If this were
expiation, it was in a purgatory indeed. But in a purgatory of filth and
of disgusting sensations, instead of in a torturing purgatory of fire.

To be lashed with the whip, and galled excruciatingly with the harness;
to have the bit between the teeth, or tugging at the jaws unmercifully;
and to have the blinkers ever blotting out the vision of the world: to
strain every sinew, and have the service accepted thanklessly; to be
tortured with discomfort, and to work absolutely without reward--it was
a life devoid of even the meanest compensations: loathsome, and in every
way abhorrent to thought.

The horses, and other animals he met in the streets, he might have
communicated with in some way or other, but his driver--a drunken,
quarrelsome fellow--was always tugging at the bit or brandishing the
whip; and if the poor animal even tried to turn his head, he was
belaboured as brutally as if he had swerved or fallen asleep.

There was no chance even of rubbing noses at the drinking-troughs, or of
laying his head on the neck of a companion at the stand. And whatever
might be taking place in the streets through which he was passing, he
was debarred from bestowing on it even the most casual attention.

His mental activity was ignored, or trampled on, with an indifference
that was never once relaxed or relieved.

His life was a horror unexampled in its profundity. The cruel debasement
and defilement of it penetrated so deeply that he repented bitterly of
the choice into which he had been betrayed. He would infinitely have
preferred suffering among his equals in hell.

A year of this life was as much as he could endure. One day he stumbled
across a tram-line, and, falling, broke his leg--hopelessly snapping
the tendon, and otherwise injuring himself--and he was carted off to the
knackers to receive his _coup de grace_.

A moment or two before he was killed, the eyes of the animal lighted up
with a strangely human expression--which was succeeded by a look of the
most unappeasable despair.

Evidently he had again seen the grey old man.

But the Visitor's communication to him remained unrevealed, and it was
probably torturing him still when he . . . died?

THE FIELDS OF AMARANTH.

"I SHALL seek the fields of amaranth," said the young man defiantly.
"And I shall find them," added he, turning tenderly to his mother. "And
when I have found them I will comeback for _you_, dear mother, and I
will take you