mw yommin"^ VAaaAINHlW AINa-3WV ^^HIBRARYQ^ ^^^IIIBRARYC '^' '^OdllVJJO /ER% I— > ^lOSANCFtfj> o «i ^ "^/SilJAINO^WV ^^.OFCALIFO/?^ ^^;OfCALIFO/?/ vr vJO^ v/ _ / ^ aii-^^ ^^Aavfigii-^^ ^^WEUNIVERS-/^ vV^lUVANCElfj ft; O "^AaaAiNn-iW m%ir, o '/'/pflsiM-nw'V^ an^HIBRARYQ^ ^^HIBRARYc ^.!/0JnV3JQ c/Aavaaii-i>^' ^(/■Aavayiii^ 'JilJJNVbUl-^ ''/iad ^MFUNIVERi-//- 'Jr ^mmwu^^ 'n\wim^ AINn-3\\V 33 ^.!/0jnV3J0'^ '^.!/0: ^V\E UNIVER^/A ^V^OSANCElfX;^ %a3AINIllV\V ^^OFCAIIFO% ^m ^ ^^ommni'^ '^' '%ojiivj-jo'^ AWEUNIVERS/a 0,10: • , - o ;,.OFCA1IFO/?^ ^A:OFCAIIFO% ^\^El)NIVER5-//, ^VVO' "^a; ^\WEUNIVER% ^lOSANCElfj-^ o O u- -^illBRARYQc. \^H ^ %13DNVS01^'^' ^/Sa3AIN(]-3y\V^ '^JO'^ rnE S U YEN IE. ■*. a TO age L ilhr,« Edi vi' THE S U V E N I E. ^ token of memcmbronce. ' Fcrget me net around year hearth When cheerly stoilea the ruddy hlaz-^ ; For dear has been its evening miith To me sweet friends, in other da^-s " THOMAS NELSON, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCL. EDINBURGH : PUISTED BY T. KELSON AljD S0S3. PREFACE. The selection comprised in the following pages has been made with much care, from many som-ces beyond the reach of ordinary readers, and will be found to comprise much that is new and beautiful, intermingled with a few well-known favourites, whose charms are held in such universal estimation that they are never felt to pall on the most fastidious taste. This volume is offered as a memorial of friendship, and a Souvenir to recall the remembrance of distant objects of affection, — being peculiarly adapted, from the natiure of its contents, for a parting gift. As a companion during those hours of quiet and pensive reflection that frequently result from absence and dis- tance from friends, its varied stores will be found to suggest many sweet and pleasing fancies, such as friendship will delight to associate with the memory of the giver. Contents. Page Sebastien Somez; oi', the Mulatto of Murillo ... ... 1 Music— Good Morrow ... ... ... ... 27 Origin of the Snow-Drop ... ... ... 29 Popular Traditions of France ... ... ... 3J The Kaiser's Feast ... ... ... ... "6 TlieVine ... ... ... ... ... Tit Music— To the Woodhirlc ... ... ... 81 The Martmlom of George Wishart ... ... 83 Jiaiy Allan ... ... ... ' .. .•■ 8fi JIusic— 'When the Fosy Mom Appearing ... ... 99 The Luck of Edenhall ... ... ... ... 10.' ITie Indian Summer ... ... ... ••• 10^" The Earth and Stars ... ... " ... ... US The Snow-Hake ... ... ... ... H^ On my friend Robin, vulgarly called Ragged ... . 1-' 1 Music— A Rose-Bud by my Early Walk ... ... 123 The last of the Boatmen ... ... .-• 12.5 Hero and Leander ... ... ... - 139 Death of an Infant ... ... ... •• l^f The Bible ... ... ... ••■ •■• 150 Music — The Flowers 0' the Forest ... ... •■• 151 AUerton Tower .. ... .. ••• 153 Hidden Feelin-s ... ... .- •• 1"0 The American Forest Girl ... ... ••• 1"! Music — ^You are a lovely July Flower ... .•■ 1"5 Stanz;is ... ... ... ... •■■ 1"" IV CONTENTS. Be Kind E-/ening Wilt thou liemember? Autumn Tlie Waterfowl Rnlns Touch thy Harp Separation To Music The Bee and the Lady -Flower A Real Occurrence in a Circle of Friends Music— Tlie Winter it is Past The Shamrock Hymn of the Moravian Nuns The Wives of the Dead The Countenance A Requiem The Sleepers A November Sketch ... The Red Indian Girt 177 178 180 181 185 180 187 190 192 193 194 197 199 209 211 221 223 225 227 281 fl)f ^ottoenir. him^ SEBASTIEN GOMEZ; fHuUtto of ftturtUo. The sun had only just risen, and all Seville was still buried in repose, Avlien several youths, the young- est of whom might have been about fifteen, and the eldest twenty, met one morning in the month of June 1558, at the door of a handsome house in the square of the Little Cloister of San Francisco. After an interchange of greetings, one of them having knocked, the door was opened by an okl Negi-o. " Good morning, my old Gomez," said they almost together. " Is the master up?" '•' Not yet, my young sirs ! " repUed the Negro, speaking in a slow and guttural tone. "How you drawl out that, Gomez!" cried several SEBASTIEJf GOMEZ of them, as they rushed tumultuously into the work- shop, each one hastening towards his resj^ective easel. " By St. James of Compostello, but this is strange," exclaimed Suarez, who had opened his box and taken out his palette. " Which of you gentlemen staid the latest in the workshop ?" " Oh ! the Zombi is again at work," said Gomez, with every appearance of fear. " The Zombi ! The Zombi ! " said Suarez, angrily. " If I could catch your Zombi, I would bang his shoulders till he told his real name. It is a very bad joke to play off on me, gentlemen, who am more par- ticular than any one of you in cleaning my palette. My brushes are as dirty as if I had only just been using them." " Stay ! here is a head on the corner of my canvass," said Suarez, stopping before his easel. " It is the portrait of the Canon Istenby," exclaim- ed Cordova. " Look, gentlemen ! look ! " " The Zombi again ! " muttered Gomez. " In truth, if it is the Zombi of Gomez that makes all the heads which we find every morning on our canvass," said Villavicemio, "he ought, since he meddles at all, to have the goodness to paint the head of the Virgin in my Descent from the Cross. I cannot succeed in giving it the expression which THE MULATTO OF MUBILLO. the Virgin-Mother ought to have. For these last eight days I have effaced every evening, what I spent the day in painting." While speaking, Villavicemio had been carelessly approaching his easel. He now uttered a ciy, and stood motionless before it. They all rose, one after the other, and advancing towards him, gazed in silent astonishment. In the centi-e of Villavicemio's picture, at the foot of the cross, whence the evening before, the young Spaniard had effaced his head of the Virgin, there was now another. It was only a sketch, but the ex- pression was so lovely, so chaste, the outline of such great purity, the colouring so soft, that it spoiled the picture by its very superiority to every other figure in it. " How beautiful ! " cried all the young people in ecstacy. " Indeed I know not who could have done that head," said Suarez, " unless it might be Gaspard?" " Who calls Gaspard V gaily exclaimed a youth of sixteen, entering the workshop, followed by a man of middle age whom the pupils saluted by the name of Mendez Ozorio. " What a close fellow you must be, Gaspard," said Baba. " Your father complains that you prefer litera- ture to painting, and now, it seems that you reverse SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OK, the usual order of things, and paint by night, and study by day." " Who accuses me of painting by night ?" demand- ed Gaspard, laughing. "Look here," cried at the same instant all the pupils ; all those of them at least whose canvass had received an addition of figures, heads, or arms. jMendez looked, and said gravelj', — " Upon my word, gentlemen, this is not Gaspard's doing." " What reason have you for thinking it is not, Senor Ozorio ?" said Cheves. " Simply because Gaspard is incapable " Of playing a trick ? " said Tobar, completing liis sentence. " Of doing so well," continued Ozorio. This was hailed with l^ursts of laughter from the pupils. " Then it is you, Senor Ozoiio," said they. " I should be right glad to oa\ti such touches as these," replied Ozorio, " but it is not I ; I am not of an age to stay up all night for no other object than to play tricks on you." "Then who can it be?" " The Zombi," muttered old Gomez again. " To work, gentlemen, to work," said Gaspard, look- ing up towards the ceiling. " I hear my father THE MULATTO OF MUKILLO. coming down. His toilet is soon made. For my part I mil make my escape, and get out of his way." " Where are you going?" " To read some verses of my own composition to Senor Ozorio." Av, revoir, my young friends." " Sebastien ! Sebastien ! Sebastien ! " At these cries, reiterated a hundred times by the pupils, and in every variety of tone, a poor little IMulatto hurried into the workshop. '•' Here I am, my masters," said he, trembling. '•' Sebastien, some fresh canvass," said one : " Sebas- tien, the oil," cried another ; " Sebastien, my pal- ette ;" " Sebastien, grind some yellow for me ;" "and some vermilion for me," said another ; "some ochre for me," said a sixth. — " Come, Sebastien, quick, quick." In the vain endeavour to answer all these clashing and conflicting calls upon him, the poor little Mulatto ran about from one to the other, meeting ^^•ith rebuffs on all sides, for not attending to every one at the same time. " Well ! what is the matter with you all ? One would think the workshop was on fire." These words, uttered in a sharp stern voice, hushed all to silence, while each of the pupils bent before the new comer. He was a man of about forty, with a noble but SEBASTIEJf GOMEZ; OR, somewhat haughty expression of countenance, and dressed wiih the utmost elegance. " Look, Senor ]\Iurillo," said Villavicemio, showing his picture. " Very well, indeed, bravo, Villavicemio," said J\Iu- rillo. You are making visible progress." " It was not I who painted that, master ! " said Villavicemio, in a tone of regret. " So much the worse; but who was it then?" re- plied Murillo. " Speak, speak ; who was it?" added he, impatiently ; " for it is admirable ; — what tone, what freshness, what colouring, what delicacy of touch ! I am not afraid, gentlemen, to say, that he who has done this head of the Virgin will be one day the master of us all. Was it you, Baba?" " No, Senor." "Or you, Suarez?" "Alas! not I." " Could it be Gaspard, by any chance?" " He denies it, Senor Murillo," said Chev^s. " If he does, we must believe him," replied Murillo. '* But who can it be then ? This head of the Virgin has not come and planted itself of its own accord in the middle of Villavicemio's canvass." " By our Lady, Senor ^Murillo," said Cordova, the youngest of the class, " if Gomez is to be believed, and the little Sebastien ." THE MULATTO OP MURILLO. "Well!" " It is the Zombi who ." Cordova was inter- rupted by a shout of derision from all the pupils. " Nay," he added wannly, " you may laugh if you like, and make game of me ; but nevertheless, gentle- men, you cannot deny that for some time most extra- ordinary things have ocem'red here, — things which do not happen every day." "That is true, for it is at night they happen," replied Villavicemio. " What happens every night ?" demanded Murillo, without taking his eyes off the head of the Vii'gin, so mii'aculously painted. Cordova began to explain : — " According to your orders, senor, none of us ever leave the workshop until we have put everything aside, cleaned our palettes, washed and dried our brushes, arranged our easels, and turned our canvass wrong side up. Well, Senor Mmillo, for about a month — yes — certainly it is at least a month, if not more, — for the last month then, every morning, on an-iving, one finds his palette all full of paint; another, his brushes dirty ; and here and there upon our canvass, one discovers an ann finished which he had only sketched ; another, in a corner of his picture, devil grinning at him, and showng his horns ; others find, one time, the head of an angel ; another time. that of an old man, or, it may be, the profile of a young gii-l, or the caricature of some one who had been in the workshop the evening before. In short, Senor MurQlo, I should never have done if I were to relate all the supernatural doings that take place every night in your workshop." "Is Gaspard a somnambulist 1" inquired Villavi- cemio of his master. «No; but even if he were, it is not credible that he should work better at night with his eyes shut, than in the day with his eyes open. No, my young friends ; he who has produced that head is more than a pupil' more than an imitator. It is incorrect, it is unfinished; nevertheless, the sacred fire of genius is^^ in that pencil. However, it is easy for us to find out? — Sebastien!" " If you want tu find out fi-om Sebastien, senor," said Villavicemio, "he knows no more than we do ; —but no, I am mistaken, he positively affirms it is the Zombi." " We shall soon see that.— Sebastien !" " Here, master ! " said the little Mulatto, who had run at the first call. " Did I not order you to sleep here every night ?" " Yes, master." " And do you sleep here?" " Yes, master." THE MULATTO OF MURILLO. 9 '•' Then tell me who is it that comes into the work- shop at night, or in the morning before the pupils ar- rive ? — Who 1 answer me." " No one, master," replied the little Mulatto, in affi-ight, and twisting the buttons of his sleeve in his confusion. " No one ? You lie, rascally slave — you lie. Have you not eyes as well as we?" And Murillo point- ed to the head of the Virgin in Villavicemio's pic- ture. " Nobody — ^1)ut — myself — master, I swear to you," said Sebastien, with clasped hands. " Now listen to me ! " said Murillo, with stern look and voice. — " I must know who has done this head of the Virgin ; do you hear me 1 as well as all those little figures which the gentlemen find every morning on the canvass. I am determined I will know, I tell you. Now listen to me : — To-night, instead of sleep- ing, you must watch ; and if to-morrow you have not discovered the culprit, you shall receive twenty lashes, laid on by my major-domo, who does not beat the air, as you know by this time. Remember what I say. But you are muttering something, I believe. If you have anything to say, say it — speak, — I give you full permission." " I only wanted to say, master," said Sebastien, u-ith tears in his eyes, " that if everything remains 10 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, in its place to-night — and if there is nothing else on the gentlemen's canvass ." " That is another atiair ; instead of twenty-five lashes, you shall get tliii'ty. Enough said; — now, gentlemen, to work." The lesson commenced ; and while it lasted, a pro- found silence was observed. Such was Murillo's de- votion to the sublime art to which he owed his bril- liant fame and fortunes, that he would not suffer a profane word to be uttered by the pupils while in his presence; and by a profane word, the gTeat master meant every word that related not to painting. After the departure of JMm-illo, it seemed as if each pupil were determined to make himself amends for the silence imposed on him. If everything appeared dead while the master was present, his absence was the signal for a return to life ; even the very easels seemed to become animated. As at this moment the minds of all the pupils were occupied with the one subject, the conversation immediately turned upon these httle creations, so delicate, so sweet, so soft, which seemed to be called forth every morning, and vanish every night — but only to give place to others. " Tell us now, Sebastien," cried Villavicemio, as soon as the door had closed on Murillo, and the sound of his steps had died away in the long corridor, " Tell us wliy, when the master asked vou who had THE MULATTO OP MURILLO. 11 dune all those little heads, why did you not give him the same answer as to us, — 'The Zombi' ?" " Because that answei* would have earned for me a flogging, Senor Villavicemio," replied Sebastien, whose tongue, as well as tliat of the pupils, seemed to be let loose by the departm-e of the master. '• Ah ! well, I have good hopes ! you shall not escape to-morrow morning with your Zombi," cried Mendez. " Do not speak ill of the Zombi, Senor Mendez," said Sebastien, affecting an air of terror, " for look how he is revenging himself on you by stretching the arm of yom- St. James, — this arm is at least an inch longer than the other." '■' Sebastien is right, Mendez," said Baba, leaning over his neighbour's easel. " That arm is too long. But tell us, Sel)astien, who is the Zombi 1 " '•'Yes do, Sebastien, tell us who is the Zombi?" exclaimed several voices at once. " Indeed, gentlemen, I have never seen him myself; ]>ut my father, who never saw him any moire than I, was told by his grandfather, who never saw him either, that he was a spectre, an evil spirit that visits the earth' every night expressly to do mischief" '•' I wish I could do in the day what he does at night," said Tobar. " Hand me some bright yellow, Sebastien." 12 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, "Do not you think it is yellow enough already, Senor Tobar?" answered Sebastien. "Look at mine, Sebastien; is mine too yellow?" inquired Chev^s. " On the contrary, senor, your's is blue — a deep dark blue. Your water is l)lue, your trees are blue, youi* meadows are blue. Is it on set pm-pose that you make everything blue?" " No indeed," said Cheves. " One would think so, then," returned Sebastien. " It is very odd ; but this little slave, with his sim- ple face, is as full of mischief as an ape." " After all, what is the Negro l)ut a kind of ape ? " said Villavicemio. '•' Mixed -with a little of the parrot," observed Tobar. " With this difference only, — tliat the parrot does nothing but repeat," replied Baba, "and Sebastien thinks and speaks to the point." " Just as the parrot, by dint of speaking, sometimes hits upon the right thing," added Tol)ar. " You are a judge of design, too, I suppose," said Villavicemio. " Oh, I only repeat, you know, what I hear the mas- ter say," said Sebastien, ■\\-ith a look of such perfect simplicity, that no one doubted but that this was the fact. " For after all, what am I but an ape, or a THE MULATTO OP MURILLO. 13 parrot ; " he paused an instant, — then added, " or a slave ! " — and these last words were uttered in a tone of such deep sadness, that there was not one among the pupils — gay, thoughtless, and sometimes even in- considerate to cruelty as they were — that was not touched. "What a droll little being you are I" said Baba, giving him a fiiendly pinch in the ear. " Adieu, Se- bastien ; catch the Zombi, or your back \vill pay for it." " Catch the Zombi, or your back will pay for it," repeated each pupil, as he left the workshop. Adieu, Sebastien; good luck to you; my respects to the Zombi." " The Zombi ! the Zombi ! " repeated Sebastien, gazing after the last who left the workshop. " Will not these Christians have pity on me?" Ejaculating these words in the same tone as that in which he had pronounced the word slave, Sebas- tien began to arrange the workshop. Night having surprised him in this occupation, he lighted a lamj), and, casting a timid but searching glance around him, as if to assure himself that he was really alone, he approached the easel of Villavicemio, and as he gazed on the head of the Virgin, which had so miraculously appeared on the canvass, the dull heavy eyes, tlie sluggish featm*es, the whole countenance of the poor slave, became animated ; and murmuring between 14 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, liis teeth, — " The master said, ' I only wish I had done it,' " he appeared as if lost in devout ecstasy. Long had he stood thus motionless, \A"hen a hand was laid upon his arm, and so far had he been carried in thought from the present and the visible, that he started and uttered an exclamation of terror at the touch. " Sebasticn ! " said a timid and broken voice. "Is it you, father?" said Sebastien, looking at a tall old Negro, who was standing beside him. " What are you doing here, my son ?" " Nothing, fiither. I was only looking at this pic- ture." " Sebastien," said the old Negro, turning on his son a look of feverish inquietude, " I heard what the pu- pils said as they went out. Are you going to watch ? " " Yes, fiither," replied the boy. " And the Zombi ! " said the old man, with a ter- rified glance round the large workshop, which the feeble light of the lamp seemed only to throw into deeper shade. " I am not much afraid of him, father," said Se- bastien, with an involuntary smile of incredulity. " Oh! my son, do not jest thus," said the old Ne- gro, the reality of whose fears was evidenced by the trembling knees that could scarcely support him. " Do not brave him. Oh! if he were to can-y you off, TUE MULATTO OF MURILLO. 15 tell me what would become of old Gomez. I ^vill remain with you, my son. I am very much afraid, — but that is no matter. Let him take us both off together, if it must be so." " My good father," said the young Mulatto, " there is no such thing as the Zombi; it is only an old superstition of our country. His Reverence, Father Ambrose, who often comes here, has told you so, flither ; and you must believe him, for he is a holy man, and would not say anything that was not true." " But these little heads, and especially that head of the Virgin, which has thrown them all into such surprise, that even the master himself was speaking of it, at dinner, to Senor Mendez Ozorio, to young Master Gaspard, and to everybody else ! — Who could put it there, if not the Zombi ?" " Some time or other it will be known, father ; but you had better leave me now." " It is vain for you to talk, boy ; I will not leave you. Only think, child, what you are to me. The white men have houses, money — they have liberty — liberty, child. But you know not what that is. You were bom a slave ; but I — I have been made one. I — I was born free, Sebastien." " Oh ! it is too true, father. It is horrible to be a slave ! " said Sebastien, bursting into tears. 16 SEBASTIEN GOJIEZ ; OK, " Horrible ! " repeated tlie old Negro. " Horrible ! and no hope of ever breaking the chain : certainly no hope for thee, Sebastien." " Father," said the young Mulatto, raising his eyes to the glass dome of the Avorkshop, through which were seen the bright starry heavens, " on high there is a God, who is a God for every one ; for the Negro as well as for the white man ; for the slave as well as the master. Let us pray to him, my fatlier, and he will hear and answer us." " But only a miracle could help us, my son." " God can work miracles, father." '' Alas, my son ! He does not work them now-a- days ; and why should he work one for us ? " " Who knows, father ? His Reverence tells me that a Christian must never despair. But now, dear fatlier, you must go and lie down ; and you may sleep soundly, believe me. You know I am no longer a child. I am fifteen. Good night, father." " Good night, my son ; and may God set you free one day!" " You must be first free, fether. You said your- self that I was born a slave, and must by this time be accustomed to it. Good night, father." " Good night," said the old Negro, at last making up his mind to leave him. " Good night." As soon as Sebastien found himself alone, he THE MULATTO OF MURILLO. 17 uttered a joyous sound ; but, as if suddenly recollect- ing himself, he exclaimed sorrowfully, "twenty-five lashes, if I do not confess ; thirty lashes if there should be no new figures to-morrow ; and twenty-five, perhaps, if the culprit be found out. Poor slave, what hadst thou to do with such high dreams? I Avill efface all, and it shall happen no moi'e. But, oh ! how sleepy I am," added he, yawning. " I will pray to God, and who knows but he may inspire me with some means of extrication !" And Sebastien knelt upon the mat which served him as a bed ; but fatigued as he was by the labours of the day, sleep surprised him in the middle of his prayer, and falling against one of the marble pillars of the workshop, he awoke not till the first feeble rays of the new-born day had penetrated into the room. The clock of the little cloister of San Fran- cisco struck half-past three, and his very joints cracked in the effort thoroughly to awake. " Up, lazy one, up," said he ; " you have three hours before you, — three hours which you can call your own, — three hours in which you are youi- own master. Avail yourself of them, poor slave. Time enough, when they awake, for you to resume your chain, and feel it. Courage! you may do what you like for three hours. It is little enough." The boy, now broad awake, approached the easel of Villavicemio. 18 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, " In the first place," said lie, " I must efface all these figui-es." Then taking a In-ush, which he diiiped into the oil, he uncovered the Virgin's head, which, illu- mined as it was l)y the dim light of the opening day, a])peai'ed still more soft and sweet. "Eftace it!" returned he, after a moment's survey, and smiling upon this beauteous creation of the preceding night. " Eftace it ! They did not dare to do it, notwith- standing all their taunts ; and I — shall I have more courage than they ? No, no ; a million times rather the scourge, — rather death, if it must be so! But this head lives — it breathes — it speaks. Were I to eftace it, methinks its blood would flow : it would be notliing short of murder. No, I will rather finish it." These words were no sooner uttered, than the i)a- lette was in the hands of Sebastien, the various colours mixed, and the boy at work. " After all, if it must he effaced, I shall have time enough before the master gets up, or the pupils ar- rive," said he to himself. " Her hair does not wave gracefully enough — there is some hardness here — it wants a softer touch there — I must shade here — this line is too niarked — it makes her look old — the Vir- gin ought to l)e in prayer too — her lips must be a little ajiart — there, that wUl do. But do I dream? — Seems she not actually breathing before me ? — Are her eyes fixed upon me ? Methinks I hear a sigh from THE MULATTO OF MURILLO. 19 under the veil which is falling over her shoulders. Oh! how heautiful, how holy she seems!" JNIeanwMle the sun had arisen, and its rays, shining through the window of the workshop, in-adiated with their brilliant light all the objects it contained; but Sebastien, quite absorbed in his work, perceived it not. He forgot everything — the advancing hour — the hard slavery, and the twenty-five lashes which awaited him. Wholly carried away by his art, (his genius for which, born with him, had been man^el- lously developed by his stay with Murillo,) the young artist saw only the Virgin's face, with its lovely be- nignant smile — he was no longer a slave — he was free — there was no bondage in the bright world in which he was living. Suddenly the noise of foot- steps and the sound of well-known voices broke the charm, and brought him back to earth, once more a slave . Sebastien, mthout turning round, felt that JMurillo and his pupils were behind him. Surprised and con- founded, he thought not either of excusing liimself, or of trying to escape. He A\'ished the floor of the workshop would open and swallow him up. But vain was his wish; and there stood the poor slave, AA-ith his palette in one hand, his brush in the other ; and without daring to raise his head, he awaited, in agonized dismay, the punishment with which he was threatened. 20 SEBASTIKN GOMEZ ; OR, There was a moment's silence on both sides ; for if Sebastien was petrified on finding himself thus caught in the fact, IMurillo and his pupils were no less asto- nished at wliat they beheld. The j'oung men, with all the vivacity of their age, were about to have ex- pressed their admiration, but a sign from their mas- ter silenced them. He gravely advanced towards his slave; and hiding under a cold, stern air, the emo- tion wliich every true artist must feel at the sight of genius thus revealed for the first time, he said to him, — " Sebastien, who is your master ?" " You, my lord," replied the boy in a scarcely audible voice. " I mean your master in painting, Sebastien." " You, my lord," replied the slave, still tremb- ling. " How ! I never gave you a lesson, child," returned Murillo in astonishment. " No, master ; but you gave it to the others, and I listened," replied Sebastien, emboldened by the soft- ened tone of his master. " And profited by it," said IMurillo again. "You did not forbid me!" said Sebastien; "I did not think it was any hann." Murillo warmly replied, — "And by the ancient patron of Spain, you have profited by it as none of THE MULATTO OP MURILLO. 21 my pupils have ever yet done. So, then," added he, after a pause, " you work at night ?" " No, master, by day." "At what hour then? My pupils usually arrive at six." " From three to five, master. I first overslept, and then forgot myself." Murillo smiled. "And did you also forget what I promised you yesterday, Sebastien ?" said he to him. The poor slave turned pale and trembled, as though he already felt the tlireatened lash. "Oh! Senor Murillo!" cried all the pupils with suppliant voices. " Pardon for Sebastien." " I shall only be too glad, gentlemen ; but I must go farther. This boy does not so much merit pardon as reward." " Reward !" repeated Sebastien, now hardly able to stand, while he ventured to lift his timid and tearful eyes to his master. '•' Yes, Sebastien, a reward," replied Murillo kindly. " When I think of all the difficulties you had to sur- mount, before you could have attained to producing such a head as that of the Virgin, or even such as I have seen on the other easels, — when I think of the hours stolen from needful rest, — of the sleep of which you deprived yourself, that you might work secure from discovery or suspicion, — when I think of all 22 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, your attention to my instructions — all your memory in storing them up — your application in reducing them to practice, — I can only say I know not any- thing I could deny you as a reward. Say, then, what shall it be?" Sebastien knew not whether he was awake or asleep. His almost bewildered gaze wandered from the pleased countenance of his master to the smiling faces of the pupils, and he could hardly believe that all these kind words were addressed to him, or that anything that concerned him could make another look so glad. " Come, take courage, Sebastien," said Villavicemio in his ear ; " the master is pleased with you. Ask for whatever you like best — a bright new ducat 1 Come, I am sure Senor Murillo mil not refuse it to you." " One !" cried Baba, — " ten at the very least." " TAventy !" cried Gaspard. " I know my father — lie will readily give you twenty." " You are very generous with my purse, my son ; l)ut I will not go back of your word, nor of yours either, gentlemen," said Murillo, smiling good-hu- mouredly. " Come, Sebastien," added the great painter, while closely scnitinizing the countenance of his slave, upon whom the words of the pupils seemed not to make the slightest impression, — " every one answers but you, and you are the person whom I THE MULATTO OP MUEILLO. 23 asked ; say, is the reward named by them sufficient ? You have only to speak. I am so pleased, my poor little fellow, with what you have done — with youi' conception — Avith your fine and delicate touch — with your colouring — in short, with the wdiole head, — the design might be more coiTect, but the expression is lovely, is divine, — that I will give you anything- you can ask me, anything at least in my power to give." " Oh, master ! master — no, I dare not," and Sebas- tien raised his clasped hands imploringly, while in the parted and quivering lips of the boy, upon which the ^\"ords seemed to form and as suddenly expu-e — in the momentarily flashing eye, in the veins — swelled almost to bursting — of that forehead with all its impress of genius, might be seen that he had a wash to which timidity alone hindered him fi-om giving utterance. " Are you a fool V said Gaspard. " Why do not you speak when my father bids youl" " Speak then," added another. " Ask for some gold." " No, ask for good clothes, Sebastien ; your figure is straight, slight, and well-foiTned, and would show them off well." " I think I can guess, gentlemen," said Villavice- mio, " I tliink I know what Sebastien would prize 24 SEBASTIEN GOMEZ ; OR, most ; — it would be to be received as one of the pvipils of Senor IMurillo." A gleam of joy shone for a moment in the eyes of the young Mulatto. " If it is that, say so, my child," said Murillo kindly. " And ask him for a place in a good light," said Gonzalez, whose easel was badly placed, he having been the last received pupil. " Well ! is it that?" said Murillo to him. Sebastien shook his head. " No ! " said jMurillo, a little surprised. " Sebastien," said Gaspard to him, " this is one of my father's good days ; you may venture anything ; ask at once for your freedom." With a cry, in which joy and anguish were strangely mingled, Sebastien fell at the feet of Mu- rillo : " Oh freedom for my father, freedom for my father !" He stopped — his words choked by his tears. "And your own freedom, — care you not for it?" demanded Murillo. Sebastien hung his head, and repressed therisingsol). "My father's freedom first of all," said he. " Yes, my poor boy ; and yours with his," said Murillo, who, unable to restrain his emotion, bent over Sebastien, then raised him, pressing- him with trans])ort to his l)osom. THE MULATTO OF 3IURILL0. 25 Loud sobs now becoming more audible from tlie lov/er end of the workshop, every eye was turned in that direction ; it was the old Negro, who was weei)- ing bitterly. " Yo\i are free, Gomez ! " said Murillo,' extending his hand to him. " Free to serve you all my life, master," rei^lied Gomez, as he knelt before him. " Oh, my master ! my kind master!" was all that deep emotion allowed Sebastien to utter. " Sebastien," said Murillo, turning to him, " your pencil has shown that you have genius ; your request proves you have heart, and this union completes the artist. This very day I receive you as a pupil." " Your pupil ! Oh, no, it is too much," cried Se- bastien. " I — the son of a Negro ! a Mxilatto ! a slave ! — ^your pupil !" " Before God, there are neither Negroes, IMulattoes, nor slaves!" said Murillo, with pious fervour. " All are men, and, as such, equal in His eyes, — why should they be otherwise mth me?" " But these gentlemen — ," sai'd Selwstien, glanciui; timidly at the pupils. " We shall all be enchanted to have you for a coni- ]ianion," was the unanimous replj'. " And I to have you for a brother," added Gaspard, pressing the hand of Sebastien. 26 THE MULATTO OP MURILLO. " Well said, my son," said Murillo. Then, turning to the young Mulatto, he added, — " ]\Iy son has called thee lus brother, Sebastien, and I must then be thy father. — Happy Murillo ! I have done more than make pictui-es — I have made a painter! for thy name shall descend to posterity associated with mine, and thy reputation will crown my fame. I shall be well content if in ages to come, when men tell of thee, they call thee ' The Mulatto of Murillo ! ' " And thus it actually was. Sebastien Gomez was better known under this cognomen than by liis real name. Admitted among the number of his master's pupils, he afterwards became one of the greatest painters of whom Spain has to boast. Several private individuals in Seville pride them- selves upon the possession of paintings by Sebastien Gomez. But the most admired productions of this artist are to be found in the Church of Seville ; — they are. The Madonna and Child, a St. Joseph, and a Christ on the Cross, with St. Peter at his feet, who appears to be imploring pardon. Gomez survived Murillo only a few years; and died, it is believed, in the year 1689 or 1690. (000b-j]:i0rr0tD. SERENADK. Heywood, Mozart. W^ N-»->-FF5=^ JtrJs '^m^m ifcN i m-^^ ^=^ -'—*-i t^- Davk clouds away! And welcome day, With night te ban-isli'd ^^g^^l^g sor - row ; Sweet air, blow soft ; Mount, larks a - loft. To ^ ^^=N: =1^ SE^zE* W V V\ 7 give my love good- mor- row! Wings fi'om the \\ind to # ltlI?S :tV:q P^^^ ti^i please her mind, Notes fi-om the lark I'll bor-row: Bh-d, S^ ^=@ ^^ S=S^ ^1 prone thy wing, gay war -biers sing, To give my love good- i E»s g^ii mor - row! To givft my love good - mor-rowl 28 GOOD-MORROW. GOOD-MORROW. Music on Page 27. Dai'k clouds away ! And welcome day, With night be banished sorrow ; Sweet air, blow soft, Mount, larks, aloft, 'o give my love good-morrow ! m Wings fi-om the wind. To please her mind. Notes from the lark I'll borrow; Bird, prone thy wing, Gay warblers sing, To give my love good-morrow ! Wake from thy rest, Robin Red-breast, Sing, birds, in every furrow ; And from each hill, Let music slirill. Give my fair love good-morrow ! Black-bird and thrush. In every bush, Stare, linnet, and l)lithe sparrow • Ye pretty elves, Among youi-selves, Sing my sweet love good-morrow. HKYWOOD. ORIGIN OF THE SNOW-DROF. 29 ORIGIN OF THE SNOW-DROP. No fading flowers in Eden grew, Nor autumn's withering spread Among the trees a browner hue, To show the leaves were dead ; But through the groves and shady dells, Waving their bright immortal bells, Were amaranths and asphodels. Undying in a place that knew A golden age the whole year through. But when the angels' fiery bands, Guarding the eastern gate. Told of a broken law's commands. And agonies that came too late ; — With " longing, lingering" wish to stay. And many a fond but vain delay, That could not wile her grief away, Eve wandered aimless o'er a world On which the wrath of God was hurled. Then came the spring's capricious smile, And summer sunlight warmed the air. ;?»> ORIGIN OF THE SNOW-DROP. And autumn's riches served a while To hide the curse that lingered there ; Till o'er the once untroubled sky Quick driven clouds began to fly, And moaning zephyi-s ceased to sigh, When TOnter's storms in fury burst Upon a world indeed accurst. And when at last the driving snow, A strange ill-omened sfght, Came whitening all the plains below ; — To trembling Eve it seemed — affi-ight. With shivering cold and terror bowed ; — As if each fleecy vapour cloud Were falling as a sno^vy shroud. To form a close enwrapping pall For earth's untimeous funeral. Then all her faith and gladness fled, And nothing left but black despair. Eve madly wished she had been dead, Or never born a pilgrim there ; But, as she wept, an angel bent His way ado\\Ti the firmament, And, on a task of mercy sent, He raised her up, and 1)ade her cheer Her drooping heart, and banish fear: ORIGIN OF THE SNOW-DROP. 31 And catching, as he gently spake, A flake of falling snow, He breathed on it, and bade it take A form, and bud and blow ; And, ere the flake had reached the earth, Eve smiled upon the beauteous birth. That seemed, amid the general dearth Of Uving things, a greater prize Than all her flowers in Paradise. " This is an earnest. Eve, to thee," The glorious angel said, " That sun and summer soon shall be ; And though the leaves seem dead, Yet once again the smiling spring, With wooing winds shall swiftly bring New life to every sleeping thing ; Until they wake and make the scene Look fresh again and gaily green." The angel's mission being ended, Up to heaven he flew. But whei*e he first descended, And where he bade the earth adieu, A ring of snow-drops formed a posy Of pallid flowers, whose leaves unrosy. Waved like a winged argosy, — 32 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. Whose climbing- masts above the sea, Spread fluttering sail and streamer free. And thus the snow-drop, like the bow That spans the cloudy sky, Becomes a symbol whence we know That brighter days are nigh ; That circling seasons, in a race That knows no lagging lingering pace. Shall each the other nimbly chase, Till Time's departing final day Sweep snow-drops and the world away ! G. w. POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. CHAPTER I. THE MARAIS VERNIEK. The following striking popular traditions of France arc thus pleasingly related in the " Wanderings of a Traveller by the Seine." On leaving Quillebocuf, the next place we reached was the village of the Marais Vernier, the capital, so to speak, of a tract of countrj' altogether singular. In fact, while traversing these banks of the Seine, we sometimes feel as if we were on a terra incognita. Our previous reading, we had thought, was somewhat THE MARAIS VERNIER. 33 at large, and we anticipated little from the journey but the pleasui'e of seeing and recollecting. We have now discovered that we knew nothing. The Marais Vernier is an immense marsh, in shape of a horse-shoe, the base of which is formed by the Seine, and the rounded part by a line of hills, on which are situated — stationed, we might say — about half a dozen villages, at almost regular distances. In the middle of this vast meadow, which is some- times comparatively dry, there is a lake called the Grand'mare, the deep black waters of which never subside. It covers about a twentieth part of the whole area, and, at almost all seasons of the year, is darkened by clouds of water-fowl. Gardens, or fields, of kitchen vegetables, which the inhabitants call courtils, occupy a space of nearly a twelfth part of the whole marsh, and their fertility may be characterized truly by the adjective prodi- gious. Turnips as thick as a man's leg, and more than two feet long, with caiTots in proportion, are among the monstrous births of the soil ; while the cabbages which do not weigh from twenty-five to thirty pounds are reckoned under the standard. M. de Nagu, the lord of the village of Mai-ais Vernier, once gained a bet which he had made to send six cabbages to Paris weighing three hundred pounds One of this illustrious half dozen alone weighed 34 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. sixty-eight ! The strange tiling is, that these enor- mous vegetables preserve no analogy with the animal khigdom under such circumstances, but keep their proper flavour amidst all their excess of growth. The potato, however, is an exception to this i-ule. It grows, like the rest, to a colossal size ; but, in a soil so different from that of its natural hard and stony bed, it contracts a taste of soap. The agricultural implements used in the marsh are veiy unlike, as we may suppose, those of other districts. The spade, for instance, which is employed in turning over earth that presents no resistance, is almost as large in proportion as the fruits of the soil. The beds are generally intersected at every fifteen feet of width by ditches, or drains, of six feet. But while the principle of vegetable life developes itself so vigorously, that of human hfe declines. The miasma of the marsh is fatal; and in autumn more especially, or in the intense heats of summer, the victims are numerous. The disease produced is a slow fever, which varies in malignity with the state of the atmosphere, but for which there is no hope in medicine. Doctors, notwithstanding, ai'e called as usual ; drugs are swallowed; and the i^tiont descends into the tomb secundum artem. The fresh tints of the women of Quillebceuf are here unknown. Sallow complexions, spiritless eyes, and feeble limbs, demon- THE MARAIS VERNIER. 35 strate the deadly influence of the marsh. Almost every gii'l you meet is an orphan — every woman a ^^'idow. The human affections are themselves under the control of the spirit of the place. Slourning for the dead is here a brief and empty fonn. The widow and the widower enter into a new connexion without loss of time, and " The funeral baked meats Do coldly furnish forth the wedcUng-taWe." It is by no means uncommon for one individual, of either sex, to have been married four or five times ; and the conflicting interests of so many families pro- duce, as a matter of course, fi-equent quarrels, heart- burnings, and suits at law. The lawj'ers, fortunately, are at hand. These benevolent and disinterested persons, undeten-ed by the miasma of the marsh, crowd round its brink like the birds of prey that feed upon its bosom. They place themselves among the population, like the six-feet drains among the vege- table beds, to carry off the exuberance of fertility. The village of Marais Vernier does not resemble so much a village, as a confused multitude of detached cottages, each at some distance fi-om the rest, and sm-rounded by gardens and orchards. The spirit of union, therefore, so visible at Quilleboeuf, is here ab- sent ; the generous selfishness which embraces a whole town, because it is one's own town, is unknown ; and 36 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. the inhabitants of the marsh, — quite as insulated in their position as the Quillebois, — have notliing of that social sympathy which endears solitude to the soli- tary, and desolation to the desolate. The marsh is said to have formerly been the site of a forest; but the same thing is said of every marsh in France, and for precisely the same reason — that trunks of trees, and entire trees, have been found be- neath the surface of the earth. The most extraordi- nary place we know of where this has been observed, is the vast c/reve of St. Michel, where the sands of the ocean descend to such a depth, that a shif) sinks in them, and disappears, till even her tall masts leave no trace behind. The tnith, we suspect, is, that the greater part of the lowlands, not only of France, but of all Europe, were at one time covered with woods, and that, wherever there are traces of any consider- able revolution on the earth's surface, their remains will be found. The trees dug up from such abysses as the Marais Vernier, where the fluidity prevents any geological clew from being attained through the measurement of the accumulation of vegetable earth, are probably much older than has been supposed. The project of reclaiming the lands of this great marsh has l)ccn frequently entertained ; but the dith- culties are numerous. In the first place, the bank of the river has been sensibly elevated by the ceaseless THE MABAIS VERNIER. 37 deposits of the tide; so that the most distant part of the marsh has become the deepest. The water, therefore, never finds its way into the Seine, except when it is above its usual level. An artificial canal, indeed, exists; but this is found to be of little use, partly, no doubt, from the nature of the ground, but chiefly, we presume, from its not being carried suffi- ciently deep. In this more distant part is the lake of the Grand'mare, which operates strongly against the efforts of man. It is, in fact, the great recep- tacle of the waters of the marsh, which at one mo- ment it Ijorrows, and at another repays with interest. Henri Quatre was very anxious to reclaim the whole of the marshy lands of France, but met with many obstacles. It appears that he was unable to find among his own subjects any person able or will- ing to assist his views, and at length he sent to the Netherlands. "Not having found any of our own subjects," says he, in an edict of 1607, "willing to attempt the en- terprise, either on account of the great difficulty, risk, and expense, or from some other cause, we have brought fi-om the Netherlands the Sieur Humphrey Bradley, a gentleman of the country of Brabant, and native of Bergen-op-Zoom, our master of dikes, and a personage of great knowledge and experience in draining." Three other men joined with Bradley in 38 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. the undertaking, and the association immediately commenced work in different parts of the kingdom. At the ilarais Vernier they appear to have begun with considerable spirit; and excavations are seen to this day, eight feet in diametei-, known by the name of abimes, and the remains of a construction called the Digue and Maison des Hollandais. These are the only traces of their labours, wliich were broken off, as is stated in the edicts, by law-suits and other opposition. In vain Henri urged them to persevere, and in vain granted them exemption from imposts, and other privileges. In vain he even offered titles of nobility to any twelve among them who were not noble by bu-th. The Netherlanders could not brook the ungene- rous treatment they had received from the lords of the district, and, with the exception of their chief, returned to then- own countrj'. Bradley would stil) have endeavoured to come to some understanding with the " seigneur chatelain et patron" of the marsh, and entered into some negotiations with him for the purpose. The result we only know by the fact, that the attempt at draining was never resumed; and in 1639 the magnanimous master of dikes was no more. It was afterwards attempted to turn the marsh to some account by extracting from it the fuel called tourle; but the expense of carriage was found to be THE MARAIS VERNIEE, 39 too gi-eat to admit of any hope of success. Similar operations, notwithstanding, were recommenced in 1825, on a larger scale. Three hundred Picards set to work near the lake of Grand'mare; numerous tnmks of trees, both of oak and elm, were dug up; and, for aught we know to the contrary, their labours are continued to this day. The villages which surround the IMarais are poor and ill-constructed ; but theii- situation, and the view they afford, are very striking. Placed on the sides of the semicircular chain of hills, they overlook the vast plain, intersected by canals of water as black as night, with its dead lake in the middle. The ceaseless low- ing of cattle feeding on the outsku'ts,.and on some meadows that extend into the interior, as it swells wildly and mom-nfully on the heavy air, sounds like the voice of Pestilence; and the shiill scream of the sea-birds that hover in thousands over the lake, con- veys a kind of superstitious thrill to the heart of the stranger. The Chateau du IMarais attracts notice only by its common-place character, on a spot where we look for something more than usually striking; but at no great distance to the south, and still nearer the lake, there Avere seen, till lately, some vestiges of a more ancient and remarkable edifice. This was called the Chateau du Grand'mare ; and on the opposite side of 40 POPULAR TRADITIONS OP FRANCE. tlie marsh, near the modern village of Sainte Oppor- time, it was confronted l)y another of a similar cha- racter, every stone of which has now disappeared. The latter was called the Vieux Chateau ; but both names, we apprehend, were bestowed by the peasantry after the buildings had fallen into ruin. These two ruins are connected together in popular tradition; and, being unwilling to pass by so remarkable a place without resting for a while, we give the story as the habits of a somewhat unmanageable pen will pemiit. At a certain period, which the village chroniclers carry back to the time of Charlemagne, although the story evidently belongs to a much later era, the Marais Vernier belonged, in its whole extent, to two powerful families. The residence of one was the Chateau de Grand'mare, and that of the other the Vieux Chateau. The great plain was divided in eipial portions between thera, as also the fishing of the lake; no retainer of the Vavassours being per- mitted to cast his nets on the fai-ther side of an ideal line drawn through the middle, and a similar i-e- servation being imposed upon the retainers of Mon- targis. These regulations were at first productive of many disputes, some of them not unattended liy l)loodshed ; but by degrees the l^alance of jiower found its proper level, find for a considerable time before THE MARAIS VERNIER. 41 the date of the tradition we here undertake to repeat, tlie two families had lived in the same kind of amity which is presenred by neighboming princes, whose mutual interests keej) them at peace. In those days, indeed, every pettj^ baron resembled a sovereign prince, and the affairs of his estate were managed with all the formality Avhich attends the government of a kingdom. His sons and daughters were bestowed in marriage either as peace-offerings, or as gifts of friendship and alliance; and the youth or maiden who presumed to fancy that the taste or liking of either should be consulted on the occasion, was treated as a rebel to lawful and natural autho- rity. This state of things, it may be said, remains to our day ; and perhaps it does — but with far less show of reason. The most violent admirer of ro- mance existing would hardly desire that a princess of the blood should be allowed a liberty of choice; and the damsels of the olden time we speak of were in precisely the same situation as princesses of the blood. The interest, nay, sometimes the very exist- ence, of the family depended upon the disposal of the daughter's hand; and she who allowed her own pre- dilections to interfere, might, therefore, without much injustice, have been termed undutiful. At any rate, the point was completely understood between the two families more immediately in \°iew. D 42 POPULAR TRADITIONS OP FRANCE. Several matrimonial alliances had taken place be- tween them, without any symptoms of unwillingness on the part of the betrothed ; and now the fair Julie de Montargis, betrothed almost from infixncy to Roland de Vavassour, found herself within about a year of her wedding, without any other sjinptom of emotion than a radiant smile when the idea passed across her mindi Julie, it is told in tradition, was " the most beautiful of the beautiful," and she pos- sessed more especially, in all their lustre, the blue eyes of the Normans. This is a kind of eye wth which a woman can speak — all the languages of Babel. The darker orb has more intensity, but you require to understand it previously; the blue eye discourses extempore, and you know what it would say without a key. Roland de Vavassour had just donned the hauberk of a knight, which, in spite of tradition, places his era nearer us than tlie tenth century, and fixes his age — supposing him, as is most probable, to have flourished before the decline of cliivalry — at twenty- fine. He was a fine, manly, handsome youth, and of those ample proportions which befitted the heredi- tary wearer of several stone of iron. Julie at least believed him to be cast in the true mould of a hero. She dreamt of him at night, and — still more unequi- vocal symptom — she dreamt of liim l)y day. Roland THE MARAIS VERNIER. 43 himself was of a grave and somewhat melancholy character. The saying of Pierre, that " a soldier's mistress is his religion," was no jest to him. The love of God and of woman seemed to him to he twin sentiments; and in taking upon himself the vows of knighthood, he understood literally that he pledged himself, soul and body, to be true at once to his lady and to the Cross. The same flight of time, however, which brought nearer the day appointed for the union of the lovers, brought with it, in the first place, the day of their temporary separation. It was the custom in the family of the Vavassours — (which leads us into the eleventh, if not into the twelfth century) — for their sons to signalize their entrance into knighthood, and their sense of the honom- to which they had thus attained, by setting out on a course of adventures, which was to extend for a year and a day from their departure from the paternal chateau. Whether Roland loally grieved or not at the circumstance, has escaped the memory of " the oldest inhabitant ;" but we have it at least on oral record, that on the day of the as- f^umption, he wept at his mistress's feet the first tears that had stained his cheek of manhood; and sot forth, in the character of knight-eiTant, in quest of honour and hard blows. Some months passed by, and Julie was incon- 44 POPULAR TKADITIOXS OP FRANCE. solaljle. All the habits of her life had been inter- rupted — her very thoughts required to seek a new channel. She wandered along the borders of the marsh, gazing on the still lake, where she had floated, with Roland by her side, on many a summer's after- noon. She endeavoured to fill up her " waste of feelings unemployed," with new occupations and new favourites; but it would not do. In vain she be- stowed the name of Roland upon her best-loved puppy ; in vain she sung the songs he had praised, and listened to the echo, endeavouring to fancy it to be his voice. Her solitude of soul seemed to in- crease; she became more melancholy every moment; and at length she had reached that point of romantic sensibility, at which so many young women of our own intellectual day either throw themselves into the Thames, or quaff such a medicine, that sickness of the stomach is mingled, as we read, with sickness of the heart. Just at this moment there came a new hero into the field. It was the younger Ijrother of Roland — younger only by an hour — who had been educated at some ducal court, with the name of which we are unacquainted, and who returned to the comparatively humble abode of his father an accomplished courtier. Claude de Vavassour was received by Julie at once CIS a friend; she looked upon him as a portion of his THE MARAIS VERNIER. 45 brother; and her heart felt a happy relief in being able to pour forth its feelings into a breast where they would be sure to be received with welcome. As for Claude, he at first beheld the fair rustic with a kind of amused surprise. Her manner Avas so differ- ent from any thing he had been accustomed to, that he looked upon her as a being of another, and pos- sibly lower, species. He sought her society as an amusement, and listened to her rhapsodies just as he listened to the music of the minstrels. By degrees, however, her society becam-e necessary to him. The echo of her voice lingered in his ear after the sound had departed — the ducal com-t re- treated farther and farther from his vision; and, by and by, the hills which bounded the Marais Vernier became the horizon of his world, and the blue eye of Julie the sun which enlightened it. This change was for a time imperceptible to Julie; and at last, when she saw it -with her eyes, she en- deavoured to conceal it from her mind. Claude was her friend, her companion, her confidant — he was the only being to whom she could speak fi-eely; and the day when he was absent from the Vieux Chateau Avas a blank to Julie. The tradition goes further, and says that she loved him; but this is nonsense. A woman of pure mind cannot love two men at the same moment, and her love for Roland was too mani- 46 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. fest for dispute. We must even confess that the peasant-chroniclers of the Marais affix a certain stig- ma of lightness to the character of our Julie; and that the portion of the story which relates to her is told as a general satire ujion woman and woman's love. This we can excuse in them, on the score of igno- rance ; but there are other historians, and other story-tellers, to whom we cannot allow the same plea. The man in civilized life who disbelieves in love is capable of atheism ! What though we our- selves may never have met with it % r>o we not feel that it exists? Are not the evidences of its being engraven on our souls and consciences in the same characters as those which testify the existence of a Deity 1 It is folly, nay impiety, to say, because we have been abused and deceived ourselves, " there is no love!" Our own hearts give us the lie at the very moment, for love is there. It is the same way with misanthropes, or the disbelievers in human virtue — they are either fools or scoundrels. They either doubt the existence of a quality which they know they do not possess themselves ; or, possessing it themselves, they are so boyish as to fancy that it is a peculiar attriliute of their oa\ti, unshared by the rest of the human race ! As for Julie, she was the friend of Claude, and the THE MARAIS VERNIER. 47 mistress of Roland ; but this distinction, which is possible for a woman, is not possible for a man. If we are asked, why 1 we answer frankly, we do not know. It may be that the heart of a man is natu- rally more capacious — but that question we shall not enter upon at present. All we say is, that a woman may be the friend of one of our sex, and the mistress of another ; and that a man, if he is not the lover of the object of his attentions, can only be a common acquaintance. Julie, then, conceived a tender and sisterly regard for Claude, and Claude a deep and fervent passion for Julie. Time went by — " moons rolled on moons away" — the year at length expired, and the day came ; and Juhe found herself, with beating heart, and flushing cheek, and happy yet anxious eyes, standing by the altar of -the little Chapel of Saint Ouen. It was here that the lovers were to meet; it was here that Roland was to deposit the palm-branch he had cut in the woods of Judea ; and it was here that, in a few days after, their union was to be celebrateil. The chapel of Saint Ouen, which stood on the site of the present church of that name, was about half a league from the chateau ; and as Julie had walked towards it alone in the dusk of the evening, a certain degree of perplexity had mingled with the flutter of 48 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. her thoughts. The deep despondency into which Claude had gradually sunk, as the time approached when his dream was to have an end, had given her not only affliction but remorse; for she could not but Ije aware that her own conduct towards him had served to foster the passion which she was now about to crush — and with it the heart where it had grown. She remembered with bitterness the selfish facility with which she had yielded hei'self to a society she found so agreeable, and cursed those minstrel-songs whose witchery had so often induced her to listen, when, in mei-cy to the singer, she ought to have shut her ears. On these latter occasions her expressive eyes had unconsciously responded to the strain ; and Claude, in an ecstasy of delight, forgot the destiny which severed them. His brother — his brave and noble brother — faded before his love-enchanted view into a shadow; and, even after the intoxication of the mo- ment was over, the idea took possession of his soul, that Julie might yet be his. This consummation could only be brought about by one of two means — the falsehood or death of Roland. The formei-, Claude (who was a courtier) fancied at times was at least within the pale of possibility ; but when he tm-ncd his eyes upon the face of his mistress, and heard the accents of a voice which melted in the ear THE MARAIS VERNIER. 49 of the listener, till his whole soul was saturated with sweetness, he acknowledged with a groan, that the man who loved Julie once must love for ever. The other alternative, his rival's death — Claude fled from the imagination as if it had been a spectre. High in honour, noble in mind, he was one of those specimens of knightly loyalty which Tradition and her sister Romance delight to paint ; and when the idea crossed his mind, of happiness purchased at the expense of Roland's blood, liis cheek blanched, and his heart trembled. Claude, however, though a knight, was still a man. The paleness of his cheek, and the quaking of his heart, were caused not so much liy the fact which he contemplated, as by the shame and horror which he felt on discovering that he could contemplate the catastrophe without a brother's grief. Yet he continued, not-udthstanding his fits of remorse, to listen to the tales of casualty brought back by pilgrims from the Holy Land; and some- times, on such occasions, Julie had started in sudden terror, as, on raising her tearful lids, she saw the eager, and almost wolfish, expression of his eyes. As the day approached, however, Claude lost hope. Intelligence had been received of his brother, who was then at Nicea, on his journey homeward. He had passed unscathed through the dangers of tlie Moslem coimtry; he had knelt at the holy sepulchre, 50 POPULAR TKADITIONS OP FRANCE. with his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and the pennon of his lance pointed against the infidels ga- tliering round like evil spirits ; he had cut his palm- liranch in triumph from the fairest bough in Pales- tine; he had won fame and honour in field and tour- nament; and having acquitted hunself in all respects — oi faith, courage, and loyaltj"^ — as a Christian knight, he was now returning in triumph to receive the reward of his chivalry in the fair hand of Julie. On the last day of the year, Claude bade adieu to the Vieux Chateau. Julie "vvas aware that it would be so; and yet his departure gave her jjain. She wept as she extended her hand to him ; and we]>t the more when she found that the lips were cold and tremulous to which it was pressed. Claude, how- ever, bore the farewell with knightly pride. lie had never spoken of his love, and had sworn never to do so while his brother lived. He mounted his steed, then paused, as if he had forgotten something. Julie raised her head, and their eyes again met; his face was as pale as marble; and the rigid and compressed lips bespoke his internal struggle. She stepped for- ward, in mingled grief and remorse, and uttered liis name: but the young knight only bent his head in answer, and, closing his vizor, rode away. All these circumstances passed in review before the damsel of Montargis during her twilight walk to THE MARAIS VEKNIER. 51 tlie chajjel of Saint Ouen ; but by the time she arose from her knees by the altar, every other thought was lost in the delightful idea, that in a few minutes more she would be in the arms of Roland. An hour passed away, and she grew restless. She began to pace through the deserted aisle of the chapel, and start at the changing aspect of Saint Ouen, as his statue of white marble gleamed amidst the deepening shadows of evening. The silence was awful. The echo of her light foot ran in whispers along the walls; and she stopped, shuddering. The colours of the western wndow were still faintly visible, and threw a red stain upon the font beneath, near the door ; and here and there a streak of mel- lowed light, at regular intervals, marked the open- ings of the lateral windows. The middle of the cha- pel, however, was filled with shadows; on the op- posite wall the spectral head of Saint Ouen shone with a ghastly paleness amidst the gloom : and at the eastern end, the statues of the altar-piece were scarcely visible against the darkened window behind. Julie felt her heart grow sick. A strange confu- sion took possession of her faculties ; the pavement seemed to open; dead faces stared at her wherever she turned her eyes ; her name was pronounced in whispers ; and as a chill blast of wind entered tlie chapel, and swept moaning round the walls, she sunk 52 POPULAR TKABITIOXS OF FRANCE. down at the foot of an image of the Vu-gin, near which she had been standing. The impression upon her mind was, that the Avest- ern door had opened, and that a funeral procession was in the act of entering ! The whole nave seemed to be filled with moving shadows ; and the whisper- ing of voices, and the waving of garments, fell dis- tinctly upon her ear. Had the door been really opened to the night wind ? And were these things caused by the uncertain light admitted, and the waving of votive offerings and pictures, as the current of air rushed round the building? Julie half raised her head as the supposition suggested itself; but the next moment a new sensation of faintness came over her, as she actually saw a human figure standing in the red light near the font. The figure advanced ; it was that of a man — of a knight, loaded with armour — j'et no sound followed his footfalls ! As he passed one of the windows, she saw that he bore the red pennon of Sir Roland de Vavassour in one hand, and a palm-branch in the other. Having glided at length as far as the middle of the nave, he stopped and turned his face towards Julie, which gleamed in the sun-oimding darkness, as white as that of the marble statue of Saint Ouen. A low moan escaped her oppressed heart as she re- cogiiised the features of her lover; and the figure. THE DEAD LAKE. 53 seeming to fix his eyes upon her, advanced a step But the next moment, waving his hand mournfully, he crossed his brow and bosom, and glided slowly away towards the altar. Julie fainted. CHAPTER II. THE DEAD LAKE. The tradition goes on to say, that the damsel of Montargis was delirious for some days after this ad- venture ; and that, even when she had recovered, it was thought improper to run a risk of forcing back on her mind the fatal remembrance, by informing her that a palm-branch had actually been found on the altar ! No trace of Sir Roland had been discov- ered ; no knight had been seen in the neighbourhood ; the fact was, therefore, certain beyond dispute, that what she had seen was an apparition. Julie, how- ever, required no reasoning to convince her of this. It was the face of no living man she had seen ; it was no armed warrior of earth who had glided tlirough the chapel, without producing a sound by his tread. Roland, besides, would not have looked upon his love \nt\\ those glassy eyes, had his arms been able to press her to his breast. It was, in- 54 POPULAR TKADITIONS OF FRANCE. deed, but the form of her gallant knight she had be- lield — a shadow from his fai- and bloody gi-ave ; and a week had scai-cely elapsed, Avhen sure intelligence was received that he had perished in a storm at sea. The palm-branch was preserved by the monks as a relic of extraordinary sanctity ; and many thought that the wanior, whose spirit had thus perfonned the vow he had taken in the body, should be admitted into the holy army of the saints. That they were correct is more than probable ; for, even without the ceremony of canonization, the relic wrought numer- ous cures which were justly esteemed miraculous. The gratitude of the common people, however, does not wait to be sanctioned by papal bulls ; and many a village maid who had recovered her bloom, with- ered by the miasma of the marsh, prayed fervently to the supernatural physician ; and many a young mother, as she held up her first-born to the jialm- branch, invoked and blessed Saint Roland. In the meantime, the old lord of Vavassour died, and Sir Claude i-eturncd to the Mai'ais Vernier, to take possession of the family estates. For a time he grieved sincerely for the death of his brother; l)ut gradually the world brightened before the eyes of the youthful knight. Julie was now his, l)cyond the in- tervention of fate; and his family, absorbed in their own .selfish feelings, even attempted to push forward THE DEAD LAKE. 55 the new union with indecent haste. But Claude did not wish Julie to be merely his wife, but also "his lover ; and, conscious that she preferred him to any living being, he resolved to await the revival of the crushed flower before he gathered it. This took place in the due course of nature ; but the flower had sufl:ered a change. More beautiful than ever, its beauty was of a softened, grave nature ; and its fragrance — before that of the rose and lily in- termingled — was now the sweet perfume of the wall- flower growing upon monuments and ruins. This change, however, after a time, was only perceptible to Claude — to him who had explored every depth of her mind, and studied every expression of her coun- tenance. To others she seemed the Julie of former years, only altered from a girl into a woman ; and her new gravity of character was looked upon as nothing more than the change which sometimes takes place so suddenly at the age when instinct ripens into rea- son. Julie, when her flrst grief was over, knew that Claude must be her husband ; and, far from regret- ting it, she looked forward with pleasure to the period when their fi-iendsliip would be so endearingly ce- mented. Something, however, was due to the- dead, and something to the feelings of the living ; and she steadily refused to become a wife till she had dedi- 56 POPULAK TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. cated a full year to mourning for her lover. Claude, nevertheless, was constantly with her; he was the companion of her walks ; he knelt with her at the altar ; and by degrees she loved him as well as woman can do, before the ruins of her first idol have completely vanished fi-om the temple of her heart. The time at length had almost arrived, and the waning year touched upon its close. Preparations were made for celebrating the marriage ■with all the pomp of the feudal age. This was the grand oc- casion when the ancient rivalry of the two families broke out, although in a new fonn ; and the question was not of prowess in the field, but of splendour in the hall. Minstrels and jugglers thronged the courts of the two castles ; lords and ladies from far and near crowded to the approaching festivities ; and many a wandering knight turned out of his road, when he heard the tidings, to claim hospitality either of the Vavassours or JMontargis. The day came at last, and it was ushered in with rain, and stonn, and thunder. A sudden damp was cast upon the spirits of every body — and no wonder, for the bravery of the ladies would be spoiled, and the l)]umcs of the gentlemen dangle ungracefully about their ears. The ceremonj', however, must go on ; preparations were already maae at the chapel ; the THE DEAD LAKE. 57 priests had been in waiting since daybreak ; and pro- cessions of monks had arrived from the neighbouring convents, with relics and banners. It was the family custom, however, that the marriage should be cele- brated at night, by the light of the holy tapers ; and there was yet time for a change of weather. But the hopes of the party were disappointed. The evening closed in dark and gusty ; and at length the torches were lighted, and the cortege set out, silent and gloomy, for the chapel of Saint Ouen. The nature of the ground precluded the possibility of riding; but the ladies highest in dignity were carried in litters. Among them Julie went first, with her lover walking by her side. Sir Claude sometimes pressed the hand of his bride, but neither spoke ; they looked round upon the strange scene Avith a feeling resembling wonder; and when they saw the torches extinguished one by one by the wind and rain, Julie felt a depression stealing over her heart, which she could not subdue. " Claude ! " said she, at last, faintly. "My life!" " Could not this be deferred even now?" " It is impossible." " Heaven itself seems against us ! " " You will not think so when we return to the chateau, and iind ourselves surrounded l)y lights and 58 POPULAR TKADITIONS OP FRANCE. merry faces. Cheer up, my love! this is only an accident of the weather. Heaven must be on the side of my Julie, in spite of all the thunder in the clouds ! " "Claude!" said she again; "did you mark that single skift" on the lake, gliding through the led reflection of the torches?" " I did." " Had it not a strange apjiearance 2 " " It was a remarkable object in a remarkable scene, Would that we had a painter here ! " " I thought, when I saw it, of the rhyme you once sung to me of that mystic boat which carries the dead across the river of hell ! " " Julie ! my own life ! you must not give way to such fancies. This is our wedding-night. No mortal crime stains my hand — no evil thoughts my heart ; and you, my fairest bride, are as pure as the angels themselves. Why should we fear ? Come, give me your liand ; lean upon my shoulder, that you may feel that I am near you." " Do you come in steel gauntlets to a bridal ? " ex- «laimed she, quickly, as she complied. "Alas, no; but your o\\'n hand is so marble-cold that you cannot feel mine aright." While he was yet speaking, the procession arrived at the chapel-door; and, without order or ceremony, THE DEAD LAKE. 59 all hastened into the shelter of the little colonnade. In vain the priests endeavoured to preserve some regulai-ity, and at least form the company into a line on entering the church; but, cold, dripping, and gloomy, they resisted all control, and hurried up to the altar in a confused, and scarcely an amicable, mass. The mortified monks lost all presence of mind. The torches, on ^vhich they had depended so much for effect, were not rekindled; and the tapers siu-- roundiug the high altar threw only a feeble and flick- ering light into the body of the church. Worship, however, began; all fell upon their knees; and a deep silence followed the tumult, interrupted only by the chanting of the priests. When the congregation rose, the exhibition of the relics took place immediately previous to the mar- riage service ; and as each shrine was elevated, every knee touched tlie earth, every tongue muttered an ora pro nobis, and every hand made the sign of the cross upon the brow and bosom. The stranger bro- therhoods exhibited first; and then the priests of Saint Ouen came upon the scene. The last relic they held up to the adoration of the multitude ■\^•as a jmlvi-hranch. Julie started at the sight, which recalled so tenible a recollection ; but the next moment, detecting in the invocations of the peasantry, who filled the bottom of 60 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. the nnve, the name of Roland, she looked round in astonishment and dismay. " Look to the altar, love," whispered Claude ; " our bridal service begins ! " "Hush!" " Julie ! deai'est Julie ! — " " There ! there ! " — and, having uttered these words, a scream broke from her lips, so loud and shrill, as to make evei-y heart qiiake ; and before her lover could extend his arms, she fell senseless upon the ground. She was taken up by her bride-maidens ; and Sir Claude, having ascertained by a glance that she was properly cared for, strode fiercely towards the point upon which her eyes had been fixed. This was the statue of Saint Ouen, leaning against which appeared the tall figure of a man, in the dress of a jienitent, with his cowl drawn over his face. " What knave is this," cried Sir Claude, in a paroxysm of passion, " who disturbs the rites of holy church?" " He is no knave," answered the peasants ; " he is the Monk of the Marais ! " " Monk or no monk, he shall iilay his jugglerie.? here no longer" — and the impetuous knight rushed forward, as if for the purpose of ejecting the supposed offender by main force. The peasants threw them- selves in a body between. THE DEAD LAKE. 61 " Let US stand by the monk ! " cried they, tunml- tuously, one to the other. " Come, brethren, to the rescue ! The Monk of the IMarais ! The Monk of the J\larais ! " — and the young knight, bareheaded and unarmed, as were also his comrades, seeing that op- position to such a force was useless, stood still, chafing with fury and disdain. The monk, in the meantime, had remained in precisely the same posture, as if igno- rant that he was at all concerned in the tumult around him. He leant mth his right ann resting on the drapery of the statue, and his cheek rechning upon his hand. The attitude would have seemed one of mere indolence, had it not been that the left arm hung down powerlessly, and gave the idea of extreme de- spondence and desolation. Even Claude, when he had considered the figure for some moments, repented of his violence. " My friends," said he, " I perceive that this man means no harm; but the health and the nerves of the lady Julie are out of order — his presence disturbs her — I pray you persuade him to depart in peace." The monk, as if understanding what he had said, immediately arose from his reclining postm-e, and gathering his ample cloak around him, walked slowly away, the peasants falling back respectfully, and making a line for him to pass. When he had gained the door of the chapel, he stopped for an instant, and 62 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. turned half round ; but the next moment he resumed his slow and stately step, and vanished in the dark- ness without. The Ijride, however, was not to be reassured. She trembled violently, and ever and anon her eyes sought the statue of St. Ouen \nth so bewildered a gaze, that her friends feared for her intellects. Even the ten- der whispers of Claude were unavailing. She an- swered " Yes " and " No " incoherently to his ques tions ; and at last burst into an hysterical fit of sobbing. It was in vain to persist. The bride was evidently unwell : the couch of sickness must be spread for her, instead of the marriage bed ; and the counsel of the leech sought before that of the priest. The amazed company broke up, and returned as they had come, in gloom and discontent — and so ended the bridals of the Baron of Vavassour and the damsel of Montargis. Here the tradition, instead of gratifying any reason- able curiosity it may have excited on the subject of the Monk of the iNIarais, merely states parenthetically that this individual was an ascetic recluse, who had taken up his abode in the middle of the marsh, on the very brink of the lake of Grand'mare. It neither fixes the date of his appearance in the district, nor states whence he came ; b\it leaves the hearer to con- jecture that he was some religious enthusiast, who thought to cheat heaven of its right of chastisement THE DEAD LAKE. (i3 in the next world, by inflicting on himself all the pains and penalties of sin which the present can afford. His enthusiasm, however, was harmless to others, although dangerous, and perhaps fatal in in- tent to himself, as the situation of his dwelling suffi- ciently proved. The waters of the lake were evidently gaining upon the comparatively firm land — and perhaps at that day they comprehended a much smaller surface than they do now. The banks were raised in some places to a height of many feet, and the poisonous wave be- low seemed to corrode and eat into their substance, till occasionally huge masses of black earth, breaking off from the body of the marsh, toppled headlong in- to the deep. When a catastrophe of this kind oc- curred, the liberated fragment was generally carried far out into the lake by the impetus of its fall ; and, being composed of light and spongy earth, united by fibres of plants and branches of decayed trees, it fonned a floating island, and swam for several Jays together. Gradually, however, a separation of its parts took place ; piece by piece it mouldered away, and at length wholly disappeared. In a particular place, one of these masses had de- tached itself from a spot of promontory ten or twelve feet high, which formed the loftiest part of the bank, but arrested at the water's edge, hung there in a pos- 64 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF PRANCE. ture so threatening, that the fishermen, as they passed, juade unconsciously a wide swee^j round the spot on ^\•Iuch it had pleased the hermit to build his solitary hut. Some thought that the site was chosen on ac- count of the shelter which the promontory behind afforded ; but all remarked, as a very strange and even awful circumstance, that although every month some fragment fell, this, which had appeared the nearest to such a consummation of them all, still retained its position. It seemed as if the sanctity of the recluse protected the very earth on which his hut ^^"as built ! He was sometimes seen abroad, and even Julie and Claude had occasionally passed him in their walks ; but the hermit neither raised his cowl nor his head. It may easily be conceived, that a man of this kind needed only to die to become as good a saint as Ro- land himself; but in the meantime, awaiting such a catastrophe, the peasants took care that, at all events, he should not perish for want of food. Tlieir gifts were thrown at arm's length from the bank ; but the master of the hut, so far from coming forth to thank them, if he saw them approach at a distance, retired into his laii- like a wild beast. In the middle of the night of the interrupted nup- tials, Julie, having fallen into a profound sleej), was left alone by her attendants, in the hope that when they returned, they should find her almost well THE DEAD LAKE. 65 both in bod}^ and mind. Her malady, they knew, required only rest and kindness ; for it was evidently nothing more than a weakness . incidental to tlie female constitution. She had been i)laced in a new and momentous situation; the storm and thunder with which the night was ushered in had affected jioweriully her sensibilities ; the view of tlie X'^-lni- branch had called up before her mind's eye the awful vision she had seen on that very spot ; and the spec- tral foi-m of Saint Ouen catching her view at the in- stant — or, perhaps, even the muflBed figure of the poor monk — had completed the overturn of her equi- librium. The attendants, shading the night-taper from the invalid's eyes, carefully closed the door, and re- tired into an ante-room, to watch there for the rest of the night. The sleep of Julie did not last long. She started up in the bed, and looked wildly round the room, as If in search of some person ; then, pressing her hand to her hot forehead, appeared to endeavour to call to mind what had passed. Soon after, she arose noise- lessly, and creeping across the room, listened at the door. All was quiet. She then hastily caught up some articles of dress, wdiich she put on with feverish impatience ; and adding, over all, apparently in the confusion of her mind, the splendid nuptial-robe of the preceding evening, contemplated her appearance 66 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. for a moment in the mirror. A smile passed across her face as she observed the fever-bloom on her cheek, and the fire of delirium in her eye ; and then, throw- ing open the casement, she leaped with the lightness of a bird upon the ledge of the window, and crept down the broken stones of a buttress into the court. " Queen of heaven ! " cried the warder at the pos- tern gate, as she presented herself; " what means this, dear lady ? " " I have a vow ! " said she calmly. " If unfulfilled this night, I shall see no sun of to-morrow. I am your lord's daughter ; I am your foster-sister. Open, I command and entreat you!" The warder obeyed reluctantly ; but after she was gone, he appeared to be seized with a panic, and reopening the gate, looked after her into the night. " No ! " said he, with a sigh of relief, as he saw her take the path to the chapel of Saint Ouen; "her errand is not to destroy her body, but to benefit her soul. God and the Viigin be her comfort ! Holy Saint Ouen pray for her ! Amen ! " — and so saying, he re- tired again and closed the door ; resolving, however, to prevent the possibility of accident, to let some of the family know of lier nocturnal excui-sion, as soon as a change of guard took place. Julie, in the meantime, when she had advanced far enough in the path to be concealed fi-om observation THE DEAD LAKE. 67 by the trees, changed her route ; and, cu-cling round a thickly planted eminence, darted, with the fleetness of a deer, to the bank of the Grand'mare. A single small skiff was moored to a little quay constructed by the fishermen, the rest of the boats lying at a dis- tant village. She untied the line, as one accustomed to such employment, and leaping lightly into the vessel, seized an oar, and made it glide through the water like a swan. The i-ain was now completely over, and only the remains of the stomi moaned in hollow-sounding gusts along the lake ; while the moon, appearing fit- fully through the In-oken rack, one moment wrapped the waters in light, and the next left them in the blackest gloom. Sometimes the vast level of the marsh, undistinguished in the obscurity, seemed only a portion of the Grand'mare ; and an idea of lonehness, united with that of immensity, was produced, resem- bling the impression which tlirills our souls when voyaging, far fi-om all view of the land, on the bosom of the mighty ocean. Julie felt the fever of her blood abate as she gazed around, and the night-wind appeared to cool her throbbing temples and burning bosom. A sensation of awe stole over her mind, and her feelings, if not less deep, became more tranquil. The skiff now approaclicd the promontory- of black earth, beneath which sho could distinguish, thouglx 68 POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. imperfectly, the hanging fi-agment, and the hut of the hermit-monk. She laid do%\'n the oar gently, and allowed the little vessel to glide midirected through the deepening shadow. Protected fi-om the influence of the gust, the lake here was smooth and silent ; and no sound announced the visitor's approach, save tlip gentle rippling of the water at the prow of the ])oat. She landed, and knocked with a trembling hand at the door of the hut. There was no answer. " Father ! " said she, at length, in a broken and timid voice. There was a sudden stir witliin, like that of one who starts in terror from liis repose. " Father ! " she repeated, almost in a whisper. She trembled fi-om head to foot, and leant helplessly against the wall. " Who is there ? " demanded the monk, in a low and husky tone. " A penitent ! a wanderer ! an outcast of Heaven ! Counsel me — help me — uphold the steps of my de- spair — or I am lost ! " The door opened, and the monk slowly came forth. His head was uncovered ; and, as the moonlight fell upon his pale and haggard features, Julie tottered back. "What would you, lady?" said he— "Lo! I am here."' She wrung her hands in speechless anguish. THE DEAD LAKE. 69 " Why gaze in svicli astonishment 1 Tjo you mar- vel that disappointment shonlcl have withered my heart— that suffering should have drunk up my yet young blood— that despair should have dimmed my eye?" " And this for me ! " " Ay, for you ! It was weakness — no matter. I loved you — even to sin — even to idolatiy ! You were my only — my all — " " For me ! — For me ! " — and she threw herself on her knees before him, and clasped his hand, and cov- ered it with tears and kisses. He in vain endea- voured to raise her. One moment she gazed in his wan face, and the next examined his pale thin hand : " It was allfor me ! " she cried—" Roland ! Roland ! " and l)roke anew into a fit of passionate weeping. " Julie," said De Vavassour, in a strong agitation — " Lady ! — I was not prepared for this. All things else I could have met with fortitude. — Spare me — spare me, I entreat ! ' "Spare you?" exclaimed she, suddenly rising — " And is it to Julie that Roland says ' Spare me 1 ' I would have nursed you in my arms, even as a young mother nurses her first-born ; I would have begged for you through the world ; I would have stood by your side in battle, and received you in my lap w^hen you fell ; ynwv last sigh would have escaped upon my 70 rOPULAR TRADITIONS OP FRANCE. lips; and, having hidden your beloved head under the earth, I would have laid me down and died upon your grave ! " Roland clasped her in his arms ; he hid his face on her neck ; for some time his chest heaved convul- sively and in silence ; but at length the soldier's pride gave way — he sobbed aloud, and Julie felt that her shoulder was wet with burning tears. They sat do-wTi upon the ground, and a hasty and abrupt conversation made each acquainted with what had passed. " I escaped as if by miracle," said Roland, " from the devouring Avaters, when all else were swallowed lip, and made my way alone to the valley of the jMarais, a week before the expu-ation of the year and day. My vow being unfulfilled, I could not present myself to my kindred before the time ; but wandered at nightfall around the Vieux Chateau like a spirit. At every peasant's hut, as I listened for tidings by the door, I heard surmises of your infidelity; and with my own eyes I saw enough to carrj- conviction into the breast of a long-absent lover. The night of our promised meeting, however, would determine my fate ; and when the evening fell, I commenced my watch near the chateaii. No lights, however! no preparations I — all was dark — all was silence and soli- tude around." THE DEAD LAKE. 71 " Dreadful mistake ! " exclaimed Julie — " I was by that time in the chaiiel, being unwilling that our first meeting should take place, in the usual custom, be- fore a crowd." Su- Roland shuddered. " When I reached the chapel of Saint Ouen, I be- lieved it to be utterly deserted ; but lest, perchance, some lonely penitent might be within, I pulled off my boots before entering — for already the cloud had come upon my spirit, and I had determined to retire for ever from the world, and break off all communi- cation with my own species. Something stin-ed, methought, near the image of Our Lady — " "Alas! alas! It was I!" " You ! i\Iysterious Heaven ! I passed on, sup- I)Osing it to be the creature of fancy ; I deposited my i>alm-branch on the altar ; left the chapel as silently as I had entered — and, lo ! I am here !" Julie's tale was told as simply. " Do you love Claude?" said De Vavassour, after a pause when she had finished. " 1 do — as my friend, and your brother." " Could you have loved him as a husband — as a lover, had you remained in ignorance of my fate?" She paused for a moment before replying, and then said with simplicity — " It mav be that I could. They say that the heart POPULAR TRADITIONS OF FRANCE. loves twice; but I cannot tell. Claude is worthy of a woman's love — he is brave, generous, and lofty in mind." " And is he beautiful ? " said Roland, vpith emotion. '•' Is he tall and graceful 1 Is he high-spirited and light-hearted as he w&s when a boy ? — Companion of my cradle ! 0, my brother ! my twin brother ! " He covered his face with his hands for some moments. " JuUe," said he at length, " it is time to separate. Go back as you came, and endeavour, if possible, to gain your chamber unobserved. You shall hear from me in the morning." She rose hastily, and springing to the water's edge, spurned the light skiff into the lake with her foot. It darted out beyond the shadow of the promontory, and, being caught in th c;J fj H || | drifted towards the op])osite bank. " This is my place," said she, returning ; " here I remain till my fiimily come to seek me — I shall be found under the protection of my husband." " Rash girl ! " exclaimed Roland, almost sternly — " you have destroyed my brother ! Why wither liis young and happy heart, to i-evive a ruin like mine ? How can I return into a world a\ here I must be re- ceived l)y the curses of him who shared with me the milk of the same breast?" " Where are your arms?" said .Julie. "For shame I THE DEAD LAKE. 73 tlirow off yoiu- cow], and don the kniglit — and your gloom will vanish like a cloud from the face of yon- der heaven ! Men may call me a light-o'-love if they will'; but here, in the silence of night, and on this lonely sjDot, will I buckle on the first armour of the Baron de Vavassour ! " And so saying, she ran into the hut, and, taking down his coat-of-mail and its appurtenances, clothed him, with a playful force, in his suit of steel. " What sound is that 1 " said she, starting, when she had finished. " It is the sound of rushing steps along the marsh, and of leaping across its wide and deep chasms." "Pi-ay Heaven, then, it be only my foster-brother I " " They are the steps of 'a man in armour — of a knight ! " ^ Julie clasped thu liahd of her lover, trembling. It was only then the true nature of her situation broke unon her mind ! The next moment Claude looked down over the brink of the promontory. " Julie ! " cried he, " my life ! are you safe 1" He stopped short ; for he saw his mistress in the arms of a knight ! " Hold, madman ! " shouted Roland. But it was too late; Claude had already taken the fatal leap; ho landed with a heavj^ fall upon the fragment on which they stood ; and, breaking away /4 roruLAR traditions of France. from its insecure hold, it plunged sullenly, and then floated out into the lake. The two knights contrived to support their mistress, although the whole pai'ty were nearly precipitated into the gulf. " Behold your brother ! " said Julie. " Claude ! " " Roland ! Alive ! God, what a meeting ! " " We are sinking — we shall be lost ! " exclaimed Julie. " May Heaven forbid ! " replied De Vavassour ; " yet we cannot all be saved. Our spongy vessel, saturated by the torrents of rain which fell to-day, will separate in another moment, if not relieved of a part of its load. Farewell, «wcet Julie ; farewell, be- loved brother! When lichtcjgd of this Aveight of armour, and the uselessjiuili^ it^overs, your raft will in all probability float till N.Airi.ceiva' assistance from the shore." And so' sajing, he Vould have leaped into the lake, had he not be8fi caught at the same moment by Claude and Julie. " Roland," said the former calmly, " your life would be a useless sacrifice, for I now feci that Julie never can be mine;" and with a sudden spring he had almost cleared the edge. A struggle took place lie- tween the brothers, which might have seemed to a spectator to have been a hostile combat; while Julie, filling the air with her screams, clung to the necks THE DEAD LAKE. 75 of both. The consequence may be foreseen. The frail raft began to separate beneath their feet, piece by piece. The inmates of the Vieux Chateau, who had been alarmed by the warder, were by this time asth* ; but there was no boat nearer than half a league. Torches were seen flymg in every direction along the shore, tlieir reflection contrasting in the water with that of the pale beams of the moon. The alarm-bell began to toll, and was answered fi'om the neighbouring cha- teaux; and a bale-fire blazed up from the keep, which produced a corresponding flame, at nearly reg- ular distances, all rouild the valley of the marsh. Village and qhatSauwere alike deserted by their in- habitants, who rushed down half-naked to the shores of the dead lake. Bog^ were manned on the instant ; and where there w*e rt6: boats, stout swimmers plunged into the tide. Some of them turned back in despair ; others continued for a time to traverse the black waters — which now exhibited no trace of their victims, save here and there a fragment of earth drifting with the breeze; THE KAISER S FEAST. THE KAISER'S FEAST. Louis, Emi)eror of Germany, having put his brother, the Palsgrave RodoJphus, untler the ban of the empire, (in the 12tli century,) that unfoitimate Prince fled to England, where he died in neglect and poverty. After his decease, his mother, Matilda, privately invited his children to return to Germany ; and by her mediation, during a season of festivity, when Louis kept wassail in the Castle of Heidelberg, the family of his brother presented themselves before him in the garb of suppliants, imploring pity and forgiveness. To this appeal the victor softened. — Miss Benger's Memoirs oftfte Queen of Bohemia. The Kaiser feasted in his hall, The red wine mantled high ; Banners were trembling on the wall, To the peals of minstrelsy : And many a gleam and spiirkle came From the armour hung around, As it caught the glance of the torch's flame, Or the hearth with pine-boughs cro^vn'd. Why fell there silence on the chord Beneath the harper's hand ? And suddenly, fi'om that rich board, Why rose the wassail-band ? The strings were husK'd — the knights made way For the queenly mother's tread, THE KAISER S FEAST. As up the hall, in dark array, Two fair-hah-'d boys she led. She led them ev'n to the Kaiser's place. And still before him stood ; Till, with strange wonder, o'er his face Flushed the proud ■\^•arrio^-blood : And " Speak, my mother ! speak!" he cried, " Wherefore tliis mourning vest ? And the clinging children by thy side, In weeds of sadness drest 1" " Well may a mourning vest be mine, And theirs, my son, my son ! Look on the features of thy line In each fau" little one ! Tho' gi'ief awhile witliin their eyes Hath tamed the dancing glee. Yet there thine own quick spirit lies — Thy brother's children see ! " And where is he, thy brother, where ? He, in thy home that grew. And smiling, with his sunny hair, Ever to greet thee flew 1 II ow would liis anns thy neck entwine, His fond lips press thy brow ! 78 THE kaiser's feast. My son ! oh, call these orphans thine — Thou hast no brother now ! " What ! from their gentle eyes doth nought Speak of thy childhood's hours, And smite thee with a tender thought Of thy dead father's towers ? Kind was thy boyish heart and true, When rear'd together there, Thro' the old woods like inwns ye flew — Where is thy brother — where 1 " Well didst thou love him then, and he Still at thy side was seen ! How is it that such things can be, As tho' they ne'er had been ? Evil was this world's breath, which came Between the good and brave ! Now must the tears of grief and shame Be offer'd to the grave. " And let them, let them there be pour'd ! Tho' all unfelt below, Thine own wrung heart, to love restor'd, Shall soften as they flow. Oh ! death is mighty to make peace ; Now bid his work be done ! THE VINE. So many an inward strife shall cease — Take, take these babes, my son!" His eye was dimm'd — the strong man shook With feelings long suppress'd ; Up in his arms the boys he took, And strain'd them to his breast. And a shout from all in the royal hall Bm-st forth to hail the sight ; And eyes were vi'et, midst the brave that met At the Kaiser's feast that night. HEMANS. THE VINE. The Vine, the fruitful vine, that spreads its luxu- riant foliage, and throws out its wiry tendrils, and hangs forth its clusters to the mellowing sunbeams, will not be passed by at this season of sweet recollec- tions. It brings before me, in most vivid portraiture, a scene never to be forgotten, nor ever to be recalled without a glow of heart, which, to be sure, I cannot hope to communicate to my readers, though most of them will be able to conceive how little peril I am in of overstating the matter, when they have the par- ticulars, which I will faitlifuUy relate. It was on a very briglit and gladsome morning that so THE VINE. I set out, accompanied by my own, my precious bro- tlier, and his little girl, and my dumb boy, on an excursion fraught with very delightful anticipations. We reached the end of our journey, and were ushered into a room well furnished with books, adorned wth tasteful prints, and wearing the aspect, yea, breathing tlie very soul of elegant retirement, hallowed into something far beyond the reach of this world's ele- gancies. At the further end of the apartment was a recess, almost of suflBcient size to be called an addi- tional room, thrown boldly foi-ward beyond the line of the building, and forming, in four compartments, one large simi-circular \Aindow, scarcely a pane of which was unadorned by some stray leaf or tendril of the vine, that rested its swelling bunches in pro- fusion against the glass. Beyond, the eye might find miich of sylvan beauty whereon to rest : but, to me, no attraction lay beyond it; for, in the hght and cheerful little sanctuary, there sat a lady, whose snow-white locks — " a crown of glory " — shaded, or rather brightened a countenance so beaming with love, that the sentiment of reverential humility Avas at once absorbed in that of endeared fellowship with one who evidently sought no homage, nor claimed superiority over the lowest of her Saviour's followers. That lady was Hannah More. CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. Co i\)t liaoMark. f^rS ^EEe^ stay, sweet war - blin^ ■wood - lark stay, Nor ^;$e:$e^ ES3 P^ **^ 3'^ quit for me the trem-bling spray, A hap -less lev- er fc ^ ^: courts thy lay, Tliy sooth - ing, fond com - plain - ing. i birgirprrp g p—r'0- ^tEE^E^ ffain, a • gain that ten - Uer part, That m^mmm fcsa: 1 may catch thy melt - ing art ; For i=i PP^ sure - ly tliat -nould touch her heart, Wlia ?S f kills me wi' dis dain - ing 82 TO THE WOODLARK. TO THE WOODLARK. Music on pa4d 31. STAT, sweet warbling woodlark stay. Nor quit for me the trembling epray, A hapless lover courts thy lay, Thy soothing, fond complaining Again, again that tender part. That I may catch thy melting art ; For surely that would touch her heart, Wha kills me wi' disdaining. Say, was thy little mate unkind, And heard thee as the careless wind ? Oh ! nought but love and sorrow join'd, Sic notes o' wo could wauken. Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 0' speechless grief, and dark despair ; For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair I Or my poor heart is l^rokcn I Burns. THE MARTYRDOM OP GEORGE WISHART. 83 THE MARTYRDOM OF GEORGE WISHART. His dying testimony was contained in the follow- ing prayer : — " immortal God, how long wilt thou suffer the imgodly to exercise their fury upon thy servants, which do further thy word in this world ? Whereas the ungodly, on the contrary, seek to de- stroy the tnith, whereby thou hast revealed thyself to the world, ... Lord we know certainly that thy true servants must needs suffer, for thy name's sake, persecutions, afilictions, and troubles in this present world ; yet we desire that thou wouldst pre- serve and defend thy Church which thou hast chosen before the foundation of the world, and to be thy true servants in this present life." When he Avas going to the stake, two friars met him, who would have persuaded him to pray to our lady to mediate for liim ; to whom he meekly said : " Cease, tempt me not, I entreat you." And so, with a rope about his neck, and a chain about his middle, he was led to the stake, where, falling upon his knees, he thrice repeated the following words : " thou Saviour of the world, have mercy upon me. Father of heaven, I commend my spirit into thy holy hands." 84 THE MARTYRDOM OF GEORGE WISHART, Then turning to the people, he sairf: Christians, brethren, and sisters, I beseech you be not offended at the word of God, for the torments which you see prepared for me; I exhort you that you love the \vord of God for your salvation, and suffer patiently and with a comfortable heart for the word's sake, which is your undoubted salvation and everlasting comfort. I pray you also to exhort my brethren and sisters, who have often heard me, that they cease not to learn the word of God, which I taught them, ac- cording to the measure of grace given to me, for no persecution or trouble in this world whatsoever ; and show them that the doctrine is not an old wife's fable, but the truth of God ; for if I had taught men's doctrine, I had obtained greater thanks from men: but for the word of God's sake I now suffer, not sor- rovA-fully, but with a glad heart and mind. For this cause I was sent into the world, that I should suffer this fire for Christ's sake. Behold my face, ye shall not see me change my countenance. I fear not the fire. If persecution come to you for the word's sake, I pray you, fear not them that kill the body, and have no power to kill the soul." Tlien he prayed for them that accused him, saying, " I beseech thee. Father of heaven, forgive them that, from ignorance, or an evil mind, have forged lies of nie: I forgive them with all my heart. I beseech THE MARTYRDOM OF GEORGE WISHART. 85 Christ to forgive them that have condemned me this day ignorantly." Then, turning to the people again, he said, " I beseech you, brethi-en, exhort yom- pre- lates to learn the -svord of God, that they may be ashamed to do evil, and learn to do good; or else there shall come upon them the wrath of God, which they shall not eschew." Then the executioner, upon his knees, said, " Sir, I pray you forgive me, for I am not the cause of your death :" and he, calling liim to him, kissed his cheek, saying, " Lo, here is a token that I forgive thee : my lieart, do thine office." He was then fastened to the stake, and the lire kindled. The captain of the castle approaching him, l)ade him be of good courage, and prayed lum to beg for him the pardon of his sin ; to whom Mr. Wishart said, " This fire torments my body, but no whit abates my spirits." Then, looking towards Cardinal Beaton, who was at a high window, feasting his eyes on the execution, he said, " He who in high state, from that high place, feeds liis eyes with my torments, within few days shall be hanged out at the same window, to be seen with as much ignominy as he now leans there with pride ;" which came exactly to pass. And then his breath being stopped, he was consumed by the fire, in the year 1046. 86 MARY ALLAN. MARY ALLAN. The interest which every sensitive mind feels in Highland scenery, does not arise merely from the bold and striking features which inert matter as- sumes in mountain landscapes. There is doubtless much that is fascinating in the outlines of natural scenery of the wildest kind ; in the long lines of hill and upland, and the rich variety of wood and water ; in the dark fi-owning masses of bare mountain cHff, which bound the view on every side; and the pic- turesque variety of flood, and lake, and plantation, which fill up the deep and beautiful straths. The feeling, however, has a deeper foundation. When we step on Highland ground, we feel that w^e are tread- ing a land which is consecrated by the recollections of love and heroism ; we breathe, as it were, the fresh air of freedom ; and our imagination dwells on the nameless majestic deeds which have signalized, from time immemorial, the " land of the mountain and the flood." I never have ascended a Highland eminence, without being in-esistibly oppressed with higli and indefinite feelings of power and awe. Hill and dale, and rock and stream, seem prcgnaht witli MARY ALLAN. 87 the images of sublime and stiiTing antiquity; and^ those very fields, from which every trace of " other times" has long departed, appear yet haunted by a dim and majestic shadow of former renoA\'n. Differ- ent minds necessarily feel those impressions with different degrees of vivacity; but that mind must have very scanty resources of deep and solemn t hough tfulness witliin itself, which can derive no warm and glowing lessons from our high hills and our deep glens, or which can reflect upon them the beautiful association of no sweet or romantic legend. The simple tale which I am now to relate is one of those which throws a consecrating light on the scene which witnessed it; and though its simple incidents happened within the memory of man, they breathe so much of the spirit of the " olden time," tliat to me, at least, they are invested with a con- siderable portion of that sacredness, which only remote antiquity can, in its widest extent, bestow. Strath- Almond is one of the most lonely of those mountain defiles wliich intervene between the high ground of the north of this kingdom. The summits of the hills which encircle it are covered over entirely •vAnth black moss and heath, and theu" sides, except in a few plots, where some hardy evergreens contrive to struggle out a melancholy existence, are nothing but successive ridges of hare rock. The 88 MARY ALLAN. ^o!ily spots where the hand of cultivation is at all •sidible, are here and there on the banks of the wild brawling stream, which rambles along the bottom of the defile ; and these are rare, being only a few acres of ai-able ground ai'ound the pastoral huts which are scattered, at long intervals, at the bottom of the hills. Mary Allan was an only daughter of one of the inhabitants of this mountain retreat, and was con- sidered, as well from her superior education, as from the grace and beauty of her person, the female orna- ment of the valley. John Allan, her father, was the wealthiest and most respectable shepherd, or rather farmer, in the Strath ; and Mary, therefore, was not neglected by the rustic gallants who were aware of the value of a beautiful wife and a bountiful dowry. The only youth, however, \\'ho succeeded in making any impression on Mary's heart was William Lee, then a farm-servant of her father's, but who latterly exchanged Following the plough upon the nioiintain side, for the more heroic occupation of following the anus of his native country, in the plains of the New World. The cause of this change was his aspiring to the hand of the Highland maiden, who was gene- rally beloved. The marked civilities paid by IVIary MART ALLAN. 89 to the lowest of her father's servants, could not fail to attract the attention as well as to excite the alarm of the youthful suitors, who had an eye to John Allan's flocks, as well as his daughter's person ; and long time did not elapse before this imfortunate young man became the object of the resentment of all the wealthy youth of the glen. His situation was at last rendered so h-ksome, that he determined to leave the place of his nativity, and availing himself of the opportunity afforded by a recruiting party, who paraded a neighbouring to^^^l, without taking leave of his mistress, he accepted the king's bounty, and set sail for the destination of his regiment, from which it is believed he never re- turned. The grief of Mary for this sudden and unexpected departure of her lover was almost insupportable; but she was obliged to cherish it in silence and secrecy. Her suitors having got so easily rid of their dangerous rival, lost no time in plying all their efforts to get her fettered in the bonds of matrimony. Her father, fond of her to distraction, was too anxious to see his daughter well settled in life, to be long in complying with the unremitted solicitations of so many lovers ; and at last she was united, at his wsh, and contrary to her own inclinations, to one of the young men who was considered rather opulent, and 90 MARY ALLAN. ■who had been most active in persecuting the unhappy William Lee. Many of the old people in the glen still remember the bridal of Maiy Allan ; and often have I heard its ceremonies dolefully chaunted over by a venerable grandame, for the instruction of a group of little urchins, who were eagerly crowding round a wintry ingle side, with gaping earnestness, to listen to them. " I ne'er could think it a good sign," said old Llargaret Alison to me, the last time I went to in- quire respecting Mary's only surviving child, — " I ne'er could think it was owre gude a sign," said she, — assuming a look of mysterious solemnity, that seemed put on for the purpose of impressing her auditor with an idea of her superior capacity, — "when the salt tears streamed down fi-ae the bonnie bride's face on the gi-een graves i' the kirk- yard." "And that," continued Elspeth Mathers, in the same solemn tone, "on the very first Sabbath she was ku-kit — and a l)onny sunny Sabbath it was." " Wha but kens," said a third gossip, " that cauld tears and new opened graves are nae malr canty than winding sheets and death-signs; and weel I wot, Mary, that's now dead and gone, kens the truth o't." ]Mary certainly felt comfortless and unhappy with MAEY ALLAN. 91 her husband ; but either from motives of prudence, or fr-om simple and artless notions of manied life, she never expressed by her conduct any of her regrets or gi-ievances. The affection wliicli she showed towards her husband was, however, merely assumed. Her heart, in spite of herself, was still with William Lee, beyond the Atlantic, fighting the battles of his countiy ; and often has she been sui'- prised in tears, with no mortal beside her, on the banks of the Lorn stream, where William and she first plighted their youthful vows. The secret evil which preyed at Mary's heart was not, however, alwaj^s to lurk concealed. Her spirits began gradually to deepen into a settled melancholy, and her health at last to exhibit a visible alteration. Instead of the high-hearted, smiling girl, that was w(Hit to be seen tripping to the kirk on a spring Sabbath, decked out in all the gaudy finery of rustic life, you might now witness a pale, wasted figure, clothed in the simplest attire, and exhibiting the most chastened deportment; and she who, hereto- fore, had been always foremost at the May-day sport, or the harvest meny-making, was now never seen but sitting lonely in the chimney corner, or wander- ing, like a disconsolate and broken-hearted widow, by the unfrequented banks of the brook, or among the desolate and melancholy heather. Q2 MART ALLAN. This alteration could not long escape the penetra- tion of Mary's husband; and instead of softening, it had the effect of rendering still more unendurable Vhis naturally sour and unaniiable disposition. It would be needless, and it would be endless, to at- tempt recounting the different ways in which thi. savage and unfeeling man betrayed his coarse ill- humour. Suffice it to say, that it grew to such ex- cess, that at last the meek and passive I^Iary could no longer bear it. The sun had set in a chill and drizzling evenmg of spring, when this brutal monster came home in a state of intoxication. His natural temper, in addi- tion to being stimulated by the strong liquors of which he had drank copiously, was rendered tenfold more caustic and irritable by the news which had been brought him, during the day, of the unexpected death of John Allan, without any legacy in his favour. In the most unfeeling manner he told Mary of the death of her father; and in the same breath upbraided her with the disappointment he had suffered in not falling heir to liis property. This was too much for the already broken-hearted Mary ; and she decided upon taking that resolution whicli had often occurred to her, but which till then shf had never seriously determined to cany into execu- tion. Cold and comfortless as the night was, she MARY ALLAN. 93 sallied forth ; and, clothed almost in rags, bade an eternal adieu to the detested scene of her connubial misery. That long night the hapless Maiy Allan never closed her eyes in slumber. Alone and unprotected — labouring under decline — \vithout clothes — with- out sustenance, she pursued, at the cheerless dead of night, a -vvild, unfrequented path, Avhich she would, in other circumstances, not have ventured to tread alone in summer and in sunshine. Not a human step once in a twelvemonth crossed that howling wilderness; and in the minds of a simple pastoral people, it was associated with the personifications of a wild and romantic superstition. Surely some power more than human watched that live-long night over the gentle traveller, and ministered that strength and courage without which she must have sunk on the desolate moor. IMary's strength, how- ever, had not long to undergo so flinty a probation. The last shade of evening which she Avas to witness in this world, had already closed around her; and, \A-ith another setting sun, she was to sink into her long last slumber, and to mingle with the clods, over \\hich her wearied limbs now scarcely supported her. I shall never forget the incidents of the day which closed tliis hapless female's humble liistory. At the boundary of that dreary extent of heath, over ^vhlch Mary AUan wandered, there is a neat cottage, con- nected with some plots of cultivated ground, then possessed by a David Laidlaw, with whom I was intimately acquainted. The traveller will easily distinguish it fi-om the other cottages, which, like gems in a desert, people this interminable solitude, and give animation to the lonely moor, by its being built upon a green sloping upland, from which it commands a fine prospect of the Almond, as it widens into the loch of the same name. To that beloved house I was wont to go on a tour every returning spring time; and many a gleesome holiday have I spent, in roaming with its happy inmates over the long moor, when spangled mth all the garish blossoms of spnng, seeking for the nest of the gi-een linnet among the resplendent broom and the scented whins. The day to which I allude was devoted to one of those boyish rambles; we had left the cottage, after an early breakfast, with the intention of visiting a mountain cataract that was distant among the hills. The aspect of the morning was enchanting; there had fallen during the night a considerable quantity of rain; and the vapour, which was steaming from the tepid earth, under the radiance of the morning sun, had formed itself into a soft and-silvery wreath of mist, which hung flke a rich mantle over the face of MARY ALLAN. the landscape. There was scarcely a breath of air ; and as we timied off into the wide common, the birds on the neighboiu-ing furze were beginning to chant sweet hymns to the sunshine ; and the smell of the moistened fm-ze came mellowed to us from the glens, on which the bright mist still lay slumbering. As the sun rose higher, the vapour gradually floated up to heaven; and before we had reached the lynn of Langholme, the sun was high above the clear Ijlue air of noon, and the landscape on every side spread out to the eye many a long line of wild moss and bright heath flowers, sleeping as silently and as festally be- neath the radiant heaven as on a Sabbath of summer. All that day we roamed up and do^\^l the romantic dells ; and the aslant beams of the evening sun were lightly twinkling through the leaves of the woods, ere ■we ever once thought of returning to the cottage of our friends. It was on om- return that we had the melancholy satisfaction of rescuing the heroine of this tale from an unseen death. We found her lying under a rugged hedge, apparently in a dying state, sheltered by two lonely sycamores, which seemed also to l^e far ad- vanced in the winter of their existence. Exhausted Avith fatigue, it appeared she had sat down under their branches, and had hisensibly fallen asleep ; and the dampness of her clothes, whii-h were shaded from 96 MART ALLAN. the influence of the spring sun, by the boughs, had contributed, along with the coldness of the night, to accelerate the fatal eifects of a malady wliich had been for a long period gradually, though impercepti- bly, undermining her health. In that dead sleep we bore her to the cottage of our friend, which fortu- nately was at no great distance. It was not till almost every restorative that could be suggested was employed, that she showed the slightest symptoms of returning animation. Young as I then was, I yet remember the pale young woman, evidently in the agony of death, casting her mild blue eyes wildly around the room, and on the countenances watching her. Her countenance, though deadly pale, was sin- gularly expressive and touching ; and it was lighted up every now and then by a passing hectic flush, wliich seemed to impart a momentary warmth and animation to features now verging fast towards settled icines.s. It was evident to all that the hand of death was on her ; and I could see, from the mournful and resigned countenances of my friends, who hung over the bed as if she had been an only daughter of their own, that no hope was entertained of her re- covery. " Carry me to my William!" muttered the hapless Mary, in a mild, faint tone; and as she spoke, I fancied I could mark a faint sign of reviving anima- MART ALLAN. 97 tion flitting across her white features ; " carry me to my William!" she repeated. " Poor innocent ! " said Mrs. Laidlaw ; " you will never be carried again but to the kirk-yard." The hectic flush which animated Mary's sallow countenance, Avas only the bright gleam that pre- sages total extinction. Before we had time to note it, it was gone ; and the spirit that produced it was gone along with it. The third day after, which was the Sabbath, was the day of Mary's funeral. Not a relative came to assist in conveying her remains to the burying-gTound. Unknown and strange hands were to let down her coffin into the dust ; and she, whom, in the bloom of her maidenhood, all the young and sprightly thought themselves honoured in attending, could not obtain one beloved hand to perform this last oflSce to her memory. But Mary, thy sleep was not less peaceful, thougli no company of relatives bore thee to thy lowly dwelling ; and the wUd flowers shall spring as sweetly and the summer shall shine as brightly on the gi-een turf that -vvi-aps thy grave, as though loving and con- jugal tears had been shed on it. Never was there a sweeter Sabbath ; the sun was beaming mth all its brilliancy on the green pastoral hills over which we l)ore her to the place of her final rest ; and the sweet and simple beauty of the wild flowers that decked the 98 MART ALLAN. solitude, slied over the scene a peacefulness that im- parted much of its character to the mind. I know nothing more toucliing than carrying a young and beautiful female to her final rest, in the green smil- ing beauty of the sj)ring time. The festal descrip- tions which poets have interwoven with their immor- tal hymns, scattering bright flowers on the graves of infancy and beauty, seem all completely realised in imagination; and the thoughts that arise in the calm and mellowed spirit are so holy, and yet so 5olemn, — so mournful, yet so full of calm joy, — that they seem as foretastes given us of the hap- piness of the spirit that has Inirst its clayey tene- ment. On such a day were the remains of Mary Allan committed to the dust. Every spring, for several years afterwards, I visited the place of her repose ; and the last time I was there, " green was the church- yard, — beautiful and green ;" the flowers were spring- ing in beauty all around her gra-\e. c. L. W\}tn i\}t ll0Si) JHcrn Appearing. KOSIXA. Trio— From the Opera of ' JRosina.' ^S iti=q=i ^JZlfclgl VTiien the ro - sy mom ap - pear - ing, Paints with gold the :M: itzt ver - dant lawn ; Bees on tanks of thyme dis - port - inj, S: ^^^a i=?i *^ Sip the sweets and Phcebe. h^il the da'wn. ^^r* j^- ^^nK- y War - bling birds the day pro - claim - ing, Ca - rol sweet the ifzztit -9 — 0- llve - ly strain ; Thej' for - sake their leafy dwell - ing, am * ^ -•— # To se - cure the gold - en grain. 'William. ESF: iWz^ feES *^ See con - tent the hum - n l)le gl ean - er, ^ 1 F 1 , 1 1 A h 1 r J ! i(T\ 1 V J ' • • " « •_ v\) i^ am* «J J- J- • Take the scat - ter'd ears that fall ; Na - ture all her T :i~g" 5^ •— •- cliil - dren view-ing, Kind-ly bounteous cares for all. 100 WHEN THE ROSY MOEX APPEARIXG. ^i^ SE=riHEEEE$E Wlien the ro - sy morn ap - pear - ing, Paints with gold the *^3 r-^ 1 — I- #p* i ri^zziMnt EzEi^izat ^3^J?3F^ ^fci^ :^r± 7^ -^-Tr-^ rzp^ii I -#— — • — •— ^ *Eg ver - dant lawn; Bees on banks of thyme dis - port - ing, -• — •- idtd :i^ H^ ipn -p- Sip the sweets and hail the dawn. • . •- i^Wi ^ 9t WHEN THE ROST MORN APPEARING. 1(1 1:: Warbling birds the day i5ro-claim-infr, Ca-rol sweet tlie I 11 -»- .«. S^ Se r^— ir $ as rpcrs: :f;^ live - ly strain ; They forsake their leafy dwelling. fe^i^ d . • » -^ PiS: r^= -^^ F=3= :*=tai ^ © £S To se - cure the ^3^^ gold - en grain. -^^ ^^=^- 3 102 THE LUCK OF EDE>'HALL. THE LUCK OF EDENHALL. FROM THE GERMAN OF tlHLAXD. The tradition upon which tliis ballad is founded, and the "shards of the Lucl£ of Edenhall." still exist in England. Tlie goblet is in the possession of Sir Christoplier Musgravc, Bart., of Eden Hall, Cumber land ; and is not so entirely shattered as the ballad leaves it Or Edenliall, the youthful lord Bids sound the festal trumpet's call ; He rises at the banquet board, And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all, " Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall !" The butler hears the words Avith pain, The house's oldest seneschal. Takes slow from its silken cloth again The drinking glass of crystal tall ; They call it The Luck of Edenhall. Then said the lord, " This glass to praise, Fill with red wine from Portugal!" The gi*ay beard Avith trembling hand obeys ; A purple light shines over all. It Ijeams from the Luck of Edenhall. THE LTJCK OP EDENHALL. 103 Then speaks the lord, and waves it light, " This glass of flasliing crystal tall Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite ; She wi'ote in in — If this glass doth fall, Farewell then, Luck of Edenhall ! " 'Twas right a goblet the Fate should be Of the joyous race of Edenhall ! Deep draughts drink we right willingly ; And willingly ring, with merry call, Kling ! klang ! to the Luck of Edenhall !" First rings it deep, and full, and mild, Like to the song of a nightingale ; Then like the roar of a torrent Avild ; Then mutters at last like the thunder's fall. The glorious Luck of Edenhall. " For its keeper takes a race of might. The fragile goblet of crystal tall ; • It has lasted longer than is right ; Kling ! klang ! — ^with a harder blow than all Will I try the Luck of Edenhall !" As the goblet ringing flies apart. Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall ; And through the rift the wld flames start ; 104 THE LUCK OF EDENHALL. The guests in dust are scattered all, With the breaking Luck of Edeuhall ! In storms the foe with fire and sword ; He in the night had scaled the wall, Slain by the sword lies the youthful lord, But holds in his hand the crystal tall. The shattered Luck of Edenhall. On the nioiTow the butler gropes alone, The gray-beard in the desert hall, He seeks his lord's burnt skeleton, He seeks in the dismal rmn's fall The shards of the Luck of Edenliall. " The stone wall," saith he, " doth fall aside, Down must the stately columns fall ; Glass is the earth's Luck and Pride ; In atoms shall fall this earthly ball One day like the Luck of Edenhall ! " LONGFELLOW. I. THE INDIAN SUMMER. 105 THE INDIAN SUMMER. Farewell !— as soon as I am dead, Come all, and watch one night about my hearee; Bring each a mournful story and a tear, To offer at it, when I go to earth. With flattering ivj' clasp mj^ coffin round ; Write on my brow my forhme. The Maid's Tragedy. In the melancholy month of October, when the variegated tints of the autumnal landscape begin to fade away into the pale and sickly hue of death, a few soft, delicious days, called the Indian Summer, steal in upon the close of the year, and, like a second spring, breathe a balm roimd the departing season, and light up with a smile the pallid features of the djdng year. They resemble those calm and lucid intervals wliich sometimes precede the last hour of slow decline ; mantling the cheek with the glow of health; breathing tranquillity around the drooping heart; and, though seeming to indicate that the fountains of life are springing out afresh, are but the sad and sure precm-sors of dissolution ; the last earthly Sabbath Of a spirit who longs for a pm-er day. And is ready to wing her flight away. U I was once making a tour, at this season of the year, in the interior of New England. The rays of the setting sun glanced from the windows and shingle roofs of the little farm-houses scattered over the land- scape ; and the soft hues of declining day were gra- dually spreading over the scene. The harvest had already been gathered in; and I could hear the in- distinct sound of the flail fi-om the distant thrashing- floor. Now and then a white cloud floated before the sun, and its long shadow swept across the stubble- field and climbed the neighboiu-ing hill. The tap of a solitary woodpecker echoed from the orchard; and at intervals, a hollow gust passed like a voice amid the trees, scattering the coloured leaves, and shaking down the ruddy apples. As I rode slowly along, I approached a neat farm- house, that stood upon the slope of a gentle hill. There was an air of plenty about it, that bespoke it the residence of one of the better class of fanners. Beyond it, the spire of a village church rose from a flump of trees; and to the westward lay along cul- tivated valley, ^v-ith a rivulet winding like a stripe of silver through it, and bounded on the opposite side by a chain of high, rugged mountains. A numl^er of horses stood tied to a rail in front of the house, and there was a crowd of peasants in their best attire at the doors and windows. I saw at once, THE INDIAN SUMMER. 107 by the sadness of every countenance, and the half- audible tones of voice in Avhich they addi-essed each other, that they were assembled to perform the last pious duties of the living to the dead. Some poor child of dust was to be consigned to its long home. I alighted, and entered the house. I feared that I might be an intruder upon that scene of grief; but a feeling of painful and melancholy curiosity prompted me on. The house was filled with country people from the neighbouring villages, seated around with that silent decorum, which in the country is always observed on such occasions. I passed through the crowd to the chamber, in which, according to the custom of New England, the body of the deceased was laid out in all the appalling habiliments of the grave. The coffin was placed upon a table in the middle of the room. Several of the villagers were gazing upon the corpse ; and as they turned away, speaking to each other in whispers of the ravages of death, I drew near, and looked for a moment upon those sad remains of humanity. The countenance ^^■as calm and beautiful, and the pallid lips apart, as if the last sigh had just left them. On the coffin- plate I read the name and age of the deceased. She had been cut off in the bloom of life. As I gazed upon the featm-es of death before me, my heart rebuked me. There was something cold 103 THE I>'DIAN SUMMER. and heartless, in thus gazing idly upon the relics of one whom I had not kno^vn in life; and I turned away ^^•ith an emotion of more than sorrow. I look upon the last remains of a fi-iend as something that death has hallowed. The dust of one whom I had loved in life, should be loved in death. I should feel that I were doing violence to the tender sympathies of affection, in thus exposing the relics of a friend to the idle curiosity of the world ; for the world could never feel the emotion that harrowed up my soul, nor taste the bitterness with which my heart was r'nining over. At length the village clergyman arrived, and the funeral procession moved towards the church. The mother of the deceased followed the bier, supported by the clergyman, who tried in vain to administer consolation to a ])roken heart. She gave way to the violence of her grief, and wept aloud. Beside her walked a young man, who seemed to struggle with his sorrow, and strove to hide from the world what was passing in his bosom. The church stood upon the outskirts of the village, and a few old trees threw their soft, religious shade around its portals. TIic tower was old and dilapidated ; and the occasional toll of its bell, as it swung solemnly along the landscape, deepened the soft melancholy of the scene. THE INDIAN SUMMER. 109 I followed the funeral train at a distance, and entered the chui-ch. The bier was placed at the head of the principal aisle, and after a moment's pause, the clergyman arose, and commenced the funeral sei-vice with prayer. It was simple and impressive ; and, as the good man prayed, his countenance glowed with pure and fervent piety. He said there was a rest for the people of God, where all tears should be wiped from their eyes, and where there should be no more soiTOW nor care. A hymn was then sung, appropriate to the occasion. It was one from the writings of Dr. Watts, beginning, Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb; Take this new treasiu'e to thy trust, And give these sacred relics room To slumber in the silent dust. No pain, no grief, no anxious fear. Invade thy bounds ; no mortal woes Can reach the peaceful sleeper here, Whilst angels watch its soft repose. The pauses were interrupted by the sobs of the mother ; it was toucliing in the extreme. When it ceased, the aged pastor again arose and addressed his simple audience. Several times his voice faltered with emotion. The deceased had been a favourite disciple since her residence in the village, and he had watched over her slow decay with all the tender solicitude of 110 THE INDIAN SUMMER. a father. As he spoke of her gentle nature ; of her patience in sickness; of her unrepining approach to the grave ; of the bitterness of death ; and of the dark- ness and silence of the narrow house, the younger part of the audience were moved to tears. Most of them had kno^vn her in life, and could repeat some little history of her kindness and benevolence. She had visited the cottages of the poor ; she had soothed the couch of pain ; she had wiped away the mourner's tears ! When the funeral service was finished the pro- cession again formed, and moved towards the grave- yard. It was a sunny spot, ^^pon a gentle hill, where one solitary beach-tree threw its shade upon a few mouldering tombstones. They were the last me- mentos of the early settlers and patriarchs of the neighbourhood, and were overgTown with grass and branches of the wild rose. Beside them there was an open grave. ' The bier was placed upon its brink, and the coffin slowly a-nd carefully let down into it. The mother dame to take hdr last farewell. It was a scene of heart-rending- grief. She paused, and gazed wistfully into the grave ; her heart was l)uried thei'e. At ^ngth she tore herself away in agony; and,'HS she passed from the spot, I could read in her coun- tenance' that the strongest tie which held her to the world had given way. y THE INDIAN. SUMMKR. Ill The rest of the procession passed in order by the grave, and each cast into it some slight token of aftection, a sprig of rosemary, or some other sweet- scented herl). I watched the mournful procession retm-ning along the dusty road, and when it finally disappeared behind the woodland, I found myself alone in the graveyard. I sat down upon a moss- gro^vn stone, and fell into a train of melancholy thoughts. The gi-ay of twilight overshadowed the scene. The wind rushed by in hollow gusts, sighed in the long grass of the grave, and swept the rustling leaves in eddies around me. Side by side beneath me slept the hoary head of age, and the blighted heart of youth; mortality, which had long since mouldered . back to dust, and that from which the spu-it had just departed. I scraped away the moss and grass fi-om the toml^stone on which I sat, and endeavoured to decipher the inscription. The nan.ie was entu-ely blotted out, and the rude ornaments were mouldering away. Beside it was the gi-ave that had just closed over its tenant. What a.tlijeme for meditation ! The grave that had been closed for years; and that upon which the mark of the spade was still visible ! One whose very, name was for- gotten, and whose last earthly record had crunfbled and wasted away ; and one over whom the gi-ass had not yet grown, nor the shadows of night descended ! 112 THE INDIAN SUMMER. When I returned to the village, I learned the history of the deceased. It was simple, but to me it was affecting. The mother had been left a widow Avath two children, a son and daughter. The son had been too soon exposed to the temptations of the world ; had become dissolute, and was carried away by the frenzy of intemperance. This almost broke her heart, but it could not alienate her affection. There is something so patient and so enduring in the love of a mother ! it is so kind to us ; so consoling ; so forgiving ! the world deceives us, but that deceives us not ; friends forsake us, but that forsakes us not ; we may wound it, we may abandon it, we may for- get it ; but it will never wound, nor abandon, nor for- get us ! The daughter was delicate and feeble. She sick- ened in her mother's arms, and fell into a slow decline. Her brother's ingratitude had stricken her too. Those who have watched the progress of slow and wasting decline, may recollect how fondly the sufferer will cling to some favourite wish, whose gra- tification she thinks may strengthen her wasted frame, and which, though we are persuaded it will be useless to grant, we feel it cruelty to deny. AVitli this hope she had longed for the calm retirement of the country, and had come •with her mother into the l)osom of these solitudes, to breathe their pure, THE IXDIAN SUMMER. 113 exliilarating aii", and to forget, in the calm of rural life, the cares that seemed to hurrj' on the progress of the disease. There is a quiet chann in rural occu- pations ■which soothes and tranquillizes the soul; and the invalid that is heartsick with the noise of the city, retires to the shades of country life, finds the hope of existence renewed, and something taken away from the bitterness of death. When the poor girl saw her young fiiends around her in the bloom of health and the hilarity of youth, and she alone drooping and sickly, she felt that it was hard to die. But in the shades of the country, the gaiety of the world Avas forgotten. No earthly desire intmded to overshadow the soft serenity of her soul ; and when the last hope of life forsook her, a voice seemed to whisper, that in the sleei) of death no cares were known, — that they were blessed who died in the Lord. The summer passed away in rural occupations, and the simple pastimes of country life. She was regular in her devotions at the village church on Sundays, and after the service would visit the cottages of the poor with her mother, or stroll along the woodland, and listen to the song of the birds, and the murmur- ing ripple of the brook. At such times she would speak touchingly of her ovnn. fate, and look up with tears into her mother's face. Then her thoughts ;114 THE INDIAN SUMMER. would wander back to earlier days— to her young companions— to her brother. When she spoke of liim, she wept as though her heart would break. They were nearly of the same age, had been educated to- gether, and had loved each other with all the tender- ness of brotherly love. There was something terrible in the idea that he had forgotten her, just as she was dropping into the grave. But there are sometimes alienations of the heart, which even the dark anti- cipations of death cannot change. At length the autumn came, that sober season, whose very beauty reminds us of dissolution and decay. The summer bii-ds had flown, the leaf changed its hue, and the wind rustled mournfully amid the trees. As the season advanced, the health of the invaUd gi-adually declined. The lamp of life was nearly exhausted. Her rambles became confined to a little garden, where she would sometimes stroll out of a morning to gather flowers for her window. The fresh morning air secured to revive her ; but, towards the close of day, the hectic would flush her cheek, and but too plainly indicate that there was no longer hope of life. The mother watched her dying child with an anguish that none but a mother's heart can feel. She would sit, and gaze wistfully upon her as she slept, and pour out her soul in prayer, that this THE INDIAN SUMMER. 115 last solace of her declining years might yet be spared to her. But the days of her child were numbered. She had become calm and resigned, and her soul seemed to be springing up to a pure and heavenly joy. Religion had irradiated the gloom of the sick chamber, and brightened the pathway of the tomb. Death had no longer a sting ; nor the gTave a victory. The soft, delightful days of the Indian Summer succeeded, smiling on the year's decline. The poor sick girl was too weak to leave her chamber ; but she would sit for hours together at the open wndow, and enjoy the calm of the autumnal landscape. One evening she was thus seated, watcliing the setting sun, as it sank slowly behind the blue hills, dying in crimson the clouds of the western sky, and tinging the air with soft, pm-ple light. Her feelings had taken a calm fi-om the quiet of the scene ; and she thought ho\v sweet it were that life should end like the close of an autumn day, and the clouds of death catch the radiance of a glorious and eternal morning. A little bird, that had been the companion of hei- sickness, was fluttering in its cage beside her, and singing wth a merry heart from its wicker prison. She listened a moment to its song, with a feeling of tenderness, and sighed. " Thou hast cheered my sick chamber with thy cheeiful voice," said she, " and hast 116 THE INDIAN SUMMER. sliai-ed with me my long captivity. I shall soon be free, and I \\-ill not leave thee here a prisoner." As she spoke she opened the door of the cage ; the bird darted forth from the window, balanced itself a moment on its wings, as if to say farewell, and then rose up into the sky with a song of delight. As she watched her little favourite floating upwards in the soft evening aii-, and growing smaller and smaller, until it diminished to a little speck in the blue heaven, her attention was arrested by the sound of a horse's hoofs. A moment after, the rider dis- mounted at the door. When she beheld him, her cheek became suddenly flushed, and then tm-ned deadly pale again. She started up, and rushed to- wards the door, but her strength failed her; she faltered, and sunk into her mother's arms in a swoon. Almost at the same moment the door opened, and her brother entered the room. The ties of nature had been loosened, but were too strong to be broken. The rebukes of conscience had risen above the song of the revel and the maddening glee of drunkenness. Haunted by fearful phantoms, and full of mental teiTors, he had hurried away from the scenes of debauch, hoping to atone for his errors by future care and solicitude. His mother embraced him Avith all the tender yearnings of a mother's heart. Sorrow had chastened everj' reproachful feel- THE INDIAN SUMMEK. 117 ing ; silenced eveiy sentiment of reproof. She had already forgotten all past unkindness. In the meantime^ the poor invalid was can-ied to bed insensible; and an hour passed before signs of retm-ning Ufe appeared. A small taper threw its pale and tremnlous ravs around the chamber, and her brother sat by her bedside, silently and anxiously watching her cold, inanimate features. At length a slight colour flushed her cheek ; her lips moved, as if she were endeavoiu-ing to articulate something ; then she sighed deeply, and languidly opened her eyes, as if awakening from a deep sleep. Her mother was Ijending over her ; she threw her arms about her neck and kissed her. " Mother," said she, in a soft and almost inaudible voice, " I have had such a dream ! — I thought that George had come back again ; and that we were happy; and that I should not die — not yet ! But no, it was not a dream," continued she, raising her head fi'om the pillow, and gazing wistfully about the room. "He has come back again ; and we are happy ; and, oh ! mother, must I die !" Here she fell back upon her pillow, and, covering her face with both hands, burst into tears. Her brother, who sat by the bed-side hidden by the curtain, could no longer \\'ithstand the violence of his emotions. He caught her in his anns, and kissed her tears away. She unclosed her eyes, smiled, and faintly 118 THE EARTH AND STARS. articulated, " dear George ;" the rest died upon her lips. It was nature's last effort. She turned her eyes fi-om him to her mother ; then back ; then to her mother again ; her lips moved ; an ashy hue spread over her countenance ; and she expired with a sigh. Such Avas the history of the deceased, as I gathered it from one of the villagers. I continued my journey the next morning, and jiassed by the gi'aveyai-d. The sun shone softly upon it, and the dew glistened upon the tm-f. It seemed to me an image of the morning of that eternal day, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. L. THE EARTH AND STARS. Of heavenly bodies, we know the interior better than the physical condition. They have been weighed and measured out in their volume and density ; but no movement of life, no specific difference of elements, has been detected amongst them. The mighty law pulsates in the firmament with the dead swing of the pendulum. It is not so vdth our terrestrial home. Here the seat of knowledge and life, of order and beauty, is surface, — complexity above, simplicity below. THE SNOW-FLAKE. 119 THE SNOW-FLAKE. " Now, if I fall, ■will it be my lot To be cast in some low and lonely spot, To melt and to sink, unseen or forgot 1 And then will my course be ended?" 'Twas thus a feathery Snow-Flake said, As down through the measureless space it strayed^ Or, as half by dalliance, half afraid. It seem'd in mid air suspended. "Oh, no," said the Earth, "thou shalt not lie, Neglected and lone, on my lap to die. Thou pure and delicate child of the sky, For thou wilt be safe in my keeping ; But then I must give thee a lovelier form. Thou'lt not be a part of the wintry storm. But revive when the sunbeams are yellow and warm, And the floAvers from my bosom are peeping. "And then thou shalt have thy choice to he Restored in the lily that decks the lea, In the jessamine bloom, the anemone, Or aught of thy spotless whiteness ; 120 THE SNOW-FLAKE. To melt, and be cast in a glittering bead, With the pearls that the night scatters over the mead, In the cup where the bee and the fire-fly feed, Regaining thy dazzling l)rightness ; — " To wake and be raised from thy transient sleep, When Kola's mild blue eye shall weep. In a trem\ilous tear, on a diamond leaf. In a drop fi-om the unlocked fountain; Or, leaving the valley, the meadow, and heath, The streamlet, the flowei'S, and all beneath, To go and be wove in the silvery wreath Encircling the brow of the mountain. " Or wouldst thou return to a home in the skies, To shine in the Iris, I'll let thee arise And appear in the many and glorious dyes A pencil of sunbeams is blending. But true, fair thing, as my name is Eartb, I'll give thee a new and vernal birth. When thou shalt recover thy primal worth, And never regret descending!" " Then I will drop," said the trusting flake, " But bear !t in mind that the choice I make Is not in the flowers or the dew to awake. Nor the mist that shall pass with the morning : OS MY FRIEND ROBIN, 121 For, things of thyself, they exph-e with thee ; But those that are from on high, like me, They rise, and will live, from the dust set free, To the regions above returning. "And if true to thy word, and just thou art, Like the spuit that dwells in the holiest heart. Unsullied by thee, thou wilt let me depart, And return to my native heaven ; For I would be placed in the beautiful bow, From time to time in thy sight to glow. So thou may'st remember the flake of snow, By the promise that God hath given." H. F. GOULD. ON MY FRIEND ROBIN, VULGARLY CALLED RAGGED. A MAN of taste is Robinet, A dandy, spruce, and trim ; Whoe'er would dainty fashions set Should go and look at him. Rob scorns to wear his crimson coat As common people do ; 122 ON MY FRIEND ROBIN. He folds and fits it in and out, And does it bravely, too. Oh ! llobin^oves to prank liim rare Witli fringe, and flounce, and all ; Till you'd take him for a lady fair Just going to a ball. Robin's a roguisli, merry lad, He dances in the breeze, And looks up, with a greeting glad, To the rustling hedge-row trees. How civilly he beckons in The busy Mrs. Bee ; And she tells her store of gossiping O'er his honey and his glee. All joy — all mirth — no carking care, No worldly woe has he ; Alack ! I wish my lot it were To live as happily ! TVAMLEY. ^ Bcse-bu^ btj mt) (jrarlt) Dalk. ^S: HE^ :*=•: ^^^ rose-bud by my car - ly walk, A- tfc S ^ J?i ^=^-^ down a com in clos - eel bawk, Sae s g^ ^ gent - ly bent its thor - ny stalk. All S a clew - y morn-ing. Eve P^^E :tijz=zfe^ twice tlie shades of dawn are fled, In f-y-K-r-r^ SEE 3^ all its crim - soa glo - ry spread. And fc£ r^: -H^ droop -ing rich the dew - y head, It '^^ i=iC scents the ear - ly worn - iiig. 124 A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK. Music on pa^a 113. A rose-bud by my early walk, Adown a com inclosed bawk, Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, All on a dewy morning. Ere twice the shades of dawm are fled, In all its crimson glory spread, And drooping rich the dewy head, It scents the early morning. Within the bush, her covert nest, A little linnet fondly prest — The dew sat chilly on her breast, Sae early in the morning. She soon shall see her tender brood. The pride, the pleasure of the wood. Among the fresh gi-een leaves bedew'd, Awake the early morning. So thou, dear bird, young Jenny fair. On trembling string, or vocal air. Shall sweetly pay the tender care That tends thy early morning. So thou sweet rose-bud, young and gay Shalt beauteous gaze upon the day. And bless the parent's evening ray That watch'd thy early momin-g. THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 125 THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. I EMBARKED, a few years since, at Pittsburg, for Cincinnati, on board of a steamboat, more ^^•itll a view of realising the possibility of a speedy return against the current, than -in obedience to the call of either business or pleasure. It was a voyage of specu- lation. I was born on the banks of the Ohio ; and the only vessels associated with my early recollections were the canoes of the Indians, which brought to Fort Pitt their annual cargoes of skins and bears' oil. The flat boat of Kentucky, destined only to float with the current, next appeared ; and, after many years of interval, the keel-boat of the Ohio and the barge of the Mississippi were introduced for the convenience of the infant commerce of the West. At the period at which I have dated my trip to Cincinnati, the steamboat had made but few voyages Ijack to Pittsburg. We were generally sceptics as to its practicability. The mind was not prepared for the change that was about to take place in the West. It is now consummated ; and we yet look back with astonishment at the result. When we left Pittsbui-g, the season was not far 126 THE LAST OF THE BOATMEX. advanced in vegetation; but, as we proceeded, the change was more rapid than the difference of latitude justified. I had frequentlj' observed this in former voj'ages ; but it never was so striking as on the pre- sent occasion. The old mode of travelling, in the sluggish flat boat, seemed to give time for the change of season; but now a few hours carried us into a different climate. We met spring, wth all her laugliing train of flowers and verdure, rapidly ad- vancing from the south. The buck-eye, cotton-wood, and maple, had already assumed, in tliis region, the rich livery of summer. The thousand varieties of the floral kingdom spread a gay carpet over the luxu- riant bottoms on each side of the river. The thick woods resounded with the notes of the feathered tribe, each striving to outdo his neighbour in noise, if not in melody. We had not yet reached the region of paroquets; but the clear-toned whistle of the cardinal was heard in every bush; and the cat-bird was endeavouring to rival the powers of the mocking- bird. A few hours brought us to one of those stopping points, known by the name of the "wooding places."' It was situated immediately above Letart's Falls. The boat, obedient to the wheel of the pilot, made a graceful sweep towards the island altove the chute, and rounding to, approached the wood pile. As the THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 127 boat drew near the shore, the escape-steam rever- berated tlu-ough the forest and lulls, like the chafed bellowing of the caged tiger. The root of a tree, con- cealed beneath the water, prevented the boat from getting sufficiently near the bank, and it became necessary to use the paddles to take a different posi- tion. " Back out, INIannee, and try it again !" exclaimed a voice fr-om the shore. " Throw your pole wide, and brace off, or you'll run against a snag." Tliis was a kind of language long familiar to us on the Ohio. It was a sample of the slang of the keel- boatmen. The speaker was immediately cheered by a dozen voices from the deck ; and I recognised in him the person of an old acquaintance, familiarly known to me from my boyhood. He was leaning carelessly against a large beech; and, as his left arm negli- gently pressed a rifle to his side, presented a figure that Salvator would have chosen fi-om a multitude, as a model for his void ?,nd gloomy pencil. His stature was upwards of six feet, his proportions perfectly symmetrical, and exhibiting the evidence of hercu- lean powers. To a stranger he would have seemed a complete mulatto. Long exposure to the sun and weather on the lower Ohio and ]Mississippi had changed his skin ; and, but for the fine European. 128 TUE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. cast of his countenance, he might have passed for the principal warrior of some ijowerful tribe. Al- though at least fifty yeai*s of age, his hah- was as ))lack as the wing of the raven. K'ext to his skin he wore a red flannel shirt, covered bj' a blue capot, ornamented with white fringe. On his feet were mocassins, and a broad leathern belt encircled his waist, fiom which hung, suspended in a sheath, a large knife. As soon as the steamboat became stationary, the cabin passengers jumped on shore. On ascending the bank, the figure I have just described advanced to offer me his hand. " How are you, Mike ?" said I. " How goes it ?" replied the boatman, grasping my hand with a squeeze that I can compare to nothing but that of a blacksmith's vice. " I am glad to see you, Mannee !" continued he, in his abrupt manner. I am going to shoot at the tin cup for a quart, off hand, and you must be judge." I understood Mike at once, and, on any other occasion, should have remonstrated, and prevented the daring trial of skill. But I was accompanied by a couple of English tourists, who had scarcely ever l)een beyond the sound of Bow Bells ; and who were .travelling post over the United States, to make up a THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 129 book of observations on our manners and customs. There were also among the passengers a few bloods from Philadelphia and Baltimore, who could con- ceive nothing equal to Chesnut or Howard Streets, and who expressed great disappointment at not being able to find terrapins and oysters at every village, marvellously lauding the comforts of Riibicum's. My tramontane pride was aroused ; and I resolved to give them an opportunity of seeing a western Lion — for such Mike undoubtedly was — in all his glory. Mike, followed by several of his crew, led the way to a beech grove, some little distance fi-om the land- ing. I invited my fellow-passengers to witness the scene. On an-iving at the spot, a stout bull-headed boatman, dressed in a hunting-shirt, but bare-footed, in whom I recognised a younger brother of Mike, drew a line ■with his toe ; and, stepping off thirty yards, turned round fronting his brother, took a tin cup which hung from his belt, and placed it upon his head. Although I had seen this feat performed before, I acknowledge I felt uneasy whilst this silent preparation was going on. But I had not much time for reflection ; for this second Albert exclaimed — " Blaze away, Mike ! and let's have the quart." My compagnons de voyage, as soon as they recovered from the first effects of their astonishment, exhibited a disposition to interfere. But Mike, throwing back 130 THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. his left leg, levelled liis rifle at the head of his brother. In this horizontal position the weapon remained for some seconds, as immoveable as if the arm which held it was affected by no pulsation. " Point your piece a little lower, IMike ! or you will pay the corn," cried the irapertiu*bable brother. I know not if the advice was oljeyed or not ; but the sharp crack of the rifle immediately followed, and the cup flew off thirty or forty yards, rendered unfit for future sei'vice. There was a cry of admiration from the strangers, who pressed forward to see if the foolhardy boatman was really safe. He remained as immoveable as if he had been a figure hewn out of stone. He had not even winked when the ball struck the cup within two inches of his skull. " Mike has won ! " I exclauned ; and my decision was the signal wliich, according to their rules, per- mitted him of the target to move from his position. No more sensation was exhibited among the boatmen than if a common wager had been won. The bet being decided, they hurried back to their boat, giving me and my friends an invitation to partake of " the treat." We declined, and took leave of the thought- less creatures. In a few minutes afterwards we ob- served their keel wheeling in the current, the gigan- tic form of J\Iike bestriding the large steering ore, and the others arranging themselves in their places in THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 131 fi-ont of the cabin, that extended nearly tlie whole length of the boat, covering merchandise of immense value. As they left the shore, they gave the Indian yell ; and broke out into a sort of imconnected cho- rus, commencing vdih — " Hard upon the beech oar! She moves too slow ! All the way to Sha-niieetown, Long while ago." In a few moments the boat "took the chute"' of Letart's Falls, and disappeared behind the point with the rapidity of an Arabian courser. Our travellers returned to the boat, lost in spe- culation on the scene and the beings they had just beheld ; and, no doubt, the circumstance has been related a thousand times with all the necessary am- plifications of finished tourists. Mike Fink may be viewed as the correct represen- tative of a class of men now extinct, but who once possessed as marked a character as that of the Gipsies of England, or the Lazzaroni of Naples. The period of theu" existence was not more than a third of a century. The character was created by the mtro- duction of trade on the Western waters, and ceased with the successful establishment of the steamboat. There is something inexplicable in the fact, that there could be men found for ordinary wages, who 132 THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. would abandon the systemetic but not laborious pursuits of agriculture, to follow a life, of all others, except that of the soldier, distinguished by the greatest exposure and privation. The occupation of a boatman was more calculated to destroy the con- stitution, and to shorten life, than any other business. In ascending the river, it was a continued series of toil, rendered more irksome by the snail-like rate at which they moved. The boat was propelled by poles, against which the shoulder was placed; and the whole strength and skill of the individual were ap- plied in this manner. As the boatmen moved along the running-board, with their heads nearly touching the plank on which they walked, the effect produced on the mind of an observer was similar to that on beholding the ox rocking before an overloaded cart. Their bodies, naked to their waist, for the purpose of moving with gi*eater ease, and of enjoying the bi'eeze of the river, were exposed to the biirning suns of summer and to the rains of autumn. After a hard day's push, they would take their "fillee," or ration of whisky, and, having swallowed a miserable sui>per of meat half-ljurnt and of bread half-l)aked, stretch tliemselves, without covering, on the deck, and slum- l)er till the steersman's call invited them to tlie morning "fillee." Notwithstanding this, the boat- man's life had charms as irresistible as those pre- THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 133 sented by the splendid illusions of the stage. Sons abandoned the comfortable fai-ms of their fathers, and apprentices fled from the service of their masters. There was a captivation in the idea of " going doAvn the river ; " and the youthful boatman who had "pushed a keel" from New Orleans, felt all the pride of a young merchant, after liis first voyage to an English sea-port. From an exclusive association to- gether, they had formed a kind of slang peculiar to themselves; and from the constant exercise of wit with " the squatters" on shore, and crews of other boats, they acquired a quickness and smartness of vulgar retort, that was quite amusing. The frequent battles they were engaged in with the boatmen of different parts of the river, and with the less civi- lized inhabitants of the lower Ohio and Mississippi, invested them with that ferocious reputation, which has made them spoken of throughout Europe, On board of the boats thus navigated, our merchants entrusted valuable cargoes, without insurance, and with no other guarantee than the receipt of the steersman, who possessed no property but his boat ; and the confidence so reposed was seldom abused. Among these men, Mike Fink stood an acknow- ledged leader for many years. Endowed by nature with those qualities of intellect that give the pos- sessor influence, he would have been a conspicuous 13i THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. member of any society in which his lot might have been cast. An acute observer of human nature has said — " Opportunity alone makes the hero. Change their situations, and Ctesar would have been but the best wrestler on the green." With a figure cast in a mould that added much of the symmetry of an Apollo to the limbs of a Hercules, he possessed gigantic strength; and, accustomed from an early period to brave the dangers of a fi-ontier life, his character was noted for the most daring intrepidity, lie was the hero of a hundred fights, and the leader in a thousand adventures. From Pittsburg to St. Louis and New Orleans, his fame was estabUshed. Every farmer on the shore kept on good terms with iMike, otherwise there was no safety for his property. Wherever he was an enemy, like his great prototyi)e, Rob Roy, he levied the contribution of black mail for the use of his boat. Often at night, when his tired companions slept, he would take an excursion of five or six miles, and return before morning, rich in spoil. On the Ohio, he was known among his companions l)y the appellation of the " Snapping Turtle ;" and on the Mississippi, he was called "The Snag." At the early age of seventeen, Mike's character was displayed )jy enlisting liimself in a corps of Scouts — a l)ody of irregular rangers, which was employed on the north-western frontiers of Pennsylvania, to watch THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 135 tlie Indians, and to give notice of any threatened inroad. At that time, Pittsburg was on tlie extreme verge of white population, and the spies, who were constantly employed, generally extended their ex- plorations forty or fifty miles to the west of tliis post. They went out singly, lived as did the Indian, and in every respect became perfectly assimilated in habits, taste, and feeling, with the red men of the desert. A kind of border warfare was kept up, and the scout thought it as praiseworthy to bring in the scalp of a Shawnee as the skin of a panther. lie would remain in the woods for weeks together, \ising parched corn for bread, depending on liis rifle for meat, and sleep- ing at night in perfect comfort, rolled in his blanket. In this corps, while yet a stripling, Mike acquired a reputation for boldness and cunning far beyond his companions. A thousand legends exhibited the fear- lessness of his character. There was one, which he told himself with much pride, — which illustrates the rude and savage habits of thought which even men, once civilized, attain in such a state of society, — that made an indelible impression on my boyish memory. He had been out on the hills of IMahoning, when, to use- his own words, he " saw signs of Indians being about," He had discovered the recent print of the moccasin on the gi'ass, and fuimd drops of the fresh 136 THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. blood of a deer on the gi-een busli. He became cau- tious, skulked for some time in the deepest thickets of hazle and briar; and, for several days, did not dis- charge his rifle. He subsisted patiently on parched corn and jerk, which he had dried on his first com- ing into the woods. He gave no alarm to the set- tlements, because he discovered, with certainty, that the enemy consisted of a small hunting-party, who were receding from the Alleghany. As he was creeping along, one morning, with the stealthy tread of a cat, liis eye fell upon a beautiful buck, browsing on the edge of a barren spot, three hundred yards distant. The temptation was too strong for the woodsman, and he resolved to have a shot at every hazard. Re-priming his gun, and picking his flint, he made his approaches in the usual noiseless manner. At the moment he reached the spot from which he meant to take his aim, he ob- served a large savage, intent upon the same object, advancing from a direction a little different from his own. Jlike shrunk behind a tree with the quickness of thought, and, keeping his eye fixed on the hun- ter, waited the result with patience. In a few mo- ments, the Indian halted within fifty paces, and levelled his piece at the deer. In the meanwhile, Mike presented liis rifle at the body of the savage ; and, at the moment the smoke issued from the gun THE LAST OF THE BOATMEN. 137 of the latter, the bullet of Fink passed through the red man's breast. He uttered a yell, and fell dead at the same instant with the deer. Mike reloaded his rifle, and remained in his covert for some minutes, to ascertain whether there were more enemies at hand. He then stepped up to the prostrate savage, and, having satisfied himself that life was extinguished, turned his attention to the buck, and took fi-om the carcass those pieces suited to the process of jerking. In the meantime, the country was filling up with a wliite population ; and in a few years the red men, with the exception of a few fractions of tribes, gradually receded to the lakes and beyond the Mis- sissippi. The corps of Scouts was abolished, after hav- ing acquired habits which unfitted them for the pur- suits of civilised society. Some incorporated them- selves with the Indians ; and others, from a strong attachment to the erratic mode of life, joined the boatmen, then just becoming a distinct class. Among these was our hero, Mike Fink, whose talents were soon developed ; and for many years he was as cele- brated on the rivers of the West as he had been in the woods. Some years after my visit to Cincinnati, business called me to New Orleans. On board of the steam- boat, on which I had embarked at Louisville, I re- cognised, in the person of the pilot, one of those men 138 TUE LAST OF THE BOATMEX. who had formerly been a patroon, or keel-boat cap- tain. I entered into conversation with him on the su]>ject of his former associates. " They are scattered in all directions," said he. " A few, who had capacity, have become pilots of steamboats; many have joined the trading parties that cross the Rocky Mountains ; and a few have set- tled doA\Ti as fanners." " What has become," I asked, " of my old acquaint- ance, Mike Fink ?" "Mike was killed in a skrimmage," replied the pilot. " He had refused several good offers on steam- boats. He said he could not bear the hissing of steam, and he wanted room to throw his pole. He went to the jMissouri ; and about a year since was shooting the tin cup, when he had corned too heavy. He elevated too low, and shot his companion through the head. A friend of the deceased, who was pre- sent, suspecting foul play, shot Mike through the heart, before he had time to reload his rifle." With Mike Fink expired the spirit of the Boatmen. Such arc the half-savage features which the white man assumes on the outskirts of civilization ; exhi- biting in an interesting but a very painful light, the influence such pioneers are calculated to have on the wild native Indian. HERO AND LEANDER. 139 HERO AND LEANDER. CANTO I. Old is the tale I tell, and yet as young And warm wdtli life as ever minstrel sung : Two lovers fill it, — two fair shapes — two souls Sweet as the last, for whom the death-bell tolls : What matters it how long ago, or where They liv'd, or whether their young locks of hair, Like English hyacinths, or Greek, were curled? We hurt the stories of the antique world By thinking of our school-books, and the ^\Tongs Done them by pedants and fantastic songs, Or sculptm-es, which from Roman "studios" thrown Turn back Deucalion's flesh and blood to stone. Truth is for ever truth, and love is love ; The bird of Venus is the living dove. Sweet Hero's eyes, three thousand years ago, Were made precisely like the best we know, Look'd the same looks, and spoke no other Greek Than eyes of honey-moons begun last week. Alas ! and the dread shock that stunn'd her brow Strain'd them as wide as anv wretch's now. 140 HERO AND LEANDER. I never think of poor Leander's fate, And how he swam, and how his bride sat late, And watch'd the dreadful dawning of the light, But as I would of two that died last night. So might they now have liv'd, and so have died; The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side. Beneath the sun which shines tlais very hour. There stood of yore — behold it now — a tower. Half set in trees and leafy luxury. And through them look'd a window on the sea. The tower is old, but guards a beauteous scene Of bowers, 'twixt purple hills, a gulf of gTeen, Whose farthest side, from out a lifted grove, Shows a white temple to the Queen of Love. Fair is the morn, the soft trees kiss and breathe ; Cahn, blue, and glittering is the sea beneath ; And by the window a sweet maiden sits. Grave with glad thoughts, and watching it by fits. For o'er that sea, di'awn to her with delight. Her love Leander is to come at night ; To come, not sailing, or with help of oar. But with his o\ati wann heart and arms — no more- A naked bridegroom, bound from shore to shore. A priestess Hero is, an orphan dove, Lodg'd in that turret of the Queen of Love ; HERO AND LEANDER. 141 A youth Leander, born across the strait, Whose wealthy kin deny him his sweet mate, Beset with spies, and dogg'd with daily spite ; But he has made high compact with delight, And found a wondrous passage through the weltering night. So sat she fix'd all day, or now was fain To rise and move, then sighs, then sits again; Then tries some work, forgets it, and thinks on, Wishing with perfect love the time were gone. And lost to the green trees with their sweet singers. Taps on the casement's ledge with idle fingers. An aged nm-se had Hero in the place, An under priestess of an humbler race. Who partly serv'd, partly kept watch and ward Over the rest, but no good love debarr'd. The temple's faith, though serious, never cross'd Engagements, miss'd to their exchequer's cost; And though this present knot was to remain Unknown awhile, 'twas bless'd within the fane. And much good thanks expected in the end From the dear married daughter, and the wealthy fi-iend. Poor Hero look'd for no such thanks. Her hand, But to be held in his, would have giv'n sea and land. 142 HERO AND LEANDER. Tlie reverend crone accordingly took care To do her duty to a time so fair, Saw all tilings right, secured her own small pay, (Wliich brought her luxuries to her dying day,) And finishing a talk, which with surprise She saw made grave e'en those good-humour\l eyes. Laid up, tow'rds night, her service on the shelf, And left her nicer mistress to herself. Hesper meanwhile, the star with amorous eye, Shot his fine sparkle fi'om the deej) blue sky. A depth of night succeeded, dark, but clear. Such as presents the hollow stany sphere Like a high gulf to heaven ; and all above Seems waking to a fervid work of love. A nightingale, in transport, seemed to fling His warble out, and then sit listening ; And ever and anon, amidst the flush Of the thick leaves, there ran a breezy gush ; And then, from dewy myrtles lately bloomed, An odour small, in at the window, fumed. At last, with twinkle o'er a distant tower, A star appeared, that was to show the hour. The virgin saw ; and going to a room Wliich held an altar burning with perfume, HERO AND LEANI)ER. 143 Cut off a lock of her dark solid hair, And laid it, with a little whispered prayer, Before a statue, that of marble bright Sat smiling do^^^lwards o'er the rosy light. Then at the flame a torch of pine she lit, And o'er her head anxiously holding it, Ascended to the roof; and leaning there. Lifted its light into the darksome air. The boy beheld,— beheld it from the sea, And parted his wet locks, and breathed with glee. And rose, in swimming, more triumphantly. Smooth was the sea that night, the lover strong, And in the springy waves he danced along. He rose, he dipped his breast, he aimed, he cut With his clear arms, and from before him put The parting waves, and in and out the air His shoulders felt, and trailed his washing hair ; But when he saw the torch, oh, how he sprung, And thrust his feet against the waves, and flung The foam beliind, as though he scorned the sea. And parted his wet locks, and breathed with glee. And rose, and panted, most triumphantly ! Arrived at last on shallow ground, he saw The stooping light, as if in haste, withdraw : 141 HERO AND LEANDER. A.gain it issued just above the door With a white hand, and vanished as before. Then rising, with a sudden-ceasing sound Of wateriness, he stood on the firm ground, And treading up a little slippery bank, With jutting myrtles mixed, and verdure dank, Came to a door ajar, — all hushed, all blind With darkness ; yet he guessed who stood behind ; And entering with a turn, the breathless boy A breathless welcome finds, and words that die for joy CANTO II. Thus passed the summer shadows in delight : Leander came as surely as the night. And when the morning woke upon the sea. It saw him not, for back at home was he. Sometimes, when it blew fresh, the struggling flare Seemed out ; but then he knew liis Hero's care, And that she only walled it with her cloak ; Brighter again from out the dark it broke. S(jmetimes the night was almost clear as daj', Wanting no torch ; and then, with easy play, He dipped along beneath the silver moon, Placidly hearkening to the water's tune. HERO AND LEANDER. 145 The people round the country, who from far Used to behold the light, thought it a star, Set there j)erhaps by Venus as a wonder. To mark the favourite maiden who slept under. Therefore they trod about the gi-omids by day Gently ; and fishermen at night, they say, With reverence kept aloof, cutting their silent way. But autumn now was over ; and the crane Began to clang against the coming rain. And peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea, Which oft return'd a face of enmity. The gentle girl, before he went away. Would look out sadly toward the cold-eyed day. And often beg him not to come that night ; But still he came, and still she blessed his sight ; And so, from day to day, he came and went, Till time had almost made her confident. One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay And myrtle garlands for a holiday, And watched at intervals the dreary sky, In which the dim sun held a languid eye. She thought ^^^ith such a full and quiet sweetness Of all Leander's love and his completeness, All that he was, and said, and looked, and dared, His fonn, his step, his noble head full-haired, 146 HERO AND LEAXDER. And how she loved him, as a thousand might, And yet he earned her still thus night by night, That the sharp pleasure moved her like a grief, And tears came dropping with their meek relief. Meantime the sun had sunk ; the hilly mark. Across the straits, mixed with the mightier dark. And night came on. All noises by degrees Were hushed, — the fisher's call, the birds, the trees. All but the washing of the eternal seas. Hero looked out, and trembling augured ill. The darkness held its breath so very still. But yet she hoped he might arrive before The storm began, or not be far from shore ; And crj'ing, as she stretched forth in the air, " Bless him ! " she turned, and said a teai-ful prayer. And mounted to the tower, and shook the torch's flare. But he, Leander, almost half across. Threw liis blithe locks behind him with a toss, And hailed the light victoriously, secure Of clasping his kind love, so sweet and sm'e ; When suddenly, a blast, as if in wrath. Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path ; Then started ott"; and driving round the sea, Dashed up the panting waters roaringly. UERO AND LEANDER. 147 The youth at once was thrust beneath the main With blinded eyes, but quickly rose again, And \vith a smile at heart, and stouter pride. Surmounted, like a god, the rearing tide. But what ? The torch gone out ! So long too ! See, He thinks it comes ! Ah, yes, — 'tis she ! 'tis she ! Again he springs ; and, though the winds arise Fiercer and fiercer, swims with ardent eyes ; And always, though with ruffian waves dashed hard. Turns thither -with glad groan his stout regard ; And always, though his sense seems washed away, Emerges, fighting tow'rds the cordial ray. But driven about at last, and drenched the while, The noble boy loses that inward smile. For now, from one black atmosphere, the rain Sweeps into stubborn mixture with the main ; And the brute wind, unmuffling all its roar, Storms ; — and the light, gone out, is seen no more. Then dreadful thoughts of death, of Avaves heaped on him, And friends, and parting daylight, rush upon him. He thinks of prayers to Neptune and his daughters. And Venus, Hero's queen, sprung from the waters ; And then of Hero only, — how she fares, And what she'll feel, when the blank morn appeai-s ; 14S HERO A?fD LEANDER. And at that thought he stiffens once again His limbsj and pants, and strains, and climbs, — in vain. Fierce draughts he swallows of the wlful wave, His tossing hands are lax, his blind look grave, Till the poor youth (and yet no coward he) Spoke once her name, and, yielding wearily. Wept in the middle of the scornful sea. I need not tell how Hero, when her light Would burn no longer, passed that dreadful night ; How she exclaimed, and wept, and could not sit One instant in one place ; nor how she lit The torch a hundred times, and when she found 'Twas all in vain, her gentle head turned round Almost with rage ; and in her fond despair She tried to call him through the deafening air. But when he came not, — when from hour to hour He came not, — though the storm had spent its power. And when the casement, at the dawn of light, Began to show a square of ghastly white. She went up to the tower, and straining out To search the seas, do\\Tiwards, and round about, She saw, at last, — she saw her lord indeed Floating, and washed about, like a vile weed; — DEATH OF AN INFANT. 149 On which such strength of passion and dismay Seized her, and such an impotence to stay, That from the turret, hke a stricken dove. With fluttering arms she leaped, and joined her drowned love. LEIGH HUNT. DEATH OF AN INFANT. Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow. And dashed it out. There was a tint of rose On cheek and lip ; — he touched the veins mth ice, And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes There spoke a wistful tenderness, — a doujjt Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of their curtaining lids For ever. There had been a murmuring soiind With which the babe would claim its mother's ear. Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set His seal of silence. But there beamed a smile So fixed and holy, fi-om that marble brow — Death gazed and left it there ; — he dared not steal The signet-ring of Heaven. SIGOURNEY. 150 THE BIBLE. THE BIBLE. " How rich their lot, in youth or age, With hopes secured above, Who early commune vsith the page Of Heaven's recorded love." Tub sublime poetry of Holy Writ is so full of imagery derived from nature, that we can scarcely look abroad over the face of the earth without being reminded of some of its comparisons. The fowl of the air, the lamb of the fold, the corn ready for the sickle, the flower of the field, the morning cloud, the early dew, the green pastures, the still waters, — all bring to the religious mind some emblem of beauty, some subject of contemplation. When the ancient people were filled Avith dread, Isaiah says of them and their monarch, " His heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved by the wind." The sound of the rolling leaf, so often rust- ling in the autumn forest, was to chase the wicked, and they wei'e, in their instability, declared to be as tlie chaff which the wind drivcth away. A. PRATT €l)e /loujfrs o' i\)t /orcst. I've seen the smil-ing of for - tune be - guil - ing, I've w^^mm^m tast - ed hei' pleasures, and felt her decay. §^m^^^m Sweet was her bless-ing, and kind her ca - ress - ing, But ± rfjag ji; rs^i ^^E^P now they are fled, gE p;£|;gE at fled far a - way :i. P^—rr^ #55 I've seen the for-est a - dorn - ed the fore - most, 'W'l' ggj^EgEgteitep --^- flow'rs o' the fairest, haitli plea - sant and gay; Sue ;^i^i:g:^g^ ^^ — '-* bonny was their blooming, their scent the air perfuming. But :S^553: l^^^^^m^^^ now they are wither'd and a" wed a - way. 152 THE FLOWERS TUE FOREST. THE FLOWERS 0' THE FOREST. Music on pa^e 151 I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling, I've tasted her pleasures, and felt her decay. Sweet was her blessing, and kind her caressing, But now they are fled, fled far away. I've seen the forest adorned the foremost, Wi' flow'rs o' the fairest, baith pleasant and gay ; Sae bonny was their blooming, their scent tlie air perfuming. But now they are wither"d and a' Aved away. I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning, And loud tempests roaring before parting day ; I've seen Tweed's silver streams glitt'ring in the sunny beams. Grow drumly and dark as they roll'd on their way. fickle fortune, why thus cruel sporting ; Why thus perplex us poor sons of a day ; Thy frown cannot fear me, thy smile cannot cheer me. Since the flow'rs o' the forest are a' wed awav. ALLBBTON TOWER. 163 ALLERTON TOWER. A TALE OF THE DAYS OF " BLUFF KING HAL." Of all the pastimes by which the highborn during tlie middle ages sought to enliven the gloom (not un- frequent in time of peace) of the baronial castle, none were so fondly cherished, or so eagerly pur- sued ; none held so high a place in their esteem, or maintamed it for so long a period, as the " royal (for such was its high designation) sport of hawkynge." It is singular, too, that no other sport has fallen into such comi^lete desuetude. Chess, and draughts, and most, indeed, of the various games that beguiled tlie monotony of the castle hall, still amuse the inmates of the modern drawing-room. The athletic sports that delighted our forefathers have not yet lost their charm. Trials of skill in archery, although childish play compared with those in former days, still draw up together a " goodly company," clad in Lincoln green, (the only characteristic shared in common with the archer-band of yore, whose clothyard shafts flew from the mighty six-feet yew-bow ;) while year by year, the stag-hounds are still uncoupled, and tlie 154 ALLERTON TOWER. merry gi'eenwood, through the bright days of sum- mer, rings with the shrill bugle of the hunter. Every sport and pastime has remained almost unalteretl, save that, the knowledge of whose quaint and ex- tensive vocaliulary formed the most indispensable part of the noble damsel's education — that sport into whose " mysteries " the proudest noble was honoured to initiate his monarch's son — that " gentle crafte," whose many fascinations induced the dainty dame, Juliana Bernei-s, prioress of Sopewell, at the birth- time of printing, to lay aside her missal and rosary, to indite with her own fair hand the " Boke of Seynte Alban," which is now, save to the antiquary, almost unknowu. We ^^■ill, therefore, dear reader, take you into the mews, and give you some notion of that pas- time, which, for more than five centuries, was the most cherished sport of our ancestors. When we remember what limited sources of amusement our forefathers ]iossessed, and what peculiar charms all out-dour sports must have exhibited to the inhabi- tants of the high-walled, close-pent castle, through whose naiTOW windows even the In-ight sunbeam struggled faintly and timidly, it will not appear sur- prising that a sport which necessarily led them to the fiiir open j)lain, or the still out-spread lake, or along the banks of the clear sparkling river, was hailed with delight. The noble unhooded his falcon with ALLERTON TOWER. 155 tenfold glee, as his proud eye wandered over the wide expanse that owned him as its lord; and as the knight ambled beside his fair lady, ever on the watch to unloose her merlin when the quarry was in sight, and to replace it on the broidered glove, after taking the prey from its talons — no wonder he exulted in a pastime which combined the in-door pleasures of con- versation with the charms of pure air and bright sunshine. The tastes of the nobles of the middle ages led them to consider wild fowl as the greatest delicacy : now, it was by hawking alone that these could be obtained ; and what, perhaps, added the highest zest to this favourite food, was the remem- brance that it was altogether beyond the reach of the lower orders. The bold outlaw, in despite of a folio of forest laws written in blood, ranged the green- wood, and, almost before the eyes of the feudal lord, bore off the " hart of Greece," a trophy of his trusty bow and well-fledged arrow ; but, " hem, pendrich, and plovere," were beyond his aim ; and money to buy, and time and skill to train the falcon, were alike denied him. Hawking thus became emphatically the sport of the high-born ; and when, subsequently, the various species of hawks were assigned to the various gradations of rank, " the gerfalcon for a king — the falcon gentle for a prince — the falcon of the rock fur a duke — the sacret for a knight — the merlin J56 ALLERTON TOWER. for a ladv-tlie lanere for a 'squire," it became a species of lieraldry ; and the falcon on the wrist in- dicated the rank of the noble no less than his armo- rial bearings. Intelligent and attached were these feathered favourites, and capable of a high degree of education. " Well manned * as a sparrow-hawk," was a proverb that illustrated to the minds of our ancestors the highest possible docility ; and many a troubadour, in the songs addressed to his lady, bade her remark, in the upturned gaze and eager glance of her merlin, a transcript of his own ever watchful observance; and many a lesson of respectful demeanour was read by age to youth from the swift attention with which the falcon obeyed the call of his master; while the deli- cate shape, brilliant eyes, and graceful carriage of these beautiful birds, furnished the poets of tli£ middle ages with a whole vocabulary of similes, as necessary to the due celebration of beauty, as roses and lilies have been to the rhymesters of later days. As hawks were now exclusively appropriated to high rank, the greatest possible care was bestowed on them ; and the mews in every castle was an estab- lishment of great extent and charge. The birds were constantly washed; every care was taken to preserve tli£ smooth glossiness of their feathers; great atten- * The technical terai for hroke in. ALLERTON TOWER. 157 tion was paid to their diet. Charms and spells, con- sisting of texts of holy ■\^Tit, were collected in abundance to shield them from every real or imagined danger. The law, too, interposed her protecting arm; the stealing a hawk, or concealing her after proclamation by the sheriff, was felony ; and the mere taking her eggs was punished with the enor- mous infliction of imprisonment for a year and a day. And gallantly bedecked were these valued birds, when transfeiTed from their perch m the mews, to the broidered glove of lady or noble. The skill of the goldsmith or broiderer was invoked to add to their splendour, though they could not add to their l)eauty. The hood (mostly drawn over her eyes when the hawk was carried abroad) was of silk knitting, often exquisitely embroidered; the collar to which it was fastened was of the most exqviisite goldsmith's work ; round each of the legs was a leathern ring, termed a bewit, from whence depended two bells " of even weight, but in sound, one a semi- tone below the other." Indeed, Dame Juliana Berners is veiy particular on this point : " Sparrow hawkes' belles," says she, in the Boke of Saynte Alban, " are cheepe enow ; but for goshawkes' belles, those from Milane are best, for they are soundede wythe sylvere." Beside these ornaments — to secure the bird on the hand, thin leathern straps, termed ^^g ALLERTON TOWER. ^ ^4- .1,^,1 +f. the less, while a long "iesses," were attached to tne le^ , si ken thread, termed the "creance," was attached to one of the bewlts, to Wnder her from escapng ,vhen she rose ir.to the air. Thus carefully bedecked, tl.e custom of bearing the falcon on the ^vrust was adopted by every one of the privileged c la.^ Knight and noble were never seen ur public without this important distinction. The romaunt wnters always represent the Queen of Faerie as appeanng .,th merlin on hand; and to part with h,s hawks, .vas considered by our forefathers the gTcatest sacn- fiee a gentleman could make. The earhest instance of the hawk being borne on glove appears m the Bayeux tapestry, where Harold is thus represented As a general custom, however, it does not appear to Kave obtained until the close of the twelfth century. From that period to the middle of the sixteenth this custom seems to have continued. Long after ilns, though no longer borne on hand, on state occasions the falcon remained a favourite ; the mews was still an indispensable appendage to the noble s mansion, and hawking a most cherished sport. The last men- tion of this pastime the writer recollects to have met with, is in Lucy Hutchinson s delightful Memou-s, where she represents her husband, during the latter years of the protectorate, as amusing himself with Ls hawks. But it is time these preliminary remarks ALLERTON TOWER. 169 should give place to the hero and heroine of tlie story — Sir Edgar Fitzallerton, and his good hawk, Elinore. It was a gay scene beneath the old gray walls and frowning battlements of AUerton tower that the bright autumn sun opened his eye upon ; for Sir Giles Fitzallerton, last Lammas Day, standing with hawk on wrist before the high altar of Rivaulx Abbey, had made a vow to our Lady, that the goodly tower and fair manor of AUerton, the only unen- tailed portion of his wide domains, should be the possession of that nephew whose hawk flew highest, and best obeyed the call of her master. ]\Iany were sorry when they heard of this vow, and wondered wherefore Sir Giles had made it ; for, of all his nephews, none, save his eldest and next heir, Anthony, stood any chance of success ; and, though his hawks were celebrated throughout the country, no celebra- tion of good or gentle deeds did their master ever obtain ; for a churl and a miser was Anthony Fitz- allerton. Father Christopher, too, the portly abbot of Rivaulx, read Sir Giles a long homily on his rash vow, and denounced, with much vehemence, all sports of the forest and river : but, alas ! that homilj'- failed in its effect ; when, three days afterwards, the old knight met the worthy abbot, amljling gaily along on his 160 ALLERTON TOWER. sleek mule, with sparrow-hawk on wrist, as eagerly engaged as a layman in the sports he had so fiercely exclaimed against. As it was now evident the oppo- sition of the conscientious abbot arose solely from a wsh to secure the goodly manor for the benefit of his richly-endowed abbey, Sir Giles forthwith gave public intimation of his intention, and invited his neighbours, for many miles round, to witness the sport. Still his domestics thought they could per- ceive an unwonted gloom on their master's brow, and an angry flush of the cheek, when Anthony's hawks were mentioned, which seemed to indicate he had already repented his rash vow ; but none dared inquire, for Sir Giles was fierce and proud; and, moreover, it was well known, however rash the vow, he would keep it to the strictest letter. It Avas on the eve of the day appointed for the contest, of which the fair manor of Allcrton was to be the prize, that a young knight presented himself at the gate, and ]irayed admittance to his uncle, Sir Giles Fitzallerton. Who may describe the joy of the old knight, when he recognized, in this young stranger, the son of his favourite brother, and moreover, that he possessed one of the most beautiful and well trained hawks that his eye (and it was a well practised one) ever beheld. The walls of the old tower that evening rung with songs, and laughter, and shouts of merri- ALLERTON TOWER. ] 61 iiient, for Sii- Giles bade a sumptuous sujiper be pre- pared, and caused a tun of malvoisie to be broached for those who sat above the salt-cellar, and a barrel of stout ale for those that sat below it, that all might drink right merrily — " Success to Sir Edgar Fitzal- lerton, who had obtained knighthood for his proAvess in France, and success to his good hawk, Elinore." And it was indeed a pleasant and goodly scene, while yet the dew-drops hung in a thick shower on the branches, and the throstle awakened her matin hymn, to see the falconers, in their rich liveries, standing beneath the walls of the old gray tower, each with a falcon hooded on his wrist, and the gi'eyhounds and raches in leash beside him ; while the gallant and noble company that came from afar to witness the sport, with waving plumes, and gilded bridles, and jewelled baldrics, and ladies in broidered and pearl-decked hoods, and kirtles of golden sheen gleaming in the upward sunbeams, and eyes that outshone the morning, formed a theme for manj' a minstrel's lay. And when the pondrous gate SA\Ting ]jack, and the huge draw-bridge heavily descended, the neigliing of the palfreys, the tinkle of the hawks' bells, and the shrill whistle of the falconers, and the merry shouts of the numerous company, all mingled in a wild but not unpleasing chorus. Allerton Mere was the appointed place; and 162 ALLERTON TOWER. thither came six nephews of the old knight, each with falcon on wrist; and the "royal sport" soon commenced. One after another the heroes soared into the air ; but high as they might rise, Sir Edgar's gallant falcon rose higher, and darting downward, with her sharp l^eak forced the lifeless quarry to the gi'ound. There was one kingly heron that rose on so proud a wing, that he seemed but a speck m the clear blue. " Look at yon noble bird," exclaimed Sir Giles exultingly ; " let Allerton manor be the prize of him whose falcon shall bring him down. The noble company looked with amazement on each other, for all knew there was no creance long enough to permit the falcon to soar so high; but young Sir Edgar broke his falcon's creance, and watched her with an air of calm triumph, as she soared unfettered, into the bright sky, careless of the loud and malig- nant laugh that burst from his rival, Anthony. And right was his trust in the fidelity of his gallant Elinore, for the noble bird swiftly descended from hei viewless height, fast holding the lifeless hei'on, and laying it at her master's feet, again sprung joyfully on his glove. With meny glee and glad smiles did Sir Giles Fitzallerton now ride homeward ; and ere the dinner commenced, rising from his elevated seat on the dais, he commanded his seneschal to bring the grace-cup; ALLERTON TOWER. 163 and after drinking a hearty welcome to the noble company, twice did he drain the rich pigment to the last drop, for he drank "wassail to Sir Edgar, lord of the manor of AUerton, and wassail to his brave hawk, Elinore ! " Days passed on, and Sir Edgar remained a cher- ished gnest of liis uncle, when, with Elinore on his glove, and his hound in leash, unattended and unseen, he set forth, while the morning was yet gray and mist-wrapt, to the scene of his late triumph. He soon lost sight of the old gray tower, and unloosing his falcon, as a heron arose from the rushes beside him, leaned against a bank, and contemplated the surrounding landscape. The gallant Elinore, s\\iftly mounting, with unerring aim struck down the noble bird, and resumed her place on his glove; but Sir Edgar perceived it not. The mists had rolled away, and as the fail- expanse of hill, dale, and moorland, and, in the farthest distance, the still lake reposing in placid beauty, met his eye, he gazed, lost to every thing save that fair landscape spread out in almost measureless extent around him. The heron lay un- noticed at his feet, the hound sat with upturned eyes, eagerly watching the birds as they rose into the air, and Elinore uttered her shrill ciy as she marked the herons wheeling around her, and half opened her speckled wings, and unavailingly stretched her glossy IQ^ ALLERTON TOWER. neck, in vain attempting to follow them. Alas! there stood Sir Edgar, with a mind full of glad thoughts, little reckoning what a day should bring forth. The table in Allerton hall was spread for the noon- tide meal; but Sir Giles sat alone on the dais:-the even-song bell rung for vespers; but Sir Giles knelt alone at the chapel altar; and the hound returned masterless to the tower. Next day strict but fi-uit- less search was made for Sir Edgar; his beautiful falcon was discovered sitting close beside his mantle, which was found beneath the bank, but no other traces were discovered. Days passed on, and as no light seemed to be thrown on this dark mystery, it vv'^s at length thought, that in pursuing his favourite sport too keenly. Sir Edgar must have fallen into the mere. Sir Giles sorrowfully acquiesced in this opinion, and soon a stone cross on its banks implored the prayer of the passing stranger for Sir Edgar Fitz- allerton, who lay entombed beneath its waters ; and ever at nightfall, four white-robed priests, with taper in hand, raised the solemn chant for the dead in his chantry in Allerton Priory. A few months only passed away, and the deep- toned death-bell of Rivaulx A1)bey sx^ning heavily and suddenly, startling the timid deer in the adjacent ALLERTON TOWER. 165 forest, while the hind quitted his labour, and the housewife her distaff, to gaze on the gorgeous pro- cession of speannen with trailing lances, heralds with blazoned scutcheons, and white-robed choristers that graced in solemn array the funeral of Sir Giles Fitz- ailerton; and then, Anthony, liis heir, crossed with proud foot-step the threshold of the so-long-coveted tower : and to pay due homage to their new master, with reverent but reluctant steps, the whole house- hold advanced, the old falconer bearing on his hand, as the most valuable present to the new heir, the beautiful falcon of the lost Sir Edgar. What could be the cause? That gallant bu'd, so gentle to every one, flew fiercely at the heir, and attacked him with the utmost fury ! None inquired the reason, but many a significant look was exchanged ; and when he precipitately departed, many a prayer to heaven for vengeance was breathed by the trembling lips of the horror-struck household. Never after that day did Anthony Fitzallerton enter the tower, nor never did he permit a hawk to be borne in his presence ; he secluded himself from all company, and scarcely ever rode abroad. Solitude and desolation dvvelt year after year within the an- cient tower of Allerton ; the grass sprung rankly in the wide hall, where for so many generations the song of the minstrel and the laugh of the merry 166 ALLERTON TOWER. household had echoed ; and as the old falconer, now its sole inhabitant, paced up and dowTi its deserted floor, he almost fancied he could distinguish the voice of his old master, as the wind sighed mournfully through the broken casements, and the owl hooted wildly from the Ijattlements. But if gloom enwrapt the old tower, a deeper gloom enwrapt the features of its rightful owner. He, for whom the cross had been reared, and the service sung, was yet living, though an outcast from his inheritance and a wan- derer in other lands. He had been struck down by the dagger of his rival cousin ; but death had not followed : and, while he lay senseless, some travellers passed by, who, unable to stay and await his recovery, yet unwilling to leave him, carried him with them to a distant part of the country : there, after his slow recovery, he heard the news of his uncle's death, and his enemy's consequent possession of the inheritance : and with sorrowful heart he turned his face towards the nearest sea-port; and A\itli good sword, set forth to Flandei-s. Ten years passed on — the gray moss had almost obliterated the inscrii)tion on the cross beside the mere, and the bush that shaded the senseless body of Sir Edgar when struck down by his cousin's dagger, now lifted a tall stem, and the throstle built her nest among its branches, when King Henry, in one of his ALLEETON TOWER. 167 progresses into the north, arrived with his numerous and splendid train in the neighbourhood. Again a hawking match Avas proclaimed, and AUerton Mere was the appointed place. Again the sun opened liis eye upon a gayand gallant scene ; and asthe procession passed the deserted old tower of AUerton, the ancient falconer, with Elinore, now aged also, on his wrist, looked forth, perchance comparing in his mind the gallant array of that morning when the fair manor of AUerton was the prize of the victor, with the splendid pageant that now passed by. And wrapt in deep and sorro-w-ful musings, the old man stood before the mouldering gateway, unconscious of the near approach of the monarch, while Elinore looked forth with her bright intelligent eyes, and fluttered her speckled wings, as the shrill whistle of the falconers, and the tinkle of the hawk's Vjells (well-remembered sounds) stnick on her ear. The last of our Henrys was always strongly attached to field sports ; and happy had it been for that age, had his pursuits been always as innocent. As he approached the old tower, the surpassing beauty of Elinore caught his eye, and he called to the old man to follow him. Ovojoyed at this unexpected conde- scension, the falconer came forth, proud of the notice of the monarch, and still more proud of the noble bird whose beauty had been the cause. The royal and noble con.pany soon reached the borders of the clear lake ;-the herons were roused ; each noble un- hooded his falcon, when the king commanded that Elinore alone should be unloosed, that he nnght bet- ter witness her skill; and the old falconer w.th niany praises of her matchless training, threw her oft his hand. The gallant bird sprung into the au-: but the heron wheeled proudly and heedlessly around; for Elinore, with the mldest cries of joy, had ahghted on the hand of a meanly dressed man, who stood unnoticed among the many spectators of the sport And warmly did he return the caresses of the joyful bird, while the wondering company stared with looks of astonishment at this strange sight ; for the lord of the fair manor of Allerton stood amidst his neigh- bours unrecognised and unwelcomed, save by his faithful falcon. The king beckoned him forward, and soon learned his whole history; and now too, that after many years of disappointment and anxiety he had returned to England, when, hearing that the king was about to visit that neighbour- hood, he determined to follow his train, hopmg to find a fitting season to detail his eventful history It needs not to tell of the shouts of welcome that re-echoed within the old tower, when the long-lost Sir Edoar Fitzallerton took possession of Allerton manor ° nor to describe the joy and gratulation of his ALLEBTON TOWER. 169 neighbours, when, soon after, the ample doraaius of liis cousin Anthony, who did not long survive this public disclosure of his treachery, were added to it. As Sir Edgar was now a knight of great wealth and consideration, the worthy abbot of Rivaulx sent him a most loving letter, indited by his own hand, and sealed with the convent seal, exhorting him to show his gratitude to heaven for this signal interposition in his favour, by his munificent gifts to the holy church; hinting that a new altar service, and a kirtle for " our lady," also a new set of bells, would be most acceptable presents. The four worthy priests, too, who, for the last ten years had sung the service for the living Sir Edgar, also suggested how proper it would be to continue that service " in perpetuo,''' by founding some well-endowed priory. But to all these suggestions Sir Edgar answered not ; for, though he had returned from the continent as poor as he had set forth, yet he had gained there more enduring riches than perishing gold, for he had brought back with him a purer faith and more enlightened prac- tice ; and soon a well-endowed hospital and well- regulated grammar-school bore witness to the grati- tude of the lord of Allerton manor. In a little chapel, overgi-own with ivy, and now falling fast into decay, the lover of ancient memorials may behold a time-worn monument, on which pla- ji 170 HIDBEX FEELINGS. cidly reclines an aged man, in his long furred go^vn and rich collar of knighthood, his right hand resting on a Bible, while his left supports a beautiful falcon, carved with the utmost delicacy, the splendid chasing of whose bells and collar seem to mark her as a cherished favourite ; and such, indeed, she deserved to be — for it is the effigy of the bi"ave hawk, Elinore, and this is the tomb of Sib Edgab Fitzallerton. s. HIDDEN FEELINGS. It has been said that " the heart has no echo," and some have added, " except for its grief." Certainly the finer joys pass rapidly across the mirror of the mind, and we need some powerful incantation to bring them back, and stay them there, if but for an hour. If lamiliarity blunts the more delicate susceptibilities of social life, literature may be said to supply an antidote to this ungracious influence. Every one has had occasion to experience, or to remark, how at the meeting of old friends, there suddenly gush upwards, as from hidden sources, many a tender feeling Avliich liad been choked up, or trodden down, or let run to waste. ANON. THE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. 171 THE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. A fearful gift upon thy heart is laid, Woman! — a power to suffer and to love, Therefore thou so canst pity Wildly and mournfully the Indian drum On the deep hush of moonhght forests broke ; — • " Sing us a death-song, for thine hour is come,'" — So the red wan-iors to then- captive spoke. Still, and amidst those dusky forms alone, A youth, a fair-hair'd youth of England stood. Like a king's son ; tho' from his cheek had flo■^^^l The mantling crimson of the island-blood, And liis press'd lips look'd marble. — Fiercely bright. And high around him, blazed the fires of night, Rocking beneath the cedars to and fro. As the wind pass'd, and with a fitful glow Lighting the victim's face : — But who could tell Of what within his secret heart befell, Knomi but to heaven that hour? — Perchance a thought Of his far home then so intensely wrought, That its full image, pictured to his eye On the dark ground of mortal agony, 172 TUE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. Rose clear as day ! — and he might see the band Of his young sisters wandering hand in hand, Where the laburnums droop'd ; or haply binding The jasmine, up the door's low pillars -wanding ; Or, as day closed upon their gentle mirth, Gathering with braided hair around the hearth Where sat their mother ; — and that mother's face Its grave sweet smile yet wearing in the place Where so it ever smiled ! — Perchance the prayer Learn'd at her knee came back on his despair ; The blessing fi-om her voice, the very tone Of her "6'ooi:^Hi^/;^"mightbreathefrom boyhood gone ! He started and look'd up : — thick cj-jiress boughs Full of strange sounds, waved o'er him, darkly red In the broad stormy firelight; — savage brows. With tall plumes crested and wild hues o'erspread, Girt him like feverish phantoms; and pale stars Look'd through the branches as thro' dungeon bars, Shedding no hope. — He knew, he felt his doom — • Oh! what a tale to shadow with its gloom That happy hall in England! — Idle fear! Would the winds tell it? — Who might dream or hear The secrets of the forests ? — To the stake They ])0und him ; and that proud young soldier strove His father's spirit in his breast to wake, Trusting to die in silence ! He, the love THE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. 173 Of many hearts ! — the fondly rear'd, — the fair, Gladdening all eyes to see ! — And fetter'd there lie stood beside his death-pjTe, and the brand Flamed up to light it, in the chieftain's hand. He thought upon his God. — Hush ! hark ! — a cry Breaks on the stem and dread solemnity, — A step hath pierc'd the ring ! — Who dares intioide On the dark hunters in their vengeful mood 1 — A girl — a young slight girl — a fawn-like child Of green Savannas and the leafy \n\d, Springing unmark'd till then, as some lone flower Happy because the sunshine is its dower : Yet one that knew how early tears are shed, — For hers had mourn'd a playmate brother dead. She had sat gazing on the victim long. Until the pity of her soul grew strong ; And, by its passion's deepening fervour sway'd, Ev'n to the stake she rush'd, and gently laid His bright head on her bosom, and around His form her slender arms to shield it wound Like close Liannes ; then raised her glittering eye And clear-toned voice that said, " He shall not die!" " He shall not die!" — the gloomj' forest thrill'd To that sweet sound. A sudden wonder fell 174 THE AMERICAN FOREST GIRL. On the fierce throng; and heart and hand were still'd, Struck down, as by the whisper of a spell. They gazed, — their dark souls bow'd before the maid. She of the dancing step in wood and glade ! And, as her cheek flush'd through its olive hue, As her black tresses to the night-wind flew, Something o'ermaster'd them from that young mien — Something of heaven, in silence felt and seen ; And seeming, to their child-like faith a token That tlie Great Spirit by her voice had spoken. They loosed the bonds that held their captive's breath ; From his pale lips thej^ took the cup of death ; They quench'd the brand beneath the cypress tree ; " Away," they cried, " young stranger, thou art free !" UEMANS. ^oii ore a ioDiirj ^uli) /Unjcr. HsNiaoK, HaesiAU Aia. ^ ^mM w ^^P You are a love - ly Ju - ly flow'r, Yet ^^ ^^0 one rude wind or ruf - fling showY, Will r*»» m^m^ force you hence and in an hour. You are a tulip, seen to-day, But, dearest, of so short a stay. That where you grew scarce man can way. 3. You are a sparkling rose i' the bnd. Yet lost ere that chaste flesh and blood, Can show where you ere grew or stood. 4. You are the queen all flow'rs among, But die you must, fair maid, ere long, As he the malier of this song. 176 STANZAS. STANZAS. I never cast a flower away, The gift of one who cared for me, A little flower, — a faded flower, — But it was done reluctantly. I never looked a last adieu To tilings familiar, but my heart Shrank with a feeling almost pain, E'en fi-om their lifelessness to part. I never spoke the word Farewell ! But with an utterance faint and broken ; A heart-sick yearning for the time When it should never more l)e spoken. Miss Bowles, BE KIND. Be kind to thy father — for when thou wert young', Who loved thee as fondly as he ? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thine innocent glee ; Be kind to thy father, for now he is old, His locks intermingled with grey ; His footsteps are feeble, once fearless and bold ; Thy father is passing away. Be kind to thy mother, for lo ! on her brow May traces of sorrow be seen ; well may'st thou cherish and comfort her now, For loving and kind hath she been. Remember thy mother — for thee will she pray, As long as God giveth her breath ; With accents of kindness, then, cheer her lone way, E'en to the dark valley of death. Be kind to thy brother — his heart will have dearth, If the smile of thy love bo withdrawn ; The flowers of feeling will fade at their birth, If the dew of aft'ection be gone. 178 EVENING. Be kind to thy brother — wherever you are. The love of a brother shall be An ornament, purer and richer by far Than pearls from the depth of the se?.. Be kind to thy sister — not many may know The depths of true sisterly love ; The wealth of the ocean lies fathoms l)elow The surface that sparkles above. Thy kindness shall bring to thee many sweet hour'^, And blessings thy pathway to crown ; Affection shall weave thee a garland of flowers, 3Iore precious than wealth or renown. EVENING. How lovely, Evening, is thy parting smile ! The twilight softness of thy glowing sky May well the poet's pensive dream beguile, And kindle rapture in his languid eye. There is a q^uiet magic in the sigh Of thy cool breezes and thy twinkling dews, Tlie insects' bum, the birds' wild melody, EVENISG. 179 Thy few faint stars, and all the varying hues That o'er thy pallid cheek their maiden blush suffuse. I love the setting sun's last glance of light, When vernal clouds have wept themselves away : Flowers are more fragrant and their tints more bright ; More blithe the nightingale's revi-ving lay ; The drops fall sparkUng from the leafy spray, As fitful breezes toss the straggling brier ; And the fai- hill flings back the level ray ; So pure the liquid air, that cot and spire. Distinct in distance, gleam with evening's golden fire. The poet's glances, wheresoe'er Ihey roll, A paradise of Living splendour make ; And in the magic mii-ror of his soul, Earth's simple beauties lovelier forms awake ; As in the green depth of some limpid lake, Unrufiled by the west wind's vesper sighs, Tree, hill, and cloud, a soften'd brilliance take, Till all the landscape in reflection lies A fairy world of light, enshrined in purer skies. But Spring hath sights which melt upon the mind With an o'erpowering beauty : early floAvers That children in their evening rambles find — 180 ■fflLT TIIOTJ REMEMBER ? The soft, half-opened foliage, wet with showers- Luxuriant shoots, that o'er the twilight bowers Wave wildly — dappled skies and sparkling rills ; And Spring hath music for our love-sick hours : Wild notes of forest warblers ; and the hills, All silent as they seem, a mingled murmur fills. WILT THOU REMEMBER ? Wilt thou remember me when I am gone ? Say, wilt thou weep when I am far from tlico ? Let all the world forget, so thou alone Will give me place within thy memory. Remember me, when in the hour of sadness, Thou fain would'st have a fi-iend to weep with thoc ; And sometimes, in thy careless hours of gladness, Pause for a moment and remember me. Though smiles around thy beauteous lip be wreathing, Though thy light laugh should echo through the hall. Though many round thee flattery are breathing, — Remember me ! thy lieai-t will spurn it all. Piemember me, in the soft summer's eve, And let me be remembered with a sigh ; The very fragi-ance of the flowers will grieve Thee, raising thoughts of days gone by. Remember me, when the night-winds are sighing. Think that my name is echoed in their tone ; And when their voice is slowh'^, sadly dying, Bowdov^Ti thy head, and weep for him that's gone I Remember me when thou art sad and weary. And fain would'st weep, although thou know'st not why, When all within and all without seems dreaiy. Then breathe my name, and breathe it with a sigh ! AUTUMN. The summer days are over, Have past away and gone, And tranquilly and soberly The autumn hurries on ; 182 AUTUMN. And twilight, with her silent step, And with her matron hue, Comes quicker o'er the mountain's brow Than she was wont to do. The rivulets in solitude Of desolation glide. For gone are all the merry birds That sported on the tide ; And forest pines are shedding Their honours on the gi-ound, And gloomily the zephyr breathes Their requiem profound. Her dew-drops evening gathers, To gild the morning hours, — But dew-drops fall on withered leaves, And moisten dying flowers, — For the rose has lost its fi-agrance. The hyacinth its smell. And all the pretty violets Have withered in the dell. The daisies, artless, smiling, My wanderings find no more ; The king-cups that come after them — Their golden reign is o'er AUTUMN. 183 And clover, with its ruddy bloom, That opens where they fell, Ere many fading mornings Shall meet its grave as well. Light winds that fanned the bosom, By sultry noon inflamed. Have fled on startled pinions, Like doves but newly tamed ; For the summer days are over, Have past away and gone. And darkly through the fi'osty sky, Bro\\-n autumn hastens on. But the months we used to love so, Shall come to us again, With constant cheer of fragrance, And rare delights of rain ; And sunshine, at our waking, Be still fuund smiling by, "With all the earnest beauty Of some beloved eye. Young leaves shall flutter softly, As if each tried its wing, News of the snowdrop's parting lips The wild bee's trumpet bring — 184 AUTUMN, And fields, and woods, and waters, Joy in the bluebird's notes. As on the south wind wildly His fluty music floats. Along the hazel pathways The traveller will meet Loose hail*, and laughing faces, And morn-elastic feet ; Now for the bird uplooking, With hand-o'ershaded eye, Now seeking flowers — I sought them Some twenty summers by. Alas ! alas ! reflection. When thou dost interfere. Though all is gay, what shadows Thy musings gather here ; To tliink of spring-tides coming That I am not to see ! To think a weed will shortly bloom From dust that I shall be ! A. A. LOCKE. THE WATERFO-iVL. 185 THE WATERFOWL. I SAW on the breast of a beautiful river, That reflected the gi-een of the hill — While scarce to the sunbeam it gave a slight quiver, For the breath of the morning was still — A bird, -with a breast than the drifted snow whiter, Serenely and silently glide, And give to the waters an image still brighter — Seeming Peace upon Pleasure's fan- tide. Still on like the Solitude's spirit it glided. Till a stranger intruding too near, Upraising its vrings the light ether divided, Far away from all shadow of fear ! Oh happy the soul that reposes so lightly On the bosom of temporal things ; At danger's approach it can soar away brightly, Above on etherial ^^ings■ J. H. MIFLIN. X 186 ETTINS. HXJINS. TuE spirit of decay has breatlicd Along these wasted walls, And on their ruins heavily Time's sullen footstep falls ; Around the temple's crumbling pride The folding ivy twines, And the grey moss has gathered o'er Their desolated shrines. Though in the former days of pride, Music was in these bowers, And the voice of song was loud and gay, To hurry the fleeting hours, The lyre is mute, and song is still. Above a buried race, And the night-winds solemn music make Over their resting place. The stars have worn their silver glow From nature's Eden prime. The sun rolls on his mighty course, As at the dawn of time ; TOUCH THY HARP. 187 Fixed in their everlasting strength The rock-ribbed mountains stay, And as it rolled in days of old, So rolls the sea to-day ; But man and all his pageantries, And all his powers decay ; On human art and human wit Is the doom to pass awaj'. ANON. TOUCH THY HARP. Touch thy liaip ! and wake once more Strains that were sweet of old, Though their early hopes are o'er. And their fallen shrine is cold, — Cold — save where from memory falling. Sparkle rays of other times, Like the voice of kindred calling One who faints in forei"n climes. Touch thy harp ! and let its numbers Tell of severed faith a tale, 188 TOUCH THY HARP. Scenes for which time hath no shimbers, For which memory hath no veil : When the heart had faiiy dreams, And the world had fairy forms, Youth still sheds its morning beams But the sky has known of storms. Touch thy harp ! there is a wreath Woven at our parting hour. Ivy twined with mountain heath, And the glorious passion flower ; Now it has nor breath nor bloom, Time has left a withering stain. But those strains of old resume. And the flowers wul bloom again. Touch thy harp ! that brow has caught One sweet look of other years, One it wore ere sorrow sought, And the cheek was stained with tears ; Deeper, holier springs of feeling Since that hour have sparkled here. Founts that waited griefs unsealing, Tliough, in joy, thou wert so dear. Touch thy harp ! there is a bower, By a bonny lowland lake. TOUCH THY HARP. 189 Gii't with many a forest flow Lovelj for the loveliest's sake ; There its sounds were wont to float With the moonbeams o'er the hill, Hushed is now each gentle note, But the bower is blooming still. Touch thy harp ! the jewelled fingers That along its chords now stray. And the form that o'er it lingers. Decked in ' Fashion's fair array' — These might tell a tale of gladness, Save to one who knows thee well, One who shared thy cup of sadness, On whose path its mildew fell ! Touch thy harp ! the wreath that trembles In those curls of sunny brown, Fair as fragile, it resembles Hopes, whose setting sun went down Ere one leaf by time was shaken From life's green, unwithered bough. Still their shrine is unforsaken, Though those hopes are romance now. L. p. SMITH. 190 SEPAKATION. SEPARATION. Oh 't is one scene of parting here, Lovfc's watchword is — Farewell ! And almost starts the following tear, Ere dried the last that fell ! 'T is but to feel that one most dear Is needful to the heart, And straight a voice is murmuring near, Imperious, Ye must part. Oft too we doom ourselves to grieve ; For wealth or glor^' rove ; But say, can wealth or glory give Aught that can equal love ? Life is too short, thus to bereave Existence of its spring, Or e'en for one short hour to leave Those to whose hearts we cling Count o'er the hours whose happy fliglit Is shared with those we love ; Like stars amid a stormy night, Alas ! how few they prove ! SEPARATION. 191 Yet they concentrate all the light That cheers our lot below ; And thither turns the weary sight, In this dark world of woe. And could we live if we believed The future like the past 1 Still hope we on, though still deceived ; The hour will come at last. When all the visions fancy weaved Shall be by truth imprest ; And they who still in absence grieved, Sliall be together blest ! But happiest he whose gifted eye Above this world can see. And those diviner realms desciy, Where partings cannot be ; "Who, with one changeless friend on high, Life's varied path has trod, And soars to meet beyond the sky. The ransomed and their God. TOWXSEND. 192 TO MTTSrC. TO MUSIC. Mysterious keeper of the key That opes the gates of memory ! Oft in thy wildest, simplest strain, We live o'ei* j'ears of bliss again. The exile listens to the song Once heard his native bowei-s amons: : And straightway in his visions rise Hope's sunny fields and cloudless skies. Enchantress sweet of smiles and tears, Spell of the dream of vanished years, Mysterious keeper of the key That opes the gates of memorj-^, — 'T is thine to bid sad hearts be gay, Yet chase the smiles of mirth away ; Joy's sparkling eyes in tears to steep, Yet make the mourner cease to weep ! To gloom or sadness thou canst suit The chords of thy delicious lute ; To every heart thou hast a tone, Rendering its sadness all thine own. A. A. WATTS. THE BEE AND THE LADY-FLOWER. 193 THE BEE AND THE LADY-FLOWER. As Julia once a slumbering lay, It chanced a Bee did fly that way. After a dew, or dew-like shower, To tipple freely in a flower. For some rich flower, he took the lip Of Julia, and began to sip ; But when he felt, he sucked from thence Honey, and in the quintessence, He drank so much he scarce could stir. So Julia took the pilferer. And thus surprised, as filchers use, He thus began to make excuse : "Sweet Lady-Flower, I never brought Hither the least one thieving thought ; But taking these rare lips of yours For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flowers, I thought I might there take a taste, Where so much syrup ran to waste ; Besides, know this, I never sting The flower that gives me nourishing ; But with a kiss, or thanks, do pay For honey that I bear away." 194 A KEAL OCCUKRENCE IN This said, he laid his little scrip Of honey 'fore her ladyship : And told her, as some tears did fall, That that he took, and that was all. At which she smiled, and bade him go And take his bag ; but this much know, When next he came a pilfering so. He should from her full lips derive, Honey enough to fill his hive. HERRICK. A REAL OCCURRENCE IN A CIRCLE OP FRIENDS. AVnicn is the happiest death to die? "Oh !" said one "if I might choose. Long at the gates of bliss would I lie, And feast my spirit, ere it fly. With bright celestial views. Mine were a lingering death without pain, A death which all might love to see. And mark how bright and sweet should be The victory I should gain ! " Fain wouhl I catch a hymn of hivo From the angel harps which ring above A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS. 195 And sing it, as my parting breath Quivered and expired in death, — So that those on earth might hear The harp-notes of another sphere ; And mark, when nature faints and dies, What springs of heavenly life arise ; And gather, from the death they view, A i-ay of hope to light them through. When they should be departing too." "No," said another, "so not I: Sudden as thought is the death I would die ; I would suddenly lay my shackles by, Nor bear a single pang at parting, Nor see the tear of sorrow starting. Nor hear the quivering lips that bless me, Nor feel the hands of love that press me, Nor the frame, Avith mortal terror shaking. Nor the heart, where love's soft l>ands are breaking : " So would I die ? All bliss, without a pang to cloud it ! All joy, without a pain to shroud it ! Not slain, but caught up, as it were. To meet my Saviour in the ah- ! So would I die ! 196 A REAL OCCURRENCE, ETC. Oh how bright Were the realms of light, Bursting at once upon my sight ! Even so, I long to go : These parting hours, how sad and slow ! " His voice gi-ew faint, and fix'd was his eye. As if gazing on visions of ecstasy : The hue of his cheek and lips decayed, Around his mouth a sweet smile played ; — They looked — he was dead ! His spirit had fled ; Painless and swift as his own desire, The soul, undressed From her mortal vest. Had stepped into her car of heavenly fire ; And proved how bright Were the realms of light Bursting at once upon the sight ! EDMESTON t Whin it is ful FOR TWO EQUAL VOICES. 1st Voice. 2nd Voice. m ^m Tlie win - ter it is past, and the ^^^ ^tfc:3: ^ :^^ 3ti:fz I^E^^E^^ifegJEJENN^EjEg^ summev's come at last, And tlie sweet birds sini^ on P f^ =S ^—^ i^^ &tf^ ^1^ e - very tree; Tlie hearts of these are $ 333 t=i= St r^ ^ ^ =?^ ^i^ :1t ::^ 3^ s^i^^^ glad, but mine is very sail. For my rS :^= =^=^ ^^ 198 THE WINTER IT IS PAST. ^ ^ 9 — t ^ true love is ^ part - ed from l=^^^l Tlic rose upon the brier, by the waters running clear. May give joy to the linnet and tlie bee ; Their little loves are tless'd, and their little hearts at rest ; But my true love is parted from me. My love is like the sun, that m the sky does run, For ever so constant and true ; But her's is like the moon, that wanders np and down. And every month it is new. All you that are in lovp, and cannot it remove, I pity the pains you endure ; For experience makes me Icno'B- that your hearts arc full of woe,— A wo« that no mortal i-aji care. THE SHAMROCK. 199 THE SHAMROCK. England displays, as her symbol, the glowing rose, — Scotland, the lilac tuft of her hardy and gigantic thistle, — and alas! poor Erin's green shamrock has too often out-blushed them both, as the life-blood of many a victim oozed forth upon the sod, under the iron reign of spiritual tyranny, which still sharpens, for its own dark jiurposes, the weapons of civil dis- cord ; wading onward, tlu'ough rivers of blood, to the goal of its insatiable ambition. But I must not identify the gentle shamrock Avith themes so revoltmg ; I have pleasanter combinations in view, and long to introduce to my readers the companion vnth whom, for seven successive years, I sought out the sjnnbol so dear to his patriotic heart, and watched the prayerful expression of his counte- nance, while he gazed upon it. He was dumb : no articulate sound had ever passed his lips, no note of melody had ever penetrated his closed ear. The Irish have a tradition, that when St. Patrick first proclaimed among their fathers the glad tidings of salvation, making known to them the existence of the tri-une Jehovah, the gi-eatness of that mystery 200 THE SHAMROCK. perplexed and staggered his disciples. They xirged those cavils wherewith poor natural reason loves to oppose the revelations of infinite Avisdom. " How," they asked, " can three be one ? how can one be three?" The missionary stooped to gather a sham- rock leaf which grew at his feet ; telhng them that God had carpetted their beautiful island with an illustration of what they considered so incomprehen- sible: and thenceforth, say the legends, the sham- rock was adopted as a symbol of the faith embraced by Christianized Ireland. This I know, that with a shamrock in my hand, I have gained access to many an Irish heart, while my auditors eagerly listened to whatever I might preach upon the text of St. Patrick. The dumb boy fully understood all this; he fre- quently alluded to it : and sweet it is to reflect, that he whose tongue was silent on earth, is singing a new and glorious song before the throne of that Incom- pi-ehensible One, whom he knew and adored — as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier — while seeing through a glass more dark, perhaps, than that which we are privileged to use. But another circumstance, never to be erased from my fondest recollection, has inseparably combined that boy's image with the shamrock leaf. I liad taken him from his parents at the age of eleven ; THE SHAMROCK. 201 and it ^\-ill readilj- be believed, that tlie gi-ateful love wliich he bore to me, as his only instructor and Mend, extended itself to those who were dear to me. There was one, round whom all the strings of my heart had entwined from the cradle. Jack appeared to understand, better than any one else ever did, the depth of my affection for tlais precious relative, and most ardently did the boy love him. He went to Ireland; and Jack remained in England with me. 3Iany weeks had not passed, before our hearts were A\-ning by the intelligence, that this beloved object had been snatched away by a sudden and violent death. The shock, the grief, that preyed upon the boy's affectionate heart, while witnessing what I en- dured, proved too much for him, and led to the lin- gerhig decline wliich, after years of suffering, termi- nated his mortal existence. It was some mouths after my family bereavement, that, on the dawn of Patrick's day, I summoned Jack to sally forth, and gather shamrocks. To my sur- prise, he declined putting one in his hat ; and wlieu I rallied, remonstrated, and at last almost scolded him, he only repeated the gentle movement of the hand, which implied rejection, sometimes spelling, "No, — no." I was puzzled at this; especially as a deep shade of pensiveness overcast a countenance that always was dressed in smiles on Patrick's day. I was 202 THE SHAMKOCK. also vexed at his want of sympathy, on a subject on which we had always agreed so well-love for dear Ireland. In the middle of the day, I took him out with me, and again tendered the shamrock; but could not persuade Mm to mount it higher than his bosom. Seeing an Irish youth pass, with the national crest, I pointed to him, saying, " That good boy loves Ireland : bad Jack does not love it." This touched Mm nearly: he answered sorro^^^ully, " Yes, Jack vert/ much loves poor Ireland." I shook my head, pointing to Ms hat; and, unable to bear the reproach, he reluctantly told me, while Ms eyes swam in tears, that he could not wear it in his hat, for shamrocks now grew on 's grave. I will not attempt to express what I felt, at this trait of exquisite tenderness and delicacy in a poor peasant boy : but I told him that the little shamrocks were far dearer to me, because they made that spot look gi-een and lovely. He instantly kissed the leaves, and put them in his hat; and when, after two years, I saw Ms own lowly gi-ave actually covered with shamrocks, I felt that in this world I must not look for such another character. That child of God was commissioned to cross my path, that he might shed over it the pure and tranquillizing light of his eminently holy and happy spirit, during the darkest and most troubled season of my past pilgrimage. THE SHAMROCK. 203 Of Satan's power and malice he seemed to have a singularly experimental knowledge ; yet always de- scribed him as a conquered foe. He once told me that the devil was like the candle before liim ; and, advancing liis hand to the flame, suddenly withdrew it, as if burnt : then, after a moment's thought, ex- ultingly added, that God was the wind, u-hich could fut the candle out; illustrating the assertion by ex- tinguishing it with a most energetic puff. I often remarked in him such a realization of the constant presence of this great enemy, as kept liim perpetually on his guard : and when it is remembered that Jack never knew enough of language to enable him to read the Bible, this will be felt to have been a strik- ing proof of divine teaching. Jack knew many words, but they were principally nouns ; he mastered sub- stantives readily, and some of the most common ad- jectives, with a few adverbs, but the pronouns I never could make liim attend to : the verbs he would generally express by signs. His language was a mere skeleton, rendered intelligible by his looks and gestures, both of which were remarkably eloquent. I have seen him transcribe from the Bible or prayer- book, as he was very fond of the pen ; but when he has unintentionally turned over two leaves, or missed a line, he has not been sensible of the eiTor : a proof that he vTote as he drew, merely to copy the fonns 204 THE SHAMROCK. of what he saw. He once got hold of the verse, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketli away the sins of the world," and asked me to explain it. I did: and he would write it out twenty times, with great delight; but still preferred the' symbol of the red hand. It may be asked why I did not advance him farther in language ? There was a reluctance on liis part which I could not surmount, and which he in some measure accounted for, by saying that he liked to talk to me, but not to others. He used the Avord " bother," to explain the sensation occasioned l)y any effort in the way of acquiring grammatical learning, and went off to his pencils with such glee, that, as he was a good deal employed about tlie house and garden, and evidently drooped when much con- fined to sedentary occupation, I yielded to his choice, determined to settle him, after a while, to liis studies ; and conscious that he was right in the remark which lie made to me, that his not being able to talk better kept him out of the way of many Imd things. His sister, who came over to me five months before his death, could not read ; consequently they had no communication but by signs ; and often have I been amazed to witness tlie strong argxnnentative discus- sions that went forward between them, on the grand question of religion. She looked on Jack as an apos- tate ; M'hile liis whole soul was engaged in earnest THE SHAMROCK. 205 prayer, that she also might come out from her idola- trous church. But to resume the subject of that spiritual teach- ing. Knowing as I did, how ig-norant the boy was of the letter of Scripture, I beheld with astonishment the Bible WTitten, as it were, on his heart and brain. Not only his ideas, but his expressions, as far as they M-ent, were those of Scripture ; and none who con- versed with him could believe without close investi- gation that he was so unacquainted with the written word. When tempted to anything covetous or mer- cenary, he would fight against the feeling, saying, " No, no : Judas love money — devil loves money — Jesus Christ not love money — Jack know, money bad." I had of course brought him intimately ac- quainted \dth all the history of our blessed Lord; but it was God who made the spiritual application. It was a sweet season when first the dumb boy commemorated at the Loi'd's table, that dying love which continually occupied his thoughts. A season never to be forgotten. A young countryman of his, for whom he was deeply interested, had, after a long conflict, renounced popery ; and earnestly desired to partake with us the blessed ordinance. Consumption had been prej-ing on Jack for many months, though he lived a year longer, and his pale face, and slender delicate figure, formed a touching contrast to the 206 THE SHAMROCK. stout ruddy young soldier who knelt beside him. The latter evinced much emotion ; but there was all the serenity, all the smiling loveliness of a clear sum- mer sky on the countenance of Jack. I have alluded to the strength of the boy's patrio- tism : this always appeared extraordinary to me. Of geography he had not the slightest idea^ neither could any peculiarity of language (for the Irish is much spoken in his native place) or difference of accent, affect him. He showed not the slightest un- willingness to leave his country ; nor did a wish of returning to it ever seem to cross his mind. Yet was his love for Ireland so pervading, that it seemed to mix itself with all his thoughts. I have no doubt but that the sad contrast which his memory i^re- sented, of the wants, the vices, the slavish subjection of a priest-ridden population, to the comforts and de- cencies, and spiritual freedom of the land where he could worship God according to his conscience, with- out fear of man, was a principal groixnd of this tender compassionate love towards Ireland. I well remember finding him one morning in the garden leaning on his spade, with tears trickling down his cheeks. On ray approaching him with a look of inquiry, he took up a handful of earth, and showed me that it was so dry he could scarcely dig : then proceeded to tell me that, because of the drought. THE SHAMROCK. 2U7 he feared potatoes would not grow well in Ireland ; and poor Irish would be all bone, and would be sick, and die, before they had learned to pray to Jesus Christ. He dwelt on this for a long while : and most pathetically entreated me to pray to God for poor Ire- land. All that day he continued very sad : and on bid- ding me good-night, he gave a significant nod to one side, and joined his hands, signifying his intention to have a " long pray," as he used to call it. The next morning, I went to the garden ; and most vehemently did he beckon for me to run till I came to where he stood; when, with a face flushed with joy, he turned rapidly over the well-moistened earth, then stuck his spade exultingly into it, and told me that he prayed a long while before he went to bed — got up soon after, to pray again — and, on returning to his little couch, slept till morning; — that wliile Jack was asleep, God, who had looked at his prayer, made a large cloud, and sent much rain ; and now potatoes would grow, poor Irish would be fat and strong ; and God, who sent the rain, would send them Bibles. He then lifted up his face to heaven, and with a look of unbounded love — so reverential, yet so sweetly confiding — such as I never beheld on any other coun- tenance, he said, " Good, good Jesus Christ ! " Often when my heart is particularly heavy for the wants and woes of Ireland, do I recall that triumphant 208 THE SHAMROCK. faith in which the boy pleaded for it, day by day, for seven years ; and it gives me comfort more solid tlian can well be imagined. His expression, that God looked at, or saw, his prayer, reminds me of another beautiful idea that he communicated to me. Observing that he could not speak to be heard, he made me open my watch ; and then explained that as I, by so doing, could perceive all the movements of the wheels, so but without opening it, God could discern what passed in his head. A servant going to fetch something out of his room one night when he was supposed to have been asleep a long while, saw him at the low window on his knees, his joined hands raised up, and his eyes fixed on the stars, with a smile of joy and love, like notliing, she said, that ever she had seen or fancied. There was no light but from that spangled sky ; and she left him there undisturbed. He told me that he liked to go to the window, and kneel down, that God might look tlu-ough the stars into his head, to see how he loved Jesus Christ. CHAKLOTTE ELIZABETH, HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS. 209 HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS AT THE COKSECRATION OF VULASKl'S BANNER. The Standard of Count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the attack on Savannah, was embroidi.Ted by the Jloraviun Nuns of Bcthlem in Pennsylvania. When the dying flame of day Through the chancel shot its ray, Far the glunmering tapers shed Faint light on the cowled head, And the censer burning swung, Where before the altar hung That proud banner which with prayer, Had been consecrated there ; And the Nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, Sung low in the dim mysterious aisle. Take thy banner. Jlay it wave Proudly o'er the good and brave, When the battle's distant wail Breaks the Sabbath of our vale, — When the clarion's music thrills To the hearts of these lone liills, — When the spear in conflict shakes. And the strong lance shivering breaks. 210 hym:v of the Moravian nuns. Take thy banner ; and beneath The wai'-cloud's encircling ^vreatll, Guard it — till our homes are free — Guard it — God will prosper thee ! In the dark and trying hour, In the breaking forth of power, In the rush of steeds and men, His right hand will shield thee then. Take thy banner. But when night Closes round the ghastly fight, If the vanquished warrior bow. Spare him ; — by our holy vow, By our prayers and many tears, By the mercy that endears, Spare liim — he our love hath shared — Spare him — as thou wouldst be spared. Take thy banner ; — and if e'er Thou sliouldst press the soldier's bier, And the muffled drum should beat To the tread of mournful feet, Then this crimson flag shall be Martial cloak and shroud for thee. And the warrior took that banner proud. And it was his martial cloak and shroud. LONGFELLOW. THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 211 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. The following stoiy, the simple and domestic incidents of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened some degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the Bay Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day ; a parlour on the second floor of a small house, plainly furnished, as beseemed the mid- dling circumstances of its inhabitants, yet decorated with little curiosities from beyond the sea, and a few delicate specimens of Indian manufacture, — these are the only particulars to be premised in regard to scene and season. Two young and comely women sat together by the fireside, nursing their mutual and peculiar sor- rows. They were the recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman, and two successive days had brought tidings of the death of each, by the chances of Canadian warfare, and the tempestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy excited by this bereavement, drew numerous condoling guests to the habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among whom was the minister, had remained till the verge 212 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. of evening ; when one by one, wliispering many com- fortable passages of Scripture, that were answered by more abundant tears, they took their leave, and departed to their own liappier homes. The mourners, though not insensible to the kindness of their friends, had yearned to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the relationsliip of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her gi-ief admitted, were to be found in the bosom of the otlier. They joined their hearts, and wept together silently. But after an hour of such indulgence, one of the sisters, all of whose emotions v.-ere influenced by her mild, quiet, yet not feeble character, began to recollect the precepts of resig- nation and endurance, which piety had taught her, when she did not think to need them. Her mis- fortune, besides, as earliest kno^^Ti, should earliest cease to interfere with her regular course of duties ; accordingly, having placed the table before the fire, and arranged a frugal meal, she took the hand of her companion. " Come, dearest sister ; you have eaten not a morsel to-day," she said ; "arise, I pray you, and let us ask a blessing on that which is provided for us." Iler sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable tem- ])crament, and the first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed by shrieks and passionate lamentation. THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 213 She now shrunk from Marj''s words, like a wounded sufferer from a hand that revives the throb. '■ There is no blessing left for me ; neither will I ask it," cried Margaret, with a fi-esh burst of tears. '• Would it were His will that I might never taste food more." Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions, almost as soon as they were uttered, and, by degrees, Mary succeeded in bringing her sister's mind nearer to the situation of her own. Time went on, and their usual hour of repose arrived. The brothers and their brides, entering the married state with no more than the slender means which then sanctioned such a step, had confederated themselves in one household, with equal rights to the j^arlour, and claiming exclu- sive privileges in two sleeping rooms contiguous to it. Thither the widowed ones retired, after heaping ashes upon the dying embers of then- fire, and placing a lighted lamp upon the hearth. The doors of Ijoth chambers were left open, so that a part of the interior of each, and the beds with their unclosed curtains, were reciprocally visible. Sleep did not steal upon tlie sisters at one and the same time. Mary experi- enced the effect often consequent upon grief quietly borne, and soon sunk into temporaiy forgetfulness, \\liile Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in proportion as the night advanced witli its deepest 214 TUB WIVES OP THE DEAD. and stillest hours. She lay listening to the drops of rain, that came down in monotonous succession, un- swayed by the breath of wind ; and a nervous im- pulse continually caused her to lift her head from the pillow, and gaze into Mary's chamber and the intermediate apartment. The cold light of the lamp threw the shadows of the furniture up against the wall, stamping them immoveably there, except when they were shaken by a sudden flicker of the flamo. Two vacant arm-chairs were in their old positions on opposite sides of the hearth, Avhcre the brothers had been wont to sit in young and laughing dignity, as heads of families ; two humbler seats were nearer them, the true thrones of that little empire, where Mary and herself had exercised in love, a power that love had won. The cheerful radiance of the fire had shone upon the happy circle, and the dead glimmer of the lamp might have befitted their reunion noAV. While INIargaret groaned in bitterness, she heard a knock at the street-door. " How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday !" thought she, remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her husband. " I care not for it now : let them begone, for I will not arise." But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her thus resolve, she was breathing hurriedly, and THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 215 straining her ears to catch a repetition of the sum- mons. It is difficult to be convinced of the death or one whom we have deemed another self. The knock- ing was now renewed in slow and regular strokes, apparently given with the soft end of a doubled fist, and was accompanied by words, faintly heard througli several thicknesses of wall. INIargaret looked to her sister's chamber, and beheld her still lying in the depths of sleep. She arose, placed her foot upon the floor, and slightly arrayed herself, trembling between fear and eagerness as she did so. " Heaven help me I " sighed she. " I have nothing left to fear, and methinks I am ten times more a coward than ever." Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the window that overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice turning upon hinges ; and having throAvn it back, she stretched her head a little way into the moist atmosphere. A lantern was reddening the front of the house, and melting its light in the neigh- boiuing puddles, while the deepest darkness over- whelmed every other object. As the window grated on its hinges, a man in a broad-brimmed hat and blanket-coat, stepped from under the shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to discover whom his application had aroused. Margaret knew him as a fi-iendly innkeeper of the town. " What would you have, goodman Parker T' cried the Avidow. " Lack-a-day, is it you, mistress Margaret f replied the innkeeper. "I was afraid it might be your sister Mary; for I hate to see a yoimg woman in trouble, when I have n^t a word of comfort to whisper her." "For Heaven's sake, what news do you bring?" screamed Margaret. "Why, there has been an express through the town mthin this half hour," said goodman Parker, " tra- velling from the eastern jm-isdiction with letters from the governor and council. He tarried at my house to refresh himself mth a drop and a morsel, and I asked him wliat tidings on the frontiers. He tells me we had the better in the skirmish you wot of, and that thirteen men reported slain, are well and sound, and your husband among them. Besides, he is appointed of the escort to bring the captivated Frenchers and Indians home to the province jail. I judged you would n't mind being broke of your rest, and so I stepped over to tell you. Good-night." So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern gleamed along the street, bringing to view indistinct shapes of things, and the fragments of a worid, like order glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the past. But Margaret staid THE WIVES OP THE DEAD. 217 not to watch these picturesque effects. Joy flashed into her heai-t, and lighted it up at once, and breath- less, and with winged steps, she flew to the bedside of her sister. She paused, however, at the door of the chamber, Avhile a thought of pain broke in upon her. "Poor jMary!" said she to herself. "Shall I Avaken her, to feel her sorrow sharpened by my hap- piness ? No ; I will keep it witliin my owti bosom till the morrow." She approached the bed to discover if Mary's sleep were peaceful. Her face was turned partly inward to the pillow, and had been hidden there to weep ; but a look of motionless contentment was now visible upon it, as if her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm because its dead had sunk down so far within. Happy is it, and strange, that the lighter sorrows are those from which dreams are chiefly fabricated. Margaret shrunk from distm-bing her sister-in-law, and felt as if her own better fortune had rendered her involuntarily unfaithful, and as if altered and diminished affection must be the consequence of the disclosure she had to make. With a sudden step, she turned away. But joy could not long be repressed, even by circumstances that would have excited heavy grief at another moment. Her mind was thronged with delightful thoughts, till sleep stole on and p 218 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. transformed them to visions, more deliglitful and more wild, like the breath of winter working fantastic tracery upon a window. When the night was far advanced, Maiy awoke with a sudden start. A vivid dream had latterly involved her in its unreal life, of which, however, she could only remember that it had l^een broken in upon at the most interesting point. For a little time, slum- ber hung about her like a morning mist, hindering her fi'om perceiving the cUstinct outline of her situa- tion. She listened with imperfect consciousness to two or three volleys of a rapid and eager knocking ; and first she deemed the noise a matter of course, like the breath she drew; next, it ajipeared a tiling in which she had no concern; and lastly, she became aware that it was a summons necessary to be obeyed. At the same moment the pang of recollection darted into her mind; the pall of sleep was thrown back from the face of grief; the dim light of the chamber, ajid the objects therein revealed, had retained all her suspended ideas, and restored them as soon as she unclosed her eyes. Again there was a quick peal upon the street-door. Fearing that her sister would also be disturbed, Mary wrapped herself in a cloak and hood, took the lamp from the hearth, and hastened to the window. By some accident, it had been left xinhasped, and yielded easily to her hand. THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. 219 "Who's there?" asked Mary, trembUng as she looked forth. The storm was over, and the moon was up ; it shone upon broken clouds above, and below upon houses black with moisture, and upon little lakes of the fal- len rain, curling into sUver beneath the quick en- chantment of a breeze. A young man in a sailor's dress, wet as if he had come out of the depths of the sea, stood alone under the window. Mary recognised him as one whose livelihood was gained by short voyages along the coast ; nor did she forget, that, pre- vious to her marriage, he had been an unsuccessful wooer of her o^^^^. '•' What do you seek here, Stephen 1 " said she. " Cheer up, Mary, for I seek to comfort you," an- swered the rejected lover. "You must know I got home not ten minutes ago, and the first tiling my good mother told me was the news about your hus- band. So, without saying a word to the old woman, I clapped on my hat, and ran out of the house. I could n't have slept a wink before speaking to you, Marj^, for the sake of old times." " Stephen, I thought better of you ! " exclaimed the widow, with gusliing tears, and preparing to close the lattice; for she was no wliit inclined to imitate the first wife of Zadig. " But stop, and hear my story out," cried the young 220 THE WIVES OF THE DEAD. sailor. " I tell you we spoke a brig yesterday after- noon, bound in from Old England. And who do you think I saw standing on deck, well and hearty, only a bit thinner than he was five months ago?" Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak. " Why, it was your husband himself," continued the generous seaman. " He and three others saved themselves on a spar, when the Blessing turned bot- tom upwards. The brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with this wind, and you'll see him here to- morrow. There's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so good-night." He hurried awaj'^, whUe Mary watched him with a doubt of waking reality, that seemed stronger or wea- ker as he alternately entered the shade of the houses, or emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight. Gradually, however, a blessed flood of conviction swelled into her heart, in strength enough to over- whelm her, had its increase been more abrupt. Her first impulse was to rouse her sister-in-law, and com- nmnicate the new-born gladness. She opened the chamber-door, which had been closed in the course of the night, though not latched, advanced to the bedside, and was about to lay her hand upon the slum- berer's shoulder. But then she remembered that ]\Iargaret would awake to thoughts of death and woe, rendered not the less bitter by their contrast with her THE COUNTENANCE. 221 own felicity. She suffered the rays of the lamp to fall upon the unconscious form of the bereaved one. Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was displaced around her; her young cheek was rosy- tinted, and her lips half opened in a vivid smile ; an expression of joy, debarred its" passage by her sealed eyelids, struggled forth like incense fi'om the whole countenance. " My poor sister ! you will waken too soon from that happy dream," thought Mary. Before retiring, she set down the lamp and endea- voured to aiTange the bed-clothes, so that the cliill air might not do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also fell upon her cheek, and she suddenly awoke. F THE COUNTENANCE. What can be more significant than the sudden flushing and confusion of a blush, than the sparklings of rage, and the lightnings of a smile ] The soul is, as it were, visible upon these occasions ; the passions ebb and flow in the cheeks, and are much better distinguished in their progress than the change of THE COUNTENANCE. air in a weather-glass. A face well furnished out Ijy nature, and a little disciplined, has a great deal of rhetoric in it. A graceful presence bespeaks accej)- tance, gives a force to language, and helps to convince by look and posture. The countenance seems de^signed not only for orna- ment but for information. The passions there dis- played make way for commerce and communication, and help to let one man into the sentiments and affections of another. Here joy and grief, resolution and fear, modesty and conceit, inclination, indiffer- ency, and disgust, are made legible. The character is fairest and best marked in children, and those who are unpractised in tlie little hypocrisies of conversa- tion ; for when nature has learned to put on art and disguise, the forehead is not easily read. The face being designed to be unclothed, and in view, God has there fixed the seat and visibility of the passions, for the better directing of conversation. The siidden alteration of the countenance is very remark- able. A forcible object will rub out the freshest colour at a stroke, and paint others of a quite differ- ent appearance. A vigorous thought, or a surprise of good fortune, dispels the gloom, and brightens the air immediately. JEREMY COLLIER. A REQUIEM. 223 A REQUIEM. At, pale and silent maiden, Cold as thou liest there, Thine was the sunniest nature That ever drew the air, The wildest and most wayward, And yet so gently kind, Thou seemedst but to body A breath of smnmer wind. Into the eternal shadow That gu-ds our life around. Into the Infinite sUence Wherewith Death's shore is bound. Thou hast gone forth beloved ! And I were mean to weep. That thou hast left Life's shallows, And dost possess the deeji. Thou liest low and silent, Thy heart is cold and still, Thine eyes are shut for ever. And Death hath had his will ; 224 A REQUIEM. He loved and would have taken, I loved and would have kept, "We strove, — and he was stronger, And I have never wept. Let him possess thy body, Thy soul is still with me. More sunny and more gladsome Than it was wont to be : Thy body was a' fetter That bound me to the flesh, Thank God that it is broken, And now I live afresh ! Now I can love thee truly, For nothing comes between The senses and the spirit. The seen and the unseen ; Lifts the eternal shadow, The silence bursts apart. And the soul's boundless future Is present in my heart. LOWELL. THE SLEEPERS. 225 THE SLEEPERS. Oh ! lightly, lightly tread ! A holy thing is sleep. On the worn spirit shed, And eyes that wake to weep : A holy thing from heaven, A gracious dewy cloud, A covering mantle, given, The weaiy to enshroud. Oh ! lightly, lightly, tread ! Revere the pale still brow, The meekly drooping head, The long hair's willowy flow ! Ye know not what ye do, That call the slumberer back, From the world unseen by you, Unto Life's dim faded track. Her soul is far away, In her childhood's land, perchance. Where her young sisters play, Where shines her mother's glance. 226 THE SLEEPERS. Some old sweet native sound Her spirit haply weaves : A harmony profound Of woods with all their leaves : A murmur of the sea, A laughing tone of streams : — Long may her sojourn be In the music-land of dreams ! Each voice of love is there, Each gleam of beauty fled. Each lost one still more fair — Oh ! lightly, lightly, tread ! A NOVEMBER SKETCH. 227 A NOVEMBER SKETCH. Is the i-eatler sure that the month of November has not been the subject of a great deal of undeserved calumny ? For myself, I have long beUeved that it ought to be rescued from the unfounded charges made against it by Grub-street scribblers, and would entreat those country inspectors of Annuals, to whom the state of the weather is an object of interest, to mark well the course of two or three successive Novembers, should such fall to their share, and see if this slandered portion of the year has not beauties of its own amply sufficient to redeem it from the dis- grace into which it seems to have fallen. Let me grant, however fi-eely, that to the citizen of London it is all, and more than all, that has been said. Who that has ever marked that impenetrable fog — taken in the laden, uncomfortable air — trodden the slippeiy, greasy footways — seen the sun coated over with, (what shall I call it, in order to avoid pro- faning the poetical, Ossianic, hill-and-valley sounding name oimist?) with something like a wet and dirty sailcloth, — ^but must acknowledge that a London November is a dismal thing ? But it is far otherwise 228 A NOVEMBER SKETCH. in the country. Go to the city at noon-day ; and if you have the good fortune to gi'ope your way by lanip-Hght into a Croydon stage-coach, try, reader, I beseech you, try what a November morning is, when London is left behind, and you have reached some breezy upland, or fine open down, where you meet the tempered wind of Autumn bringing with it the perfume of the dying leaves ; where you see the short, moist grass, sparkling in the sun ; the distant mist never, perhaps, wholly withdrawng its cuitain — but now lifting up, now letting down a fold over part of the scene, every moment thus changing the outline of the prospect; the thinned foliage admitting, at each remove of the veil, a more extended boundarv line of landscape; the distinct forms of the nearer trees, and the remarkal)le transparency of every little brook that murmurs along, adding peculiar beauties to the scene. I suppose it may be in illustration of the mind's propensity to value that which is about to elude its grasp, that a fine day at this time of the year is so peculiarly enjoyed. Small as is the gratitude com- monly excited by seasons of beauty, I have always fancied there is a nearer approach to remembrance of the privilege and blessing of their enjojTnent in the closing days of Autumn, than at any other period. A NOVEMBER SKETCH. 229 " The gently sighing breezes, as they blow, Have more than vernal softness; and the snn Sheds on the landscape round a mellower glow, Than in his summer splendour he has done. As if he neared the goal, and knew the race was won." Everybody is seized with a desire to redeem time in November. Neighbours exchange visits — old peo- ple and invalids get out into the sun while they can ; fairs are held — fuel is brought in ; the shops are fi-e- quented — the rent is paid : the people, though poor, have the feehng of being out of debt, and, on the strength of this, allow themselves, perhaps, some little piece of extravagance. If the sun comes out, every one is abroad. It is true, there is no walking in the meadows, and the country lanes are seldom in good order for delicate-footed pedestrians; but if you are in a com countiy, you are sure to see the vil- lagers scattered about in the ploughed fields, prepar- ing the ground for the future corn; groups of rosy children in the most pictm-esque costume imaginable — old hats, old frocks, old petticoats — eveiytliing the household can furnish that is most antiquated and party-coloiired, is carefully saved for the Autumnal field-work. Bright reds and yellows, blues and gi-eens, mixed up in rich variety, with little odd-shaped jackets — or a father's old coat, made up into a sort of nondescript garment for a young one. Take into the account a great inclination to fun and irregularity 230 A NOVEMBER SKETCH. of movement among the children, fi-equently cor- rected by some business-like matron, whose task it is to superintend the work of the young company of depositoi-s, and you will form some idea of tliis lively amusing scene. The ploughers and harrowers, mean- while, plod on their Avay in perhaps a distant part of the field, adding to the stirring and picturesque character of the spectacle. The day, too, is free from the disappointment one meets -svith in other months — the cutting salutations of a blast in June, when we go out in summer clothing, under the expectations of a soft southern breeze, — the precocious warmth of a February morning, which fills us with melancholy anticipations of the probable fate of early blossoms — all this is over ; it is the time of sober certainty : one more day of enjoyment for bu-ds and butterflies ; for the chrysanthemum to blossom, and the bee to gather up a little fresh food before he sets himself to work on his winter stores. And why should not we, too, spare our provision for the time of out-door poverty ? Why not take our lesson from the bee, and expatiate amid flowers and leaves, air and sunshine, leaving to December our fires, our cur- tained rooms, and our Annuals. EMILY TAYLOR. THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 231 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. She bore her -vvTongs in deep and silent sorrow ; Endured the anguish of a broken heart In uncomplaining sadness ; saw her love Repaid with cold neglect. But stung at last To the bosom's inmost core, she tried the sole Effectual remedy despair had left her. Unpublished Plat. Shortly after the coureurs des bois began to cany packs and drive dog-sledges in the lands on the upper waters of the Mississippi, there lived at the Kahpoz- hah village, three leagues below the mouth of the river St. Peter's, an Indian, who was the cjTiosure of the eyes of all the maidens in his tribe. This was because of his rare personal beauty ; not of form, for that is common to all Indians ; but of countenance. His skill as a hunter, and his bravery as a warrior, were qualities more likely to recommend him to their parents ; but, strange to say, the swarthy daughters of the forest judged by the eye, as some authors have falsely asserted their sex is in the habit of doing. The object of theii' admiration had feminine features, and a skin lighter by five shades than the national com- plexion of the Dahcotahs, and his hair, besides being light, was also fine and glossy. He prided himself 232 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. upon it, and suffered it to grow long ; thereby grie- vously scandalizing the male population of the village. His toilet was usually adjusted with scrupulous ac- curacy; he changed the fashion of his paint five times per diem, and his activity in the chase enabled liim to wear so much scarlet cloth, and so many beads and silver brooches, as made him the envy of those of his own age and sex. Those who imagine that the aborigines are all stoics and heroes, and those who tliink them solely addicted to rapine and bloodshed, and are therefore disposed to dispute the truth of this sketch of Indian character, are informed that there are fops in the forests as well as in Broadway; their intrinsic value is pretty much the same in both places. The beau of the north-west arranges his locks, and stains his face with mud, by 'a looking-glass three inches square. He Of the city submits his equally empty head to the hand of a friseur, and powders his visage before a mirror in a gilt frame, in wliich he can behold his estimable per- son at full length. The former arrays his person with scarlet, and covers his feet with deer-skin and poi-cupine quills ; and the other gets a coat from Cox, whose needle, it is said, has pierced more hearts than the shaft of Cupid ; and his feet prove the merits of Day and Martin. The only difference we see between the two is, that the savage kills deer and buffaloes, THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 233 and helps to support his family, while the white man is often a useless member of society. Yet the ele- gance of the features of Toskatnay (the Woodpecker,) for so was our Dahcotah dandy called, and his taste in dress, were not his only merits. The war-eagle's plume, which completed his array, was an honourable evidence that he had acquired a right to call himself a man. In fact, beneath an almost feminine appear- ance, and much fi-ivolity of manner, he concealed the real strengih of his character. To the maidens who listened with glistening eyes to his discourse, and blushed when he addressed them, his motto seemed to be, " Let them look and die." Exquisite as he was, liis soul was full of higher matter than love or gal- lantrj\ He aspired to sway the councils of his peo- ple, and to lead them in battle ; and if he condescended to please the eyes- and tickle the ears of the women, it was only because he knew that it was the surest way to exert an influence over the men. He was not so thorough a savage as to have failed to learn thus much of human nature. Yet he had no idea of marry- ing, but as it might further his views ; and to the admiration of the young squaws he shut his eyes, whilst against their complaints that " no one cared for them," he hardened his heart. With all his schemes, he had not calculated upon the power of the blind god, a?;, indeed, how should he, 234 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. having never heard of such a personage ? The pas- sion of which that deity is a type, he scarcely believed to exist, certainly never expected to feel. But his time was to come, and the connection he was destined to form was to have a powerful influence on his fu- ture fortunes. We are thus particular in detaiUng his conduct and feelings, in order that our own coun- trymen may take warning and profit by his example. There is a use to be found for everything, however mean, and he who flirts with the brunettes and blondes that congi'egate at Ballston or Saratoga, need not shame to take a lesson from a Dahcotah hea- then. In the same village with our hero dwelt a damsel, whose name, as it has not come dowoi to us, being lost in the exploit of which this true history treats, we cannot tell, and shall therefore speak of her as Ween- okhenchah Wandeeteekah (the Brave Woman,) the ai>pellation which her tribe give her, in relating the story. This gu-1 never praised Toskatnay's attire, nor listened to his compliments, nor sought to attract his attention. On the conti-ary, she avoided his notice. Why she did thus, we do not i>retend to explain. We pretend not to expound the freaks of passion, any more than the profundities of philosophy ; nor can wc tell why love should choose to show himself in such a capricious manner. Let it suffice that she was THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 235 thought to hate our hero, until an event occurred that contradicted the supposition. One hot day in July, a rabid wolf, such as are sometimes seen in the prairies, came to pay the vil- lage a visit. The com-field lay in his way, and, as animals in his predicament never turn aside, he en- tered it. It so chanced that Weenokhenchah Wan- deeteekah was at that time using her hoe therein, in company with other girls, while Toskatnay stood neaj- them, cheering their labour and edifying their minds pretty much in the style of Ranger, in the Jealous Husband. The wolf made directly at him, and the girls, seeing by the slaver of liis jaws what ailed liim, shrieked and fled. Toskatnay, being no Yankee, could not guess the cause of then- terror, and was looking about for it, when the animal was within five paces of him. Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah alone stood firm, and, seeing that he must inevitably be bitten, she advanced and clove the beast's skull with her hoe, contrary to the law in such cases made and pro- vided by novel-writers, which ordains that the gen- tleman shall rescue the lady from danger, and not the lady the gentleman. Having thus done, the colour forsook her cheeks, and she swooned and fell. Toskatnay, though an Indian fine gentleman, did not catch her in his anns, nor kneel by her. But he did what was as much to the purpose. He ran to 236 THE KED INDIAN GIliL. the village, Avhich was but a few rods distant, and sent the women to her assistance. "With some diffi- culty they brought her to her senses. From that hour his attentions, which had before been considered by the girls as common property, were confined to her. Love and gratitude prevailed, and for a while his dreams of ambition were forgotten. He Avore leggings of different colours, and sat all day upon a log, playing on a flute with three holes, and singing songs in her praise. When she was gone to cut wood, he was not to be found in the village. lie gave her beads and vermillion, and, in short, played the Indian lover in all points. Indian courtships never last long, and ere the leaves began to fall, Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah was the wedded wife of Toskatnay. For a time, he forgot his nature and his fonncr prepossessions, and he even saw three war-parties leave the village, without testifying much concern. But these halcyon days did not last long. A mind like his could not be con- tent -with, ignoble triumphs over the brute tenants of the woods and prairies. His excursions grew longer in duration, and more frequent in occurrence, and at last the poor bride saw herself totally neglected. Another cause concurred in this result. She belonged to a farailv that could boast no hero, no chief, nor any wise man, among its memliers, and her husband THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 237 saw with regret that he had formed an alliance that could never enhance his importance in his tribe. The devoted aifection and unwearied attention with wliich she endeavoured to recall his heart, only filled him ■with disgust. Within the year she made liim a father, Inxt the new relation in which he stood did not re- claim him. In the ejes of liis people, he pm-sued a more honourable course: he joined every warlike ex- cursion, obtained the praise of all by his valour ; and once, by his conduct and presence of mind, when the camp in which his lodge was pitched was surprised, he saved it, and turned the tables on the assailants. In consequence, he was thought worthy to be a leader of men, and became the jiartizan in two successful inroads on the enemies' country. He was envied as well as admired. Many there were, older than himself, who aspired to the objects of his ambition, and one especially, without a tithe of his merits, outstripped him in his course by means of extended connections, and thwarted him in everv particular. This was a man named Chahpah (the Beaver,) about forty years of age. He had nine wives, whom he supported in the usual style, and then- re- lations were at his beck. Jealous of the growing in- fluence of Toskatnay, he opposed his opinions, and tm-ned the weak parts of his character into ridicule. The young warrior felt this deeply, and revolved in 238 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. his o^\^l mind the means of making the number of his adlierents equal to that of his rival. There were Iavo ways presented themselves to his acceptance ; the one to take to his lodge more wives ; and the other, to con- tinue to exert himself in the field. By the latter means, in the course of time, if he was not prematurely cut off, he would attain the desired distinction. By the former his object would be affected more speedily. An opportunity soon occurred to measm-e his strength with his fellow-aspirant. The Beaver, not content with the limits of his harem, demanded in marriage the daughter of the Heron, a noted warrior. The father asked time to consider the proposal. While the matter was in abeyance, Toskatnay heard of it, and resolved not to lose so good a chance to further his own projects, and mortify the man he hated. lie went that very night to Heron's lodge, lighted a match at his fire, and presented it to the eyes of the maiden. She ble^v it out, and, after some convei'sation with her, carried on in whispers, he retired. In the morning he smoked with the Heron, and in plain terms asked his daughter to wife- The old man liked Toskatnay, and, moreover, was not entirely satisfied that his offspring should be the tenth bride of any man. He accepted the offer with- out hesitation, and the nuptials were solemnized forthwith, to the great displeasure of tlie Beaver. THE RED INDIAN GIRX. 239 It is unnecessary to say that he was not the only pei-son displeased. Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah thought this second marriage a poor requital of the service she had rendered her hushand, and expostu- lated Avith him. But ambition swallows all other passions, as the rod of Moses swallowed the other rods, and Toskatnay had become intensely selfish. He desu-ed her to mind her own affairs ; and, as poly- gamy is reckoned creditable by the Dahcotahs, she had no pretence to quarrel, and was obliged to submit. With an aching heart, she saw another woman take the i)lace in Toskatnay 's regard that she considered her 0A\Ti, and often did she retii'e to the woods to weep over her infant, and tell her sorrows to the rocks and trees. Quarrels will happen in the best of families, and so was seen of Toskatnay's. The two wives did not agi'ee, as might have been expected, and the husband always took the part of the new- comer. Moreover, when he joined the hunting- camps, the Heron's daughter accompanied him, while Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah was left at home ; he alleging that, having a child to take care of, she could not so well be the partner of his wanderings. It was in vain that she protested against tliis reasoning. An Indian husband is, if he i^leases, absolute, and she was obliged to acquiesce. It was not, in truth, that he preferred his new spouse, but he wished to con- 240 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. ciliate her family. The jjoor malcontent had the mortification besides to see that he neglected his child ; and this was the unkindest act of all. At last, the second autumn after her mamage, it so happened that the band attached to Toskatnay was to move up the Mississippi, and hunt upon its head waters. As the journey was to be made by water, there was no objection to Weenokhenchah Wandee- teekah being of the party, and the two wives assisted each other in the necessary preparations. In the afternoon they came to the falls of St. Anthony, and carried their canoes and baggage round it. They encamped on the eastern shore, just above the rapids. Such a description as we are able to give of this cele- brated cataract, from recollection, is at the reader's service. There is nothing of the grandeur or sublimity which the eye aches to behold at Niagara, about tlie falls of St. Anthony. But, in wild and picturesque beauty, it is perhaps unequalled. Flowing over a tract of country five hundred miles in extent, the river, here more than half a mile wide, breaks into sheets of foam, and rushes to the pitch over a strongly inclined plane. The fall itself is not high, — we believe only sixteen feet perpendicular, — but its face is broken and irregular. Huge slabs of rock lie scattered below, in wild disorder ; some stand on their edges, leaning a'HE RED INDIAN GlllL. 241 against the ledge from which they have been dis- united ; some lie piled upon each other in the water, in inimitable confusion. A long narrow island divides the fall nearly in the middle. Its eastern side is not perpendicular, but broken into three distinct leaps, below which the twisting and twirling eddies threaten destruction to any living thing that enters them. On the western side, in the boiling rapids beloAv, a few rods from the fall, stands a little island, of a few yards area, rising steep fi-om the waters, and covered with forest trees. At the time of our story, its mightiest oak was the haunt of a solitary bald eagle, that had built his eyrie on the topmost branches, be- yond the reach of man. It was occupied by his pos- terity till the year 182.3, when the time-honoured crest of the vegetable monarch bowed, and gave way before the mng of the northern tempest. The little islet was believed inaccessible, till two daring privates of the fifth regiment, at very low water, waded out in the river above, and, ascending the fall by means of the blocks of stones before-mentioned, forded the intervening space, and were the first of their species that ever set foot upon it. Large trunks of trees frequently drift over, and, diving into the chasms of the rocks, never appear again. The loon, or great northern diver, is also, at moulting time, when he is unable to rise from the 242 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. water, often caught in the rapids. When he finds himself drawn in, lie struggles with fate for a wliile, but, finding escape impossible, he faces downwards, and goes over, screaming horribly. These birds sometimes make the descent unhurt. Below the ra- pids foam, and roar, and tumble, for half a mile, and then subside into the clear, gentle current that con- tinues unbroken to the Rock River rapids, and at high water to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, too, the high bluffs wliich enclose the Mississippi commence. Such was the scene at the time of tliis authentic his- toiy, but now it is mended or marred, according to the taste of the spectator, by the works of the sons of Adam. It can show its buildings, its saw-mill, its grist-mill, its cattle, and its cultivated fields. Nor is it una- dorned with traditional honours. A Siou can tell you how the enemy, in the darkness of midnight, deceived by the false beacons lighted by his ancestors, paddled his canoe into the rapids, from which he never issued alive, lie can give a good guess, too, what ghosts haunt the spot, and what spirits aliide there. To return to our story : Toskatnay and his band passed the falls, and raised their lodges a few rods above the rapids. It so happened, that evening, that a violent quarrel arose between the two wives, which the presence of some of the elders only prevented THE RED INDIAN' GIKL. 243 from ending in cuffing and scratching. Wlien the master of the lodge returned, he rebuked them both, but the weight of his anger fell on Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah, though, in fact, the dispute had been fastened on her by the other. She replied nothing to his reproaches, but his words sunk deep into her bosom, for he had spoken scornfully of her, saying that no Siou had so pitiful a wife as himself. She sobbed herself to sleep; and, when the word Avas given in the morning to rise and strike the tents, she was the first to rise and set about it. While the business of embarkation was going on, it so chanced that the child of the poor woman crawled in the way of her rival, and received a severe kick from her. Tliis was too much for the mother. Vociferating such terms as are current only at Bil- lingsgate and in Indian camps, — for squaws are not remarkable for delicacy of expression,— she fastened upon the Heron's daughter, tooth and nail, who was not slow to return the compliment. Happily their knives were wrested from them by the bystanders, or one or both would have been killed on the spot. This done, the men laughed and the women screamed, but none offered to part them, till Toskatnay, who was busy at the other end of the camp patching a birch canoe, heard the noise, and came and separated them by main force. He was highly indignant at 24-i THE RED INDIAN GIKL. an occurrence that must bring ridicule upon liini. The Hei'on's daughter he reproved, but Weenokhen- chah Wandecteekah he struck Avith his paddle re- peatedly, and threatened to put her away. This filled the cup of her misery to overflowing : she looked at him indignantly, and said, " You shall never reproach me again." She took up her child and moved away, but he, thinking it no more than an ordinarj^ fit of sullenness, paid no attention to her motions. His unkindness at tliis time had the effect of con- fii'ming a project that she had long revolved in her mind, and she hastened to put it in execution. She embarked in a canoe with her child, and, pushing from the shore, entered the rapids before she was perceived. When she was seen, both men and women, among whom her husband was the most ear- nest, followed her on the shore, entreating her to land ere it was too late. The river was high, so that it was impossible to intercept her ; yet Toskatnay, find- ing his entreaties of no avail, would have thro^vn himself into the water to reach the canoe, had he not been withheld by his followers. Had this demonstra- tion of intca-est occurred the day before, it is possible that her puii^ose would have been forgotten. As it was, she shook her open hand at him in scorn, and held up his child for him to gaze at. She then be- gan to sing, and her song ran thus: — THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 246 " A cloud has come over me. My joys are turned to grief. Life has become a burden too heavy to be^j-, and it only remains to die. " The Great Spirit calls ; I hear his voice in the roaring waters. Soon, soon shall they close over my head, and my song shall be heard no more. " Turn thine eyes hither, proud chief Thou art brave in battle, and all are silent when thou speakest in council. Thou hast met death and hast not been afraid. " Thou hast braved the knife and the axe ; and the sliaft of the enemy has passed hannless l^y thee. " Thou hast seen the warrior fall. Thou hast heard h'ni speak bitter words with his last breath. " But hast tluiu ever seen him dare more than a woman is about to do ? Many speak of thy deeds. Old and young echo thy praises. Thou art the star tlie young men look upon, and thy name shall be long heard in the land. " But when men tell of thy exploits, they shall say, ' He slew his wife also ! ' Sliame shall attend thy memory. " I slew the ravenous beast that was about to destroy thee. I planted thy corn, and made thee gai-ments and moccasins. " When thou wast an hungered, I gave thee to eat, and when thou wast athirst, I brought thee cold 2-46 THE KED INDIAN' GIKL. water. I brought thee a son also, and I have never disobeyed thy commands. " And this is my reward ! Thou hast laughed at me. Thou hast given me bitter words, and struck me heavy blows. " Thou hast preferred another before me, and thou hast driven me to wish for the aj^proach of death, as fur the coming winter. " My child, my child ! Life is a scene of sorrow. I had not the love of a mother, did I not snatch thee from the woes thou must endure. " Adorn thy wife with ornaments of white metal, Toskatnay. Hang beads about her neck. Be kind to her, and see if she will ever be to thee as I." So saying, or rather singing, she went over the fall witli her child, and they were seen no more. One year precisely from this time, Toskatnay fol- lowed the track of a bear, which he had wounded, to the brink of the falls. He halted opposite to the spot where Weenokhenchah Wandeeteekah had disap- peared, and gazed on the foaming rapid. What was passing in his mind it is impossible to say. He had reached the summit of his ambition. He was acknow- ledged a chief, and he had triumplied over the Bea- ver and the Chii>peways. But she, for whose sake lie liad spurned the sweetest flowers of life, tnxe love THE RED INDIAN GIRL. 247 and fond fidelity, had proved faithless to him, and fled to the IMissouri with another man. He had nothing farther to look for, no higher eminence to attain, and his reflections were like those of him who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. A strange occun-ence aroused him from his reverie. A snow-white doe, followed by a fa^vn of the same colour, came suddenly within the sphere of his vision ; so suddenly, that they seemed to him to come out of the water. Such a sight had never before been seen by any of his tribe. He stood rooted to the ground. He who had never feared the face of man trembled like an aspen with superstitious terror. The animals, regardless of his presence, advanced slowly towards him, and passed so near that he might have touched them with his gun. They as- cended the bank, and he lost sight of them. When they were fairly out of sight, he recovered from the shock, and, stretching out his arms after them, con- jured them to return. Finding his adjurations vain, he rushed up the bank, but could see notliing of them, which was the more remarkable as the prairie had just been burned over, and for a mile there was no wood or inequality in the ground that could have concealed a much smaller animal than a deer. He returned to his lodge, made a solemn feast, at which his relatives were assembled, and sung his 248 THE RED INDIAN GIRL. death-song. He told his wondering auditors that he had received a Avarning to prepare for his final change. He had seen the sphits of his wife and child. No on-e presumed to contradict his opinion. Whether founded in reason or not, it proved true in point of fact. Three weeks after, the camp was attacked by the Chippeways. They were repulsed, but Toskat- nay, and he only was killed. No stone tells where he lies, nor can any of the Dahcotahs show the spot. His deeds are forgotten, or, at best, faintly remembered ; thus showing " on Avhat foundation stands the warrior's pride ;" but his Avife still lives in the memory of her people, who speak of her by the name of Weenokhenchah Wan- dceteek-ah, or the Brave Woman. THE END. t \\D'f-f^ 6 EDINBURGH: PniNTED BY T. 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