THE reader-if he chance to number among his acquaintance a feeling but not melancholy recluse, weaned by misfortune from a world whose denizens he can yet yearn over with a brother's sympathies and invest with a poet's halo of romance - may be aware (if, amid the din of life, an old man's very existence be not long since forgotten) that it is at this precise season he becomes, like his sylvan neighbours, the cuckoos and swallows, at once restless and garrulous; loathing, like a patient under hallucination, even the cottage he would not exchange for a city of palaces, and the book which has lain in his bosom and been unto him as a daughter; "babbling," like a seaman in a calenture of แ green fields," and sallying forth, Quixote-like (though on no lean Rozinante), in quest of spring associations and spring adventures.

Spring, did I say? Methinks that bright and balmy season has this year been a blank in the calendar; so often has her primrose-crowned head been thrust back into winter's icy lap- the carol so often frozen in the throats of the little wondering and well-nigh disheartened choristers.

But, be this as it may, I am too wise to dwell long on possible alloys to an old man's scanty share of earthly enjoyment. Sunshine with me makes summer, as unequivocally as the swallows that come from afar to proclaim the joyous season; a sunshine holyday is still one to the old bachelor, because, with the memories that gild the summer Saturdays of a long life, these rarely fail to mingle actual rencontres with happy human being to whom memory is as yet little, but hope every thing!

Last Saturday was indubitably a spring day. There were tears, bright and harmless as ever April wept in sport and smiles, which in dazzling instability might have vied with that noted coquette's most bewitching caprices. The tint of green diffused over earth's surface, thanks to the eternal dripping of the tears in question—

would they had always been of as genial a character!- -was soft and tender, as though born yesterday; while the tardily unfolding buds of the reluctant oaks and ashes spoke alone of "winter lingering in the lap of May." There was in all nature, to the eye of Fancy, a mingling of that youthful revelry of enjoyment which defies change with that timid uncertainty of virgin demeanour, ready to shrink appalled from the first rude breath of tempest or misfortune.

This was particularly manifest in the deportment of my neighbours of the bee-hive. "To swarm, or not to swarm," was evidently the soliloquy of every bee of the commonwealth, as well as the grand matter of debate in the apiarian wittenagemot. With every bright blink of sunshine came thoughts of enterprise and emigration, while under every quick succeeding cloud they subsided into drowsy domestication.

I am,-like all those who have no one to consult or be thwarted by,-notorious for indecision; but as a coward is sure to gather courage from a display of irresolution in others, I was stimulated by the pusillanimous perplexity of the bees to more decisive proceedings, and set out, for the first time this season, on a long aimless ramble for rambling's sake.

I might have been aware it was Saturday, even before quitting my peaceful bachelor dwelling. The duenna who guides (credat Judæus) with noiseless regularity its humble economy, has in her composition too little of the Alecto or Tisiphone, to excruciate with vulgar Saturday annoyances her sensitive and harmless loid. How and when the cleanliness conspicuous from garret to kitchen is achieved, she happily leaves me to conjecture-nor should I, but for certain sounds of nocturnal activity too decided for incorporeal besom, and footsteps not exactly sylph-like, occasionally "murdering sleep" before dawn, be aware of any agency in the household more obtrusive and tangible than that of

Robin Goodfellow, or our own indigenous Brownie. It was therefore with the blissful feeling of escape from some unimaginable form of "most admired disorder," that I heard my careful housekeeper say, as she stood shading her old eyes from the unwonted sunshine in my little porch, and looking after her master and Dumple as proudly as if the one had been Alexander and the other Bucephalus-"Ye needna be in ony partic'lar hurry the day, sir; a lang daunder will be for your health after sae muckle confinement."

As I turned the corner into the village, Saturday stared me in the face. Dozens of housewives less merciful than mine were twirling the mop of empire with undisputed sway. Dumple's ideas of the fitness of things were grievously staggered, and indeed at one time nearly upset, by a display of stools and tables, where stools and tables "shouldna be"-videlicet, lining the usually peaceful and grass-grown street, and lending to it the temporary appearance of preparation for the gingerbread fair (Scotticè, grosset-market), at the invasion of whose booths the sagacious animal is in the habit of taking annual umbrage. On piles of bedding, evoked by the spirit of nascent cleanliness from the vasty deeps in which winter had kept them immured, lay groups of sprawling urchins, to whom the inversion of the tranquil order of things was evidently matter of infantine delight. Nearly equal, though more subdued satisfaction, beamed on the visages of the female enchantresses of the broomstick and scrubbing-brush; and so universal was, on this privileged day, their emancipation from shoes and stockings, that I began to think Monsieur Nodier's ludicrous idea of their being distasteful to all classes of my fair countrywomen, must have been founded on analogies furnished by a Saturday's promenade through the

streets of B—.

The very spirit of Hunt or Cobbett seemed to animate young and old in the task of radical reform. Old men, cunning in the well-nigh obsolete art, sat astride on the rigging of their moss-grown tenements, mocking the russet hue of their weather-stained roofs with motley patches of golden thatch.

Masons' apprentices, on the faith of the morrow's Sabbath purifications,

rose perched in professional pride on many a smokeless chimney, brandishing their besom of office, and besprinkling with a sable shower every unlucky boy whom his evil stars sent within their murky influence; while, with more laudable intentions, slender barefoot lassies on tiptoe, or perchance more ambitiously elevated on slippery new-washed creepies, polished with youthful pride such dingy windowpanes as old stockings and defunct Kilmarnocks had not long since supplanted, pouring a flood of unwonted and welcome radiance on the Bible, which, regardless of the perturbed world without, a bed-rid grandmother lay reading ayont the hallan.

Could these and other indications, so redolent of spring" and Saturday, have been mistaken, incredulity must have vanished at sight of the early, unwonted, and indeed altogether gratuitous (though perhaps not wholly disinterested), emancipation of the village school. The skailing o' the schule," with its yells and shrieks of discordant joy, is at all times rather too much for the sober gravity of Dumple; but to-day it was attended with such outrageous and unrestrained demonstrations of anticipated enjoyment, that I thought for a moment the unhorsing of an elderly gentleman was to form the first act of the expected entertainment. Allowance must, however, be made for Dumple, whose equanimity I have twice already, I find, unwittingly disparaged. transition from the retired and sheltered paddock, where with the occa sional variety of a snug stable, and the company of a cow, like himself, of a certain age no object for the last six months had invaded his tranquillity or disturbed his ruminations, to the turmoil of a half-yearly redding-up in the village, and the Babel of a half-holyday at the school, must have been to the last degree trying and unendurable; and cooler reflection has convinced me that his snort of disdain and sidelong efforts to eschew the annoyance (unattended as they were, thanks to my self-possession! with any catastrophe) were not only pardonable, but praiseworthy.

The

My drawing him up, however, as I prudently did, to let the brawling torrent of triumphant mischief exhaust itself, brought me into contact with one whose enjoyment was not a whit

inferior in its own quiet way, and of course far more in mine, than the clamorous exhilaration of youth. I was just hesitating which of the roads that diverged from the green to pursue, when there issued from the schoolporch the tall pensive figure of the young schoolmaster, who, locking the wicket with the air of one breathing at length, after a week's care and confinement, held up his pale cheek to the reviving breeze, and courteously expressed his satisfaction at seeing me once more mounted for the season.

"We are both prisoners, sir, I believe, though from different causes," said the meek and usually uncomplaining student: "rheumatism and necessity are alike inexorable." "And we enjoy their occasional relentings all the more vividly, perhaps, Mr. Lorimer, for their previous tyranny. As for myself, I doubt if one of your ragged regiment yonder is more thoroughly alive to the pleasures of this fine Saturday; and you, I am sure, look as if mind and body drew life from every breath of this kindly spring wind, after the noise and heat of the school.

No

thing, indeed, but professional enthusiasm, which I trust you feel, could reconcile one of your tastes and habits to the vocation you have chosen." "As to the vocation, Mr. Francis," replied the Dominie, with a subdued smile, "necessity is, I fear, as often the parent of that as of invention. Far be it from me to complain of the allotment of a wise Providence; but I did not study seven long years at the university of

with no higher ambition than that of teaching the grammarschool of B-."

"More congenial employment is, I trust, awaiting you, my young friend; but, in the mean time, I hope you teach

the

young idea to shoot (as one comes to do most things) con amore." "I do, Mr. Francis, at times feel much both of decent satisfaction, and, I fear, human pride, in the progress of my pupils. I love my boys, even the dull ones, when the wish to learn makes up for want of power; and the little curly-headed rogue who has been dux these six months (barring Saturday forenoons, when he has not slept a wink all night for thinking of the fly-fishing) is as near my heart as though he were my own younger brother. It is not the drudgery, but the nature of the employment I am sometimes tempted to

VOL. V. NO. XXIX.

quarrel with. To spend in teaching words the faculties which would fain be devoted to inculcating truths-to be cramming memories, instead of feeding souls, this is a trial to more ambitious, and, I trust, not criminal aspirings. But I strive to discharge my duty, sir, and leave the rest to a gracious Providence."

I had a letter in my pocket from my nephew Arthur, complaining of the difficulty of replacing his lately deceased pastor with a successor at once pious and modest, and of cultivated mind; and, after asking Mr. Lorimer to partake my Sunday's dinner on the morrow, I felt inclined, by checking the pace of my pony, to prolong our conference to-day; but, with a hasty glance at his watch, and a slight blush on his really handsome countenance, he apologised for quitting me to keep an appointment elsewhere.

I know not why I, who account it one of the few privileges of my seclusion to escape all knowledge, direct or indirect, of the affairs of others, should have felt a sudden curiosity to dive into those of the village schoolmaster. Perhaps, however (and selfcomplacency immediately assured me it was so), my growing interest arose from a laudable desire that the possible future incumbent of Arthur's parish, with a parsonage absolutely within the park, should have placed his affections on no ignoble or unsuitable helpmate. Now all this train of provident and prospective feelings had their rise simply from a slight heightening of colour on a cheek which the "eloquent blood" rarely visited; and that rarity inducing me to attach importance to the circumstance, I stood (tell it not in Gath, far less in B-!) actually raising myself in my stirrups to spy, with a curiosity I should in any other cause have utterly abhorred, the site of the "appointment," which honest Will Lorimer could not mention without blushing.

I very soon did so myself, and with a double glow! the ungenial flush of conscious meanness blending with an indignant rush from the heart in reprobation of my suspicions of aught interested or unworthy in the devotion of poor Lorimer. I watched him down the green lane leading from the main street of the village, to one of the humblest though neatest of its cottages, saw him knock with reverential defer

Q Q

ence, and place, with the respect due to misfortune and suffering, within his own the arm of the fragile unearthlylooking being, on whose lovely countenance deeper ravages than those of mere ill health were still sadly legible.

"I might have guessed this," said I to myself, as they disappeared amid the wood's most sequestered paths. "Sympathy will draw congenial minds together; and here, alas! there is congeniality of fortune, or rather misfortune, to cement the bond. Both these young creatures were educated for stations far different from those fate has assigned them in an evil world; but that they should have fallen thus together, may perchance convert both ultimately into blessings. If the poor stranger's partial recovery may indeed be depended upon!"

But I am forgetting that the reader does not know who the poor stranger is. Her tale, alas! though no very common one, is soon told.

It is some years since, by the wellmeant, though in some respects injudiciously directed, munificence of a rich townsman of X-, (a village adjoining our own,) the character of his native place was totally altered whether for the better or worse remains to be proved by the endowment of a wealthy gratuitous seminary. That schools are excellent things, and intellectual improvement eminently desirable, are positions which none but antediluvians of the most bigoted class now presume to question. But as the blessing of education was one whose light had long, in common with every village in Scotland, shed its serene and useful radiance over the humble dwellings of X-, it may be doubted whether their inmates were made either happier or essentially wiser by having placed within their reach, and of course their ambition, the superfluous acquirements of dancing and geography and French. Be this as it may, a teacher of the latter language was found for the infant establishment, in the person of one of those young Swiss who leave their native country fitted out with a venture of grammars and dictionaries, as regularly, and quite as full of hope, as our own more substantially endowed traders seek the marts of commerce.

Antoine Peyron had no one to leave behind but a sister a year or younger than himself. Their parents

two

were dead; and Justine's education, which had been a careful one, as far finished as altered circumstances would now ever permit. There were many humble homes in their native canton which would have sheltered Justine, left slenderly, though, for Switzerland, not inadequately portioned. But the grief of parting with her only brother, and those bright visions of English splendour and English munificence which haunt every Swiss girl's fancy, determined her to accompany Antoine on his far pilgrimage. He was delicate-in fact, as many of his countrymen are, constitutionally consumptive

and Justine felt that were he ill, no one in England could watch over or nurse him like herself; and even if well, he would have none to share his brief recreations, or talk to him amid strangers of the valley of St. Puy.

Antoine felt it his duty to remonstrate; but his inclination to yield, at length, to that energy of determination which ignorance of obstacles induces in many a young and sanguine mind. The orphans, in fact, were all the world to each other, and why should seas and mountains divide them? Had Antoine lived and prospered, as he did at first beyond even youth's anticipations, in his humble but laudable vocation, all would have been well. Often did he, for months after his arrival in Britain, exclaim, on returning home to snatch his frugal meal, "Thank God I have a sister to share it with me!" and smile at her simple efforts to surprise him with some of their country's primitive dainties. Often did Justine re-echo his expressions of fraternal thankfulness; and even amid much of ennui and monotony and privation, to look twice a-day on Antoine, and see him adding slowly but gradually to their little mutual hoard for brighter days at St. Puy, was happiness-for it included hope! Justine, meanwhile, by embroidering with her fairy fingers, as even persons of peasant rank in her country contrive to do with hands inured to the labours of the field, kept her own pittance undiminished, if not increased. It sufficed for her simple wants, even in England - that land of splendid privation, as it is felt to be by many an exile to whom it denies the cheap luxuries of southern existence!

It had hitherto denied to poor An

toine the more indispensable blessings of air and exercise. The city in which, as more favourable to his views as a teacher, he had at first fixed his abode, could not afford the one-the very extent of his success forbade the other; -and the mountaineer drooped, he knew not why, amid encouragement and fame (for renown is not confined to heroes). Still, even the hope of revisiting, a wealthy man, his paternal valley, could not arrest the languor of disease.

The eye of Justine marked the change with the quickness of affection; and, with a decision the poor aspirant after competence might himself have hesitated to exert, hurried him at once, and without a sigh, from the fatal emoluments of G- A few weeks

of happy idleness in a cheap Highland glen, which they loved as men treasure even a dim, unflattering picture of an absent friend, seemed to have repaired the havoc of toil and confinement; and Antoine longed, with the energy of an upright mind, to resume his useful

X -, the Swiss orphans were for some time but too happy. There were pastoral hills, if not mountains, to refresh them with Alpine associations; a primitive people to wish them well, and shew them kindness; indulgence on the part of superiors, unused to despotism; deference and docility from pupils, enchanted with the novelty of instruction. For Antoine occupation just sufficient to keep the mind from stagnating, and abundant leisure to give the body healthful exercise. In short, humanly speaking, all those advantages which the Power that first lends sometimes sees fit so mysteriously to render abortive.

An apparently slight cold, a decay of strength so gradual as hardly to alarm Justine, paved the way for the return of that insidious enemy, who, haunting alike the desert and the city,

retires but to gather venom for another blow. More than a year did Justine watch over health too fluctuating not to keep alive hope, yet too precarious for one moment to permit anxiety to slumber. A year's anxiety! brightened, perhaps, alone by some short hours of sickly hope! who need be told its undermining effect on a mind so loving, and a frame so far from robust as the Swiss maiden's?

Both were sustained, as frequently will happen, by the strong stimulus of daily duty-till exertion was, alas! no longer required. Both then paid their tribute to frail humanity, in the shape of a fever of frightful violence, whose subsiding excitement left the bereaved orphan with a shattered body, and a mind, it was feared, a nearly equal wreck. As the former gradually recovered, the aberrations of the clear, though simple intellect, seemed only to become more confirmed. In the family where, from Christian compassion, she had been received on her poor brother's death, she met with the kindest attention and most genuine sympathy. But the task of controlling her wild and often alarming rambles, and of tracing her wandering footsteps to their usual goal, her brother's lonely grave, was one which circumstances did not long permit them to fulfil; while the vicinity of that grave, and of the hills which fostered her soul's malady, was considered by her physician as a serious obstacle to her ultimate recovery. To be, however, within reach of the benevolent few, whom her youth and misfortunes had deeply interested, she had only been removed to Band placed under the humble roof of a poor widow and her daughter, who to great piety, simplicity, and industry, united the invaluable requisites of mingled tenderness and firmness of character.

But with these homely beings. gratefully, nay, even dutifully, as with returning reason she acknowledged their cares the gently nurtured, romantic, cultivated mind of Justine could have few ideas in common. Necessity and a quick ear had made her, even before she stood alone in the world, a tolerable proficient in English; but still she longed for some one to whom she might pour out, in the unrestrained accents of her own land, the sorrows of an exile. To this wish she recurred so often during her