110

THE

FROM

place

and

cont

.

concern.

Well, hard work will ...y brave hand, and Martha's .. brave.

sie archway, who is that girlthe hamlet with her chatter buying and selling incesMartha; how every one praises so complaisant, so charming. ncrease in numbers like a rolling Yesterday she had twenty, toGold pours down upon her little a year passes. Martha is happy ks, for Jacques is not dead. No, een more than once in the army. when the report of a battle arrives, reps, and her eye loses its light; but soon returns if rumour makes no a regiment which is always in her

her uncle says to her: "In order to Your long-desired happiness, you need and pistoles, and you will soon have A little pile soon becomes large. We sell the cottage. Look at your moneywith the proceeds of my vineyard, and already earned, you have already Je sum. Have patience for Why! my child, happiness |

costs time and labour and money. You have nearly three-quarters. Finish the good work yourself. I am content; before I die I hope to see you perfectly happy.

Alas! the poor old man was mistaken. Two weeks later, death closed his eyes, and Martha sat in the churchyard, weeping upon his grave. There, one evening, she was heard to murmur: "My strength is exhausted; sainted spirit of my loving uncle, I can wait no longer; forgive me; the good priest sanctions the act;" and, without delay, to the astonishment of the villagers, furniture, shop, house, all that she possesses, change hands. She sells everything, except a gilded cross, and the rose-coloured dress with little blue flowers in which Jacques loved to see her. She had wanted silver, she was now laden with gold; her thousand pistoles are in her hands; but so young and inexperienced as she is, what is she going to do with them? "What is the poor child going to do with them?" do you ask? The very thought lacerates my heart. She goes out; she seems, as she leaves her little home, an impersonation of the angel of sorrow slowly rising towards happiness, which is beginning to smile upon her flight. That is not a flash of lightning: it is her little foot which with lightning speed spurns the path. She enters the quiet little house, where sits a man with hair as white as snow; it is the priest, who welcomes her with an affectionate air. "Good father," she cries, falling on her knees, "I bring you my all. Now you can write and purchase his freedom. Don't tell him who it is that buys his ransom; he will guess soon enough. Don't even mention my name, and don't tremble for me. I have strength in my arm. I can work for a living. Good father, have pity; bring him back to me!"

III.

The country priest.-The young girl's happiness. — Jacques is free.-Return of Jacques.-Who would have thought it?

I love the country priest. He does not need, like the city pastor, in order to make men believe in the good God, or the wicked devil, to exhaust his strength in proving, with the book open before him, that there is a paradise as well as a hell. Around him all men believe, every one prays. In spite of this they sin, as we all do everywhere. Let him however but elevate his cross, and evil bows before him; the new-born sin is nipped in the bud. From his every-day seat, the wooden bench, nothing escapes his sight. His bell drives far off the

hail and the thunder. His eyes are always | open upon his flock. The sinner evades him: he knows it, and he goes in search of the sinner. For offences he has pardon, for griefs a soothing balm. His name is on every lip, a blessed name; the valleys resound with it. He is called, in each heart, the great physician for trouble. And this is the reason that Martha went to him with hers, and found a balm. But from the obscure centre of his little parish, the man of God was far better able to detect sin and drive away malignant thoughts, than to find the nameless soldier, in the heart of an army, who had not written a word of inquiry or information for three years, especially when, to the sound of cymbal, trumpets, and cannon, six hundred thousand excited Frenchmen were proudly marching to conquer all the capitals of Europe. They shattered all obstructions, they put to flight all who stood against them, and only stopped to take breath upon the foreign soil, that they might go on to further and greater conquests.

It is true that during the past spring Martha's uncle had written often, but the army had just then made a triple campaign; Jacques, they learned, had been transferred to another regiment. Some one had seen him in Prussia; another, elsewhere in Germany. Nothing definite was known about him. He had no relatives, for, let the truth be told, the fine fellow had no parents. He had come out of that asylum where a throng of infants live upon the public pity, which takes the place of a mother. As a boy he had been long searching for his mother, but never could find her. He had an ardent desire to be loved, and as he knew he was loved at Lafitte, had it not been for the war, he would have lived and died there. And now, leaving the good priest to his benevolent task, let us turn aside into a very humble cottage, where poor Martha is hard at work. What a change! Yesterday she had her trousseau; there was gold in her wardrobe. To-day she has nothing but her stool, a thimble, a needle-case, and a spinning-wheel. She spins and sews incessantly. We need not lament that she is tiring her fingers; when she was rich, she wept; now that she is poor, she smiles constantly. Jacques will be saved for a long and happy life; and life, liberty, everything he will owe to her, and her alone. How he will love her! and where one loves and is loved, poverty is powerless. How happy she is; the cup of her future is crowned with honey; already has her heart tasted its first, rich, overflowing drop. Everything is flowering around her. Thus she works on from week to week, sipping

VOL. L

drops of honey amid waves of perfume. Her wheel whirls without ceasing, and hope is entwining as many cloudless days in the future, as her bobbin spins out armfuls of wool, and her needle makes points in the cloth.

You may be sure that all this is well known in the meadow-lands. All the people are now enlisted in her cause. In the clear nights she has serenades, and garlands of flowers are hung upon her door. In the morning the girls come with loving eyes to give her little presents of sympathy and esteem.

One Sunday morning, the dear old priest comes to her after mass, his face beaming with joy, and in his right hand an open letter. He is trembling, but more with joy than with age.

"My daughter," he cries, "Heaven has blessed thee and answered my prayers; I have found him; he was in Paris. It is accomplished; Jacques is free. He will be here next Sunday, and he has not a suspicion of your part in this matter. He thinks that his mother has at last come to light; that she is rich, and has purchased his freedom. Let him come, and when he knows that he owes everything to you, how much you have done for him, he will love you more than ever, more than any one except God. My dear daughter, the day of your reward is about to dawn; prepare your heart for it. Jacques will surely come, and when that happy hour arrives, I want to be near you. to make him understand, in the presence of all the people, how happy he ought to be in being loved by such an angel as you.'

I want

We are told that blessed spirits in paradise are bathed in bliss when they hear the harmonies of heaven. Such is the joy of Martha as these words sink into her heart.

But the Sunday has arrived. All nature shines in green and gold under the beautiful sun of June. Crowds are singing everywhere. It is a double festival for all. The clock strikes noon; leaving the holy altar, the good old priest advances with the loving, pure-faced girl. Her eyelids drop over her azure eyes, she is timid and speechless; but an inner voice cries "happiness." The crowd gathers around her. All is grand; you would say that the whole countryside is awaiting the arrival of a great lord. Thus marshalled, they go forth from the village, and with laughing joy take their post at the entrance of the highway.

There is nothing to be seen in it; nothing at the far end of that road-furrow; nothing but the shadows checkered by the sunlight. Suddenly a small black point appears; it increases in size, it moves, it is a man; two men, two soldiers; the latter, it is he! How well he looks;

8

how he has grown in the army! Both continue to advance; the other,-who is he? he looks like a woman. Ah! it is a woman; how pretty and graceful she is, dressed like a cantinière. A woman! my God! and with Jacques? where can she be going? Martha's eyes are upon her, sad as the eyes of the dead. Even the priest, who escorts her, is trembling all over. The crowd is dumb. They approach still nearer; now they are only twenty paces off, smiling and

suddenly a look of pain; he has seen Martha! Trembling, ashamed, he stops.

The priest can contain himself no longer. With the strong full voice with which he confounds the sinner, he cries: "Jacques, who is that woman?" and, like a criminal, lowering his head, Jacques replies, "Mine, M. le Curé, mine; I am married."

A woman's scream is heard; the priest returning to himself, and frightened for Martha, "My daughter," he said, "Courage! here below we all must suffer."

But Martha does not even sigh. Everybody looks at her; they think she is going to die. She does not die, she even seems to console herself. She curtsies graciously to Jacques, and then bursts out into a wild mad laugh. Alas! she was never to laugh again otherwise: the poor thing is mad. At the words which issued from the lips of her unfaithful lover, the poor sufferer had at once lost her reason, never to regain it.

When Jacques learned all, he fled the country. They say that, mad with remorse, he reentered the army, and, like a lost spirit weary of his wretched existence, he flung it away at the cannon's mouth. Be that as it may, what is true, alas! too true! is that Martha escaped from friendly vigilance one night, and ever since, for thirty years past, the poor idiot has been periodically seen in our village stretching out her hands for our charity. In Agen, people said as she passed, Martha has come out again; she must be hungry." They knew nothing about her, and yet every one loved her. Only the children, who have no pity for anything, who laugh at all that is sad, would cry out, 'Martha, a soldier!" when she, with a mortal fear of soldiers, would fly at the sound.

66

THE COMPLAINT.

A POEM ATTRIBUTED TO CHATTERTON.

Addressed to Miss PL, of Bristol.

Love, lawless tyrant of my breast,
When will my passions be at rest,

And in soft murmurs roll-
When will the dove-ey'd goddess, Peace,
Bid black despair and torment cease,
And wake to joy my soul?
Adieu! ye flow'r-bespangled hills;
Adieu! ye softly purling rills,

That through the meadows play. Adieu! the cool refreshing shade, By hoary oaks and woodbines made, Where oft with joy I lay.

No more beneath your boughs I hear,
With pleasure unallay'd by fear,

The distant Severne roar-
Adieu! the forest's mossy side
Deck'd out in Flora's richest pride:
Ye can delight no more.

THE IMPRISONED HUNTSMAN.

My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
My idle grayhound loathes his food,
My horse is weary of his stall,
And I am sick of captive thrall.
I wish I were as I have been,
Hunting the hart in forests green,
With bended bow and bloodhound free,
For that's the life is meet for me.

I hate to learn the ebb of time
From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime,
Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl,
Inch after inch along the wall.
The lark was wont my matins ring,
The sable rook my vespers sing;
These towers, although a king's they be,
Have not a hall of joy for me.

No more at dawning morn I rise,
And sun myself in Ellen's eyes,
Drive the fleet deer the forests through,
And homeward wend with evening dew,
A blithesome welcome blithely meet,
And lay my trophies at her feet,
While fled the eve on wings of glee,-
That life is lost to love and me!

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

BY DOROTHEA JULIA RAMSBOTTOM.

Having often heard travellers lament not having put down what they call the memorybillious of their journeys, I was determined, while I was on my tower, to keep a dairy (so called from containing the cream of one's information), and record everything which recurred to me therefore I begin with my departure from London.

Resolving to take time by the firelock, we left Mountague-place at seven o'clock, by Mr. Fulmer's pocket thermometer, and proceeded over Westminster-bridge, to explode the European continent.

I never pass Whitehall without dropping a tear to the memory of Charles the Second, who was decimated after the rebellion of 1745, opposite the Horse Guards-his memorable speech to Archbishop Caxon rings in my ears whenever I pass the spot-I reverted my head,

and affected to look to see what o'clock it was by the dial on the opposite side of the way.

It is quite impossible not to notice the improvements in this part of the town; the beautiful view which one gets of Westminster Hall, and its curious roof, after which, as everybody knows, its builder was called William Roofus.

Amongst the lighter specimens of modern architecture, is Ashley's Ampletheatre, on your right, as you cross the bridge (which was built, Mr Fulmer told me, by the Court of Arches and the House of Peers). In this ampletheatre there are equestrian performances, so called because they are exhibited nightly—during the

season.

It is quite impossible to quit this 'mighty maze,' as Lady Hopkins emphatically calls London, in her erudite Essay upon Granite, without feeling a thousand powerful sensations -so much wealth, so much virtue, so much vice, such business as is carried on within its precincts, such influence as its inhabitants possess in every part of the civilized world-It really exalts the mind from meaner things, and casts all minor considerations far behind one.

The toll at the Marsh-gate is ris since we last come through-it was here we were to have taken up Lavinia's friend, Mr. Smith, who had promised to go with us to Dover; but we found his servant instead of himself, with a billy, to say he was sorry he could not come, because his friend Sir John Somebody wished him to stay and go down to Poll at Lincoln. I have no doubt this Poll, whoever she may be, is a very respectable young woman; but mentioning her by her Christian name only, in so abrupt a manner, had a very unpleasant appearance at any rate.

Nothing remarkable occurred till we reached the Obstacle in St. George's Fields, where our attention was arrested by those great institutions, the "School for the Indignant Blind," and the "Misanthropic Society" for making shoes, both of which claim the gratitude of the nation.

At the corner of the lane leading to Peckham, I saw that they had removed the Dollygraph, which used to stand upon a declivity to the right of the road-the dollygraphs are all to be superseded by Serampores.

When we came to the Green Man at Blackheath, we had an opportunity of noticing the errors of former travellers, for the heath is green, and the man is black: Mr. Fulmer endeavoured to account for this, by saying, that Mr. Colman has discovered that Moors being black,