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ffltrUd foftrg.
GOING HOME.
Where are you going so fast, old man,
Where are you going so fast ?
Tare's a valley to cross, and a river to ford,
re's a clasp of the hand and a parting word
Hid a tremulous sigh for the past, old mau ;
The beautiful vanished past.
The road has been rugged and rough, old man,
To your feet it's rugged and rough ;
\ a see a dear being with gentle eyes,
" a - shared in your labor aud sacrifice ;
Ah I that has been sunshine enough, old man,
For you and me, sunshine enough.
How long since you passed o'er the hill, old
man?
Of life o'er the top of the hill ?
Were there beautiful valleys on t'other side ?
Were there fiowers and trees, with their branches
wide,
To shut out the heat of sun, old man,
The heat of the fervid sun ?
And how did you cross the waves, old man,
Of sorrow, the fearful waves ?
Did you lay your dear treasures by, one by one,
With an aching heart and -'God's will be done,"
Under the wayside dust, old man,
Iu the graves 'neath the wayside dust ?
There is sorrow and labor for all, old man,
Alas! there is sorrow for all,
j! you, peradventure, have had your share,
: r eighty long winters have whitened your hair,
And they've whitened your heart as well, old
man,
Thank God! your heart as well.
You're now at the foot of the hill, old man,
At last at the foot of the hill!
Ihc sun has gone down in a golden glow,
Lithe heavenly city lies just below ;
* m through the pearly gate, old man,
The beautiful pearly gate.
IE MINISTER'S SANDY AND JESS, j
■ ! i
(CONCLUDED.) j
■si made no reply till the minister was ; 1
■ and her mother began to press her j i
H :.:!}■ for an explanation of her conduct. i
1..-:: she raised a pair of bent black brows,
Hi ipened her lips. " Mother, do you 1
1 have no feeling? Do you think, ]
j >u?e I first stood up against Sandy, <
Hug I have no regard for my own brother ? i
• -Id I go and enjoy myself, and not t
H: w what has become of Sandy, or what i
j.-raay have to bear ? Adam Spottiswoode c
Hid to be Sandy's friend ; he might have <
H-.ic- 6t-übe than ask me such a gate." 1
I Mrs. Stewart said not another word. 1
1 But the minister was troubled at Jess's t
I v ence.cast about in his mind for a cause f
1' cure, aud stumbled on one of his old a
Hu of lavish generosity, and extraordi- 1
misconception of his daughter's taste
f the laws of harmony. He surprised \
H' y the arrival from her mother's mer- L
Bets shop in Woodend of a gown of yel- 1
| crape, with a pink silk scarf to match, t
I A'ter Jess had overcome the shock at i
H-jigiit of the articles, and her resolution \
v her arms and went straight with them t
I the minister's study. \
' e ", Jess, what is in tho wind now? a
■"•you changed your mind about going i
J carriage at Birkholm ?" he demaD- c
I king up from Campbell on Miracles, \
H~: P r °tending ignorance and innocence. i
■ •'the minister's consternation, Jess's f
'£ " kept for special occasions, began ! t
sßnly to fall like raiu. " Father, do \
H ' that Ido not value your presents, j i
■ wear the one or the other at the | ,
j '• whenever the weather will permit, f
B- jS: mg as two threads hang together, i
go to Birkholm : it is not fit i
■if-- - should go and show off among the i
H' K there, when somebody who has as i
■; a right to your favor as I have, aud i
r it far more, has to live without."
| "W, is it a fit return for my kindness 1
u should be so bold as question my 1
H--'nt ? I forbid you to speak another 1•,
|g;to me on the subject of you brother." 1 j
minister dared her with flashing | ]
■ '.and conquered her so far as to drive ,
i'm his presence to burst out to her j j
M ~ ther, my father is cruel to Sandy ; I
I keen to him. Aud what
ione to lose a son's place? It is j
■ ' - have brought reproach upon him
I • is the righteousness and the mercy
. "-ig burdens on other men's backs ?
fl -it care whether he is ever to best fine
■"i 1 am not sure that 1 have seeu a |
■ ••Muting iu my life ; but he was free i
. 1 painter if he liked. I never thought!
H ' Sandy than wheu he walked out at j
w ith his stick in his hand, last!
. v > he was a petted lad before, but :
' H'T 4 fjroUl ' rnan then - If I catch any
'■ v > aaD Bave my father looking down i
I will never speak to him again,
j H . m y father, I say he is hard to Sau
i- H Ufced not think that I will take my
18 H "-and Sandy cast off for a lad's
a H -7' ' wonder why they profess that
3 lH' ;' Ure . ad things are pure,' if Sandy
e [[ 48 innocent as a bairn,) or that I
H. 'ikt a butterfly, when, for aught
- m Y brother Sandy, who was a
u-, llaieß more dutiful than I have
m . nj ay be pining in a garret or
fl 7 the streets."
cj ■e n J u,t . Jess, whist 1" implored Mrs.
nd y° u I'id me'whist,' mother;
■ H ij U interfere ?" cried Jess,
t e passion, sweeping
H~ : SL.au ail [ ! orwardtt through the con-
W'lLii , e manse parlor, herself
j J tl mlbed of her young. "Why
E. O. GOODRICH, Publisher.
VOLUME XXVI.
do you not stand up for Sandy ? He is
your son, and you liked him with reason,
twice as well as your daughter. I would
not suffer my father's tyranny."
" Jess, Jess, you do not know what you
are saying. I could not rebel against the
minister. And do not you misjudge your
father : he groans in his sleep ; and think
how good a man he is. And oh, Jess ! you
cannot mind, but 1 can, how he took the
candle and held it over Sandy iu the cradle.
And when your little sister died, and your
lather at the Glenork preachings, and I
sent the nearest elder to meet him to break
to him the distress at home, lie guessed it
before Mr. Allan could get out the words.
He was always a sharp man, your father,
and he just put up his hand and plead with
the messenger, 'Not Sand) ; tell me it is
not Sandy.' It was not that he was not
fond of his lasses, Jess, you know ; but
they could not bear bis name and uphold
his Master's credit as his lad would do."
Though Mrs. Stewart did nothing,—
could do nothing,—when Jess came to
think of it, sobbing in her own room in the
reaction after her recantation, both for San
dy and lor Birkholm, from that day's confi
dence mother and daughter were" knit to
gether as they had not been before. In
the beginning Jess had been a litlie too
vigorous aud energetic for her mild, tender
mother ; but Mrs. Stewart clung to Jess
in the end with mingled fond respect, deep
gratitude, and yearning affection.
On Sabbath days, when the minister left
his wife in the kirk porch to go into the
session-room, it was on Jess's arm that
Mrs. Stewart now leant for the short dis
tance up the aisle lo the minister's bucht,
on the right band of the pulpit. On the
few other occasions when she crossed her !
threshold, while she was able to move j
about among her flowers, or strull to the '
Karnes for the spectacle of the setting ot j
the sun, which shone on other lands bestdes !
Scotland, she sought to have Jess on the |
one side of her and the minister on the j
other.
Another peculiarity of Mrs. Stewart's
this summer was her struggle against her
feebleness, her efforts to convince herself
and others that she was gaining strength,
the eagerness with which she applied every
means for the restoration of her health,—
new milk, port wine, even to the homely,
uncouth superstitions of a stocking from
the minister's foot wfapped round her
throat at night, and the breath of the cows
in the cow-house the first thing of a morn
ing. It was as if something had happened
which would not let her die when her time
came.
It was well for Jess that she was much
with her mother during the summer, and
that their communion was that of perfect
love ; for before the summer was ended
Mrs. Stewart was attacked by a sudden
increase of illness, and after a week's suff
ering was gone where she might have clear
intelligence of Sandy, to which all the
knowledge of this world would have been
no more than the discordant words of an
unknown tongue.
There could have been no time to write
for Sandy, even had the minister and Jess
known where he was to be found, aud Mrs
Stewart had not asked for her son. No
immediate danger had been anticipated by
the doctor, or apprehended by the patient
and her relations, until witin a few hours
of her death, and then speech and in part
consciousness bad failed her. Unless the
look of the eyes, which, heavy with their
last long slumber, roused themselves to
search round the room, once and again, re
ferred to the absence of Sandy, Mrs. Stew
art passed away with her love, perhaps
like most great love, silent.
But when all was over, Jess thought
with a breaking heart of the ignorance of
him who had most cause to mourn, and of
his place filled by others less entitled to be
there on the day when the wife and mother
was borne to her grave beside her baby
who had passed from her mother's bosom
to the bosom of the second mother of us all,
the earth, who, if she had lived, would have
been an older woman than Jess ; and be
side the old divines who had filled the min
ister's pulpit, aud their faithful wives, of
centuries back, in the grassy kirkyard
within sight of the widows of her old home,
where a stormy wind might carry the leaves
from her garden and scatter them on
the mound. That mound, whether white
with May gowans or December snows,
would never be out of the minister's and
Jess's minds, and near it distance-divided
families and former neighbors would still
meet and "be glad to have their crack in
the kirkyard," and not forget to say softly
in her praise what a fine gentlewoman the
minister's wife had been, and how the min
ister, po6r man. would miss her.
If Adam Spottiswoode had been at Birk
holm, Jess might have applied to him in
her desperation tj learn if he had heard
anything of Sandy, and to beg of him to
intercede with her father for his son. But
Birkholm was absent at the moors, and
J ess had respect for her father's atlliction,
and would not torture him to no end.—
Therefore Mr. Stewart and Jess bore the
brunt of that dark dark day—the darker
that it was in the height of summer, the
prime and pride of the year —alone, but
for sorrowing neighbors and dependents.
When Mr. Stewart returned to the manse
after the funeral party was dispersed, and
retired to his room, Jess could not intrude
|on him. It was the room to which he had
brought her a bride, and she had died in it.
It was her room now while his time of the
manse lasted, though she had vacated it
humbly during her life. JKBS had too much
fellow-feeling with her father not to divine
that 110 hand but his own would by suff
ered to dispose of its mistress's little shawl
and cap, which in the hurry of her last ill
ness had been put on the side-table among
his books. Ife would see them there, sit
ting in the gloaming at his meditations,
and half believe that her light foot—at her
feeblest it was a light one—would be heard
again on the threshold, aud her fair, faded
face, which had been to him as none other
but Sandy's, would look in upon him, smil
iug, while she asked some simple kind
question, \\ hy was he sitting without a
light? Was he sure he had shifted his
feet on coming in fiom christening the
bairn at the Cotton Bog ? Was he ready
to ask a blessing on the sowens for sup
per ? Jess had her own sorrows, but they
were a little lightened when, the long af
ternoon over, her father re-entered, the
sleeves of his coat looking conspicuous in
I their white cull's, with which she would
grow so familiar that they would seem
more than any other details of his dress—
white neckcloth and black vest—a part of
the man, as he would come to her every
second day and stand patiently while she
removed and replaced them for him.
The minister wanted his tea, and tried to
speak on indifferent subjects, on the long
drought and burned-up pastures, but
stopped abruptly because lie could not put
back the thought, and he knew that Jess
shared it, that Mrs. Stewart not ten days
ago had been lamenting the drought in that
room, and had been making her arrange
ments to send out the servants every even
ing with their hooks to cut grass at the
ditch-sides, and bring back their aprons
full of a fresh, green supper for her beasts.
He walked to the wiudowand looked out
beyond the flowery garden, where the
evening wind soughed sadly in the grass
ol the kirkyard. Then he turned and said,
emphatically, " Our wound is deep, though
we need not let it be seen. But, Jess, it is
not by a gloomy token like that that she
would like us to mind her ; not that it is
not good in its way, everything is good or
changed to good, even parting and death,
when they are but a stage to meeting and
everlasting life. But, Jess, we must take
care of her beasts and birds and flowers,
that tbey may never miss her as we shall
do, always (though we troubled the last of
her days with our discord). We must keep
up her habits, that every day may have its
trace of her." He went on speaking with
unusual openness for a strong, reserved
man, on the sweet and winning morning
light which had lingered with his wife and
Jess's mother amidst the dust and clouds
ot the heat of the day ; on her love of ani
| mals and plants, quaint books, plaintive
! old songs, primitive sayings ; her walks to
the Karnes to see the sun set; her reveries
, looking upon the blazing coals on the win
; ter hearth. And Jess knew she was her
father's trusted friend, and that he saw in
her one who comprehended and shared his
i life-long loss and sorrow.
111. —THE PICTURE.
j For some time after her mother's death,
' Jess was thrilled with a nervous expecta-
I tion that Sandy would "cast up," as she ex
pressed it, in the gloaming or the dawning,
an)- day, to take his part in their mourning,
ilie news ol his mother's death would reach
him through friends or the announcement
in the newspapers. But as mouths passed,
Jess was forced to renounce the expecta
tion, and submit to the obscurity which
hung over Sandy.
The minister and .less lived together in
strict seclusion, until the sharp edge was
worn off their sorrow ; and then the minis
ter had grown a quiet, absorbed, gray stu
dent, whom Jess could only wile from his
household gods—the books—for the benefit
of his health, by ingeniouo stratagems and
unremitting pains. And Jess was a fine
looking, composed woman, with the eye
and the hand of a mother, aud the carriage
of a duchess.
It was summer again at Clovenford, and
the whole place and people were pervaded
with a grave, shaded, softened brightness,
not wanting iu flashes of mirth, relieving
what was pensive in domestic life, —for
both Jess and the minister possessed the
composite quality of humor, and not only
raised the laugh in others, but were subject
themselves to sudden ringing peals of
laughter ; the wisdom being as old and
common as sin and misery, which the wit
of Grizel Baillio set in one memorable
line, —
"Werena my heart licht I would dee."
The month of May, with its lilac—lily-oak
they called it at Clovenford—and hawthorn,
was about its olose, and the General As
sembly of the Kirk of Scotland was about
to conclude for the season its time-honored,
pious, benevolent, virulent squabbles.
The minister of Clovenford was not a
member this year, but he took it into his
head late one evening that he would like
to be present at a certain debate next night,
and, with constitutional rapidity, fixed that
he would go the Edinburg next morning by
the early coach which passed through
Woodend, take Jess with him for a treat,
be present in the gallery of the Assembly,
spend what was left of the night at Jess's
Aunt Reggy's, and return by the late coach
the next night to Clovenford ; " for there
will be nobody setting up for us at home,"
he put in, with an involuntary touch of pa
thos, when he found how easy the scheme
was. But the minister had not been in
such good spirits for a long time, and it
was with something of his old animation
that he entered into the details, congratula
ted Jess that she would have an opportun
ity of seeing the Lord High Commissioner,
and graphically detailed the marks by
which she might distinguish the leaders of
the Kirk
Jess was glad that her father should feel
able for the excursion, and soberly pleased
with it on her own account. She had bee-Ja
in Edinburgh just once before, and had seta
the Castle, Holyrood, Princes Street, Geoxga
Street, and St. Andrew's Square already.
Two days in Edinburgh were of such rarity
and importance that few country-women of
her circle attained them more than once in
their lives, and then it was on such momen
tous occasions as the celebration of their
marriage in the capital, or the scarcely less
serious step of going with bridegrooms,
mothers, and matronly friends, to buy their
"marriage things" out of metropolitan
shops, gloriously combining love and ad
venture, pleasure and profit. Jess, though
far behind in other respects, felt a little
elated at the double feat.
The minister and Jess were on foot by
five o'clock next morning ; found even the
ond of May rather raw on the top of a
coach at that early hour; spent the greater
part of the day 011 the road, indefatigably
enjoying the scenery, and sheltering them
selves under cloak and mantle from pelting
showers ; alighting and swallowing slices
of salt beef from perennial rounds, glass
fuls of sherry and tumblerfuls of porter,
leisurely, while the coach was changing
horses in the inn-yards of country towns ;
and, after inquisitively scrutinizing and
formally addressing fellow-travellers, end
ing establishing fast friendships with
them before the coach and its burden rolled
up the High Street of that Auld Keekie
which, whether in ancient or modern guise,
is one of the most picturesque of cities.
The journey, which occupies so large an
amount of old traveller's narratives, safely
and creditably performed, the rest of the
play remained to be played out.
Aunt Peggy received her unexpected
REGARDLESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER.
TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., MAY '24, 1866.
visitors with a cordial recollection of sum
mer weeks spent by her and her old maiden
servant in the country quarters at Cloven
ford, and attended them to the Assembly,
where the minister procured the party's ad
mission. And Jess saw his Grace the
Commissioner ; was duly impressed by his
throne ; heard, with all the interest a min
ister's daughter ought to feel, the question
of "teinds" amply discussed ; and just as
her high head, with its gipsy bonnet, was
beginning to nod in a manner the most un
dignified and unlike Jess, and when she
was thinking she could not keep her eyes
open a moment longer, though the Commis
sioner asked it of her as a personal favor,
or threatened to turn her out by his usher
if he caught her napping, the vote was ta
ken, and Jess was released, to repair to
Aunt Peggy's and her bed.
The next morning tho minister and Jess
were abroad betimes, while Aunt Peggy
gave herself wholly to solemn preparations
for the midday dinner. The walk was for
Jess's pleasure, that she might see again
the more remote rugged lion couchant, Ar
thur's Seat, and the nearer, smooth, pol
ished, glittering lions, the shops and the
passengers. Among the fellow-passengers
of Jess and the minister, while there were
some women who ridiculed the country cut
of Jess's black silk pelisse, there was more
than one man who turned to look after the
pair, and remark what a noble-looking
lass that was with the gray, stout, old
black coat.
The minister had fully discharged his ob
ligations as a cicerone. He had pointed
out the "White Hart," at which Dr. John
son alighted on his way to his tout in the
Hebrides ; the bookseller's shop where
Robbie Burns, in boots and tops, with a
riding-whip dangling over his arm, once
corrected proof-sheets of his songs; Rich
ardson's, frequented by young Mr. Scott,
the author of the poem of Marmion ; the
houses of Professors Dugald Stewart and
Sir Johu Hall, Captain Basil, the great
traveller's father ; and the Flesh Market
Close, where the best beefsteaks in the
kingdom were to be eaten. And Jess had
wondered, but found it impossible to ask,
whether they were near the street where
she remembered Sandy's lodgings had been,
and where it was just within nature he
might be.
" Father," said Jess, suddenly, with a
rush of color into her face, "1 would like to
go in here."
Mr. Stewart and Jess had been proceed
ing on the plan of a fair division of labor
and recreation. The minister's part per
formed, he had been walking along abstrac
tedly, only waking up occasionally at the
distant glimpse of a book-stall, where Jess
stood quietly beside him, as he stood qui
etly beside Jess when the attraction was a
linen-draper's or a jeweller's window.
i be minister bad tnquued or Juaa wheth
er she wanted anything, and Jess, after a
few modest purchases, had answered in the
negative ; hut he supposed now she had
met with an irresistable temptation, or re
called a forgotten commission. He followed
her into the entrance of what looked more
like a museum than a shop, and yielded up
his stick, not without an inclination to re
sist the demand, to a porter, while Jess
was hurriedly getting two tickets.
The minister stopped short in the door
way of another room, aggrieved and ireful;
but he bad never turned back in his life,
never refused to face an annoyance or a
difficulty, and his hesitation terminated in
his marching sulkily at the heels of Jess
into one of the Royal Society's earliest ex
hibitions.
The minister and Jess entered into no ex
planation and offered no comment as they
walked slowly up the room, literally daz
zled by the display ou the walls. How
ever connoisseurs might have disdained
the crude attempts of Wilkie, Allan, and
Thomson, they were marvels to tho coun
try folk, who were only acquainted with
the simpering or scowling representations
of ladies, like full-blown roses in their own
persons, clasping rose-buds between their
fingers and thumbs, aud gentlemen with
fierce tops of hair, breaking the seals of
letters, with as much cruel satisfaction as
if they had been crushing beetles. But all
at once both Jess and the minister's eyes
were fixed, while their feet were drawn to
a picture some yards in advance of them,
which they could distinguish through the
scanty sprinkling of visitors at that hour in
the room.
It was not one of the classic pieces,
which were the stock pieces there, nor ol"
the battle-field, nor of the landscapes, but a
little family group which was strangely
well known to them. They had seen the
round table, the straight-backed chairs, the
very ivory netting-box, many a time be
fore; and even these dumb pieces of furni
ture, so far from home, awoke a thousand
associations. „
Then what of the figure, with living eyes
looking out at them ? The elderly man
putting down his book to ponder its con
tents ; the young man with his face half
hidden by bis hand, as if weary or sad; the
girl entering the room on some household
errand; and she was there, setting in the
centre of them as she would sit no more,
looking not as she had looked when she
was passing away, not as Mr. Stewart with
a backward bound of his memory had been
given to see her lately, the iunoceot, ingen
uous, lovely girl who had come to the manse
of Clovenford, bringing with her sunshine,
poetry, and the first tremulous dewy bloom
of life, but Sandy and Jess's mother, whose
presence, weak woman as she was, had
been like a shelter and a stay, full of _the
security and serenity of experience, the
sweetness of the household content.
The drawing might be faulty, the color
ing streaky, but there again was the fam
ily, those of them who were still going
about the streets, and one who on thia
earth was not. It was a God-given faculty
aud a loving heart which thus reproduced
and preserved the past.
The minister and Jess stood as if spell
bound among the unheeding spectators,
aud gazed at the image of what they had
lost as if it had been given back to them,
with inexpressible longing ; when, at a
start from Jess, the minister turned round
and saw his wife's dead face in Sandy's
living one, gazing at them in agitation, as
they were gazing at the picture. He was
in mourning like themselves, but except
that he looked older, his brown hair dar
ker, aud that his blue eyes were dimmed
for the he was not altered, had as
much the air of a gentleman as ever, and
had emerged from a knot of gentlemen
who were making the circuit of the room
and an examination of the pictures with
the ease of free-masonry of privileged pro
fessional frequenters of the place.
JCSB scarcely noticed this at first. Her
heart leaped to greet her brother, and at
the same time she was terrified lest her fa
ther should think there had been an ap
pointment perhaps through Aunt Peggy,
and that she had deliberately betrayed him
into a meeting with his son ; whereas Jess
had known nothing even of the picture,
had been as much struck by the sight of it
as the minister, and had only entered the
exhibition on the impulse of the moment
when she read its name, determined to pay
that mark of respect to Sandy, and with
what lurking notion of establishing a com
munication or provoking an iucounter be
tween them she had not dared to tell her
self.
Jess was in dread of how the minister
would behave to Sandy ; she might have
known her father better, in his sound sense
and old-fashioned code of politeness.
" How are you, Sandy ?" the minister
asked, holding out his hand to his son, as
if nothing had happened.
Sandy was a great deal more put out as
he took the offered hand and shook it, and
said iu a breath, " I am glad to see you
looking so well, father ; and, Jess, when
did you come to town V
Mr. Stewart satisfied his son's curiosity
with a word, and then it was in entire
keeping with the man, that his next words
were in indignant reprobation,—
" Sandy, how dared you make your fam
ily a gazing-stock on the walls of a public
exhibition without even asking their leave?"
" I did not think you would dislike it so
much, sir," stammered Sandy. "There are
' many portraits here. I have not put the
; names, and I did not fancy the original
would be generally recognized. The pic
ture is sold to a friend."
" Sold !" exclaimed Mr. Stewart, with a
great increase of anger and a quiver of
| consternation in his voice ; "how could
you do such a thing ? Who is the buyer?"
"I meant to take a copy, as I could not
afford to keep what I believe is the best
thiDg I have done, though 1 have sold some
other subjects readily enough since my re
turn. I dare say I should have altered
tin's, had not the buyer been an old friend.
He bought it at rny own price the first
morning he saw :t," Sandy expatiated, with
pardonable pride. "He should be a judge
of the liknesses, when he is one of your
own parishioners. lie was here to-day,
and yonder he is finding yon out—Birk
holrn."
Misfortunes do not come alone, nor do
old friends meet singly. Adam Stottis
woode was delighted to come in this man
ner upon the Stewarts, and share the
pledge of reconciliation which the group
implied, to take it boldly as an omen of
otlier alliances. For Birkholm still han
kered after Jess with an inextinguishable
hankering, which was beginning to deepen
into the glow of true love. In all his ex
perience of life for the last year or two, he
had seen nobody yet to come up to Jess
Stewart.
People from the same parish of Cloven
ford, the Stewarts aud the laird, encoun
tering each other in the wilderness of a
city, were like one family already, and the
laird improved the occasion by attaching
himself assiduously to the Stewarts, as he
would not have had the confidence to do in
the Den of Birkholm, acting on the princi
ple that it would be disrespectful to his
minister not to joiu his ranks when they
turned up in a public place among stran
gers, and that in these circumstances he
had as good a right to investigate narrow
ly when the minister and Jess had come,
where they were staying, and when they
were going home, as if he were as minutely
acquaiutod with the daily routine of their
lives when he was at Birkholm and they at
Olovenford. And without doubt Birkholm's
comely, mauly, gentleman-like presence
was like a "kind, kenned face" to the min
ister and Jess in Edinburgh, however light
ly they might regard it in their parish.
Jess opened her ej'es a little at his atten
tion, but she did not repulse hint, and the
minister only staggered him for a moment.
" Birkholm, you'll give up that picture ;
it is mine by a double right!"
The next instant Birkholm was eagerly
assuring the minister, "It is yours, Mr.
Stewart; do not say another word about
it," and accrediting with a throb of tri
umph that he had earned the minister's
gratitude.
The picture was not Mr. Stewart's, how
ever, in the sense which Birkholm intended
at first. The minister would pay him
every pound of his money for it, though it
should stint his small purse ; and the laird
had the wit to see, soon, that if he would
stand well with the high-spirited old man,
he must refrain from offering him a gift of
his wife and children's portraits (as for the
minister's own, the minister might not have
minded that). Until Birkholm had a title
to he painted on the same canvas, he had
better be modest in his favors.
Mr. Stewart took another lingering look
at the picture after it was his own, and ex
amined Sandy strictly on its removal and
packing, a little nettled that it was at the
service of the Academy for a week or two
longer. Afterwards the minister made the
rest of the round of the room on Sandy's
arm, freely availing himself of his sou's in
formation, and making pertineut remarks,
which were honorable to the shrewd criti
cism of an old prejudiced ignoramus.
Before the picture of "Jobn Knox Preach
ing to the Regeut," not without correspond
ing tire in the handling, Mr. Stewart stood
sti 1 again, and commended it warmly. He
finished by a more personal admission,
worthy of the minister, a half-smile playing
over his powerful features : " Sandy, your
art is far below the cure of souls, yet 1 own
there is something in it, after all. But it
was your mother's face that beat me."
Birkholm accompanied Jess, and saw no
necessity for concealing from her what had
been bis intention regarding the picture ;
and Jess was not offended, but thanked
him softly even when he spoke of a copy,
and bis project of hanging it opposite the
pictures of his father and mother in the
dining-room at Birkholm. And if that was
not a broad bint, the laird did not know
what was.
Jess was so happy—and humble in her
happiness—that she could not find it in her
heart to contradict Birkholm; and the
young laird, not being at all used to his
#8 per Annum, in Advance.
own way with Jess Stewart, and finding it
intoxicating, went on at a fine pace. But
first he had the grace to tell her how Sandy
was spoken of among artists, of what prom
ise he was held, and to point out some of
Sandy's friends who were not like the por
trait painters Jess had seen at Woodend ;
and to say the picture of the family had ex
cited a sensation, and that if Jess and the
minister were doubly recognized as two of
the originals, and as the sister and the fa
ther of the artist, they would have to bear
some staring for Sandy's sake. Here Jess's
credulity broke down. This statement
was more than she could swallow, though
she had been devouring the rest, —the no
tion that though Sandy should be the
greatest painter in the land, the minister
would be pointed at as Sandy's father.
Next, Birkholm's tongue wagged wildly
on his own affairs. There was word of his
sisb r Effie's marriage, indeed, he might
Bay it was as good as settled, with one of
the Edinburg writers ; and Betsy's captain
was with his ship, and Betsy, who was not
sailing with him on his present station,was
delicate, and wanted Nancy to keep her
company in her lodgings at an English ,
seaport, and he would be left all by him- j
self at Birkholin. It seemed he thought no
shame of appealing to the charity of a
friend, and arrived speedily at direct insin
uations that Jess might visit Edinburgh
again with him and the minister in a month
or two, after harvest and before the hunt
ing season, or even might make the pres
ent visit serve two purposes, as, where
people were of one mind, the sooner "these
things" were done the better.
Jess was forced to interpose and put a
check on the honest, gallant laird, lest he
should come to the point of affronting her
by proposing plainly that ber stay in town
should extend over the Sabbath, and then
there would be time to send word to the
session clerk and precenter of Clovenford
to have their names cried in the kirk, and
the minister would celebrate the ceremony
on the Monday, without the trouble of wed
ding clothes or wedding guests, or "riding
the broose." "Thee things," as the laird
called them with agreeable, self-conscious
vagueness, were thus performed frequently.
The world had awakened to perceive a
want of delicacy in the old ostentatious pa
rade and riotous rejoicings at marriages,
and had run into opposite extreme by en
couraging couples to steal off and be mar
ried in secret, fine ladies at Richmond,their
maids at Chelsea. Half of Jess's acquaint
ances quitted their homes, not in the ac
complishment of elopements, but with the
full consent of friends and relatives, and
posted in the all but universal white gowns
and yellow buckskins, affording naclew to
their design, to Edinburg or some other
large town, to be married in the privacy of
a crowd.
But Jess Stewart was not so minded. If
Birkholm had penetrated her secret, she
had arrived at her conclusion with the
swiftness of lightning, while mechanically
reviewing the specimens of early Scotch
art in the Exhibition. Women are seldom
at fault v/heii they stumble unawares on
the leading transactions of their lives,
they have rehearsed it too often in imagin
ation, —and women like Jess Stewart,
never.
" I shall not be back in Edinburgh till
the spring," said Jess, composedly, glanc
ing at her black silk pelisse ; " I think my
Aunt Peggy wants me over at that time,"
she added, with the duplicity which even a
woman like Jess could not resist being
guilty of, in the strait. Had she been
clear as crystal in this as in other matters,
she would further have comforted the laird;
"and then, Birkholm, after I have accus
tomed my father to the thought of not see
ing me every day in my mother's place,and
have made every provision for his comfort,
we will wed, but I think on a bonnie April
afternoon, in the (Jlovenford dining-room,
where the sound of the healths and the
cheering will reach to the kirkyard,-es far
as my mother's grave. You and me have
spirit enough not to be feared at the ring
ing and firing ; we would rather give the
folk the play." |As to Birkholm, he took the
comfort for granted, and did not need it ex
pressed in words.
Birkholm dined with the family at Aunt
Peggy's on the dainty early lamb and the
inythicallysounding forced potatoes and
strawberries, the stereotyped luxuries of
the Assembly week in Edinburgh. Aunt
Peggy, that estimable and convenient kins
woman, though she had never been in the
same room with the laird and her niece be
fore, her eyes probably opened by her hos
pitability and its good cheer, followed Jess
when she retired to prepare for her home
ward journey, and folded her in her arms
as soon as they were in the best bedroom ;
called her a fine lass, who had done her
duty by father and mother and brother,and
enthusiastically predicted her reward. For
Aunt Peggy's part, she had always prom
ised that she would give Jess her tea chi
na, and she would take care that Jesß had
a set which would not disgrace the brass
mounted tea-table of old Lady Birkholm,
She would notjsay but, all things consid
ered, Jess might not count on her tea trays
forbye.
Jess and the minister hied home to (Jlo
venford,well supported. They had the wil
ling convoy of both the young men, —San-
dy to remain for a month's holidays. He
was to inaugurate his picture, and be a
witness to all the parish coming to see and
and admire it, and to the minister never
tired of showing it off till he succeeded in
discovering subtle touches which the pain
ter had never laid on. "My hand is closed
on my spectacles. Jess is bringing in the
eggs. She is copying a leaf from her rose
tree in her work. She had the first China
rose in Clovenford.and she was very ingen
ious. It is from his mother he takes his
talent."
But beforehand, when Mr. Stewart and
the young people returning late in the sum
mer night to (Jlovenford, and the latter de
layed for a moment at the manse gate to
take leave of Birkholm and enter into an
appointment with him for the next day, the
minister walked up the garden path alone
to the door. "It is all dark," he thought,
looking up in the purple gloom at the qui
et little house and the neighboring kirk and
kirkyard, on which the morning would soon
dawn in midsummer gladness, "where her
light should have shone, and she would
have liked well to have seen the two lads
aud the lass come home, and to have got
her picture by her son's hand, though she
had behooved to admit for once that I had
been in the wrong. Bat who says she's
blind 1 She has gone where faith is sight,
and where they know the end from the be
ginning,and she has her share of the knowl
edge. I warrant she sees farther than any
of ns, —to have us all round her again, and
her, bonny Jean Clephane, restored to im
mortal youth. I cannot rightly understand
how the lass and the wife and mother can
be one and the same ; but lam sure it
shall be, and that will be perfection. And
oh ! Jean, woman, when I've sorted and
settled the bairns,and done something more
for my Master, I will be blythe to go home
to my old friend and my young wife."
NUMBER 52.
THE POWER OF THE HEART. —Let any one
while setting down, place the left leg over
the knee of the right one, and permit it to
hang freely, abandoning all muscular con
trol over it. Speedily it may be observed
to sway forward and backward through a
limited space of regular intervals. Count
ing the number of these motions from any
given time, they will be found to agree
exactly with the beatings of the pulse.
Every one knows that, at fires, when the
water from the engine is forced through
bent hose, the tendency is to straighten
the hose, and if the bend be a sharp one,
considerable force is necessary to over
come the tendency. Just so it is in the case
of the human body. The arteries are but a
system of hose, through which the blood
is forced by the heart. When the leg is
bent, all the arteries within it are bent too
and eve.ry time the heart contracts the
blood rushes through the arteries, tends to
straighten them ; and it is the effort which
produces the motion of the leg alluded to.
Without such ocular demonstration, it is
difficult to conceive the power exerted by
I the exquisite mechanism, the normal pulsa
i tions of which are never perceived by him
whose very life they are.
*
Not so very long ago, in one of the Wes
tern States, there was a certain Baptist
i church whose members were not exactly a
unit on the subject of immersion. At a
meeting of church officers, on one occasion,
a certain person, not remarkable for purity
of life, sent in a request for admission into
their fold. One of the committe, a rather
rough man, on hearing the name of the in
dividual : " That man ! Well, if that roso is
to be admitted to the church he ought to
soak over night."
POETRY OF LABOR.
Toil swings the axe, and forests bow,
The seeds break out in radiant bloom,
Rich harvests smile behind the plow,
And cities cluster round the loom ;
Where towering domes and tapering spires
Adorn the vale and crown the hill,
Stout Labor lights its beacon fires,
And plumes with smoke the forge and mill.
The monarch oak, the woodland's pride,
Whose trunk is seamed with lightning scars,
Toil launches on the restless tide,
And there unrolls the flag of stars ;
The engine with its lungs of flames,
And ribs of brass and joints of steel,
From Labor's plastic fingers came,
With sobbing valve and whirling wheel.
'Tis labor works the magic press,
And turns the c rank in hives of toil,
And beckons angels down to bless
Industrious hands on sea and soil.
Her sun-browned Toil, with shining spade,
Links lake to lake, with silver ties
Strung thick with palaces of trade,
And temples towering to the skies.
FUN, FACTS AND FAOETLE.
A justice, better versed in law than gos
pel, married a couple in this way :
" Hold up your hands. You solemnly swear
that you will faithfully perform the duties of your
office, jointly and severally, according to your best
skill and judgment, so help you God. That's all,
fee one dollar."
A LITERAL FACT. —" Didn't you tell me you
could hold a plow!" said the farmer to the Irish
man he had taken on trial. "Re aisy, now," sayS
Pat. " How could I hold it an' two horses pullin"
it away? Just stop the creatures and I'll hold it
for you."
GIVING A CHARACTER. —" I)o you know the
prisoner, Mr. Wiggms ?" "Yes, to the bone."
•'Whatis his character?" "Didn't know he had
any." "Does he live near you?" "So near that
he has only spent five dollars for fixe wood in eigh£
years."
IDLENESS. —Idleness is the dead sea that
swallows up all virtues, and the self-made sepul
cher of a living man. The idle man is the devil's
urchin whose livery is rags, and whose diet and
wages are famine and disease.
WE have heard of asking for bread and
receiving a stone ; but a young gentleman may be
considered as still worse treated, when he asks
for a young lady's hand and gets her father's foot.
A French writer, describing the trading
powers of a genuine Yankee, said : "If he was
cast away on a desolate island, he'd get up next
morning and go around selling.maps to the inhab
itants."
" AH, doctaw, does the choleraw awfect
the highwa awda ?" "No," replied the doctor to
the exquisite, "but it's death on fools, and you'd
better leave the city at once."
Prentice Bays girls will differ. One of
them lately broke her neck in trying ts escape be
ing kissed, uud a great many of them are ready to
break their necks to get kissed.
'• William," said a teacher to one of his
pupils, "can you tell me what makes the sun rise
in the east?" "Don't know, Sir," replied William,
"cept it be that the east makes every thing rise."
A land speculator, in describing a lake
on an estate in Cumberland, says it is so close and
so deep that bj looking into it you can see them
making tea in China.
A WESTERN "local" acknowledges the gift
of "two bouquets smiling in their paper frills as
do girls' faces within their laced nightcaps." That
man is too imaginative to be kept on prosaic "items.'
MRS. Partington asks very indignantly,
if the bills before Congress are not counterfeit, why
there should be so much difficulty in passing them?
A WHITE man in St. Louis became enraged
at a negro, the other day, and was about to strike
him with a brickbat, when the colored man fell
back on his reserved right: Look here white man,
don't you strike me wid dat ar rock—don't you do
it, sar. I'd hab you know dat wben you strikes
me you strikes a bureau!
A HOI'SEKEEFER'S MAXIMS.— Never say
dye until you have had your silk turned twice.
Good wine needs no bush, but home-made Cham
pagne does need the gooseberry-bush.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatch
ed ; and avoid as much as possible having them in
your breakfast eggs.
Half a loaf is better than no bread, and half a
stale loaf will go further than new bread.
THE BEST RECOMMENDATION. —A youth seek
ing employment came to New York city, and on in
quiring at a certain counting-room if they wished
a clerk, was told they did not. On mentioning tho
recommendations that he had, one of which was
from a highly respected citizen, the merchant de
sired to see them. In turning over his carpet-bag
to find his letters, a book rolled out on the floor.
"What book is that ?" said the merchant.
"It is the Bible, sir," was the reply.
"And what are you going to do with that book
in New York?"
The lad looked seriously into the merchant's
lace, and replied, "I promised my mother I would
read it every day, and 1 shall do it."
The merchant immediately engaged his services,
and in due time he became a partner in the firm—
one of the most respectable in the city.