is the true theory of the phenomenon seems to be proved by this-that when the "Lang Gun" was, in the act of firing, laid across the shoulders of two boys standing about a yard the one before the other, she kicked every bit as well as the blunderbuss. Her lock was of a very peculiar construction. It was so contrived that, when on full cock, the dog-head, as we used to call it, stood back at least seven inches, and unless the flint was put in to a nicety, by pulling the trigger you by no means caused any uncovering of the pan, but things in general remained in statu quo-and there was perfect silence. She had a worm-eaten stock into which the barrel seldom was able to get itself fairly inserted; and even with the aid of circumvoluting twine, 'twas always coggly. Thus, too, the vizy (Anglice sight) generally inclined unduly to one side or the other, and was the cause of all of us every day hitting and hurting objects of whose existence even we were not aware, till alarmed by the lowing or the galloping of cattle on the hills; and we hear now the yell of an old woman in black bonnet and red cloak, who shook her staff at us like a witch, with the blood running down the furrows of her face, and with many oaths maintained that she was murdered. The "Lang Gun" had certainly a strong vomit-and, with slugs or swan-shot, was dangerous at two hundred yards to any living thing. Bob Howie, at that distance arrested the career of a mad dog -a single slug having been sent through the eye into the brain. We wonder if one or both of those companions of our boyhood be yet alive-or, like many other great guns that have since made more noise in the world, fallen a silent prey to the rust of oblivion.

each particular barn-door, when the farmers were at work, you might have thought you saw the entire sparrow population of the parish Seldom a Sabbath, during pairing, building, breeding, nursing, and training season, could you hear a single syllable of the sermon for their sakes, all a-huddle and a-chirp in the bel fry and among the old loose slates. On every stercoraceous deposit on coach, cart, or bridle road, they were busy on grain and pulse; and, in spite of cur and cat, legions embrowned every cottage garden. Emigration itself in many million families would have left no perceptible void; and the inexterminable multitude would have laughed at the Plague.

The other small birds of the parish began to feel their security from our shot, and sung their best, unscared on hedge, bush, and tree. Perhaps, too, for sake of their own sweet strains, we spared the lyrists of Scotland, the linnet and the lark, the one in the yellow broom, the other beneath the rosy cloud-while there was ever a sevenfold red shield before -Robin's breast, whether flitting silent as a falling leaf, or trilling his autumnal lay on the rigging or pointed gable-end of barn or brye. Now and then the large bunting, conspicuous on a toptwig, and proud of his rustic psalmody, tempted his own doom-or the cunning stone-chat, glancing about the old dikes usually shot at in vain—or yellow-hammer, under the ban of the national superstition, with a drop of the devil's blood beneath his pretty crest, pretty in spite of that cruel creed-or green-finch, too rich in plumage for his poorer song—or shilfa, the beautiful nest-builder, shivering his whiteplumed wings in shade and sunshine, in joy the most rapturous, in grief the most despairing of all the creatures of the air-or redpole, balanced on the down of the thistle or flower of the bunweed on the old clovery lea-or, haply twice seen in a season, the very goldfinch himself, a radiant and gorgeous spirit brought on the breeze from afar, and worthy, if only slightly wounded, of being enclosed within a silver cage from Fairy Land.

Not a boy in the school had a game certificate-or, as it was called in the parish-"a leeshance." Nor, for a year or two, was such a permit necessary; as we confined ourselves almost exclusively to sparrows. Not that we had any personal animosity to the sparrow individually—on the contrary, we loved him, and had a tame one-a fellow of infinite fancy -with comb and wattles of crimson cloth like But we waxed more ambitious as we grew a gamecock. But their numbers, without old-and then wo to the rookery on the elmnumber numberless, seemed to justify the hu- tree grove! Down dropt the dark denizens in manest of boys in killing any quantity of dozens, rebounding with a thud and a skraigh sprauchs. Why, they would sometimes settle from the velvet moss, which under that umon the clipped half-thorn and half-beech hedge brage formed firm floor for Titania's feetof the Manse garden in myriads, midge-like; while others kept dangling dead or dying by and then out any two of us, whose day it hap- the claws, cheating the crusted pie, and all the pened to be, used to sally with Muckle-mou'd blue skies above were intercepted by cawing Meg and the Lang Gun, charged two hands and clouds of distracted parents, now dipping down a finger; and with a loud shout, startling them in despair almost within a shot, and now, as from their roost like the sudden casting of a if sick of this world, soaring away up into the swarm of bees, we let drive into the whir-a very heavens, and disappearing to return no shower of feathers was instantly seen swim-more-till sunset should bring silence, and the ming in the air, and flower-bed and onion bed covered with scores of the mortally wounded old cocks with black heads, old hens with brown, and the pride of the eaves laid low before their first crop of peas! Never was there such a parish for sparrows. You had but to fling a stone into any stack-yard, and up rose a sprauch-shower. The thatch of every cottage was drilled by them like honey-combs. Housespouts were of no use in rainy weather-for they were all choked up by sprauch-nests. At

night air roll off the horrid smell of sulphur from the desolated bowers; and then indeed would they come all flying back upon their strong instinct, like black-sailed barks before the wind, some from the depth of far-off firwoods, where they had lain quacking at the ceaseless cannonade, some from the furrows of the new-braided fields aloof on the uplands, some from deep dell close at hand, and some from the middle of the moorish wilderness.

Happiest of all human homes, beautiful

brightness of her contentment; through the heaviest flood the blue skies will still be making their appearance with an impatient smile, and all the rivers and burns, with the multitude of their various voices, sing praises unto Heaven.

Craig-Hall! For so even now dost thou ap-| pear to be in the rich, deep, mellow, green light of imagination trembling on tower and tree-art thou yet undilapidated and undecayed, in thy old manorial solemnity almost majestical, though even then thou hadst long been tenanted but by an humble farmer's family- Therefore, bathing our feet in beauty, we people of low degree? The evening-festival went bounding over the flowery fields and of the First Day of the Rooks-nay, scoff not broomy braes to the grove-girdled Craig-Hall. at such an anniversary-was still held in thy During the long noisy day, we thought not of ample kitchen-of old the bower of brave lords the coming evening, happy as we knew it was and ladies bright while the harper, as he sung to be; and during the long and almost as noisy his song of love or war, kept his eyes fixed on evening, we forgot all the pastime of the day. her who sat beneath the deas. The days of Weeks before, had each of us engaged his chivalry were gone-and the days had come partner for the first country dance, by right of curds and cream, and, preferred by some his own when supper came, and to sit close to people though not by us, of cream-cheese. Old him with her tender side, with waist at first men and old women, widowers and widows, stealthily arm-encircled, and at last boldly and yet all alike cheerful and chatty at a great age, almost with proud display. In the churchyard, for often as they near the dead, how more life- before or after Sabbath-service, a word whislike seem the living! Middle-aged men and pered into the ear of blooming and blushing middle-aged women, husbands and wives, those rustic sufficed; or if that opportunity failed, sedate, with hair combed straight on their fore- the angler had but to step into her father's heads, sun-burnt faces, and horny hands esta- burn-side cottage, and with the contents of his blished on their knees-these serene, with basket leave a tender request, and from be countenances many of them not unlovely-hind the gable-end carry away a word, a smile comely all-and with arms decently folded beneath their matronly bosoms-as they sat in their holyday dresses, feeling as if the season of youth had hardly yet flown by, or were, on such a merry meeting, for a blink restored! Boys and virgins-those bold even in their bashfulness-these blushing whenever eyes met eyes-nor would they-nor could they— have spoken in the hush to save their souls; yet ere the evening star arose, many a pretty maiden had, down looking and playing with the hem of her garment, sung linnet-like her ain favourite auld Scottish sang! and many a sweet sang even then delighted Scotia's spirit, though Robin Burns was but a youth-walking mute among the wild-flowers on the moornor aware of the immortal melodies soon to breathe from his impassioned heart!

a kiss, and a waving farewell.

Many a high-roofed hall have we, since those days, seen, made beautiful with festoons and garlands, beneath the hand of taste and genius decorating, for some splendid festival, the abode of the noble expecting a still nobler guest. But oh! what pure bliss, and what profound, was then breathed into the bosom of boyhood from that glorious branch of hawthorn, in the chimney-itself almost a tree, so thick—so deepso rich its load of blossoms-so like its fragrance to something breathed from heaven→→→ and so transitory in its sweetness too, that as she approached to inhale it, down fell many a snow-flake to the virgin's breath-in an hour all melted quite away! No broom that now-adays grows on the brae, so yellow as the broom -the golden broom-the broom that seemed still Of all the year's holydays, not even except- to keep the hills in sunlight long after the sun ing the First of May, this was the most delight- himself had sunk-the broom in which we first ful. The First of May, longed for so passion- found the lintwhite's nest-and of its petals, ately from the first peep of the primrose, more precious than pearls, saw framed a sometimes came deformed with mist and wreath for the dark hair of that dark-eyed cloud, or cheerless with whistling winds, girl, an orphan, and melancholy even in her or winter-like with a sudden fall of snow. merriment-dark-haired and dark-eyed indeed, And thus all our hopes were dashed-the but whose forehead, whose bosom, were yet roomy hay-wagon remained in its shed-whiter than the driven snow. Greenhouses— the preparations made for us in the distant conservatories-orangeries-are exquisitely moorland farmhouse were vain-the fishing- balmy still-and, in presence of these strange rods hung useless on the nails-and disconsolate schoolboys sat moping in corners, sorry, ashamed, and angry with Scotland's springs. But though the "leafy month of June" be frequently showery, it is almost always sunny too. Every half hour there is such a radiant blink that the young heart sings aloud for joy; sum-ing of the tomb. But oh! that Craig-Hall hawmer rain makes the hair grow, and hats are little or no use towards the Longest Day; there is something cheerful even in thunder, if it be not rather too near; the lark has not yet ceased altogether to sing, for he soars over his second nest, unappalled beneath the sablest cloud; the green earth repels from her refulgent bosom the blackest shadows, nor will suffer herself to be saddened in the fulness and

plants, one could believe that he had been transported to some rich foreign clime. But now we carry the burden of our years along with us-and that consciousness bedims the blossoms, and makes mournful the balm, as from flowers in some fair burial-place, breath

thorn! and oh! that Craig-Hall broom! they send their sweet rich scent so far into the hushed air of memory, that all the weary wornout weaknesses of age drop from us like a garment, and even now-the flight of that swallow seems more aerial-more alive with bliss his clay-built nest-the ancient long-ago blue of the sky returns to heaven-not for many a, many a long year have we seen so fair-so frail-so

transparent and angel-mantle-looking a cloud! | serpent. Flash! Bang! over he goes deadThe very viol speaks--the very dance responds no, not dead-but how unlike that unavailing in Craig-Hall: this-this is the very festival flapping, as head over heels he goes spinning of the First Day of the Rooks-Mary Mather, over the tarn, to the serene unsettling of himthe pride of the parish-the county-the land self from sod or stone, when, his hunger sated, -the earth-is our partner-and long mayest and his craw filled with fish for his far-off thou, O moon! remain behind thy cloud-brood, he used to lift his blue bulk into the air, when the parting kiss is given-and the love- and with long depending legs, at first floated etter, at that tenderest moment, dropped into away like a wearied thing, but soon, as his her bosom! plumes felt the current of air homewards flowing, urged swifter and swifter his easy course-laggard and lazy no more-leaving leagues behind him, ere you had shifted your motion in watching his cloudlike career, soon invisible among the woods!

But we have lost the thread of our discourse, and must pause to search for it, even like a spinster of old, in the disarranged spindle of one of those pretty little wheels now heard no more in the humble ingle, hushed by machinery clink-clanking with power-looms in every The disgorged eels are returned-some of town and city of the land. Another year, and them alive-to their native element-the mud. we often found ourselves-alone-or with one And the dead heron floats away before small chosen comrade; for even then we began to winds and waves into the middle of the tarn. have our sympathies and antipathies, not only Where is he-the matchless Newfoundlander with roses and lilies, or to cats and cheese, but-nomine gaudens Fro, because white as the with or to the eyes, and looks, and foreheads, froth of the sea? Off with a colley. So-stript and hair, and voices, and motions, and silence, with the first intention, we plunge from a and rest of human beings, loving them with a rock, and, perfect love-we must not say hating them with "Though in the scowl of heaven, the tarn a perfect hatred-alone or with a friend, among Grows dark as we are swimming," the mists and marshes of moors, in silent and Draco-like, breast-high, we stem the surge, stealthy search of the solitary curlew, that is, and with the heron floating before us, return the Whawp! At first sight of his long bill to the heather-fringed shore, and give three aloft above the rushes, we could hear our heart cheers that startle the echoes, asleep from beating quick time in the desert; at the turn-year's end to year's end, in the Grey-Linn ing of his neck, the body being yet still, our | Cairn. heart ceased to beat altogether-and we grew sick with hope when near enough to see the wild beauty of his eye. Unfolded, like a thought, was then the brown silence of the shy creature's ample wings-and with a warning cry he wheeled away upon the wind, unharmed by our ineffectual hail, seen falling far short of the deceptive distance, while his mate that had lain couched-perhaps in her nest of eggs or young, exposed yet hiddenwithin killing range, half-running, half-flying, flapped herself into flight, simulating lame leg and wounded wing; and the two disappearing together behind the hills, left us in our vain reason thwarted by instinct, to resume with live hopes rising out of the ashes of the dead, our daily-disappointed quest over the houseless mosses. Yet now and then to our steady aim the bill of the whawp disgorged blood-and as we felt the feathers in our hand, and from tip to tip eyed the outstretched wings, Fortune, we felt, had no better boon to bestow, earth no greater triumph.

Hush-stoop-kneel-crawl-for by all our hopes of mercy-a heron-a heron ! a heron! An eel dangling across his bill! And now the waterserpent has disappeared! From morning dawn hath the fowl been fishing here-perhaps on that very stone-for it is one of those days when eels are a-roaming in the shallows, and the heron knows that they are as likely to pass by that stone as any other-from morning dawn -and 'tis now past meridian, half-past two! Be propitious, oh ye Fates! and never-never -shall he again fold his wings on the edge of his gaping nest, on the trees that overtop the only tower left of the old castle. Another eel! and we too can crawl silent as the sinuous

Into the silent twilight of many a wild rockand-river scene, beautiful and bewildering as the fairy work of sleep, will he find himself brought who knows where to seek the heron in all his solitary haunts. For often when the moors are storm-swept, and his bill would be baffled by the waves of tarn and loch, he sails away from his swinging-tree, and through some open glade dipping down to the secluded stream, alights within the calm chasm, and folds his wings in the breezeless air. The clouds are driving fast aloft in a carry from the sea-but they are all reflected in that pellucid pool-so perfect the cliff-guarded repose. A better day-a better hour-a better minute for fishing could not have been chosen by Mr. Heron, who is already swallowing a par. Another-and another-but something falls from the rock into the water; and suspicious, though unalarmed, he leisurely addresses himself to a short flight up the channel-round that tower-like cliff standing strangely by itself, with a crest of self-sown flowering shrubs; and lo! another vista, if possible, just a degree more silent-more secluded-more solitary-beneath the mid-day night of woods! To shoot thee there-would be as impious as to have killed a sacred Ibis stalking in the shade of an Egyptian temple. Yet it is fortunate for thee-folded up there, as thou art, as motionless as thy sitting-stone-that at this moment we have no fire-arms-for we had heard of a fish-like trout in that very pool, and this-O Heron-is no gun but a rod. Thou believest thyself to be in utter solitude-no sportsman but thyself in the chasm-for the otter, thou knowest, loves not such very rocky rivers; and fish with bitten shoulder seldom lies here that epicure's tasted prey. Vet

within ten yards of thee lies couched thy enemy, who once had a design upon thee, even in the very egg. Our mental soliloquy disturbs not thy watchful sense-for the air stirs not when the soul thinks, or feels, or fancies about man, bird, or beast. We feel, O Heron! that there is not only humanity—but poetry, in our being. Imagination haunts and possesses us in our pastimes, colouring them even with serious-solemn-and sacred light-and thou assuredly hast something priest-like and ancient in thy look-and about thy light-blue plume robes, which the very elements admire and reverence-the waters wetting them not-central Isle! But be still as a shadow--for nor the winds ruffling-and moreover we love thee-Heron-for the sake of that old castle, beside whose gloom thou utteredst thy first feeble cry! A Ruin nameless, traditionlesssole, undisputed property of Oblivion !

rose -swallowed by a gullet felt gradually to more have we ourselves?-of life and of be extending itself in its intense delight-and death! Why fear to say that thou wert direceived into a stomach yawning with greed vinely commissioned and inspired-on that and gratitude,-oh! surely the thrice-blessed most dismal and shrieking hour, when little of all web-footed birds; the apex of Apician Harry Seymour, that bright English boy, luxury; and able, were any thing on the face "whom all that looked on loved," entangled of this feeble earth able, to detain a soul, on among the cruel chains of those fair waterthe very brink of fate, a short quarter of an lilies, all so innocently yet so murderously hour from an inferior Elysium! floating round him, was, by all standing or running about there with clenched hands, or kneeling on the sod-given up to inextricable death? We were not present to save the dear boy, who had been delivered to our care as to that of an elder brother, by the noble lady who, in her deep widow's weeds, kissed her sole darling's sunny head, and disappeared. We were not present-or by all that is holiest in heaven or on earth-our arms had been soon around thy neck, when thou wert seemingly about to perish!

How nobly, like a craken or sea-serpent, Fro reareth his massy head above the foam, his gathered prey seized-all four-by their limber necks, and brightening, like a bunch of flowers, as they glitter towards the shore! With one bold body-shake, felt to the point of each particular hair, he scatters the water from his coat like mist, reminding one of that glorious line in Shakspeare,

"Like dewdrops from the Lion's mane," advancing with sinewy legs seemingly lengthBut a poor, dumb, despised dog-nothing, as ened by the drenching flood, and dripping tail some say, but animated dust--was there--and stretched out in all its broad longitude, with without shout or signal--for all the Christian hair almost like white hanging plumes-mag- creatures were alike helpless in their despair nificent as tail of the Desert-Born at the headshot swift as a sunbeam over the deep, and of his seraglio in the Arabian Sands. Halfway his master meets his beloved Fro on the slope; and first proudly and haughtily pausing to mark our eye, and then humbly, as beseemeth one whom nature, in his boldest and brightest bearing, hath yet made a slave-he lays the offering at our feet, and having felt on his capacious forehead the approving pressure of our hand,

"While, like the murmur of a dream,

He hears us breathe his name,'

by those golden tresses, sinking and brightening through the wave, brought the noble child ashore, and stood over him, as if in joy and sorrow, lying too like death on the sand! And when little Harry opened his glazed eyes, and looked bewildered on all the faces aroundand then fainted, and revived and fainted again till at last he came to dim recollection of this world on the bosom of the physician brought thither with incomprehensible speed from his dwelling afar off-thou didst lick his cold white hands and blue face, with a whine that struck awful pity into all hearts, and thou didst follow him-one of the group-as he was

he suddenly flings himself round with a wheel of transport, and in many a widening circle pursues his own uncontrollable ecstasies with whirlwind speed; till, as if utterly joy-ex-borne along-and frisking and gambolling no hausted, he brings his snow-white bulk into dignified repose on a knoll, that very moment illuminated by a burst of sunshine!

more all that day, gently didst thou lay thyself down at the feet of his little bed, and watch there unsleeping all night long! For the boy knew that God had employed one of his lowly creatures to save him-and beseeched that he might lie there to be looked at by the light of the taper, till he himself, as the pains went away, might fall asleep! And we, the watchers by his bed-side, heard him in his dreams mentioning the creature's name in his prayers.

Not now-as fades upon our pen the solemn light of the dying day-shall we dare to decide, whether or not Nature-O most matchless creature of thy kind!-gave thee, or gave thee not, the gift of an immortal soul! Better such creed-fond and foolish though it may be—yet scarcely unscriptural, for in each word of scripture there are many meanings, even when Yet at times-O Fro-thou wert a sad dog each sacred syllable is darkest to be read, indeed-neither to bind nor to hold-for thy better such creed than that of the atheist or blood was soon set a-boil, and thou-like Juskeptic, distracted ever in his seemingly sullen lius Cæsar-and Demetrius Poliorcetes-and apathy, by the dim, dark doom of dust. Better Alexander the Great-and many other ancient that Fro should live, than that Newton should and modern kings and heroes-thou wert the die-for ever. What though the benevolent slave of thy passions. No Scipio wert thou Howard devoted his days to visit the dungeon's with a Spanish captive. Often--in spite of gloom, and by intercession with princes, to set threatening eye and uplifted thong--uplifted the prisoners free from the low damp-dripping only, for thou went'st unflogged to thy gravestone roof of the deep-dug cell beneath the didst thou disappear for days at a time--as if foundation rocks of the citadel, to the high lost or dead. Rumours of thee were brought dewdropping vault of heaven, too, too daz-to the kirk by shepherds from the remotest zlingly illumined by the lamp of the insufferable hills in the parish-most confused and contraThere reason triumphed-those were dictory-but, when collected and compared, the works of glorified humanity. But thou- all agreeing in this-that thou wert living, and a creature of mere instinct-according to life-like, and life-imparting, and after a season Descartes, a machine, an automaton--hadst from thy travels to return; and return thou still yet a constant light of thought and of affection didst-wearied often and wo-begone-purpled in thine eyes-nor wert thou without some thy snow-white curling-and thy broad breast glimmering and mysterious notions--and what torn, not disfigured, by honourable wounds. For

sun!