head mournfully, "how it has throbbed for years, long years! I know all that has passed,' and as he spoke he clasped his hands together, a dream too. frightful, and, alas! too real. The hand of affliction has been heavy upon me and upon mine, but the hour is near when our troubled hearts shall be at rest.'

"He then asked for his little child, and taking her in his arms, he looked earnestly in her face, and prayed God to bless her.

"I think I see him now, comrade," said the corporal, hastily brushing something from his cheek, "folding her to his breast, and kissing her as I'd seldom seen him do before.

"That which he said to me is not worth repeating, only that it's as well to observe that I didn't deserve one-fourth part of what his grateful soul gave vent to.

"By his wish I now led little Clara from the room, and the few remaining moments of his life were witnessed by her alone, whose broken spirit will be healed only when they are united again in heaven."

Corporal Crump's voice faltered with the conclusion of the sentence; but its steadiness of tone recovered under the influence of a timely appeal to Jacob's mixture.

"We remained at the cottage for some time after the lieutenant's death," continued he, "and it seemed a melancholy pleasure with my mistress to go almost daily to her husband's grave, in a small, out-o'-the-way churchyard close by, and planted with garden flowers. Poor thing! I'm afraid she often watered them with her tears."

(By permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall.)

TAM O'SHANTER.

A TALE.

ROBERT BURNS.

WHEN chapman billies leave the street,

And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,

As market-days are wearin' late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate:
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, an' stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonny lasses).

O Tam, hadst thou but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November to October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober, That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller, That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, e'en on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesied, that, late or soon, Thou wad be found deep drown'd in Doon; Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet, To think how mony counsels sweet, How mony lengthen'd sage advices The husband fra the wife despises !

But to our tale. Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco right

Fast by an ingle bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony :
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter,
And aye the ale was growing better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious;
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus;
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy.
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure.
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread-
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river-
A moment white, then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.—

Nae man can tether time or tide : The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in And sic a night he taks the road in,

1;

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd.
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd:

That night a child might, understand,
The deil had business on his hand.

Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, (A better never lifted leg,)

Tam skelpit on through dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;

Whiles hauding fast his guid blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow'ring round with prudent care,
Lest bogles catch him unaware:
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drucken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn;
And near the thorn aboon the well,
Where Mungo's mither hang'd hersel'.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;

Through ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil;

Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil!

The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a bodle;
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light,
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance!
Nae cotillion brent-new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels
Put life and mettle in their heels.

At winnock-bunker in the east,

There sat auld Nick in shape o' beast:
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd his pipes, and gart them skirl,
Till roof an' rafters a' did dirl.

Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip sleight,
Each in his cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,

A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted :
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,
The grey hairs yet stak to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',

Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.

As Tammie glow'r'd, amaz'd and glorious,

The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;

The piper loud and louder blew ;

The dancers quick and quicker flew;

They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit,

Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,

And coost her duddies to the wark,

And linkit at it in her sark!

Now, Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,

A' plump and strappin', in their teens;