and the wheel's turning. Bid him look at the stars, as he has looked at them before.-Will ye mind a' this?" 66 .." Assuredly," said the Dominie, "I am dubious-for, woman, perturbed at thy words, and my flesh quakes to hear thee." I am "They'll do you nae1 ill though, and may be muckle gude."2 "Avoid ye! I desire no good that comes by unlawful means." "Fule-body that thou art!" said Meg, stepping up to him with a frown of indignation that made her dark eyes flash like lamps from under her bent brows-"Fule-body! If I meant ye wrang, couldna I clod3 ye over that craig, and wad man ken how ye cam by your end mair than Frank Kennedy? Hear ye that, ye worricow?" 4 “In the name of all that is good," said the Dominie, recoiling, and pointing his long pewter-headed walking-cane like a javelin at the supposed sorceress,- "in the name of all that is good, bides off hands! I will not be handled-woman, stand off, upon thine own proper peril!— desist, I say I am strong-lo, I will resist!" Here his speech was cut short; for Meg, armed with supernatural strength, (as the Dominie asserted) broke in upon his guard, put by a thrust which he made at her with his cane, and lifted him into the vault, as easily," said he, "as I could sway a Kitchen's Atlas." 66 "Sit down there," she said, pushing the half-throttled preacher with some violence against a broken chair—“sit down there, and gather your wind and your senses, ye black barrow-tram of the Kirk' that ye are! Are ye fous or fasting?" 'Fasting-from all but sin," answered the Dominie, who, recovering his voice, and finding his exorcisms only served to exasperate the intractable sorceress, thought it best to affect complaisance and submission, inwardly conning over, however, the wholesome conjurations which he durst no longer utter aloud. But as the Dominie's brain was by no means equal to carry on two trains of ideas at the same time, a word or two of his mental exercise sometimes escaped, and mingled with his uttered speech in a manner ludicrous enough, especially as the poor man shrunk himself together after every escape of the kind, from terror of the effect it might produce upon the irritable feelings of the witch. Meg, in the meanwhile, went to a great black cauldron that was boiling on a fire on the floor, and, lifting the lid, an odor was diffused through the vault, which, if the vapors of a witch's cauldron could in aught be trusted, promised better things than the hell-broth which such vessels are usually supposed to contain. It was, in fact, the savor of a 1 No. 2 Much good. 3 Throw. 4 Scarecrow. 5 Keep. 6 A term derisive of his ministerial office. 7 Church. 8 Drunk. goodly stew, composed of fowls, hares, partridges, and moorgame, boiled in a large mess with potatoes, onions, and leeks, and, from the size of the cauldron, appeared to be prepared for half a dozen people at least. "So ye hae eat naething a' day?" said Meg, heaving a large portion of this mess into a brown dish, and strewing it savorily with salt and pepper. 66 "Nothing," answered the Dominie-"scelestissima-that is, gude wife." 'Hae, then," said she, placing the dish before him, "there's what will warm your heart." "I do not hunger-malefica1-that is to say-Mrs. Merrilies!" for he said unto himself, "The savor is sweet, but it hath been cooked by a Canidia or an Erichthoë." "If ye dinna eat instantly, and put some saul in ye, by the bread and the salt, I'll put it down your throat wi' the cutty spoon, scaulding as it is, and whether ye will or no. Gape, sinner, and swallow.” 5 Sampson, afraid of eye of newt, and toe of frog, tigers' chaudrons," and so forth, had determined not to venture; but the smell of the stew was fast melting his obstinacy, which flowed from his chops as it were in streams of water, and the witch's threats decided him to feed. Hunger and fear are excellent casuists. 66 66 'And," 'Saul," said Hunger, “feasted with the witch of Endor.” quoth Fear, "the salt which she sprinkled upon the food showeth plainly it is not a necromantic banquet, in which that seasoning never occurs." "And besides," says Hunger, after the first spoonful, "it is savory and refreshing viands." "So ye like the meat?" said the hostess. "Yea," answered the Dominie, "and I give thee thanks-sceleratissima! -which means-Mrs. Margaret." "Aweel, eat your fill, but, an9 ye kenn'd how it was gotten, ye may be wadna like it sae weel." Sampson's spoon dropped, in the act of carrying its load to his mouth. "There's been mony a moonlight watch to bring a' that trade thegither," 10 continued Meg," the folk that are to eat that dinner thought little o' your game-laws." Is that all?" thought Sampson, resuming his spoon, and shovelling away manfully; "I will not lack my food upon that argument." "Now, ye maun tak a dram.” "I will," quoth Sampson—“Conjuro te—that is, I thank you heartily," 1 Evil-doer. 4 A large 2 A reputed sorceress at Rome. 3 A Thessalian witch. dish spoon. for he thought to himself, in for a penny in for a pound; and he fairly drank the witch's health in a cupful of brandy. When he had put this cope-stone1 upon Meg's good cheer, he felt, as he said, mightily elevated and afraid of no evil which could befall unto him. "Will ye remember my errand now?" said Meg Merrilies; "I ken by the cast o' your ee2 that ye're anither man than when ye cam in.” "I will, Mrs. Margaret," repeated Sampson stoutly; "I will deliver unto him the sealed yepistle, and I will add what you please to send by word of mouth.' "Then I'll make it short," says Meg. "Tell him to look at the stars without fail this night, and to do what I desire him in that letter, as he would wish That Bertram's right and Bertram's might I have seen him twice when he saw na me; I ken when he was in the country first, and I ken what's brought him back again. Up, an' to the gate! ye're ower lang here-follow me." Sampson followed the sibyl accordingly, who guided him about a quarter of a mile through the woods, by a shorter cut than he could have found for himself; they then entered upon the common, Meg still marching before him at a great pace, until she gained the top of a small hillock which overhung the road. "Here," she said, "stand still here. Look how the setting sun breaks through yon cloud that's been darkening the lift a' day. See where the first stream o' light fa's-it's upon Donagild's round tower—the auldest tower in the Castle of Ellangowan-that's no for naething! See as it's glooming to seaward abune yon sloop in the bay-that's no for naething, neither. Here I stood on this very spot," said she, drawing herself up so as not to lose one hair-breadth of her uncommon height, and stretching out her long, sinewy arm and clenched hand-“here I stood when I tauld the last Laird o' Ellangowan what was coming on his house; and did that fa' to the ground? Na-it hit even ower sair!" And here, where I broke the wand of peace ower him-here I stand again to bid God bless and prosper the just heir of Ellangowan, that will sure be brought to his ain;8 and the best laird he shall be that Ellangowan has seen for three hundred years. I'll no live to see it, maybe; but there will be mony a blythe ee see it, though mine be closed. And now, Abel Sampson, as ever ye lo'ed the house of Ellangowan, 5 1 Top-stone. 2 Eye. Sky. Falls. Darkening. Above. 7 Too sorely. 8 Own. away wi' my message to the English Colonel, as if life and death were upon your haste." So saying, she turned suddenly from the amazed Dominie, and regained with swift and long strides the shelter of the wood from which she had issued, at the point where it most encroached upon the common. Sampson gazed after her for a moment in utter astonishment, and then obeyed her directions, hurrying to Woodbourne at a pace very unusual for him, exclaiming three times, "Prodigious! prodigious! pro-di-gi-ous!" LESSON 51. NOVELS."JOHN GALT and MISS FERRIER followed Scott in describing Scottish life and society. With the peace of 1815 arose new forms of fiction and travel, which became very popular when the close of the war with Napoleon opened the world again to Englishmen, and gave birth to the tale of Foreign scenery and manners. THOMAS HOPE'S Anastasius, 1819, was the first. LOCKHART began the Classical novel in Valerius. Fashionable society was now painted by THEODORE HOOK, MRS. TROLLOPE, and MRS. GORE; and Rural life by MISS MITFORD in Our Village. EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, 1805-1873, began with the Fashionable novel in Pelham, 1827, and followed it with a long succession of tales on historical, classical, and romantic subjects. Towards the close of his life, he changed his manner altogether, and The Caxtons and those that followed are novels of Modern Society. The tone of them all from the beginning to the end is too high-pitched for real life, but each of them, being kept in the same key throughout, has a reality of its own. 39 CHARLOTTE BRONTË, 1816-1855, revived in Jane Eyre the novel of Passion, and Miss Yonge set on foot the Religious novel in support of a special school of theology. We need only mention Captain Marryatt, whose delightful sea stories carry on the seamen of Smollett to our own times. Miss Martineau and Mr. Disraeli continued the novel of Political opinion and economy, and Charles Kingsley applied the novel to the social and theological problems of our own day. Three other great names are too close to us to admit of commentCHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870, WILLIAM M. THACKERAY, 1811-1863, and the novelist who is known as GEORGE ELIOT. It will be seen then that the Novel claims almost every sphere of human interest as its own, and it has this special character, that it is the only kind of literature in which women have done excellently. cylent HISTORY.-W. MITFORD'S History of Greece, completed in 1810, is made untrue by his hatred of a democracy; and DR. LINGARD'S excellent History of England, 1819, is influenced by his dislike of the Reformation. HENRY HALLAM, 1778– 1859, was the first who wrote history in this country with so careful a love of truth and with so accurate a judgment of the relative value of facts and things that prejudice was excluded. His Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818, and his Literature of Europe, 1837-8, are distinguished for their exhaustive and judicial summing up of facts; and his Constitutional History of England, 1827, set on foot a new kind of history in the best way. Our own history now engaged a number of writers. The great work of LORD MACAULAY, 1800-1859, told the story of the Revolution of 1688 in a style sometimes too emphatic, often monotonous from its mannerism, but always clear. Its vivid word-painting of characters and great events, and the splendid use, in such descriptions, of his vast knowledge of details, gave as great an impulse to the literature of history as Gibbon had done in his day, and his Historical Essays on the times and statesmen between the Restoration and Pitt are masterpieces of their kind. SIR FRANCIS PALGRAVE gave interest to the study of the early English period, and in our own day a critical English. history school has arisen, of which MR. FREEMAN and PROFESSOR STUBBS are the leaders. |