Year: 1865

streets, soon learn to leave the broad and


modern thoroughfares, and to plunge into


the silence and seclusion of the queer by


ways which lie away from the great roar


ing sea of traffic, Ike the caves and shall


lows that skirt some great ocean bay.
Amongst these retired spots none are
more suggestive than the old churchyards.


all blurred and dim with London smoke,


but yet in which few trees yearly put
forth green leaves of little promise, and


a choir of sooty sparrows chirp around


the queer old steeples, or perch impudent-
/ lyupon the leadeu ornaments which adorn


the sacred porch. In these places
I which even in summer are well-like in


their cool impenetrable shade-there is
no little business going on however. for
all around the rusty iron railing which in
/ close the weed-entangled graveyard, the
/ ! ouses of city merchants seem to crowd
J and hustle for space; and, if they had any
/ time for il, the clerks behind those dust
/ blinded windows might spend an hour not
| unprofi.ably IN looking down upon the
( decayin- monuments of departed citizens,
and meditatins at once on the uncertainty
Of human affairs and the benefits of life
assurance


Amongst the dozen or so Of such places
illustrating the brick and mortar history
of the city, none are more suggestive than
the church and yard of St Simon Swyn-
herde, which, lying in the circumbendi-
bus of a lane named after the same saint,
forms as it were a sort of outlying island,
upon whose quiet shores the incautious
wayfarer, being sometimes lost or cast
away, can hear the surges of the great
sea as they boom in the thoroughfores be.
yCnd There Is no alteration in this
place from year to year, except such diff
ferences rs are brought about by the
changes Of seasons; no ci.ic improve
,.ment troub 6 its sedate gloom--no ad-
venturous speculator regard it as a prom
ising site for building blocks of Offices
no railway company casts an evil eye upon
It's scclusion within the area formed bv
the church and the tai dim houses which
have mouidered into Uniform neutrality
of color


Even the march of time seems to have
been arrested amidst the decay Of the
place since the bell of the church clock
rusted from its bearings and the index of
the old sun-dial fell prey to accumulated
canker. The spring brings Il few green
buds and feeble leaves upon the gritnmy
trees; the summer serves TO accumulate
the store Of rest and torn paper and shreds
o. light rubbish which the autumn winds
whir! into neglected corners on the dim
evenings when the rain weeps on the
blackeued windows and the mist creeps
up TO the steeple in long ghostly shapes
the winter brings a frozen cyclone which
whistles round and round, or gently covers
the graveyard with suow, the unbroken
whiteness Of which is gradually spotted
and intcrIaced with socty flakes, as though
the genius of the place resented the in.
trusion, and would make no further com
promise than half mourning These are
the changes that mark the progress of St
Swynherde-whichc cares no more for past
nor moderen Improvement than do the
Common Council for the eaten dinners OF
the last mayorality.


To get away from the place, however,
and come to our story-(it shows what a
queer, lreamy, out-of~the-way, lost, for
lorn, silent, Incompetent old neighborhood
it is when only to begin to talk about it
Involves utter forgetfulness of the bust
ness that took you thereto get away
from the place TO the people-the dim
NEST. darkest and dirtiest af MI The houses
round the yard was that of Richard bryce
n Co, factors and general merchants 1t
was never known who was the Co, for
Richard Dryce managed his own business,
/ and lived in the house, in one Of the back
rooms Of which, overlooking n square
paved courtyard, he had been born for
the business belonged to his father before
him. and he himself had married into the
business of another factor and general
merchant His wife had died some twenty
wears before the period Of this story
/ died in giving birth to a boy, who was
sometimes mistaken for the Co, but who
A. present occupied no better position than
that Of a superior clerk, with the ques-
I tionable advantage of living with his
father in the dull old house, where he
had to 90 through the warehouse amidst
/ innumerabie bales and crates and pack
+ ages to reach the staircase which con-
Quoted him to the gloomy rooms, the
old fashioned furniture of which suited


his father, but was sorely against his own


taste


How he should have come to have any


opinion Of his own is perhaps mystery,


for he resembled his mother, who was n


simple creature, easily influenced, and


with all her tastes apparently moulded on


tho pattern set before her bc her husband