He fell prostrate before the female chief with an effort to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution: so that all he could do, in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit. The ecstacy of fear was such, that, instead of paralysing his tongue (as on ordinary occasions), it even rendered him eloquent, and, with cheeks as pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he protested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design on the life of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his own soul. In the inconsistency of his terror, he said he was but the agent of others, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but for life-for life he would give all he had in the world; it was but life he asked-life if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations; he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of the lowest caverns of their hills.

It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt with which the wife of Macgregor regarded this wretched petitioner for the poor boon of existence.

"I could have bid you live," she said, "had life been to you the same weary and wasting burden that it is to me— that it is to every noble and generous mind. But you! Wretch! You could creep through the world unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its constantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow-You could live and enjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed-while nameless and bir unless villains tread on the neck of the brave and long-descended: YOU could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, battening on garbage, while the slaughter of the brave went on around you! This enjoyment you shall not live to partake of; you shall die, base dog, and that before yon cloud has passed over the sun."

She gave a brief command in Gaelic to her attendants, two of whom seized upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff which overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered. I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards. As the murderers, or executioners (call them as you will), dragged him along, he recognized me even in that moment of horror, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard him utter, "Oh, Mr. Osbaldistone, save me! save me!"

I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I. did attempt to speak in his behalf; but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Half naked, and thus manacled, they hurried him into the lake (there about twelve feet deep), drowning his last death-shriek with a wild halloo of vindictive triumph; over which, however, the yell of mortal agony was distinctly heard. The heavy burden splashed in the dark-blue waters of the lake, and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant, to guard lest, extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, he might have struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound; the victim sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life, for which he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human existence.-Sir Walter Scott.

MARSTON MOOR.

To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas; the clarion's note is high!
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas; the big drum makes reply!
Ere this, hath Lucas marched, with his gallant cavaliers,
And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter in our ears.
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas ! White Guy is at the door,
And the raven whets his beak o'er the field of Marston Moor.

Up rose the Lady Alice from her brief and broken prayer, And she brought a silken banner down the narrow turretstair;

Oh! many were the tears that those radiant eyes had shed, As she traced the bright word "Glory," in the gay and glancing thread;

And mournful was the smile which o'er those lovely features

ran,

As she said: "It is your lady's gift; unfurl it in the van!"

"It shall flutter, noble lady, where the best and boldest

ride,

'Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons of

pride;

L

The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel a sicklier qualm,
And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm,

When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on their wing,

And hear her loyal soldiers shout. "For God and for the King!"

Tis soon! The ranks are broken! along the royal line

They fly, the braggarts of the court! the bullies of the Rhine! Stout Langdale's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's helm is down,

And Rupert sheathes his rapier with a curse and with a frown;

And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in their flight, "The German boar had better far, have supped in York tonight."

The knight is left alone, his steel-cap cleft in twain,

His good buff jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain ; Yet still he waves his banner, and cries, amid the rout, "For Church and King, fair gentlemen! spur on, and fight it out!"

And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave,

And now he quotes a stage-play,—and now he fells a knave !

Heaven aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! thou hast no thought of

fear;

Heaven aid the now, Sir Nicholas ! for fearful odds are here! The rebels hem thee in, and, at every cut and thrust,

"Down, down," they cry, "with Belial! down with him to the dust!"

"I would," quoth grim old Oliver, "That Belial's trusty

sword

This day were doing battle for the saints and for the Lord!"

The Lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower, The gray-haired warder watches from the castle's topmost tower;

"What news? what news, old Hubert ?"—"The battle's lost and won:

The royal troops are melting, like mists before the sun!
And a wounded man approaches-I'm blind and cannot see,
Yet, sure I am, that sturdy step my master's step must be !"

"I've brought thee back thy banner from as rude and red a fray

As e'er was proof of soldier's thew, or theme for minstrel's lay! Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suff. I'll make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part with boots and buff

Though Guy, through many a gaping wound, is breathing forth his life,

And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and faithful wife!" "Sweet we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship for France,

And mourn in merry Paris for this poor land's mischance :
For if the worst befall me, why, better axe and rope,

Than life with Lenthall for a king, and Peters for a pope!
Alas! alas! my gallant Guy!-curse on the crop-eared boor
Who sent me, with my standard, on foot from Marston Moor!"
-W. M. Praed.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

Up from the south at break of day, bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, the affrighted air with a shudder bore, like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, the terrible grumble and rumble and roar, telling the battle was on once moreand Sheridan twenty miles away! And wilder still those billows of war thundered along the horizon's bar; and louder yet into Winchester rolled the roar of that red sea uncontrolled, making the blood of the listener cold-as he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, with Sheridan twenty miles away! But there is a road from Winchester town, a good, broad highway leading down; and there, through the flash of the morning light, a steed as black as the steeds of night, was seen to pass as with eagle flight ;;-as if he knew the terrible need, he stretched away with the utmost speed; hills rose and fell-but his heart was gay, with Sheridan fifteen miles away! Still sprung from these swift hoofs, thundering South, the dust, like the smoke from the cannon's mouth, or the trail of a comet sweeping faster and faster; foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster: the heart of the steed and the heart of the master were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, impatient to be where the battle-field calls; every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, with Sheridan only ten miles away! Under his spurring feet, the road like an arrowy

Alpine river flowed; and the landscape sped away behind like an ocean flying before the wind; and the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, swept on with his wild eyes full of fire: but, lo he is nearing his heart's desire-he is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, with Sheridan only five miles away! The first that the General saw, were the groups of stragglers, and then, the retreating troops!-What was done-what to do-a glance told him both; and striking his spurs, with a terrible oath, he dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzas, and the wave of retreat checked its course there, because the sight of the master compelled it to pause. With foam and with dust the black charger was gray by the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play, he seemed to the whole great army to say, “I have brought you Sheridan, all the way from Winchester down to save the day!" Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan! hurrah! hurrah for horse and man! and when their statues are placed on high under the dome of the Union sky,—the American soldier's Temple of Fame,--there, with the glorious general's name, be it said in letters both gold and bright : "Here is the steed that saved the day by carrying Sheridan into the fight, from Winchester-twenty miles away.!"Thomas Buchanan Read.

MR. TWIDDLE'S TROUBLE.*

As to who and what I am, and the infirmity under which I suffer, the following brief sketch will explain.

My name is Teviotdale Twiddle; my age-two-and-twenty; income-four hundred a-year; condition-Bachelor; profession—Gentleman. The affliction which threatens to consume my transitory existence is one far more easily imagined than endured or even described. I suffer from a species of nervousness that exhibits itself in a propensity to meddle with every object that comes within reach. Nothing can escape my proclivity to tampering; and, most unfortunately for myself, everybody and every article concerned, all these individual volitions are exhibited on my part without my having at the time the slightest idea of what I am doing. So that I am, during my paroxysm, as it were quite powerless, a victim to a spell, which neither Age, Physic, or Advice have yet been found potent enough to

* For the idea of this sketch, the author is indebted to a little charade, called "Trying it On," by the late Mr. William Brough.