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weather, in the youngest and yaldest of my strength. But to venture up again-it's a mere and a clear tempting of Providence."

"I have no fear," answered Lovel; "I marked all the stations perfectly as I came down, and there is still light enough left to see them quite well—I am sure I can do it with perfect safety. Stay here, my good friend, by Sir Arthur and the young lady."

"Deil be in my feet then," answered the Bedesman sturdily, "if ye gang, I'll gang too; for between the twa o' us, we'll hae mair than wark eneugh to get to the tap o' the heugh."

"No, no-stay you here and attend to Miss Wardour. You see Sir Arthur is quite exhausted."

"Stay yoursel' then, and I'll gae," said the old man. "Let death spare the green corn, and take the ripe."

"Stay both of you, I charge you," said Isabella faintly. "I am well, and can spend the night very well here I feel quite refreshed," so saying, her voice failed her; she sank down, and would have fallen from the crag, had she not been supported by Lovel and Ochiltree, who placed her in a posture half sitting, half reclining beside her father, who, exhausted by fatigue of body and mind so extreme and unusual, had already sat down on a stone in a sort of stupor.

"It is impossible to leave them," said Lovel. "What is to be done? Hark! hark!-did I not hear a halloo ?"

A distant hail was repeated, the sound plainly distinguishable among the various elemental noises and the clang of the sea-mews by which they were surrounded. The mendicant and Lovel exerted their voices in a loud halloo, the former waving Miss Wardour's handkerchief on the end of his staff to make them conspicuous from above. Though the shouts were repeated, it was some time before they were in exact response to their own, leaving the unfortunate sufferers uncertain whether, in the darkening twilight

and increasing storm, they had made the persons, who apparently were traversing the verge of the precipice to bring them assistance, sensible of the place in which they had found refuge. At length their halloo was regularly and distinctly answered, and their courage confirmed, by the assurance that they were within hearing, if not within reach of friendly assistance.

SCOTT.

Fall of Fyers.—A celebrated Fall (Foyers) in Invernessshire, formed on a small stream which flows into the east side of Loch Ness.

Skeary, or Skerry.—The name given to a small rocky isle, which is generally submerged at high water. Such isles are very common on the Scottish coast. Gaberlunzie.-A Scotch term for beggar, or a poor guest who cannot pay for his entertainment.

Bedesman.-A beggar, one in receipt of alms, so called because such persons were obliged to pray (tell their beads) for the soul of the person who had bequeathed the charity.

ROBIN HOOD AS A POPULAR HERO.

[ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, born in 1784, was a Scottish poet, novelist, and sculptor. He was on intimate terms with all the literary men of the remarkable epoch in which he lived. He died on the 29th October, 1842.]

THE ballads devoted to the exploits of Robin Hood and his whole company of outlaws are amongst the most popular of those interesting remembrances of the past. They breathe of the inflexible heart and honest joyousness of old England; there is more of the national character in them than in all the songs of classic bards or the theories of ingenious philosophers. They are the work of sundry hands: some have a Scottish tone, others taste of the English border; but the chief and most valuable portion belongs to Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire; and all-and

this includes those with a Scotch sound-are in a true and hearty English taste and spirit.

A few of these ballads are probably the work of some joyous yeoman who loved to range the green woods and enjoy the liberty and licence which they afforded; but we are inclined to regard them chiefly as the production of the rural ballad-maker, a sort of inferior minstrel, who to the hinds and husbandmen was both bard and historian, and cheered their firesides with rude rhymes and ruder legends, in which the district heroes and the romantic stories of the peasantry were introduced with such embellishments as the taste of the reciter considered acceptable. They are full of incident and of human character; they reflect the manners and feelings of remote times; they delineate much that the painter has not touched and the historian forgotten; they express, but without acrimony, a sense of public injury or of private wrong; nay, they sometimes venture into the regions of fancy, and give pictures in the spirit of romance. A hearty relish for fighting and fun; a scorn of all that is skulking and cowardly; a love of whatever is free and manly and warm-hearted; a hatred of all oppressors, clerical and lay; and a sympathy for those who loved a merry joke, either practical or spoken, distinguish the ballads of Robin Hood.

The personal character as well as history of the bold outlaw is stamped on every verse. Against luxurious bishops and tyrannic sheriffs his bow was ever bent and his arrow in the string; he attacked and robbed, and sometimes slew, the latter without either compunction or remorse; in his more humoursome moods he contented himself with enticing them in the guise of a butcher or a potter with the hope of a good bargain, into the green wood, where he first made merry and then fleeced them, making them dance to such music as his forest afforded, or join with Friar Tuck in hypocritical thanksgiving for the justice and mercy they had experienced.

Robin's eyes brightened and his language grew poetical when he was aware of the approach of some swollen pluralist-a Dean of Carlisle, or an Abbot of St. Mary's-with sumpter-horses carrying tithes and dining-gear, and a slender train of attendants. He would meet him with great meekness and humility; thank our Lady for having sent a man at once holy and rich into her servant's sylvan diocese; inquire too about the weight of his purse, as if desirous to augment it; but woe to the victim who, with gold in his pocket set up a plea of poverty. "Kneel, holy man," Robin would then say, "kneel, and beg of the saint who rules thy abbey-stead to send money for thy present wants;" and as the request was urged by quarter-staff and sword, the prayer was a rueful one, while the gold which a search in the prelate's mails discovered, was facetiously ascribed to the efficacy of his intercession with his patron saint, and gravely parted between the divine and the robber.

Robin Hood differed from all other patriots-for patriot he was—of whom we read in tale or history. Wallace, to whom he has been compared, was a highsouled man of a sterner stamp, who loved better to see tyrants die than gain all the gold the world had to give; and Rob Roy, to whom the poet of Rydal Mount has likened the outlaw of Sherwood, had little of the merry humour and romantic courtesy of bold Robin. This seems to have arisen more from the nature than the birth of the man; he was no lover of blood, he delighted in sparing those who sought his life when they fell into his power; and he was beyond all examples, even of knighthood, tender and thoughtful about women; even when he prayed, he preferred our Lady to all the other saints in the calendar. Next to the ladies, he loved the yeomanry of England: he molested no hind at the plough, no thresher in the barn, no shepherd with his flocks; he was the friend and protector of husbandman and hind, and woe to the priest

who fleeced, or the noble who oppressed them. The widow too and the fatherless he looked upon as under his care, and wheresoever he went some old woman was ready to do him a kindness for a saved son or a rescued husband.

The personal strength of the outlaw was not equal to his activity; but his wit so far excelled his might that he never found use for the strength which he had

-so well did he form his plans and work out his stratagems. If his chief delight was to meet with a fierce sheriff or a purse-proud priest, "all under the greenwood tree," his next was to encounter some burly groom who refused to give place to the king of the forest, and was ready to make good his right of way with cudgel or sword; the tinker, who, with his crabtree staff, "made Robin's sword cry twang," was a fellow of their stamp. With such companions he recruited his bands when death or desertion thinned them, and it seemed that to be qualified for his service it was necessary to excel him at the use of the sword or the quarter staff; his skill in the bow was not so easily approached. He was a man, too, of winning manners and captivating address, for his eloquence united with his woodland cheer, sometimes prevailed on the very men who sought his life to assume his livery.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

Pluralist.-One who holds several offices at the same time; generally applied to clergymen who hold several ecclesiastical offices or several livings at the same time.

Our Lady.—The Virgin Mary.

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The Poet of Rydal Mount.-Wordsworth, who has a short poem on Rob Roy's Grave," in which occur the famous lines

"Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."

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