The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-12-30 00:00:00

:eats of kind solemnity ; and when it vanishes, the carrier,

a corrected and altered man, is no longer the slave of pas-
sion and resentment. He narrates to the querulous and
mischievous toy-maker his intention to separate from his
much-loved wife, describing with consummate pathos his

' tears that their disparity of years may have made them un-
suitable—that her happiness, in short, had been unwisely
confided to his keeping. But a few minutes more removes

the veil from his eyes and Dot is again his own. The
stranger is discovered to be the long-lost son of old Caleb
who, when returning to his native village, hears of the in-
tended marriage of May, to whom be had formerly been
betrothed. H e resolves to assume a disguise. but takes
She

occasi,)n to disclose himself to the Carrier's wife
tells him that the intended marriage of his sweetheart is
without her consent, being forced by the ambition of her
mother; whereupon the youth resolves to carry her off,
and wed her at once. in which scheme he is aided by Dot,
who has during the progress of the affair been seen in his
society, as we.l.ave intimated, under circumstances of sad
The young man enters hastily with his bride,

suspic

and all is explained. u In an interesting interview which
takes place prior to this, the blind girl is undeceived as to
the character of the morose toy-maker ; she is told of his

being a '

rdid, grinding man, ugly in his looks
" and that her father is a spare, de-

n his nature

grey-haired deper

down ;" and she bless
truth, to be blind no lo

God she has live

d to learn

„-r. With these denouements the
having, however, exhibited the wicked Taa-
kleton in a repentant mood, like his prototype Sc-
and hinted at a jovial repast and a dance by all the chars.
tern. One of the most tolerable passages in the book is
the following, which pourtrays the workings of the poor

book closes,

arising from his fondness for his wife and his suspicions
of her unfaithfulness:—

The Dutch :lock in the corner struck Ten, when the
arrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-

worn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having
cat his ten melodious announcements as short as pos.
Bible, plunged back into the Nloorish Palace again, and
clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted
spectacle had been tco much for his feelings. If the
little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of
scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's
heart, he never could have wounded it as Dct had done.
It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and
held together by innumerable threads of winning remem-
brance, spun from the daily working of her many qualities
of endearment ; it was a heart in which she had enshrined
herself so gently and so closely ; a heart so single and so
earnest in its Truth : so strong in right, so weak in wrong :
that it could cherish neither passion nor revenge at first,
and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol.
But slowly, slowly ; as the Carrier sat brooding on his
hearth, no w cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began
• e within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the
The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof.
mild take him to his chamber door. One
.t it in. " You might do Murder before
Tackleton had said. How could it be
ave the Villain time to grapple with him
He was the younger matr. It was an ill-
bad fur the dark mood of his mind. It
t, goading him to some avengine. act.

Throe steps
blow would

you know it,"

Murder, if 1;e
hand to hand !

timed thought

that he should chang

ful house into ahaiinted

place wl

lonely travellers would dread to pass by night ;
ad where the timid would see shadows struggling in the
mined windows when the noon was dim, and bear wild
noises in the stormy weather. He was the younger man !
Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heart that he bad
Some lover of her early choice : of whom
t and dreamed : for whom she had pined
he had fancied her so happy by his side.
-'F it 1 She had been above stairs with

ruined w

never touched
she had thcug

and pined

he Ba

t to bed

hearth

she beside hi

without

ling on the
knowledge

—in the turning of the rack of h
•her sounds—and put her little
her hand u
With

its great misery, he lost all
stool at his feet. He only

pion his c

m, and faw be:
No. It vias

looking up into his face

wonder ?

er again

nquiritlg 'lc

3ok, but no

At first it was

serious : then it ct

range, wil

of recognition of
t her clasped ban

as nothing
!at head. a

falling 1

nd the yr