his the fight must be a duel. The
man must throw his beast, or be thrown. Not unfrequently, the latter
occurs; and then the city crowd, who were so loud in their plaudits of
the victor--cruel as their ancestors whose upturned thumbs condemned
the conquered gladiator in the Coliseum--are equally loud in their
hooting of the prostrate buttero. But only his self-love and
self-respect, and not his life, in these days pays the penalty. As he
falls worsted his fellows, watchful to prevent mischief, though
perhaps not sorry for a rival's discomfiture, rush forward and
overpower the conquering brute.

And this goes on until the assembled butteri and their aids have got
through their day's work and marked all the animals that were awaiting
the brand, and the merca for that year is finished. The citizens,
dames and dandies get them back to their carriages and to the city,
while the butteri, victors and vanquished alike, spend the night in
discussing the vicissitudes of the merca and worshiping Bacchus with
rites which in this most conservative of all lands two thousand years
have done but little to change.

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

THREE FEATHERS.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

INTO CAPTIVITY.

Toward eleven o'clock that night Mrs. Rosewarne became somewhat
anxious about her girls, and asked her husband to go and meet them, or
to fetch them away if they were still at Mr. Trewhella's house.

"Can't they look after themselves?" said George Rosewarne. "I'll be
bound Mabyn can, any way. Let her alone to come back when she
pleases."

Then his wife began to fret, and as this made him uncomfortable, he
said he would walk up the road and meet them. He had no intention of
doing so, of course, but it was a good excuse for getting away from a
fidgety wife. He went outside into the clear starlight, and lounged
down to the small bridge beside the mill, contentedly smoking his
pipe.

There he encountered a farmer who was riding home a cob he had bought
that day at Launceston, and the farmer and he began to have a chat
about horses suggested by that circumstance. Oddly enough, their
random talk came round to young Trelyon.

"Your thoroughbreds won't do for this county," George Rosewarne was
saying, "to go flying a stone wall and breaking your neck. No, sir.
I'll tell you what sort of hunter I should like to have for these
parts. I'd have him half-bred, short in the leg, short in