And pour'd the hissing tide: Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain, And strove and struggled all in vain, For rallying but to fall again,

He totter'd, sunk, and died!

Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)
His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire
Served but to share his grave!

'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,
Where Muggins broke before.
But sulphury stench and boiling drench
Destroying sight o'erwhelm'd him quite,
He sunk to rise no more.

Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved;
"Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps,
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps,
Why are you in such doleful dumps ?
A fireman, and afraid of bumps!

What are they fear'd on? fools! 'od rot 'em!"
Were the last words of Higginbottom.

Ancient Hunting Song.

THE hunt is up, the hunt is up! Sing merrily we, the hunt is up!

The birds they sing,

The deer they fling,

Hey nonny, nony, no;

The hounds they cry,

The hunters fly,

229

A Lay of Fairy Land.

It is upon the Sabbath-day, at rising of the sun, That to Glenmore's black forest-side a shepherdess hath gone,

From eagle and from raven to guard her little

flock,

And read her Bible as she sits on greensward or on rock.

Her widow-mother wept to hear her whisper'd prayer so sweet,

Then through the silence bless'd the sound of her soft parting feet;

And thought, "While thou art praising God amid the hills so calm,

Far off this broken voice, my child, will join the morning psalm."

So down

upon her rushy couch her moisten'd cheek she laid,

And away into the morning hush is flown her Highland maid;

In heaven the stars are all bedimm'd, but in its dewy mirth

A star more beautiful than they is shining on the earth.

In the deep mountain-hollow the dreamy day is done,

For close the peace of Sabbath brings the rise and set of sun;

The mother through her lonely door looks forth unto the green,

Yet the shadow of her shepherdess is no where to be seen.

Within her loving bosom stirs one faint throb of

fear

"Oh! why so late ?"-a footstep-and she knows her child is near;

So out into the evening the gladden'd mother goes, And between her and the crimson light her daughter's beauty glows.

The heather-balm is fragrant, the heather-bloom is fair,

But 'tis neither heather-balm nor bloom that

wreathes round Mhairi's hair;

Round her white brows so innocent, and her blue quiet eyes,

That look out bright, in smiling light, beneath the flowery dyes.

These flowers, by far too beautiful among our hills to grow,

These gem-crown'd stalks, too tender to bear one flake of snow :

Not all the glens of Caledon could yield so bright a band,

That in its lustre breathes and blooms of some fair foreign land.

"The hawk hath long been sleeping upon the pillar

stone,

And what hath kept my Mhairi in the moorlands all alone?

And where got she those lovely flowers mine old eyes dimly see?

Where'er they grew, it must have been upon a lovely tree."

"Sit down beneath our elder-shade, and I my tale will tell."

And speaking, on her mother's lap the wondrous chaplet fell;

It seem'd as if its blissful breath did her worn heart

restore,

Till the faded eyes of age did beam as they had beam'd of yore.

"The day was something dim-but the gracious sunshine fell

On me, and on my sheep and lambs, and our own little dell;

Some lay down in the warmth, and some began to

feed,

And I took out the Holy Book, and thereupon did

read.

"And while that I was reading of Him who for us

died,

And blood and water shed for us from out his blessed side,

An angel's voice above my head came singing o'er and o'er,

In Abernethy-wood it sank, now rose in dark Glenmore.