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kind of jollity so natural to desperate characters, had evidently reached its acme. In an hour or two, the uproar diminished, the voices became gradually fewer, and at length there was total silence. I had now time to look about me. The apartment in which I was confined scarcely allowed me either to stand upright, or to stretch myself lying. It had but one small window furnished with a single pane of glass, vulgarly called "bull's-eye. Some straw, upon which a coarse frieze-coat was flung, lay in one corner of the room. Overcome with fatigue and anxiety, I threw myself down upon this wretched truss, somewhat in the form of a dog going to sleep,—not indeed that it was my intention to sleep, but to meditate how I should attempt my escape. My situation in itself was perilous, but there was something in the accompanying circumstances which rendered it doubly terrific. To feel myself alone in this solitary habitation, amidst these deserted mountains, would have been sufficiently uncomfortable; to know myself in the hands and at the mercy of a gang of villains, whose interest it was, never to permit one who had thus unluckily stumbled upon their secret resort to return alive, was dreadful. That their trade was either murder, or what frequently led to it, I had little doubt; and they might perpetrate an act of that kind here with perfect impunity, as they had nothing to do but let the body of their victim drop between the rocks, where a casual traveller would never think of descending. The reflection was horrible. I rose and looked out of the miserable window; there was nothing before me but valleys of pale rock, and huge solitary pinnacles on which the moon shone with an intensity of brightness that gave them the appearance of being clothed in shrouds, while their shadows looked like long trains of sable sweeping behind. The hill on the top of which this hovel stood was peculiarly bleak, and the wind storming about the corner where my room lay, and puffling at the window, as if endeavouring to gain an entrance to this wretched dwelling, rocked it to and fro on its foundation. From this circumstance I have always called it to myself

Windy Hovel. Whilst I viewed the scene of desolation before me,— wherefore, I do not know, but I wished the moon away; its light seemed to throw a ghastly paleness over the ground, and to discover to me more plainly the forlornness of my situation. Darkness would have been preferable. I wished for silence also, rather than such dreary sounds as I was compelled to hear. The storm coming up, as it were, in waves, against the gable-end of the hut, and then howling disappointed away, made my flesh creep whilst I listened to it; whilst ever and anon, a midnight snore, or the moan of the nightmare from the robbers' apartment, echoed deep and drear through the building. A total pause would then for a few minutes ensue.-Again the blast shook the walls, and roared in the chimneys. At one time, when it seemed to have collected all its strength, the outer door burst open with the violence of the shock, and I thought the whole mountain was seized with an earthquake. Another interval of calm.-One of the sleepers within, uneasy perhaps with his previous debauch, now tore up the silence of night, drawing his breath ruggedly through his throat and nostrils, till the noise almost wakened himself. A second broke out into an exclamation of terror, as his conscience pursued him in his dreams; then corrected himself, and slept again. A third groaned deeply as the nocturnal incubus sat heavier on his breast, and I could hear him quarreling inarticulately as if struggling from under the pressure of the demon. At length a loud yell, like that of a bloodhound when about to spring upon his victim, was uttered in a voice which I could not mistake: it clove me to the tenderest brain; my blood froze into icicles. I listened-almost choaking with suspense:

all was as hush as death, till another blast came.-But I have not related the worst: As I looked down upon the floor of the room which was divided by a column of moonlight that came in at the window-pane, I saw a stream of some very dark liquor crossing the bright reflection, and putting my finger into thisjudge my horror, when I discovered it to be blood! I now recollected

that the loaded sack had been placed
against my door, and upon going
there I found that a quantity of
blood had oozed from under the pan-
nels, and was spread into a thick
pool in the middle of which I was
now standing. Doubt, if I had any,
was dispelled by this sight; it was
plain that some unfortunate person
had been murdered by my host or his
gang, who had carried the body hither,
to be first rifled, and then thrust into
some deep cavern where it could
never be discovered. No time was to
be lost my blood might soon be
mingled with that which tracked the
floor; so I resolved, at the risk of
strangulation, to attempt forcing my
body through the window. In the
oblivion of drunkenness they had
neglected better securing this outlet,
and perhaps had altogether forgotten
my existence; so I had one chance
of escape.
I cut the frame work
with my pen-knife, lacerating my
own fingers dreadfully in my hurry
and trepidation, and finally, by great
exertion, squeezed myself out, head
foremost, through the opening. Just
as I touched the ground, I heard a
burst of voices from within, and a fu-
rious rush through the door. I flew
down the mountain, heard the door
of the hut clapped violently several
times, and a number of people speak-
ing together in great confusion:
some shots were fired which rang in
repeated echoes through the neigh-
bouring valleys, but I had now gain-
ed the shelter of the next hill, and
winging round its base, continued my
flight-till my limbs were no lon-
ger able to bear me. I sank down
in a swoon, from which I did not
awake till it was broad day. A cow
was grazing quietly beside me, and
a neat garden-cottage stood at some
distance. Thither I dragged my
weary frame; too happy, however,
in having so miraculously escaped
the perils of Windy Hovel.

Of the above two stories, one is a waking and the other a real vision; 1 will leave the reader to distinguish which is the fruit of my own fantastical brain, which the inspiration of Morpheus. Let me now proceed to relate the prophetic dream which I spoke of.

Methought I was in a green avenue lying between two forests of huge elms, which mingled their

branches so thickly that it was but now and then I could obtain a glimpse of the blue sky above them; this they seemed to touch with their topmost leaves. The avenue was perfectly straight, and so long, that the end of it was always lost in darkness, however far I proceeded. Notwithstanding the shade, I could yet see to a considerable distance before me, but with that kind of unsteadiness which perhaps the reader has often experienced when, after having travelled rapidly, and seen the hedges and other objects fleeting behind him as it were, he suddenly stops;

everything seems to vibrate before his eyes. It was thus with me in my dream. The trees, and even the walk itself, seemed to be in continual, but almost imperceptible motion, and the whole forest appeared dim and visionary. I walked on alone and in dead silence for several hours. I attempted frequently to penetrate into the forest on either hand, but was prevented by myriads of owls, who, the very moment I put my head among the trees, took wing, and flying in noiseless confusion amid the branches, so distracted my sight that I found it quite impossible to make my way through the briars and entanglement. Proceeding therefore on my endless journey, I sought to amuse myself by plucking some flowers which grew prettily on the way side. Amongst these were several violets, hyacinths, and harebells, of the most delicate form and colour; but what was very strange, I remarked that each flower as I plucked it immediately withered in my hand. Though I selected those of the deepest tinge and the freshest beauty, where they endeavoured to hide themselves in the grass, they turned pale the moment I pulled them and withered almost into dust. I knelt down to smell them as they grew in the sward, but they all drooped their heads as I approached, and tears fell in showers from their leaves upon the grass beneath them. Their scent I remarked also, was not their own, but that of rosemary. Whilst I was meditating upon the strangeness of all this, I heard faint sounds as if travelling up the avenue towards me. They became gradually louder; I could distinguish the grand and melancholy swell of an organ,

interrupted at intervals by the tolling of a distant bell. The anthem was plainly a dirge, and as I walked onwards I fancied I could detect the voices of a choir chaunting the requiem for the dead. Soon after I was convinced of this, for upon looking a long way down the vista, I discerned something like a funeral procession coming to meet me. It advanced; and was what I suspected. As the head mourners approached, however, in two lines, they separated to the right and left a few paces before me, each couple successively disappearing behind the trunks of the elm trees, and being immediately lost in the gloom of the forest. This continued till the body of the cavalcade had advanced quite close to me. The crowd opened into a semicircle, in the midst of which I was surprised to find, instead of a coffin with bearers as I had expected, a marriage table laid out with the choicest fruits and viands, and surrounded by a nuptial, not a burial, troop of both sexes. There were several maidens in white dresses, with garlands and ribbands, accompanied by youths in gay habiliments. In the midst of this band stood a girl covered from head to foot in a long veil, but apparently of exquisite beauty; she was in bridal array. The choir, however, which consisted entirely of children with the faces of cherubs, still continued the dirge, and the passing-bell still continued to toll. What was meant by this incongruous mixture of the two most opposite ceremonies I could not divine, and I was still the more perplexed when, upon the damsels scattering from baskets which they held, a shower of violets over the bride, she began to weep, and the whole band joined in lamentation. At the same instant the greensward took a deeper tinge, and from the pattering amongst the leaves above me, I conjectured that the sky was likewise mourning. It now grew very dark, and the wind entering within the trees, they began to swing furiously to and fro, with a violent rushing murmur over head, like a confusion of mighty sighs. The cavalcade had totally vanished, but I could still hear the faint wail of the organ, choir, and bell, mingling with the roar of the forest. How this ended, I do not recollect.

Next morning I thought of my dream; but the business of the day soon effaced it from my mind. At tea-time, upon opening the window of the room where I sat, to admit the summer-evening breeze, sounds which I had very lately heard, but I could not immediately recollect where, saluted my ear;-it was the very knell which had rung last night, faintly echoing as the sash was raised. My dream returned, like a blow upon my heart.

The village spire shot up amidst the trees at some distance in front of my cottage; I put on my hat, leaped out of the window on the terrace, and crossing the lawn, bent my steps directly, over hedge and corn-field, to the church-yard. I entered just as the priest was commencing the burial service; the whole population of our village had collected, and with heads reverentially uncovered, listened in such mute attention, that although I stood at the very outermost circle, and though the minister spoke in an unusually subdued tone of voice, I heard almost every syllable. He pronounced the affecting words " our dearly be loved sister," in a tone of parental love and sorrow, which showed that the dearest of his little flock had just been torn from his care. Several young men around me pretended to wipe the dust and sweat from their brows; the elders looked on with tearless eyes and gray indifference, as much as to say, "Ay! it is one more to the many we have seen laid here before her." Yet there was perhaps a deeper melancholy in this seeming apathy. I perceived one cottager who held a little girl by the hand, instinctively pull the child away from the grave; and a woman, upon whose apron several little ones were hanging, spread her arms round them, like a mother-bird stretching her wings over her nestlings, when danger is near. There was, however, but one interruption to the service; when the earth fell upon the coffin, a convulsive shriek uttered by some person in the crowd, created a momentary confusion. I got upon an elevated mound near me, and perceived an elderly woman, whom I had known as the mother of one beautiful daughter, struggling with several of the village-matrons, who appeared

to be withholding her from rushing into the grave. The father, an artizan of the village, was a still more distressing object: covered with the hue of his profession, which was that of a working blacksmith, and his face wrinkled deep with time and care -(care now alas! rendered useless by the death of her, for whom he had laboured so long and anxiously to provide)-he was such a figure of silent, utter despair, as I never before witnessed. He appeared to have lost all sense of what was passing without him; he stood with his hands clasped down before him, and his neck stretched out towards the grave, into which, however, it was evident that he could not see, for his eyes were literally blinded with tears. When the chasm was filled up, he was led unconsciously off the ground; and in passing through the village afterwards, I saw the unfortunate man sitting, like an idiot, on a bench at his own door, where his officious friends were endeavouring to prevail on him to forget his grief, but in vain. His wife could scarcely be torn from the church-yard, wrest ling violently with her conductors, and repeatedly calling on her child! her Mary! her darling, her beautiful Mary!

The ceremony of covering the grave with green sods, a custom still observed in this distant part of the country, was performed by the youths of the village, many of whom had

been, as I was told, the professed sweethearts, and all the silent admirers, of the beautiful girl who had thus disappeared from them for ever. After this rite was over, a number of young women in white mourning came from behind the head-stones, where they had stood during the service, and began strewing the grave with a profusion of death-flowers. The prettiness of this tribute to innocence and virgin purity, brought tears into my eyes; but when I saw that the flowers which were scattered consisted chiefly of violets,— my dream recurred so vividly to my mind, and I saw it so fatally and minutely explained by the present circumstances, that I could not forbear inquiring more particularly into the history of this girl, having a presentiment that there was a still further coincidence between it and my vision. One of the strowers acquainted me that Mary, singular to relate! had been on the eve of marriage, but had taken cold, died of a fever, and was buried on the very day that had been appointed for her wedding. Thus was my dream fulfilled, even to the very letter!

The crowd now departed, with many homely but sincere expressions of regret for the death of their young companion, and I walked slowly homeward, musing on the fate of this violet of life's spring-time, nor have I ever since felt inclined to ridicule the idea of a prophetic dream.

A STORM.

1.

THE mountains of the boiling sea
To-night are loosen'd from their dreams,
And upwards to the tempest flee,
Baring their foreheads where the gleams
Of lightning run, and thunders cry,
Rushing and raining through the sky!

2.

The mountains of the sea are waging
Loud war upon the peaceful night,
And bands of the black winds are raging
Thorough the tempest blue and bright,
Blowing her cloudy hair to dust

With kisses, like a madman's lust!

3.

What Spirit, like an Até, walketh
Earth-ocean-air? and aye with Time
Mingled, as with a lover talketh?
Methinks their colloquy sublime
Draws anger from the sky, which raves
Over the self-abandon'd waves!

4.

Behold! like millions mass'd in battle,
The tumbling billows headlong go,
Lashing the barren deeps which rattle
In mighty transport till they grow
All fruitful in their rocky home,
And dash from frenzy into foam.

5.

And, see-where lie on the faithless billows
Women, and men, and children fair,

Some hanging, like sleep, to their swollen pillows,
With helpless sinews and streaming hair,
And others who plunge in their sounding graves!—
Ah! lives there no strength above the waves?—

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