Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

the joys of heaven; it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant village church-the bell had tolled for the evening service-the last villager was lagging into the porch-and every thing had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents were gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which pass so roughly over some faces, had given to her's the expression of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye.— Was she thinking of her faithless lover?-or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard-a horseman galloped to the cottage--he dismounted before the window-the poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk back in her chair:-it was her repentant lover! He rushed into the house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but her wasted form-her deathlike countenance-so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation-smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in an agony at her feet. She was too faint to rise— she attempted to extend her trembling hand-her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated-she looked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closed her eyes for ever!

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious have but little novelty to recommend them In the present rage also for strange incident and highseasoned narrative, they may appear trite and insig

nificant, but they interested me strongly at the time; and, taken in connexion with the affecting ceremony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my mind than many circumstances of a more striking nature. I have passed through the place since, and visited the church again from a better motive than mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening; the trees were stripped of their foliage; the churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been planted about the grave of the village favourite, and osiers were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. The church door was open, and I stepped in.-There hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the flowers were withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil their whiteness. I have seen many monuments, where art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator; but I have met with none that spoke more touchingly to my heart, than this simple, but delicate memento of departed innocence.

THE ANGLER.

This day dame Nature seem'd in love,
The lusty sap began to move,

Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines,
And birds had drawn their valentines.
The jealous trout that low did lie,
Rose at a well dissembled fly.

There stood my friend, with patient skill,

Attending of his trembling quill.

SIR H. WOTTON.

It is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced to run away from his family, and betake himself to a seafaring life, from reading the history of Robinson Crusoe; and I suspect that, in like manner, many of those worthy gentlemen, who are given to haunt the sides of pastoral streams with angle-rods in hand, may trace the origin of their passion to the seductive pages of honest Izaak Walton. I recollect studying his "Complete Angler" several years since, in company with a knot of friends in America, and, moreover, that we were all completely bitten with the angling mania. It was early in the year; but as soon as the weather was auspicious, and that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer, we

took rod in hand, and sallied into the country, as stark mad as was ever Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry.

One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness of his equipments; being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hundred pockets; a pair of stout shoes, and leathern gaiters; a basket slung on one side for fish; a patent rod; a landing-net, and a score of other inconveniencies only to be found in the true angler's armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra Morena.

Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among the highlands of the Hudson-a most unfortunate place for the execution of those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild streams that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, unheeded beauties, enough to fill the sketch-book of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which the trees threw their broad balancing sprays; and long nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs; and after this termagant career, would steal forth into open day with the most placid de

« ÎnapoiContinuă »