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 him the 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 ner 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! "Though in the scowl of heaven, the tarn Grows dark as we are swimming," Draco-like, breast-high, we stem the surge, and with the heron floating before us, return to the heather-fringed shore, and give three cheers that startle the echoes, asleep from year's end to year's end, in the Grey-Linn Cairn. 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 a perfect hatred-alone or with a friend, among the mists and marshes of moors, in silent and stealthy search of the solitary curlew, that is, the Whawp! At first sight of his long bill aloft above the rushes, we could hear our heart beating quick time in the desert; at the turning of his neck, the body being yet still, our 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 ar 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-fly-folds his wings in the breezeless air. The ing, 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 hcpes of mercy-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 hat 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 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 fortu nate 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. Yes within ten yards of thee lies couched thy | kle-mou'd Meg! neither thou nor the "Lang enemy, who once had a design upon thee, even Gun" are of any avail here-for that old drake, in the very egg. Our mental soliloquy disturbs who, together with his shadow, on which he not thy watchful sense-for the air stirs not seems to be sitting, is almost as big as a boat when the soul thinks, or feels, or fancies about in the water, the outermost landward sentinel, man, bird, or beast. We feel, O Heron! that near as he seems to be in the deception of the there is not only humanity-but poetry, in our clear frosty air, is yet better than three hunbeing. Imagination haunts and possesses us dred yards from the shore-and, at safe disin our pastimes, colouring them even with tance, cocks his eye at the fowler. There is serious-solemn-and sacred light-and thou no boat on the loch, and knowing that, how assuredly hast something priest-like and an- tempting in its unapproachable reeds and cient in thy look-and about thy light-blue rushes, and hut-crested knoll-a hut built perplume robes, which the very elements admire haps by some fowler, in the olden time-yon and reverence-the waters wetting them not- central Isle! But be still as a shadow-for nor the winds ruffling-and moreover we love lo! a batch of Whig-seceders, paddling all by thee-Heron-for the sake of that old castle, themselves towards that creek-and as surely beside whose gloom thou utteredst thy first as our name is Christopher, in another quarter feeble cry! A Ruin nameless, traditionless- of an hour, they will consist of killed, wounded, sole, undisputed property of Oblivion! and missing. On our belly--with unhatted head just peering over the knowe-and Mucklemou'd Meg slowly and softly stretched out on the rest, so as not to rustle a windle-strae, we lie motionless as a mawkin, till the coterie collects together for simultaneous dive down to the aquatic plants and insects of the fastshallowing bay; and, just as they are upon the turn with their tails, a single report, loud as a volley, scatters the unsparing slugs about their doups, and the still clear water, in sudden disturbance, is afloat with scattered feathers, and stained with blood. Hurra!-Heron-hurra! why, that was an awkward tumble-and very nearly had we hold of thee by the tail! Didst thou take us for a water-kelpie? A fright like that is enough to leave thee an idiot all the rest of thy life. "Tis a wonder thou didst not go into fits-but thy nerves must be sorely shakenand what an account of this adventure will certainly be shrieked unto thy mate, to the music of the creaking boughs! Not, even wert thou a secular bird of ages, wouldst thou ever once again revisit this dreadful place. For fear has a wondrous memory in all dumb creatures and rather wouldst thou see thy nest die of famine, than seek for fish in this manmonster-haunted pool! Farewell! farewell! Many are the hundreds of hill and mountain lochs to us as familiarly known, round all their rushy or rocky margins, as that pond there in the garden of Buchanan Lodge. That pond has but one goose and one gander, and nine goslings-about half-a-dozen trouts, if indeed they have not sickened and died of Nostalgia, missing in the stillness the gurgle of their native Tweed-and a brace of perch, now nothing but prickle. But the lochs-the hill, the mountain lochs now in our mind's eye and our mind's ear,-heaven and earth! the bogs are black with duck, teal, and widgeon -up there "comes for food or play" to the holla of the winds, a wedge of wild geese, piercing the marbled heavens with clamourand lo! in the very centre of the mediterranean, the Royal Family of the Swans! Up springs the silver sea-trout in the sunshine-see Sir Humphrey !-a salmon-a salmon fresh run in love and glory from the sea! Now is the time for the snow-white, here and there ebon-spotted Fro-who with burning eyes has lain couched like a spaniel, his quick breath ever and anon trembling on a passionate whine, to bounce up, as if discharged by a catapulta, and first with immense and enormous high-and-far leaps, and then, fleet as any greyhound, with a breast-brushing brattle down the brae, to dash, all fours, like a flying squirrel fearlessly from his tree, many yards into the bay with one splashing and momentarily disappearing spang, and then, head and shoulders and broad line of back and rudder tail, all elevated above or level with the wavy water line, to mouth first that murdered mawsey of a mallard, lying as still as if she had been dead for years, with her round, fat, brown bosom towards heaven-then that old Drake, in a somewhat similar posture, but in more gorgeous apparel, his belly being of a pale gray, and his back delicately pencilled and crossed with numberless waved dusky linesprecious prize to one skilled like us in the angling art-next-nobly done, glorious Frothat cream colour crowned widgeon, with For how many admirable articles are there bright rufus chestnut breast, separated from themes in the above short paragraph! Duck, the neck by loveliest waved ash-brown and teal, and widgeon, wild-geese, swans! And white lines, while our mind's eye feasteth on first, duck, teal, and widgeon. There they are, the indescribable and changeable green beautyall collected together, without regard to party spot of his wings-and now, if we mistake not, politics, in their very best attire, as thick as a Golden Eye, best described by his namethe citizens of Edinburgh, their wives, sweet- finally, that exquisite little duck the Teal; yes, hearts, and children, on the Calton Hill, on poetical in its delicately pencilled spots as an the first day of the king's visit to Scotland. As Indian shell, and when kept to an hour, roasted thick, but not so steady-for what swimming to a minute, gravied in its own wild richness, about in circles-what ducking and diving is with some few other means and appliances to there!-all the while accompanied with a sort boot, carved finely-most finely-by razor-like of low, thick, gurgling, not unsweet, nor un- knife, in a hand skilful to dissect and cunning musical quackery, the expression of the intense to divide-tasted by a tongue and palate both joy of feeding, freedom, and play. Oh! Muc-healthily pure as the dewy petal of a morning 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 di received 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 by those golden tresses, sinking and brightenhis 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," ing through the wave, brought the noble child ashore, and stood over him, as if in joy and when little Harry opened his glazed eyes, and sorrow, lying too like death on the sand! 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 hansted, 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 contrasun! There 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 never yet saw we a fighter like thee. Up on thy hind legs in a moment, like a growling Polar monster, with thy fore-paws round thy foeman's neck, bull-dog, colly, mastiff, or greyhound, and down with him in a moment, with as much ease as Cass, in the wrestling-ring at Carlisle, would throw a Bagman, and then wo to the throat of the downfallen, for thy jaws were shark-like as they opened and shut with their terrific tusks, grinding through skin and sinew to the spine. the bloody place, uncertain whether or not his "Heu quantum mutatus ab illo gore-besmeared and dirt-draggled an hour "The Prince of Mearns stept forth before the crowd, And, Carter, challenged you to single fight!"' Bob Howie, who never yet feared the face of clay, and had too great a heart to suffer mere children to combat the strongest and most unhappy man in the whole country-stripped to the buff; and there he stands, with Once, and once only-bullied out of all endurance by a half-drunken carrier-did we consent to let thee engage in a pitched battle with a mastiff victorious in fifty fights-a famous shanker and a throttler beyond all compare. It was indeed a bloody business-now growling along the glawr of the road-a hairy hurricane-now snorting in the suffocating ditchnow fair play on the clean and clear crown of the causey-now rolling over and over through a chance-open white little gate, into a cottagegarden-now separated by choking them both with a chord now brought out again with savage and fiery eyes to the scratch on a green plat round the sign-board-swinging tree in the middle of the village-auld women in their mutches crying out, "Shame! whare's the minister?"-young women, with combs in their pretty heads, blinking with pale and almost weeping faces from low-lintelled doors-children crowding for sight and safety on the louping-on-stone-and loud cries ever and anon at each turn and eddy of the fight, of "Well done, Fro, well done, Fro-see how he worries his windpipe-well done, Fro!" for Fro was the delight and glory of the whole parish, and "An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;" the honour of all its inhabitants, male and fe- shoulders like Atlas-breast like Herculesmale, was felt to be staked on the issue- and arms like Vulcan. The heart of Benjawhile at intervals was heard the harsh hoarse min the wagoner dies within him—he accepts voice of the carriers and his compeers, cursing the challenge for a future day—and retreating and swearing in triumph in a many-oathed backwards to his clothes, receives a rightlanguage peculiar to the race that drive the hander as from a sledge-hammer on the temple, broad-wheeled wagons with the high canvas that fells him like an ox. The other carters roofs, as the might of Teeger prevailed, and all close in, but are sent spinning in all directhe indomitable Fro seemed to be on his last tions as from the sails of a windmill. Ever legs beneath a grip of the jugular, and then as each successive lout seeks the earth, we stretched motionless and passive-in defeat or savage school-boys rush in upon him in twos, death. A mere ruse to recover wind. Like and threes, and fours, basting and battering unshorn Samson starting from his sleep, and him as he bawls; at this very crisis-so fate snapping like fired flax the vain bands of the ordained-are seen hurrying down the hill Philistines, Fro whawmled Teeger off, and from the south, leaving their wives, sweettwisting round his head in spite of the grip on hearts, and asses in the rear, with coal-black the jugular, the skin stretching and giving way hair and sparkling eyes, brown brawny legs, in a ghastly but unfelt wound, he suddenly and clenched iron fists at the end of long arms, seized with all his tusks his antagonist's eye, swinging flail-like at all times, and more than .and bit it clean out of the socket. A yowl of now, ready for the fray, a gang of Gipsies! unendurable pain-spouting of blood-sick-while-beautiful coincidence!-up the hill ness-swooning-tumbling over-and death. from the north come on, at double-quick time, His last fight is over! His remaining eye an awkward squad of as grim Milesians as glazed-his protruded tongue bitten in anguish ever buried a pike in a Protestant. Nor ques by his own grinding teeth-his massy hind tion nor reply; but in a moment a general legs stretched out with a kick like a horse-mêlée. Men at work in the hay-fields, who his short tail stiffens-he is laid out a grim would not leave their work for a dog-fight, fling corpse-flung into a cart tied behind the down scythe and rake, and over hedges into wagon-and off to the tan-yard. the high-road, a stalwart reinforcement. Weav. No shouts of victory-but stern, sullen, half-ers leap from their treddles-doff their blue ashamed silence-as of guilty things after the perpetration of a misdeed. Still glaring savagely, ere yet the wrath of fight has subsided in his heart, and going and returning to aprons, and out into the air. The red-cowled tailor pops his head through a skylight, and next moment is in the street. The butcher strips his long light-blue linen coat, to engage a Paddy; and the smith, ready for action-for the huge arms of Burniwind are always barewith a hand-ower-hip delivery, makes the head of the king of the gipsies ring like an anvil. There has been no marshalling of forces-yet lo! as if formed in two regular lines by the Adjutant himself after the first tuilzie, stand the carters, the gipsies, and the Irishmen, opposed to Bob Howie, the butcher, the smith, the tailor, the weaver, the hay-makers, and the boys from the manse-the latter drawn up cautiously, but not cowardly, in the rear. What a twinkling of fists and shillelas! what bashed and bloody noses! cut blubber lips-cheekbones out of all proportion to the rest of the face, and, through sudden black and blue tumefactions, inen's changed into pigs' eyes! And now there is also rugging of caps and mutches and hair, "femineo ululatu," for the Egyptian Amazons bear down like furies on the glee'd widow that keeps the change-house, half-witted Shoosy that sells yellow sand, and Davie Donald's dun daughter, commonly called Spunkie. What shrieking and tossing of arms, round the whole length and breadth of the village! Where is Simon Andrew the constable? Where is auld Robert Maxwell the ruling elder? What can have become of Laird Warnock, whose word is law? An what can the Minister be about, can anybody tell, that he does not come flying from the manse to save the lives of his parishioners from cannibals, and gipsies, and Eerish, murdering their way to the gallows? whisky comes, hands it about at his own ex pense, caulker after caulker, to the vanquished for Bob was as generous as brave; had no spite at the gipsies; and as for Irishmen, why they were ranting, roving, red-hot, dare-devil boys, just like himself; and after the fight, he would have gone with them to Purgatory, or a few steps further down the hill. All the battle through, we manse-boys had fought, it may be said, behind the shadow of him our hero; and in warding off mischief from us, he received not a few heavy body-blows from King Carew, a descendant of Bamfylde Moore, and some crown-cracks from the shillelas of the Connaught Rangers. Down comes a sudden thunder-plump, mak ing the road a river-and to the whiff o' lightning, all in the shape of man, woman, and child, are under roof-cover. The afternoon soon clears up, and the haymakers leave the clanking empty gill or half-mutchkin stoup, for the field, to see what the rain has donethe forge begins again to roar-the sound of the flying shuttle tells us that the weaver is again on his treddles; the tailor hoists up his little window in the thatch, in that close confinement, to enjoy the caller air-the tinklers go to encamp on the common-"the air is balm"-insects, dropping from eave and tree, "show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold"-though the season of bird-singing be over and gone, there is a pleasant chirping hereabouts, thereabouts, everywhere; the old blind beggar, dog-led, goes from door to door, unconscious that such a stramash has ever been-and dancing round our champion, away we schoolboys all fly with him to swim in the Brother Loch, taking our fishing-rods with us, for one clap of thunder will not frighten the trouts; and about the middle or end of July, we have known great labbers, twenty inches long, play wallop between our very feet, in the warm shallow water, within a yard of the edge, to the yellow bodied, tinsey-tailed, black half-heckle, with brown mallard wing, a mere midge, but once fixed in lip or tongue, "inextricable as the gorged lion's bite." How-why-or when-that bloody battle ceased to be, was never distinctly known either then or since; but, like every thing else, it had an end-and even now we have a confused dream of the spot at its termination-naked | men lying on their backs in the mire, all drenched in blood-with women, some old and ugly, with shrivelled witch-like hag breasts, others young, and darkly, swarthily, blackly beautiful, with budding or new-blown bosoms unkerchiefed in the colley-shangy-perilous to see-leaning over them: and these were the Egyptians! Men in brown shirts, gore-spotted, with green bandages round their broken heads, laughing, and joking, and jeering, and But ever after that passage in the life of Fro, singing, and shouting, though desperately his were, on the whole, years of peace. Every mauled and mangled-while Scottish wives, season seemed to strengthen his sagacity, and and widows, and maids, could not help crying to unfold his wonderful instincts. Most asout in sympathy, "Oh! but they're bonnie men suredly he knew all the simpler parts of speech -what a pity they should aye be sae fond o'-all the household words in the Scottish lanfechting, and a' manner o' mischief!"-and these were the Irishmen! Retired and apart, hangs the weaver, with his head over a wall, dog-sick, and bocking in strong convulsions; some haymakers are washing their cut faces in the well: the butcher, bloody as a bit of his own beef, walks silent into the shambles; the smith, whose grimy face hides its pummelling, goes off grinning a ghastly smile in the hands of his scolding, yet not unloving wife; the tailor, gay as a flea, and hot as his own goose, to show how much more he has given than received, offers to leap any man on the ground, hop-step-and-jump, for a mutchkin-while Bob Howie walks about, without a visible wound, except the mark of bloody knuckles on his brawny breast, with arms a-kimbo, seaman fashionfor Bob had been at sea-and as soon as the guage. He was, in all our pastimes, as much one of ourselves, as if, instead of being a Pagar with four feet, he had been a Christian with two. As for temper, we trace the sweetness of our own to his; an angry word from one he loved, he forgot in half a minute, offering his lion-like paw; yet there were particular people he could not abide, nor from their hands would he have accepted a roasted potato out of the dripping pan, and in this he resembled his master. He knew the Sabbath-day as well as the Sexton-and never was known to bark till the Monday morning when the cock crew; and then he would give a long musical yowl, as if his breast were relieved from silence. If ever, in this cold, changeful, inconstant world, there was a friendship that might be called sin cere, it was that which, half a century ago and |