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day afternoon rambles, angel cradles, shadowy forests, boundless prairies, red volcanoes, or veritable Elysian fields at will, without one remorseful recollection of Virgil misconstrued. Such to us were clouds then.

Summer comes again, and again with long twilight and balmy dawn, with meditative rambles over miles of heath land sleeping in the moonlight, with the gushing music of the nightingale, whose song now seems like the music of sorrow, mellowed by time, with all the soothing sounds of a summer night floating near open casements, whereout men gaze with dreamy eyes into a darkness redolent of closing flowers, but I feel not as then. I have still my boyhood's wild love of all night's sweet influences-but I cannot dwell on them as I would. They will melt away before-it may be one passing thought of the outer world; the shadow of that one thought troubles for a season the soul's clear under current; my heart is grown colder-my head has schooled it to that cruel coldness in the school of the world; but they are unchanged, those subtle influences and sweet externals, which will soothe to purify many a weary heart when mine is lying under the hawthorn in our old churchyard. Shelley knew a like feeling when he wrote

We rest-a dream has power to poison sleep;

We rise-one wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep,

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away.

It is the same! For, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free,
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!"

I

Earthly joys have eagle-wings-my poor lost friend and I could not be always dreaming. was myself perpetually preaching of the "poetry of action," as I lay leisurely on my back in the sun; the world was to be our battle-field, and we were both going shortly on our several ways-he, sanguine, frank, impetuous, and with Pistol's idea

the world's mine oyster," &c., a theory which unfortunately has two sides; and I, leisurely, hopefully, with a quiet heart, as was my wont then. Walter Cheyne was the only son of a clergyman of ancient lineage and small means, whose pride wore, as an anchorite his hair-shirt, a continuance of petty mortifications of self, by reason of a long pedigree and a scanty purse. Having left Oxford, after a short sojourn there, in a fit of disgust, he betook himself to London, and there meeting an old college friend, whose bread was only procurable by his pen's painful drudgery, he first conceived the idea of settling down in our peopled

desert of brick and mortar

where each one Seeks his mate, yet is alone

as a literary hermit, with hope as a sign-post to fame. I can see in fancy that lost friend of my early years before me as he stood in life, with his

eyes flashing as he gazed long and thoughtfully on the firelight flickering on the well-worn backs of the tall chairs round this room. He and I were to part that day week; we had agreed to make the most of our time, so he took up his abode with me in this old house, which we then had all to ourselves. We kept late hours, talking through the long nights, often till a winter sky's cold grey took a warmer tint from the tardy flush of dawn, indul. ging in subtle self-dissections, reducing, as is the way of youths, probabilities to certainties, and years to months, when Walter Cheyne would be likely to prove in his own person Young's hopeful thesisa desire is an earnest of fulfilment." It was, indeed, a long, dreary vista-but hope saw through it a light gleaming; onwards would he go with a prayer on his lip and strong will looking out from those dark, wild eyes of his. Poor friend! "lighter than vanity itself" are all those sanguine fancies

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now.

The smoke-wreaths still curl gracefully in spiral before me, asrings-once more there is another life picture

Seul, je viens recueiller mes vagues reveries. Let me show it to you, as a dim shadowing forth of what has been-not in the hard outline of a concise narration but abstractedly, pensively, and as though you (and not I) were the dreamer. Fancy carries me away to my dingy London chambers, where I sat moodily endeavouring to put my thoughts on paper, as a means of obtaining a guinea or two from a newspaper office hard by. Again, as of old, with the startling distinctness of a sound heard here at midnight, I hear a low tap at my

door-then walking out to the landing, I see a little boy, with red eyes and a white, haggard face, He had hoped to find in London's life lottery a who brought me a note from poor Walter Cheyne. prize; he pined, struggled, worked long and wearily to that end, and drew a blank. I had never heard of him since we parted two years back in his ambition, and his pride was stronger than on the old terrace of this place-for he had failed his friendship.

loneliness of heart, in a dingy room, in a dreary And now he was dying, in great street of London, without a friend to soothe the pangs of approaching dissolution. I left the boy in the passage, as with one bound I leaped down the dark staircase, making the old balustrade creak with the unwonted energy of my descent, and in a few minutes I was at poor Walter's bed-side. Memory brings him before me now-as he lay there dying in that darkened room, with the last rays of the setting sun beaming redly through the half-drawn curtains on the sufferer's pale face. The thin hands, almost feminine in their delicate whiteness, the wasted form, the laboured breathings -all told a tale of long sorrow soon to be hushed in death. The dark eyes still were wild in their glances as of old; but there was a softened sadness, a quiet hopelessness, as regarded things

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given in the land whither I go. I have lovedlove brought me tears-yet love was not all in vain; love dies not with our hopes, and love's memory is green round- my heart, as the grass will

present, in their wanderings round the sick man's chamber now. He was dying, and he knew it well -therefore then-and not till then-had affliction conquered my poor friend's pride so far as to suffer him to write to me a last request, that I would-be ere long upon my grave. I made idols, and come quickly to see him die."

I came into the room with a fast-beating heart, and cheek white as his who lay on the bed before me. Then he spoke-but the voice was not the the voice of the Walter of my schooldays; it was low and musical, but the music was sad, as the halfforgotten song anew-remembered. How we talked, till the moon rode high in the heavens, and the stars looked calmly down through the half-open window on our sorrow-I cannot-I will not notice now. The neighbouring clocks struck one, two, three, four, yet I still sat by that bedside with the dying man's hand in mine.

"You will not leave me," said he with a strange, sweet smile," death will soon relieve friendship of this vigil. It is well, perhaps, that this life-drama is thus soon played out; it is well, perhaps, that here, in this quiet room, with my hand in yours, we should meet at last, dear friends so long dividedand we meet but for you to see me die. I have lived on thus far through many sorrows, and have hoped in my selfish pride even in the very teeth of despair and now life's warfare is over; the world's shadows are fading fast away in the light of the eternal dawn fast breaking on my weary soul. S-, I could wish no better death than this.

the world shattered them in its cold, mighty scorn.
Friendship and love are not shadows-they are life's
substance truly; earth's evil dreams may shroud
or distort them for a while-nay, blind us for
a while, till we leave them for the myths of our
own unquiet hearts-but now, dying, I say that
love is the Paraclete of earth, and friendship love's
second self; I have the memory of pure love, and
the presence of pure friendship embodied, S-
in you, to lead me by the hand on to the mists of
the Silent Land. Under my pillow you will find
Shelley's Prometheus Unbound,' give it to me
-there-read what Asia says to Panthea."
I read with a tremulous voice-

All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever,
Like the wide heaven, the all sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God-
They who inspire it most, are fortunate,
As I am now; but they who feel it most,
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.

and feverish activity of the great city began once
The sky was red with dawning day-the hum
dingy factories-and my poor friend's hour was
more--the air grew thicker with the smoke of
come. A whispered prayer through his half-parted
and he spoke once more-
lips-a gentle sigh-a faint clasp of my hand-

let me see him for the last time-I shall not see
"The sun is rising-throw open the window-

Up rose the sun redly in the heavens; but his rays fell on the face of the departed! There lay Walter Cheyne, the gifted, pure hearted friend of my happier days, dead in that quiet room! Poor friend! I wept then-I could not weep now; thou hope and fear vex not, where faith, after long art gone where sin and sorrow come not, where wanderings, leaves man on heaven's shore. I wept then that I had lost a dear friend; but selfish was that sorrow-for he fell asleep in God!

Remember how, long ago, you and I read together
in Izaak Walton (remember the place of my read-
ing and my mention of it when you go back to
our boyhood's home); we thought then that the
mind of man could compass by a wish no greater
happiness in death than by the prayer of pretty
little Maudlin—'to die young, and to have spring-him set."
time flowers strewn over her grave.' Could I-
could you wish for me a better death now? I die
after the fever of the soul is over-after pride's
sinful repinings and self-relying efforts have
ceased-I die at early dawn, with the flashes of
daybreak beaming over this haggard face, with
the sweet breath of this yet untainted morning
wind fanning my hot temples; dying with my
early hopes faded around me-with faith in the
future to which our God beckons me with loving
hand-I leave earth's trials, sius and sorrows, for
a purer dawn beyond the tomb, and our friendship,
which began when we first strolled in the quiet
'gloaming' by our own river side, pauses but for
a brief space on the brink of my early grave.
When I am dead, S- take me away from Lon-
don, and lay my body under the tree we planted by
the moss-grown church-wall at home, where the sun
of summer mornings may rest on the sward, and
the south winds moaning through the old creaking
ash may gently stir the daisies on my grave. You
will promise me this ?"

"I will," was murmured solemnly.

"Then I die happy-forgiving many cruel slights and heartless calumnies, as I hope to be for

Often

Reader! I buried him in the churchyard at home, which in life he had loved so well. in the long summer evenings do I sit upon his grave, when the sky is turning grey, and the village is quiet, and the crows fly home heavily over the broad fields. On the stone that marks his resting place is his self-chosen epitaph :

Walter Cheyne.

AGED 22 YEARS.

"His sun hath gone down while it was yet day."

Often, when I would sigh in sorrow, blind and selfish, that so much worth should be thus early

22.

AN ADVENTURE IN KAFFIRLAND.

hidden in an unknown grave, faith whispers consolation, that we shall meet again where his genius, looking ever upward, yearned to meet the glorious spirits of old time, and that there, perhaps, joy perfected will remember in humility our brief sojourn here, our pure friendship, our hopes and purer aspirations, his life of self-imposed penury and sorrow, and his quiet grave under the old wall of the churchyard of his boyhood's home.

Reader! men like him live around you; men like him struggle after the hope of their proud, true young hearts, and die in self contempt aud great loneliness of soul daily.

Reader! it is time night's curtain should fall on me and my musings. I have gazed too long upon my fire, and my mind is weary; the phantoms,

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moreover, evoked from that fire-light may have sat heavily on your soul. If I have struck any chords in your hearts, may their vibration leave no bitterness behind! I would not willingly jar on failing strings. But we have all of us "Broken Memories" in our lives-and we should do well to heed them oftentimes as medicines for minds a weary of the outer world. Better, indeed, would it be for all of us if we occasionally lent our souls to the memory-softened teachings of the past-for, of a truth

The world is too much with us

and without fresh, genial memories, our hearts would soon grow "dry as summer's dust." Aud now I say-Farewell.

NEW YEAR'S EVE.

A REVERIE.

HARK! our city bells are ringing with a gleesome, silvery tone,

And the New Year wakes to being, and the dear Old Year is gone;

While I stand in silent sorrow in the long-deserted street, Listening idly to the joy-bells, till sorrow's self seems sweetTill dim thoughts of saddest sweetness fill my eyes with childish tears

Till that past doth robe this present in its shroud of hopes and fears.

I am twenty-one to-morrow-they will warmly bid me joy,
E'en as though it were a joyous thing to be no more a boy;
I am twenty-one to-morrow-if they measure age by years;
I was twenty-one too early-if I measure age by tears.
But these bitter thoughts are idle, and these murmurs idler
still--

To return, with prayers deep, heartfelt, to the life of every day,

With a knowledge, sorrow-softened, of the myths that lead astray;

To return no more a dreamer-but self-possessed and still,
A worker in God's present, sent to do a Father's will;
To return with idle dreamings and empty hands no more,
To walk onward to the future, while hope chaunts "Excelsior."

Long, too long, I've been a dreamer, with shame's flush upon my brow,

I do look to God to strengthen a willing worker now; Long, too long, I've been the dreamer who in cold abstractions lives,~

If God grant a nobler spirit I will do the work He gives! Fool! to stand here idly mourning when my manhood's And, perchance, when this year's dying, I here again may stronger will

Should lead me from repining over days no more I see,
To hold fast the present's promise, and to set the dead past free
In its grave to rest for ever; and if memory wanders there,
Let it wander for repentance-but never for despair!

It should be for humble sorrow o'er time's fair occasious lost,
Not for selfish, sinful murmurs o'er too selfish wishes crossed;

stand

With a better heart of earnest, and a truer, stronger hand; Then I'll thank the All-wise Being, who loves to shield and save,

That my momory once did wander to the dead past's quiet grave!

W. B. B. S.

AN ADVENTURE IN KAFFIRLAND.

On my first arrival in South Africa, chance and a service rendered had thrown me in the way of a young frontier farmer, who, with the frank hospitality which seems almost universal in the far south, invited me to his "place" to shoot. I went-and a glorious week I spent! As soon as the sun was

up, we commenced our wanderings over the wild hills in quest of game, resting on the grass beneath a tree in the burning noontide, and wending our way homeward by the brilliant light of a South African moon, of which our own looks the pale reflection.

AN ADVENTURE IN KAFFIRLAND.

The visit was drawing to a close, and my unpractised sinews were beginning to give way beneath the unusual demands upon them, when, just as the sun was setting at the close of a long day's sport-for though as tired as a dray-horse, I, of course, regarded it in no other light-we found ourselves some five miles from home, and as the country we had been traversing was unsuited for horses, with nothing but our own legs to bear us thither. And not only us, but our game-for I had carried for the last two hours alternately in my hand and on my back a huge paen-a kind of wild turkey-which I had shot; and though every minute it made me feel how weighty was the deed that I had done, I would pretty nearly as soon have parted with life as with this large trophy of my prowess-never perceiving that my skill would have been more surely proved by its being remarkable in the opposite extreme. However, onward I toiled with my much-prized paen-not patiently, but grumbling at the flowery wilderness through which we passed, much as I had admired its acacia groups and laurel shades in the morning.

"Timpson!" I exclaimed at length, pausing beneath a huge tree, and casting my paen on the grass,"Timpson, let us stay where we are, make a fire, roast the paen and eat it, and go to sleep."

"But there is no water within two miles of us, my good fellow," was the rejoinder:

"Never mind; we'll drink his blood," I exclaimed, looking down savagely at the heap of feathers.

"But the same two miles will bring us to Hottentot-fig's Hollow, Farmer Franklin's place, where we will get a good supper and bed, and lots of fun. So, never say die!"

"A good supper and bed!" The words sounded in my ears like strains of fairy music wileing the weary traveller onward, and with a sigh I shouldered my paen and strode manfully on. But to this day I am firmly convinced that if I walked one rood further that night I walked four miles, and no less convinced that Timpson's own place was nearer.

At length, when I almost despaired of our journey ever coming to an end, we reached the brow of a hill, and far beneath us two or three lights gleamed through the darkness, much as I should suppose glow-worms to have gleamed before the flood.

"Here we are at Hottentot-fig's Hollow!" cried Timpson, joyously.

I attempted a faint hurrah, which was quickly drowned in a cry of another kind, as, stumbling over some furry object, I rolled with it on the ground.

Help, Timpson!" I cried! "I have fallen over a lion."

"Nonsense," was the half laughing reply; "if you had you would have been down his throat by this time;" and pushing aside a bush that intercepted the moonlight, he burst into a peal of laughter at seeing me lying peaceably side by side with a huge Kaffir.

23

In a moment I was on my feet-for I was unin jured by my fall, though it soon appeared my companion had not fared so well, for the overthrow had sprained his ancle, and he was unable to move without assistance.

"We must take him between us down to Hottentot-fig's Hollow," said Timpson.

But that was easier said than done; for the sable centre was at least a head taller than either of his white supporters, and double their circumference, while his weight was sufficient for any ten at least, so it seemed to my weariness, as I toiled down the rugged path, with the Kaffir's brawny arm pressing heavily on one shoulder, while my valued paen did its best to equalise matters as it dangled from my other hand.

At length, when I began to entertain serious thoughts of sitting down where I was, and passing the night beneath the bright stars, supperless and bedless, we reached Hottentot-fig's Hollow.

66

Now, here we are sure of a hearty welcome, Kaffir and all," exclaimed Timpson, as we mounted the stone stoep.

"So we ought, for we have come far enough for it," I muttered discontentedly. At the same instant the door opened, and then I knew wherefore the long road to Hottentot-fig's Hollow had seemed so short to Timpson.

There, in the light of the lamp, stood a bright fairy, with golden ringlets and deep violet eyessoft and sweet as a summer night. Despite all my resolute batchelorhood, I forgot my fatigue as I stood gazing on the fairest face that in all my wanderings had ever met my eye. And my Kaffir companion forgot his pain-for his dark eyes flashed, and a smile brightened the night of his stern countenance.

But in a moment the bright fairy vanished from the scene, giving place to a heavy, farmer-like man, evidently the clod-hopper of the piece, who bade us welcome, and called for supper; whereupon the bright fairy re-appeared, and, with the aid of a band of attendant elves—the dark tint of of whose fairy complexions somewhat puzzled me until I recol lected that South African fairies would naturally be dusky-soon placed supper before us.

But despite all these fairy ministerings, the next day found me too weary for anything but to lie beneath the orange trees, and allow the air, perfumed by their thousand blossoms, to play through my hair; upon which the host declared me his captive for the next week, with liberty to wander about the Hollow, on giving my parole not to escape; to which I consented, on condition that my paen formed part of the evening meal.

This was readily agreed to, and my paen made an appearance on the table at which I swelled with conscious pride. It was well nigh as imposing as the peacock at some bygone banquet, and looked quite into nothingness the roast pig and ducks that were its companions on the board. But it was emphatically the toughest morsel of game I ever essayed, and right glad was I to partake of

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the humbler fare that the bright fairy of last night -the Zerlina Franklin of to-day-had provided for us.

The Kaffir was likewise a fixture, his sprain requiring him to be placed under the hands-not of the beautiful Zerlina, but of one of her shadowy nymphs. But he was an amusing fellow, and made his visit as entertaining as possible by his uncivilised wit and shrewd observations; and when, at the end of three days, his ancle was declared well, and able to bear his herculean weight, he showed his sense of his host's hospitality, as might some knight of old, ere he departed from the castle where his wounds had been cured-by tendering his heart and hand to the acceptance of the chatelain's daughter. Nay, with a generosity that, I'll be bound, none of these gallant knights ever thought of, he not only never inquired the lady's dower, but offered to bestow on her father any number of cattle he liked to accept-for Tyamie was a great chief in Kaffirland, aud the beautiful Zerlina exceeding fair in his sight.

All unworthy this generosity was the chatelain's reception of the Black Knight's suit-which I, in my European innocence could scarce think meant in earnest. But, like the rest of his race, Tyamie could not gaze on Caucasian beauty unmoved; and thence his gloomy sullenness when Franklin, with flushed cheek and flashing eye, turned off the matter as a jest. But it was no more a jest to the Black Knight than to his host; and though he did not order his steed to the door, and spring on it with clanging armour, as did the knights of old, yet he drew his leopard skin karosse-that badge of chieftainship-more closely around him, and, with scant thanks for the hospitality shown him, departed, taking his way with hasty strides towards the nearest pass into Kaffirland.

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retreated, leaving grassy vistas, around whose borders the sunbeams came glinted back in a thousand broken rays from the hard, glossy surface of the belligerent-looking vegetation-for the sword-like leaves and spear-like stems of the endless varieties of aloes pointing threateningly at the more peaceable looking trees among them, suggested thoughts of an armoury of nature's own getting up.

We had got about half way across the second glade, whose grassy carpet was almost hidden beneath the thick drugget of sugar bushes that covered it, when Timpson suddenly reined in his horse, and pointing to a bright yellow bird fluttering among the trees, cried—

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My best horse to a paen that I'll bring down that golden cuckoo." For, in hopes of finding game along the lane, we were taking our guns to the top of the hill, where a servant was in waiting to bring them back.

And laying the rein on the horse's neck, and raising his gun for a single instant, both man and horse remained motionless as some faultless statue, and then there was a little mocking flash in the sunlight, and a sharp crack that echoed faintly among the hills, and all was still again.

Why, where is he, Charley ? I certainly did not kill him," exclaimed Timpson, in the greatest pos sible surprise.

"Where on earth can he have got to ?" added Franklin, in the same tone.

I, too, felt astonished, for I thought the cuckoo was to be shot; and I looked up to see my two companions gazing in round-eyed wonder at my empty saddle. The next moment they discovered, exactly at the same time that I did myself, that, hidden beneath the sugar bushes, I was calmly reposing on the ground beside the horse's feet.

Now there was really something for the hills to echo, for peal above peal, louder and wilder, rose the laughter of my companions, and for the life of me I could not help joining them, though the subject was myself.

And when that was ended, I demanded from them, what still remained to me a mystery-the way in which I came to lie there? But the in

The indignant tears of the beautiful Zerlina fell like pearls on his departure, and it was no light, though a most delightful, task to soothe her into smiles again. But, alas! that task fell not to me but Timpson-who, I soon suspected, was bound by all the laws of love and chivalry to have couched, not lance, but asseghai, against the Black Knight, for having aspired to the hand of his "ladye-love."quiry was only a signal for a fresh burst of laughHowever, she never appeared to discover the omission, and I took care not to suggest it, and in a few hours the soft eyes were again lit with smiles, and the lovers were sauntering happily beneath the orange trees.

The following day a large coursing party was arranged to meet on the neighbouring flat, to initiate the stranger into the mysteries of South African coursing; and accordingly Timpson, young Franklin, and I were up betimes, and mounted on three of our host's best horses, we repaired to the scene of action. Our way lay through a wooded lane, leading up from the Hollow, where the moss garlands from the overhanging trees swept our faces as we passed, and the clustering blos. soms of the jasmine gleamed like stars among the myrtle leaves. Though twice or thrice the trees

ter; the fact, however, appeared to be that, like many another enthusiast, I had been carried out of myself, and forgotten that horses have nerves as well as fine ladies; so that when the crack, of which I have already made honourable mention, caused my steed to start like a duchess at a squib, he did not find even a bridle to check his sensitive feelings-for it lay as passively on his neck as he immediately stretched me on the grass.

This was certainly anything but an encouraging beginning to my day's sport; but even before I rose from the ground one subject for consolation suggested itself-that, certainly, after this I should hear no more of the indestructible paen, at which Timpson had fired shots enough to annihilate any. thing less tough. Twenty minutes more brought us to the place of meeting, where we found ten

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