138

BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY RAMBLE.

Her brother goes to sea, and returns, affectionate and happy, with a young companion, whom the opening beauty of Margaret Lyndsay charms into his first dream of love, and whose gallant bearing and open heart, cast the first, and almost the last gleam of joy and enchantment over the gentle and chastened heart of the maiden. But this, like all her other dawnings of joy, led only to more bitter affliction. She had engaged to go with him and her brother to church, one fine summer Sunday, and -the author shall tell the rest of the story himself.

"Her heart was indeed glad within her, when she saw the young sailor at the spot. His brown sun-burnt face was all one smile of exulting joy and his bold clear eyes burned through the black hair that clustered over his forehead. There was not a handsomer, finerlooking boy in the British navy. Although serving before the mast, as many a noble lad has done, he was the son of a poor gentleman; and as he came up to Margaret Lyndsay, in his smartest suit, with his white straw hat, his clean shirt-neck tied with a black ribband, and a small yellow cane in his hand, a brighter boy and a fairer girl never met in affection in the calm sunshine of a Scottish sabbath-day.

"Why have not you brought Laurence with you?' Harry made her put her arm within his, and then told her that it was not her brother's day on shore. Now all the calm air was filled with the sound of bells, and Leith Walk covered with well-dressed families. The nursery-gardens on each side were almost in their greatest beauty so soft and delicate the verdure of the young imbedded trees, and so bright the glow of intermingled early flowers. Let us go to Leith by a way I have discovered,' said the joyful sailor—and he drew Margaret gently away from the public walk, into a retired path winding with many little white gates through these luxuriantly cultivated enclosures. The insects were dancing in the air-birds singing all about them the sky was without a cloud—and a bright dazzling line of light was all that was now seen from the sea. The youthful pair loitered in their happiness-they never marked that the bells had ceased ringing; and when at last they hurried to reach the chapel, the door was closed, and they heard the service chanting. Margaret durst not knock at the door, or go in so long after worship was begun; and she secretly upbraided herself for her forgetfulness of a wellknown and holy hour. She felt unlike herself walking on the streets during the time of church, and beseeched Harry to go with her out of the sight of the windows, that all seemed watching her in her neglect of Divine worship. So they bent their steps towards the shore.

"Harry Needham had not perhaps had any preconceived intention to keep Margaret from church; but he was very well pleased, that, instead of being with her in a pew there, in a crowd, he was now walking alone with her on the brink of his own element. The tide was coming fast in, hurrying on its beautiful little bright ridges of iegated foam, by short successive encroachments over the smooth

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hard level shore, and impatient, as it were, to reach the highest line of intermingled sea-weed, silvery sand, and deep-stained or glittering shells. The friends, or lovers-and their short dream was both friendship and love-retreated playfully from every little watery wall that fell in pieces at their feet, and Margaret turned up her sweet face in the sun-light to watch the slow dream-like motion of the sea-mews, who seemed sometimes to be yielding to the breath of the shifting air, and sometimes obeying only some wavering impulse of joy within their own white-plumaged breasts. Or she walked softly behind them, as they alighted on the sand, that she might come near enough to observe that beautifully wild expression that is in the eyes of all winged creatures whose home is on the sea.

"Alas! home - church -every thing on earth was forgotten-for her soul was filled exclusively with its present joy. She had never before, in all her life, been down at the sea-shore and she never again was within hearing of its bright, sunny, hollow-sounding and melancholy waves!

"See,' said Harry, with a laugh, the kirks have scaled, as you say here in Scotland - the pier-head is like a wood of bonnets. - Let us go there, and I think I can show them the bonniest face among them a. The fresh sea-breeze had tinged Margaret's pale face with crimson, and her heart now sent up a sudden blush to deepen and brighten that beauty. They mingled with the cheerful, but calm and decent crowd, and stood together at the end of the pier, looking towards the ship. That is our frigate, Margaret, the Tribune;-she sits like a bird on the water, and sails well, both in calm and storm.' The poor girl looked at the ship with her flags flying, till her eyes filled with tears. If we had a glass, like one my father once had, we might, perhaps, see Laurence.' And for the moment she used the word father' without remembering what and where he was in his misery. There is one of our jigger-rigged boats coming right before the wind. -Why, Margaret, this is the last opportunity you may have of seeing your brother. We may sail to-morrow; nay to-night.'-A sudden wish to go on board the ship seized Margaret's heart. Harry saw the struggle--and wiling her down a flight of steps, in a moment lifted her into the boat, which, with the waves rushing in foam within an inch of the gunwale, went dancing out of harbour, and was soon halfway over to the anchored frigate.

"The novelty of her situation, and of all the scene around, at first prevented the poor girl from thinking deliberately of the great error she had committed, in thus employing her Sabbath hours in a way so very different to what she had been accustomed; but she soon could not help thinking what she was to say to her mother when she went home, and was obliged to confess that she had not been at church at all, and had paid a visit to her brother on board the ship. It was very sinful in her thus to disobey her own conscience and her mother's will, and the tears came into her eyes. The young sailor thought she was afraid, and only pressed her closer to him, with a few soothing words. At that moment a sea-mew came winnowing its way toward the boat, and one of the sailors rising up with a musquet, took aim as it

140

PITEOUS CATASTROPHE !

not kill the pretty bird,' and stumbling, fell forward upon the man, who also lost his balance. A flaw of wind struck the mainsail - the helmsman was heedless- the sheet fast-and the boat instantly filling, went down in a moment, head foremost, in twenty fathom water!

"The accident was seen both from the shore and the ship; and a crowd of boats put off to their relief. But death was beforehand with them all; and when the frigate's boat came to the place, nothing was seen upon the waves. Two of the men, it was supposed, had gone to the bottom entangled with ropes or beneath the sail,-in a few moments the grey head of the old steersman was apparent, and he was lifted with an oar up - drowned. A woman's clothes were next descried; and Margaret was taken up with something heavy weighing down the body. It was Harry Needham, who had sunk in trying to save her; and in one of his hands was grasped a tress of her hair that had given way in the desperate struggle. There seemed to be faint symptoms of life in both; but they were utterly insensible. The crew, among which was Laurence Lyndsay, pulled swiftly back to the ship; and the bodies were first of all laid down together side by side in the captain's cabin."-Trials of Margaret Lyndsay, pp. 125-130.

We must conclude with something less desolatingand we can only find it in the account of the poor orphan's reception from an ancient miserly kinsman, to whom, after she had buried all her immediate family, she went, like Ruth, in the simple strength of her innocence. After walking all day, she comes at night within sight of his rustic abode.

"With a beating heart, she stopt for a little while at the mouth of the avenue, or lane, that seemed to lead up to the house. It was much overgrown with grass, and there were but few marks of wheels; the hedges on each side were thick and green, but unclipped, and with frequent gaps; something melancholy lay over all about; and the place had the air of being uninhabited. But still it was beautiful; for it was bathed in the dews of a rich midsummer gloaming, and the clover filled the air with fragrance that revived the heart of the solitary orphan, as she stood, for a few minutes, irresolute, and apprehensive of an unkind reception.

"At last she found heart, and the door of the house being open, Margaret walked in, and stood on the floor of the wide low-roofed kitchen. An old man was sitting, as if half aleep, in a high-backed arm-chair, by the side of the chimney. Before she had time or courage to speak, her shadow fell upon his eyes, and he looked towards her with strong visible surprise, and, as she thought, with slight displeasure. Ye hae got off your road, I'm thinking, young woman; what seek you here?' Margaret asked respectfully if she might sit down. 6 Ay, ay, ye may sit down, but we keep nae refreshment here this is no a public-house. There's ane a mile west in the Clachan.' The old man kept looking upon her, and with a countenance somewhat relaxed from its inhospitable austerity. Her appearance did not work as a charm or a spell, for she was no enchantress in

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a fairy tale; but the tone of her voice, so sweet and gentle, the serenity of her face, and the meekness of her manner, as she took her seat upon a stool not far from the door, had an effect upon old Daniel Craig, and he bade her come forward, and take a chair 'farther ben the house.'

"I am an Orphan, and have perhaps but little claim upon you, but I have ventured to come here my name is Margaret Lyndsay, and my mother's name was Alice Craig.' The old man moved upon his chair, as if a blow had struck him, and looked long and earnestly into her face. Her features confirmed her words. Her countenance possessed that strong power over him that goes down mysteriously through the generations of perishable man, connecting love with likeness, so that the child in its cradle may be smiling almost with the self-same expression that belonged to some one of its forefathers mouldered into ashes many hundred years ago. 'Nae doubt, nae doubt, ye are the daughter o' Walter Lyndsay and Alice Craig. Never were twa faces mair unlike than theirs, yet yours is like them baith. Margaret that is your name I give you my blessing. Hae you walked far? Mysie's doun at the Rashy-riggs, wi' milk to the calf, but will be in belyve. Come, my bonny bairn, take a shake o' your uncle's hand.'

"Margaret told, in a few words, the principal events of the last three years, as far as she could; and the old man, to whom they had been almost all unknown, heard her story with attention, but said little or nothing. Meanwhile, Mysie came in an elderly, hard-featured woman, but with an expression of homely kindness that made her dark face not unpleasant.

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Margaret felt herself an inmate of her uncle's house, and her heart began already to warm towards the old grey-headed solitary man. His manner exhibited, as she thought, a mixture of curiosity and kindness; but she did not disturb his taciturnity, and only returned immediate and satisfactory answers to his few short and abrupt questions. He evidently was thinking over the particulars which she had given him of her life at Braehead, and in the lane; and she did not allow herself to fear, but that, in a day or two, if he permitted her to stay, she would be able to awaken in his heart a natural interest in her behalf. Hope was a guest that never left her bosom—and she rejoiced when on the return of the old domestic from the bed-room, her uncle requested her to aloud read a chapter of the Bible. She did so, and the old man took the book out of her hand with evident satisfaction, and, fastening the clasp, laid it by in the little cupboard in the wall near his chair, and wished her good night.

"Mysie conducted her into a bed-room, where every thing was neat, and superior, indeed, to the ordinary accommodation of a farmhouse. 'Ye need na fear, for feather-beds and sheets are a' as dry as last year's hay in the stack. I keep a' things in the house weel aired, for damp's a great disaster. But, for a' that, sleepin' breath has na been drawn in that bed these saxteen year! Margaret thanked her for the trouble she had taken, and soon laid down her limbs in grateful A thin calico curtain was before the low window; but the still serene radiance of a midsummer night glimmered on the floor. All

rest.

142

WILSON'S LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

"In the quiet of the succeeding evening, the old man took her with him along the burn-side, and into the green ewe-bught, where they sat down for a while in silence. At last he said, 'I have nae wife -nae children nae friends, I may say, Margaret nane that cares for me, but the servant in the house, an auld friendless body like mysel'; but if you choose to bide wi' us, you are mair than welcome; for I know not what is in that face o' thine; but this is the pleasantest day that has come to me these last thirty years.'

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Margaret was now requested to tell her uncle more about her parents and herself, and she complied with a full heart. She went back with all the power of nature's eloquence, to the history of her young years at Braehead - recounted all her father's miseries- her mother's sorrows — and her own trials. All the while she spoke, the tears were streaming from her eyes, and her sweet bosom heaved with a crowd of heavy sighs. The old man sat silent; but more than once he sobbed, and passed his withered toil-worn hands across his forehead. They rose up together, as by mutual consent, and returned to the house. Before the light had too far died away, Daniel Craig asked Margaret to read a chapter in the Bible, as she had done the night before; and when she had concluded, he said, 'I never heard the Scriptures so well read in all my days-did you, Mysie?' The quiet creature looked on Margaret with a smile of kindness and admiration, and said, that she had never understood that chapter sae weel before, although, aiblins, she had read it a hundred times.' 'Ye can gang to your bed without Mysie to show you the way to-night, my good niece ye are one of the family now and Nether-Place will after this be as cheerfu' a house as in a' the parish."— Trials of Margaret Lyndsay, pp. 251, 252.

We should now finish our task by saying something of "Reginald Dalton ;"-but such of our readers as have accompanied us through this long retrospect, will readily excuse us, we presume, for postponing our notice of that work, till another opportunity. There are two decisive reasons, indeed, against our proceeding with it at present, one, that we really have not yet read it fairly through-the other, that we have no longer room to say all of it that we foresee it will require.