Rosabelle ?--And to purchase you that pleasure, though it were to last no longer than the flash of lightning doth, would not Douglas have risked his life a thousand times ?"

"Oh, peace, Douglas, peace," said the Queen, "this is unfitting language; and, besides, I would speak,” said she, recollecting herself, "with the Abbot of Saint Mary's-Nay, Douglas, I will not let you quit my rein in displeasure."

"Displeasure, lady!" answered Douglas; "alas! sorrow is all that I can feel for your well-warranted contempt-I should be as soon displeased with Heaven for refusing the wildest wish which mortal can form."

"there is room

"Abide by my rein, however," said Mary, for my Lord Abbot on the other side; and, besides, I doubt if his assistance would be so useful to Rosabelle and me as yours has been, should the road again require it."

The Abbot came up on the other side, and she immediately opened a conversation with him on the topic of the state of parties, and the plan fittest for her to pursue in consequence of her deliverance. In this conversation Douglas took little share, and never but when directly applied to by the Queen, while, as before, his attention seemed entirely engrossed by the care of Mary's personal safety. She learned, however, she had a new obligation to him, since, by his contrivance, the Abbot, whom he had furnished with the family pass-word, was introduced into the castle as one of the garrison.

Long before daybreak they ended their hasty and perilous journey before the gates of Niddrie, a castle in West Lothian, belonging to Lord Seyton. When the Queen was about to alight, Henry Seyton, preventing Douglas, received her in his arms, and, kneeling down, prayed her Majesty to enter the house of his father, her faithful servant.

"Your Grace," he added, "may repose yourself here in perfect safety-it is already garrisoned with good men for your protection; and I have sent a post to my father, whose instant arrival, at the head of five hundred men, may be looked for. Do not dismay yourself, therefore, should your

sleep be broken by the trampling of horse; but only think that here are some scores more of the saucy Seytons come to attend you."

"And by better friends than the Saucy Seytons, a Scottish Queen cannot be guarded," replied Mary. "Rosabelle went fleet as the summer breeze, and well-nigh as easy; but it is long since I have been a traveller, and I feel that repose will be welcome.-Catherine, ma mignonne, you must sleep in my apartment to-night, and bid me welcome to your noble father's castle.-Thanks, thanks to all my kind deliverersthanks, and a good night is all I can now offer; but if I climb once more to the upper side of Fortune's wheel, I will not have her bandage. Mary Stewart will keep her eyes open, and distinguish her friends.-Seyton, I need scarcely recommend the venerable Abbot, the Douglas, and my page, to your honourable care and hospitality."

Henry Seyton bowed, and Catherine and Lady Fleming attended the Queen to her apartment; where, acknowledging to them that she should have found it difficult in that moment to keep her promise of holding her eyes open, she resigned herself to repose, and awakened not till the morning was advanced.

Mary's first feeling when she awoke was the doubt of her freedom; and the impulse prompted her to start from bed, and hastily throwing her mantle over her shoulders, to look out at the casement of her apartment. Oh, sight of joy! instead of the crystal sheet of Lochleven, unaltered save by the influence of the wind, a landscape of wood and moorland lay before her, and the park around the castle was occupied by the troops of her most faithful and most favourite nobles.

"Rise, rise, Catherine," cried the enraptured Princess; "arise, and come hither!-here are swords and spears in true hands, and glittering armour on loyal breasts. Here are banners, my girl, floating in the wind, as lightly as summer clouds-Great God! what pleasure to my weary eyes to trace their devices-thine own brave father's—the princely

Hamilton's--the faithful Fleming's-See-see they have caught a glimpse of me, and throng towards the window!"

She flung the casement open, and with her bare head, from which the tresses flew back loose and dishevelled, her fair arm slenderly veiled by her mantle, returned by motion and sign the exulting shouts of the warriors, which echoed for many a furlong around. When the first burst of ecstatic joy was over, she recollected how lightly she was dressed, and, putting her hands to her face, which was covered with blushes at the recollection, withdrew abruptly from the window. The cause of her retreat was easily conjectured, and increased the general enthusiasm for a Princess who had forgotten her rank in her haste to acknowledge the services of her subjects. The unadorned beauties of the lovely woman, too, moved the military spectators more than the highest display of her regal state might; and what might have seemed too free in her mode of appearing before them, was more than atoned for by the enthusiasm of the moment, and by the delicacy evinced in her hasty retreat. Often as the shouts died away, as often were they renewed till wood and hill rung again; and many a deep oath was made that morning on the cross of the sword, that the hand should not part with the weapon till Mary Stewart was restored to her rights. But what are promises, what the hopes of mortals? In ten days, these gallant and devoted votaries were slain, were captives, or had fled.

KILMENY.
JAMES HOGG.

Born, 1772; Died, 1835.

James Hogg was a shepherd of the Scottish border. His genius for ballad poetry brought him under the notice of Sir Walter Scott and Professor Wilson, and he published several books of ballads, legends, and accounts of border customs. He was generally known as the

Ettrick Shepherd, and Professor Wilson made a broad sort of travestie of him in his "Diversions of Christopher North," in Blackwood's Magazine.

The story of Kilmeny appeared in a book called the Queen's Wake, in 1813. It is founded on some Scottish legends of children or young people being borne away, by some mysterious power, from their homes, and returning after seven years' absence, which had seemed to them like a few hours. They are generally supposed to be taken to Fairyland, but Hogg has here varied the idea by making Kilmeny be carried to the world of spirits, or, apparently, of angelic beings. He places the period in the middle ages, so as to let her have a view into what was then futurity, and behold the fall of Mary Queen of Scots, and the era of the Rebellion, both figuratively described; as well as the French Revolution, and the triumph of British arms, in which, at the time when he wrote, all the country was exulting.

The dialect is Lowland Scotch, in which, as a general rule, the English becomes a sound betweeen au and ae, and the final // is often omitted.

5

Bonnie Kilmeny gaed1 up the glen,

But it wasna2 to meet Duneira's men ;
It was only to hear the mavis3 sing
And pull the cress-flower round the spring.
The scarlet hip, and the hind-berry,4
And the nut that hung from the hazel tree,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But long may her minny5 look o'er the wa',6
And long may she seek in the greenwood shaugh.7
Long the Laird of Duneira blame,

And long, long greets or9 Kilmeny come hame.

When many a day had come and fled,

When grief grew calm and hope was dead,

When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung,

When the bedesman1o had prayed and the dead bell rung;

1 Went.

2 Na is always not. 3 Thrush. 4 Wild raspberry. Minny-Mother. 6 Wa'-wall. 7 Shaugh-glade.

9 Or-before.

8 Greet-weep.

10 Bedesman-from biddan to pray-Person who received a dole at a funeral to pray for the soul of the departed.

Late, late in a gloaming,1 when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westling hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek2 of the cot hung o'er the plain
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane ;3
When the ingle1 glowed with an eerie3 leme,6
Late, late in the gloaming, Kilmeny came hame.

'Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang have we sought you, both holt and dean,
By linn, by ford, by greenwood tree,

Yet you are halesome1o and fair to see.
Where gat you that joup11 of the lily sheen,12
That bonnie snood13 of the birk14 sae green,
And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?"

Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But no smile was seen on Kilmeny's face.
As still was her look, and as still was her e'e,15
As the stillness that lay on the constant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea;
For Kilmeny had been, she knew not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.
But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,
When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen,
And a land where sin had never been;

A land of love and a land of light,

Withouten sun, or moon, or night;

Light. 7 Holt-wood.

Strange.

3 Alone. 4 Corner. 5
8 Thicket.
10 Healthy.

9 Where the banks of a stream contract. 11 Petticoat-French jupe.

13 The band which ties back a Scottish maiden's hair.

14 Birch.

12 Shining.

15 Eye.