Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BORLAND HALL.
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE, GLASGOW. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 London,. ■ . Hamilton, Adams and Co. 
 Cambridge, . . Macmillan and Co. 
 Edinburgh, . . Edmonston and Douglas. 
 Dublin, . . ■ IV. H. Smith and Son. 
 
 MDCCCLXXIV.
 
 BORLAND HALL 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 O L R I G GRANGE 
 
 (Slasgotu 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1874 
 
 All rights reserved

 
 
 ^hc liight Imtmwrable m. <£. ©Urtstmtt. M.$. 
 
 Whiles thou wer't in thy plenitude of power, 
 Dispensing England's bounty, I dared not 
 Offer my gift, as if thy gifts I sought, — 
 Though sweeter to my heart than Spring's first flower, 
 To know that thou had'st whiled away an hour 
 O'er my last nameless book, with all the care 
 Of Empire on thee: now I do not dare 
 Withhold my homage, when the people shower 
 Their honours elsewhere, and their slights on thee — 
 Noblest of those that by the Throne have stood. 
 And made it strong by making us more free, 
 
 And, healing wrongs, and doing timely good, 
 Wherefore I haste to brighten my new page 
 With the great name that brightens all the age. 
 
 -« r* o « " ~ ; •
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 *3ooIt ^trirst— (^cmptcb. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COLLEGE LIFE 3 
 
 AUSTEN LYELL, 2 S 
 
 BORLAND GLEN, 55 
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW, . 6 3 
 
 gook Thtvb— §vokm. 
 
 THE FUNERAL, . 99 
 
 THE WILL, io 9
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 gook fourth— gUrift 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE HOIVF, 133 
 
 PAUL GAUNT, 141 
 
 gook Jiifth— JJrospats. 
 
 VISITORS, 1S3 
 
 ANDREW DOWNIE, ESQ., 185 
 
 §ooh gixth— Relief. 
 
 MILLY GAUNT, 215
 
 §ook Jfiret. 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 A
 
 College life. 
 
 T^ HERE'S an old University town 
 Between the Don and the Dee, 
 Looking over the grey sand dunes, 
 
 Looking out on the cold North Sea. 
 
 Breezy and blue the waters be, 
 And rarely there you shall not find 
 The white horse-tails lashing out in the wind. 
 Or the mists from the land of ice and snow 
 Creeping over them chill and slow.
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 Sitting o' nights in his silent room, 
 
 The student hears the lonesome boom 
 
 Of breaking waves on the long sand reach, 
 
 And the chirming of pebbles along the beach 
 
 And gazing out on the level ground, 
 
 Or the hush of keen stars wheeling round, 
 
 He feels the silence in the sound. 
 
 So, hearkening to the City's stir, 
 Alone in some still house of God 
 Whose solemn aisles are only trod 
 By rarely-coming worshipper, 
 At times, beneath the fret and strife, 
 The far-off hum, the creaking wain, 
 The hurrying tread of eager gain, 
 And all the tide of alien life, 
 We catch the Eternal Silence best, 
 And unrest only speaks of rest.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. - 
 
 O'er the College Chapel a grey stone crown 
 
 Lightsomely soars above tree and town, 
 
 Lightsomely fronts the Minster towers, 
 
 Lightsomely chimes out the passing hours 
 
 To the solemn knell of their deep-toned bell ; 
 
 Kirk and College keeping time, 
 
 Faith and Learning, chime for chime. 
 
 The Minster stands among the graves, 
 
 And its shadow falls on the silent river ; 
 
 The Chapel is girt with Life's bounding waves, 
 
 And the pulses of hope there are passioning ever.— 
 
 But death is life, and life is death ; 
 
 Being is more than a gasp of breath : 
 
 We come and go, we are seen and lost, 
 
 Now in glimmer, and now in gloom ; 
 
 But oft this body is the tomb, 
 
 And the Life is with the silent Host. 
 
 So to living and dead let the solemn bell call ; 
 
 Sleeping or waking, time passes with all.
 
 6 TEMPTED. 
 
 In the old University town, 
 
 Looking out on the cold North sea, 
 
 'Twixt the Minster towers and the Chapel crown. 
 
 ( )n a winter night as the snow came down 
 
 In broad flakes tremulously, 
 
 Falling steady, and falling slow, 
 
 Nothing seen but the falling snow ; 
 
 A youth, with strained and weary looks, 
 
 Sat by a table piled with books, 
 
 And a shaded lamp that gleamed among 
 
 Pages of writing, large and strong. 
 
 A glance of sharp impatience flashed 
 
 ( Hit of his dark and deep-set eye, 
 
 As he lifted his head, and hastily dashed 
 
 The hair from a forehead broad and high : 
 
 For there was a crash and a clamour and ringing 
 
 In the room overhead, and a chorus singing, 
 
 As the bell tolled midnight from the graves, 
 
 And ere its slow deep note had died,
 
 COLLEGE LLFE. 
 
 The chime from the College crown replied, 
 And then came the boom of the breaking waves. 
 
 Some twenty and three years he had seen, 
 
 Or more perchance ; 'tis hard to tell 
 
 The age of a face so strong and keen, 
 
 The years of a form that was hardened well 
 
 By the winter's cold, and the summer's heat, 
 
 And the mountain winds, and the rain and sleet. 
 
 Big-boned, with a look of unformed power ; 
 
 In body and brain and passion strong : 
 
 Over his square brow fell a shower 
 
 Of black hair, waving and thick and long. 
 
 It was a great brown hand that grip'd 
 
 The pliant quill o'er the blotted sheet, — 
 
 No soft and clerkly finger that slipt 
 
 Over the pages glib and fleet ; 
 
 More like that of a man with sword equipt, ■ 
 
 Grasping the hilt his foe to meet.
 
 8 TEMPTED. 
 
 An eager, strenuous spirit, meaning 
 
 To do with might what he had to do, 
 
 And rarely trusting, never leaning, 
 
 But self-reliant and bold and true ; 
 
 A nature rugged and hard and strong ; 
 
 Yet, as among the rocks and fells, 
 
 Where most the storms rage loud and long, 
 
 The deepest silence also dwells, 
 
 And there are brightest mossy wells 
 
 Among the nodding heather bells : 
 
 So in his stormy spirit dwelt 
 
 The hush of that religious sense, 
 
 The silence of that great reverence 
 
 Which the strong and brave have always felt 
 
 Nor less the tender beauty wrought 
 
 By fresh well-springs of feeling deep 
 
 Which murmur as they softly creep, 
 
 Like dreamy waters through his sleep, 
 
 The Love that brighteneth all our thought,
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. 
 The Love that sweeteneth every lot. 
 
 In the room overhead a clamour rang, 
 But hushed for a moment, as some one sang 
 Cheery and clearly, each note like a bell 
 Floating the words off, round and well. 
 
 PARTY OF STUDENTS IN THE UPPER ROOM. 
 
 First Student. Look, how Darrel is moping; ask 
 
 him to sing; 
 
 They are dull fellows poets, unless they can get 
 
 All the say to themselves: there he stands in a pet, 
 
 Like a hen on one leg with her head 'neath her wing. 
 
 Second Student. Nay, let him alone; Cupid hit 
 
 < 
 
 him last night; 
 I heard the sharp twang of his bow, and it broke his 
 Poor Muse's wing, who came down, in sad plight, 
 With a nutter of anapaests, dactyls, and trochees.
 
 io 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 Third Student. Come, Ralph, pluck up heart, man. 
 
 and give us a stave: 
 Love is life to the poet, like wind to a ship, 
 It will give you a song, though she give you the slip, 
 Which you'll sing at her wedding, or sigh o'er her 
 
 grave ; 
 For the song is as much as the Love to the poet;— 
 Tis the fruit, and the passion was but soil to grow it. 
 
 Song — She is a Woman. 
 
 She is a woman to love, to love 
 
 As flowers love light; 
 All that is best in you is at its best, 
 All the heart opens to her as a guest 
 
 Who makes it bright. 
 
 She is a woman to love, to love 
 
 With soul and heart ; 
 And all in her that is sweet and true
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. i i 
 
 She makes as if it were drawn from you 
 By gracious art. 
 
 You cannot help but love, but love ; 
 
 Nobody can; 
 She carries a charm with her everywhere, 
 Just a circle she makes in the air, 
 
 Bewitching man. 
 
 Is it her beauty I love, T love? 
 
 Is it her mind? 
 Is it her fancy, nimble and gay? 
 Or her voice that spirits the soul away?— 
 
 I cannot find. 
 
 But she's just a woman to love, to love, 
 
 As men love wine 
 Madly and blindly: yet why should they 
 Bring their hearts to be stolen away, 
 
 When she has mine?
 
 12 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 First Student. A fig for your love-ditties ! Cupid 's 
 an ass, 
 And the wise man will drown the small elf in his glass. 
 Second Student. Ha, ha ! lads, I told you our 
 Ralph had been hit : 
 Now, guess the rare mixture of beauty and wit. 
 Third Student. Nay, we name not the name of a 
 damsel of honour ; 
 Enough that such verses come showering upon her. 
 Now for something more stirring. I sing like a horse; 
 But here's for the old land of heather and gorse. 
 
 Sings- — Up in the North. 
 
 Up in the North, up in the North, 
 
 There lies the true home of valour and worth ; 
 
 Wild the wind sweeps over moorland and glen, 
 
 But truth is trusty, and men are men, 
 
 And hearts grow warmer the farther you go,
 
 COLLEGE LLFE. 
 
 13 
 
 Up to the North with its hills and snow. 
 Ho ! for the North, yo ho ! 
 
 Out of the North, out of the North, 
 All the free men of the nations came forth ; 
 Kings of the sea, they rode, like its waves, 
 Crash on the old Roman empire of slaves, 
 And the poor cowed slaves and their Csesars saw 
 Rise from its ruins our Freedom and Law. 
 Ho ! for the North, yo ho ! 
 
 Up in the North, up in the North, 
 
 O but our maids are the fairest on earth, 
 
 Simple and pure as the white briar-rose, 
 
 And their thoughts like the dew which it clasps 
 
 as it blows ; 
 There are no homes but where they be, 
 Woman made home in the north countrie. 
 Ho ! for the North, yo ho !
 
 1 4 TEMPTED. 
 
 O for the North, O for the North ! 
 () to be there when the stars come forth ! 
 The less that the myrtle or rose is given, 
 The more do we see there the glory of heaven : 
 And care and burden I leave behind 
 When I turn my face to the old North wind. 
 Ho ! for the North, yo ho ! 
 
 First Student. Psha ! your patriot-song now is 
 only sonorous ; 
 And besides, people laugh at us talking so grand, 
 And praising ourselves, and our crusty old land. 
 Come, I'll set you a catch with a rattling good chorus. 
 
 Song — O the Changes of Life ! 
 
 O the changes of Life ! every five or six years, 
 There's a new body fitted on us, it appears, 
 Like a new suit of clothes made in old-fashioned 
 modes,
 
 COLLEGE LLFE. j 5 
 
 The newer the older — and so where's the odds ? 
 But hand round the beer, and let it run clear, 
 The older the better the body of beer. 
 
 We change our opinions, we alter our laws 
 For the sake of a change, or for some other cause, 
 We change our old country, our altars, and gods, 
 That's but passing our small-change — and so where's 
 
 the odds ? 
 While they leave us our beer, all beside may change 
 
 here, 
 For our Capital sum is the pottle of beer. 
 
 O once it was classics — all Latin and Greek, 
 Then came mathematics each day of the week, 
 Now it's German and Nature, but every one plods 
 With his pipe and his beer — and so where's the odds ? 
 Smoking and beer ! they make Nature appear 
 Teutonic and wonderful, smoking and beer.
 
 1 6 TEMPTED. 
 
 Erewhile there were battles of Tories and Whigs. 
 But they've gone to the Limbus of powder and wigs ; 
 Pitt and Fox would'nt know the new parliament 
 
 modes, 
 But they'd find the old ale — and so where's the 
 
 odds? 
 Amber-bright beer ! let no change come near 
 The wise, ancient custom of smoking and beer. 
 All. — The wise ancient custom of smoking and 
 beer. 
 
 Third Student. Come, no more of your catches, 
 
 Ralph ; let's have a stave 
 With a touch of the pathos, like that which you 
 
 gave 
 At the Doctor's last evening : I noted his eye : 
 How he sipped his glass daintily while it was dry ! 
 How he gullied it in tumblers a frigate might float, 
 With the tear in his eye, and the lump in his throat !
 
 COLLEGE LLFE. 
 
 17 
 
 You may roar out a chorus, lads : but to my thinking, 
 
 There is nothing like pathos for good, steady 
 
 drinking. 
 
 All. Ay, ay, Ralph, touch up the feelings a bit ; 
 
 And let each prime his glass: weeping's drier than wit. 
 
 Darrell. But nothing will please you. Well, never 
 
 mind ; 
 
 The birds sing their songs to the trees and the wind. 
 
 Song — Mysie Gordon. 
 
 Now where is Mysie Gordon gone ? 
 
 What should take her up the glen, 
 Turning, dowie and alone, 
 
 From smithy lads and farming men? — 
 Never seen where lasses, daffing 
 At the well, are blithely laughing, 
 Dinging a' the chields at chaffing : 
 Bonnie Mysie Gordon. 
 
 B
 
 j 8 TEMPTED. 
 
 Mysie lo'ed a student gay, 
 
 And he vowed he lo'ed her well : 
 She gave all her heart away, 
 He lo'ed naething but himsel' : 
 Then he went to woo his fortune, 
 Fleechin', preachin', and exhortin', 
 (lot a Kirk, and now is courtin' — 
 But no his Mysie Gordon. 
 
 Every night across the moor, 
 
 Where the whaup and peewit ciy, 
 Mysie seeks his mither's door 
 Wi' the saut tear in her eye. 
 Little wots his boastfu' Minnie, 
 Proud to tell about her Johnie, 
 Every word's a stab to bonnie 
 Love-sick Mysie Gordon
 
 COLLEGE LLFE. U) 
 
 A" his letters she maun read, 
 
 A' about the lady braw; 
 Though the lassie's heart may bleed, 
 Though it even break in twa ; 
 Wae her life may be and weary, 
 Mirk the nicht may be and eerie. 
 Yet she'll gang, and fain luik cheerie. 
 Bonnie Mysie Gordon. 
 
 Whiles she thinks it maun be richt ; 
 
 She is but a landward girl ; 
 He a scholar, and a licht 
 
 Meikle thocht o' by the Earl. 
 
 AYhiles she daurna think about it. 
 Thole her love, nor live without it, 
 Sair alike to trust, or doubt it, 
 Waesome Mysie Gordon.
 
 20 TEMPTED. 
 
 Mysie doesna curse the cuif, 
 
 Doesna hate the lady braw, 
 Doesna even haud aloof, 
 Nor wish them ony ill ava : 
 
 But she leaves his proudfu' mither, 
 Dragging through the dowie heather 
 Weary feet by ane anither ; 
 Bonnie Mysie Gordon. 
 
 First Student. A sell ! a sell ! why, I've emptied my 
 glass : 
 And it's only a fellow that jilted his lass. 
 
 Second Student. I wonder now, Ralph, you can 
 look in my face ! 
 We asked you for pathos, and lo ! commonplace. 
 Third Student. Silence ! there ; Ralph, you must 
 try it again. 
 Hark ! how the sea moans : give us a strain 
 Caught from the wail of the lonesome main.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. 
 
 Song — The False Sea. 
 
 r. 
 Singing to you, 
 And moaning to me ; 
 Nothing is true 
 In the false, cruel sea. 
 Where its lip kisses, 
 The sands, they are bare, 
 Where its foam hisses, 
 Nothing lives there ; 
 When it is smiling, 
 Hushed as in sleep, 
 It is beguiling 
 Some one to weep. 
 
 ii. 
 They were seafaring, 
 With light hearts and free, 
 And full of the daring 
 
 21
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 That's bred of the sea : 
 
 It crept up the inlet, 
 
 And bore them away 
 
 Where it laughed in the sunlight, 
 
 And dimpled the bay, 
 
 Singing to them, 
 
 But moaning to me, 
 
 Tripping it came, 
 
 The cold, cruel sea. 
 
 in. 
 I heard the oars dipping, 
 I heard her bows part 
 The waves with a rippling 
 That went through my heart. 
 And I saw women weeping 
 And wringing their hands 
 For the dead that were sleeping 
 That night on the sands :
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. 
 
 For nothing is true 
 In the false cruel sea 
 Which is singing to you, 
 And moaning to me. 
 
 Long and loud the clamour rose, 
 Bells were ringing, doors were banging. 
 Feet were tramping, glasses clanging ; 
 Seemed the racket ne'er would close : 
 And listening to the uproar loud 
 Thus his thoughts upon him crowd.
 
 JUstnt fr-cll. 
 
 Crash ! crash ! there they go, Ralph Darrel and Hugh, 
 And little Tom Guild, and that jovial crew. 
 First, cups in the tavern, and brawls in the street, 
 A springing of rattles, and scuffling of feet, 
 A laughter and screaming of girls, and a thud 
 As of some one that falls in the slush and the mud : 
 Then a rush up the stairs, and tramp, tramp over- 
 head, 
 With a Babel of speech that might waken the dead,
 
 26 TEMPTED. 
 
 A clinking of glasses, and ringing of bells, 
 And song after song till the daylight draws near- 
 Ralph sings like a bird, how his voice trills and swells ! 
 And the rogues make a chorus that catches the ear : 
 Love song and drinking song, madrigal, glee, 
 Breaking in on the long-rolling boom of the sea. 
 
 What to do with their tramping and chorusing so 
 Through the still hours of thought, with the lamp 
 
 burning low? 
 Let me read as I will, I read nothing but words : 
 And somehow they run into quavers and chords- 
 Metaphysics in music, crabbed Latin in tunes, 
 With no more clear meaning than so many Runes : 
 At the trick of the singer they trip in light 
 
 measure, 
 But shake from their folds the fine thought which 
 
 they treasure. 
 What to do? — Why not join in their jolly carouse?
 
 A USTEN L YELL. 
 
 27 
 
 Ralph's a splendid young scamp, and has plenty of 
 
 nous, 
 Ay, and more Greek and Latin than half of the fellows 
 Who are cramming for honours, dull, bilious, and 
 
 jealous. 
 Now, were Socrates here, and saw how they mope, 
 And travail in pain with a theme, or a trope, 
 And drag out a thought as with pulleys and cranks, 
 How his jests would go crack like a whip on their 
 
 flanks ! 
 But for Ralph — there the Greek eye would brighten 
 
 to witness 
 His beauty and vigour, his swiftness and fitness 
 For wisdom or valour, for pleasure or power, 
 For speech to the Demos, or maid in her bower, 
 For bridling the wild horse, or quaffing the bowl, 
 Or holding discourse of the gods and the soul : 
 For dear to the sage was a beautiful youth, 
 And the wholeness of manhood was precious as truth.
 
 28 TEMPTED. 
 
 And I too am young ; and my blood too is hot 
 With the lust of all broad roads where pleasure is got. 
 They think me a bookworm, a winner of prizes, 
 Full of priggish decorums, and learned surmises; 
 Precise as a Puritan ; feeding on Scholia, 
 And Elzevir classics, and black Melancholia. 
 Yet the craving of passion is gnawing within, 
 And the strong human hanker to dally with sin. 
 
 Ho ! a flask of old wine, grey with cobwebs, whose 
 
 scent 
 Made the grim spiders jolly in bloated content. 
 Rare topers ! no fly buzzed their darkness, or brought 
 The grossness of appetite into their thought ; 
 Nor bubble nor bead marred the rapture divine, 
 But they netted aroma, and breathed the bright wine, 
 And folding the cork in their mouse-coloured wraps, 
 They boozed on, and dreamt not of time and its 
 
 lapse.
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 29 
 
 And O for my Horace's Daphne or Phillis, 
 Low-browed, and breathing of wreathed Amaryllis ; 
 How her eyes beam, and her golden curls break, 
 Like tangled laburnum drops, round her white neck ! — 
 Shell-tipped her fingers are, taper and long, 
 Tripping she comes to me, lissome and strong, 
 Yet coy too, and hard to be caught, till I kiss 
 The blushes and dimples, and revel in bliss. 
 
 Why not? Why should phantoms of beauty and 
 
 grace, 
 Pink and gold with the sunniest hues of delight. 
 Hang like clouds in their glory before the warm 
 
 face 
 Of our youth, as it comes, in its morning and might, 
 Shining and singing and fresh with the dew, 
 Yet all be but shadows, and nothing be true? — 
 All but vanity, dream and inanity, 
 Nothing to shower down a blessing on you !
 
 3 o TEMrTED. 
 
 How was it that Goethe in full measure tasted 
 All that Life had to give him, nor missed aught, 
 
 nor wasted? 
 Sat Shakespeare alone thus, and heard the dogs bark, 
 Like an owl in a barn staring into the dark, 
 And warming its five wits to find out the mystery 
 ( )f this wonderful world, and its wonderful history ! 
 Did they shrink from love-tryste, song, or bright- 
 beaded wine, 
 As if only the dulness of life were divine? 
 Nay, their nets swept the stream of our full-flowing 
 
 gladness, 
 Its still pools of thought, and side-eddies of sadness ; 
 Where life was the deepest, and passion was strong, 
 They fished in its waters, and lingered diere long, 
 And so they were rich in the glorious sense 
 Of a wealth of golden experience. 
 
 And what is it all for— this heaping of ashes
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 
 
 31 
 
 On the hot fire of youth till you smoulder its flashes? — 
 This stating again of our hopeless imbroglios, 
 And dulling the brain with the dust of old folios ? 
 There's my old school-companion, Dick Gow of 
 
 the Glen, 
 With the brains of a half man, and labours of ten ; 
 How he toils on, and mopes over volumes patristic, 
 And dogmas forensic, and rites eucharistic, 
 And fictions of law, that he calls gospel verity, 
 And tries to believe he believes in sincerity. 
 Meanwhile in the glen where his childhood had 
 
 been 
 Stands the lowly turf hut, where the house-leek is 
 
 green j 
 
 Near by it the burn rushes hurrying down 
 Through the rocky gorge headlong, and turbid, and 
 
 brown, 
 ( )r glistens o'er slippery shelves, green with long moss, 
 Where the maiden-hair tresses stretch half-way across,
 
 32 TEMPTED. 
 
 Or sleeps in the pools where the speckled trout play, 
 And leap to the fly as the evening is grey, 
 Or sings through the woodland its few plaintive bars 
 To the slender oak-fern, and the pale sorrel-stars. 
 There, cramped with rheumatics, and bending with age, 
 His grave father sweats at the ditch and the hedge, 
 And sisters and brothers are patiently drudging 
 From day-break till dark, unrepining, ungrudging, 
 And all, as they stint food and raiment and fire, 
 Have but one hope that cheers them — to see the 
 
 Kirk spire 
 In the glory long prayed for, when crossing the hill, 
 Lo ! the folk are fast gathering from farmstead and mill, 
 From the shepherd's lone hut in the deep mountain 
 
 shade, 
 And the wood-ranger's hid in the dim forest glade, 
 All to hear their boy preach the great Gospel, and 
 
 sever 
 Himself from the old home and old life for ever. —
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 33 
 
 That's the end of his struggle, when Priesthood has 
 
 riven 
 The fondest of earth's ties, and bound him to heaven ; 
 Has sundered those hearts that were loving and true, 
 And linked him now fast to the Laird, and the few 
 Respectable folk who have nothing to do ! 
 
 Or there is young Barbour ; his factoring father 
 Heeds of nothing but charters, and wadsets, and 
 
 leases, 
 Rotations of cropping, and how he shall gather 
 Biggest rents for my Lord whose waste daily increases. 
 But his boy, he must ponder high questions of Law. 
 And store up old precedent, rubric and saw, 
 Load his memory daily with cases in point, 
 Learn the sharp fence of Logic to pierce through a 
 
 joint 
 
 In his learned friend's reason, and parry his hits, 
 
 Or to pester a witness half out of his wits. 
 
 c
 
 34 TEMPTED. 
 
 Great the thoughts of his youth, to determine all right 
 By the law which the landlords have voted is Light 
 For ever immutable, sacred, divine, 
 To the serf of the glebe, and the thrall of the mine. 
 So his days and his nights shall be spent, and his 
 
 youth 
 Dried up into parchment, amassing the truth 
 Which entails the broad acres of meadow and corn, 
 And the heath-purpled hills where the wild deer are 
 
 born, 
 
 And the fish of the river, and bird of the air 
 To the high chosen people for whom the gods care — 
 Whose the anointing is, whose is the money, 
 And whose is the land, with its milk and honey. 
 So he squanders bright youth with its wonder and awe 
 For a wig and a gown, and this vision of Law ! 
 
 O! but Culture? and what all the culture we get? 
 Old furniture crammed into " Lodgings to let," —
 
 A USTEN L YELL. 3 5 
 
 Nothing blending in harmony, graceful in beauty, 
 Or meet for a high life of courage and duty; 
 Only that which will pay: for our culture is meant 
 Not to make noble men, but to make cent per cent. 
 We touch on all topics, but nothing we know ; 
 We open all questions, and still leave them so ; 
 Never look to the end of them, dare not abide 
 By the issues we raise, but glance ever aside ; 
 For there is not a lie, spite of God's high decree, 
 But has made its nest sure on some branch of our 
 
 tree, 
 And has some vested right to exist in the land. 
 And some who will have it the tree could not 
 
 stand 
 If the sticks, straws and feathers, that sheltered the 
 
 wrong, 
 Were swept from the boughs they have cumbered 
 
 so long.
 
 36 TEMPTED. 
 
 Ah ! we climb up our Alp, though each step that 
 
 we gain 
 Is a loss to our life, made with labour and pain- 
 First, the dwellings of men go, bright eyes and 
 
 white arms, 
 And the song and the dance, and love's hopes and 
 
 alarms ; 
 Then, the many-flowered glades, and the many- 
 leaved woods 
 Where the startled deer watch, or the meek cushat 
 
 broods ; 
 Next, the pines and the heaths and the ptarmigan 
 
 fail, 
 And the rock, grey with lichen, is swept by the gale; 
 Till at length, with the hum of life hushed far below, 
 We are wrapt in a cloud on a chill peak of snow. 
 And for this we toil on through the years, all our 
 
 way 
 Growing barer and poorer as, day after day.
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 37 
 
 We reach a new point more with gloom overcast, 
 Where the silence is deeper than that we have passed, 
 And the range of life narrower still than the last ; 
 Till the clinging mist crawls over lichen and stone, 
 And we are wrapt in it, and stand all alone. 
 
 Let me toss to the wind every dream ; let me know 
 All that Nature full-blooded, full-handed, can show ; 
 Let me touch at all points the whole life that man 
 
 lives, 
 And taste with a relish all pleasure it gives, 
 Link the sweet notes of music with sweet words of 
 
 song, 
 Wreathe the arms in the dance, and go tripping along, 
 Kiss the peach-blossom cheek, rich with life's glowing 
 
 dyes, 
 And know the wild rapture of love-gleaming eyes, 
 Crown the cup with its flowers, purple lip with old 
 
 wine,
 
 38 TEMPTED. 
 
 And let young vigour rage — is not passion divine? 
 Ah ! we grow hydrocephalus, swelling the brain 
 At the cost of our manhood, till thinking is pain, 
 And the surfeited mind labours wearily through 
 A task which the healthful Greek lightly would do — 
 Lightly and laughing, for subtle and strong, 
 He lived at full pitch, and his life was a song. 
 
 Why, what demon is this, with the logic of Hell, 
 That pleads for the wild Beast within me so 
 
 well — 
 The Beast that was doomed to a Cross by the 
 
 Three 
 Awful names that are named in the great Mystery? 
 Down, down, thou foul fiend ! Hence to leprous 
 
 romance 
 Of the demi-monde poisonous mushrooms of France. 
 Better sin like a man, doing after his kind, 
 Than sit here cold-blooded, debauching the mind. —
 
 A US TEN L YELL. 3 g 
 
 Hark ! Ralph sings again, but he sings all alone, 
 And he wails now, poor fellow, the days that are 
 gone. 
 
 Song — The Hours. 
 
 Brown, gipsy hours with white teeth laughing gay 
 Came trooping by me, when a child at play, 
 And with their coaxing stole my life away 
 Where bird in bush was idling all the day. 
 
 Soft, roguish hours, that in the gloaming peep 
 At woodland nooks a dewy tryste to keep, 
 Stole my young life away, and in a heap 
 Of rose leaves, sweetly smelling, hid it deep. 
 
 Dark, robber hours, like burglars in the night 
 They broke into my house, by cunning sleight, 
 And bound me fast, as with a spell of might, 
 And reft my life away ere morning light.
 
 40 TEMPTED. 
 
 The idle bird is silent on the tree, 
 The rose leaves withered now and scentless be, 
 The spell is broken ; lo ! mine eyes can see — 
 O thievish hours that stole my life from me ! 
 
 Lost, lost ! and now the mists, low trailing, screen 
 The visioned glories that I once have seen, 
 And all the hours are grey and cold and mean- 
 Lost, lost my life — -and O the might have been ! 
 
 So the young soul to darkness is hopelessly wending — 
 
 And this is the dream that I dreamt, and its ending ! 
 
 But why was it ever dreamt? How could I spirt 
 
 The froth of that dead sea, or stir up its dirt ? 
 
 Ah ! we strike a few chords ere the music we play, 
 
 Preluding the strain, as if light fingers stray 
 
 Dreamily over the keys, till they find 
 
 The melody shape itself clear in the mind ; 
 
 So we dream, and from dreaming we glide into act,
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 41 
 
 And our life is the dream in a rhythm of hard fact. 
 And can this be the prelude to mine, like the moan 
 Of the sea as it laps the curved sand or the stone 
 In the moon -glimmered bay, while its far depths 
 
 are stirred 
 By the throes of the storm that is coming? I've 
 
 heard 
 That the knight, ere he buckled gilt-spur to his heel, 
 Or belted his thigh with the good sword of steel, 
 Laid his arms on the altar, helmet and shield, 
 Breastplate and banner, and watched there and 
 
 kneeled 
 All the long night on the pavement of stone, 
 All the long night in the darkness alone, 
 All the long night, while fiends in the air 
 Plied him with terrors, or strove to ensnare ; 
 But I, what a watch have I kept ! 
 
 Here suddenly he rose, and stood
 
 42 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 By the window in dreamy mood. 
 
 The snow had ceased to fall, and lay 
 
 White o'er all the level reach, 
 
 White to the sand-dunes and the beach 
 
 Where the tumbling breakers fell, 
 
 And what was snow, and what was spray, 
 
 It was hard for the eye to tell. 
 
 The broad, white moon was hurrying swift, 
 
 Trailing her pale skirts over the drift 
 
 Of the flying clouds ; and through a rift, 
 
 Here and there, in the distance far, 
 
 He caught the gleam of a throbbing star; 
 
 And away to the north was a band of light, 
 
 That wavered like the sheen of spears 
 
 Swaying about in some ghostly fight — 
 
 For all was ghostly in that wan night, 
 
 And the shadows passed like fears — 
 
 Wan the moon looked, and wan the cloud, 
 
 And wan the earth in its snowy shroud.
 
 A US TEN L YELL. 43 
 
 So, as he gazed, his eyes grew dim, 
 
 And moon and stars were hid from him 
 
 By some strange mist, and then the mist 
 
 Shaped itself into forms, I wist : 
 
 And he saw his old home, 'neath the wooded hill, 
 
 Between the bridge and the red-roofed mill, 
 
 And the village near it, sleepy and still. 
 
 O'er the high pine-tops the clouds were creeping, 
 
 And all the heavens were grey and cold; 
 
 And he was aware that Death was there, 
 
 For amid the hush was a sound of weeping, 
 
 And as it were muffled, the kirk bell tolled. 
 
 Was it the bell? — or only the boom 
 
 Of the waves that mixed with his dreamy thought? 
 
 Whose face was that in the darkened room? 
 
 The features changed in the shadowy gloom, 
 
 But the passionless calm, it changed not. 
 
 Sometimes, he thought it was his own ; 
 
 Sometimes, it had his mother's look;
 
 44 TEMPTED. 
 
 And his quivering lip gave a low, faint moan 
 
 At the pathos of its still rebuke. — 
 
 Had he broken her heart by the way he took? 
 
 But the vision that lingered most 
 
 Was the form of one he had loved and lost. 
 
 Brightest and gayest spirit He 
 
 ( )f all their College company, 
 
 With deftest Reason, keenest wit, 
 
 And glory of high poetic thought, 
 
 And laughter whose infection smit 
 
 Whether you caught the jest or not; 
 
 And the bearing frank, and the winning way. 
 
 That take you like a summer day 
 
 Blithely smiling upon your way. 
 
 And Austen gave him worship true, — 
 
 For youth will have its idol still, — 
 
 And he was older, a year or two, 
 
 And took the worship as his due, 
 
 But paid it back, with heart and will,
 
 AUSTEN LYELL. 45 
 
 In kindly help, and counsel sage, 
 
 And elder students' patronage. 
 
 So, day and night, they hardly parted. 
 
 They were so one and loving-hearted ; 
 
 They read together, walked together 
 
 In summer sun, or winter weather, 
 
 Their very thoughts were but one strain, 
 
 Played by two instruments in tune ; 
 
 Each gave the other's back again, 
 
 As in the gloamings late in June, 
 
 The throstle from the branching lime 
 
 That on the topmost twig is swinging 
 
 Echoes the throstle that keepeth time 
 
 From the topmost twig of the tall elm singing. 
 
 But then there came a cloud between them, 
 
 And they were not again seen as men had seen 
 
 them. 
 For he had made a quarrel, and gone 
 Drifting on his path alone,
 
 46 TEMPTED. 
 
 Followed by the yearning look 
 
 Of the friend he had forsaken, 
 
 Haunted by its pained rebuke, 
 
 And the thoughts it would awaken. 
 
 Thus he drifted on his way 
 
 Like a ship that from the bay 
 
 Melts into the night, and we, 
 
 Standing powerless on the shore, 
 
 Know not of its destiny, 
 
 Only see it nevermore. 
 
 But life was spent ere youth was gone, 
 
 Love had lavishly been wasted, 
 
 And flavourless the sweets he tasted 
 
 Ere he passed away, and none 
 
 Knew the way that he had gone. — 
 
 That was the face in the shadowy gloom 
 
 Which mostly haunted the darkened room ; 
 
 But the features changed with his changing thought, 
 
 Only the dead thing changed not.
 
 A US TEN L YELL . 4 7 
 
 Then Austen ; Can this be a dream I am dreaming ; 
 Yet I see the clouds drifting o'erhead, the moon 
 
 gleaming 
 On the cold hard blue of the sea, and the stars — 
 Lo ! yonder the Pleiades, yonder red Mars ; 
 But they seem to shine in through an oak-panelled 
 
 ceiling 
 Which is solid and real, with a weird, alien feeling, 
 As if they were the shadows, and it alone true. 
 And thou, my first friend, whom I loved, and I drew 
 My very soul's life from thee ; though we were parted 
 In sorrow and anger, half broken-hearted, 
 Yet I still kept thy place in my love, like the nest 
 ( )f the swallow, held sacred, and looked for its guest 
 To bring back the summer again ; can it be 
 I shall ne'er clasp thy hand again, nevermore see 
 The light of the old days together with thee ?— 
 ( )r was it the shadow of Fate that I saw 
 On my old mother's home, with a chill sense of awe?
 
 48 TEMPTED. 
 
 She is not what she was, and her letters have strange 
 Longings of late in them, hinting of change. 
 She used to be hard, though as true as the steel. 
 And is not one to utter the half she may feel ; 
 Now she'd fain have me with her, is weary alone 
 In the wild winter evenings ; and ere she is gone 
 There is so much to say; yet I must not let that. 
 Or the thought of her, hinder the work I am at. 
 That is not like her, somehow; its mild, mellow light 
 Is soft as the gloaming that fades into night; 
 Yet here have I been adding shadows of sin 
 To the shadow of death she is walking in ; 
 Help me, O God, that my life may yet prove 
 True to Thy thought, and the hope of her love.
 
 AUSTEN LYE LL. 
 
 49 
 
 From the old University town 
 
 Looking out on the cold north sea 
 
 He carried high honours down 
 
 To his home in the hill country: 
 
 And proud was the mother that bore him then, 
 
 Though little she said, for that was her way; 
 
 But all the village, and all the glen, 
 
 When they saw her, dressed in her meekest grey. 
 
 Walk to the kirk on Sunday, knew 
 
 That whether the sermon was old or new, 
 
 Whether the prayers were brief or long, 
 
 Or the psalms were all sung out of tune, 
 
 D
 
 50 TEMPTED. 
 
 Or the doctrine all unsound and wrong, 
 
 Or the service stayed till after noon, 
 
 This once at least, she would not hear 
 
 For the voices of triumph that filled her ear : 
 
 And bonnets, too, might be gay and bright, 
 
 And ribbons flash in the gleams of light, 
 
 And eyes might turn from the pulpit, too, 
 
 To gaze at the young laird's stately pew; 
 
 For once the sin would be forgot 
 
 Of garment gay and wandering thought; 
 
 And sooth to say, they blamed her not. 
 
 They liked the youth; and learning still 
 
 Is more esteemed among the folk 
 
 Who till the glebe, or watch the flock, 
 
 In lonely glen, -or silent hill, 
 
 Than wealth of gold; and also he 
 
 Was wont to mix Avith them pleasantly: 
 
 And it was as if honour had come on them all 
 
 When he stood up among them grave and tall,
 
 A USTEN L YELL . 5 1 
 
 At the smithy door, or the bowling green, 
 Hurling the quoit, or rolling the ball, 
 Foremost student the year had seen.
 
 &ook §tcmib. 
 
 STUNNED.
 
 $ox\mb (Glen. 
 
 A S you come over the hill, a little way down, the 
 
 road 
 Suddenly sweeps to the right, and lo ! a green valley 
 
 and broad ; 
 Through it a river runs swift, its water broken by rocks 
 And boulders, cleaving its way as by rapidest bounds 
 
 and shocks ; 
 Now with a clear rush on, and now recoiling again 
 To wheel round the barrier huge, it has hammered 
 
 for ages in vain,
 
 56 STUNNED. 
 
 Only dinting deep holes in its ribs, and chafing 
 itself into foam, 
 
 Then swirling away to the bank to bite at the softer 
 loam. 
 
 Yonder an old Peel tower, hid in clumps of the ivy green, 
 
 Perched on its crag like an eyrie, and there the 
 whole valley is seen ; 
 
 Not an approach South or North, East or West, but 
 the watchman's eye 
 
 Would catch the sheen of the spears, and the ban- 
 ners would well descry, 
 
 And sound the alarm in time for hoisting the draw- 
 bridge high. 
 
 Away to the right on its lawn, close-shaven by 
 mowing machines, 
 
 Stands the house which the great cotton-lord built 
 out of his bobbins and skeins: 
 
 Bran-new, all gables and turrets and chimneys, stack 
 upon stack,
 
 BORLAND GLEN. 
 
 57 
 
 Something top-heavy it looks, and bare too and 
 cold, but the lack 
 
 Of trees is made up by acres of glass for magnifi- 
 cent vineries, 
 
 Palm-houses, ferneries, cucumber beds, and great 
 melon-frames and the pineries. 
 
 Far at the end of the valley, open three narrow 
 
 glens, 
 Each with its own marked features, charactered 
 
 clear as men's, 
 Each with its own fair water finding its fitting way, 
 Rough o'er the rocky channel, or still by the 
 
 broomy brae. 
 That to the left is rugged ; one side, a bare bleak hill 
 With a cataract, rugged, of stones down-rushing as 
 
 if they would fill 
 The glen with grey desolation • and half way down 
 
 a thorn
 
 58 STUNNED. 
 
 Seems as it stayed the torrent, and was bent with 
 
 the weight and worn. 
 Only that thorn on the hillside grapples the stones 
 
 with its root, 
 Only some scraggy hazel bushes straggle about its foot, 
 Only the curlew wails there, and the grouse-cock 
 
 crows at morn: 
 Only the goat and the coney poise on those stony 
 
 heaps, 
 Only the parsley fern along their barren spaces 
 
 creeps. 
 And far below in the hollow the stream goes plung- 
 ing on 
 From the rocky steep to the rocky pool, and the 
 
 rumbling boulder stone. 
 The middle glen is wooded ; there the ancient lords 
 
 of the land, 
 Leaving their high-pitched eyrie, built a stately house 
 
 and grand
 
 BORLAND GLEN 
 
 59 
 
 Right under the Murrough-crag, pine-clad up to the 
 
 top, 
 And they belted the woods all round them, and 
 
 bade the highways stop, 
 And they made them a goodly forest, stocked with 
 
 the wild red deer, 
 And they drew the stream into fishponds, and swept 
 
 with their nets the mere. 
 The wild deer bound in the woodlands now, but 
 
 there is none to care, 
 And the trout are fat in the fishponds, and the 
 
 water-lily is fair, 
 Stately and grand the house is still, and the ter- 
 raced gardens fine, 
 But the young lord comes not ever— he is drinking 
 
 the beaded wine, 
 Or pigeon-shooting by Thames, or marking the red 
 
 by the Rhine. 
 Fair is the glen to the right, in its pastoral beauty still,
 
 60 STUNNED. 
 
 Green in its holms and hollows, green to the top 
 
 of each hill ; 
 A line of alder and drooping birch marks where its 
 
 river flows, 
 But in its bare upper reaches only the juniper 
 
 grows : 
 The stream comes out of a tarn on the hill, whose 
 
 oozy edge 
 Is fringed Avith a ring of lilies and an outer ring of 
 
 sedge ; 
 And there is no road beyond that, only a mountain 
 
 high, 
 And a cairn of stones where the withered bones of 
 
 The Three brave brothers lie. 
 
 Now, at the mouth of that green glen, hid in a 
 
 bosk of trees, 
 The oak and the beech and the chestnut, and lime 
 
 honeyed haunt of the bees,
 
 BORLAND GLEN. 61 
 
 And the yew and the ash, and many a shrub, blos- 
 
 somy, fragrant, green, 
 Nestled a quaint old mansion ; bit by bit, it had been 
 Built now and then, as they could, yet it rambled 
 
 somehow into shape, 
 Picturesque, here a low gable rising step upon 
 
 step, 
 There a long corridor broken with quaint dormer 
 
 windows, and then 
 An old square tower of rough rubble, built for the 
 
 rough fighting men ; 
 But the front is all draped now with creepers, with 
 
 scarlet and golden flower, 
 Till it looks in its summer beauty like some fairy- 
 haunted bower, 
 Hid in its bosk of trees, under the shade of the 
 
 hill 
 Where the river sweeps clear from the bridge down 
 
 to the red-roofed mill.
 
 62 STUNNED. 
 
 Austen sat there with his mother, alone at the close 
 
 of day, 
 Sat with a visage perplexed, while she looked hard 
 
 and grey, 
 With furrows drawn deep on her forehead, and 
 
 temples fallen away 
 Into blue-veined pits, and you plainly saw the 
 
 shadow of death on her face, 
 But she sat erect in her chair, high-backed, and 
 
 sternly held her place, 
 As if she would say, While there's breath in me, 
 
 lo ! in weakness I will shew 
 Weakness to no one, but keep at arm's length the 
 
 terrible foe ; 
 So, with a Bible before her, and a spinning wheel 
 
 at her side, 
 Hardly and sharply she spoke, and he, with bated 
 
 breath, replied.
 
 IJorhuvb's (idiboto. 
 
 I am your mother, and Scripture saith 
 
 Thou shalt honour me until death ; 
 
 Yea, not even death shall set you free 
 
 From the honour and duty owing to me ; 
 
 For what I have willed, and signed, and sealed, 
 
 Ere I go to the other world, worse or better, 
 
 Though it wound with a wound that shall never 
 
 be healed, 
 Thou shalt carry it out to the uttermost letter.
 
 64 STUNNED. 
 
 Now, wilt thou promise me this, or no ; 
 And get my blessing before I go? 
 
 Yes, there is something upon my mind, 
 
 111 to keep there, and worse to tell ; 
 
 Yet it's borne upon me that I must find 
 
 A way to utter it, ill or well, 
 
 To you of all men, and only you. 
 
 Sooner than speak I would die the death, 
 
 But death will not come to me till I do ; 
 
 And O I am weary of life and breath. 
 
 Yet my lips shall be sealed, as death can seal them. 
 
 And the Devil may shuffle the cards, and deal them 
 
 To all of you, as he did to me, 
 
 If you will not swear to me faithfully, 
 
 Over the Book here, to do my will, 
 
 Whether you reckon it good or ill. 
 
 Oh ! you will do all that a son may do,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 65 
 
 In honour and right, for his mother's name ! 
 Fine words ! But " honour and right " from you ! 
 As if your old mother would set you to 
 Work of dishonour and deed of shame ! — 
 But perhaps you have reason — who can say? 
 Maybe I taught you to lie and to cheat, 
 And drink and steal, as well as pray : 
 A rogue is but half a rogue, incomplete 
 Till he burst out a full-blossomed hypocrite ; 
 So I brought you up in the good old way, 
 But to fit you the better for deeds of dishonour 
 Your wicked old mother had taken upon her ! — 
 Nay, none of your fondling and kissing and weeping ; 
 That's not in my way ; I'd as lief you were heaping 
 "Your fine-scholar words into fine tricks of speech — 
 Though they bite in the quick, and stick fast as a 
 
 leech. 
 I am your mother, and loved you well, 
 But I never could babble and prattle, or jingle 
 
 E
 
 66 STUNNED. 
 
 Nonsense-rhymes like a fool with a cap and ,bell, 
 
 Or an idiot bird in the dewy dingle 
 
 Squirming away to the gaping forms 
 
 That care for nothing but slugs and worms. 
 
 Baby or boy, it was not from me 
 
 That you learned to be mawkish and womanly. 
 
 Cautious and scrupulous ! — You have no doubt 
 You can do what I wish, but you just wish to 
 
 know it ! — 
 Go, leave me alone ; I can die here without 
 A love that has nothing but fine words to shew it. 
 Ay, ay ; you'll do well for yourself in the end, 
 Ne'er to sign a blank cheque for lover or friend, 
 Treat the dearest on earth as a possible rogue, 
 Trust none but yourself— it's the wisdom in vogue, 
 The counting-house wisdom, proper for those 
 Of the clerk and the shopkeeper kind, I suppose. 
 And yet I've heard say, by wise men in my day,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 67 
 
 That none are outwitted so easy as they 
 
 Who reckon with all men as if they suspect them, 
 
 And traffic in caution, and watch to detect them. 
 
 But no doubt, you're wise ; far wiser than I ; 
 
 Go your way, then, and leave your old mother to lie 
 
 In the death-grips of nature, and wrestle it out, 
 
 With a weight on her heart and a fire in her 
 
 brain, 
 In death as in life, alone with her pain, 
 Alone with the devils within and without. 
 
 A minister ! Tush, they are feckless gear — 
 All of the kind now I see or hear. 
 I have been kirk-going all my life, 
 As maiden and mother, as widow and wife : 
 It was the thing that we had to do, 
 Ever as Sabbath or Fast came due, 
 Girl and boy, young man and maiden, 
 Burning with passion, or sorrow-laden;
 
 68 STUNNED. 
 
 Though why we did it I never knew, 
 
 Only that others did it too. 
 
 For they mostly are dumb dogs, turning round, 
 
 And scratching their hole in the warmest ground, 
 
 And laying them down in the sun to wink, 
 
 Drowsing, and dreaming, and thinking they think, 
 
 As they mumble the marrowless bones of morals, 
 
 Like toothless children gnawing their corals, 
 
 Gnawing their corals to soothe their gums 
 
 With a kind of watery thought that comes. — 
 
 Bonnie-like guides with their whitty-wha. 
 
 All about loving, and nothing of law ; 
 
 All about Gospel, and nothing of hell, 
 
 All tinkle-tinkling like a bell, 
 
 And telling you ever that all is well. 
 
 J heard their sough; but all the time 
 
 I would con the words of some Hebrew prophet. 
 
 That crashed on the soul with an awful chime, 
 
 Like charges of guilt and sin and crime,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 69 
 
 And burnt them in with the fires of Tophet. 
 
 Ah ! these were men : but your minister, 
 
 Nowadays, is a weak kind of milliner : 
 
 Shaven and smooth, the creature stands 
 
 With soft white hands, and long lawn bands, 
 
 His weak chest panting a plaintive whine, 
 
 As he turns into water the sacred wine 
 
 Given by the prophets strong and divine. 
 
 That's the one miracle he can do, 
 
 Turning the wine into water true. 
 
 Leave the minister, then, to his Sunday's sermon : 
 
 We have matters of earnest to determine. 
 
 So you promise me now to do my will, 
 Whither you reckon it good or ill. 
 There, let me see how best to begin 
 The old, old story of trial and sin. 
 
 Look from the window, boy, and see
 
 7 o STUNNED. 
 
 The bonnie green braes of Borland glen ; 
 
 Cornland and woodland and lily-white lea, 
 
 Up to the skyline, hill and tree, 
 
 All will be yours to the waterhead 
 
 Where it flows from the bosom of big Knochben, 
 
 And the Kelpie's pool lies dark and dead 
 
 Under the great rocks, towering red, 
 
 And only the ripple of water-hen 
 
 Stirs its surface, now and then, 
 
 As she oars her way from the outer edge 
 
 Through the bending ring of spotted sedge, 
 
 And the ring of water-lilies, within, 
 
 That fringes with beauty the dark pool of sin. 
 
 O but Borland Glen is dear to me ; 
 
 It cost me dear ; but it is not that : 
 
 Nor yet for its wealth do I love to see 
 
 Its soft round hills, or its meadows flat ; 
 
 But summer and winter I've been there, 
 
 Till it filled my heart, and unaware
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 
 
 Its beauty stole away my care. 
 
 There are green oak woods on Briery-brae, 
 
 And sleek are the kine on Fernielea, 
 
 Blithe are the holms of Avongray, 
 
 And the sheep walks good on Ard-na-shee, 
 
 And wild thyme blooms, and pansies grow 
 
 On many a knoll where harebells blow; 
 
 And I sat, and dreamed there long ago. 
 
 And yet this day I cannot see 
 
 Green oak-scrub, or milk-white lea, 
 
 Or the drooping birch, or the red pine-tree, 
 
 Cows knee-deep in the aftermath, 
 
 Or lines of sheep on the mountain path, 
 
 Nothing of all I cared for then — 
 
 Nought save the frightened water-hen 
 
 Rippling the pool beyond the edge 
 
 Of water-lily and spotted sedge. 
 
 But all the long, green glen is mine, 
 
 And I'll pay the price that it may be thine :
 
 72 STUNNED. 
 
 I counted the cost when I had it to do, 
 And I will not shrink when the bill is due. 
 
 You were a baby when I came here, 
 
 And I was a widow of half a year, 
 
 Poorly left when your father died : 
 
 But I was not one to sit down and pine, 
 
 And wring my useless hands and whine, 
 
 While work might be done, and the world was 
 
 wide. 
 So I came to keep house for the laird, for all 
 Was going to wreck here in Borland Hall ; 
 And he was a far-off cousin ; I trow 
 He counted kin with my mother somehow. 
 
 He was a widower, and he had 
 Only a girl to heir the land ; 
 Never before had they failed of a lad 
 To follow his father, good or bad,
 
 BORLAXD'S WIDOW. 73 
 
 And take the reins from his failing hand. 
 
 And it irked the laird, though he loved her dearly — 
 
 As well he might, his bonnie May, 
 
 For meet her late, or meet her early, 
 
 Ever she met you blithe and gay ; 
 
 Ever so dainty, white and saintly, 
 
 Scented ever with perfume faintly, 
 
 Flitting like butterfly over the green 
 
 In clouds of muslin soft and clean, 
 
 With a flower in her hair, and a song on her lips, 
 
 Thrilling with joy to her finger-tips : 
 
 Yet fondly as he loved the maiden 
 
 Tripping about in the garden trim, 
 
 Like a gleam of light, with her figure slim, 
 
 Now and then he was heavy laden 
 
 That Borlands of Borland should end with him. 
 
 I liked her not from the first, for she 
 Came ever between me and a thought
 
 74 STUNNED. 
 
 Growing up in my heart, and warming me 
 
 With a hope that gladdened my widowed lot : 
 
 But soft and silly, she knew it not, 
 
 And vowed she should be broken-hearted, 
 
 To be like me from my baby parted. 
 
 I liked her not, but I will not lie, 
 
 It was partly because she was better than I, 
 
 For I was not good, and I did not try. 
 
 There are people whose blood is honey and milk, 
 
 And people whose veins are filled with gall ; 
 
 As some are born to the gold and silk, 
 
 And some must be beggars, and go to the wall ; 
 
 There's a higher than we that orders all. 
 
 She was gentle and good, and I was not ; 
 
 But I had the wit and the keener thought. 
 
 So all the while I hated her : 
 
 She stood between me and the thought 
 
 That silently in my bosom wrought,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 75 
 
 Like the leaven that makes so little stir, 
 
 Yet changes every grain of the meal; 
 
 I knew it was there, but did not dare 
 
 To bring it forth to the open air, 
 
 And face the thought which I liked to feel : 
 
 Till one day — I can ne'er forget — 
 
 She bent across the Kelpie's pool, 
 
 To seize a water-lily wet, 
 
 That shewed its egg-cup, yellow and full, 
 
 Just outside the fringe of sedge, 
 
 As the water-hen oared from the muddy edge ; 
 
 When plunge into the loch she fell, 
 
 And I felt my heart leap with the hope of Hell. 
 
 At first, she laughed, then screamed, I ween, 
 
 As deep she sunk in the muddy slush ; 
 
 A little more, and there had been 
 
 But a bubble of air, and an awful hush, 
 
 And the whish of the sedges in the wind, 
 
 And the laughter that rippled my heart and mind. —
 
 76 STUNNED. 
 
 Nay, stare not so with horror; I 
 
 Wished it, but did not let her die; 
 
 I was not wicked enough for that, 
 
 Though I felt my heart go pit-a-pat, 
 
 And it was not with sorrow or fear or pain ; 
 
 But I knew the thing that was in me then. 
 
 It was not of myself I thought, 
 
 It was not for myself I wrought, 
 
 It was not self that prompted me, 
 
 It was the love I bore to thee : 
 
 I only sinned, if sin was done, 
 
 But O I sinned for thee alone :— 
 
 And yet you look on your mother's face 
 
 With a horror-stricken and ghastly stare ! 
 
 I tell you I was not near the place 
 
 When her stifled scream rose in the air : 
 
 But I ran, and drew the silly fool, 
 
 Draggled and dazed, from the Kelpie's pool.
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 77 
 
 That night he vowed that he would make 
 A home for you in Borland Hall, 
 And love you for your mother's sake. 
 Only next to her who was heir of all ; 
 And what less could they do or say 
 To her who had saved the bonnie May? 
 
 Thus it was that you came here. 
 
 And then my way of life was clear. 
 
 I saw you playing among the flowers, 
 
 I heard your laugh in the ringing woods, 
 
 O'er the tiny nests, and their tiny broods, 
 
 And I sware that the land should all be ours. 
 
 You were but a child, not two years old. 
 
 But your looks were sunny, your ways were bold. 
 
 And the Laird was fond of you. Had she been 
 
 A baby like you ! — for a moment I thought of it. 
 
 Till I plainly saw that I could make nought of it— 
 
 You might have married the pretty May-queen ;
 
 78 STUNNED. 
 
 But she made a doll of you, petted and kissed you, 
 Told you stories, and deared you, and dressed you, 
 Called you her wee pet darling, and won 
 Your love so, she turned my heart into stone ; 
 For I — I was selling my soul for you ; 
 And there was she, coming between us two. 
 I was not a young mother, and had but you. 
 And she, with the wealth of her youth, would steal 
 The only joy that my heart could feel ! 
 
 Coming about the house just then 
 Was one of your fine-feathered, gay young men, 
 Curled and scented, ringed and gloved, 
 Selfish and useless, and feeble of will, 
 With nothing to do but his time to kill, 
 Take care of himself, and be tenderly loved, 
 Quote the old Poets, and sing the new songs, 
 And talk about younger sons and their wrongs 
 In the evil days he had fallen upon,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 79 
 
 When they had to compete with the grocer's son- 
 One of the sort that Fathers hate, 
 But girls will fancy to be their Fate. 
 Idly he loitered, shooting and fishing, 
 And mending the world in the evening with wishing ; 
 Idle and listless. What could I do? 
 Was it my affair how he came and went? 
 I could not be keeping her always in view ; 
 And I did tell the laird, and I warned her too, 
 But she only looked injured innocent. 
 So he came and went, though her father forbade, 
 And I saw her sicken of love to the lad, 
 Sicken of love, and saunter away 
 Through the woodland paths in the evening gray, 
 Looking so listless till the hour, 
 Looking so fevered when it came ; 
 And I just stood by my drooping flower 
 Quietly seeing her play my game ; 
 And who shall say that I was to blame?
 
 So STUNNED. 
 
 The laird did not blame me, with all his wrath,— 
 
 And terrible was the storm which broke 
 
 That morning when the household woke, 
 
 And the little bird was not found in her nest, 
 
 Nor flitting about the garden path, 
 
 Nor came evermore to be caressed, 
 
 Or to fasten the dewy flower in his breast. 
 
 And he never looked on his bonnie May 
 
 After she wedded her popinjay. 
 
 The laird was a fool — He was sharp with his wit, 
 Critical, clever, but still a fool. 
 With scheme after scheme he was fever-smit, 
 And somebody always made him a tool ; 
 But when he was most in his logic-fit, 
 Then most of all would he play the fool. 
 Now, he would lay you out plans sagacious, 
 Of planting, draining, and strange manures ; 
 Brimful now of reforms audacious,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 81 
 
 O but he had new-fangled cures, 
 
 Would have poisoned the sweet-breathed cows in 
 
 the byre, 
 
 Only we flung the rank trash in the fire — 
 
 Every one knew the laird and his way, 
 
 And quietly heard what he had to say, 
 
 But none for a moment thought to obey. 
 
 He was never so happy as when he had 
 
 Poets and painters, good or bad, 
 
 Actors and fiddlers and editor folk, 
 
 Fishing the water from bank and rock, 
 
 And gathered at evening round his table, 
 
 Testing and drinking, as each was able, 
 
 And story-telling with laughter long, 
 
 Till the early cock from the roost would crow, 
 
 And the laverock lilted his morning song, 
 
 And it was time for the maids to go 
 
 Away to the kine on the meadows low. 
 
 ( ) but there was no care or thrift, 
 
 F
 
 82 STUNNED. 
 
 Only how to spend, and how to shift, 
 How to borrow, and how to lend ; 
 And nobody looked to the bitter end. 
 
 There would be botanists now to dine, 
 
 Dry as their withered leaves and flowers ! 
 
 We did not stint their meat and wine, 
 
 We did not grudge the weary hours, 
 
 Pottering along the glens and brooks 
 
 With microscopes, or fishing-hooks ; 
 
 But when they spoke of shrubs and trees 
 
 In other lands beyond the seas, 
 
 Nothing would do but the laird must send, 
 
 And bring them here from the far world's end, 
 
 Though where to plant them nobody knew, 
 
 And they rotted away in the sun and dew. 
 
 And prints and pictures must be bought, 
 
 Wherever the money was to be got, 
 
 When he had artist visitors,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 83 
 
 Though they covered the walls, and stood on the floors. 
 
 And crowded out in the corridors : — 
 
 Dusty rubbish that cost a ransom. 
 
 And our rhymers and fiddlers and actors gay 
 
 Were always borrowing something handsome, 
 
 And always forgetting the time to pay. 
 
 But the laird must be patron of all the arts 
 
 When he should have been seeing to ploughs and 
 
 carts ; 
 And food and drink were never spared, 
 The factor's books were never squared ; 
 And groom in the stable, woodland ranger, 
 Scullion wench, and lass in the byre, 
 All were living at hack and manger, 
 With hardly a peat for the parlour fire : 
 And had I not taken his gear in hand, 
 The laird would have lost every acre of land. 
 
 So I looked into this, and saw to that,
 
 84 STUNNED. 
 
 And had my eye upon everything : 
 
 There was not a tinker, or beggar's brat 
 
 Got handful of meal from the kitchen bing, 
 
 Nor a toothless tyke, or a useless cat 
 
 Was left to lie on a rug or mat, 
 
 Doing nought for its meat and drink, 
 
 But only to lie in the sun and wink. 
 
 I taught the household, man and maid, 
 
 To waste not a crumb of their masters bread, 
 
 To waste not an hour of their master's day, 
 
 Gadding about as it was their way ; 
 
 But to rise with the sun the whole year round, 
 
 And to work with the sun in house or ground : 
 
 God was working, and so must we, 
 
 They could rest on the Sabbath as well as He 
 
 They must do their duty to man and beast, 
 
 Ere they get food or wage off me ; 
 
 And I would not see their master fleeced. 
 
 And brought by their waste to poverty.—
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. S5 
 
 We had many sharp words ; but sharper still 
 The ways that I took to have my will. 
 
 He was angry, of course, when they complained : — 
 
 I counted on that — he was grieved and pained ; 
 
 For Borland Hall had always been 
 
 Noted well for its kindly ways 
 
 To beast and body, and all who had seen, 
 
 Feckless creatures ! the best of their days ; 
 
 And from mother to daughter, as each had grown. 
 
 Service there had been handed down. 
 
 I only said, " We must begin 
 
 To save the money we cannot win : 
 
 And all had been waste, and spendthrift all, 
 
 In stable and bothie, in byre and hall ; 
 
 But service should be service true, 
 
 If I had anything there to do. 
 
 Fitter it were his father's son 
 
 Should clip and pare at the other end
 
 86 STUNNED. 
 
 Where the waste was most, and the ruin done ; 
 
 But they were neither kith nor friend, 
 
 That saw, and did nothing to make or mend, 
 
 Was there not a bond on Brierybrae? 
 
 And a wadset heavy on Fernielea? 
 
 And what would he do when his hairs were grey. 
 
 And the fiddlers had fiddled his land away? 
 
 And it was breaking my heart to see 
 
 The wanton waste upon every hand 
 
 That was robbing him both of house and land." 
 
 Thus it was that, day by day, 
 And bit by bit, I got my way. 
 I scraped and pinched, but I saw to it 
 That the laird was served with all things fit. 
 All in their season, good and plenty : — 
 He was just the man to be nice and dainty. 
 And I gathered moneys, here and there, 
 To meet his bills when they came due :
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 87 
 
 He had careless grown from very care ; 
 
 To be able to pay was something new, 
 
 And resting on me, scarce aware, 
 
 He had more of ease than he ever knew. 
 
 That made him think ; so he brought to me 
 
 Papers to find what his debts might be ; 
 
 He had tried to make out, but he tried in vain ; 
 
 They bothered his head till it ached with pain. 
 
 That was just what I wished ; so I summed up his 
 
 debts, 
 And sorted his papers, bills and bets ; 
 And I made him give heed to the plans I laid — 
 At least he agreed to all I said, 
 And learnt to lean on me, and leant. 
 We thinned the woods, and raised the rent — 
 The land was good, and underlet — 
 And the running bills, with their heavy per cent, 
 And all the careless rust of debt
 
 88 STUNNED. 
 
 We began, at once, to be clearing off, 
 
 Learning never to mind the scoff 
 
 Of fools that trust in a chance to-morrow ; 
 
 Learning the worth of honest thrift, 
 
 And the shabbiness of the debtors shift. 
 
 So happily now the days went by : 
 
 Our geniuses were not so many, 
 
 But happier we for the want of any : — 
 
 Always hungry, and always dry, 
 
 Always hankering for the penny, 
 
 Always forgetting the time to pay ; 
 
 I found the means to keep them away. 
 
 We were not patrons now of art, 
 
 We heard not many sayings smart : 
 
 We got not dedications fine, 
 
 Nor long accounts for costly wine : 
 
 We were not the great man we had been ; 
 
 We saw not the grand days we had seen ; 
 
 But plack and penny we paid our way,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 89 
 
 And were not afraid of the reckoning day. 
 
 He leant on me, and took to you ; 
 But he came in the end to stint and pare 
 Now that he had not a child to heir 
 The hoarded wealth, as it daily grew ; 
 And I think I scorned him for his greed 
 Even more than for his wastefulness : 
 It was myself that had sown the seed, 
 And yet I scorned him none the less ; 
 He was less of the gallant gentleman, 
 Since all his thoughts upon money ran. 
 He grudged my wage, he grudged to you 
 The schooling meet and the clothing due, 
 And I think it was only in hope to save, 
 And keep together his goods and gear, 
 That he wedded me, when he saw his grave 
 And the end of all things drawing near. 
 But wedded we were, and then he sent,
 
 90 STUNNED. 
 
 And signed and sealed with the Notary, 
 
 And over all the land he went — 
 
 The land he had orderly willed to me, 
 
 To hold and keep, sell or dispone, 
 
 Ploughland and pasture, hill and wood, 
 
 Fishing and messuage, every rood, 
 
 All the rights, as they had been his own, 
 
 And his fathers before him, ages gone, 
 
 From the big Nine-stanes to the Kelpie's pool, 
 
 And along the hills to the skyline clear, 
 
 The good corn lands by the kirk and school, 
 
 And the sunny haughs for kine and steer, 
 
 The bonnie green woods of Briery-brae, 
 
 And the long sheep walks, and the peat moss 
 
 blae. 
 It is all set down in a clerkly hand, 
 And he writ me heir of all the land. 
 He was sane in mind and body as you, 
 And he went to kirk and market too.
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 9 i 
 
 Boy, look not on me so glum and cold : 
 
 I did nothing was wrong ; or if I did 
 
 It was all for you, that you might hold 
 
 Your own with the bravest, and none forbid. 
 
 And so you shall too, whatever they say 
 
 Of me, — it's little I care for them ; 
 
 For if I have sinned, I am ready to pay 
 
 The stake that I lost when I played my game. 
 
 But I did nothing wrong, I did my duty ; 
 
 And the girl was vain in her wilful beauty; 
 
 And he would never have named me heir, 
 
 If the thing that I did had not been fair. 
 
 And your right, at least, has never a flaw; 
 
 It is sound in morals, and clear in law : 
 
 My soul may suffer — that's my concern ; 
 
 It can hardly be worse than it has been of late, 
 
 It can hardly be worse though it frizzle and burn 
 
 In the quenchless fires of the sinner's fate. 
 
 But with me and my guilt, you have nothing to do ;
 
 92 STUNNED. 
 
 And you've pledged me your word, if they plea it 
 
 with you — 
 She and her popinjay husband are dead, 
 But there were children, people said, 
 And it's not to be doubted they'll try the law, 
 And search the will for a loop or flaw — 
 But you'll grip to the land, and be laird of all 
 The bonnie green glen, and Borland Hall. 
 
 What say you ? what ?— You cannot do it ! 
 
 You take back your word that you gave ere you 
 
 knew it ! 
 You palter with faith, and play with an oath, 
 Hard on your mother, and false to your troth ! 
 You have scruples, forsooth, to do my will, 
 But never a scruple to break your word, 
 Never a scruple, although you kill 
 The mother that bore you, and loved you still 
 Better, woe's me ! than she loved her Lord !
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 93 
 
 Can it be I have sold my soul for nought. 
 Counting the cost, and ready to pay? 
 Shall I fail in the thing so dearly bought? 
 And you — will you be the one to say, 
 " She gambled away her soul for me ; 
 And only the Devil shall profit by it?'' 
 Hark ! how the wind is howling ! see 
 The storm is out in its maddest riot : 
 How the great trees moan and creak, and toss 
 Their big arms, hairy and rough with moss, 
 And shake to their roots with the sudden shocks ! 
 Terrible to the cowering flocks. 
 I knew they would come, and let them come : 
 1 never had faith in the dainty hum 
 ( )f new-fangled doctrine buzzed about, 
 As if Hell and the Devil were all a doubt. 
 Hut let them come ; I am well content 
 Eternal justice should be done, 
 And the guilty reap their punishment,
 
 94 STUNNED. 
 
 And the Lord be true, and He alone. 
 
 But I have your oath, and I hold you to it, 
 
 And earth or heaven may not undo it, 
 
 Your oath on the book, and you'll keep it truly. 
 
 And grip to the land I have willed you duly. 
 
 If her bairns are poor, there is money in hand, 
 
 Quite as much as the worth of the land 
 
 When I took the charge of it ; — give them that : 
 
 1 have not squandered goods or gear. 
 
 Nor wasted any gift 1 gat 
 
 On belly or back, this many a year; 
 
 But seeing the break-neck laird of Rhynns 
 
 Racing as fast as horse and bet 
 
 Could run him into the black Gazette, 
 
 I thought we might add his scrubs and whins, 
 
 Some day yet, to our bonnie glen — 
 
 They're better sport for gentlemen.— 
 
 But give them the gold, if they make a rout; 
 
 Maybe it were a good turn to me,
 
 BORLAND'S WIDOW. 95 
 
 h~ you helped them a bit in their poverty, — 
 But that's little better than papistry. — 
 ( )nly grip to the land, and plea it out ; 
 It is yours by right, there is never a doubt. 
 
 Scarce were the words from her mouth, when, lo ! 
 the hand with its puckered skin 
 
 Powerless fell at her side, her side that was all 
 drawn in 
 
 By a sudden stroke, and her eyes were hard and 
 set, and she tried 
 
 Vainly to say something more. Wildly he pled with 
 her, cried 
 
 For pity to the great Heavens, but she nor they 
 replied ; 
 
 And so it went on through the night, until at cock- 
 crowing she died.
 
 #ook ^hirb. 
 
 BROKEN.
 
 Wxz Jruncrat. 
 
 A LL the day long, and the next night he sat, 
 With the dread Presence, in that chamber dim, 
 And neither stirred, nor uttered any word, 
 Xor ate nor drank; and much they grieved thereat; 
 And greatly wondered, greatly pitying him : 
 
 Nor spake, nor stirred, nor gave one sign of life, 
 Or knowledge of the life that still went on, 
 Like one a-dream, or like a frozen stream 
 With the ice-grip upon its fret and strife 
 So fixed was he, and changed as into stone.
 
 ioo BROKEN. 
 
 Stony his face, his feelings stony too, 
 
 Stony and icy was the hard, set eye, 
 
 And stony felt the heart that would not melt. 
 
 And all his weary world a desert grew, 
 
 A wilderness of stones, where dead men lie. 
 
 Hushed were the household, as they came and went 
 A-tiptoe through dim lobby, and dusky room, 
 And whispered low of that heart-breaking woe 
 Which lined the young face as it sternly leant 
 On the clenched hand, and never changed its gloom. 
 
 They brought him dainties which he never saw, 
 
 The choicest of the vintage, old and rare ; 
 
 They culled fresh flowers he loved in happier hours, 
 
 And laid them near him with a silent awe, 
 
 But they all knew he knew not they were there.
 
 THE FUNERAL. 101 
 
 Two days he sat with that awed Silence dread, 
 
 Death's silence, deeper than to be alone, 
 
 And you could hear hearts beat for very fear, 
 
 Noting the corded hand, and fixed head 
 
 Which stared at that white Form with eyes of stone. 
 
 For as they went in pairs, and passed his door, 
 The charm of terror made them pause, and look, 
 And by the sight rouse to more utter fright 
 Their beating hearts that trembled so, before, 
 Reading alone some weird and ghostly book. 
 
 Eerie and lone, the east wind moaning low 
 Billowed the carpets high on lobby and stair, 
 The timid mouse went pattering through the house, 
 And from the roof a spider dropped below, 
 Knotting its thread to his unmoving hair.
 
 tor BROKEA\ 
 
 The dog howled from his kennel, and his chain 
 Harsh grated, as the owl screeched from the barn, 
 A phantom fear seemed ever creeping near, 
 And in the wood the wild cat yelled amain, 
 Or boomed the bittern from the lonely tarn. 
 
 He heeded not, for nought outside he knew, 
 Swept by the rush and whirl of maddening thought, 
 And deaf and blind, with agony of mind, 
 At that dark tale which ever darker grew, 
 And all his soul to desolation brought. 
 
 For she had been his bulwark 'gainst the sea 
 
 Of doubts that lashed, and vexed his unquiet spirit; 
 
 His forest-land that kept the desert-band 
 
 And drifting sand-storms from the fields which he 
 
 Cultured and kept that God might them inherit.
 
 THE FUNERAL. 103 
 
 Him she had straitly trained in ways of truth 
 And righteousness and piety and awe, 
 Nor spared the rod to drive him unto God, 
 But with a ruthless method taught him ruth, 
 And schooled him in the Gospel by stern law. 
 
 Yet for that all she taught was surely good, 
 
 And for that she exalted God supreme 
 
 In all she did, and all that she forbid, 
 
 And for that love wrought in her hardest mood, 
 
 To him she had been type of worth extreme. 
 
 Now, Heaven and all the gods rushed madly down. 
 Like Dagon's house when its main pillar fell : 
 And truth and right, and all things clean and white, 
 Angel and saint, and the Eternal crown, 
 All, all were lost in thickest mist of Hell.
 
 io4 
 
 BROKEN. 
 
 Gone the fond vision of his trustful youth, 
 Gone all the awe of natural reverence, 
 Gone the pure love that seemed of heaven above, 
 Gone all the certainty of worth and truth — 
 The Hell-mist clouded every higher sense. 
 
 Could that be true which she, in falsehood, taught ? 
 Could that be good, which, being ill, she praised? 
 And O the pain, the ache of heart and brain ! 
 To think that mother could be base and naught, 
 On whom as God's stern witness he had gazed. 
 
 For still our common Heaven is seldom reared 
 On solid arch of reason, firmly built, 
 But the high Faith that has to vanquish death 
 Rests on the lap where first we prayed, and feared, 
 And wondered in the dawn of thought and guilt.
 
 THE FUNERAL. 
 
 io 5 
 
 Still lies its weight on mother-love and truth ; 
 And O the sorrow if her truth should fail ! 
 Still its strong bands are fatherly commands ; 
 And O the weakness when they break ! and youth 
 Finds its Heaven dark, and hears the night -winds wail ! 
 
 On the third day, he went out on the hill, 
 And wandered restless, yet unwearying; 
 Then sat him down, and with a rigid frown 
 Gazed steadfast on the yellow tormentil, 
 And little milk-wort peeping through the ling, 
 
 Yet saw them not, though ever afterward, 
 
 When black clouds came and memory of those days, 
 
 The bare green hill, and yellow tormentil, 
 
 And the blue milk-wort on the mossy sward 
 
 Rose like pale stars amid the wildering haze
 
 106 BROKEN. 
 
 Long there he sat, as one by some fell blow 
 Stunned, which had loosened every joint and band, 
 And cast into amazement strange and new 
 All ordered thought, so that he did not know 
 The marks and bearings now of sea or land. 
 
 But coming from the breezy mountain top, 
 They saw a change, and yet with pain they saw : 
 For lightsome now, the cloud swept from his brow, 
 Jest fierce and bitter from his lips would drop, 
 And reckless laugh that made them creep with awe. 
 
 Far stranger than the silence and the gloom 
 Seemed now the order sharp, and word precise, 
 And the hard reason that sounded out of season, 
 And satire grim that mocked the very tomb, 
 And clear, cool sense prompt with its fit advice.
 
 THE FIXER A L. 
 
 107 
 
 Seemed never madness like that perfect sense, 
 Seemed never raving like that reason clear, 
 So out of place, so without touch of grace; 
 
 Even dull, dim souls that were of judgment dense 
 Drew off, estranged, and shivering, and with fear ; 
 
 Which made him harder than he was before, 
 
 And tipped his mocking speech with sharper scorn. 
 
 Till they were all met for the funeral, 
 
 When the mad impulse taunted them, and tore 
 
 Away the mask from every face forlorn. 
 
 For all the sweet dews of his youth had been 
 Turned as to nipping hoar-frost, for a time, 
 With crystal spike, and angles of dislike, 
 Which sharply pricked them as with needles keen, 
 But chilled his own heart with their bitter rime.
 
 108 BROKEN. 
 
 This was his thought, These neighbours all have known 
 The shameful fact, and yet have silence kept ; 
 They made no din, for wealth can gild a sin ; 
 They never told me, that I might atone, 
 But fawned like beaten hounds, and round her crept. 
 
 Hollow and false my life, and this they knew ; 
 Hollow and false, but yet I knew it not; 
 And she is gone, and I am left alone, 
 To right the cruel wrong I did not do ; — 
 So bitterly he spake from bitter thought.
 
 ^he mm 
 
 Kinsmen and friends and neighbours, all of you 
 Giving me the sad honour of your presence, 
 [ thank you, as I surely ought to do, 
 For judged by looks, you are not here for pleasance 
 I see each face shaded by doleful gloom, 
 I hear but dismal whispers round the room : 
 And therefore the good custom of our land 
 Offers you wine and cake and potent spirit. 
 Which the sad heart, by scriptural command.
 
 no BROKEN. 
 
 Should take upon occasion fit to cheer it : 
 Drink, then, and stint not whisky good or wine, 
 Your souls are heavy, and the cost is mine. 
 Friends, I am young; I wot not how the chief 
 Mourner should act on such occasions solemn,- 
 Whether to bury my face in handkerchief, 
 (Jr stand up silent as a marble column. 
 I never saw a funeral before, 
 I never saw such faces as I see, 
 I never heard such creaking of a door, 
 And no one swearing at it furiously; 
 Perhaps I should be silent, or should groan- 
 All of you did it when our Pastor here 
 Spake of the crown which had become her own 
 The moment that she left our lower sphere ; 
 Forgive me, friends; I am not used to these 
 Appropriate moans, appointed agonies, 
 Which sigh the weary to their place of rest, 
 And groan the saints to mansions of the blest.
 
 THE WILL. in 
 
 The Pastor spoke good words and excellent — 
 I hope his name is mentioned in the Will ; 
 It will be hard to have canonized a saint, 
 Yet find no church or cleric codicil 
 For all the charity that did by her 
 Handsomely, as became her minister — 
 Yet everybody groaned, and looked as sad 
 As if the glorious crown were something bad. 
 Now, for myself, when once the wick is crushed, 
 I ask not where the light is, which is not, 
 Nor where the music, when the harp is hushed, 
 Nor where the memory which is clean forgot. 
 Death comes to all, that's certain; heaven and hell 
 Are just as you believe, or don't believe : 
 But Faith is hard, and therefore we will leave 
 That matter, if you please, for time to tell : 
 But come or life or death, we all must dine, 
 And come or joy or sorrow, wine is good ; 
 And be her gathered savings yours or mine,
 
 H2 BROKEN. 
 
 The Will must needs be read and understood ; 
 And therefore when we've laid her in the ground. 
 And smoothed the turf upon the lowly mound, 
 We'll dine here, if you please, and read the Will — 
 And by my Faith it will be rare to see 
 How sinks the glass of most sweet charity 
 At this bequest and that odd codicil. 
 Pray come ; I've killed my beeves and broached 
 
 my wine, 
 The living die, but living, they must dine ; 
 The dead depart, but then their goods remain. 
 To soothe our sorrow, and relieve our pain. 
 
 Some murmured "Shameful!" "Shocking:" "Bad, 
 
 too bad !" 
 " His mother's funeral too !" and " Drink, I fear ! 
 " Enough to call down judgments on us all ;" 
 And others hinted that he must be mad ; 
 Yet all came back to feast, who bore the bier.
 
 THE WILL. 113 
 
 And there in the chief room the board was spread, 
 A banquet meet for the old gods to eat, 
 Odin and Thor and Balder, hungering for 
 The feast of victory, having slain their dead, 
 And gorged the ravens gathering for their meat. 
 
 The lordly Baron faced the large Sirloin, 
 And capon plump the haunch of generous boar, 
 Nor did there fail brown jacks of frothing ale, 
 And the strong waters, and the purple wine 
 Saluted all the mourners at the door : 
 
 Great beeves and bread, and smoking greens and 
 
 roots, 
 And fat sheep from the hills, and foaming cream ; 
 And jellies bright were quivering in the light, 
 And ice was sparkling near the ruddy fruits, 
 And the sun shed o'er all his golden gleam. 
 
 H
 
 ii4 
 
 BROKEN. 
 
 And seated at the head of that full board, 
 Outstretching his great limbs, his eye on fire, 
 Young Austen quaffed the brimming ale, and 
 
 laughed 
 A scornful laugh, and bade his guests accord 
 Good heed to duty ere they fed desire. 
 
 We'll take the Will first, as a toothsome whet ; 
 
 It's hanging o'er us like a pending debt, 
 
 Spoiling all appetite, forbidding rest 
 
 With hopes uncertain of a rich bequest : 
 
 Lo ! here are cousins thrice-removed, but blood, 
 
 Thicker than water, sticks to one like mud. 
 
 When poor, they wounded not my mother's soul 
 
 With humbling gifts of money or of dress ; 
 
 But if they shrank with sorrow to condole, 
 
 They failed not to congratulate success, 
 
 But when she needed nothing, nought they spared 
 
 In costly tokens of their fond regard.
 
 THE WILL. 115 
 
 The Will, the Will, then ! she was good and 
 
 wise ; 
 Their blushing virtues, no doubt, they forgot, 
 And did all this as though they did it not; 
 And so the Will will be a glad surprise. 
 And you, her Pastor, faithful to your charge, 
 You scrupled not to tell her, round and large, 
 How hard the rich do find the way to heaven, 
 As camels through a needle's eye are driven. 
 She liked not sermons much, I must confess, 
 Even slighted them as marrowless dry-bones, 
 And wanting bread, she said they gave her stones, 
 But she could not forget your faithfulness. 
 A noble task yours, noblest man is given, 
 To shed on earth the light that shines in heaven. 
 To search the heart, unravelling all its wiles, 
 To cleanse the soul from all that it defiles, 
 To speak for God and righteousness and truth, 
 To solace age, and wisely guide our youth,
 
 n6 BROKEN. 
 
 To bring together those whom sin had parted, 
 And to pour balm upon the broken-hearted; 
 All this, of course, you did for her, and she 
 Could not o'erlook such pious ministry : 
 Nor yours, good doctor, ever at her call, 
 But never called, because she physic hated, 
 Moreover she was never sick at all \ 
 But still the yearly fee was ne'er abated, 
 Though powder, pill, or potion, great or small, 
 Blister or clyster, never knew in her 
 What healing virtues they might minister. 
 
 But where is she to whom the place belongs, 
 The bonnie May, so dear to all the glen, 
 Prank t with her flowers, and tripping to her songs 
 In those white clouds that witched the hearts of 
 
 men? 
 Old neighbours, ye whose lives are memories 
 Of better days, when all was sunny and blithe,
 
 THE WILL. 117 
 
 And in the wet grass ye would stay the scythe 
 
 To catch her greeting smile at sweet sunrise ; 
 
 She came and went 'mong you a gleam of light, 
 
 That warmed the heart, and made the old Hall bright; 
 
 There was no mate seemed good enough for her, 
 
 Nor any fate but that she would confer 
 
 Honour upon it, as religion brings 
 
 Glory and beauty to the highest things. 
 
 Of course, ye came to see how wrong is righted, 
 
 And justice to the orphan is requited. 
 
 The Will, the Will, then; let us have the Will;— 
 
 For all our hopes are there; and all it must fulfil. 
 
 They understood him not, but felt the tone 
 
 Of irony that hardened all his speech, 
 
 And mocking laughter that coming quickly after, 
 
 Crept fast, and tingled keen through flesh and bone, 
 
 With shock of shame as deep as words might reach.
 
 u8 BROKEN. 
 
 But when the Will was read which all bequeathed, 
 Monies and lands, unto her only son, 
 Nor other name named, but with mark of shame 
 Or bitter taunt, a biting scorn that breathed — 
 A scorn she never hid, and spared to none ; 
 
 Straightway they rose in wrath, and left untasted 
 The ample viands, scowling as they went; 
 And silent long, remembered now the wrong 
 Done to the heir, nor heeded, as they hasted, 
 His urgent pleas that they were weak and faint. 
 
 Surely they needed food, and must not go 
 Till they had tried his beeves, and drunk his wine ; 
 Would not the priest say grace for them at least? 
 And might not some strong waters break the blow? 
 But only the cool lawyer stayed to dine.
 
 THE WILL. ng 
 
 He stayed to dine, and yet he did not dine; 
 For lo ! the heir must have the village poor 
 To eat the feast, unblessed by Christian priest ; 
 And he too high and dainty was, and fine, 
 And flouncing forth, indignant, banged the door. 
 
 So, with the lame and halt and maimed and blind, 
 
 And all the pauper world for miles about, 
 
 The feast was high, and noisy revelry, 
 
 And with their songs they startled the night wind, 
 
 And shook their tattered duds with drunken shout. 
 
 For he, with strange, wild recklessness would stir 
 All weird and eerie thoughts to feed his mood, 
 And nought too gnm or gruesome seemed for him ; 
 Maddened, that night, by memory of her, 
 He shrank from all pure springs of bright or good.
 
 120 BROKEN. 
 
 And first, the crone who laid out all their dead, 
 Wrinkled, with one black tooth, one rheumy eye, 
 And loose, brown skin bearded upon her chin, 
 And on her nose a tuft of bristles red, 
 Crooned a weird ballad, grinning horribly. 
 
 Eppie Curshak's Song. 
 
 Row him weel in his winding sheet; 
 
 O but he luiks bonnie and braw ! 
 Was that the brindled cat mewled at his feet? 
 
 The muckle deil pickle her, tooth and claw. 
 
 Saw ye the wee, blue hole on his breast? 
 
 O but his face is bonnie and braw ! 
 No a moment for mess or priest; 
 
 Hech ! but he would win easy awa. 
 
 Fair or foul, there was nane to see : 
 O but he luiks bonnie and braw !
 
 THE WILL. 121 
 
 And it'll be gowd tae you and me, 
 
 The as drap o' bluid on his breast we saw. 
 
 There's a priest in the chapel — as white as death; 
 
 O but the face luiks bonnie and braw ! 
 And he whispers a lady wi' burning breath; — 
 
 Cannie, noo, lass, or he'll girn and thraw. 
 
 Shut the windows, and licht the licht; 
 
 O but he luiks bonnie and braw ! 
 And we'se be merry together the nicht, 
 
 Though she wring her hands till the red cock craw. 
 
 Then rose a tinker, lean and bony and tall, 
 Lanky and wild and free his unkempt hair, 
 A mighty man at flagon, cup, or can, 
 And Austen liked him better than them all, 
 And vowed he was the "angel unaware."
 
 122 BROKEN. 
 
 The Tinker sings — The Gipsy Girl. 
 
 Mother, mother, I've put away 
 Velvet and silk for the raploch grey : 
 
 Love is best ! 
 Mother, O mother, my wedding ring 
 Hangs on the glass by a silken string ; 
 
 Golden chains are heavy. 
 
 Mother, O mother, if I could find 
 
 The rags that once fluttered in rain and wind — 
 
 Love is best ! 
 Mother, O mother, the rags were true — 
 And O that I had not listened to you ! 
 
 Golden chains are heavy. 
 
 Mother, O mother, who led the way 
 To the men who came from the ship in the bay? 
 Love is best !
 
 THE WILL. 12^ 
 
 Mother, mother, shell and shot 
 Pitied him whom you pitied not. 
 Golden chains are heavy. 
 
 Mother, O mother, he did not die ; 
 He is coming again to me by and bye. 
 
 Love is best ! 
 Mother, O mother, I love him still, 
 And if he says, Come to me, come I will. 
 
 Golden chains are heavy. 
 
 Mother, O mother, I heard the cry 
 
 Of a baby, all night, that was hard to die ; 
 
 Love is best ! 
 Mother, O mother, my heart is wild, 
 And what shall I say when he asks for his child ? 
 
 Golden chains are heavy.
 
 124 BROKEN. 
 
 Mother, mother, your lordling gay- 
 Was wronged by my coming, not going away ; 
 
 Love is best ! 
 Mother, O mother, the woods are green, 
 Yet it never can be as it once has been. 
 
 Golden chains are heavy. 
 
 So it went on until the morning broke ; 
 And when the morning broke he was alone, 
 The household all had vanished from the Hall 
 On the strange coming of the beggar folk, 
 And now again he felt his heart like stone. 
 
 One only word he spake ; " O misery ! 
 Never to see her, hear her nevermore, 
 No hope of change — O pitiful and strange ! 
 And she went drifting on that sunless sea, 
 And she lies wrecked upon that silent shore !
 
 THE WILL. 125 
 
 "Mother, mother!" — how that gipsy's song 
 Sings itself in me ! truly, " love is best," 
 And "golden chains are heavy;" and the pains 
 Of sad hearts, stricken by a cruel wrong, 
 O what shall give relief to them, or rest? 
 
 " Dead ! and this wrong unrighted, unrepented ! 
 Dead ! and to me this horrible bequest ! 
 Dead ! and my faith, too, dying in her death ! 
 Mother, O mother ! — if you had relented ! 
 O Golden chains are heavy, and love is best!" 
 
 But at the morning's dawn he rose and went 
 All through the house, and every window barred, 
 And every door he locked on every floor, 
 And with the keys his weary way he bent 
 Along the mountain pathway, rough and hard.
 
 126 BROKEN. 
 
 Faintly the sunshine tipped the clouds with red. 
 Faintly the spring-birds fluttered into song, 
 The mountain stream rippled as in a dream, 
 And dream-like in the mist the sleek kine fed 
 On the low meadows, moving slow along. 
 
 And slow and weary up the glen he passed, 
 Weary and slow amid the dim, slant light, 
 Until he stood beside the old pine-wood 
 Above the red crag which its shadow cast 
 O'er the dark pool, and water-lilies white. 
 
 All round the rim still rustled the tall sedge, 
 Broad leaves of lily paved the pool within, 
 The water-hen, unconscious now of men, 
 Oared herself, rippling outward from the edge. 
 And with her young brood paddled out and in.
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 127 
 
 And standing in the pine-wood's darkling shade, 
 He hurled the keys down, with a mighty curse 
 Upon his lips, his soul in dark eclipse, 
 And with the keys, the Will that she had made, 
 And strode in gloom across the moor and furze. 
 
 But as he sped along that trackless way, 
 Stumbling o'er snake-like roots that twisted white 
 On the black peat, and caught his hurrying feet, 
 The strong-knit moral fibre claimed its sway, 
 And kindlier feelings brought a sweeter light : — 
 
 A sweeter light that humbled him, and shed 
 Upon his jagged nature calm rebuke, 
 And made him hate his anger passionate ; 
 And by and bye he lifted up his head, 
 Knitting his forehead with a resolute look :
 
 128 BROKEN. 
 
 Lord God, to whom the hidden things belong, 
 Pardon my burdened, darkened spirit, long 
 Prying at every crevice of this wrong. 
 
 Burdened and darkened, mad to find some light, 
 And in my madness making deeper night; 
 Calm Thou my heart, and help me to do right. 
 
 I do remember her, the gentle May, 
 
 Like a soft morning star whose melting ray 
 
 Hung, lingering dewy o'er mine early day ; 
 
 Faint as a dream of something white and pure, 
 A shapeless form that search would not endure. 
 Which ever changing, ever seemed unsure; 
 
 Yet ever in its wavering loveliness, 
 
 It brought to me a sense of tender bliss, 
 
 Like lips that from the past clung with a kiss —
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 129 
 
 A downy cheek that warmly lay on mine, 
 And eyes that shined on me a light divine; — 
 A shadow, and its voice an echo fine ! 
 
 One task remains to me; let me but find 
 The secret of those children left behind; 
 No oath that binds to wrong can ever bind. 
 
 Or if it do, better the curse I bore 
 Than bind upon a mother evermore 
 This bitter wrong, and bolt her prison door. 
 
 Too late ? I know not, for He changeth not ; 
 Too late? Our hearts change, and they change our lot; 
 Who ever changed, and yet no mercy got? 
 
 But be it fruitful of a curse on me ; 
 And be it fruitless, mother, now to thee ; 
 
 It is the right, and that is all we see. 
 
 1
 
 i 3 o BROKEN. 
 
 Yet what to do, I know not. Once I thought 
 From those poor, aged folk I might have got 
 Some clue — but even his name is now forgot. 
 
 He was not of these parts — he came and went, 
 
 A bird of passage, a mere incident, 
 
 Lost in a glare of short-lived wonderment. 
 
 And where my mother lived in honour long 
 
 I cannot go and pry into this wrong : 
 
 " Mother, O mother ! " — how that gipsy's song 
 
 Clings to me ever, singing in my head ! 
 
 Can he have known more than his ballad said ? 
 
 O sad work, raking ashes of the dead !
 
 §ook Jottrth. 
 
 ADRIFT.
 
 <3E!t£ ^otof. 
 
 A LITTLE cottage, trim and neat, 
 The simple home of simple folk, 
 Stood by itself, well off the street, 
 Not far from where the two roads meet 
 
 Beneath the dingy Town-house clock : 
 The Howf, or haunt of favoured youth, 
 
 The envy of the lads who yet 
 Had to make good their love of truth, 
 Whether the way were rough or smooth, 
 
 By fearless thought or searching wit :
 
 134 ADRIFT. 
 
 It was an University 
 
 For all the spirits bright and free. 
 
 Thither the Herr Professor came 
 
 With Madame Hester from the Grange, 
 
 And Darrel with the wasteful flame 
 
 Of Genius, burning for a name, 
 
 But wayward, full of whim and change ; 
 
 And thither Austen often went, 
 
 Drawn by a charm of mingled powers ; 
 And many a blithesome night they spent 
 In mirth and song and argument, 
 
 That sweetened life like gathered flowers. 
 Free were their thoughts, their words as free, 
 But all in truth and purity. 
 
 Weekly they met, and held discourse 
 Of science, and its march sublime, 
 And what is Matter, what is Force,
 
 THE HOWF. 
 
 And what Creation, and the course 
 
 Of its development in time ; 
 Nor was the policy forgot 
 
 Of nations, though the man was more, 
 The nation less than in the thought 
 Of many, and they counted not 
 
 To remedy the ills he bore, 
 And fill his cup unto the brim, 
 Yet have no remedy for him. 
 
 And still their converse verged on things 
 More sacred, where the reason passed 
 From common earth, and needed wings 
 To soar up to those higher springs 
 
 That lie amid the shadows vast 
 Where God dwells, making darkness light 
 
 Unto the faith that can attain : 
 And some of them beheld the light, 
 And some were in a chill dark night, 
 
 l 35
 
 136 ADRIFT. 
 
 And some were hesitating, fain 
 To give old words a novel sense ; 
 But all were full of reverence. 
 
 A sister and a brother there 
 
 Kept house together, rich in love, 
 And in the thoughts that filled the air, 
 And sympathies that everywhere, 
 
 Around, beneath them, and above 
 Found kindred souls and faithful friends, 
 
 For that they had the master-key — 
 The love that all tilings comprehends, 
 And opens every heart, and bends 
 
 All to its clear simplicity : 
 Artless and gentle, wise, and true, 
 All wise and gentle souls they drew. 
 
 Yet he was but an artizan, 
 
 And hardly twenty years had seen ;
 
 THE HOWF. I37 
 
 A humble, absent, dreamy man, 
 Whose mind on mathematics ran, 
 
 Or planned some new machine ; 
 And guileless as a child was he, 
 
 Yet daring as a man who walks, 
 In his most meek simplicity, 
 In a far world of theory, 
 
 And with the hard world seldom talks, 
 Or tests his visionary thought 
 By the experience it has bought. 
 
 And he was greatly loved, but still 
 More loving, and by all esteemed 
 
 For upright walk, and curious skill, 
 
 Inventive thought, and stedfast will, 
 Yea, even for the dreams he dreamed ; 
 
 So true he was, and seeking truth, 
 So rich in multifarious lore, 
 
 So patient with impetuous youth,
 
 138 ADRIFT. 
 
 So helpful oft their path to smooth 
 By drawing from his varied store, 
 So humbly reverent of the wise, 
 It humbled them to watch his eyes. 
 
 But she, his sister, fond and brave, 
 
 And jealous of his due respect, 
 Who rose up like a threatening wave, 
 And proudly curled her lip, and gave 
 
 Such glance ot scorn, with head erect, 
 When some one risked a thoughtless jest 
 
 At his abstract and dreamy mood — 
 She held him wisest, truest, best; 
 And in protecting, but expressed 
 
 Her reverence for a soul that stood 
 Above the common world as far 
 As some serene and distant star. 
 
 A glorious girl, high-thoughted, bright
 
 THE HOWF. 139 
 
 And beautiful, with woman's sense, 
 And woman's tact, and keen insight, 
 A loving heart, and gay and light 
 
 In her assured innocence ; 
 A scholar eager still to learn, 
 
 A teacher careful to instruct, 
 She toiled her daily bread to earn, 
 She toiled high wisdom to discern, 
 
 And in the pleasant evenings pluckt 
 The fruit that was her young life's dream, 
 To see him held in such esteem. 
 
 Chiefly she had with men conversed, 
 
 Men of fresh mind and generous heart, — 
 
 With youth in noble dreams immersed, 
 
 And sages, rich in lore, who erst 
 
 Had dreamt like dreams of life and art ; 
 
 And therefore she more womanly 
 And gentle was than other girls
 
 i 4 o ADRIFT. 
 
 Whose gossip is with women ; she 
 Enshrined in her clear modesty, 
 
 And walking pure amid its perils, 
 Was worshipped like a saint, and grew 
 More womanly the more she knew. 
 
 Here had their widowed mother spent, 
 
 In patient toil, her latter days, 
 Days sweetened by a blithe content, 
 And by a household love that lent 
 
 Sunshine and song to all her ways ; 
 And by respect of all the wise, 
 
 And by the love of all the good, 
 And by the faith whose hopes arise, 
 Like evening stars in darkening skies, 
 
 Soft-pulsing o'er the dewy wood ; 
 And the fine odour of her grace 
 Still fondly lingered in the place.
 
 ilaul (Cntunt. 
 
 In the still old town 
 Where the minster towers 
 Toll the passing hours 
 To the chiming College Crown, 
 Sat the sister and her brother 
 In their quiet room, 
 Amid the gathering gloom 
 Of murky storm-girt weather ; 
 She restless fingers twitching, 
 And he absorbed in sketching.
 
 1 42 ADRIFT. 
 
 With a long, low wail 
 
 Moaned the fateful sea, 
 
 Foretelling woful tale 
 
 Of wreck and misery 
 
 By and bye to be : 
 
 And the fisher-women, 
 
 Gathering in bands, 
 
 With the cry of human 
 
 Anguish wrung their hands, 
 
 Gazing seaward ever 
 
 With a yearning and a shiver, 
 
 As they searched the wave and spray 
 
 For the boats that sailed away 
 
 At the dawning of the day. 
 
 Deep wrapt up in scheming 
 Was his inventive brain, 
 While his sister, fondly dreaming, 
 Seemed to nurse an aching pain,
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 And the women's eyes were streaming 
 
 Tears upon the sand like rain. 
 
 But mastered by the craving 
 
 Of inventive thought, 
 
 How the sea was raving 
 
 Then he heeded not, 
 
 Nor how hearts were braving, 
 
 Or trembling, at their lot. 
 
 On a forehead massive 
 Brooded thought serene ; 
 Seemed his face impassive, 
 And features sharp and lean — 
 Features thin and pale and lean ; 
 Fingers long and steady 
 Held pencil ever ready 
 For some new machine 
 Shaping in his brain, I ween. 
 And her restless fingers twitched 
 
 M3
 
 144 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 As he brooded on, and sketched, 
 
 And the fisher-women gazed 
 
 From the sand-dunes, numb and dazed ; 
 
 But he neither felt nor wondered 
 
 At the anguish of their pain, 
 
 Only silent sat, and pondered ! 
 
 Tracing o'er and o'er again 
 
 Novel figures from his brain. 
 
 So he often found relief 
 From the bitter thought of grief 
 Which his heart was keen to feel, 
 But his hand was weak to heal ; 
 And the world was all forgot 
 In his novel forms of thought, 
 Though its passion and its pain 
 Gave the hint on which he wrought. 
 
 Then his sister, turning slowly, 
 With a wistful melancholy,
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 145 
 
 As of one with listening weary, 
 
 As of one with waiting dreary, 
 
 As of one who had a pain 
 
 Lying where a joy had lain, 
 
 Said, "The sky is wild and eerie, 
 
 And I fear there will be sorrow 
 
 On the sea, and on the land 
 
 A dread of the to-morrow, 
 
 And the forms upon the sand. 
 
 I am heavy as I think ; 
 
 I am dull and scarce know why: 
 
 But I feel as on the brink 
 
 Of some unknown misery. 
 
 Shall I sing ? You must be weary : 
 
 And that pencil-scratch is dreary 
 
 With its monotone. I'll hum 
 
 Something just as it will come, 
 
 Something just as it is sent — 
 
 Never mind the instrument. 
 
 K
 
 146 ADRIFT. 
 
 Milly Gaunfs Song — Late, late. 
 
 Late, late in May the hawthorn burst in bloom, 
 Long searched by chill blasts from the nipping East; 
 Late, late the fire-balls flamed upon the broom, 
 And golden-barred bees began to feast. 
 
 Late, late the blue-bells in the forest glade 
 Made skyey patches, starred with primrose sheen, 
 And lady-ferns, uncoiling in the shade, 
 Turned serpent-folds to plumes of waving green. 
 
 Late, late the bright fringe tipped the branching spruce, 
 And golden fingers sprouted on the pine ; 
 And June came in before its curls were loose, 
 Or laughed laburnum in the clear sunshine. 
 
 Late, late they came, but yet they came at last, 
 Lilac, laburnum, sweet Forget-me-not ;
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 147 
 
 But waiting for my summer, summer passed 
 In flowerless hoping, and in fruitless thought. 
 
 Came sunshine to the blossoms and the flowers, 
 Came gladness to the earth and wandering bee, 
 Came balmy airs and dews and tender showers, 
 But my spring never came, for ne'er came he. 
 
 Paul. Why, Milly dear, what is the matter with 
 
 you? 
 There's a crack in your voice, and a shake in your 
 
 head, 
 As if out on the strike, and with nothing to do, 
 You had gone to the street with a baby or two, 
 
 And a ballad to sing for your bread ; 
 Come, try something else, and we'll see what is 
 
 wrong, 
 And how that cracked quaver got into your song
 
 148 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 Milly sings again— Row, Burnie, Row. 
 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 Through the bracken-glen ; 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 By the haunts of men ; 
 Where the golden cowslips glint, 
 Through the wild thyme and the mint, 
 By the barley and the lint ; 
 
 Row, burnie, row. 
 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 Tinkling under heather bells ; 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 Down to where my true love dwells ; 
 Singing songs down to the sea, 
 Singing of the hill countrie, 
 Singing to my love from me : 
 
 Row, burnie, row.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 To him that's far awa, 
 Row, burnie, row, 
 
 And mind him o' us a'. 
 Say there's naething I regret, 
 Say I never can forget, 
 Say I love him dearly yet : 
 Row, burnie, row. 
 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 Through the gowans white, 
 Row, burnie, row 
 
 Gleaming in the light : 
 Let ilka ripple bear 
 Fond kisses to him there ; 
 O my heart it's longing sair. 
 
 Row, burnie, row. 
 
 149
 
 l5 o ADRIFT. 
 
 Paul. There, that's how a girl should sing. I've 
 been forgetting, 
 While puzzling out notions that nobody heeds. 
 Stupid owl that I am ! not to see you were fretting, 
 While I sit here all day, neither gaining nor getting, 
 
 With the fancies an idle head breeds. 
 Yet there's something in this one, I think ; but 
 
 it's true, 
 I always think that while the fancy is new. 
 
 Milly. Yes, Paul, I'm sure there is, 
 There's always something in it : 
 Only leave it for a minute, 
 For it's worse than loneliness 
 When you sit beside me silent, 
 Like some shadowy mountain island 
 Washed by waves I cannot see, 
 Hid in canopy of clouds, 
 Peopled too by shining crowds
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 151 
 
 That speak to you, but not to me. 
 It's like waiting — don't you see? — 
 By some veiled mystery. 
 Don't go back, now, to your scheming ; 
 It will do you good to rest ; 
 Thought will drift away to dreaming 
 In a brain too hardly pressed : 
 And this strike so long has been 
 That my little purse grows lean. 
 
 Paul. Ah ! the strike ! — yes, it's dreadful, I know : 
 it is war 
 
 For the wealth of the rich, but the life of the poor : 
 Our new, modern warfare, and holier far 
 Than ever was bannered by Cross or star, 
 
 Or battled by hero pure : 
 It is Capital, gathered on credit, that stands 
 Against Capital, gathered in brains and hands. 
 I'm a workman, dear, and I mean to be ;
 
 152 ADRIFT. 
 
 I like the sound of the hammer and saw, 
 And the feel of a file in my hands, and to see 
 Work neatly done, as it ought to be, 
 
 Turned out without fault or flaw, 
 Nutt and rivet and nail and screw 
 All driven home, dear, right and true. 
 
 I hate a fellow that scamps his job, 
 
 False work never yet won the day ; 
 I'd sooner footpad it, and steal and rob, 
 Or go pick-pocketing through a mob, 
 
 Than play that dirty play; 
 It's the pride of our land that the work is good 
 In its wool and cotton, and iron and wood. 
 
 Let us stand by our order, then, fighting it out : 
 
 True men they are, in the main, and right; 
 The quarrel is good, and our hearts are stout, 
 And every one knows what it's all about,
 
 PAUL GAUNT. ^3 
 
 And our patience is our might : 
 A fairer wage, and a shorter day, 
 It is time we had time to think and pray. 
 
 Yes, the strike is right : it is war, of course, 
 
 And in war we must count upon rubs and blows ; 
 And who may be better, and who may be worse, 
 Who may be stricken with grief and remorse, 
 
 Only the end shall disclose : 
 But true to each other, our life will be more 
 And fuller and richer than ever before. 
 
 Milly. Ah ! well, I do not know ; 
 I hope it may be so. 
 But I judge by what I see, 
 And my heart is failing me. 
 Have you heard young DarrePs song 
 Of the famine of the coal? 
 Madame Hester thinks he's wrong,
 
 '54 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 Though she sang with all her soul, 
 Till my blood was tingling hot, 
 As I thought upon the lot 
 Of the poor j I wish you heard 
 How she wailed it, every word 
 Like the breaking of a chord. 
 
 Song — The Coal Famine. 
 
 Coal, nor wood, nor peat, 
 
 Nothing to put in the grate ! 
 And the east wind hurtling along the street, 
 Dashing the windows with rain and sleet, 
 
 And sifting through roofing and slate. 
 
 What are the bairns to do, 
 
 With their duds so worn and thin, 
 For all the day long, all the night through, 
 Shaking the soot from the smokeless flue, 
 The gusts come roaring in?
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 155 
 
 O I miss their noisy din, 
 
 That once had made me scold, 
 For now they are sitting so pinched and thin, 
 With a shiver without, and a gnawing within, 
 
 Silent, and dreary and cold. 
 
 For there's little to boil or bake, 
 
 Little to roast or fry, 
 Little of daylight when we wake, 
 Little to do but shiver and shake 
 
 As the chill, dark hours go by. 
 
 The great lord's iron heel, 
 
 The rich man's selfish pride 
 They were hard to bear; but it's worse to feel 
 The poor man turning a heart of steel 
 
 To the poor man at his side. 
 
 Milly. So Darrel sings his song;
 
 156 ADRIFT. 
 
 Madame Hester says he's wrong, 
 And she is wise and good, 
 Yet the poet's eye sees more 
 Than is often understood 
 By the Reason we adore. 
 
 Paul. Ah ! that's but one side of the picture, dear; 
 And it's only their feelings that poets sing, 
 They heed not for principles solid and clear: 
 They are right so far, but you ought to hear 
 
 How soundly their hearts will ring 
 To the human truth on the other side: 
 See, here is another vein Darrel tried. 
 
 Song — I Bought a Nosegay. 
 
 I bought a nosegay for my girl ; 
 
 It cost me more than I will say; 
 One sprig she set in a golden curl, 
 
 And one on her bosom lay:
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 157 
 
 And as we circled in the light, 
 
 And as we rested in the shade, 
 I wished they had been jewels bright, 
 
 And gold that never would fade. 
 
 O rose that drooped on her bosom! 
 
 crimson flower in her hair! 
 
 1 was shamed at the paltry cost of the 
 blossom — 
 
 But how could it wither there? 
 
 I bought the labour of a man ; 
 
 It cost me less than my fading flower; 
 His eye was bright, his cheek was wan, 
 
 And he wrought in sun and shower ; 
 He gave me faithful toil and skill, 
 
 And work to last for many a year, 
 And he had children's mouths to fill — 
 
 But I grudged his labour dear. 
 
 O men so handy and humble!
 
 158 ADRIFT. 
 
 O men who work and weep! 
 
 It shames me to think how my heart could grumble,- 
 
 For only men are cheap. 
 
 Milly. Yes, that's like his noble heart, 
 Always true to the weaker part, 
 Always touched by any wrong, 
 Always generous child of song. — 
 O were he but as true 
 To himself as to -his view 
 Of the world and all we do! 
 Yet I doubt if you or he 
 Know the present misery. 
 Listen to the cry bewildering 
 Of the women at the doors, 
 And the wail of the small children 
 Lying hungry on the floors, 
 While the lads draw in their breath 
 With their lips as white as death.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 159 
 
 Great their patience to endure, 
 
 And if strikes will bring a cure 
 
 To their ills, why, fight it out : 
 
 But for aught that's come about 
 
 Hitherto, to me they seem 
 
 The lean kine in Pharaoh's dream, 
 
 Eating up the bigger wage 
 
 By their idleness and debt, 
 
 Hurrying down another stage 
 
 To a sorrow deeper yet. 
 
 O I do not understand — 
 
 We women never do — 
 
 But I somehow think the land 
 
 Was kindlier to the hand 
 
 Of the workman long ago, 
 
 When the furnace ne'er was quenched. 
 
 And the work was never flinched, 
 
 Nor the bellows ceased to blow 
 
 On the cinders all aglow.
 
 x 6o ADRIFT. 
 
 Paul. Why, of course, it was, Milly : for master 
 and man 
 
 Were brothers, and stood by each other then ; 
 They ate at the same board, and drank the same can, 
 And the Master was master, and true artizan, 
 
 And knew all the craft of his men : 
 He was not a fellow that handled quills 
 With a head for nothing but "doing bills." 
 
 And his men were men to him, not mere hands, 
 And their only quarrel was who should smite 
 
 The deftest blows where the anvil stands; 
 
 And they were not driven by rough commands 
 Off to the left and right.— 
 
 Ah ! a little more human brotherhood 
 
 Would go far to sweeten the workman's mood. 
 
 And a 'prentice lad, with brains in his head, [ 
 Might look to his master's daughter then :
 
 PAUL GAUXT. 161 
 
 But what would our fine Misses say, if we pled, 
 In the fustian jackets that win their bread, 
 
 For the gloved hand that plays with the rein? 
 Why, they hardly deign even to know the yard 
 Where their money is made by our labour hard. 
 
 That's what is wrong, dear. The wealth of the land 
 Comes from the forge and the smithy and mine. 
 
 From hammer and chisel, and wheel and band, 
 
 And the thinking brain, and the skilful hand, 
 And yet we must toil and pine, 
 
 That one may be rich by driving quills, 
 
 And a floating credit of Banker's bills. 
 
 « 
 
 They call that capital ! it is a lie ; 
 
 The capital force of the country still 
 Is the power of work, the nice-judging eye, 
 The brain to perfect machinery, 
 
 And the knack of well-trained skill ; 
 
 L
 
 j6 2 adrift. 
 
 These are the source of all our gains ; 
 
 Much your credit will do without hands and brains. 
 
 This can't go on long ; we must have our share ; 
 
 And the strike will do it, if anything can : 
 Look, the rich grow richer everywhere, 
 And the poor grow poorer, and fuller of care : 
 
 Can that be the good God's plan — 
 Palaces yonder on airy hills, 
 And hovels down here among smoking mills ? 
 
 Just then on the creaking stair 
 A weary step was heard, 
 And she started from her chair 
 With an eager, wistful air, 
 And her heaving bosom stirred, 
 But she uttered not a word, 
 Only drew a long breath in 
 Till her parted lips grew thin,
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 163 
 
 Only flushed o'er all her face, 
 With a look of tender grace, 
 As a worn and haggard man 
 Dragged his form into the room, 
 Coming from the murky gloom 
 With a ghastly face and wan, 
 And great eyes all aflame. 
 Seemed the gaunt and lanky form 
 Like the spirit of the storm, 
 Haggard at the work he came 
 To perform. 
 
 Then Paul; "Why, Milly dear, 
 It is Lyell; what is wrong? 
 He is wet and ill, I fear; 
 But we'll give him hearty cheer : 
 Welcome, brother, come along : 
 Never welcomer to me 
 Face of one long lost at sea 
 Coming unexpectedly."
 
 164 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 Austen. What is wrong, Paul ? Nothing that I know 
 of; all is right. 
 
 In this best of possible worlds, how should any- 
 thing be wrong? 
 
 All is ordered, man, by perfect love and wisdom Infinite, 
 
 To go smooth as your machinery, and blithe as 
 Milly's song. 
 
 As for me, I have been going up and down, and 
 to and fro, 
 
 Like a personage you've read of in that queer old 
 Book of Job, 
 
 With a tinker, given to drinking, and his company 
 was low, 
 
 But he taught me one or two things that are happen- 
 ing on our globe ; 
 
 And my old professor says nothing's worthy more 
 of praise 
 
 Than an ardent thirst for knowledge in our curious 
 youthful days.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 165 
 
 We camped in woodland corners 'mong the oak 
 
 scrub and the broom, 
 With a clear stream tinkling near us, and the pine- 
 scents in the air, 
 And our beds were white and fragrant with the 
 
 hawthorn's falling bloom, 
 And our caldron daily smoking with the coney and 
 
 the hare : 
 These fellows have an eye for the picturesque and 
 
 pleasant. 
 And a gentlemanly taste, too, for killing grouse 
 
 and pheasant. 
 And he taught me no small wisdom, which is good 
 
 for human souls, 
 About the call of night-birds, about weasels, about 
 
 moles, 
 About salmon in their season, and to track the 
 
 honey-bee, 
 About stalking of the red-deer, and all bird economy,
 
 t 66 ADRIFT. 
 
 About tinkering of kettles, and cookery of game, 
 About doctoring of horses, and transmuting of the 
 
 same, 
 About spaeing people's fortunes, and breeding in 
 
 and in, 
 And also a philosophy that quite gets rid of sin. 
 Yet we had to part; and also I hope never more 
 
 to meet him, 
 He was such an arrant scoundrel, vermin worse 
 
 than any rat ; 
 And though I'm not particular, I really had to beat 
 
 him, 
 And there's no gospel surer than that I was right 
 
 in that. 
 
 Now, I want a job of work, Paul ; I have thews 
 
 and sinews strong, 
 And the arm that beat the tinman might wheel a 
 
 barrow long.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 167 
 
 I cannot be a craftsman, I cannot ply a tool, 
 
 I cannot use the chisel and the hammer and the rule ; 
 
 I know nothing of your art, lad ; but I could bear 
 
 a hod, 
 And handle pick and shovel, and carry earth and sod. 
 Will you find me work to do, then? I am tired of 
 
 working brains, 
 Like a treadmill yielding nothing but my labour 
 
 for my pains. 
 
 A strike among the workmen ! That's unlucky, I 
 
 confess : 
 I don't much wonder at it, but I'm sorry none the less : 
 Sorry for myself, perhaps ; for it rather mars my 
 
 scheme ; 
 But like other hopes I've cherished, it was maybe 
 
 all a dream : 
 And I think I feel their troubles even keener than 
 
 my own —
 
 1 68 ADA/FT. 
 
 I have had so many lately it is not worth while to 
 
 moan 
 For another more or less ; one is stunned upon the 
 
 wheel 
 By the first sharp wrench of agony; the rest you 
 
 hardly feel : 
 They are but the after-pains of an anguish that is 
 
 past, 
 Natural throbbings of the sorrow which your life has 
 
 overcast. — 
 Yes, of course, you have the right to work or idle, 
 
 as ye will, 
 To quench the blazing forges, and to stop the hum- 
 ming mill, 
 And all the other rights by which you hope to 
 
 right your wrongs, 
 And by and bye to turn the people's sorrows into 
 
 songs. 
 Yet there are noblest rights which the noble only use
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 169 
 
 In fearfulness and trembling for the passions they 
 
 let loose. 
 Nations have the right of battle — none more sacred 
 
 that I know 
 Than the right to take your weapon, and to hurl it 
 
 at your foe, 
 The right to kill a creature made in likeness of his 
 
 God, 
 To trample a grand being underneath the reeking 
 
 sod. 
 Yet the wanton use of battle is the shame of history, 
 Turning back the tide of progress, and of man's 
 
 prosperity. 
 This is now your day ot power — and I am glad 
 
 that it is yours ; 
 But shall workmen just repeat the sin of kings and 
 
 conquerors ? 
 As the nations cease from battle, shall the classes 
 
 rouse the fray,
 
 i 7 o 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 And scatter wanton sorrow for a shilling more a day? 
 And what, now, if your fellows, lounging near the 
 
 pot-house, idle, 
 Get to loaf about, and like it, get to hate both 
 
 spur and bridle? 
 Lose the habit of hard labour, with its manliness ; 
 
 and then 
 Comes the wreck of all you hope for in the wreck 
 
 of noble men ? 
 When you organise a strike, it is war you organise; 
 But to organise our labour were the labour of the 
 
 wise, 
 To bind it all together in the bundle of one life 
 Manifold in gift and service, linked as husband unto 
 
 wife, 
 With a common fund of skill and thrift. That partly 
 
 was my thought 
 When I came to you : I dreamt that, if I shared 
 
 their weary lot,
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 171 
 
 If I got a fustian jacket, and a hammer, and a 
 
 file, 
 Or wheeled the hodman's barrow, if for nothing 
 
 better fit, 
 And ate the bread of labour, maybe sweetened with 
 
 a smile, 
 And faced an earnest Universe as earnestly as It, 
 
 Then some day they might trust me ; for I know 
 
 § 
 
 that they are jealous 
 Of the patronage outside them, but will hearken to 
 
 their fellows 
 Who have laboured at the bench with them, and 
 
 handled the same tools, 
 And who know the hearts of workmen, that they 
 
 are not rogues nor fools. 
 Ah ! well ; no matter now ; I daresay that was all a 
 
 dream ; 
 But my way of life is changed, Paul ; my sunshine 
 
 was a gleam
 
 172 ADRIFT. 
 
 Through storm-clouds darkly gathering, now the sky 
 
 is overcast, 
 Like the day there, out of doors, where the rain is 
 
 pelting fast; 
 And I somehow cannot hang on to the skirts of 
 
 the genteel, 
 I would make the change as thorough as the change 
 
 in heart I feel ; 
 The more obscure my life is the fitter now for me, 
 The more mechanical its toil the happier I shall be ; 
 Though I look not for much happiness, yet that 
 
 may also come ; 
 At least I will not whine; if I have grief I can be 
 
 dumb. 
 Can you help me, Paul ? I must have work, and yet 
 
 some leisure too ; 
 Some day I'll tell you more, perhaps — yet wherefore 
 
 burden you ? 
 Enough ; I must have leisure, for I have a task to do.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 Paul, with sorrow, caught the tone 
 
 Of the sorrow of his friend ; 
 
 Yet he made as if its moan 
 
 Were a thing for mirth alone, 
 
 And it seemed that he would spend 
 
 All his shafts of homely wit 
 
 And of ridicule on it. 
 
 To think of Lyell with a file 
 
 Grinding slowly at a wheel ! 
 
 Or with hod of lime or tile, 
 
 Tramping where the gangways reel ! 
 
 Or smiting with a hammer 
 
 'Mid the clangour and the clamour 
 
 Of the anvil and the bellows 
 
 And the smithy, and the fellows 
 
 Who can nothing more than play 
 
 Mighty hammers, day by day ! 
 
 He, the scholar of his year, 
 
 Knowing Latin, knowing Greek, 
 
 !73
 
 i74 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 Knowing all the gentle hear, 
 
 Knowing all that sages speak 
 
 Of number and of form, 
 
 Of the laws that guide the storm, 
 
 Of fluids and their powers, 
 
 And of how they may be ours ! 
 
 Laughing light, and chuckling low 
 
 As he tossed it to and fro, 
 
 Paul kept playing with the thought, 
 
 Mocking at it, scorning it, 
 
 Jesting with the kind of wit 
 
 Which a loving heart will hit, 
 
 Though of humour knowing nought. 
 
 Then he said that one who knew him 
 
 Had lately spoken to him 
 
 Something about editing 
 
 A newspaper — which, of course, 
 
 Was ridiculous, and worse — 
 
 But it was the very thing
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 
 
 For Austen with his free 
 Flowing pen, and fresh discourse. 
 O the pleasure it would be, 
 Reading leaders every night 
 Sparkling with a modern light, 
 Yet with wisdom from the ages 
 Mellowing all the thoughtful pages ! 
 Would not Milly surely like 
 Austen's papers on the strike ? 
 And perhaps himself might pen 
 Just a letter now and then. 
 
 In silence Austen heard, 
 
 Never uttering a word, 
 
 But the strong lip gave a quiver, 
 
 And his head bowed very low, 
 
 And there was a tremulous shiver, 
 
 Like the ripple on a river 
 
 When a passing wind doth blow. 
 
 73
 
 i 7 6 ADRIFT. 
 
 And the tears began to flow- 
 Tears that sorrow failed to bring, 
 But the touch of love unsealed, 
 Like the coming of a spring 
 That awoke the heart it healed. 
 And the others did not speak, 
 For they knew that words are weak 
 As the drip of falling rain 
 'Mid the silence of our pain, 
 And in his grief they saw 
 Something touching them with awe, 
 Something more than natural grief, 
 Something more than met the eye, 
 Something mad for the relief 
 Of a hopeless sympathy. 
 Now, because the strain was o'er, 
 He yielded to the throng 
 Of better thoughts that rushed along 
 Through every open door,
 
 PAUL GAUNT 
 
 And every chamber of his mind, 
 Uncontrolled and unconfined. 
 Wild, without, the wind was roaring, 
 Wild, without, the rain was pouring, 
 Battering on the window pane ; 
 And the sullen waves were crashing 
 Loud amid the angry dashing 
 Of the drifting sleet and rain. 
 Wild the anguish of his pain, 
 Yet they bade it not to cease, 
 For it was the way of peace. 
 
 But by and bye she went 
 Softly to her instrument, 
 Touched a chord or two, and then 
 Deftly warbled forth a strain. 
 Not without its shade of pain. 
 
 177 
 
 M
 
 i 7 8 
 
 ADRIFT. 
 
 Milly sings — So she went drifting. 
 
 So she went drifting, drifting 
 
 Over the sea, 
 Thinking that others were shifting; 
 
 Surely not she. 
 She no anchor had lifted, 
 
 Meant not to move ; 
 Only she slowly drifted 
 
 Deep into love. 
 
 O she had held that a maiden 
 
 Should not be first 
 To sigh with a heart love-laden, 
 
 And long and thirst; 
 And mad at herself for her longing, 
 
 Hard things she said, 
 Then was mad at herself for wronging 
 
 The love she had.
 
 PAUL GAUNT. 179 
 
 He knew not how she was yearning 
 
 Just for a word, 
 And went on his way discerning 
 
 Nothing he heard : 
 Only he sometimes wondered 
 
 What she could mean — 
 () had he only pondered 
 
 He might have seen. 
 
 So she went drifting, drifting 
 Day after day; 
 
 So he went shifting, shifting, 
 Farther away; 
 
 O but a word would have done it- 
 Word never spoken ; 
 
 So she went drifting, drifting 
 With her heart broken.
 
 lilooU Jifth. 
 
 PROSPECTS.
 
 Uisitors. 
 
 r "PHAT night; though the storm was still raging, 
 
 Austen and Paul went forth, 
 Arm in arm, braving the rain, and the chill roaring 
 
 wind from the North ; 
 It was seven on the Minster-clock as they knocked 
 
 at a staring green door, — 
 Grass-green it of the brightest, — and a brass plate 
 
 on it bore 
 The name, Andrew Downie, Esquire, in letters 
 
 readable, large,
 
 1 84 PROSPECTS. 
 
 All standing out of the panel, shining and big as a 
 
 targe. 
 Yet he was kindly and human, a plump, little man 
 
 by the fire, 
 Slippered and cheery, drawing the wine and the 
 
 walnuts nigher, 
 Not without kettle on hob, not without spirit-case too. 
 For an easy bachelor evening, lonely, with nothing 
 
 to do : 
 Prosy and garrulous he, and his face brightened 
 
 gladly to see 
 Paul and his student friend come to give him their 
 
 company.
 
 Jtnbrcto 5 0ton i c » Ssq. 
 
 Try the port, sir; it ought to be good, 
 
 It cost me a mint of money; 
 It's been twenty years out of the wood, 
 With a taste of the olives it should 
 
 Go down like the new milk and honev. 
 
 I bought it in, let me say, 
 
 When we sold up old Drumkeller; 
 He was famed for his wines in his day, 
 And the Duke carried half away, 
 
 But the rest came to my poor cellar.
 
 ] 86 PROSPECTS. 
 
 It was 1 that wound up his affairs, 
 And a pretty mess they were in : 
 He had gone on 'Change, and the bears 
 Turned his acres quickly to shares ; 
 
 They'd have jobbed him soon of his skin. 
 
 He was bit with the railways first, 
 And then he went in for mines, 
 Wheal-Bwbl, Wheal Dydl, Wheal Wuhrst - 
 I lost a big thing when they burst ; 
 
 But they smashed him clean off the lines. 
 
 We sold him up for a song 
 
 To a stupid stocking-weaver; 
 I always thought we were wrong : 
 And he did not hold out long — 
 
 Heart, they said — but it was his liver.
 
 ANDRE IV DO WNIE. 1 87 
 
 Had we waited, instead of a loss, 
 
 He might have been good for a million ; 
 There was shale in those acres of moss, 
 The old laird and his pony would cross, 
 With his wife sticking fast to the pillion. 
 
 I told them to wait ; peats may blaze, 
 But they don't fly away in a hurry : 
 But money was tight in those days, 
 And the Banks took to watching your ways, 
 So we sold, like fools, in a flurry. 
 
 Well, I bought in his port, as I said, 
 And it's sound every bottle as yet, 
 Every cork with a wig on its head, 
 And a bouquet might quicken the dead, 
 Or flavour a bailie with wit.
 
 iS8 PROSPECTS. 
 
 But you sip it as if you were stung ; 
 
 You'd prefer it perhaps with more body ? 
 Old port for old fellows ; the young 
 Like the smack of the wood and the bung, 
 
 Or even the flavour of toddy. 
 
 Not drink ! and a man in your line ! 
 
 Well, I don't set up for a teacher, 
 But a lad that don't take to his wine 
 Will not do for a learned divine 
 
 Or a popular, orthodox preacher. 
 
 All the sound, solid parsons, I wist, 
 
 Drink their port with a kindly good will ; 
 But your cold water dulls them like mist, 
 Or they get some heretical twist, 
 
 And go on, like the clack of a mill.
 
 A XDRE IV DO WNIE. 1 89 
 
 O you're not in the preaching way ; 
 
 You have come about the newspaper ; 
 But these Editor fellows they say, 
 Must be soaked, like a wick, half the day 
 
 Ere they light up their evening taper. 
 
 Well ; I'd not have believed it before 
 
 That so many men of ability 
 Could be standing about by the score, 
 Looking out for an open door, 
 
 And a job with a little gentility. 
 
 Look, there, at that huge pile of letters : — 
 And that's not the half I am sure : — 
 
 All scholars, sir, greatly my betters, 
 
 All versed in political matters, 
 And Science and Literature.
 
 i go PROSPECTS. 
 
 What a wealth of brains there must be 
 In this fine old country of ours, 
 
 Which nobody ever can see 
 
 Till he advertises like me 
 
 For a man of "original powers."' 
 
 One has written reviews for the " Times," 
 
 One, paragraphs for the " Spectator," 
 One encloses a copy of rhymes, 
 And another, he rings the chimes 
 
 On an " Own Correspondent's" letter. 
 
 And there's none of them but would as soon 
 
 Criticise the Almighty as not, 
 And see that the angels kept tune, 
 And watch that the sun and the moon 
 
 Did not squander the light they have got.
 
 ANDRE W D0WN1E. i y i 
 
 Clever fellows, Sir, wonderful clever ! 
 
 But I want an original mind ; 
 And these run in the same rut for ever, 
 Differing only in state of the liver, 
 
 And amount of lungs for wind. 
 
 You see, I have nothing to do : 
 
 I made a bit money, and stopt, 
 Then I tried this and that, with a view 
 Of getting some happiness too, 
 
 Ere my blossom of life was cropt. 
 
 I had hard lines, most of my days, 
 
 Rose just, as they say, from the gutters, 
 
 Knew little of children's plays, 
 
 ( )r country-folk and their ways, 
 
 Since I learnt how to take down the shutters.
 
 I92 rROSPECTS. 
 
 ^Ve are all of us self-made here ; 
 
 So is every one worth his meat, 
 And I don't know I ever was near 
 So happy and proud as the year 
 
 That I swept the rooms tidy and neat. 
 
 Then I thought myself something. I'd stop 
 And laugh, 'mid the dust, right out, 
 
 Looking down on the boys in a shop, 
 
 And O what a glory of Hope 
 
 Seemed floating then all round about ! 
 
 Well, I made some money, and then 
 I thought I would travel a while ; 
 That enlarges the minds of men, 
 So they say, but nine out of ten, 
 
 Might as well sit and swing on a stile.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. 
 
 193 
 
 Those French fellows gabbled so fast 
 
 I could not make out what they said, 
 And they shrugged and smiled, and went past, 
 When I spoke their own tongue, till at last 
 I was well nigh losing my head. 
 
 So I wearied of big empty Kirks, 
 
 And cafes and pictures and shows, 
 And the old German towns with their Storks, 
 And Rome with its wonderful works, 
 And the Alps with their guides and snows. 
 
 Enlarge my mind, did you say?— 
 
 Not a bit Sir ■ I came as I went ! 
 It was six months of wearisome play, 
 And some photographs got by the way, 
 And food, like a long fast in Lent. 
 
 N
 
 i 94 PROSPECTS. 
 
 After that, I bought an estate, 
 
 Running still in a rut like the rest ; 
 I had better have bought a bad debt, 
 For my money ran down like a spate, 
 And my bogs grew an absolute pest. 
 
 Rural life, lads, is all a mistake, 
 
 Seeing nothing but grass fields, and botany, 
 And sleek, stupid cows half-awake ; 
 And the birds your morning sleep break, 
 
 And weary you with their monotony. 
 
 I used to go sauntering round, 
 
 And stare at my turnip drills, 
 Or watch the old crows as they found 
 Twisting worms in the fresh-ploughed ground, 
 
 Or the shadows flit over the hills.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. t g 5 
 
 But what human soul could exist 
 
 On a vision of shadows and crows, 
 And the trailing of clouds and mist, 
 Or the thought of the worms as they twist 
 Where the turnip or mangold grows? 
 
 So I filled with fish-tackle red books, 
 
 Sticking flies round my hat out and in ■ 
 But the trout picked the bait from my hooks, 
 And sniffed at my flies in their nooks, 
 
 Though they jumped to a boy's crooked pin. 
 
 Well, of all stupid sports that I know, 
 
 The absurdest is catching your fish, 
 
 Getting tired as you walk to and fro, 
 
 Getting wet, too, for nothing, although 
 
 A sixpence would get you a dish.
 
 196 PROSPECTS. 
 
 As to shooting, no bird would remain 
 For a good steady shot; but as fast 
 As the pointers would point, they were fain 
 To be off, and I peppered in vain 
 
 As they rose with a whirr, and flew past. 
 
 No; the country is stupid, or worse; 
 
 The mice would get drowned in the cream, 
 And then — no butter of course, 
 Or something went wrong with your horse, 
 
 Or the eggs vanished off like a dream. 
 
 In the country I never could get 
 
 What the country is meant to produce ; 
 
 But I got in a hank of debt, 
 
 Till I advertised it to let, 
 
 Or to go, if it must, to the deuce.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. x g 7 
 
 Ah ! the town, lads, for me ! I don't care 
 
 Though I never see grass or tree, 
 Nor leave the old market square, 
 For there 's true life and motion there, 
 Just to stand on the pavement, and see 
 
 Rural women with butter on blades, 
 Fisher-women with loaded creel, 
 
 How they chaffer with wives and maids ! 
 
 How they storm through the varying shades 
 Of the passion they feign to feel ! 
 
 You should see the gardeners too, 
 With their carrots, like nosegays red : 
 
 Their gardens always do — 
 
 And there's nothing you want but you 
 Shall find there, living or dead.
 
 198 
 
 PROSPECTS. 
 
 Then on Fair-days and hiring-days — Ah ! 
 
 It 's as good as a play to be there, 
 As the ploughman jogs up with a straw 
 In his hat, and the lasses guffaw 
 
 At the jokes that are rife in the Fair. 
 
 Or on great days, just to see 
 
 The trades all out in procession, 
 The man who is armed cap-a-pie, 
 And Adam and Eve, and the Tree, 
 
 And the Serpent, and all the Temptation 
 
 O life, lads, there's nothing like life, 
 
 The stir and crush of the folk, 
 The bargaining, beering, and strife, 
 And the small boys with trumpet or fife, 
 And the gingerbread and the rock !
 
 i 9 9 
 
 ANDRE W DO WN1E. 
 
 They talk of the fine country air, 
 
 But it never agreed with me ; 
 I'm a town-bird, you see, and don't care 
 For the daisies and butter-cups there, 
 As I do for the dulse and the sea. 
 
 As for walks — what walk could you take 
 Like a stroll to the point of the pier, 
 
 To watch how the long tangles shake, 
 
 And the gull and the kittiwake 
 
 Dive and bob till your dinner hour's near? 
 
 But the Newspaper ! well, here am I 
 
 In the town, and with nothing to do, 
 And I hear it is going to die 
 Of a Radical scamp who must try, 
 Forsooth, a halfpenny Review.
 
 200 
 
 PROSPECTS. 
 
 Now, the paper is part of the Town ; 
 
 It would not be the same place without it 
 I'd as lief the Kirk-steeple fell down : 
 Let it cost me a plack or a crown, 
 
 We'll print it, sir, never you doubt it. 
 
 It was always here, as I say, 
 
 Coming out every week like the Sunday; 
 Quite enough too ; I can't see a way 
 To have accidents fresh every day, 
 
 Or eclipses each Friday and Monday. 
 
 But business is business, and so 
 
 We must make it pay, if we can, 
 And I want one whose pen will not go 
 In a rut of set phrases, you know, 
 But a real original man.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. 2 o I 
 
 As to politics, them I don't mind; 
 
 They go round and round like a jig; 
 I'm a Tory myself, but I find 
 Nothing pays so well as a kind 
 
 Of steady respectable Whig. 
 
 You may gird at the parsons a bit, 
 They've got Sunday all to themselves, 
 
 And don't spare their hearers a whit, 
 
 But I won't have an infidel wit, 
 
 Like that fellow Voltaire on the shelves. 
 
 I'm not pious — I never had time, 
 
 Though I learned all the Proverbs at School, 
 
 O 
 
 And some of the Psalms too in rhyme, 
 And I know that Isaiah's sublime, 
 And the Parables beautiful.
 
 202 PROSPECTS. 
 
 You must let religion alone; 
 
 I'll have nought of the infidel kind, 
 We must write in a sound moral tone, 
 And not like that halfpenny drone, 
 
 But with fresh original mind. 
 
 And the main thing after all, 
 
 Must be always the Town's affairs — 
 How the Provost keeps up the ball, 
 And the names the Town-Councillors call 
 Each other, and nobody cares. 
 
 Then the shipping and harbour dues, 
 
 And what's to be done with the bar, 
 And the kirks with their empty pews, — 
 O there's plenty of capital news 
 For the paper, without going far.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. 
 
 Then, there's accidents, railway smashes, 
 And how the poor shareholder smarts, 
 And the folk struck by fierce lightning-flashes, 
 And now and then mercantile crashes, 
 Or children run over by carts: 
 
 There's the Circuit-Courts, and the Member, 
 
 And the soirees wound up with a dance, 
 And the College, of course, in November, 
 And the woman the Queen will remember, 
 With her three little babies at once. 
 
 There's the stocking-trade, and the police, 
 The catch of herrings and whales, 
 
 And the cost of the wool in the fleece ; 
 
 Who cares about war or peace 
 When our fishers have stormy gales? 
 
 203
 
 204 PROSPECTS. 
 
 If you like, you may give us a claver 
 
 About folk of the Town long ago, 
 Or a song with some body and flavour, 
 Though I don't deny that I never 
 Read poems, unless I don't know. 
 
 What we want is the news of the Town, 
 
 To know all about ourselves clearly; 
 Now, I like your looks, I own, 
 And I don't care although I come down, 
 With a hundred-andjifty yearly. 
 
 There, I'm tired of these long-winded scrawls; 
 
 Each harder to read than the other; 
 O they're all of them Peters and Pauls, 
 Apostles of Wisdom that calls 
 
 In the streets, always making a pother.
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. 205 
 
 But you have some sense, for you can 
 Be silent while others are speaking; 
 
 Now, I've told you all of my plan, 
 
 Only mind, it is always a man 
 Of original powers I am seeking. 
 
 When they came out to the street, Austen burst 
 
 into a shout 
 Of such riotous, loud laughter, which he strove to 
 
 check in vain, 
 That neighbours to the windows came with curious 
 
 peering out, 
 As peel on peel rung, echoing, till the mirth grew 
 
 very pain 
 And when he would have ceased, it only louder 
 
 rose again. 
 
 Why, Paul, he said, at length, you'll kill me with 
 that solemn look :
 
 206 PROSPECTS. 
 
 Don't you know, man, I'm an editor, and real 
 " original" — 
 
 A respectable, Whig Editor, with a right to bring 
 to book 
 
 The Provost and the parsons and the halfpenny- 
 Radical, 
 
 And to freely criticize all the local and the small? 
 
 Original powers of mind, Paul, to tell the catch 
 
 of herrings, 
 And the nosegays of red carrots, and the current 
 
 price of wool, 
 To describe the hiring markets, and the lasses, and 
 
 their fairings, 
 And profound examinations ot our learned grammar 
 
 school, 
 And the doings of the Councillors who call each 
 
 other fool ?
 
 ANDRE W DOWNIE. 207 
 
 Was there ever luck like mine? — and I just come 
 
 from playing tinker ! 
 O the fresh thoughts I shall utter about the whaling 
 
 ships ! 
 If the Bailies only knew that a true original 
 
 thinker 
 Was to criticize their speeches, and their little snacks 
 
 and trips ! 
 And how that halfpenny Radical shall sink in dark 
 
 eclipse ! 
 
 There's my destiny at last found, in this queer 
 
 Universe, 
 
 To play respectable Whig on a hundred-and-fifty 
 a-year ; 
 
 A man of powers original paid duly to rehearse 
 
 The condition of the weather and the Provost, who, 
 
 I hear,
 
 2o8 PROSPECTS. 
 
 Is a man of no condition, and a brewer of small 
 beer. 
 
 Well, we come into this world, wrapt up in super- 
 fine cocoon, 
 
 Soft and silky, and our business is to reel it off 
 again, 
 
 And to know ourselves but worms, and care for 
 nought beneath the moon, 
 
 But to look about for what will eat, and eat it 
 there and then, 
 
 And get rid of all fine feelings, and high dreams 
 of Gods and men. 
 
 I've been winding my cocoon off quite rapidly of 
 
 late, 
 And am very nearly naked, and ready to devour 
 
 All that I can set my teeth to — and I am not 
 
 delicate —
 
 ANDRE W DO WNIE. 
 
 209 
 
 Heaven and earth, they say shall pass away, like 
 
 fading autumn flower, 
 But my heaven is gone, and earth alone has gript 
 
 me with its power. 
 
 Is it worth while living longer after you have reach- 
 ed the stage 
 
 When life at last is possible, and you are purged 
 of all 
 
 The nobler thoughts you cherished, and the hopes 
 of a great age, 
 
 Coming with diviner visions to reverse the early Fall, 
 
 And the soul is fairly harnessed to the local and 
 the small ? 
 
 Ah ! if one could only leave it, ere all higher dreams 
 
 have left ! 
 
 Could but die before the death of that which is our 
 
 life indeed ! 
 
 o
 
 210 PROSPECTS. 
 
 Could cease to be or ever one is utterly bereft 
 Of that gleam of something better which may 
 
 chance to be the seed 
 Of a hope for human hearts, when ours shall cease 
 
 to beat and bleed ! 
 
 Nay, I do not rave and maunder; I am not a love- 
 sick boy 
 
 Whose life is all washed out, while he is whining 
 through his teens ; 
 
 But there's that has come upon me, which has 
 taken all the joy 
 
 From my being ; and when one has lost the staff 
 on which he leans — 
 
 Well, he finds that he is lame, and maybe knows 
 not what it means. 
 
 Perhaps I'll tell you more, Paul, on some day by 
 and bye.
 
 ANDRE W DO WN1E. 2 1 1 
 
 Perhaps I'll keep my sorrow to myself — I cannot tell ; 
 I know that I can trust you ; but then I know not why 
 I should bind upon your spirit that which binds me 
 
 like a spell, 
 Or lay on you the burden which is crushing me to 
 
 hell. 
 
 I am weary, O how weary ! of all beneath the sun ; 
 There's no nature in my laughter, and no sweetness 
 
 in my thought, 
 I seem to have no Faith or Hope ; my lights have 
 
 one by one 
 Died out, and left an evil smoke : God help me, I 
 
 am not 
 Good company this evening ; better leave me to my 
 
 lot." 
 
 But they did not sunder yet, and the gloomy mood 
 went off,
 
 212 PROSPECTS. 
 
 And the itch of laughter came again, and mordent 
 
 mockery, 
 And above the wind and rain arose the hard 
 
 metallic scoff 
 About Editors and powers and the fishers and 
 
 the sea ; 
 And in sooth there was no nature and no sweetness 
 
 in his glee.
 
 § ooh §ixtk 
 
 RELIEF.
 
 JEUIs 6aunt. 
 
 A FTER they left, she sat a little while, 
 
 Now brooding thoughtful, now with flickering 
 smile 
 Playing about her lips, and in her eyes, 
 As the flame flickered in the fire likewise, 
 And leaped up in the curling smoke, or lay 
 Over the coal and purred itself away. 
 Thus she a while to happy fancies yielding 
 A willing tribute of sweet castle-building,
 
 216 RELIEF. 
 
 Saw in the gleaming coal a hero strong, 
 
 And a fond lover, and a blissful throng 
 
 Of varied circumstance and generous life, 
 
 When maiden blossom fruited into wife ; 
 
 Till looking up, behold an hour had passed ! 
 
 And wondering how the time had flown so fast, 
 
 She wondered on a little more, to know 
 
 If still the happy clock as quick would go 
 
 When fancies grew to facts, and she should be 
 
 All that the fire had pictured curiously ; 
 
 Then starting up, went tripping down the stair, 
 
 Singing with cheerful heart a lightsome air — 
 
 A lightsome air about the gallant lad, 
 
 Who fired the heather with his white cockade. 
 
 High beauty her's : a face as marble white, 
 Shaded with glossy braids as black as night, 
 But full of health, and clear intelligence, 
 And cultured grace, and woman's delicate sense.
 
 MILL Y GA UNT. 2 i 7 
 
 A noble, generous spirit, meet to be 
 
 The helpmate of a noble destiny, 
 
 Strong in all duty, in ambition high, 
 
 Open in thought, and broad in sympathy, 
 
 With nothing little, save the little ways 
 
 Which brighten home, and are a woman's praise. 
 
 All day she had been teaching in the school, 
 And still at night, though weary of the rule 
 Of noisy mirth and sullen dulness, she 
 Had work to do, and did it cheerfully — 
 T raining deft fingers to the finest chords, 
 And wedding the flute-voice to liquid words 
 Of Scottish song, or German lieder high, 
 Or roundelay of France or Italy. 
 She had the artist soul and artist voice, 
 And in the gift of song she would rejoice 
 As doth the skylark trilling forth its lay 
 At early dawn and noon and close of day.
 
 2i8 RELIEF. 
 
 Thus giving lessons in the evening, she 
 Lightened home cares by that loved industry. 
 
 A bright young girl, as glad as summer air, 
 
 A laughing rosy girl, with sunny hair 
 
 That loosely rayed about a joyous face 
 
 Like a gold glory, tripped with winsome grace 
 
 About her room, when Milly entered singing, 
 
 And picked a letter up, which gaily flinging 
 
 Up to the ceiling, she caught as it fell, 
 
 And danced about, and tossed it high and well. 
 
 " A letter, a letter, Miss Milly, a letter ! 
 
 Now don't stiffen up so, as if you knew better 
 
 Than to care for a letter that's all about you — 
 
 Such a wonderful letter, and every word true ! 
 
 And it proves you're a lady — but you're that, dear, 
 
 already — 
 But it makes you out clearly a something that's nearly
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 2 10 
 
 As good as a Princess, my own Cinderella, 
 Who trots every night, with that horrid umbrella, 
 Through the sleet and the slush to poor me who 
 
 am nothing 
 But a commonplace lassie with nought of romance. 
 But I always felt sure that you went home to dance 
 With the beautiful Prince who was fuming and 
 
 frothing, 
 Till you came to the ball : and now it's all true ! 
 But you shan't read the letter that's all about you, 
 Unless you first sing me a ballad or song — 
 Sqmething awfully good, now, and dreadful and long, 
 That I can't sleep for thinking of it and of you ; 
 For I want just to know, darling, what people do 
 When they hear the clock ticking there all the 
 
 night through. 
 I've tried it again and again, but I go 
 Always to sleep in a minute or so.
 
 220 RELIEF. 
 
 Therewith she tossed it gaily through the room, 
 Now high in light, now caught it in the gloom, 
 Nor would she settle down, or part with it, 
 Being with maiden mischief wholly smit, 
 Till Milly sung a ballad or a song, 
 Which could not be too terrible or long : 
 Something pathetic that should make her weep, 
 Or something dreadful till her flesh should creep; 
 Something, at least, to banish thought of sleep. 
 So in the dusk, Milly, in accents low, 
 " My mother used to sing this long ago :" — 
 
 The Three Brothers' Cairn. 
 
 They were three brothers tall and strong, 
 And they stood by the low Grange gate ; 
 
 There was Ranald and Ralph and Hamish big, 
 And their looks were hard as Fate ; 
 
 Yet they all had kissed their little brother, Max, 
 As he slept in the morning late.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 221 
 
 Then up and rode a gay cavalier, 
 
 With a haughty grace, I ween ; 
 His doublet bright of the velvet white 
 
 Was slashed with the dark moreen, 
 And with golden spurs and silver bells 
 
 He came prancing over the green. 
 
 Up and rode the gay cavalier, 
 
 And leapt down from his selle ; 
 Says, " Where is now fair Marjorie ? 
 
 And where is Max as well ? 
 And why that gloom, like the look of doom, 
 
 Upon your faces, tell !" 
 
 Light and careless the words he spoke, 
 As he flicked the foam from his knee ; 
 
 And careless and light, and haughty and bright 
 The glance of his eye so free ; 
 
 As if he would say, Look black as ye may, 
 But where is Marjorie?
 
 222 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 " We go a-fishing, Lord Earl," they said, 
 
 " The morning is dull and gray, 
 And. the wind in the south; and Marjorie 
 
 Will meet us on the way : 
 But little Max, at his schooling lax, 
 
 Will bide at home this day." 
 
 " We go a-fishing, Lord Earl," they said, 
 
 " Now, wilt thou join our sport ? 
 We are not knights to lead the fray, 
 
 Nor wits to shine at Court ; 
 But the yeoman knows where the May-fly goes, 
 
 And the speckled trout resort." 
 
 They fished the stream, and for one they caught 
 
 Earl Rupert he caught three ; 
 They fished the mere, and their lines broke there, 
 
 But his sport went merrily; 
 And ever the darker grew their looks, 
 
 The gayer laugh laughed he.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 223 
 
 " Now, when shall we see fair Marjorie 
 
 To praise me for my skill, 
 And to tell her loutish brothers here 
 
 They do their fishing ill, 
 As they saddle and boot, and dress and shoot — 
 
 For the clown is clumsy still ? " 
 
 " The sun is high and hot, Lord Earl, 
 
 And she was to meet us then 
 By the deep black pool, 'neath the shadow cool 
 
 Of the rocks in the dowie den; 
 
 For she likes the water-lilies there, 
 
 And the rippling water-hen." 
 
 They sped apace to the trysting place, 
 
 And lightly still laughed he ; 
 And by the black pool in the shadow cool 
 
 They found fair Marjorie 3 
 But still and deep, in death's long sleep, 
 
 In an open grave lay she.
 
 224 RELIKF. 
 
 " Now, choose ye, choose, Lord Earl," they said, 
 
 "Who first with you shall fight; 
 You have basely laid with the shamed dead 
 
 Our sister, sweet as light ; 
 We buried her here at morning gray, 
 
 And we'll bury you here at night. 
 
 We are country bred, and we have not skill 
 
 Of fence to match with you ; 
 And among the three but one sword have we, 
 
 For we would no murder do ; 
 Take Ranald, or Ralph, or Hamish big, 
 
 One down, the other is due." 
 
 Karl Rupert looked down with an angry frown, 
 
 But a tear was in his eye ; 
 And the gloom was on him, and the light was on them 
 
 As he turned disdainfully, 
 Saying, "As you will, then, gentlemen, 
 
 For the honour of Marjorie !"
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 
 
 " The right is mine," said Ranald good, 
 
 " Tis .fit the eldest son 
 Should wipe the shame from an honest name, 
 
 And see just vengeance done. " 
 But Hamish pled, he was strong and big, 
 
 And it skilled not were he gone. 
 
 " Now, settle it 'mong yourselves, good boors, 
 
 It is all alike to me ; 
 But settle it quick, for the mists are thick 
 
 On the tops of hill and tree ; 
 And I have far to ride this night 
 
 Across the hill countree. " 
 
 Then Ranald true the old sword drew, 
 
 And set on him with might ; 
 But scornfully that onset he 
 
 Met with his cunning sleight ; 
 
 And thrice he trust him through and through, 
 
 And thrice he laughed so light. 
 
 p 
 
 225
 
 226 RELIEF. 
 
 A raven sat on the withered branch 
 
 Of a thunder-blasted tree, 
 Watching the fight with look askance, 
 
 And nodding his head to see, 
 And when Ranald fell he flapped his wings, 
 
 And croaked thrice huskily. 
 
 Ralph took the sword from the blood-glued hand, 
 
 Saying, " Farewell, brother true, 
 And God of Right, give me the might 
 
 To take the vengeance due 
 For the broken heart of our Father dear, 
 
 And Marjorie and you." 
 
 Ralph had the will, though scant the skill, 
 
 But supple he was and light, 
 And warily he thrust and cut, 
 
 And skipped to left and right ; 
 And the earl's look changed its high disdain, 
 
 Seeing blood on his lace-bands white.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 22 
 
 Yet Ralph, too, fell, and shuddered out 
 
 His soul into the air ; 
 And the raven danced and flapped and croaked 
 
 On the withered branch and bare : 
 And the sword it passed to Hamish last, 
 
 For but one heart was there. 
 
 Big-limbed and strong was Hamish long, 
 
 And a fell stroke then struck he, 
 As the hammer comes down on the anvil brown, 
 
 Saying, " Look ye, Lord Earl, and see, 
 This for Ranald, and that for Ralph, 
 
 And this for our Marjorie ! " 
 
 Big Hamish was strong, and his arm was long; 
 
 Earl Rupert grew faint and slow, 
 Fair Marjorie's corpse on his sword-arm hung, 
 
 And he staggered to and fro ; 
 Yet his sword went through big Hamish : 
 
 But Hamish laid him low.
 
 228 RELIEF. 
 
 Ho ! ho ! how the raven clucked and crowed 
 And danced on the lichened bough ; 
 
 There were gouts of blood on the purple bud 
 Of the heath and ling, I trow, 
 
 And great glazed eyes staring up to the skies, 
 As he lazily dropt below. 
 
 Little Max came fishing up the stream 
 
 Late in the evening gray, 
 He wist to find sister and brothers there. 
 
 And his heart was light and gay : 
 What was the foul bird croaking at, 
 
 As it heavily hopped away? 
 
 Gay in his gold and jewels there, 
 
 Gay in his youthful bloom, 
 Earl Rupert was lying, and Hamish was dying 
 
 Under the golden broom, 
 And Ranald and Ralph were stark beside. 
 
 And Marjorie in the tomb.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 
 
 229 
 
 Close clinging to her side, the blithesome maid 
 Heard the weird tale, and never word she said, 
 Only she nearer drew, and trembled more, 
 Till all was silent save the sullen roar 
 Of billows thudding on the sandy shore ; 
 Then vowed the tale was charming, horrid, sad, 
 And wondered whether Max went fairly mad, 
 And stirred about to get the music right; 
 But they no lesson had, at least, that night. 
 For Milly read the letter, all amazed, 
 Now and then wondering if her wits were dazed. 
 And if she read aright ; then read again, 
 The double reading doubling all her pain. 
 
 It came from Lawyer in a country town 
 To Lawyer in the city, and set down 
 The facts in business order, plain and clear ; 
 How in our quiet glens a lady here 
 Died somewhat suddenly not long agone,
 
 230 RELIEF. 
 
 And left estates unto an only son. 
 
 They were not hers by right, and yet by law 
 
 Her title was most sure, without a flaw; 
 
 Freely she might enjoy them while she breathed, 
 
 Freely she might bequeath them, as bequeathed. 
 
 He knew the facts, for he had drawn the will, 
 
 And Austen Lyall's claim was good as skill 
 
 Could frame a legal deed to sanction wrong, 
 
 And rob the orphan, which had grieved him long ; 
 
 Yet had he only done as he was bound, 
 
 Giving his clients valid law and sound. 
 
 Now at the funeral this son went mad, 
 
 Insulted kith and kin, was wholly bad; 
 
 Mocked at the minister, and laughed at heaven, 
 
 Was barely civil to his lawyer even, 
 
 And gathered all the rogues and beggars near 
 
 To eat the feast made for his mother's bier : 
 
 Inexplicable, unless of reason reft. 
 
 Then on the morrow afterwards he left,
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 231 
 
 No orders given, no charge to any one, 
 
 No single duty of a landlord done ; 
 
 Nor had they since heard from him. He was seen, 
 
 Indeed, that morning on the hillside green 
 
 Gazing upon a lonesome mountain tarn, 
 
 And talking wildly by the Brother's Cairn, 
 
 And never after. They had dragged the mere 
 
 And found enough to make his madness clear— 
 
 The Hall-keys in a bunch, rusty and brown, 
 
 Also the Will that made the place his own, 
 
 Which no sane man could leave in such a place ; 
 
 But of himself they had not any trace. 
 
 Some thought him dead, but most believed him mad, 
 
 Some held it a good riddance, others sad ; 
 
 However that might be, he had to say 
 
 The next heir, who was true heir, went away 
 
 Twenty odd years ago, and had been wed 
 
 To Gerald Gaunt, and both of them were dead, 
 
 But there were children; so, at least, 'twas said.
 
 232 RELIEF. 
 
 Now, would the city lawyer look about, 
 And make inquiries, and resolve the doubt? 
 Were Austen dead, they were the next of kin ; 
 If mad, as he believed, from pride and sin, 
 They would have rights to see to, and the Trust 
 Would charge itself with what was right and just : 
 The lands were good, and free of bond and debt, 
 And some loose monies too there were to get ; 
 Could he but find the children any way 
 Of Gerald Gaunt and Borland's " Bonnie May." 
 
 She closed the letter with a moan of pain : 
 His name was there, and burnt into her brain, — 
 His name, who was her secret glory and pride; 
 And yet she could not. say he was belied, 
 And cast the misery from her, as the Saint 
 Shook off the poisonous viper; she was faint, 
 And sick at heart, and rose, and said, " Good night ; 
 These are strange tidings, and my head seems light;''
 
 \ 
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 233 
 
 And staggered to the door, and passed away 
 Into the darkness of the closing day. 
 
 "How could he? Oh how could he?" still she said, 
 
 " My dream of life is gone, my hope is dead, 
 
 Torn like the honey-bag from humble bee, 
 
 Nought left me but a short, sharp agony. 
 
 How could he? — And my brother loved him so, 
 
 So trusted him in all of weal or woe, 
 
 So held him stainless of ignoble thought, 
 
 The truest friend that ever true life brought !— 
 
 Oh, it is not the loss of heritage 
 
 That makes life poor; it is that, stage by stage, 
 
 Some leave us with a lessening faith in man, 
 
 And less of love than when our life began, 
 
 Till one day all our shining heaven shall tell 
 
 But how the stars once shone, and how they fell. 
 
 How could he? — -And I held him hero true, 
 
 Trained by the age for what the age must do,
 
 234 RELIEF. 
 
 Full of its spirit, loyal to its hopes, 
 And past the stage in which it only gropes ; 
 A man whom God had ready, when they say, 
 Where is the Leader, who shall guide our way? 
 I thought that truth and right was all he craved, 
 And that for truth and right all risks he braved, 
 And that he had a noble wisdom proved ; 
 And so I loved him — but 'twas this I loved. 
 How could he? Oh, how could he?" Still she said, 
 " My dream of life is broken, and my hope is dead." 
 
 And so when they came jesting up the stair, 
 And, tickled with quaint fancies, even there 
 A moment paused to let their mirth explode, 
 Their laughter jarred on her, and made her load 
 Press on the sore, till of the sore were born 
 Some bitter thoughts, and biting words of scorn. 
 
 Sure, of a sudden, they were wondrous merry ;
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 235 
 
 She had not thought such grief could be so cheery 
 
 In so short space ; but 'twas a healthy power 
 
 That healed a breaking heart in half an hour ; 
 
 Easy to break, easy to bind again, 
 
 'Twas pity to waste pity on such pain ; 
 
 So children wept and laughed, and that was good 
 
 But men she wist had been of sterner mood : — 
 
 She understood not ; she was dull, no doubt ; 
 
 But saw not what there was to jest about : 
 
 It looked to her a noble task for one 
 
 To chronicle the common life of man, 
 
 To tell the daily sorrows of the poor, 
 
 To mirror all the ills that they endure, 
 
 To watch the tide of mind, and guide its flow, 
 
 To speak brave words that made the brave heart glow. 
 
 It was the man made service great or small, 
 
 For still the noble soul ennobled all 
 
 It touched, and little natures made it less. 
 
 And a great heart was throbbing in the Press
 
 236 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 Which was the prophet's roll of modern man, 
 And faithful record, he might read who ran. 
 But then, of course, it was a jest to think 
 A man of wealth should waste his time and ink 
 On such mean tasks ; and yet she once had hoped— 
 No matter what her hope was — there she stopped. 
 
 Why, Milly, what is wrong? her brother said. 
 And she uplift again the drooping head 
 Which had, a moment, sunk at that sad look 
 That seemed to read her like an open book: 
 Nothing, of course, is wrong; what could be wrong? 
 I think that was the burden of the song 
 Which your friend sung about the Universe. 
 Of course, it is beneath him to rehearse 
 The common things of common folk, or right 
 The wrongs which are not, or which are so light. 
 
 Then he : Yes, Milly Gaunt, I said all that ;
 
 M1LLY GAUNT. 
 
 237 
 
 In bitterness of soul I uttered what 
 
 You echo now in sharper tones than mine, 
 
 Big words of little wisdom ; undivine 
 
 Because inhuman ; yet they were not barbed 
 
 To rankle, nor in mockery were garbed ; 
 
 They were not good words to remember, yet 
 
 They were not words to move a deep regret. 
 
 No matter — they were foolish j I am well 
 
 Rebuked for speech that, like the hot sparks, fell 
 
 From burning passion, being fiercely smote, 
 
 And sputtering words when all unapt for thought. 
 
 But there is more behind this wrath of thine 
 
 Than any wild, blind, erring speech of mine. 
 
 What is it, Milly? Why this bitter blame? 
 
 I came to you in sorrow and broken shame, 
 
 And untried poverty, and utter need, 
 
 Thinking you would not break the bruised reed ; 
 
 For there had fallen on me a hapless fate, 
 
 A knowledge that has made life desolate,
 
 238 RELIEF. 
 
 As when the iceberg drifts on some green shore, 
 
 Clasping its wooded bays, and bending o'er 
 
 Its sunny meadows, till it lose itself, 
 
 Melting on sandy beach, and rocky shelf, 
 
 But blighting all the bright flowers with its breath, 
 
 And wrapping all the scene in wasteful death. 
 
 So had my hope all withered by the fact 
 
 Which drifted on me, without will or act 
 
 Of mine, and clung to me, and will not part 
 
 Till its death-chill has frozen all my heart. 
 
 And when my soul was wrung with its sharp pain, 
 
 And troubled thoughts were tangling all my brain, 
 
 You touched me almost unto hope again. 
 
 For that, I thank you : what has changed your mood 
 
 I know not, but I owe you only good. 
 
 In such a gloom even briefest gleam of light 
 
 Is something, though it sink in deeper night : 
 
 And what of joy your life has shed on mine 
 
 And peace and hope be doubly poured on thine.''
 
 A f ILLY GAUNT. 2 y) 
 
 Deep toned his voice and trembling as he spoke, 
 And its great sorrow answering chords awoke, 
 And almost all her angry purpose broke ; 
 For it was ringing with the truth sincere, 
 And deep humility, and she could hear 
 Her heart beat with the beat of perfect faith 
 In all he said, which made her pale as death, 
 And sick at heart, to think that she perchance 
 Wronged the true soul by misjudged circumstance. 
 So she : " This sorrow that you may not tell, 
 Did it concern my brother who loves you well?" 
 "Nay, surely not; nor part nor lot has he 
 In my life, saving in the best of me : 
 Dear Paul ! was never sunshine to a scene 
 More than his fellowship to me has been. 
 But if you care to hear, perhaps 'twere well 
 The story of a broken life to tell ; 
 For broken it is, like foam upon the sea 
 Caught by the wind, and scattered aimlessly."
 
 2 4 o RELIEF. 
 
 Knitting his brows, and gathering up his thought, 
 With lips compressed to hide the pain that wrought 
 And quivered in them, for a while he gazed 
 In brooding silence where the faggot blazed. 
 Then in low tones : " I know not how to speak — 
 If I say little you will deem me weak ; 
 If I say more, the more will only blight 
 Another name to set my own name right. 
 Sometimes the half is better than the whole, 
 And sometimes worse than none ; the dubious soul 
 Suspects the secret there in what is hid, 
 And holds the rest but trash. I am forbid, 
 By that which is more sacred than my right, 
 To tell you much — to tell you all I might. 
 There are some sorrows cannot be subjected 
 To man's construction, — howsoe'er suspected." 
 And here he paused a while, and, brooding, gazed 
 Again in silence where the faggot blazed.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 
 
 241 
 
 But Paul said, Never mind, now ; let it be ; 
 
 Milly was wrong ; I never doubted thee ; 
 
 She will be sorry ere to-morrow come. 
 
 But she apart, biting her lip, and dumb, 
 
 With vehement finger crushed a harmless crumb. 
 
 Then he again : You hold me rich and proud, 
 
 Miss Gaunt, and scornful of the common crowd, 
 
 Which never was a common crowd to me, 
 
 And now is less than ever, for I see 
 
 No hope for me except in hope for those 
 
 Who stir your pity with their unvoiced woes. 
 
 I too am poor — once reckoned heir of all 
 
 A goodly pastoral land, a pleasant Hall, 
 
 And the respects and honours which they bring ; 
 
 But think not I for these am sorrowing. 
 
 I had no peace until I cast away 
 
 A claim that could not bear the light of day, 
 
 The deed of law that was a deed of sin, 
 
 Q
 
 242 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 Which now is gone to pulp and blotches in 
 
 The water-lilied haunt of tern and coot, 
 
 Or folds its slush around the brown sedge-root. 
 
 But life is poor when its old faiths are gone, 
 
 Poorest when man can trust himself alone. — 
 
 She started, for it was her own sad thought 
 
 He echoed, though he touched a deeper note ; 
 
 But silence kept, as he went on to tell 
 
 How he had sworn to one who loved him well 
 
 An oath he feared to break, and dared not keep, 
 
 Which haunted him by day, and banished sleep 
 
 With stony horrors from his nights, till he 
 
 Was nigh distraught with his great misery. 
 
 Enough ; what Milly said was just and true ; 
 
 There was a noble work which one might do, 
 
 Wielding a truthful pen with heart sincere, 
 
 In days whose change was big with hope and fear ; 
 
 But he must find the heirs of Borland's May; 
 
 And then no doubt but heaven would guide his way.
 
 MILL Y GA UNT. 2 
 
 Then she rose pale and trembling, and her eyes 
 Quailed at his glance of questioning surprise ; 
 Can you forgive me? piteously she pled, 
 I wronged you in my heart, yet my heart bled 
 To wrong you ; and it was not with my will : 
 Yet my heart wronged you — Oh I have done ill. 
 Our mother was May Borland ; and I feared — 
 He heard no more ; for never sky was cleared 
 Of close-piled clouds by April wind and sun, 
 Unravelling swift what they before had spun, 
 So suddenly as he from utter sadness, 
 Sodden and dreary, passed into a gladness 
 Of joyous gratulation, that forgot 
 All but the whole relief her words had brought. 
 
 Oft in their childhood had their mother told, 
 In the long winter evenings dark and cold, 
 ( )f Borland nestling in its bosk of trees, 
 Of the great lime filled with the hum of bees,
 
 244 RELIEF. 
 
 Of the tall orchard wall with ivy clad, 
 
 Where dainty nests the merle and throstle had, 
 
 Of the three waters blending in the river 
 
 Near where the red-roofed mill was clacking ever. 
 
 Of the long windings of the narrow glen 
 
 The water-lilied pool and water hen ; 
 
 And how the Borlands had been lairds of all 
 
 Since the wild Scots drave at the Roman Wall ; 
 
 And how her joyous girlhood had been there, 
 
 Honoured and petted still as Borland's heir; 
 
 And how the goodly heritage was lost 
 
 All for her love, nor did she grudge the cost, 
 
 Or only for her children sometimes grieved, 
 
 And for her father's love, which was deceived. 
 
 These tales the children heard with ear intent; 
 
 Children are fain to know how mothers spent 
 
 Their childhood, and to chatter of the day 
 
 When the grave matron was as blithe as they, 
 
 And went a-nutting through the autumn woods.
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 245 
 
 Or twined her daisy chain, or sought the nestling 
 
 broods. 
 And Milly, in her secret thoughts, would dream 
 That some day she should look on hill and stream, 
 And trace her mother's footsteps o'er again, 
 With Paul as Laird of all the long green glen. 
 But he, impatient, called her little fool ! 
 To set her heart on sleepy hill and pool, 
 Where life is always only half awake; 
 And dreams, he said, are fetters hard to break ; 
 Though they be only shadows you have made, 
 The life seems passing when the shadows fade. 
 As for myself, could any man of sense 
 Abide a dull laird's easy indolence, 
 Whose talk is all of cattle, turnip field, 
 And what the hay crop, what the oats will yield, 
 And how to keep the rabbits and the hares 
 From midnight poacher cunning with his snares ? 
 I will be lord of nothing but my mind,
 
 246 RELIEF. 
 
 I will be held of nothing that can bind 
 
 To vacant drowsiness the busy brain, 
 
 Or dull the sense of pleasure or of pain. 
 
 My days must be where thought has steadfast rule, 
 
 And skilful fingers deftly ply the tool, 
 
 And life is growing to a higher sense 
 
 Of God's design and man's omnipotence. 
 
 So would he silence her : but all the more 
 
 She cherished in her heart a secret store 
 
 Of hopes ; and now the time had come when she 
 
 Saw all she fondly dreamt about to be ; 
 
 But the bright cloud which gleamed, afar, like gold. 
 
 Felt now as mist about her dim and cold, 
 
 Or draggled robes that round her limbs enfold. 
 
 Silent she sat, and humbled and ashamed, 
 
 And much herself she questioned, much she blamed, 
 
 More than was meet, for woman's penitent course 
 
 Is prone to low prostrations of remorse. 
 
 Close in her bosom that hard letter lay,
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 247 
 
 And seemed to burn, and waste her life away : 
 
 cursed letter ! unhappy day ! 
 
 What should I do ? thus in her heart she said ; 
 
 For what love hides is raised as from the dead 
 
 Some day, and kills the love which covered it, 
 
 And frankest truth is more than subtle wit : — 
 
 But it will pain him knowing that I know ; 
 
 And O the shame ! that I should judge him so ! 
 
 But Paul, you will be noble still, and true 
 
 To the high thought that always guided you." — 
 
 Then Paul, unconscious of a great intent, 
 
 But simply natural, following the bent 
 
 Of a true heart, and fine instinct of skill, 
 
 Said ; Milly, you may go now if you will, 
 
 Turn a fine lady, eat and drink the best, 
 
 Drive in your carriage, lord it like the rest; 
 
 You 've always had a leaning that way ; I 
 
 Would rather live till nature bids me die, 
 
 Would rather die than thrive upon the wreck
 
 248 RELIEF. 
 
 Of one I loved. Here falling on his neck, 
 
 She hugged and kissed him, vowing ne'er to part, 
 
 He had so true a soul, so brave a heart. 
 
 But Austen : " You must do, Paul, as you will ; 
 
 The land is yours, with duties to fulfil — 
 
 An heritage which, being lost, implies 
 
 Loss of high opportunity likewise, 
 
 Loss of ancestral love which clings to you, 
 
 Loss of a work which only he can do 
 
 Who has men's hearts already on his side, 
 
 Looking to him, and willing to confide. 
 
 Think, Paul, your heritage is more than fields 
 
 Of grass and corn, and what the woodland yields, 
 
 'Tis something which could never have been mine. 
 
 The love of all the people which will twine 
 
 The closer round you from the sense of wrong, 
 
 Righted at last, which you have suffered long. 
 
 And there is something in the love our folk
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 240 
 
 Bear to the scion of an ancient stock, 
 May be unreasonable, may be more 
 Worthy than things there are good reasons for, 
 But beautiful, at least, and in its trust 
 Nobler than money-bargaining and lust. 
 What of your commune, with its spade and hoe 
 To till the field, where every man should grow 
 Enough for simple life, and still the loud, 
 Gaunt clamours of the swarming city's crowd? 
 Have I not heard you wisely eloquent 
 On lonely glens which only deer frequent, 
 Once filled with homesteads, furrowed by the plough, 
 And clothed with rustling grain and fruitful bough, 
 And how the men whose fathers owned it went, 
 With breaking hearts, to far-off banishment ; 
 And bore to rolling prairies in the West 
 A rankling sense of wrong in many a breast, 
 Which made our nation's foes the men who loved it 
 best?
 
 250 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 Surely you will not cast from you the power 
 
 To test your cherished thought, and nip the flower 
 
 When it is at the fruiting. As for me, 
 
 I have thrown off a load of misery. 
 
 You call it wreck — I call it haven at last, 
 
 Where, bruised and battered, but my danger past, 
 
 I am at peace. Paul, I have felt the strain 
 
 Of sharp temptation, and the aching pain 
 
 Of cold and hunger, and of discontent 
 
 With all myself had done, or God had sent ; 
 
 I have not known the sleep of a right mind, 
 
 Or ate or drunk with honest human kind, 
 
 Or felt as if I dared, until this night ; 
 
 And you, Paul, would you quench the dawning light 
 
 That tips my cloud with silver, and breaks in 
 
 With better hope on my dark world of sin? 
 
 Now I have found my work, good work and true, 
 
 And I have found the heart good work to do. 
 
 Milly was right ; it is the man who makes
 
 MILLY GAUNT. 
 
 "5 1 
 
 Noble or mean the task he undertakes, 
 
 Who breathes a godlike spirit into that 
 
 He has to do, or makes it stale and flat. 
 
 I see my work before me, and my way 
 
 Free from embarrassment, and clear as day, 
 
 Bright with a throng of hopeful services 
 
 That stir within me with a sense of bliss, 
 
 And need but righting of this wrong to be 
 
 The tide of a new life of joy in me." 
 
 He looked at Milly here, and she at him, 
 
 And as she looked, she felt her eyes grow dim 
 
 With something gathering in them, then looked 
 
 down, 
 Conscious that he was conscious of the crown 
 With which her love had crowned him in that look 
 Which dimmed with pride and gladness. Then he 
 
 took 
 Her hand, and said, " One day, when I have done 
 Good work, Paul, work which you can look upon
 
 252 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 And say, This true man truly played his part — 
 You '11 give me this soft hand ; I have her heart 
 I think, already; even as she has mine, — - 
 Worth little, but hers to take or to decline." 
 
 But how his work, and how his wooing sped, 
 And through what hard experience he was led, 
 Beaten and buffeted, until at length 
 He learnt humility, and found it strength, 
 And the rude block was shapen and inspired 
 With beauty through his troubles undesired, 
 As God saw needful for him ; that remains 
 For other days to sing in other strains. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.
 
 WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY MR. MACLEHOSE, 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY, GLASGOW, 
 
 Second Edition, in Extra Fcap. Szv, Price 6s. 6d., Cloth. 
 
 O LRIG GRANGE: 
 
 A Poem in Six Books. Edited by Hermann Kunst, Philol. 
 
 Professor. 
 
 Examiner. 
 
 "This remarkable poem will at once give its anonymous author a high 
 place among contemporary English poets, and it ought to exercise a potent 
 and beneficial influence on the political opinions of the cultivated classes. 
 . The demoralizing influence of our existing aristocratic institutions 
 on the most gifted and noblest members of the aristocracy, has never been so 
 subtly and so powerfully delineated as in ' Olrig Grange.' " 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 " ' Olrig Grange,' whether the work of a raw or of a ripe versifier, is plainly 
 the work of a ripe and not a raw student of life and nature. ... It has 
 dramatic power of a quite uncommon class : satirical and humorous obser- 
 vation of a class still higher; and, finally, a very pure and healthy, if perhaps 
 a little too scornful, moral atmosphere. . . . The most sickening phase 
 of our civilization has scarcely been exposed with a surer and quieter point, 
 even by Thackeray himself, than in this advice of a fashionable and religious 
 mother to her daughter." 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 " The story itself is very simple, but it is told in powerful and suggestive 
 verse. The composition is instinct with quick and passionate feeling, to a 
 degree that attests the truly poetic nature of the man who produced it. It 
 exhibits much more of genuine thought, of various knowledge, of regulated 
 and exquisite sensibility. The author exhibits a fine and firm discrimination 
 of character, a glowing and abundant fancy, a subtle eye to read the symbol- 
 ism of nature, and great wealth and mastery of language, and he has employed 
 it for worthy purposes." 
 
 Daily Review. 
 
 " A remarkable poem, — a nineteenth century poem, — the work of a genuine 
 poet, whoever he may be, and of a consummate artist. . . . The story is 
 wrought out with exquisite beauty of language, and a wealth of imagery 
 which mark the writer as one full of true poetic sensibility, and keenly alive 
 to all the subtle influences that are at work in society." 
 
 Academy. 
 
 " The pious self-pity of the worldly mother, and the despair of the worldly 
 daughter are really brilliantly put. . . . The story is worked out with 
 quite uncommon power." 
 
 English Independent. 
 
 " There is a music in portions of the verse which is all but perfect ; while 
 for vigorous outline of description, raciness and pungency of phrase, and con- 
 densation of thought, we know no modern volume of poems that is its equal. 
 . . . The satire is most searching, the pathos tenderness itself, and once 
 or twice the passion becomes almost tragic in its intensity. From the first 
 page to the last the fascination is fully maintained."
 
 WORK'S PUBLISHED BY MR. MA CLE HOSE. 
 
 Notices of Olrig Grange — continued. 
 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 "That it is one of many books which many would do well to read. The 
 monologues are in a metre which is, as far as we know, original, and is emi- 
 nently well adapted to the semi-ironical tone of this part of the poem. The 
 quaint jolt of the ninth line does the author credit. ... If the author 
 will rely still further on his own resources, he may produce something as 
 much better than ' Olrig Grange ' as that is better than nineteen-twentieths 
 of the poetry we have to read." 
 
 Congregationalism 
 
 " There is a pathos and a passion, a depth of sadness and of love, which 
 seems to us to vindicate for this unknown author a very high place among 
 contemporary poets. . . . Most charming is the soliloquy of Hester. 
 . . . The Herr Professor is very much in Hester's thoughts, and the shy 
 surprise, the palpitating wonder, the shame, the pride, the sweet delight, 
 which are all blended in her discovery that she is really falling in love, are 
 perfectly delicious and beautiful . . . but the triumph of the author"s 
 genius is in Rose's farewell to her lover." 
 
 Tatler in Cambridge. 
 
 " One could quote for ever, if a foolscap sheet were inexhaustible ; but I 
 must beg my readers, if they want to have a great deal of amusement, as well 
 as much truth beautifully put, to go and order the book at once. I promise 
 them, they will not repent." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " We believe that no competent reader will fail to acknowledge the vigour, 
 originality, humour, dramatic power, and imagination which this poem 
 shows." 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 " We have said enough to lead our readers, we hope, to take up the book 
 for themselves. It abounds in passages full of suggestion, and contains some 
 of no small poetic beauty, and others of much satirical vivacity and dexterity 
 i >f expression." 
 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 " It would be easy to cite remarkable instances of thrilling fervour, of 
 glowing delicacy, of scathing and trenchant scorn— to point out the fine and 
 firm discrimination of character which prevails throughout. The lady mother 
 — a proud, grand, luxurious, worldly, mean-minded, canting woman — the 
 author scarifies with a remorseless hate." 
 
 Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 " If this volume does not place the author in the company of Browning and 
 Tennyson, that is only saying that his book is second to the great master- 
 pieces of contemporary literature." 
 
 Liverpool Albion. 
 
 " We look upon this poem as an earnest protest against the hollowness and 
 pettiness of much that constitutes society. No moral is obtruded, but the 
 pointed barb of sarcasm is there with its sting, that should act, not indeed as 
 poison, but rather as an antidote." 
 
 Echo. 
 
 "This is a remarkable poem on contemporary English society, using that 
 term in its most restricted sense, written in a brilliant, humorous, and sar- 
 castic style, but at the same time with a high philosophic aim and a grave 
 moral purpose."
 
 WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MA CLE HOSE. 
 Just Published, m Extra Fcap. Svo, Cloth, Price "js. 6d. 
 
 HANNIBAL : 
 
 A Historical Drama. By John Nichol, B. A.Oxon., Professor 
 of English Language and Literature in the University of Glasgow. 
 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 "After the lapse of many centuries an English poet is found paying to the 
 great Carthaginian the worthiest poetical tribute which has as yet, to our 
 knowledge, been offered to his noble and stainless name." 
 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 " Probably the best and most accurate conception of Hannibal ever given 
 in English. Professor Nichol has done a really valuable work. From first 
 to last of the whole five acts, there is hardly a page that sinks to the level of 
 mediocrity." 
 
 Fortnightly Review. 
 
 " Upon one figure alone, besides that of his hero, the author has expended 
 all his care and power. Of this one ideal character, the conception is admir- 
 able, and worthy of the hand of a great poet. . . . We receive with all 
 welcome this latest accession to the English school of historic drama." 
 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 ' 'Hannibal,' in all the attributes of dramatic poetry, rises as far above 
 Addison and Dryden as they overtop the paltriness of a modern Vaudeville. 
 
 . . But much grander is the final vengeance of Rome upon faithless 
 Capua, and the last banquet of the Campanian chiefs. . . . We do not 
 know what higher praise we can give to the exquisite lyrics which the author 
 has introduced into this scene, than by warning the Laureate that, if Pro- 
 fessor Nichol take it into his head to write many more of the same calibre, he 
 must look to his bays." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 "It would be to attribute to Professor Nichol a genius equal to Shake- 
 speare's, or superior even to that, to say that all the difficulties have been 
 triumphantly overcome in the volume before us. But they have been so far 
 surmounted, we venture to say, as to secure for ' Hannibal' a cordial wel- 
 come from all who appreciate the historical and classical drama, and to gain 
 for its author a high place among the poets of the present century." 
 
 English Independent. 
 
 " Had we space, there are many noble passages in the poem we should 
 like to quote. Fulvia's imaginary description of Rome to Hannibal ; the 
 death scene of Archimedes; and the renewed vows of Hannibal of everlasting 
 enmity to Rome, when his brother's head is brought to him, are particularly 
 worthy of note. " 
 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " Fulvia 'makes a golden tumult in the house,' and carries Roman energy 
 into her love of pleasure, and hatred of the cold and stubborn Roman ways, 
 is perhaps the newest and the most delightful character in Mr. Nichol's 
 play. . . . Mr. Nichol has made the old story live afresh. . . . Mr. 
 Nichol is certain to please his readers ; but the audience of historical drama, 
 however fit, is a scanty one, and what the poet has to say deserves the widest 
 hearing.
 
 WORK'S PUBLISHED BY MR MACLEHOSE. 
 
 A T otices of Hannibal — continued. 
 
 Manchester Examiner. 
 " We know no modern work in which the dignity of history has been so 
 justly regarded by a poet possessed of such intense admiration for his hero." 
 
 Echo. 
 
 " Professor Nichol has produced a scholarly and polished work." 
 
 Dublin Telegraph. 
 
 "Professor Nichol has just given us a volume which bids fair to open a 
 new era in poetry, and secures to the author a position among the first poets 
 of the day." 
 
 Morning Post. 
 
 "Glasgow has good reason to be proud of her Professor of English Litera- 
 ture, in which he now takes a prominent place by right of his admirable 
 classic drama. Criticism will award him a regal seat on Parnassus, and laurel 
 leaves without stint." 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 "But there is much more than mere historical power in ' Hannibal.' Mr. 
 Nichol seems to us to possess real dramatic genius. His personages are not 
 merely types of Carthaginian or Roman, but they are real men and women. 
 They are nearly all conceived under the influence of a generous sympathy 
 with the strong and heroic qualities of character. . . . As regards dram- 
 atic power, and the spirited representations of action, we think it no disparage- 
 ment to them (Arnold and Swinburne) to say that we prefer 'Hannibal' either 
 to 'Merope' or to 'Atlanta in Calydon.'" 
 
 Westminster Review. 
 
 " Professor Nichol has thrown his fine poem ' Hannibal' into a dramatic 
 form, simply because his whole tone is dramatic. He throws himself into 
 each of his characters. ... In Myra's speeches we have the ring of 
 antique valour. . . . The beauties of the lyrics, which are scattered with 
 so lavish a hand throughout the volume, resemble the odes in a Greek play, 
 rather than the songs of our own dramatists. . . . ' Hannibal' is a re- 
 markable poem, it stands out alone, by itself, from all other modern poems." 
 
 A SYSTEM OF MIDWIFERY; 
 
 including the Diseases of Pregnancy and the Puerperal 
 State. By William Leishman, M.D., Regius Professor 
 of Midwifery in the University of Glasgow. In One Thick 
 Vol., 8vo. (860 Pages and 183 Wood Engravings), Price 30s. 
 
 Practitioner. 
 
 " In many respects, not only the best treatise on midwifery that we have 
 seen, but one of the best treatises on any medical subject that has been pub- 
 lished of late years." 
 
 Lancet. 
 
 "We have little hesitation in saying that it is, in our judgment, the best 
 English book on the subject." 
 
 British and Foreign Medical Chirurgical Review. 
 
 " We can recommend this work as unquestionably the best modern book on 
 midwifery in our language."
 
 WORKS PUBLISHED BY MB. MACLEHOSE. 
 In One Vol., Extra Fcap. &vo, Cloth, Price ^s. 
 
 HILLSIDE RHYMES: 
 
 AMONG THE ROCKS HE WENT, 
 AND STILL LOOKED UP TO SUN AND CLOUD 
 AND LISTENED TO THE WIND. 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 " Let any one who cares for fine reflective poetry read for himself and judge. 
 Besides the solid substance of thought which pervades it, he will find here 
 and there those quick insights, those spontaneous felicities of language which 
 distinguish the man of natural power from the man of mere cultivation. 
 . . . Next to an autumn day among the hills themselves, commend us to 
 poems like these, in which so much of the finer breath and spirit of those 
 pathetic hills is distilled into melody." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 "The author of ' Hillside Rhymes' has lain on the hillsides, and felt the 
 shadows of the clouds drift across his half-shut eyes. He knows the sough 
 of the fir trees, the crooning of the burns, the solitary bleating of the moor- 
 land sheep, the quiet of a place where the casual curlew is his only com- 
 panion, and a startled grouse cock the only creature that can regard him with 
 enmity or suspicion. The silence of moorland nature has worked into his 
 soul, and his verse helps a reader pent within a city to realize the breezy 
 heights, the sunny knolls, the deepening glens, or the slopes aglow with those 
 crackling flames with which the shepherds fire the heather." 
 
 Moffat Times. 
 "The most remarkable thing in these poems is the great and passionate 
 love of nature as displayed on the green hillside, which seems to colour all 
 that the author writes. In this he follows in Wordsworth's footsteps, and 
 seems to have caught the true key-note of his great master. . . . ' Aha 
 Montium : Among the Uplands ' constantly reminds us, in its tone and key, 
 of Wordsworth in his highest moods." 
 
 > Border Advertiser. 
 
 " Manor Water in its summer hues, and also when winter mocks the slant- 
 ing sun, is beautifully described." 
 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 "These 'rhymes,' put before the public in a dress corresponding to the 
 dainty attire in which ' Olrig Grange ' was clad, are, for the most part, pure, 
 pleasing, and graceful. . . . They embody certain touching pictures, re- 
 miniscences, and reflections ; they are instinct with a fine enthusiasm as 
 regards the legendary associations, the pastoral life, and the beautiful scenes 
 of Tweeddale. . . . There is something of Wordsworth in the simple, 
 smooth, flowing lines of ' The Grey Stone on Dollar Law.' " 
 
 In One Volume, Extra Fcap. Sz'O, Price $s., Cloth. 
 
 THE SONGS AND FABLES OF 
 
 the late William J. Macquorn Rankine, Professor of 
 Civil Engineering in the University of Glasgow, with 10 
 Illustrations by J. B. (Mrs. Hugh Blackburn).
 
 WORKS PUBLISHED BY MR. MACLEHOSE. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 DAVID GRAY. 
 
 New and Enlarged Edition. Edited by Henry Glassford 
 Bell, late Sheriff of Lanarkshire. In One Volume, Extra 
 Fcap. 8vo, price 6s., Cloth. 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 " This volume will effectually serve not only to renew, but extend the feel- 
 ing that the fame and name of David Gray ought not willingly to be let die. 
 His best known poem, ' The Luggie,' abounds in beauties which should be 
 joys for long, if not for ever." 
 
 Glasgow Evening Citizen. 
 
 "This new and enlarged edition of the poems of David Gray will be hailed 
 by all lovers of genuine poetry. Young as he was, he lived long enough to 
 make his mark. Some of his sonnets are exquisitely fine." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " It is over twelve years since David Gray, at the age of twenty-three, died 
 at Merkland, Kirkintilloch. It is a misfortune that he was not permitted to 
 live until the season of ripeness ; our misfortune, because, judging from the 
 volume before us, we perceive clearly what he might have been, and with 
 what poetic riches he might have dowered the world." 
 
 Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 "This volume possesses a peculiarity, independent of the gems which it 
 embodies, in that the editing of it was the last literary labour of the late 
 lamented Sheriff of Lanarkshire. The reverential vigour which pervades the 
 equable verse of David Gray is, however, unique ; there is a more forcible 
 beauty in his pieces than in those of the Westmoreland poet, and the awe he 
 manifests "for things unseen and eternal " is quite as conspicuous as the 
 deep and steady devotion of the poet of the 'Seasons.' The volume is got up 
 with sufficient taste not to befool the precious things within." 
 
 CAMP LIFE 
 
 As seen by a Civilian. A Personal Narrative. By George 
 Buchanan,A.M.,M.D., Professor of Anatomy in Anderson's 
 University, Glasgow. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Standard. 
 
 " This lively and fascinating narrative is the substance of daily jottings in 
 a diary kept by a surgeon in the Crimean war. It certainly comes very late 
 before the public, and must accordingly lose much interest, although it puts on 
 record many things we have not seen elsewhere, or if so, not so well recorded." 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 " The book contains a variety of readable and interesting sketches, and has 
 about it an air of freshness and originality, partly due, no doubt, to its having 
 been drawn up almost on the spot, and partly also to the pleasant and un- 
 affected style in which the doctor's materials are put together."
 
 WORK'S PUBLISHED BY AIR. MACLEHOSE. 
 
 THE MAN IN THE MOON, 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 In Imperial i6mo, Cloth gilt, price 3s. , Illustrated. 
 
 Nonconformist. 
 "There is a dash, and at the same time a delicacy, about these stories 
 which pleases us. ' The Story of the Little Pond,' and ' The Story of Little 
 Maggie,' have a good deal of originality and whimsical earnestness about 
 them." 
 
 Bookseller. 
 
 " For a bit of genuine fun, without any pretence to obtruded moral, com- 
 mend us to the ' Man in the Moon.' " 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 "The genuine fairy tale has, we much fear, died out with the fairies them- 
 selves, and we must be content with such approximations to the true growth 
 as we can find. Even now such a writer as Andersen, or such a story as 
 Ruskin's Black Brothers, will bring back the age of gold ; but in the main, 
 we should be satisfied if we could always have on hand a supply of stories so 
 simple, pure, and childish in the best sense of the term, as the Alan in tlu> 
 Moon." 
 
 THE PIPITS. 
 
 A COMPANION VOLUME TO " CAW! CAW!" 
 
 With Sixteen Page-Illustrations by J. B. (Mrs. Hugh Blackburn.) 
 
 In ^to, price y. 
 
 Courant. 
 
 " This is a charming fable in verse, illustrated by the well-known 'J. B.,' 
 whose power in delineating animals, especially birds, is scarcely inferior to 
 Landseer or Rosa Bonheur." 
 
 Inverness Courier. 
 
 " Even without the aid of the initials, there could be no difficulty in recog- 
 nizing the illustrations in this charming volume to be by Mrs. Blackburn. 
 They are full of fun, beauty, and character. Mrs. Blackburn seems to pick 
 out instinctively the peculiarities of West Coast birds, and, with a few touches 
 of her pencil, brings up scenes of land and sea- board which may be recognized 
 in a moment." 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " We doubt whether Mrs. Blackburn herself ever drew better birds — more 
 full of expression — more true both to bird nature and the human nature, 
 which her pictures of animals somehow always satirise. . . . The verses 
 are very good — the drawing simply admirable, including, we imagine, bird- 
 portraits of several eminent citizens."
 
 WORKS PUBLISHED BY MB. MACLEHOSE. 
 
 THE SCO TTISH WAR OF INDE- 
 
 PENDENCE, its ANTECEDENTS and EFFECTS. 
 By William Burns. 2 Vols., 8vo, Cloth, 26s. 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 Mr. Burns displays a wonderful amount of research, and a very con- 
 siderable critical power." 
 
 Daily Review. 
 
 "Able and learned— the production of an eminent member of the legal 
 profession in Glasgow. . . . His theory is indisputable— that North 
 Britain has from the earliest period been inhabited by an ardent, energetic, 
 high-spirited, dour race, who have resolutely and successfully maintained 
 their independence against the incessant attacks of nations mightier and far 
 more numerous than they. . . . The tale of Scotland's wrongs, the patri- 
 otic and disinterested ambition of Wallace, the self-seeking of the great nobles, 
 and the high-spirited and generous patriotism of the minor gentry and 
 burghers, have never been so vividly or so acccurately portrayed. . . . 
 Mr. Burns's exposure of the errors and unfounded charges of writers like Mr. 
 Freeman is most complete and withering." 
 
 North British Daily Mail. 
 
 "We take leave of Mr. Burns with sincere respect for his ability, pains- 
 taking research, fairness, and patriotic spirit, which his works display." 
 
 WHENCE, AND WHA T IS THE 
 
 CHURCH ? A Tract for the Times., By a Free Church 
 Layman. In Crown 8vo, Cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 "This excellent book, thoughtful and suggestive, is by a layman and a 
 Free Churchman : but though of the laity, he is quite a match for the clergy, 
 and his Free (Jhurchmanship would liberalize the churches in general, not to 
 say the Free in particular. He is able and accustomed to think, and while he 
 claims and exercises full liberty of thought, he accepts with devout reverence 
 the authority of the written Word of God." 
 
 N UR SI NG ; 
 
 OR, FULL DIRECTIONS FOR THE SICK-ROOM. 
 By ^Eneas Munro, M.D., 1 Vol., Post Svo, Cloth, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Medical Times and Gazette. 
 
 "If more heads of households were familiar with its teaching, it would 
 save them much anxiety and the doctor much unnecessary trouble. " 
 
 Standard. 
 " Since Miss Nightingale's book, we have not seen so useful and practical 
 a work on the subject as the work before us."
 
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