tion for a nest. Deep down beneath the snow they listened to the tinkle of rills unreached by the frost-and merry, thought they, was the music of these contented prisoners. Not Summer's self, in its deepest green, so beautiful had ever been to them before, as now the mild white of Winter; and when their eyes were lifted up to heaven, when had they ever seen before a sky of such perfect blue-a sun so gentle in its brightness, or altogether a week-day in any season, so like a Sabbath in its stillness, so like a holyday in its joy! Lovers were they-although as yet they knew it not-for from love only could have come such bliss as now was theirs a bliss, that while it beautified, they felt came from and belonged to the eternal skies. In that wilderness Flora sang all her old songs to those wild Gaelic airs that sound like the sighing of winds among fractured cliffs, or the branches of storm-tossed trees, when the subsiding tempest is about to let them rest. Monotonous music! but irresistible over the heart it has once awakened and enthralled, so sincere seems to be the mournfulness it breathes in its simplicity-a mournfulness brooding and feeding for ever and ever on the same note that is at once its natural expression and its sweetest aliment, of which the dreaming singer never wearieth in her woe, while her heart all the time is haunted by all that is most piteous in memory, by the faces of the dead in their paleness returning to the shades of mortality, only that once more they may pour from their fixed eyes those strange showers of unaccountable tears! How merry were they between those mournful airs! Oh how Flora trembled to see her lover's burning brow and flashing eyes, as he told her tales of great battles fought in foreign lands, far, far across the sea -tales which he had drunk in with greedy ears from the old heroes scattered all over Lochaber and Badenoch, on the brink of the grave still garrulous of blood! "The sun sat high in his meridian tower," but time had not been with the youthful lovers, and the blessed beings believed that yet 'twas but a little hour since beneath the Eagle Cliff they had met in the prime of the fullbrightened morn! The boy starts to his feet-and his keen eye looks along the ready rifle for his sires had all been famous deer-stalkers, and the passion of the chase was hereditary in his blood. Lo! a deer from Dalness, dog-driven, or sullenly astray, slowly bearing his antlers up the glen, then stopping for a moment to snuff the air, and like lightning away-away! The rifle-shot rings dully from the scarce echoing snow-cliffs, and the animal leaps aloft, struck by a mortal but not sudden death-wound. Oh! for Fingal now to pull him down like a wolf-but labouring and lumbering heavily along, the snow spotted, as he bounds, with blood, the huge animal at last disappears round some rocks at the head of the glen. "Follow me, Flora!" the boy-hunter cries-and flinging down their plaids, they turn their bright faces to the mountain, and away up the long glen after the stricken deer. Fleet was the mountain-girl as an Oread-and Hamish, as he ever and anon looked back to wave her on, with pride admired the beauty of her lightsome motion as she bounded along the snow. Redder and redder grew that snow, and more heavily trampled, as they winded round the rocks-and, lo! the deer staggering up the mountain, not half a mile off, and there standing at bay, as if before his swimming eyes came a vision of Fingal, the terror of the forest, whose howl was known to all the echoes, and quailed the herd while their antlers were yet afar off! "Rest, Flora! rest! while I fly to him with my rifle-and shoot him through the heart!" Up-up-up-far far far up the interminable glen, that kept winding and winding, round many a jutting promontory, and many a castled cliff, the red-deer kept dragging its goreoozing bulk, sometimes almost within, and then, for some hundreds of yards, beyond rifle-shot, while the boy, maddened by the chase, pressed forwards, now all alone, nor any had entirely disappeared; and thus more looking behind for Flora, who he was hurried on for miles by the whirlwind of passion-till at last he struck the noble quarry, and down sank the antlers in the snow, while the air was spurned by the convulsive beatings of feet. Then leapt Hamish upon the Red-deer like a beast of prey-and lifted up a look of triumph to the mountain tops. Where is Flora? Her lover has forgotten her-and he is alone-nor knows it-in the wilderness-he and the Red-deer-an enormous animal -fast stiffening in the frost of death. Some large flakes of snow are in the air-and they seem to waver and whirl, though, an hour ago, there was not a breath all over the region. Faster they fall and fasterthe flakes are almost as large as leaves-and over-head, whence so suddenly has come that huge yellow cloud? "Flora, where are you? where are you, Flora?"-and from the huge hide the boy leaps up, and sees that no Flora is in the glen. But yonder is a moving speck far off upon the snow! 'Tis she-'tis she-and again Hamish turns his eyes upon the quarry, and the heart of the hunter burns within him like a new-stirred fire. Shrill as the eagle's cry, disturbed in his eyry, he sends his voice down the glen and Flora, with cheeks pale and bright by fits, is at last at his side. Panting and speechless she stands and then dizzily sinks fainting on his breast. Her hair is ruffled by the wind that revives her, and her face all moistened by the snow-flakes, now not falling, but driven-for the day has undergone a dismal change, and all over the skies are now lowering savage symptoms of a fast-coming night-storm. Bare is poor Flora's head, and sorely drenched her hair-that au hour or two ago glittered in the sunshine. Her shivering frame misses now the warmth of the plaid which almost no cold can penetrate, and which had kept the vital current flowing freely in many a bitter blast. What would the miserable boy give now for the coverings lying far away, which, in his foolish passion, he flung down to chase that fatal deer! "Oh! Flora! if you would not fear to stay here by yourself-under the protection of God, who surely will not forsake you-soon will I go and come from the place where our plaids are lying; and under the shelter of the deer, we may be able to outlive the hurricane-you wrapt up in them and folded-O my dearest sister-in my arms!"-"I will go with you down the glen, Hamish!" and she left his breast-but, weak as a day-old lamb, tottered-and sank down among the snow. The coldintense as if the air were ice-had chilled her very heart, after the heat of that long race; and it was manifest that here she must be for the night-to live or to die! And the night seemed already come, so full was the lift of snow; while the glimmer every moment became gloomier, as if the day was expiring long before its time. Howling at a distance down the glen was heard a sea-born tempest from the Linnhe-Loch, where now they both knew the tide was tumbling in, bringing with it sleet and snow blasts from afar; and from the opposite quarter of the sky an inland tempest was raging to meet it, while every lesser glen had its own uproar, so that on all hands they were environed with death. "I will go-and, till I return, leave you with God."-" Go, Hamish !" and he went and came-as if he had been endowed with the raven's wings! Miles away-and miles back had he flown-and an hour had not been with his going and his coming-but what a dreary wretchedness meanwhile had been hers! She feared that she was dying-that the cold snow-storm was killing her-and that she would never more see Hamish, to say to him a right last farewell. Soon as he was gone, all her courage had died. Alone, she feared death and wept-and wept-and wept in the wilderness-thinking how hard it was for one so young thus miserably to die! He came-and her whole being was changed. Folded up in both the plaids-she felt as if she were in heaven. "Oh! kiss mekiss me, Hamish-for thy lovegreat as it is-or never hadst thou travelled so the long snows for my sake-is not as my love-and you must never forget me, Hamishwhen your poor Flora is dead!" Religion with these two young creatures was as clear as the light of the Sabbath-day-and their belief in heaven just the same as in earth. The will of God they thought of just as they thought of their parents' will-and the same was their loying obedience to its decrees. If she was to die-supported now by the presence of her brother-Flora was utterly resigned; if she were to live, her heart imaged to itself the very forms of her worshipping gratitude! But all at once she closed her eyesspake not-breathed not-and, as the tempest howled and rumbled in the gloom that fell around them like blindness, Hamish almost fell down, thinking that she was dead! "Wretched sinner that I am!my wicked madness brought her here to die of cold in the snow!" And he smote his heart-and tore his hair-and feared to look up, lest the angry eye of God were looking on him through the storm. All at once, without speaking a word, Hamish lifted Flora in his arms, and walked away up the glen -here almost narrowed into a pass. Distraction gave him supernatural strength, and her weight seemed that of an infant. Some walls of what had once been a house, he had suddenly remembered, were but a short way off-whether or not they had any roof, he had forgotten; but the thought even of such shelter seemed a thought of salvation. There it wasa snow-drift at the opening that had once been a door-snow up to the holes once windows-the wood of the roof had been carried off for fuel, and the snow-flakes were falling in, as if they would soon fill up the inside of the ruin! The snow in front was all trampled as if by sheep; and carrying in his burden under the low lintel, lo! the place was filled with a flock that had foreknown the hurricane, and all huddled together, looked on him as on the shepherd come to see how they were faring in the storm. And a young shepherd he was, with a lamb apparently dying in his arms. All colour-all motion-all breath seemed to be gone-and yet something convinced his heart that she was yet alive. The ruined hut was roofless, but across an angle of the walls, some pine-branches had been flung as a sort of shelter for the sheep or cattle that might repair thither in cruel weather-some pinebranches left by the wood-cutters, who had felled the few trees that once stood at the very head of the glen. Into that corner the snow drift had not forced its way, and he sat down there with Flora in the cherishing of his embrace, hoping that the warmth of his distracted heart might be felt by her who was as cold as a corpse. The chill air was somewhat softened by the breath of the huddled flock, and the edge of the cutting wind blunted by the stones. It was a place in which it seemed possible that she might revive-miserable as it was with miremixed snow-and almost cold as one supposes the grave. And she did revive-and under the half-open lids the dim blue appeared to be not yet life-deserted. It was yet but the afternoon-nightlike though it was— and he thought, as he breathed upon her lips, that a faint red returned, and that they felt his kisses poured over them to drive death away. "Oh! father, go seek for Hamish, for I dreamt to-night he was perishing in the snow!"-" Flora, fear not, God is with us."-" Wild swans, they say, are come to Loch-Phoil let us go, Hamish, and see them— but no rifle-for why kill creatures said to be so beautiful?" Over them where they lay, bended down the pine-branch roof, as if it would give way beneath the increasing weight of snow;-but there it still hungthough the drift came over their feet and up to their knees, and seemed stealing upwards to be their shroud. "Oh! I am overcome with drowsiness, and fain would be allowed to sleep. Who is disturbing me -and what noise is this in our house?"-"Fear not-fear not, Flora "Mother! am God is with us."I lying in your bosom? My father surely is not out in the storm! Oh! I have had a most dreadful dream!" and with such mutterings as these, Flora relapsed again into that perilous sleep-which soon becomes that of death. Night itself came-but Flora and Hamish knew it not-and both lay now motionless in one snow-shroud. Many passions-though earthborn, all divine-pity, and grief, and love, and hope, and at last despair-had prostrated the strength they had so long supported-and the brave boy-who had been for some time feeble as a very child after a fever-with a mind confused and wandering, and in its perplexities, sore afraid of some nameless ill, had submitted to lay down his head beside his Flora's, and soon became like her insensible to the night and all its storms! Bright was the peat-fire in the hut of Flora's parents in Glenco—and they were among the happiest of the humbly happy, blessing this the birth-day of their blameless child. They thought of her singing her sweet songs by the fireside of the hut in Glencreran-and tender thoughts of her cousin Hamish were with them in their prayers. No warning came to their ears in the sugh or the howl; for Fear it is that creates its own ghosts, and all its own ghostlike visitings, and they had seen their Flora in the meekness of the morning, setting forth on her way over the quiet mountains, like a fawn to play. Sometimes, too, Love, that starts at shadows, as if they were of the grave, is strangely insensible to things that might well strike it with dismay. So was it now with the dwellers in the hut at the head of Glencreran. Their Hamish had left them in the morning-night had come, and he and Flora were not there-but the day had been almost like a summer-day, and they in their infatuation never doubted that the happy creatures had changed their minds, and that Flora had returned with him to Glenco. Hamish had laughingly said, that haply he might surprise the people in that glen by bringing back to them Flora on her birth-day-and, strange though it afterwards seemed to her to be, that belief prevented one single fear from touching the mother's heart, and she and her husband that night lay down in sleep unhaunted by any woful dream! What could have been done for them, had they been told by some good or evil spirit, that their children were in the clutches of such a night? As well seek for a single bark in the middle of the misty main! But the inland storm had been seen brewing among the mountains round King'sHouse, and hut had communicated with hut, though far apart, in that wilderness where the traveller sees no symptoms of human life. Down through the long cliff-pass of Mealanumy, between Buchael-Etive and the Black-Mount, towards the lone House of Dalness that lives in everlasting shadows, went a band of shepherds, trampling their way across a hundred frozen streams. Dalness joined its strength-and then away over the drift-bridged chasms toiled that Gathering, with their sheep-dogs scour ing the loose snows-in the van, Fingal, the Red Reaver, with his head aloft, on the look-out for deer, grimly eying the Correi where last he tasted blood. All" plaided in their tartan array," these shepherds laughed at the storm-and hark! you hear the bagpipe play-the music the Highlanders love both in war and in peace. "They think then of the ourie cattle, And silly sheep;" and though they ken 'twill be a moonless night-for the snow-storm will sweep her out of heaven-up the mountain and down the glen they go, marking where flock and herd have betaken themselves, and now, at nightfall, unafraid of that blind hollow, they descend into the depth where once stood the old Grove of Pines. Following the dogs, who know their duties in their instinct, the band, without seeing it, are now close to that ruined hut. Why bark the sheep-dogs so-and why howls Fingal, as if some spirit passed athwart the night? He scents the dead body of the boy who so often had shouted him on in the forest, when the antlers went by! Not dead -nor dead she who is on his bosom! Yet life in both is frozen-and will the iced blood in their veins ever again be thawed? Almost pitch-dark is the roofless ruin-and the frightened sheep know not what is the terrible Shape that is howling there. But a man enters, and lifts up one of the bodies, giving it into the arms of them at the door-way-and then lifts up the other; and by the flash of a rifle, they see that it is Hamish and Flora Macdonald, seemingly both frozen to death! Some of those reeds that the shepherds burn in their huts are kindled, and in that small light they are assured that such are the corpses. But that noble dog knows that death is not there-and licks the face of Hamish, as if he would restore life to his eyes! Two of the shepherds know well how to fold the dying in their plaids-how gentliest to carry them along; for they had learnt it on the field of victorious battle, when, without stumbling over the dead and wounded, they bore away the shattered body yet living-of the youthful warrior, who had shewn that of such a Clan he was worthy to be the Chief. The storm was with them all the way down the glen-nor could they have heard each other's voices had they spoke-but mutely they shifted the burden from strong hand to hand-thinking of the Hut in Glenco, and of what would be felt there on their arrival with the dying or dead. Blind people walk through what to them is the night of crowded daystreets-unpausing turn round corners-unhesitatingly plunge down steep stairs-wind their way fearless through whirlwinds of life-and reach in their serenity, each one unharmed, his own obscure house. For God is with the blind. So is he with all who walk on works of mercy. This saving band had no fear-and therefore there was no danger-on the edge of the pitfall or the cliff. They knew the countenances of the mountains shewn momentarily-by ghastly gleamings-through the fitful night and the hollow sound of each particular stream beneath the snow-at places where in other weather there was a pool or a waterfall. The dip of the hills-in spite of the drifts-familiar to their feet, did not deceive them now; and then, the dogs in their instinct were guides that erred not, and as well as the shepherds knew it themselves, did Fingal know that they were anxious to reach Glenco. He led the way-as if he were in moonlight; and often stood still when they were shifting their burden, and whined as if in grief. He knew where the bridges werestones or logs; and he rounded the marshes where at springs the wildfowls feed. And thus Instinct, and Reason, and Faith conducted the saving band along-and now they are at Glenco-and at the door of the Hut! To life were brought the deadand there at midnight sat they up like ghosts. Strange seemed they -for a while-to each other's eyesand at each other they looked as if they had forgotten how dearly once they loved! Then as if in holy fear they gazed on each other's faces, thinking that they had awoke together in heaven. "Flora!" said Ha mish-and that sweet word, the first he had been able to speak, reminded him of all that had passed, and he knew that the God in whom they had put their trust had sent them deliverance. Flora, too, knew her parents, who were on their kneesand she strove to rise up and kneel down beside them-but powerless was she as a broken reed-and when she thought to join with them in thanksgiving-her voice was gone. Still as death sat all those simple shepherds in the hut-and one or two who were fathers were not ashamed to weep. Who were they-the solitary pair— all alone by themselves save a small image of her on whose breast it hung -whom-seven summers after-we came upon in our wanderings, before their shieling in Correi-Vollach at the foot of Ben Chrulas who sees his shadow in a hundred lochs? Who but Hamish and Flora! sitting on the greensward. * * * * * * * * Nay, dry up-daughter of our soul! Dry up thy tears! and lo! a vision set before thine eyes that shall fill them with unmoistened light. Start not back, nor let the soul within thee be afraid. Oft before have those woods and waters-those clouds and mountains-that sun and sky, held thy spirit in Elysium,-thy spirit, that then was disembodied, and living in the beauty and the glory of the elements. 'TIS WINDERMERE -WINDERMERE! Never canst thou have forgotten the imperishable beauty of those more than fortunatethose thrice-blessed Isles! But when last we saw them within the still heaven of thy smiling eyes, summer suns had overloaded them with beauty, and they stooped their flowers and foliage down to the blushing-the burning deep, that glowed in its transparency with other Druid groves as gorgeous as themselves, the whole mingling mass of reality and of shadow forming one undistinguishable creation. But now, lo! Windermere in Winter! All leafless now the groves that girdled her, as if shifting rainbows were in love perpetually letting fall their colours on the Queen of Lakes. Gone are her banks of emerald, that carried our calm gazings with them, sloping away back Into the cerulean sky. Her mountains, |