venture into the next parish, why then the old | people would be forced, on the old principle of self-preservation, to pack off their progeny to bed and board beyond Benevis. But an eagle is a Citizen of the World. He is friendly to the views of Mr. Huskisson on the Wool Trade, the Fisheries, and the Colonies-and acts upon the old adage, "Every bird for himself, and God for us all!" swan, half rowing, half sailing, and half flying adown a river-now like an eagle afloat in the blue ocean of heaven, or shooting sunwards, invisible in excess of light-and bidding farewell to earth and its humble shadows. "O that I had the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be at rest!" Who hath not, in some heavy hour or other, from the depth of his very soul, devoutly-passionately-bopelessly— breathed that wish to escape beyond the limits To conclude, for the present, this branch of of wo and sin-not into the world of dreamour subject, we beg leave humbly to express less death; for weary though the immortal our belief, that Sir Humphry Davy never saw pilgrim may have been, never desired he the the Eagle, by him called the Gray or Silver, doom of annihilation, untroubled although it hunting for fish in the style described in Sal- be, shorn of all the attributes of being-but he monia. It does not dislike fish-but it is not has prayed for the wings of the dove, because its nature to keep hunting for them so, not in that fair creature, as she wheeled herself away the Highlands at least, whatever it may do on from the sight of human dwellings, has seemed American continent or isles. Sir Humphry to disappear to his imagination among old talks of the bird dashing down repeatedly upon glimmering forests, wherein she foldeth her a pool within shot of the anglers. We have wing and falleth gladly asleep-and therefore, angled fifty times in the Highlands for Sir in those agitated times when the spirits of men Humphry's once, but never saw nor heard of acknowledge kindred with the inferior creasuch a sight. He has read of such things, and tures, and would fain interchange with them introduced them into this dialogue for the sake powers and qualities, they are willing even to of effect-all quite right to do-had his reading lay down their intelligence, their reason, their lain among trustworthy Ornithologists. The conscience itself, so that they could but be common Eagle-which he ignorantly, as we blessed with the faculty of escaping from all have seen, calls so rare-is a shy bird, as all the agonies that intelligence, and reason, and shepherds know-and is seldom within range conscience alone can know, and beyond the of the rifle. Gorged with blood, they are some-reach of this world's horizon to flee away and times run in upon and felled with a staff or be at rest! club. So perished, in the flower of his age, that Eagle whose feet now form handles to the bell-ropes of our Sanctum at Buchanan Lodge -and are the subject of a clever copy of verses by Mullion, entitled "All the Talons." We said in "The Moors," that we envied not the eagle or any other bird his wings, and showed cause why we preferred our own feet. Had Puck wings? If he had, we retract, and would sport Puck. Oberon. "Fetch me this herb-and be thou here again, Ere the Leviathan can swim a league." Puck. "I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes." Puck says he will put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes. At what rate is that per second, taking the circumference of the earth at 27,000 miles, more or less? There is a question for the mechanics, somewhat about as difficult of solution as Lord Brougham's celebrated one of the Smuggler and the Revenue Cutter-for the solution of which he recommended the aid of algebra. It is not so quick as you would imagine. We forget the usual rate of a cannon-ball in good condition, when he is in training-and before he is at all blown. So do we forget, we are sorry to confess, the number of centuries that it would take a good, stout, well-made, able-bodied cannon. ball, to accomplish a journey to our planet from one of the fixed stars. The great difficulty, we confess, would be to get him safely conveyed thither. If that could be done, we should have no fear of his finding his way back, if not in our time, in that of our posterity. However red-hot he might have been on starting, he would be cool enough, no doubt, on his arrival at the goal; yet we should have no objection to back him against Time for a trifle-Time, we observe, in almost all matches being beat, often indeed by the most miserable hacks, that can with difficulty raise a gallop. Time, however, possibly runs booty; for when he does make play, it must be confessed that he is a spanker, and that nothing has been seen with such a stride since Eclipse. How infinitely more poetical are wings like these than seven-league boots! We declare, on our conscience, that we would not accept the present of a pair of seven-league boots tomorrow-or, if we did, it would be out of mere politeness to the genie who might press them on us, and the wisest thing we could do would be to lock them up in a drawer out of the reach of the servants. Suppose that we wished to walk from Clovenford to Innerleithen-why, with seven-league boots on, one single step would take us up to Posso, seven miles above Peebles! That would never do. By mincing one's steps, indeed, one might contrive to stop at Innerleithen; but suppose a gad-fly were to sting one's hip at the Pirn-one unintentional O beautiful and beloved Highland Parish! in stride would deposit Christopher at Drummel-whose dashing glens our beating heart first felt zier, and another over the Cruik, and far away the awe of solitude, and learned to commune down Annan water! Therefore, there is (alas! to what purpose?) with the tumult of nothing like wings. On wings you can flutter its own thoughts! The circuit of thy skies -and glide-and float and soar-now like a was indeed a glorious arena spread over the bumming-bird among the flowers-now like a mountain-tops for the combats of the great birds of prey! One wild cry or another was in the lift-of the hawk, or the glead, or the raven, or the eagle-or when those fiends slept, of the peaceful heron, and sea-bird by wandering boys pursued in its easy flight, till the snow-white child of ocean wavered away far inland, as if in search of a steadfast happiness unknown on the restless waves. Seldom did the eagle stoop to the challenge of the inferior fowl; but when he did, it was like a mailed knight treading down unknown men in battle. The hawks, and the gleads, and the ravens, and the carrion-crows, and the hooded-crows, and the rooks, and the magpies, and all the rest of the rural militia, forgetting their own feuds, sometimes came sallying from all quarters, with even a few facetious jackdaws from the old castle, to show fight with the monarch of the air. Amidst all that multitude of wings winnowing the wind, was heard the sough and whizz of those mighty vans, as the Royal Bird, himself an army, performed his majestic evolutions with all the calm confidence of a master in the art of aerial war, now shooting up halfa-thousand feet perpendicular, and now suddenly plumb-down into the rear of the croaking, cawing, and chattering battalions, cutting off their retreat to the earth. Then the rout became general, the missing, however, far outnumbering the dead. Keeping possession of the field of battle, hung the eagle for a short while motionless-till with one fierce yell of triumph he seemed to seek the sun, and disappear like a speck in the light, surveying half of Scotland at a glance, and a thousand of her isles. Some people have a trick of describing incidents as having happened within their own observation, when in fact they were at the time lying asleep in bed, and disturbing the whole house with the snore of their dormitory. Such is too often the character of the eye-witnesses of the present age. Now, we would not claim personal acquaintance with an incident we had not seen-no, not for a hundred guineas per sheet; and, therefore, we warn the reader not to believe the following little story about an eagle and child (by the way, that is the Derby crest, and a favourite sign of inns in the north of England) on our authority. “I tell the tale as 'twas told to me," by the schoolmaster of Naemanslaws, in the shire of Ayr; and if the incident never occurred, then must he have been one of the greatest liars that ever taught the young idea how to shoot. For our single selves, we are by nature credulous. Many extraordinary things happen in this life, and though "seeing is believing," so likewise "believing is seeing," as every one must allow who reads these our Recreations. with laughter, whistle, and song. But the Treegnomons threw the shadow of "one o'clock on the green dial-face of the earth-the horses were unyoked, and took instantly to grazinggroups of men, women, lads, lasses, and chil dren collected under grove, and bush, and hedge-row-graces were pronounced, some of them rather too tedious in presence of the mant ling milk-cans, bullion-bars of butter, and crack ling cakes; and the great Being who gave them that day their daily bread, looked down from his Eternal Throne, well-pleased with the piety of his thankful creatures. The great Golden Eagle, the pride and the pest of the parish, stooped down, and away with something in his talons. One single sudden female shriek-and then shouts and outcries as if a church spire had tumbled down on a congregation at a sacrament. "Hannah Lamond's bairn! Hannah Lamond's bairn!" was the loud fast-spreading cry. "The Eagle's ta'en aff Hannah Lamond's bairn!" and many hundred feet were in another instant hurrying towards the mountain. Two miles of hill and dale, and copse and shingle, and many intersecting brooks, lay between; but in an incredibly short time the foot of the mountain was alive with people. The eyrie was well known, and both old birds were visible on the rockledge. But who shall scale that dizzy cliff, which Mark Steuart the sailor, who had been at the storming of many a fort, once attempted in vain? All kept gazing, or weeping, or wringing of hands, rooted to the ground, or running back and forwards, like so many ants essaying their new wings, in discomfiture. " What's the use-what's the use o' ony puir human means? We have nae power but in prayer!" And many knelt down-fathers and mothers thinking of their own babies-as if they would force the deaf heavens to hear. Hannah Lamond had all this while been sitting on a stone, with a face perfectly white, and eyes like those of a mad person, fixed on the eyrie. Nobody noticed her; for strong as all sympathies with her had been at the swoop of the Eagle, they were now swallowed up in the agony of eyesight. "Only last Sabbath was my sweet wee wean baptized in the name o' the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" and on uttering these words, she flew off through the brakes and over the huge stones, up-up-up-faster than ever huntsman ran in to the death-fearless as a goat playing among the precipices. No one doubted, no one could doubt, that she would soon be dashed to pieces. But have not people who walk in their sleep, obedient to the mysterious guidance of dreams, clomb the walls of old ruins, and found footing, even in decrepitude, along the edge of unguarded battlements, and down dilapidated stair-cases deep as draw Almost all the people in the parish were leading in their meadow-hay (there were not in all its ten miles square twenty acres of rye-wells or coal-pits, and returned with open, grass) on the same day of midsummer, so drying was the sunshine and the wind, and huge heaped-up wains, that almost hid from view the horses that drew them along the sward, beginning to get green with second growth, were moving in all directions towards the snug farmyards. Never had the parish seemed before so populous. Jocund was the balmy air fixed, and unseeing eyes, unharmed to their beds at midnight? It is all the work of the soul, to whom the body is a slave; and shal! not the agony of a mother's passion-who sees her baby, whose warm mouth had just left her breast, hurried off by a demon to a hideous death-bear her limbs aloft wherever there is dust to dust, till she reach that devouring den and fiercer and more furious than any bird of prey that ever bathed its beak in blood, throttle the fiends that with their heavy wing would fain flap her down the cliffs, and hold up her child in deliverance? not far off, on a small platform. Her child was bound upon her shoulders-she knew not how or when-but it was safe-and scarcely daring to open her eyes, she slid down the shelving rocks, and found herself on a small No stop-no stay-she knew not that she piece of firm root-bound soil, with the tops of drew her breath. Beneath her feet Providence bushes appearing below. With fingers sud fastened every loose stone, and to her hands denly strengthened into the power of iron, she strengthened every root. How was she ever swung herself down by brier, and broom, and to descend? That fear, then, but once crossed heather, and dwarf-birch. There, a loosened her heart, as up-up-up-to the little image stone leapt over a ledge, and no sound was made of her own flesh and blood. "The God heard, so profound was its fall. There, the who holds me now from perishing-will not shingle rattled down the screes, and she hesithe same God save me when my child is at tated not to follow. Her feet bounded against my breast?" Down came the fierce rushing the huge stone that stopped them; but she felt of the Eagles' wings-each savage bird dash- no pain. Her body was callous as the cliff. ing close to her head, so that she saw the yel- Steep as the wall of a house was now the side low of their wrathful eyes. All at once they of the precipice. But it was matted with ivy quailed, and were cowed. Yelling, they flew centuries old-long ago dead, and without a off to the stump of an ash jutting out of a cliff, single green leaf-but with thousands of arma thousand feet above the cataract; and the thick stems petrified into the rock, and coverChristian mother, falling across, the eyrie, in ing it as with a trellice. She felt her baby on he midst of bones and blood, clasped her child her neck, and with hands and feet clung to that -dead-dead-no doubt-but unmangled and fearful ladder. Turning round her head, and untorn-and swaddled up just as it was when looking down, she saw the whole population she laid it down asleep among the fresh hay in of the parish-so great was the multitude-on a nook of the harvest-field. Oh! what pang their knees. She heard the voice of psalmsof perfect blessedness transfixed her heart a hymn breathing the spirit of one united from that faint, feeble cry-" It lives! it lives! prayer. Sad and solemn was the strain-but it lives!" and baring her bosom, with loud nothing dirge-like-sounding not of death, but laughter, and eyes dry as stones, she felt the deliverance. Often had she sung that tunelips of the unconscious innocent once more perhaps the very words-but them she heard murmuring at the fount of life and love. "O, not-in her own hut, she and her mother-or thou great and thou dreadful God! whither in the kirk, along with all the congregation. hast thou brought me-one of the most sinful An unseen hand seemed fastening her fingers of thy creatures! Oh! save me lest I perish, to the ribs of ivy, and in sudden inspiration, even for thy own name's sake! O Thou, who believing that her life was to be saved, she bedied to save sinners, have mercy upon me!" came almost as fearless as if she had been Cliffs, chasms, blocks of stone, and the skele- changed into a winged creature. Again her tons of old trees-far-far down-and dwindled feet touched stones and earth-the psalm was into specks a thousand creatures of her own hushed-but a tremulous sobbing voice was kind, stationary or running to and fro! Was close beside her, and a she-goat with two little that the sound of the waterfall, or the faint kids at her feet. "Wild heights," thought she, roar of voices? Is that her native strath?" do these creatures climb-but the dam will and that tuft of trees, does it contain the hut in which stands the cradle of her child? Never more shall it be rocked by her foot! Here must she die-and when her breast is exhausted-her baby too. And those horrid beaks, and eyes, and talons, and wings will return, and her child will be devoured at last, even within the dead arms that can protect it no more. lead down her kids by the easiest paths; for in the brute creatures holy is the power of a mother's love!" and turning round her head, she kissed her sleeping baby, and for the first time she wept. Overhead frowned the front of the precipice, never touched before by human hand or foot. No one had ever dreamt of scaling it, and the Golden Eagles knew that well in their instinct, as, before they built their eyrie, they had brushed it with their wings. But the downwards part of the mountain-side, though scared, and seamed, and chasmed, was yet accessibleand more than one person in the parish had reached the bottom of the Glead's Cliff. Many were now attempting it-and ere the cautious mother had followed her dumb guides a hun Where, all this while, was Mark Steuart, the sailor? Halfway up the cliffs. But his eyes had got dim, and his head dizzy, and his heart sick-and he who had so often reefed the topgallant sail, when at midnight the coming of the gale was heard afar, covered his face with his hands, and dared look no longer on the swimming heights. "And who will take care of my poor bedridden mother?" thought Han-dred yards, through among dangers that, alnah, who, through exhaustion of so many passions, could no more retain in her grasp the hope she had clutched in despair. A voice whispered "God." She looked round expect ng to see a spirit; but nothing moved except a rotten branch, that, under its own weight, broke off from the crumbling rock. Her eye -by some secret sympathy with the inanimate objec -watched its fall and it seemed to stop, though enough to terrify the stoutest heart, were traversed by her without a shudder, the head of one man appeared, and then the head of another, and she knew that God had delivered her and her child into the care of their fellow-creatures. Not a word was spokenshe hushed her friends with her hands-and with uplifted eyes pointed to the guides sent to her by Heaven. Small green plats, where those creatures nibble the wild-flowers, became | and soiled it with the ashes cf repentancenow more frequent-trodden lines, almost as walking with her eyes on the ground as she plain as sheep-paths, showed that the dam again entered the kirk-yet not fearing to lift had not led her young into danger; and now them up to heaven during the prayer. Her the brushwood dwindled away into straggling sadness inspired a general pity-she was exshrubs, and the party stood on a little eminence cluded from no house she had heart to visitabove the stream, and forming part of the no coarse comment, no ribald jest accom strath. panied the notice people took of her baby-no There had been trouble and agitation, much licentious rustic presumed on her frailty; for sobbing and many tears, among the multitude, the pale, melancholy face of the nursing while the mother was scaling the cliffs-sub- mother, weeping as she sung the lullaby, lime was the shout that echoed afar the mo- forbade all such approach-and an universal ment she reached the eyrie-then had suc- sentiment of indignation drove from the parish ceeded a silence deep as death-in a little the heartless and unprincipled seducer-if al. while arose that hymning prayer, succeeded had been known, too weak word for his crime by mute supplication-the wildness of thank--who left thus to pine in sorrow, and in ful and congratulatory joy had next its sway-shame far worse than sorrow, one who till her and now that her salvation was sure, the great unhappy fall had been held up by every crowd rustled like a wind-swept wood. And mother as an example to her daughters. for whose sake was all this alternation of agony? A poor humble creature, unknown to many even by name-one who had had but few friends, nor wished for more-contented to work all day, here-there-anywhere-that her for ever. Sometimes his image, as well she might be able to support her aged mother and her child-and who on Sabbath took her seat in an obscure pew, set apart for paupers, in the kirk. "Fall back, and give her fresh air," said the old minister of the parish; and the ring of close faces widened round her lying as in death. "Gie me the bonny bit bairn into my arms,” cried first one mother and then another, and it was tenderly handed round the circle of kisses, many of the snooded maidens bathing its face in tears. "There's no a single scratch about the puir innocent, for the Eagle, you see, maun hae struck its talons into the lang claes and the shawl. Blin', blin' maun they be who see not the finger o' God in this thing!" Never had she striven to cease to love her betrayer-but she had striven-and an ap peased conscience had enabled her to do soto think not of him now that he had deserted in love as in wrath, passed before the eye of her heart-but she closed it in tears of blood, and the phantom disappeared. Thus all the love towards him that slept-but was not dead arose in yearnings of still more exceeding love towards her child. Round its head was gathered all hope of comfort-of peace-of reward of her repentance. One of its smiles was enough to brighten up the darkness of a whole day. In her breast-on her knee-in its cradle, she regarded it with a perpetual prayer. And this feeling it was, with all the overwhelming tenderness of affection, all the invigorating power of passion, that, under the hand of God, bore her up and down that fearful mountain's brow, and after the hour of rescue and deliverance, stretched her on the greensward Hant.ah started up from her swoon-and, looking wildly round cried, "Oh! the Bird-like a corpse. the Bird!-the Eagle-the Eagle !-The Eagle has carried off my bonny wee Walter-is there nane to pursue ?" A neighbour put her baby into her breast; and shutting her eyes, and smiting her forehead, the sorely bewildered creature said in a low voice, “ Am I waukenoh! tell me if I'm wauken-or if a' this be but the wark o' a fever." The rumour of the miracle circled the mountain's base, and a strange story without names had been told to the Wood-ranger of the Cairn-Forest, by a wayfaring man. Anxious to know what truth there was in it, he crossed the hill, and making his way through the sul len crowd, went up to the eminence, and be held her whom he had so wickedly ruined, and so basely deserted. Hisses, and groans, and hootings, and fierce eyes, and clenched hands assailed and threatened him on every side. Hannah Lamond was not yet twenty years old, and although she was a mother-and you may guess what a mother-yet-frown not, fair and gentle reader-frown not, pure and stainless as thou art-to her belonged not the His heart died within him, not in fear, but sacred name of wife-and that baby was the in remorse. What a worm he felt himself to child of sin and shame-yes-"the child of be! And fain would he have become a worm misery, baptized in tears!" She had loved that, to escape all that united human scorn, he trusted-been betrayed-and deserted. In sor- might have wriggled away in slime into some row and solitude-uncomforted and despised-hole of the earth. But the meek eye of Hanshe bore her burden. Dismal had been the nah met his in forgiveness-an un-upbraiding hour of travail-and she feared her mother's tear-a faint smile of love. All his better naheart would have broken, even when her own ture rose within him, all his worse nature was was cleft in twain. But how healing is for- quelled. "Yes, good people, you do right to giveness-alike to the wounds of the forgiving cover me with your scorn. But what is your and the forgiven! And then Hannah knew scorn to the wrath of God? The Evil One that, although guilty before God, her guilt was has often been with me in the woods; the not such as her fellow-creatures deemed it- same voice that once whispered me to murder for there were dreadful secrets which should her-but here I am-not to offer retributionnever pass her lips against the father of her for that may not-will not-must not be-guilt child. So she bowed down her young head, | must not mate with innocence. But here 1 proclaim that innocence. I deserve death, and | twenty-four hours' purchase. Never was there I am willing here, on this spot, to deliver my- a single hound in all Lord Darlington's packs self into the hands of justice. Allan Calder -I call on you to seize your prisoner." since his lordship became a mighty hunter with nostrils so fine as those of that feathered The moral sense of the people, when in- fiend, covered though they be with strong hairs structed by knowledge and enlightened by re- or bristles, that grimly adorn a bill of formi. ligion, what else is it but the voice of God! dable dimensions, and apt for digging out eyeTheir anger subsided into a stern satisfaction socket and splitting skull-suture of dying man -and that soon softened, in sight of her who, or beast. That bill cannot tear in pieces like alone aggrieved, alone felt nothing but forgive the eagle's beak, nor are its talons so powerful ness, into a confused compassion for the man to smite as to compress-but a better bill for who, bold and bad as he had been, had under-cut-and-thrust-push, carte, and tierce-the gone many solitary torments, and nearly fallen dig dismal and the plunge profound-belongs in his uncompanioned misery into the power to no other bird. It inflicts great gashes; nor of the Prince of Darkness. The old clergy- needs the wound to be repeated on the same man, whom all reverenced, put the contrite spot. Feeder foul and obscene! to thy nostril man's hand in hers, whom he swore to love upturned" into the murky air, sagacious of and cherish all his days. And, ere summer thy quarry from afar," sweeter is the scent of was over, Hannah was the mistress of a fami- carrion, than to the panting lover's sense and ly, in a house not much inferior to a Manse. soul the fragrance of his own virgin's breath Her mother, now that not only her daughter's and bosom, when, lying in her innocence in reputation was freed from stain, but her inno- his arms, her dishevelled tresses seem laden cence also proved, renewed her youth. And with something more ethereally pure than although the worthy schoolmaster, who told "Sabean odours from the spicy shores of us the tale so much better than we have been Araby the Blest." able to repeat it, confessed that the woodranger never became altogether a saint-nor acquired the edifying habit of pulling down the corners of his mouth, and turning up the whites of his eyes—yet he assured us, that he never afterwards heard any thing very seriously to his prejudice-that he became in due time an elder of the kirk-gave his children a religious education-erring only in making rather too much of a pet of his eldest born, whom, even when grown up to manhood, he never called by any other name than the Eaglet. THIRD CANTICLE. The Raven dislikes all animal food that has not a deathy smack. It cannot be thought that he has any reverence or awe of the mys tery of life. Neither is he a coward; at least, not such a coward as to fear the dying kick of a lamb or sheep. Yet so long as his victim can stand, or sit, or lie in a strong struggle, the raven keeps aloof-hopping in a circle that narrows and narrows as the sick animal's nostrils keep dilating in convulsions, and its eyes grow dimmer and more dim. When the prey is in the last agonies, croaking, he leaps upon the breathing carcass, and whets his bill upon his own blue-ringed legs, steadied by claws in the fleece, yet not so fiercely inserted as to get entangled and fast. With his large level-crowned head bobbing up and down, and THE RAVEN! In a solitary glen sits down on turned a little first to one side and then to ana stone the roaming pedestrian, beneath the other, all the while a self-congratulatory leer hush and gloom of a thundery sky that has in his eye, he unfolds his wings, and then folds not yet begun to growl, and hears no sounds them again, twenty or thirty times, as if dubibut that of an occasional big rain-drop plash-ous how to begin to gratify his lust of blood; ing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead and frequently, when just on the brink of consometimes utters a sullen groan-the pilgrim, summation, jumps off side, back, or throat, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak-croak-croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his face, but sees no bird on the wing. By and by, something black lifts itself slowly and heavily up from a precipice, in deep shadow; and before it has cleared the rock-range, and entered the upper region of air, he knows it to be a Raven. The creature seems wroth to be disturbed in his solitude, and in his strong straight-forward flight aims at the head of another glen; but he wheels round at the iron barrier, and, alighting among the heather, folds his huge massy wings, and leaps about as if in anger, with the same savage croak-croak-croak! No other bird so like a demon-and should you chance to break a leg in the desert, and be unable to crawl to a hut, your life is not worth and goes dallying about, round and round, and off to a small safe distance, scenting, almost snorting, the smell of the blood running cold, colder, and more cold. At last the poor wretch is still; and then, without waiting till it is stiff, he goes to work earnestly and passionately, and taught by horrid instinct how to reach the entrails, revels in obscene gluttony, and preserves, it may be, eye, lip, palate, and brain, for the last course of his meal, gorged to the throat, incapacitated to return thanks, and with difficulty able either to croak or to fly. The Raven, it is thought, is in the habit of living upwards of a hundred years, perhaps a couple of centuries. Children grow into girls, girls into maidens, maidens into wives, wives into widows, widows into old decrepit crones, and crones into dust; and the Raven who wons at the head of the glen, is aware of all the births, baptisms, marriages, death-beds, and funerals. Certain it is-at least so men |