"Ah! that I could see," said he. "Devil's blood! it is an easy thing," replied Matelin. "You have only to ascend to the top of the mill, and you will be taller than I Mao approved of the advice, and ascended the old ladder. When he arrived at the summit, his cousin inquired if he saw any thing. "I only see the trees, which appear as near to the ground as corn of two months' growth," answered he, "and the houses seem to me as small as the shells standing dry upon the sea-shore." “Look nearer," resumed Matelin. "Nearer! I only see the sea with the ships which skim the water like gulls." "Nearer still," continued the soldier. "Nearer still, it is the moors sprinkled with flowers and roseate heath." "But beneath you." "Beneath me!" exclaimed Mao, terrified, "instead of the ladder to descend I see flames which are about to devour me!" And he saw correctly, for Matelin had withdrawn the ladder and set fire to the faggots, so that the old mill was in the midst of a furnace. Mao vainly supplicated the giant not to let him perish in so cruel a manner, the latter turned his back and descended the sandhill whistling. Then the young man, feeling himself already nearly suffocated, repeated the invocation. "Aman, aman, clasker Maro, At the very instant the saint appeared, holding in his right-hand a rainbow, one end of which rested in the sea, whilst the other end poured a heavy shower, and in his left-hand Jacob's ladder, which united the earth with the heavens. The rainbow quenched the fire, and Mao made use of the ladder to descend, and he regained the manoir without having suffered any damage. At his appearance Matelin was seized with astonishment and fear, certain that his cousin would go and denounce him to the judges, he ran to fetch his arms and war-horse, but as he was going out of the great yard Mao approached and said to him, "Have no fear, cousin, for no man upon earth shall know what has happened upon the heath of Daoulas. You were sick at heart because God had vouchsafed to me greater worldly prosperity than he had to you. I wish to cure your heart. From this day forth and during my life you shall have the half of every thing which belongs to me, save my beloved Liçzenn. Go then, cousin, and have no more wicked thoughts against me." The deeds of that arrangement were drawn up by a notary according to custom, and Matelin received every month the half of the produce of the fields, of the stock, and of the dairy. But Mao's generosity had only augmented the venom of Matelin's heart, for kindness which one does not merit resembles wine which one drinks without thirst-it gives neither pleasure nor profit. He did not now harbour any wish to destroy Mac, because if dead he would lose the share given him out of his estate, but he hated him as the wolf in his cage hates the keeper who feeds him. That which increased his anger more than any thing else was that every thing turned out prosperously for his cousin; there was nothing wanting but a child to make him perfectly happy. Liçzenn at length gratified his wishes by presenting him with a beautiful boy, who was born without crying. Mao invited all the nobility of more than five leagues round to attend the baptismal ceremony. They arrived from Braspars, Kimeréh, Loperec, Logom a Faon, Irvillac, and St. Eloi, all mounted on horseback, well equipped, and having their wives and daughters on pillions behind them. The baptism of the Prince of Cornouaille did not attract so many people of good and noble families. All the world found itself assembled before the manoir, and Mao went to fetch the baby from Liçzenn's chamber, accompanied by those who were to hold him at the baptistry, and by his most particular friends, when Matelin presented himself in his turn, having the joy of a traitor upon his face. At his entrance the sick mother uttered a cry, but he approached her in a cringing attitude, and after having complimented her, he thanked her for the present she had made him. "What present?" demanded the poor woman, astonished. "Have you not added a baby to the wealth of my cousin ?" said the soldier. "It is true," answered Liçzeen. "A deed upon vellum has given me the right to the half of all which belongs to Mao, save your beloved person," added Matelin, "and I come in consequence to claim my share of the child." All those who were present uttered loud cries of astonishment, but Matelin repeated tranquilly that he demanded his half of the infant, adding, that if they refused he would take it himself, and he exhibited a great knife which the butchers use to cut up pigs with, and which he brought for the purpose of dividing it. The Mao and Liçzeen went on their knees and humbly but earnestly entreated him, with uplifted hands, to renounce his horrible right. giant only answered by sharpening the blade upon the steel which hung suspended from his girdle. At last he went to seize the child from the arms of the young woman. Mao recollected all of a sudden his friend the mendicant, and he repeated the invocation aloud : 66 Amán, aman, clasker Maro, Scarcely had he finished the words than the chamber was illuminated with a celestial light, and the saint appeared in a cloud with the Virgin Mary at his side. "Here I am, noble people," said the Virgin. "My faithful servant, Stevan, has induced me to quit the kingdom of the stars and to come and decide between you." "If you are the mother of God, save my child! Oh, save my child!" cried Liçzeen, in agony. 66 If you are the queen of heaven, order that which is my due to be delivered up to me," added Matelin, audaciously. "Listen to me," resumed the Virgin. "You, first of all, Mao, and you, Liçzeen, approach with the new-born child. Until now I have 242 granted you only the joys of life and of the world. I will do more; You shall follow me into the paraI will give you the joys of death. dise of my son, where neither grief, treachery, nor sickness shall come. As to you, Goliah, you are entitled to a share of the new-born babe: it and die like them, but to descend twelve hundred is granted to you, you and fifty leagues* under the earth into the kingdom of the demon." In finishing these words, she extended her hand, and the giant was swallowed up in a pit of fire, whilst the young couple and their infant, reclining one upon another, like a family buried in sleep, were carried away and disappeared in a cloud. THE ARISTOCRATIC ROOKS. A SKETCH FOR THE GREAT FAMILY OF THE SMITHS. BY ANDREW WINTER. WAS it Spring-or Summer? The question would have been a difficult one to answer, but that here and there, in the green lane, as you looked up in the great chestnut-trees, the tender fan-like leaves seemed crumpled and languid, like the wings of insects just unfurled from their Winter sheathes. That it was not full Summer you were again reminded by the blooms of the wild apple-trees standing in the hedges on either side, and upon the ground below. scattering a semicircle of fresh white blossoms Neither, in Summer, does the note of the mavis seem so clear as it bursts out without any warning from the hedgerow, reminding one of Chaucer, and the song he heard that fresh morning, in the medlar-tree, near five centuries ago. How wonderfully Nature reproduces herself! Those notes are the same that that thorough English bird piped to Gurth the swineherd, as he drove his unsavoury flock to the mast forest in the days of the Normans. And the cuckoo, do you not hear him? Where is he?—up in the elm-tree? or in that alder-bush? You turn east, and west, and wonder where the soft mechanical note comes from. Never mind, there it is, and that is enough. Some prosaic people think of quaint Dutch clocks when they hear him, and some of the fat monks who used to walk about their rich abbey-lands in the old summers that are gone, their bare crowns shining come up, Like any glass in the sun, and distilling unctuous beads of dew faster than his fierce rays could drink them up. We think of " merry England" we suppose, when we hear the sounds of our English song birds, and see the Spring flowers because our early poets were so fond of them, and appeared to talk of little else, so that they seem a part of the middle ages; and we are somewhat puzzled to think that they should have survived its brave A great religion has passed away; we customs-but here they are. hunt the branches of the yew-tree no longer for the trusty weapon; where once the villagers shot with the crossbow now come Commissioners of Enclosure, and obliterate its sod and the footpaths that generations This is the precise distance at which the Bretons place hell. have graven; the passage of swift, rushing steam, seems to have put our great mother herself into irons. Amid all these changes Nature works still by her eternal laws. You see that clump of cowslips, just beside the freshly shrouded tree; those flowers are as old as time itself. We shall all die and be dust, we and all our friends, but those cowslips will spring up just the same, in the precise order they now stand, some fine morning centuries hence, and they will hang their heads, and the soft shadows of the perfect day will lie upon them just the same; so many will have pearls in their eyes, and so many will be without them. Talk of ancestors, indeed, we should like to see the genealogy of one of those flowers-what a family-tree it could show!!! To leave the stile, over which in fancy we have been leaning, and to turn again into our green lane. Two labourers are approaching each other, homeward-bound, after the toils of the day. They meet, and stop some little apart, for labourers rarely come near, or shake hands, in their passing recognitions. 66 Well, Tummas," says one, "how be you ?" Purty well, Willum; how be missus now?" "She be getting on prime; please God the fine weather do last she'll soon be about again. I be just come drew the five acre-the young wheat do thrive amain." "Ah! it do then. Why, what's to do up at the hall. I hear tell the squire be going." "Ah, sure enough; somebody from up Lunnun ways a'took it. Bob Wiltshire was a saying, down at the Open Hand,' as how the new-comer's name be Smith." "Sure. Well, the old squire was a good friend to the poor, but a little hasty like; and Miss Emily, a good many folk will miss her hereabouts." "Ah, they wool. Good night, Tummas." "Good night, Willum." And thus the two labourers separated. Their conversation, however, especially the latter part of it, seemed of not a little interest to a third party. On one side of the lane was a ploughed field; and close to the hedge, perched upon a fresh lump of loam, shining from the recent passage of the share, stood a very knowing-looking old file of a rook. A little red worm twisted and tied and untied knots in his beak; but the rook seemed lost in thought, as he caught the last words of the labourers' talk. He cocked his shining head on one side, and seemed to drink in every word with his little clear black eye. When the sounds of the speakers' footsteps were heard widening apart, he seemed suddenly to remember the agile little worm, and making a sudden bolt of him, said to himself, as if he mused over some great fact,-"The old family going-a Smith coming-here's a go!"-and fled off rapidly to where the distant top of a rookery stood painted against an evening sky. It was a pleasant scene, up in the windy crowns of those ancestral elms. Every available fork of their" marriageable arms" was filled with a black comfortable looking nest. Here and there a yellow beak was seen sunning itself, as it rested upon the edge of its cradle, and the level light of a declining sun shone upon a glossy poll. Other young rooks, more actively inclined, and "just going off,"-to use a maternal term, were hopping from branch to branch, and making balancing poles of their fluttering wings to steady their unstable footing. Below, just seen between the green branches, like a picture of Ruysdael's, showed the fine rubicund* visage of the old hall, made more glorious than ever in colour by the red glow of the setting sun, which fell upon it sideways, and threw a deep shadow from every projection and bossy ornament, at the same time stamping upon the background of deep green trees, the golden dragon on the clock-tower, which, by its burning stillness, gave a wonderful repose to the picture. The trim garden at its front lay like a map rolled out before it, cut into a thousand quaint walks and flower-beds. Who is that, dressed in the loose white robes of summer, who wanders so disconsolately along the old yew-tree walk? She turns into the summer-house, and sits down as if full of thought; she gazes upon the little windows, and bursts into tears as she sees some name scratched upon the pane-a brother's, perhaps, long dead and gone-the bees come stealing by, and their hum is drowned in the deep honey cups; the butterflies in pairs come dancing through the air, and palpitate upon the swinging flowers at her feet; but she looks not, her heart is full'tis the squire's fair young child taking her last walk in the garden-the old family are about to leave their inheritance, and to-morrow comes the foot of the stranger. The evening was fast gathering in, and the sky was dotted with the flight of rooks sailing home from the distant woods. Upon the highest perch of the rookery, meanwhile, the old bird took his post. Presently the rooks one by one came dropping down, waving the light branches of the elms as they perched. They could all see that something was in the wind. What could it be? There was a deep silence in the rookery. Reader, have you not, when dreamily sauntering up one of those old respectable avenues of elms, been all at once brought to a state of consciousness by the sudden ceasing of that dignified "caw, caw," which, unobserved, formed a pleasing running accompaniment to some vague regret that you had not ancestors also, and a wish that that fine coat-ofarms so elaborately graven upon your handsome seal-ring was something more than a "delusion and a snare;" have you not, on such occasions, stood still, and, peering up between the green network of leaves, asked yourself, "What are the rooks so quiet about." Depend upon it there was much in such silence; who knows but that they might have been breathlessly awaiting the discovery of a fact as important as the old bird is about to unfold. It was provoking, even to rook nature, to witness the coolness with which he stretched out his wing, with a kind of yawning expression, then looked up with a glance as much as to say, "the honour of rookdom is in my hands," then turned his unimpassioned beak down again upon his languid wing, and set smooth some erring feather. 66 I have lived here, rook and squab, this last ninety years," said he, They have lost the art of building these old brick mansions now-or rather the art of making the materials. Look at an old Elizabethan house: how time seems to have fused the bricks together into one kindly whole, and tinted it with a colour which fills the painter with delight at its repose, and the harmony it exhibits to the surrounding scenery. Our modern villās rejoice in a burning yellow, bright enough to scorch the eyes out of a salamander. |