Argonauts had become
spiritless and corpulent and lazy. One night a great gale swept in
from the sea: the earth fairly trembled under the repeated shocks
of the breakers. Old people looked troubled and young people looked
scared, and on the worst night of all the convent bell was heard to
toll, and then everybody feared something dreadful was happening to
the nuns, and everybody lay still and hoped it would soon be over.
The nuns wondered who rang the bell; and when every one had denied all
knowledge of it, it was known that most likely the devil had rung it,
for it was a dreadful night, and such a one as he best likes to be out
in.

In the morning, when the wind and the sea had gone down somewhat,
the wreckers found a stark corpse among the rocks under the headland,
lying with its face to the tower. It was dreadfully mangled: no
one could identify it as being any one in particular, and it
was impossible to know whether death had occurred by accident or
intentionally; so it was shrouded and put away out of Christian burial
in the common field of the unfortunate. The nuns sang a _requiem_, as
was their custom, and Maud prayed earnestly for all followers of the
sea; and the echo of her _miserere_ is the saddest line in the story
of Jason's Quest.

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

FOREBODINGS.

What weight is this which presses on my soul?
Powerless to rise, I sink amidst the dust:
The days in solemn cycle o'er me roll,
While, praying, I can only wait and trust.

--Trust the dear Hand that all my life has led
Through pastures green, by waters pure and still:
If now He leads me through dark ways and dread,
Shall I dare murmur, whatsoe'er His will?

DEER-PARKS.

There is nothing in England at the present day much more distinctly
an institution of that country than its deer-parks. Although it
seems probable that the Saxons had some sort of enclosed or partially
enclosed chases where deer were hunted or taken in the toils, the
regular and systematic enclosure of parks would appear to have come
in with the Normans. According to the old Norman law, no subject
could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial
prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant.

On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness
in this respect than in England. "In April, 1656," says Reresby in his
travels, "I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months