Dours. But momentary the shadows on the | light of childhood! Nor was she insensible to her own beauty, that with the innocence it enshrined combined to make her happy; and first met her own eyes every morning, when most beautiful, awakening from the hushed awe of her prayers. She was clad in russet, like a cottager's child; but her air spoke of finer breeding than may be met with among those mountains-though natural grace accompanies there many a maiden going with her pitcher to the well-and gentle blood and old flows there in the veins of now humble men-who, but for the decay of families once high, might have lived in halls, now dilapidated, and scarcely distinguished through masses of ivy from the circumjacent rocks! times, for great part of a day, by ourselves two, over long tracts of uninhabited moors, and yet never once from my lips escaped one word about my fates or fortunes-so frozen was the secret in my heart. Often have I heard the sound of your voice, as if it were that of the idle wind; and often the words I did hear seemed, in the confusion, to have no relation to us, to be strange syllablings in the wilderness, as from the hauntings of some evil spirit instigating me to self-destruction." "I saw that your life was oppressed by some perpetual burden; but God darkened not your mind while your heart was disturbed so grievously; and well pleased were we all to think, that in caring so kindly for the griefs of others, you might come at last to forget your own; or The child stole close behind her father, and if that were impossible, to feel, that with the kissing his cheek, said, "Were there ever such alleviations of time, and sympathy, and relovely flowers seen on Ulswater before, father?ligion, yours was no more than the common I do not believe that they will ever die." And lot of sorrow." enclosure overlooked but by rocks. The child saw her father's distraction-no unusual sight to her; yet on each recurrence as mournful and full of fear as if seen for the first timeand pretended to be playing aloof with her she put them in his breast. Not a smile came They rose-and continued to walk in silence to his countenance-no look of love-no faint-but not apart-up and down that small silvan recognition-no gratitude for the gift which at other times might haply have drawn a tear. She stood abashed in the sternness of his eyes, which, though fixed on her, seemed to see her not; and feeling that her glee was mistimedfor with such gloom she was not unfamiliar-face pale in tears. the child felt as if her own happiness had been sin, and, retiring into a glade among the broom, sat down and wept. "Poor wretch, better far that she never had been born!" The old man looked on his friend with compassion, but with no surprise; and only said, "God will dry up her tears." "That child's mother is not dead. Where she is now I know not-perhaps in a foreign country hiding her guilt and her shame. Al say that a lovelier child was never seen than that wretch-God bless her-how beautiful is the poor creature now in her happiness singing over her flowers! Just such another must her mother have been at her age. She is now an outcast-and an adulteress." The pastor turned away his face, for in the silence he heard groans, and the hollow voice again spoke : These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though he heard "Through many dismal days and nights it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejacu-have I striven to forgive her, but never for lated for her sake a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief-and the old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father, again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was she dancing in her happiness as before; and, that her father might hear she was obeying him, singing a song. "For five years every Sabbath have I attended divine service in your chapel-yet dare I not call myself a Christian. I have prayed for faith-nor, wretch that I am, am I an unbeliever. But I fear to Aing myself at the foot of the cross. God be merciful to me a sinner!" The old man opened not his lips; for he felt that there was about to be made some confession. Yet he doubted not that the sufferer had been more sinned against than sinning; for the goodness of the stranger-so called still after five years' residence among the mountains-was known in many a vale-and the Pastor knew that charity covereth a multitude of sins and even as a moral virtue prepares he heart for heaven. So sacred a thing is lace in this woful world. We have walked together, many hundred many hours together have I been enabled to repent my curse. For on my knees I implored God to curse her-her head-her eyes-her breast-her body-mind, heart, and soul-and that she might go down a loathsome leper to the grave." "Remember what He said to the womanGo, and sin no more!"" "The words have haunted me all up and down the hills-his words and mine; but mine have always sounded liker justice at last-for my nature was created human-and human are all the passions that pronounced that holy or unholy curse!" "Yet you would not curse her now-were she laying here at your feet-or if you were standing by her death-bed?" "Lying here at my feet! Even here -on this very spot-not blasted, but green through all the year-within the shelter of these two rocks-she did lie at my feet in her beautyand as I thought her innocence-my own hap py bride! Hither I brought her to be blestand blest I was even up to the measure of my misery. This world is hell to me now-buc then it was heaven!" "These awful names are of the mysteries beyond the grave." "Hear me and judge. She was an orphan; all | day it was forsaken-she abandoned it and her father's and mother's relations were dead, but a few who were very poor. I married her, and secured her life against this heartless and wicked world. That child was born-and while it grew like a flower-she left it-and its father-we who loved her beyond light and life, and would have given up both for her sake." "And have not yet found heart to forgive her-miserable as she needs must be-seeing she has been a great sinner!" me on its birth-day! Twice had that day been observed by us-as the sweetest-the most sacred of holydays; and now that it had again come round-but I not present-for 1 was on foreign service-thus did she observe it--and disappeared with her paramour. It so happened that we went that day into action --and I committed her and our child to the mercy of God in fervent prayers; for love made me religious-and for their sakes I feared though I shunned not death. I lay all night among the wounded on the field of battle ❘tion. "Who forgives? The father his profligate son, or disobedient daughter? No; he disin--and it was a severe frost. Fain kept me herits his first-born, and suffers him to perish, from sleep, but I saw them as distinctly as in perhaps by an ignominious death. He leaves a dream--the mother lying with her child in his only daughter to drag out her days in her bosom in our own bed. Was not that penury-a widow with orphans. The world vision mockery enough to drive me mad? may condemn, but is silent; he goes to church After a few weeks a letter came to me from every Sabbath, but no preacher denounces herself and I kissed it and pressed it to my punishment on the unrelenting, the unforgiving heart; for no black seal was there and I parent. Yet how easily might he have taken knew that little Lucy was alive. No meaning them both back to his heart, and loved them for a while seemed to be in the words-and better than ever! But she poisoned my cup then they began to blacken into ghastly chaof life when it seemed to overflow with hea-racters-till at last I gathered from the horrid ven. Had God dashed it from my lips, I could revelation that she was sunk in sin and have borne my doom. But with her own hand shame, steeped for evermore in utmost polluwhich I had clasped at the altar-and with our Lucy at her knees-she gave me that loath- "A friend was with me-and I gave it to some draught of shame and sorrow;—I drank him to read-for in my anguish at first I felt it to the dregs-and it is burning all through no shame--and I watched his face as he read my being-now-as if it had been hell-fire it, that I might see corroboration of the incre from the hands of a fiend in the shape of andible truth, which continued to look like falseangel. In what page of the New Testament am I told to forgive her? Let me see the verse -and then shall I know that Christianity is an imposture; for the voice of God within me -the conscience which is his still small voice -commands me never from my memory to obliterate that curse-never to forgive her, and her wickedness-not even if we should see each other's shadows in a future state, after the day of judgment." hood, even while it pierced my heart with agonizing pangs. It may be a forgery,' was all he could utter-after long agitation; but the shape of each letter was too familiar to my eyes-the way in which the paper was folded-and I knew my doom was sealed. Hours must have passed, for the room grew dark-and I asked him to leave me for the night. He kissed my forehead-for we had been as brothers. I I saw him next morning paper for me, written an hour before he fell, so filled with holiest friendship, that oh! how even in my agony I wept for him, now but a lump of cold clay and blood, and envied him at the same time a soldier's grave! His countenance grew ghastly-and stagger-dead-cut nearly in two-yet had he left a ing to a stone, he sat down and eyed the skies with a vacant stare, like a man whom dreams carry about in his sleep. His face was like ashes -and he gasped like one about to fall into a fit. "Bring me water"-and the old man motioned on the child, who, giving ear to him for a moment, flew away to the Lake-side with an urn she had brought with her for flowers; and held it to her father's lips. His eyes saw it not-there was her sweet pale face all wet with tears, almost touching his own-her innocent mouth breathing that pure balm that seems to a father's soul to be inhaled from the bowers of paradise. He took her into his bosom -and kissed her dewy eyes-and begged her tc case her sobbing-to smile-to laugh-to sing to dance away into the sunshine-to be happy! And Lucy afraid, not of her father, but of his kindness-for the simple creature was not able to understand his wild utterance of blessings-returned to the glade but not to her pastime, and couching like a fawn among the fern, kept her eyes on her father, and left her flowers to fade unheeded beside her empty urn. "Unintelligible mystery of wickedness! That child was just three years old the very "And has the time indeed come that I can thus speak calmly of all that horror! The body was brought into my room, and it lay all day and all night close to my bed. Ba false was I to all our life-long friendshipand almost with indifference I looked upon the corpse. Momentary starts of affection seized me-but I cared little or nothing for the death of him, the tender and the true, the gentle and the brave, the pious and the noble hearted; my anguish was all for her, the cruel and the faithless, dead to honour, to religion dead-dead to all the sanctities of nature-for her, and for her alone, I suffered all ghastliest agonies-nor any comfort came to me in my despair, from the conviction that she was worthless; for desperately wicked as she had shown herself to be-oh! crowding came back upon me all our hours of happinessall her sweet smiles-all her loving looksall her affectionate words-all her conjugal and maternal tendernesses; and the loss of on her face when she is asleep would remain all that bliss-the change of it all into strange, | I but leave her alone to herself in her affec⚫ sudden, shameful. and everlasting misery, tionate innocence, the smile that always lies smote me till I swooned, and was delivered up to a trance in which the rueful reality was mixed up with fantasms more horrible than man's mind can suffer out of the hell of sleep! "Wretched coward that I was to outlive that night! But my mind was weak from great loss of blood-and the blow so stunned me that I had not strength of resolution to die. I might have torn off the bandages-pitying pastor-" and many happy years-my for nobody watched me-and my wounds were son-are yet in store even for you-sorely as thought mortal. But the love of life had not you have been tried; for it is not in nature welled out with all those vital streams; and that your wretchedness can endure for ever. as I began to recover, another passion took She is in herself all-sufficient for a father's possession of me-and I vowed that there happiness. You prayed just now that the God should be atonement and revenge. I was not of Mercy would spare her life-and has he not obscure. My dishonour was known through spared it? Tender flower as she seems, yet the whole army. Not a tent-not a hut-in how full of Life! Let not then your gratitude which my name was not bandied about-a to Heaven be barren in your heart; but let it jest in the mouths of profligate poltroons-produce there resignation-if need be, contripronounced with pity by the compassionate tion-and, above all, forgiveness." brave. I had commanded my men with pride. "Yes! I had a hope to live for-mangled as No need had I ever had to be ashamed when I looked on our colours; but no wretch led out to execution for desertion or cowardice ever shrunk from the sun, and from the sight of human faces arrayed around him, with more shame and horror than did I when, on my way to a transport, I came suddenly on my own corps, marching to music as if they were taking up a position in the line of battle -as they had often done with me at their head-all sternly silent before an approaching storm of fire. What brought them there? To do me honour! Me, smeared with infamy, and ashamed to lift my eyes from the mire. Honour had been the idol I worshippedalas! too, too passionately far-and now I lay in my litter like a slave sold to stripes-and heard as if a legion of demons were mocking me and with loud and long huzzas; and then a confused murmur of blessings on our noble commander, so they called me-me, despicable in my own esteem--scorned--insulted-forsaken-me, who could not bind to mine the bosom that for years had touched it--a wretch so poor in power over a woman's heart, that no sooner had I left her to her own thoughts than she felt that she had never loved me, and, opening her fair breast to a new-born bliss, sacrificed me without remorse-nor could bear to think of me any more as her husband --not even for sake of that child whom I knew she loved-for no hypocrite was she there; and oh! lost creature though she was-even The good old man heard the dreadful words now I wonder over that unaccountable deser- with a shudder-yet they had come to his ears tion-and much she must have suffered from not unexpectedly, for the speaker's aspect had the image of that small bed, beside which she gradually been growing black with wrath, long used to sit for hours, perfectly happy from the before he ended in an avowal of murder. Nor, sight of that face which I too so often blessed on ceasing his wild words and distracted dein her hearing, because it was so like her meanour, did it seem that his heart was touched own! Where is my child? Have I fright- with any remorse. His eyes retained their ened her away into the wood by my unfather-savage glare-his teeth were clenched-and ly looks! She too will come to hate me he feasted on his crime. oh! see yonder her face and her figure like a fairy's, gliding through among the broom! Sorrow has no business with her-nor she with sorrow. Yet even her how often have I made weep! All the unhappiness she has ever known has all come from me; and would I was in body, and racked in mind-a hope that was a faith-and bitter-sweet it was in imagined foretaste of fruition-the hope and the faith of revenge. They said he would not aim at my life. But what was that to me who thirsted for his blood! Was he to escape death, because he dared not wound bone, or flesh, or muscle of mine, seeing that the assassin had already stabbed my soul! Satisfaction! I tell you that I was for revenge. Not that his blood could wipe out the stain with which my name was imbrued, but let it be mixed with the mould; and he who invaded my marriage-bed-and hallowed was it by every generous passion that ever breathed upon woman's breast-let him fall down in convulsions, and vomit out his heart's blood, at once in expiation of his guilt, and in retribution dealt out to him by the hand of him whom he had degraded in the eyes of the whole world beneath the condition even of a felon, and delivered over in my misery to contempt and scorn. I found him out;-there he was before me-in all that beauty by women so beloved-graceful as Apollo; and with a haughty air, as if proud of an achievement that adorned his name, he saluted me-her husband-on the field,—and let the wind play with his raven tresses-his curled love-locks-and then presented himself to my aim in an attitude a statuary would have admired. I shot him through the heart." "Nothing but a full faith in Divine Revelation," solemnly said his aged friend, "can subdue the evil passions of our nature, or enable conscience itself to see and repent of sin Your wrongs were indeed great-but without a change wrought in all your spirit, alas! my son! you cannot hope to see the kingdom of heaven." dead of cold and hunger: she whom I cherished in all luxury-whose delicate frame seemed to bring round itself all the purest air and sweetest sunshine-she may have expired in the very mire-and her body been huddled into some hole called a pauper's grave. And I have suffered all this to happen her! Or have I suffered her to become one of the miserable multitude who support hated and hateful life by prostitution? Black was her crime; yet hardly did she deserve to be one of that howl "Who dares to condemn the deed? He deserved death-and whence was doom to come but from me the Avenger? I took his lifebut once I saved it. I bore him from the battlements of a fort stormed in vain-after we had all been blown up by the springing of a mine; and from bayonets that had drunk my blood as well as his-and his widowed mother blessed me as the saviour of her son. I told my wife to receive him as a brother-anding crew-she whose voice was once so sweet, for my sake to feel towards him a sister's love. her eyes so pure, and her soul so innocentWho shall speak of temptation-or frailty-or for up to the hour I parted with her weeping, infatuation to me? Let the fools hold their no evil thought had ever been hers;-then peace. His wounds became dearer to her why, ye eternal Heavens! why fell she from abandoned heart than mine had ever been; that sphere where she shone like a star? Let yet had her cheek lain many a night on the that mystery that shrouds my mind in darkness scars that seamed this breast-for I was not be lightened-let me see into its heart-and backward in battle, and our place was in the know but the meaning of her guilt-and then van. I was no coward, that she who loved may I be able to forgive it; but for five years, heroism in him should have dishonoured her day and night, it has troubled and confounded husband. True, he was younger by some me-and from blind and baffled wrath with an years than me-and God had given him per- iniquity that remains like a pitch-black night nicious beauty-and she was young, too-oh! through which I cannot grope my way, no the brightest of all mortal creatures the day refuge can I find-and nothing is left me but she became my bride-nor less bright with to tear my hair out by handfuls-as, like a that baby at her bosom-a matron in girlhood's madman, I have done-to curse her by name resplendent spring! Is youth a plea for wicked-in the solitary glooms, and to call down upon ness? And was I old? I, who in spite of all her the curse of God. O wicked-most wicked! I have suffered, feel the vital blood yet boiling Yet He who judges the hearts of his creatures, as to a furnace; but cut off for ever by her knows that I have a thousand and a thousand crime from fame and glory-and from a soldier times forgiven her, but that a chasm lay bein his proud career, covered with honour in tween us, from which, the moment that I came the eyes of all my countrymen, changed in an to its brink, a voice drove me back-I know hour into an outlawed and nameless slave. not whether of a good or evil spirit-and bade My name has been borne by a race of heroes me leave her to her fate. But she must be -the blood in my veins has flowed down a dead-and needs not now my tears. O friend! long line of illustrious ancestors-and here judge me not too sternly-from this my conam I now-a hidden, disguised hypocrite fession; for all my wild words have imperdwelling among peasants-and afraid-ay, fectly expressed to you but parts of my miserafraid, because ashamed, to lift my eyes freely able being-and if I could lay it all before you, from the ground even among the solitudes of you would pity me perhaps as much as conthe mountains, lest some wandering stranger demn-for my worst passions only have now should recognise me, and see the brand of found utterance-all my better feelings will ignominy her hand and his-accursed both-not return nor abide for words-even I myself burnt in upon my brow. She forsook this bosom-but tell me if it was in disgust with these my scars?" And as he bared it, distractedly, that noble chest was seen indeed disfigured with many a gash-on which a wife might well have rested her head with gratitude not less devout because of a lofty pride mingling with life-deep affection. But the burst of passion was gone by and, covering his face with his hands, he wept like a child. have forgotten them; but your pitying face seems to say, that they will be remembered at the Throne of Mercy. I forgive her." And with these words he fell down on his knees, and prayed too for pardon to his own sins. The old man encouraged him not to despairit needed but a motion of his hand to bring the child from her couch in the cover, and Lucy was folded to her father's heart. The forgiveness was felt to be holy in that embrace. The day had brightened up into more perfect "Oh! cruel-cruel was her conduct to me; beauty, and showers were sporting with sunyet what has mine been to her-for so many shine on the blue air of Spring. The sky years! I could not tear her image from my showed something like a rainbow-and the memory-not an hour has it ceased to haunt Lake, in some parts quite still, and in some me; since I came among these mountains, her breezy, contained at once shadowy fragments ghost is for ever at my side. I have striven to of wood and rock, and waves that would have drive it away with curses, but still there is the murmured round the prow of pleasure-boat phantom. Sometimes-beautiful as on our suddenly hoisting a sail. And such a very marriage day-all in purest white-adorned boat appeared round a promontory that stretchwith flowers-it wreathes its arms around my ed no great way into the water, and formed neck-and offers its mouth to my kisses-and with a crescent of low meadow-land a bay that then all at once is changed into a leering was the first to feel the wind coming down wretch, retaining a likeness of my bride-then Glencoin. The boatman was rowing heedinto a corpse. And perhaps she is dead-lessly along, when a sudden squall struck the "Not thus could I have kissed thy lipsLucy-had they been red with life. White are they and white must they long have been! No pollution on them-nor on that poor bosom now. Contrite tears had long since washed out thy sin. A feeble hand traced these lines sail, and in an instant the skiff was upset and went down. No shrieks were heard-and the boatman swam ashore; but a figure was seen struggling where the sail disappeared-and starting from his knees, he who knew not fear plunged into the Lake, and after desperate exertions brought the drowned creature to the-and in them an humble heart said nothing side a female meanly attired-seemingly a stranger-and so attenuated that it was plain she must have been in a dying state, and had she not thus perished, would have had but few days to live. The hair was gray-but the face though withered was not old-and, as she lay on the greensward, the features were beautiful as well as calm in the sunshine. He stood over her awhile-as if struck motionless-and then kneeling beside the body, tissed its lips and eyes-and said only, "It is Lucy!" but God's truth. Child-behold your mother. Art thou afraid to touch the dead?" "No-father-I am not afraid to kiss her lips-as you did now. Sometimes, when you thought me asleep, I have heard you praying for my mother." "Oh! child! cease-cease-or my heart will burst." People began to gather about the body-but awe kept them aloof; and as for removing it to a house, none who saw it but knew such care would have been vain, for doubt there could be none that there lay death. So the groups remained for a while at a distanceeven the old pastor went a good many paces apart; and under the shadow of that tree the father and child composed her limbs, and closed her eyes, and continued to sit beside her, as still as if they had been watching over one asleep. The old man was close by-and so was that child. They too knelt-and the passion of the mourner held him dumb, with his face close to the face of death-ghastly its glare beside the sleep that knows no waking, and is forsaken by all dreams. He opened the bosom-wasted to the bone-in the idle thought that she might yet breathe and a paper dropt out into his hand, which he read aloud to himself-uncon- That death was seen by all to be a strange scious that any one was near. "I am fast calamity to him who had lived long among dying and desire to die at your feet. Per-them-had adopted many of their customshaps you will spurn me-it is right you should; but you will see how sorrow has killed the wicked wretch who was once your wife. I have lived in humble servitude for five years, and have suffered great hardships. I think I am a penitent-and have been told by religious persons that I may hope for pardon from Heaven. Oh! that you would forgive me too! and let me have one look at our Lucy. I will linger about the Field of Flowers-perhaps you will come there, and see me lie down and die on the very spot where we passed a summer day the week of our marriage." and was even as one of themselves—so it seemed-in the familiar intercourse of man with man. Some dim notion that this was the dead body of his wife was entertained by many, they knew not why; and their clergyman felt that then there needed to be neither concealment nor avowal of the truth. So in solemn sympathy they approached the body and its watchers; a bier had been prepared: and walking at the head, as if it had been a funeral, the Father of little Lucy, holding her hand, silently directed the procession towards his own house-out of the FIELD OF FLOWERS. COTTAGES. the housekeeper sits like an overgrown spider in her own sanctum-the butler bargains for his dim apartment-and the four maids must have their front-area window. In short, from cellarage to garret, all is complete, and Number Forty-two is really a splendid mansion. HAVE you any intention, dear reader, of build- | governess her retreat-and the tutor his dening a house in the country? If you have, pray, for your own sake and ours, let it not be a Cottage. We presume that you are obliged to live, one-half of the year at least, in a town. Then why change altogether the character of your domicile and your establishment? You are an inhabitant of Edinburgh, and have a Now, dear reader, far be it from us to queshouse in the Circus, or Heriot Row, or Aber- tion the propriety or prudence of such an escromby Place, or Queen Street. The said tablishment. Your house was not built for house has five or six stories, and is such a nothing-it was no easy thing to get the paintpalace as one might expect in the City of Pa- ers out-the furnishing thereof was no triflelaces. Your drawing-rooms can, at a pinch, the feu-duty is really unreasonable-and taxes hold some ten score of modern Athenians are taxes still, notwithstanding the principles your dining-room might feast one-half of the of free trade, and the universal prosperity of contributors to Blackwood's Magazine-your the country. Servants are wasteful, and their "placens uxor" has her boudoir-your eldest wages absurd-and the whole style of living, daughter, now verging on womanhood, her with long-necked bottles, most extravagant. music-room-your boys their own studio-the But still we do not object to your establish. |