her descendants are
known to this day.

THE STRANGER.

_A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE._

BY H. G. BELL.

Hodnet is a village in Shropshire. Like all other villages in
Shropshire, or anywhere else, it consists principally of one long
street, with a good number of detached houses scattered here and there
in its vicinity. The street is on a slight declivity, on the sunny side
of what in England they call a hill. It contains the shops of three
butchers, five grocers, two bakers, and one apothecary. On the right
hand, as you go south, is that very excellent inn, the Blue Boar; and on
the left, nearly opposite, is the public hall, in which all sorts of
meetings are held, and which is alternately converted into a
dancing-school, a theatre, a ball-room, an auction-room, an
exhibition-room, or any other kind of room that may be wanted. The
church is a little farther off, and the parsonage is, as usual, a white
house surrounded with trees, at one end of the village. Hodnet is,
moreover, the market-town of the shire, and stands in rather a populous
district; so that, though of small dimensions itself, it is the
rallying-place, on any extraordinary occasion, of a pretty numerous
population.

One evening in February, the mail from London stopped at the Blue Boar,
and a gentleman wrapped in a travelling cloak came out. The guard handed
him a small portmanteau, and the mail drove on. The stranger entered the
inn, was shown into a parlour, and desired that the landlord and a
bottle of wine should be sent to him. The order was speedily obeyed; the
wine was set upon the table, and Gilbert Cherryripe himself was the
person who set it there. Gilbert next proceeded to rouse the slumbering
fire, remarking, with a sort of comfortable look and tone, that it was a
cold, raw night. His guest assented with a nod. "You call this village
Hodnet, do you not?" said he inquiringly. "Yes, sir, this is the town of
Hodnet" (Mr. Cherryripe did not like the term village), "and a prettier
little place is not to be found in England." "