the knoll, with the blue heavens over her head, and the blue lake smiling at her feet. 66 My fairy" was the name she bore by the cottage fire, where the old people were gladdened by her glee, and turned away from all melancholy thoughts. And it was a name that suited sweet Lilias well; for she was clothed in a garb of green, and often, in her joy, the green, graceful plants, that grew among the hills, were wreathed around her hair. So was she dressed one Sabbath day, watching her flock at a considerable distance from home, and singing to herself a psalm in the solitary moor; when, in a moment, a party of soldiers were upon a mount, on the opposite side of a narrow dell. Lilias was invisible as a green linnet upon the grass; but her sweet voice had betrayed her, and then one of the soldiers caught the wild gleam of her eyes; and, as she sprung frightened to her feet, he called out, "A roe! a roe! See how she bounds along the bent!" and the ruffian took aim at the child with his musket, half in sport, half in ferocity. Lilias kept appearing and disappearing, while she flew, as on wings, across a piece of black heathery moss, full of pits and hollows; and still the soldier kept his musket at its aim. His comrades called to him to hold his hand, and not shoot a poor, little, innocent child; but he at length fired, and the bullet was heard to whiz past her fern-crowned head, and to strike a bank which she was about to ascend. The child paused for a moment, and looked back, and then bounded away over the smooth turf; till, like a cushat, she dropped into a little birchen glen, and disappeared. Not a sound of her feet was heard; she seemed to have sunk into the ground; and the soldier stood, without any effort to follow her, gazing through the smoke toward the spot where she had vanished. A sudden superstition assailed the hearts of the party, as they sat down together upon a hedge of stone. "Saw you her face, Riddle, as my ball went whizzing past her ear? If she be not one of those hill fairies, she had been dead as a herring; but I believe the bullet glanced off her yellow hair as against a buckler." "It was the act of a gallows-rogue to fire upon the creature, fairy or not fairy; and you deserve the weight of this hand, the hand of an Englishman, you brute, for your cruelty." And up rose the speaker to put his threat into execution, when the other retreated some distance, and began to load his musket; but the Englishman was upon him, and, with a Cumberland gripe and trip, laid him upon the hard ground with a force that drove the breath out of his body, and left him stunned, and almost insensible. somewhat humbled, and sul"Why," quoth Allen Sleigh, The fallen ruffian now arose lenly sat down among the rest. "I wager you a week's pay, you don't venture fifty yards, without your musket, down yonder shingle, where the fairy disappeared;" and, the wager being accepted, the half-drunken fellow rushed on toward the head of the glen, and was heard crashing away through the shrubs. In a few minutes, he returned, declaring, with an oath, that he had seen her at the mouth of a cave, where no human foot could reach, standing with her hair all on fire, and an angry countenance; and that he had tumbled backward into the burn, and been nearly drowned. "Drowned ?" cried Allen Sleigh. "Ay, drowned; why not? A hundred yards down that bit glen, the pools are as black as pitch, and the water roars like thunder; drowned! why not, you English son of a deer-stealer?” Why not? because, who was ever drowned that was born to be hanged?" And that jest created universal laughter, as it is always sure to do, often as it may be repeated, in a company of ruffians; such is felt to be its perfect truth, and unanswerable simplicity. J WILSON. 66 LESSON XXX. THE SAME, CONCLUDED. AFTER an hour's quarreling, and gibing, and mutiny, this disorderly band of soldiers proceeded on their way down into the head of Yarrow, and there saw, in the solitude, the house of Samuel Grieve. Thither they proceeded to get some refreshment, and ripe for any outrage that any occasion might suggest. The old man and his wife, hearing a tumult of many voices and many feet, came out, and were immediately saluted with many opprobrious epithets. The hut was soon rifled of any small articles of wearing apparel; and Samuel, without emo tion, set before them whatever provisions he had-butter, cheese, bread, and milk-and hoped they would not be too hard upon old people, who were desirous of dying, as they had lived, in peace. Thankful were they both, in their parental hearts, that their little Lilias was among the hills; and the old man trusted that if she returned before the soldiers were gone, she would see, from some distance, their muskets on the green before the door, and hide herself among the brakens. The soldiers devoured their repast with many oaths, and much hideous and obscene language, which it was sore against the old man's soul to hear in his own hut; but he said nothing, for that would have been willfully to sacrifice his life. At last, one of the party ordered him to return thanks, in words impious and full of blasphemy; which Samuel calmly refused to do, beseeching them at the same time, for the sake of their own souls, not so to offend their great and bountiful Preserver. "Confound the old canting Covenanter; I will prick him with my bayonet, if he won't say grace!" and the blood trickled down the old man's cheek, from a slight wound on his forehead. The sight of it seemed to awaken the dormant blood-thirstiness in the tiger heart of the soldier, who now swore, if the old man did not instantly repeat the words after him, he would shoot him dead. And, as if cruelty were contagious, almost the whole party agreed that the demand was but reasonable. and that the old hypocritical knave must preach or perish. "Here is a great musty Bible," cried one of them. "If he won't speak, I will gag him, with a vengeance. Here, old Mr. Peden the prophet, let me cram a few chapters of St Luke down your maw. St. Luke was a physician, I believe. Well, here is a dose of him. Open your jaws." And, with these words, he tore a handful of leaves out of the Bible, and advanced toward the old man, from whose face his terrified wife was now wiping off the blood. Samuel Grieve was nearly fourscore; but his sinews were not yet relaxed, and, in his younger days, he had been a man of great strength. When, therefore, the soldier grasped him by the neck, the sense of receiving an indignity from such a slave, made his blood boil, and, as if his youth had been renewed, the gray-headed man, with one blow, felled the ruffian to the floor. That blow sealed his doom. There was a fierce tumult and yelling of wrathful voices, and Samuel Grieve was led out to die. He had witnessed such butchery of others, and felt that the hour of his martyrdom was come. "As thou didst reprove Simon Peter in the garden, when he smote the high priest's servant, and saidst, 'The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?' so now, O my Redeemer, do thou pardon me, thy frail and erring follower, and enable me to drink this cup!" With these words, the old man knelt down unbidden, and, after one solemn look to heaven, closed his eyes, and folded his hands across his breast. 66 His wife now came forward, and knelt down beside the old man. "Let us die together, Samuel; but, oh! what will become of our dear Lilias ?" "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said her husband, opening not his eyes, but taking her hand into his: "Sarah, be not afraid." "O, Samuel, I remember, at this moment, these words of Jesus, which you this morning read; Forgive them, Father; they know not what they do!"" "We are all sinners together," said Samuel, with a loud voice; "we two old gray-headed people, on our knees, and about to die, both forgive you all, as we hope ourselves to be forgiven. We are ready: be merciful, and do not mangle us. Sarah, be not afraid." It seemed that an angel was sent down from heaven, to save the lives of these two old gray-headed folks. With hair floating in sunny light, and seemingly wreathed with flowers of heavenly azure; with eyes beaming luster, and yet streaming tears; with white arms extended in their beauty, and motion gentle and gliding as the sunshine when a cloud is rolled away; came on, over the meadow before the hut, the same green-robed creature, that had startled the soldiers with her singing in the moor; and, crying loudly, but still sweetly, "God sent me hither to save their lives," she fell down beside them as they knelt together; and then, lifting up her head from the turf, fixed her beautiful face, instinct with fear, love, hope, and the spirit of prayer, upon the eyes of the men about to shed that innocent blood. They all stood heart-stricken; and the executioners flung down their muskets "God bless you, sward. kind, good soldiers, for this!" exclaimed the child, now weep the green upon ing and sobbing with joy. "Ay, ay, you will be happy to-night, when you lie down to sleep. If you have any little daughters or sisters like me, God will love them for your mercy to us, and nothing, till you return home, will hurt a hair of their heads. Oh! I see now that soldiers are not so cruel as we say!" "Lilias, your grandfather speaks unto you; his last words are; leave us, leave us; for they are going to put us to death.' Soldiers, kill not this little child, or the waters of the loch will rise up and drown the sons of perdition. Lilias, give us each a kiss, and then go into the house." The soldiers conversed together for a few minutes, and seemed now like men themselves condemned to die. Shame and remorse for their coward cruelty, smote them to the core; and they bade them that were still kneeling, to rise up and go their ways: then, forming themselves into regular order, one gave the word of command, and, marching off, they soon disappeared. The old man, his wife, and little Lilias, continued for some time on their knees in prayer, and then all three went into the hut; the child between them, and a withered hand of each laid upon its beautiful and its fearless head. J. WILSON. LESSON XXXI. TRUE LOVE NO FLATTERER. PRESENT. King Lear, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Kent, Cornwall, and Albany. Lear. TELL me, my daughters, Since now we will divest us, both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state, Which of you, shall we say, doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where merit doth most challenge it. Our eldest-born, speak first. Gon. Sir, I Goneril, Do love you more than words can wield the matter, Beyond what can be valued, rich, or rare; No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor: As much as child e'er loved, or father found. A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable: |