the draw-well yestreen in the darkening, and near lose his life on an errand o' her ain devising? A demented woman she was, when she fand her muckle-made o' wean-that she was feared to trust on the sea wi' his Maker-lying, feet upmost, in her ain yard well!-Whether he'll ever won ower wi't is but doubtful-but a blythe mother wad she hae been, to see him sailing, stout and hail, wi' the lave o' our lads to Greenland the day!”

I listened with deep respect to the white-headed elder's practical homily -and at its close, requested him to tell me where he thought I should most probably find Mr. Menteith, with whom I had a few minutes' business. "He'll readily be sitting awhile wi' Helen Lonie, that has the sairest heart in the town the day-for her man, that was wont to be the flower and king o' our Greenland lads, and cam hame sae often skaithless frae the deep, dwined awa' this winter wi' a slow decline, and her fatherless bairns are no auld enough to do ony thing for her. I've a trifle o' siller here to gie her, that the lads scraipt thegither for her yestreen-for she's kent better days, and her heart's no just resigned to tak Session help yet. So we made a bit subscription, and she'll no refuse it, at the hand o' her Willie's loving comrades. The minister's no to tell her how muckle it comes to, that he may slip in what he likes frae the Session frae time to time. It's no a'thegither a right frame o' Helen's to be sae pridefu' but if she thinks she can wrestle up her bairns without parish help, it'll prevent her sinking under her distress."

I was too sincere a friend to the lingering feeling of honest repugnance to parochial aid, long the boast and pride of my country, not to contribute my mite to keep Helen, in effect as well as idea, off the list of its dependents. The elder seemed, on the score of my subscription, to think me entitled to the entrée of the house of mourning; and I accompanied him,

with real sympathy, to the door, though I declined going further till I should learn the state of the widow's feelings.

The dwelling, still that of her more prosperous days, afforded two apartments; in the outer and unoccupied one of which, the elder left me for a few minutes. There was much in the aspect of this little cabin-for such, in many of its features, it might have seemed-to render it trying to the feelings of the poor bereaved one. To the full-rigged miniature ship, the characteristic ornament of many a skipper's parlor, were added shells of the Torrid Zone, (the gifts of shipmates,) in strange contact with pieces of whalebone, and teeth of seals and walrusses. The massy silver watch, hung by a black ribbon over the mantle-piece, and still regularly taking note of that time with which he, whose movements it had so long directed, had ceased to have connexion, was a striking and melancholy memento. A mark on the wall indicated the recent disappearance (probably from poverty) of a clock, whose occupation was now, alas! superseded by the stationary position of a watch, not to be parted with for gold, nor displaced till claimed by its owner's curlyheaded eldest boy.

In the window lay a large Bible, on whose ample boards was printed, "William Lonie, mariner;" and beside it a well-thumbed collection of shipwrecks, and a Natural History of the Whale. A scrupulously clean. bed, with its elaborate patchwork quilt, spoke of former luxury and opulence-but at its foot a little hastily arranged curtain concealed something, which, in a Catholic cottage, might have been supposed a relic, or a patron image. Whatever it was, it was here alike precious and painful to memory-and excluded from the eye, lest it should be too much for the heart. I lifted, more in sympathy than curiosity, the veil aside; and behind it, mute for years at least, perhaps for ever, hung the light-hearted sailor's fiddle !-whose merry tones

had, doubtless, whiled away many an interminable polar day, and gladdened the hearts of the bairns during many a winter night at home. As if to mark the latter destination of its jocund strains, just beneath it stood that cradle whose occupation was for ever gone!

The examination of these wrecks of past happiness had brought me close to the slight partition; and I could hear, amid suppressed and gentle weeping, a glad young voice exclaim, "Mother! ye'll send me and Willy to the schule now-and we'll be men in no time, and gang to Greenland like our father!"

"Dinna think," at length sobbed out the soft, mild, weeper,-" that I'm no grateful, John Donaldson, because I canna speak to tell you and my puir Willy's kindly neibors, how muckle I think o' your kindness-God alone kens-and I tak it the mair freely, that mony's the time the puir fellow has done the like for them that needed it!"

"Ay, Helen, that did he," answered the canny elder; "and is it no a true text that says," Cast your bread upon the waters, and ye shall find it after many days ?" "

"But, neibor," said the oppressed widow, "I canna think upon warld's gear the day,-no even to gie the praise whar it is rightly due,—when I wad gie a' that men ever wared or won, to see Willie Lonie standing feckless and plackless,-as I ance saw him after a shipwreck,-wi' naething on the earth but his leal heart and his stout arm to trust to !-But," added she, sighing, and suddenly changing her tone, "Gae wa', John Donaldson, and thank the lads for me; and tak wee Johnny in your hand-that's his puir father's picture. The blessing o' the widow, and the thanks o' the fatherless, will be muckle thought o' the day amang them."

"There's one no far off, Helen," said the good elder, "who wad maybe like to hae them too-though he's a douce landwart gentleman, and no about encountering ony jeopardy.

He's a friend o' the minister's forbye."

"Is he indeed ?" cried the widow"then he is welcome to me, though he had never put his hand in his purse for me or mine! I whiles grieve that I canna repay the gude I get at mony a hand; but the minister, honest man, never lies on my conscience, for his heart, and his treasure, and his reward, are a'thegither in Heaven."

I opened the door cautiously, and, introduced by the good old man, laid my hand affectionately on the heads of the dark rosy boys, and then held it out to their sorrowing mother. How impartial is Nature in her distribution of personal advantages! How omnipotent the regality of mind and character! Had a painter wished to pourtray a Roman matron of the softer stamp-the mother to whose caresses Coriolanus must have yieldedor the Eponina whose smiles could cheer long years of famine and proscription-here might have been his model. Yet there was a Madonna expression in her downcast eye, that spoke rather of Christian firmness than Roman stoicism; and a royal martyr of the early church, meek though undismayed, amid a hostile army, might have perhaps found in Helen Lonie a still meeter representative. I really shrunk back, half unable to proffer condolence to so commanding a being.

"I thank ye, sir, kindly," said she, "for me and mine, for your Christian help to a lone woman, that has been e'en ower little used either to work or want. While Willie lived I had little need to do either; but if I do the best for the tane, Providence will take care o' the other. This is to be my last day o' sinfu' repining. The Lord has sent this supply, to rebuke my heartlessness and quicken my diligence. Tak it wi' ye, John Donaldson, and set me up in a bit shop wi't—and see if it winna be like the widow's cruise of oil, and grow aye the langer the mair! But ye maunna forget the kind givers, John-oh! dinna let the lads sail without my blessing! And

stop, John, I promised Peter Morrison his spyglass, for a token o' the love he bore him. I've never looked at it since the day he tried to see his ain vessel as she came up the Firth. It winna do, Helen,' said he, quietly. There's a glaze on my ee that winna let me see ony thing muckle langer.' I tried to look and tell him how the Nancy stood in the water-but the tear blinded me; and he said, Helen! lock by the glass-I'll never need it mair!"-As the widow repeated these last words, the key turned in the lock of the old-fashioned scrutoire, and, along with the glass, many familiar objects, long carefully excluded, rushed upon her sight and memory. All her fortitude at once forsook her, and exclaiming, "Tak it yoursell, John, I'm no able"-she escaped through an inner door into the other room. We respected her sorrow too much to interrupt its vent, so, taking each a hand of the boys, and lifting, like a precious relic, the honest sailor's spyglass, we stole out of the house.

Chance soon threw in our way the comrade for whom the token was designed. He received it with a burst of rude emotion, to cover which he rattled to the children, and hurried away, with one in each hand, to treat them with gingerbread. The elder strove to detain him, to deliver Helen's message of thanks to this spokesman of the benevolent crew; but he only shook his head, and ran the faster out of hearing. "I maun get the minister to say a bit word for her, puir thing! he'll do it better than I can. I mind where he'll 'be nownae doubt asking a blessing on the grace-drink at Sandie Nicol's, the auld sailing-master's. He's been to Greenland mair times than I can reckon, and makes aye a ploy o't, just like ony laddie, and sae does the haill family. There's twa o' his sons gawn wi' him this trip; the gudewife's stout heart 'll be tried-but it never failed her yet she's an unco woman for cantiness."

We soon got in front of the man

sion, one of the best houses in the village, two stories high, and self-contained, viz. with its stair inside. Sounds of merriment certainly issued from an upper room; and not all the other perfumes of X— could entirely counteract the savory steam of pies and punch which emanated from the open window. It was not a day for etiquette, and up walked the elder; and I ventured to follow the more readily, that I heard, even amid a chaos of voices, young and old, the soft subdued tones of Mr. Menteith.

"Ye're welcome in, John Donaldson!" cried the gudewife, whose manners corroborated the elder's description. "It will be a braw fishing, nae doubt, that has baith the minister and his doucest elder to ask a blessing on't! and ye're welcome, too, sir, I'm sure,' said she, cordially though respectfully to me, as she saw Mr. Menteith, not reluctantly, I believe, quit the post of honor beside her, and advance to shake me by the hand. He would have excused himself, and retired with me from the scene of rude hospitality; but the whole party violently interfered—“ Na, na, minister!” said the cheerful but cautious old sailor, "if ye were to leave us sae lang afore the turn o' the tide, some o' us might get the maut aboon the meal. Drink may be a gude servant, but it's an ill master. Folk may forget themselves wi' baith feet on dry land; but wi' ae fit on the water, its clean nonsense! I never took aff a crew the waur o' drink since I steered boat, and that's no yesterday."

"Besides," said the gudewife, (who would rather hear Mr. Menteith preach than her husband at any time,) "the stranger gentleman, if he can just put up wi' our sea-faring way, wad may be like to hear some o' your auld warld Greenland stories. Ye ken ye aye tell the bairns some ferlies before starting."

It is almost impossible to come in familiar contact with honest industry, without becoming better; and in Scotland it is generally coupled with

so much intelligence, that one may expect to be wiser also. I was soon deep in all the mysteries of whaling and harpooning, and, catching animation from the weather-beaten faces round me, a partaker in all the various excitements of a Greenland voyage. The climate alone of the old patriarch's chamber of dais dispelled the illusion; nor could "thinking of the frosty Caucasus" itself, or all the snows of Nova Zembla, enable me to bear it much longer.

Just as I began to pant like the exhausted Leviathan of my old friend's narration, and like him to meditate an expiring effort to reach another element, I perceived that the minister had already disappeared; in consequence, I was told, of a summons to a parishioner in distress. Delicacy equally forbade my further intrusion on this family circle, and any efforts on their part to detain me, now that the only guest of my own rank had retired-so drinking off a glass to their successful voyage, and promising to witness the embarkation, I sallied gladly into the open air.

The beach was my natural resort, and on strolling towards it, I found there a knot of two or three young unmarried men, apparently too slightly connected in the village to excite any of the overwhelming feelings called forth by the more endearing relations of life-yet, who seemed to find some compensation in the friendly adieus, and lively banterings of a bevy of bright-eyed damsels, who, lounging about in gay caps and top-knots, formed a striking contrast to the general complexion of the village.

Amid this group of lads, however, I soon recognised one, who, seemingly either unable or unwilling to join in the laugh, or retort the good-humored jest, stood apart from his comrades; with the lingering look and reluctant demeanor of one whose heart was on a spot, from which, at the same time, he ever and anon testified impatience to escape, by pulling his companions by the arm, and more than once going down to the harbor to ascertain how

soon the boat might be got afloat. This being still out of the question, he sat down on a rock at some distance, and seemed lost in meditations of no very pleasing character. There was something in his moody and unsocial deportment, which, coupled with his fine manly person, and evident youth, interested me, I knew not why; and I might have stood longer observing them, had I not seen Mr. Menteith at the other end of the Quay-and hastened to join him. He almost looked as if he could have dispensed with my company, but merely apologizing for the inevitable hurry of such a day, he allowed me to walk by his side, till we came to a small house of mean appearance in a by-lane, one of the very few whose door on this day of privileged intercourse was carefully closed-while no sound from within indicated the presence of inhabitants.

Giving me a sign not to follow him, the good pastor gently lifted the latch, and I was soon made sensible by suppressed moanings, of the participation, "not loud but deep," of some inmate in the general desolation. Feeling and propriety alike prohibited my listening to an apparently agonizing colloquy-during which the stifled groans gave place to a burst of hysterical emotion-but I could not avoid hearing the minister say, on leaving the room-" Marion, pray to God to bless my endeavors. It is little I can do for you-but the hearts of all are in His hand!"

Again hastily pressing my hand, and hurrying past me, I saw the worthy pastor walk rapidly towards the spot I had lately occupied, and, connecting involuntarily his present haste with the young sailor I had left sitting in gloomy abstraction on the rocks, I resumed the position from whence I had first descried him, and had a full view of the dumb show of a scene, on which I had no right farther to intrude.

The communication, whatever it might be, which the minister was about to make, was evidently more unwelcome than unexpected; for the

youth, instead of rising, as under other circumstances he would have done, on his pastor's approach, sat doggedly still, with his face averted, and his wallet between his knees, in the attitude of one who may be lectured, but cannot be convinced. Nay, the hand, which in the course of his pastoral admonition the mild man laid on his young parishioner's shoulder, I could see indignantly shaken off by an uncourteous gesture of his refractory hearer.

I gathered-though the youth by degrees assumed a more respectful attitude-from the whole air of my worthy friend's figure, that he was an unsuccessful pleader. It was soon put beyond a doubt, by the melancholy shake of the head and disconsolate step with which he at length turned away from the inexorable culprit.

I was on the point of moving, to join and condole with him, when I saw the lad suddenly start up, and run after the minister-appearing by the respectful touch of the hat, which replaced his late rude deportment-to solicit in his turn a renewal of the conference. It was instantly, and with true Christian benignity, accorded-and here again sounds would have been superfluous to convey to me the tenor of the conversation. I saw that the proud heart of the young man was fairly melted-that the figures he still drew with his stick in the sand, were the result of awkwardness and absence, not of sullenness and incivility. The whole air of proud defiance in his form, gave place to submission and even humility-and when the pastor's hand was kindly stretched out to his penitent disciple, I knew as well how it all was, as if I had been an impannelled juror on the case.

As the minister began to ascend from the beach to the height I stood on, I saw the lad hang back a little, and seem to stipulate somewhat, though timidly and with hesitation. pastor nodded assent, and outstripping his now tardy companion, came up to me and said, with a benign smile, "If you are disposed to punish me

The

for treating you so cavalierly, you have a fair opportunity, for I am about to trespass on your good nature for a favor."-" Which I am quite disposed to punish you by granting, according to your own mode of retaliating injuries," said I, with a cordial shake of the hand, which was warmly returned." You must know," said the good man, "that I have been making up a marriage since I left you, and as for good reasons the young bridegroom desires present secrecy, I wish you to be a witness, along with the bride's mother, without taking any of the village gossips into our counsel. You will not grudge having a hand in averting from a very bonnie, but very simple lassie, a broken promise and a broken heart; and William, as I have been telling him, will keep his watch all the heartier, and sleep all the sounder, that he has no betrayed maiden to haunt his waking or sleeping dreams. There's little time to lose-the tide is making fast. I'll step forward and prepare the bride.-There will be joy in her heart, though, on many accounts, it will be a tearful bridal.”

I looked round when Mr. Menteith had left me for the bridegroom, but found he had taken a circuitous route to his intended's dwelling, lest his being seen there with the minister should give rise to surmises which, as the son of austere and avaricious parents in a neighboring farm, he was anxious to avert, till his return from a successful fishing might render him comparatively independent.

I arrived, consequently, before him at the cottage, whence I had so lately heard issuing sounds of hopeless and seemingly inconsolable affliction.The same gentle voice was weeping still-But, oh! how different are tears of joyful emotion and sanctified penitence, from the bitter overflowings of a broken, yet not contrite heart! I knocked-a decent subdued-looking matron opened the door, and bade me welcome. A beautiful girl, apparently scarce seventeen, stood twisting her apron before the minister, and, on my