the Holy Spirit has flown, lest things evil should enter the cold clay, and amaze us with their pranks."

The body with the coffin was placed on the bed, and beside it sat the two Cameronian watchers; they discoursed of the deceased-they quoted passages from the sermons or sayings of Peden, and as the night advanced they spoke low, and in Scripture phrases, and listened with suspicion lest every sound they heard should take a shape, and become visible. It is said one of them saw something at the mid-hour of the night; a dim light from a small iron cruse made a kind of glimmer in the room, and as he stooped over it to read, the light seemed ready to expire, and a dog which lay at the threshold gave a low growl. He looked up, and beheld a black figure like the shadow of a man moving towards the bed; the body, as the shape drew near, moved in the coffin; the shroud which held down the hands was agitated and lifted up, and the pale lips of the corpse moved, and words, or rather sounds, like those of prayer, were audible. He touched his companion, but his brother-watcher heard nor saw nothing; but he said afterwards, that a cold hand seemed to hold him down, and he felt a shudder upon him as though something terrible had been present.

That something fearful had been present, I

heard Jean Cameron declare, for the body, she said, looked disordered; horror was stamped on the brow, and his small Bible-a bosom companion-was shifted to the left hand, while his right hand had got clutched round the hilt of his ancestor's sword, on which the name of God was written, and from which all things evil fled. One of the neighbours gave a more profane version of the story, much to the scandal of all devout Cameronians; but the two watchmen averred that they had drunk nought to speak of, and at all times could distinguish between a man's shadow and the devil from Toflet. How this might be, I know not; but James Nicol was buried with his fathers, and on the evening of his funeral my old schoolmistress fell ill. Jean looked pale and distressed from the day her friend took to his bed; her eye was vacant, her hand unsteady, and she sometimes gave the Bible boys their lessons in the New Testament, and the New Testament children their lessons in the Bible. The youngest of us saw that something was the matter; and her old dog Dustie whimpered around her, and seemed to ask what ailed her.

Much ailed her; death was dealing with her. We went to school-but she blessed us, and dismissed us, saying, "Come back, bairns, to-morrow, for I shall be better." The morrow came,

and her voice was feebler; and when we went into the school on the third morning, and spoke, no one answered-she had died at sunrise! We took our Bibles and departed, to spread through the little valley the news of her death; nor did we return till those who succeeded to her poor furniture, and a few pounds scots, said it was her last request that her blessed bairns should attend her funeral.

The whole of the last scene is now to me as a dream, for I was stunned and overcome; but one part of it was too impressive to be soon forgot. As the bearers took the coffin from the door, her poor old dog Dustie, who had lain by her bed-side from the hour of her death, regardless alike of caresses or food, arose, and following with a low howl, fell down and died among the rushes strewn before the door. Some one said, "Let us bury the faithful friends in thesame grave;" but no one favoured the sentiment.

C.

172

THE EXPEDITION OF MAJOR AP OWEN TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY, AND THE REASON WHY HE RETURNED BEFORE HE GOT THERE.

"This is mere madness:

And thus a while the fit will work on him."

Shakspeare.

MAJOR AP OWEN was in command of a wing of the gallant 8-th, and I was acting adjutant. Ap Owen, it need scarcely be added, was a Welshman, and believed himself the lineal descendant of a prince with an unpronounceable name. He was, of course, in manner lofty and ceremonious, and in temper hot as a pepper-pod. On the whole, however, he was an honest fellow, and in our reginiental relations we got on smoothly enough. It is true, he was short-grained and irritable; but the squall was quickly over, and the little commander

was always miserable after a bilious burst upon parade, until a general reconciliation was effected over an extra cooper of old port.

He was a stout stumpy gentleman, far beneath the middle size; with a small grey eye, a red face, such as a two-bottle Christian man should have, and a nose of extraordinary dimensions; indeed, this useful organ was framed on a scale of extensive liberality, which in more than one garrison had obtained for the proprietor the flattering soubriquet of "Nosey." Brave as a lion, the little major had one constitutional infirmity-insane people were his abomination-and with nerve enough to face a howitzer loaded with buckshot to the muzzle, a madman at a mile off would, to the offspring of a royal line," cause fear and trepidation.

It was autumn-the half-yearly inspection was over-drill suspended for a season, and nothing to do in barracks but pace the yard or pore over the newspaper. Some of us shot; some were occupied in giving their horses preparatory gallops for hunting, when the little commander announced his intention of visiting Killarney, and to prove, by a personal survey, that the lakes there were wonderfully inferior to certain loughs he averred as existing in North Wales. Unhappily my father's house was directly in the route-the Major travelled on horseback-Killmacreenan was but