Chapter XII (1)

"Bring the light nearer," said John Burley--"nearer still."

Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table by the sick man's bedside.

Burley's mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that "his stomach would survive all the rest of him." That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle. "It lives ever in the air!" said he.

"What lives ever?"

Burley's voice swelled--"Light!" He turned from Leonard, and again contemplated the little flame. "In the fixed star, in the Will-o'-the-wisp, in the great sun that illumes half a world, or the farthing rushlight by which the ragged student strains his eyes--still the same flower of the elements. Light in the universe, thought in the soul--ay--ay--Go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish the light! You can not; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but it is still in the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, matter and spirit both fall into nothingness, before the combinations whose union makes that little flame, which the breath of a babe can restore to darkness, shall lose the power to unite into light once more. Lose the power!--no, the _necessity_:--it is the one _Must_ in creation. Ay, ay, very dark riddles grow clear now--now when I could not cast up an addition sum in the baker's bill! What wise man denied that two and two made four? Do they not make four? I can't answer him. But I could answer a question that some wise men have contrived to make much knottier." He smiled softly, and turned his face for some minutes to the wall.

This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside, and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days, perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight at seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. "I feared I might have ruined you by my bad example," he said, with a touch of humor that became pathos as he added, "That idea preyed on me."

"No, no; you did me great good."

"Say that--say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it makes my heart feel so light."

He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, and was fond of talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young man's heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer enthralled by the Present, in which the senses have their realm. The sensual being vanishes when we are in the Past or the Future. The Present was gone from Burley; he could no more be its slave and its king.

It was most touching to see how the inner character of this man unfolded itself, as the leaves of the outer character fell off and withered--a character no one would have guessed in him--an inherent refinement that was almost womanly; and he had all a woman's abnegation of self. He took the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the features of the old man return in the stillness of death to the aspect of youth--the lines effaced, the wrinkles gone--so, in seeing Burley now, you saw what he had been in his spring of promise. But he himself saw only what he had failed to be--powers squandered--life wasted. "I once beheld," he said, "a ship in a storm. It was a cloudy, fitful day, and I could see the ship with all its masts fighting hard for life and for death. Then came night, dark as pitch, and I could only guess that the ship fought on. Toward the dawn the stars grew visible, and once more I saw the ship--it was a wreck--it went down just as the stars shone forth."

When he had made that allusion to himself, he sate very still for some time, then he spread out his wasted hands, and gazed on them, and on his shrunken limbs. "Good," said he, laughing low; "these hands were too large and rude for handling the delicate webs of my own mechanism, and these strong limbs ran away with me. If I had been a sickly, puny fellow, perhaps my mind would have had fair play. There was too much of brute body here! Look at this hand now! you can see the light through it! Good, good!"

Now, that evening, until he had retired to bed, Burley had been unusually cheerful, and had talked with much of his old eloquence, if with little of his old humor. Among other matters, he had spoken with considerable interest of some poems and other papers in manuscript which had been left in the house by a former lodger, and which, the reader may remember, that Mrs. Goodyer had urged him in vain to read, in his last visit to her cottage. But _then_ he had her husband Jacob to chat with, and the spirit-bottle to finish, and the wild craving for excitement plucked his thoughts back to his London revels. Now poor Jacob was dead, and it was not brandy that the sick man drank from the widow's cruise. And London lay afar amidst its fogs, like a world resolved back into nebulæ. So to please his hostess, and distract his own solitary thoughts, he had condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to peruse the memorials of a life obscure to the world, and new to his own experience of coarse joys and woes. "I have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from their contents," said he. "They may be of use to you, brother author. I have told Mrs. Goodyer to place them in your room. Among those papers is a journal--a woman's journal; it moved me greatly. A man gets into another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he can transport himself into the centre of a woman's heart, and see the life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things of moment to us, to it so trivial; things trifling to us, to it so vast. There was this journal--in its dates reminding me of stormy events of my own existence, and grand doings in the world's. And those dates there, chronicling but the mysterious unrevealed record of some obscure loving heart! And in that chronicle, O, Sir Poet, there was as much genius, vigor of thought, vitality of being, poured and wasted, as ever kind friend will say was lavished on the rude outer world by big John Burley! Genius, genius; are we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some matter-of-fact material, and float over the roaring seas on a wooden plank or a herring-tub?" And after he had uttered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley had begun to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain; and when they had got him into bed, he lay there muttering to himself, until toward midnight he had asked Leonard to bring the light nearer to him.

So now he again was quiet--with his face turned toward the wall; and Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, and Mrs. Goodyer, who did not heed Burley's talk, and thought only of his physical state, was dipping cloths into iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised himself on his arm, and waved aside the bandages. "I do not need them," said he, in a collected voice. "I am better now. I and that pleasant light understand one another, and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave." He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that the poor woman, who loved him as her own son, fairly burst into tears. He drew her toward him and kissed her forehead.

"Peace, old fool," said he, fondly. "You shall tell anglers hereafter how John Burley came to fish for the one-eyed perch which he never caught: and how, when he gave it up at the last, his baits all gone, and the line broken among the weeds, you comforted the baffled man. There are many good fellows yet in the world who will like to know that poor Burley did not die on a dunghill. Kiss me! Come, boy, you too. Now, God bless you, I should like to sleep." His cheeks were wet with the tears of both his listeners, and there was a moisture in his own eyes, which, nevertheless, beamed bright through the moisture.

He laid himself down again, and the old woman would have withdrawn the light. He moved uneasily. "Not that," he murmured--"light to the last!" And putting forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain so that the light might fall full on his face. In a few minutes he was asleep, breathing calmly and regularly as an infant.

The old woman wiped her eyes, and drew Leonard softly into the adjoining room, in which a bed had been made up for him. He had not left the house since he had entered it with Dr. Morgan. "You are young, sir," said she, with kindness, "and the young want sleep. Lie down a bit: I will call you when he wakes."

"No, I could not sleep," said Leonard. "I will watch for you."

The old woman shook her head. "I must see the last of him, sir; but I know he will be angry when his eyes open on me, for he has grown very thoughtful of others."

"Ah, if he had but been as thoughtful of himself!" murmured Leonard; and he seated himself by the table, on which, as he leaned his elbow, he dislodged some papers placed there. They fell to the ground with a dumb, moaning, sighing sound.

"What is that?" said he, starting.

The old woman picked up the manuscripts and smoothed them carefully.

"Ah, sir, he bade me place these papers here. He thought they might keep you from fretting about him, in case you would sit up and wake. And he had a thought of me, too; for I have so pined to find out the poor young lady, who left them years ago. She was almost as dear to me as he is; dearer perhaps until now--when--when--I am about to lose him."

Leonard turned from the papers, without a glance at their contents: they had no interest for him at such a moment.

The hostess went on--

"Perhaps she is gone to heaven before him: she did not look like one long for this world. She left us so suddenly. Many things of hers besides these papers are still here; but I keep them aired and dusted, and strew lavender over them, in case she ever comes for them again. You never heard tell of her, did you, sir?" she added, with great simplicity, and dropping a half courtsey.

"Of her?--of whom?"

"Did not Mr. John tell you her name--dear--dear?--Mrs. Bertram."

Leonard started;--the very name so impressed upon his memory by Harley L'Estrange.

"Bertram!" he repeated. "Are you sure?"

"O yes, sir! And many years after she had left us, and we had heard no more of her, there came a packet addressed to her here, from over sea, sir. We took it in, and kept it, and John would break the seal, to know if it would tell us any thing about her; but it was all in a foreign language like--we could not read a word."

"Have you the packet? Pray, show it to me. It may be of the greatest value. To-morrow will do--I can not think of that just now. Poor Burley!"

Leonard's manner indicated that he wished to talk no more, and to be alone. So Mrs. Goodyer left him, and stole back to Burley's room on tiptoe.

The young man remained in deep reverie for some moments. "Light," he murmured. "How often "Light" is the last word of those round whom the shades are gathering!"[C] He moved, and straight on his view through the cottage lattice there streamed light, indeed--not the miserable ray lit by a human hand--but the still and holy effulgence of a moonlit heaven. It lay broad upon the humble floors--pierced across the threshold of the death-chamber, and halted clear amidst its shadows.

[Footnote C: Every one remembers that Goethe's last words
are said to have been, "More Light;" and perhaps what has
occurred in the text may be supposed a plagiarism from those
words. But, in fact, nothing is more common than the craving
and demand for light a little before death. Let any consult
his own sad experience in the last moments of those whose
gradual close he has watched and tended. What more frequent
than a prayer to open the shutters and let in the sun? What
complaint more repeated, and more touching, than "that it is
growing dark?" I once knew a sufferer--who did not then seem
in immediate danger--suddenly order the sick-room to be lit
up as if for a gala. When this was told to the physician, he
said gravely, "No worse sign."]

Leonard stood motionless, his eye following the silvery silent splendor.

"And," he said inly--"and does this large erring nature, marred by its genial faults--this soul which should have filled a land, as yon orb the room, with a light that linked earth to heaven--does it pass away into the dark, and leave not a ray behind? Nay, if the elements of light are ever in the space, and when the flame goes out, return to the vital air--so thought, once kindled, lives for ever around and about us, a part of our breathing atmosphere. Many a thinker, many a poet, may yet illume the world, from the thoughts which yon genius, that will have no name, gave forth--to wander through air, and recombine again in some new form of light."

Thus he went on in vague speculations, seeking, as youth enamored of fame seeks too fondly, to prove that mind never works, however erratically, in vain--and to retain yet, as an influence upon earth, the soul about to soar far beyond the atmosphere where the elements that make fame abide. Not thus had the dying man interpreted the endurance of light and thought.

Suddenly, in the midst of his reverie, a low cry broke on his ear. He shuddered as he heard, and hastened forebodingly into the adjoining room. The old woman was kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley's hand--eagerly looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All was over. Burley had died in sleep--calmly, and without a groan.

The eyes were half open, with that look of inexpressible softness which death sometimes leaves; and still they were turned toward the light; and the light burned clear. Leonard closed tenderly the heavy lids; and, as he covered the face, the lips smiled a serene farewell.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE LITTLE GRAY GOSSIP.

Soon after Cousin Con's marriage, we were invited to stay for a few weeks with the newly-married couple, during the festive winter season; so away we went with merry hearts, the clear frosty air and pleasant prospect before us invigorating our spirits, as we took our places inside the good old mail-coach, which passed through the town of P----, where Cousin Con resided, for there were no railways then. Never was there a kinder or more genial soul than Cousin Con; and David Danvers, the good-man, as she laughingly called him, was, if possible, kinder and more genial still. They were surrounded by substantial comforts, and delighted to see their friends in a sociable, easy way, and to make them snug and cozy, our arrival being the signal for a succession of such convivialities. Very mirthful and enjoyable were these evenings, for Con's presence always shed radiant sunshine, and David's honest broad face beamed upon her with affectionate pride. During the days of their courtship at our house, they had perhaps indulged in billing and cooing a little too freely when in company with others, for sober, middle-aged lovers like themselves; thereby lying open to animadversions from prim spinsters, who wondered that Miss Constance and Mr. Danvers made themselves so ridiculous.

But now all this nonsense had sobered down, and nothing could be detected beyond a sly glance, or a squeeze of the hand now and then; yet we often quizzed them about by-gones, and declared that engaged pairs were insufferable--we could always find them out among a hundred!

"I'll bet you any thing you like," cried Cousin Con, with a good-humored laugh, "that among our guests coming this evening" (there was to be a tea-junketing), "you'll not be able to point out the engaged couple--for there will be only one such present--though plenty of lads and lasses that would like to be so happily situated! But the couple I allude too are real turtle-doves, and yet I defy you to find them out!"

"Done, Cousin Con!" we exclaimed; "and what shall we wager?"

"Gloves! gloves to be sure!" cried David. "Ladies always wager gloves; though I can tell you, my Con is on the safe side now;" and David rubbed his hands, delighted with the joke; and _we_ already, in perspective, beheld our glove-box enriched with half-a-dozen pair of snowy French sevens!

Never had we felt more interested in watching the arrivals and movements of strangers, than on this evening, for our honor was concerned, to detect the lovers, and raise the vail. Papas and mammas, and masters and misses, came trooping in; old ladies, and middle-aged; old gentlemen, and middle-aged--until the number amounted to about thirty, and Cousin Con's drawing-rooms were comfortably filled. We closely scrutinized all the young folks, and so intently but covertly watched their proceedings, that we could have revealed several innocent flirtations, but nothing appeared that could lead us to the turtle-doves and their engagement. At length, we really had hopes, and ensconced ourselves in a corner, to observe the more cautiously a tall, beautiful girl, whose eyes incessantly turned toward the door of the apartment; while each time it opened to admit any one, she sighed and looked disappointed, as if that one was not the one she yearned to see. We were deep in a reverie, conjuring up a romance of which she was the heroine, when a little lady, habited in gray, whose age might average threescore, unceremoniously seated herself beside us, and immediately commenced a conversation, by asking if we were admiring pretty Annie Mortimer--following the direction of our looks. On receiving a reply in the affirmative, she continued: "Ah, she's a good, affectionate girl; a great favorite of mine is sweet Annie Mortimer."

"Watching for her lover, no doubt?" we ventured to say, hoping to gain the desired information, and thinking of our white kid-gloves. "She is an engaged young lady?"

"Engaged! engaged!" cried the little animated lady: "no indeed. The fates forbid! Annie Mortimer is not engaged." The expression of the little lady's countenance at our bare supposition of so natural a fact, amounted almost to the ludicrous; and we with some difficulty articulated a serious rejoinder, disavowing all previous knowledge, and therefore erring through ignorance. We had now time to examine our new acquaintance more critically. As we have already stated, she was habited in gray; but not only was her attire gray, but she was literally gray all over: gray hairs, braided in a peculiar obsolete fashion, and quite uncovered; gray gloves; gray shoes; and, above all, gray eyes, soft, large, and peculiarly sad in expression, yet beautiful eyes, redeeming the gray, monotonous countenance from absolute plainness. Mary Queen of Scots, we are told, had gray eyes; and even she, poor lady, owned not more speaking or history-telling orbs than did this little unknown gossip in gray. But our attention was diverted from the contemplation, by the entrance of another actor on the stage, to whom Annie Mortimer darted forward with an exclamation of delight and welcome. The new comer was a slender, elderly gentleman, whose white hairs, pale face, and benignant expression presented nothing remarkable in their aspect, beyond a certain air of elegance and refinement, which characterized the whole outward man.

"That is a charming-looking old gentleman," said we to the gray lady; "is he Annie's father?"

"Her father! Oh dear, no! That gentleman is a bachelor; but he is Annie's guardian, and has supplied the place of a father to her, for poor Annie is an orphan."

"Oh!" we exclaimed, and there was a great deal of meaning in our oh! for had we not read and heard of youthful wards falling in love with their guardians? and might not the fair Annie's taste incline this way? The little gray lady understood our thoughts, for she smiled, but said nothing; and while we were absorbed with Annie and her supposed antiquated lover, she glided into the circle, and presently we beheld Annie's guardian, with Annie leaning on his arm, exchange a few words with her in an under tone, as she passed them to an inner room.

"Who is that pleasing-looking old gentleman?" said we to our hostess; "and what is the name of the lady in gray, who went away just as you came up? That is Annie Mortimer we know, and we know also that she isn't engaged!"

Cousin Con laughed heartily as she replied: "That nice old gentleman is Mr. Worthington, our poor curate; and a poor curate he is likely ever to continue, so far as we can see. The lady in gray we call our 'little gray gossip,' and a darling she is! As to Annie, you seem to know all about her. I suppose little Bessie has been lauding her up to the skies."

"Who is little Bessie?" we inquired.

"Little Bessie is your little gray gossip: we never call her any thing but Bessie to her face; she is a harmless little old maid. But come this way: Bessie is going to sing, for they won't let her rest till she complies; and Bessie singing, and Bessie talking, are widely different creatures."

Widely different indeed! Could this be the little gray lady seated at the piano, and making it speak? while her thrilling tones, as she sang of 'days gone by,' went straight to each listener's heart, she herself looking ten years younger! When the song was over, I observed Mr. Worthington, with Annie still resting on his arm, in a corner of the apartment, shaded by a projecting piece of furniture; and I also noted the tear on his furrowed cheek, which he hastily brushed away, and stooped to answer some remark of Annie's, who, with fond affection, had evidently observed it too, endeavoring to dispel the painful illusion which remembrances of days gone by occasioned.

We at length found the company separating, and our wager still unredeemed. The last to depart was Mr. Worthington, escorting Annie Mortimer and little Bessie, whom he shawled most tenderly, no doubt because she was a poor forlorn little old maid, and sang so sweetly.

The next morning at breakfast, Cousin Con attacked us, supported by Mr. Danvers, both demanding a solution of the mystery, or the scented sevens! After a vast deal of laughing, talking, and discussion, we were obliged to confess ourselves beaten, for there had been an engaged couple present on the previous evening, and we had failed to discover them. No; it was not Annie Mortimer; she had no lover. No; it was not the Misses Halliday, or the Masters Burton: they had flirted and danced, and danced and flirted indiscriminately; but as to serious engagements--pooh! pooh!

Who would have conjectured the romance of reality that was now divulged? and how could we have been so stupid as not to have read it at a glance? These contradictory exclamations, as is usual in such cases, ensued when the riddle was unfolded. It is so easy to be wise when we have learned the wisdom. Yet we cheerfully lost our wager, and would have lost a hundred such, for the sake of hearing a tale so far removed from matter-of-fact; proving also that enduring faith and affection are not so fabulous as philosophers often pronounce them to be.

Bessie Prudholm was nearly related to David Danvers, and she had been the only child of a talented but improvident father, who, after a short, brilliant career, as a public singer, suddenly sank into obscurity and neglect, from the total loss of his vocal powers, brought on by a violent rheumatic cold and lasting prostration of strength. At this juncture, Bessie had nearly attained her twentieth year, and was still in mourning for an excellent mother, by whom she had been tenderly and carefully brought up. From luxury and indulgence the descent to poverty and privation was swift. Bessie, indeed, inherited a very small income in right of her deceased parent, sufficient for her own wants, and even comforts, but totally inadequate to meet the thousand demands, caprices, and fancies of her ailing and exigent father. However, for five years she battled bravely with adversity, eking out their scanty means by her exertions--though, from her father's helpless condition, and the constant and unremitting attention he required, she was in a great measure debarred from applying her efforts advantageously. The poor, dying man, in his days of health, had contributed to the enjoyment of the affluent, and in turn been courted by them; but now, forgotten and despised, he bitterly reviled the heartless world, whose hollow meed of applause it had formerly been the sole aim of his existence to secure. Wealth became to his disordered imagination the desideratum of existence, and he attached inordinate value to it, in proportion as he felt the bitter stings of comparative penury. To guard his only child--whom he certainly loved better than any thing else in the world, save himself--from this dreaded evil, the misguided man, during his latter days, extracted from her an inviolable assurance, never to become the wife of any individual who could not settle upon her, subject to no contingencies or chances, the sum of at least one thousand pounds.

Bessie, who was fancy-free, and a lively-spirited girl, by no means relished the slights and privations which poverty entails. She therefore willingly became bound by this solemn promise; and when her father breathed his last, declaring that she had made his mind comparatively easy, little Bessie half smiled, even in the midst of her deep and natural sorrow, to think how small and easy a concession her poor father had exacted, when her own opinions and views so perfectly coincided with his. The orphan girl took up her abode with the mother of David Danvers, and continued to reside with that worthy lady until the latter's decease. It was beneath the roof of Mrs. Danvers that Bessie first became acquainted with Mr. Worthington--that acquaintance speedily ripening into a mutual and sincere attachment. He was poor and patronless then, as he had continued ever since, with slender likelihood of ever possessing £100 of his own, much less £1000 to settle on a wife. It is true, that in the chances and changes of this mortal life, Paul Worthington might succeed to a fine inheritance; but there were many lives betwixt him and it, and Paul was not the one to desire happiness at another's expense, nor was sweet little Bessie either.

Yet was Paul Worthington rich in one inestimable possession, such as money can not purchase--even in the love of a pure devoted heart, which for him, and for his dear sake, bravely endured the life-long loneliness and isolation which their peculiar circumstances induced. Paul did not see Bessie grow old and gray: in his eyes, she never changed; she was to him still beautiful, graceful, and enchanting; she was his betrothed, and he came forth into the world, from his books, and his arduous clerical and parochial duties, to gaze at intervals into her soft eyes, to press her tiny hand, to whisper a fond word, and then to return to his lonely home, like a second Josiah Cargill, to try and find in severe study oblivion of sorrow.

Annie Mortimer had been sent to him as a ministering angel: she was the orphan and penniless daughter of Mr. Worthington's dearest friend and former college-chum, and she had come to find a shelter beneath the humble roof of the pious guardian, to whose earthly care she had been solemnly bequeathed. Paul's curacy was not many miles distant from the town where Bessie had fixed her resting-place; and it was generally surmised by the select few who were in the secret of little Bessie's history, that she regarded Annie Mortimer with especial favor and affection, from the fact that Annie enjoyed the privilege of solacing and cheering Paul Worthington's declining years. Each spoke of her as a dear adopted daughter, and Annie equally returned the affection of both.

Poor solitaries! what long anxious years they had known, separated by circumstance, yet knit together in the bonds of enduring love!

I pictured them at festive winter seasons, at their humble solitary boards; and in summer prime, when song-birds and bright perfumed flowers call lovers forth into the sunshine rejoicingly. They had not dared to rejoice during their long engagement; yet Bessie was a sociable creature, and did not mope or shut herself up, but led a life of active usefulness, and was a general favorite amongst all classes. They had never contemplated the possibility of evading Bessie's solemn promise to her dying father; to their tender consciences, that fatal promise was as binding and stringent, as if the gulf of marriage or conventual vows yawned betwixt them. We had been inclined to indulge some mirth at the expense of the little gray gossip, when she first presented herself to our notice; but now we regarded her as an object of interest, surrounded by a halo of romance, fully shared in by her charming, venerable lover. And this was good Cousin Con's elucidation of the riddle, which she narrated with many digressions, and with animated smiles, to conceal tears of sympathy. Paul Worthington and little Bessy did not like their history to be discussed by the rising frivolous generation; it was so unworldly, so sacred, and they looked forward with humble hope so soon to be united for ever in the better land, that it pained and distressed them to be made a topic of conversation.

Were we relating fiction, it would be easy to bring this antiquated pair together, even at the eleventh hour; love and constancy making up for the absence of one sweet ingredient, evanescent, yet beautiful--the ingredient, we mean, of youth. But as this is a romance of reality, we are fain to divulge facts as they actually occurred, and as we heard them from authentic sources. Paul and Bessie, divided in their lives, repose side by side in the old church-yard. He dropped off first, and Bessie doffed her gray for sombre habiliments of darker hue. Nor did she long remain behind, loving little soul! leaving her property to Annie Mortimer, and warning her against long engagements.

The last time we heard of Annie, she was the happy wife of an excellent man, who, fully coinciding in the opinion of the little gray gossip, protested strenuously against more than six weeks' courtship, and carried his point triumphantly.

THE MOURNER AND THE COMFORTER.

It was a lovely day in the month of August, and the sun, which had shone with undiminished splendor from the moment of dawn, was now slowly declining, with that rich and prolonged glow with which it seems especially to linger around those scenes where it seldomest finds admittance. For it was a valley in the north of Scotland into which its light was streaming, and many a craggy top and rugged side, rarely seen without their cap of clouds or shroud of mist, were now throwing their mellow-tinted forms, clear and soft, into a lake of unusual stillness. High above the lake, and commanding a full view of that and of the surrounding hills, stood one of those countryfied hotels not unfrequently met with on a tourist's route, formerly only designed for the lonely traveler or weary huntsman, but which now, with the view to accommodate the swarm of visitors which every summer increased, had gone on stretching its cords and enlarging its boundaries, till the original tenement looked merely like the seed from which the rest had sprung. Nor, even under these circumstances, did the house admit of much of the luxury of privacy; for, though the dormitories lay thick and close along the narrow corridor, all accommodation for the day was limited to two large and long rooms, one above the other, which fronted the lake. Of these, the lower one was given up to pedestrian travelers--the sturdy, sunburnt shooters of the moors, who arrive with weary limbs and voracious appetites, and question no accommodation which gives them food and shelter; while the upper one was the resort of ladies and family parties, and was furnished with a low balcony, now covered with a rough awning.

Both these rooms, on the day we mention, were filled with numerous guests. Touring was at its height, and shooting had begun; and, while a party of way-worn young men, coarsely clad and thickly shod, were lying on the benches, or lolling out of the windows of the lower apartment, a number of traveling parties were clustered in distinct groups in the room above; some lingering round their tea-tables, while others sat on the balcony, and seemed attentively watching the evolutions of a small boat, the sole object on the lake before them. It is pleasant to watch the actions, however insignificant they may be, of a distant group; to see the hand obey without hearing the voice that has bidden; to guess at their inward motives by their outward movements; to make theories of their intentions, and try to follow them out in their actions; and, as at a pantomime, to tell the drift of the piece by dumb show alone. And it is an idle practice, too, and one especially made for the weary or the listless traveler, giving them amusement without thought, and occupation without trouble; for people who have had their powers of attention fatigued by incessant exertion, or weakened by constant novelty, are glad to settle it upon the merest trifle at last. So the loungers on the balcony increased, and the little boat became a centre of general interest to those who apparently had not had one sympathy in common before. So calm and gliding was its motion, so refreshing the gentle air which played round it, that many an eye from the shore envied the party who were seated in it. These consisted of three individuals, two large figures and a little one.

"It is Captain H---- and his little boy," said one voice, breaking silence; "they arrived here yesterday."

"They'll be going to see the great waterfall," said another.

"They have best make haste about it; for they have a mile to walk up-hill when they land," said a third.

"Rather they than I," rejoined a languid fourth; and again there was a pause. Meanwhile the boat party seemed to be thinking little about the waterfall, or the need for expedition. For a few minutes the quick-glancing play of the oars was seen, and then they ceased again; and now an arm was stretched out toward some distant object in the landscape, as if asking a question; and then the little fellow pointed here and there, as if asking many questions at once, and, in short, the conjectures on the balcony were all thrown out. But now the oars had rested longer than usual, and a figure rose and stooped, and seemed occupied with something at the bottom of the boat. What were they about? They were surely not going to fish at this time of evening? No, they were not; for slowly a mast was raised, and a sail unfurled, which at first hung flapping, as if uncertain which side the wind would take it, and then gently swelled out to its full dimensions, and seemed too large a wing for so tiny a body. A slight air had arisen; the long reflected lines of colors, which every object on the shore dripped, as it were, into the lake, were gently stirred with a quivering motion; every soft strip of liquid tint broke gradually into a jagged and serrated edge; colors were mingled, forms were confused; the mountains, which lay in undiminished brightness above, seemed by some invisible agency to be losing their second selves from beneath them; long, cold white lines rose apparently from below, and spread radiating over all the liquid picture: in a few minutes, the lake lay one vast sheet of bright silver, and half the landscape was gone. The boat was no longer in the same element: before, it had floated in a soft, transparent ether; now, it glided upon a plain of ice.

"I wish they had stuck to their oars," said the full, deep voice of an elderly gentleman; "hoisting a sail on these lakes is very much like trusting to luck in life--it may go on all right for a while, and save you much trouble, but you are never sure that it won't give you the slip, and that when you are least prepared."

"No danger in the world, sir," said a young fop standing by, who knew as little about boating on Scotch lakes as he did of most things any where else. Meanwhile, the air had become chill, the sun had sunk behind the hills, and the boating party, tired, apparently, of their monotonous amusement, turned the boat's head toward shore. For some minutes they advanced with fuller and fuller bulging sail in the direction they sought, when suddenly the breeze seemed not so much to change as to be met by another and stronger current of air, which came pouring through the valley with a howling sound, and then, bursting on the lake, drove its waters in a furrow before it. The little boat started, and swerved like a frightened creature; and the sail, distended to its utmost, cowered down to the water's edge.

"Good God! why don't they lower that sail? Down with it! down with it!" shouted the same deep voice from the balcony, regardless of the impossibility of being heard. But the admonition was needless; the boatman, with quick, eager motions, was trying to lower it. Still it bent, fuller and fuller, lower and lower. The man evidently strained with desperate strength, defeating, perhaps, with the clumsiness of anxiety, the end in view; when, too impatient, apparently, to witness their urgent peril without lending his aid, the figure of Captain H---- rose up; in one instant a piercing scream was borne faintly to shore--the boat whelmed over, and all were in the water.

For a few dreadful seconds nothing was seen of the unhappy creatures; then a cap floated, and then two struggling figures rose to the surface. One was evidently the child, for his cap was off, and his fair hair was seen; the other head was covered. This latter buffeted the waters with all the violence of a helpless, drowning man; then he threw his arms above his head, sank, and rose no more. The boy struggled less and less, and seemed dead to all resistance before he sank, too. The boat floated keel upward, almost within reach of the sufferers; and now that the waters had closed over them, the third figure was observed, for the first time, at a considerable distance, slowly and laboriously swimming toward it, and in a few moments two arms were flung over it, and there he hung. It was one of those scenes which the heart quails to look on, yet which chains the spectator to the spot. The whole had passed in less than a minute: fear--despair--agony--and death, had been pressed into one of those short minutes, of which so many pass without our knowing how. It is well. Idleness, vanity, or vice--all that dismisses thought--may dally with time, but the briefest space is too long for that excess of consciousness where time seems to stand still.

At this moment a lovely and gentle-looking young woman entered the room. It was evident that she knew nothing of the dreadful scene that had just occurred, nor did she now remark the intense excitement which still riveted the spectators to the balcony; for, seeking, apparently, to avoid all intercourse with strangers, she had seated herself, with a book, on the chair farthest removed from the window. Nor did she look up at the first rush of hurried steps into the room; but, when she did, there was something which arrested her attention, for every eye was fixed upon her with an undefinable expression of horror, and every foot seemed to shrink back from approaching her. There was also a murmur as of one common and irrepressible feeling through the whole house; quick footsteps were heard as of men impelled by some dreadful anxiety; doors were banged; voices shouted; and, could any one have stood by a calm and indifferent spectator, it would have been interesting to mark the sudden change from the abstracted and composed look with which Mrs. H---- (for she it was) first raised her head from her book to the painful restlessness of inquiry with which she now glanced from eye to eye, and seemed to question what manner of tale they told.

It is something awful and dreadful to stand before a fellow-creature laden with a sorrow which, however we may commiserate it, it is theirs alone to bear; to be compelled to tear away that vail of unconsciousness which alone hides their misery from their sight; and to feel that the faintness gathering round our own heart alone enables theirs to continue beating with tranquillity. We feel less almost of pity for the suffering we are about to inflict than for the peace which we are about to remove; and the smile of unconsciousness which precedes the knowledge of evil is still more painful to look back upon than the bitterest tear that follows it. And, if such be the feelings of the messenger of heavy tidings, the mind that is to receive them is correspondingly actuated. For who is there that thanks you really for concealing the evil that was already arrived--for prolonging the happiness that was already gone? Who cares for a reprieve when sentence is still to follow? It is a pitiful soul that does not prefer the sorrow of certainty to the peace of deceit; or, rather, it is a blessed provision which enables us to acknowledge the preference when it is no longer in our power to choose. It seems intended as a protection to the mind from something so degrading to it as an unreal happiness, that both those who have to inflict misery and those who have to receive it should alike despise its solace. Those who have trod the very brink of a precipice, unknowing that it yawned beneath, look back to those moments of their ignorance with more of horror than of comfort; such security is too close to danger for the mind ever to separate them again. Nor need the bearer of sorrow embitter his errand by hesitations and scruples how to disclose it; he need not pause for a choice of words or form of statement. In no circumstance of life does the soul act so utterly independent of all outward agency; it waits for no explanation, wants no evidence; at the furthest idea of danger it flies at once to its weakest part; an embarrassed manner will rouse suspicions, and a faltered word confirm them. Dreadful things never require precision of terms--they are wholly guessed before they are half-told. Happiness the heart believes not in till it stands at our very threshold; misery it flies at as if eager to meet.

So it was with the unfortunate Mrs. H----; no one spoke of the accident, no one pointed to the lake; no connecting link seemed to exist between the security of ignorance and the agony of knowledge. At one moment she raised her head in placid indifference, at the next she knew that her husband and child were lying beneath the waters. And did she faint, or fall as one stricken? No: for the suspicion was too sudden to be sustained; and the next instant came the thought, This must be a dream; God can not have done it. And the eyes were closed, and the convulsed hands pressed tight over them, as if she would shut out mental vision as well; and groans and sobs burst from the crowd, and men dashed from the room, unable to bear it; and women, too, untrue to their calling. And there was weeping and wringing of hands, and one weak woman fainted; but still no sound or movement came from her on whom the burden had fallen. Then came the dreadful revulsion of feeling; and, with contracted brow and gasping breath, and voice pitched almost to a scream, she said, "It is not true--tell me--it is not true--tell me--tell me!" And, advancing with desperate gestures, she made for the balcony. All recoiled before her; when one gentle woman, small and delicate as herself, opposed her, and, with streaming eyes and trembling limbs, stood before her. "Oh, go not there--go not there! cast your heavy burden on the Lord!" These words broke the spell. Mrs. H---- uttered a cry which long rang in the ears of those that heard it, and sank, shivering and powerless, in the arms of the kind stranger.

Meanwhile, the dreadful scene had been witnessed from all parts of the hotel, and every male inmate poured from it. The listless tourist of fashion forgot his languor, the way-worn pedestrian his fatigue. The hill down to the lake was trodden by eager, hurrying figures, all anxious to give that which in such cases it is a relief to give, viz., active assistance. Nor were these all, for down came the sturdy shepherd from the hills; and the troops of ragged, bare-legged urchins from all sides; and distant figures of men and women were seen pressing forward to help or to hear; and the hitherto deserted-looking valley was active with life. Meanwhile, the survivor hung motionless over the upturned boat, borne about at the will of the waters, which were now lashed into great agitation. No one could tell whether it was Captain H---- or the Highland boatman, and no one could wish for the preservation of the one more than the other. For life is life to all; and the poor man's wife and family may have less time to mourn, but more cause to want. And before the boat, that was manning with eager volunteers, had left the shore, down came also a tall, raw-boned woman, breathless, more apparently with exertion than anxiety--her eyes dry as stones, and her cheeks red with settled color; one child dragging at her heels, another at her breast. It was the boatman's wife. Different, indeed, was her suspense to that of the sufferer who had been left above; but, perhaps, equally true to her capacity. With her it was fury rather than distress; she scolded the bystanders, chid the little squalling child, and abused her husband by turns.

"How dare he gang to risk his life, wi' six bairns at hame? Ae body knew nae sail was safe on the lake for twa hours thegether; mair fule he to try!" And then she flung the roaring child on to the grass, bade the other mind it, strode half-leg high into the water to help to push off the boat; and then, returning to a place where she could command a view of its movements, she took up the child and hushed it tenderly to sleep. Like her, every one now sought some elevated position, and the progress of the boat seemed to suspend every other thought. It soon neared the fatal spot, and in another minute was alongside the upturned boat; the figure was now lifted carefully in, something put round him, and, from the languor of his movements, and the care taken, the first impression on shore was that Captain H---- was the one spared. But it was a mercy to Mrs. H---- that she was not in a state to know these surmises; for soon the survivor sat steadily upright, worked his arms, and rubbed his head, as if to restore animation; and, long before the boat reached the shore, the coarse figure and garments of the Highland boatman were distantly recognized. Up started his wife. Unaccustomed to mental emotions of any sudden kind, they were strange and burdensome to her.

"What, Meggy! no stay to welcome your husband!" said a bystander.

"Walcome him yoursal!" she replied; "I hae no the time. I maun get his dry claes, and het his parritch; and that's the best walcome I can gie him." And so, perhaps, the husband thought, too.

And now, what was there more to do? The bodies of Captain H---- and his little son had sunk in seventy fathom deep of water. If, in their hidden currents and movements they cast their victims aloft to the surface, all well; if not, no human hand could reach them. There was nothing to do! Two beings had ceased to exist, who, as far as regarded the consciousness and sympathies of the whole party, had never existed at all before. There had been no influence upon them in their lives, there was no blank to them in their deaths. They had witnessed a dreadful tragedy; they knew that she who had risen that morning a happy wife and mother was now widowed and childless, with a weight of woe upon her, and a life of mourning before her; but there were no forms to observe, no rites to prepare; nothing necessarily to interfere with one habit of the day, or to change one plan for the morrow. It was only a matter of feeling; a great only, it is true; but, as with every thing in life, from the merest trifle to the most momentous occurrence, the matter varied with the individual who felt. All pitied, some sympathized, but few ventured to help. Some wished themselves a hundred miles off, because they could not help her; others wished the same, because she distressed them; and the solitary back room, hidden from all view of the lake, to which the sufferer had been home, after being visited by a few well-meaning or curious women, was finally deserted by all save the kind lady we have mentioned, and a good-natured maid-servant, the drudge of the hotel, who came in occasionally to assist.

We have told the tale exactly as it occurred; the reader knows both plot and conclusion: and now there only remains to say something of the ways of human sorrow, and something, too, of the ways of human goodness.

Grief falls differently on different hearts; some must vent it, others can not. The coldest will be the most unnerved, the tenderest the most possessed; there is no rule. As for this poor lady, hers was of that sudden and extreme kind for which insensibility is at first mercifully provided; and it came to her, and yet not entirely--suspending the sufferings of the mind, but not deadening all the sensation of the body; for she shivered and shuddered with that bloodless cold which kept her pale, numb, and icy, like one in the last hours before death. A large fire was lighted, warm blankets were wrapped round her, but the cold was too deep to be reached; and the kind efforts made to restore animation were more a relief to her attendants than to her. And yet Miss Campbell stopped sometimes from the chafing of the hands, and let those blue fingers lie motionless in hers, and looked up at that wan face with an expression as if she wished that the eyes might never open again, but that death might at once restore what it had just taken. For some hours no change ensued, and then it was gradual; the hands were withdrawn from those that held them, and first laid, and then clenched together; deep sighs of returning breath and returning knowledge broke from her; the wrappers were thrown off, first feebly, and then restlessly. There were no dramatic startings, no abrupt questionings; but, as blood came back to the veins, anguish came back to the heart. All the signs of excessive mental oppression now began, a sad train as they are, one extreme leading to the other. Before, there had been the powerlessness of exertion, now, there was the powerlessness of control; before she had been benumbed by insensibility, now, she was impelled as if bereft of sense. Like one distracted with intense bodily pain, her whole frame seemed strained to endure. The gentlest of voices whispered comfort, she heard not; the kindest of arms supported her, she rested not. There was the unvarying moan, the weary pacing, the repetition of the same action, the measurement of the same distance, the body vibrating as a mere machine to the restless recurrence of the same thought.