has, besides, a sweet murmur of its own. If it continue, it will soon clothe the slender branches of the Tamarack* with full ruffles of delicate green, and call out from their buds the lovely little May-flowers that we may gaze at them as they smile amid the moss under the shady pines. And Arethusa, too, whom you have mentioned, will raise her purple head to enjoy it, and make glad the heart of him who may tramp through yonder marsh, where the balsams tower above the low alders like pyramids of green. O, Natie! I wish I could find to-day the rare Calypso, so delicately painted with purple and yellow, standing on its bulbous root under the thick shade of some white cedar. It would be a prize worthy the day, and one for which my tin box has sighed a long, long time. Reader, I dislike to interrupt the conversation of these two nymph-loving school-mates, who are starting out to practice their botany in one of those many marshes which line the whole course of the Winooski, from its origin amid the Green Mountains to the beautiful lake into which it pours its waters. I dislike, I say, to interrupt their conversation, for I love, at this lenten-time, to recall the many pleasing associations that are connected with the name of my dear friend Yorrick, and with the past, to which, in sorrow, an "acternum vale" has been lingeringly given; yet you, the while, may follow them in imagination as they thread the wild-wood and search every shady recess, while 1, without losing sight of what is pleasant in the past, revert to that well-bred Scotchman, McGregory, to whom, in my previous article, I introduced you. He forms too conspicuous a part of my rural experience to be so soon dismissed; and there are many little simplicities of his nature and graces of his disposition, as yet unnoticed, which may draw forth your admiration as they did mine, when I had the pleasure and instruction of his intercourse. Although educated in the Lowlands, his youth was spent in the Highlands of his native land. It was here that his whole being became tinged with that peculiar romance which so often betrayed itself in his glowing love of the solemn quietness of mountains and woods; and it was here, also, while surrounded by all the grace of nature, that his heart became filled with that higher grace which nature neither giveth nor taketh away, and of which he never spoke without the deepest feelings of gratitude and love. Often he told me that the Kirk is sweeter than the Highlands, affording a home to the exile, a refuge to the weary, and a comfort to the sad. "Tis my only mother now, and these mountains and woods are my loving brothers," he once remarked to me in tears. * He would never answer me when I asked him why he left his A common name for the American Larch (Larix Americana.) bulus (Epigæ repens.) A beautiful flower of the Orchis family. †Trailing Ar fatherland, but only say, "I was driven by the fates." At such times I dared not interrupt his sadness by farther inquiry, for I felt that the past was embalmed in his heart as being too sacred for those who knew it not to know. Think not from this, however, that he was cheerless. There was not a blither heart amid the Green Mountains than his. Not a spring warmed into summer and not a summer faded into autumn, that Yorrick and I did not visit his romantic cottage, and feel that he was as young and cheerful as we. True, he would sometimes make a sage remark or two under the playful pretence of moderating our enthusiasm, but when, especially at late autumn time, he went with us into the beach-nut grove in quest of the shy partridge,* or through the hill-side marsh to startle the long-billed woodcock; there was not a heart more glowing with impulse, nor an eye more keen to detect each thing of beauty, whether it were some flower blooming by chance beyond its time or the spotted cranberry lurking beneath the moss. In fine, he had the true observation and genius of a poet. As Talvi says of the Servians, he lived his poetry; yet his poetic life at times sought for itself formal expression, an then 'twas Sweet to stray and pensive ponder A heartfelt sang." His sadness was like the Russian melodies, "melancholy musical," and his sweetest songs were those that told of saddest thoughts, as Shelley has said of all poets. Among his pleasing characteristics, I should by no means forget to mention his ripe scholarship, and that he would often quote to me, in our excursions, pertinent passages from the old Greek and Latin poets, never forgetting, however, to give preference to those who came nearest the bards of his own country. Theocritus, as I recollect, was his especial favorite, and he would give to him all his original freshness as he playfully translated, if he might be said to translate at all, when he made the original live again in his own Doric dialect of the Lowlands. This dialect he always preferred to the harsher Golic, as being more akin to the pastoral muse; yet he would often, in his use of pure English, show that he could equal the best of us in this even. There was a smack of antiquity, however, in all his easy attempts in this department, which made his language doubly more pleasing, as if he had really been a companion and fellow angler of good Izaak Walton. Since I am in no hurry, as long as in my present company, to catch up with those scholastic botanizers, who are, without doubt, and by this time, knee deep among the brakes and brambles of that swamp to which their steps were tending when last we saw them, I will with joy recall once more some fragments of my past inter *The bird which is classed under this name, in the common dialect of New England, is properly the grouse and not the partridge or quail of the south. course with McGregory, which are not yet entirely forgotten; yet, ere I do this, let me remark, how sweet to those who are absent from home are the images of old familiar faces, indelibly pictured on the heart. Now, as I write, I see before me, in my mind's eye, Canada East, remembered companion of college days, standing in the same gracefulness as erst he stood when we listened with so much delight to his eloquent rhetoric in the chapel; and there, also, close by his side, I catch the face of witty Sir Tenderloin, inseparable companion of the former in all excursions for still game; and behind the two, to my unspeakable delight, towers Goodeye, physician par excellence of No. 6 and adjacent rooms, and prima facie wit of our Saturday evening gatherings. Fair group of heroes, years of separation have made me appreciate your worth. But, McGregory, where art thou? Reader, that cove, appropriately called the wild-duck cove, is perchance incognito to you, where the muskrats in winter house themselves in their well-built huts,* and where, in summer, the white pond-lilies,† fragrant Naiads, float on the water, and the yellow-necked frogs croak out their old complaints. It was on the shore of that cove (incognito or not,) the happy resort of minks, butter snipe, and a numberless quantity of other beasts, birds and insects, aquatic and amphibious, that we-I mean McGregory and myself-were walking together one summer afternoon, when the trees began to mark their lengthened shades behind, enjoying a lively chat and stopping occasionally to listen to the rustling leaves of the poplars and the stake-driver'st monotonous che-bung as it rose up at regular intervals out of the tall, thick marsh grass like the solitary watchword of some invisible sentinel. Suddenly, and with sage earnestness, the well-bred Scotchman stopped me with a low whisper. "Whist! Haud ye now, my little bairn, and gae nae farder! Dinna ye see ayont this water, wi' your hazel een, that green knowe on whose very tap stands a strappin' pine, and amaist beneath it, dinna ye mark that burnie tak its sidelins course down thro' the birken-shaw and syne wimple awa' amang the green grass of the meadow, bearing nae doubt on its bosom ilk leaf it has caught in its arms? Ye maun think now, I ken, that 't was na clishmaclaver§ o' auld Theocritus, when he sang sae bonnily, sweet is the whispering o' yon pine which by the burnie soughs, and sweet the din of rinning water tumbling down the rocky brae. Alake! my little bairn, we hae nane amang these mountains that can blaw the Shep *The huts of these animals are in the form of cones, ascending a short distance above the ice. Frequently you may count more than a hundred in a space of less extent than an acre. Nymphea odorata. A large bird, taking its name from the resemblance of its note to the sound of driving stakes in the mud. § Idle conversation. herd's whistle wi' him! One needna ferlie* that Burns once wrote I hae meikle fear that it will be lang ere we see the match o' auld Theocritus, sin' honest Allan's nae mair. When maun we expect anither Ramsay, too? Winna ye, my little bairn, hereafter try the shepherd sang, and make these lovely scenes which ye now witness as immortal as "Coila's haughs an' woods?" Then patting me on the head, as he was wont, he repeated to me, with a tinge of sadness, what the inspiration of the moment seemed to supply him: How little thought I, when we were then together, that the next time I should visit that cove I should find on the very shore where we stood a lonely grave, strewn with autumn leaves and dying ivy, and marked with a small rough stone, on which was engraved the simple words "McGregory, the Exile." Thou cove, most musical and lovely, hallowed by past associations and the grave of my dear friend; thou wild-duck cove, remain where thou wast and as thou wast. Sad thoughts, which McGregory's death awakens, go backward and inward and there harass the mind. There is a still small voice which can calm even the troubles which ye create as it admonishes me that death closes earth only to open heaven. So the heart, the heart is beautiful I care not for the face; I ask not what the form may lack, If the mind is filled with glowing thoughts, What matter though the cheek be pale, Though the cheek, the cheek be beautiful, And the lustre of the eye be quenched, The lips that utter kindly thoughts, For gentle words are sweeter far, And though the voice be harsh or shrill, And soothes the woes of the sorrowing one, |