'Twas when the golden orb had set, "Joy, joy for ever! my task is doneThe gates are pass'd, and heaven is won! Oh! am I not happy? I am, I am To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad And the fragrant bowers of AMBERABAD! "Farewell, ye vanishing flowers, that shone In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief,Oh! what are the brightest that e'er have blown To the lote-tree, springing by ALLA's throne,3 Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf! Joy, joy for ever! my task is doneThe gates are pass'd, and heaven is won!" GRAPES OR THORNS. We must not hope to be mowers, And watered the furrows with tears; It is not just as we take it This mystical world of ours; Life's field will yield, as we make it, A harvest of thorns or flowers. ALICE CARY. 1 The Country of Delight - the name of a province in the kingdom of Jinnistan, or Fairy Land, the capital of which is called the City of Jewels. Amberabad is another of the cities of Jinnistan. The tree Tooba, that stands in Paradise, in the palace of Mahomet. See Sale's Prelim. Disc.-Touba, says D'Herbelot, signifies beatitude, or eternal happiness. Mahomet is described, in the 53d Chapter of the Koran, as having seen the angel Gabriel "by the lotetree, beyond which there is no passing: near it is the Garden of Eternal Abode." This tree, say the com GORDON THE GIPSY. It has been tritely, because truly said, that the boldest efforts of human imagination cannot exceed the romance of real life. The bestwritten tale is not that which most resembles the ordinary chain of events and characters, but that which, by selecting and combining them, conceals those inconsistencies and deficiencies that leave, in real life, our sense of sight unsatisfied. An author delights his reader when he exhibits incidents distinctly and naturally according with moral justice; his portraits delight us when they resemble our fellowcreatures without too accurately tracing their moles and blemishes. This elegant delight is the breathing of a purer spirit within us, that asserts its claim to a nobler and more perfect state; yet another, though an austerer kind of pleasure arises, when we consider how much of the divinity appears even in man's most erring state, and how much of "goodliness in evil.” In one of those drear midnights that were so 1745, a man wrapped in a large coarse plaid awful to travellers in the Highlands soon after strode from a stone ridge on the border of Loch Lomond into a boat which he had drawn from its covert. He rowed resolutely, and alone, looking carefully to the right and left, till he suffered the tide to bear his little bark into a gorge or gulf, so narrow, deep, and dark, that no escape but death seemed to await him. Precipices, rugged with dwarf shrubs and broken granite, rose more than a hundred feet on each side, sundered only by the stream, which a thirsty season had reduced to a sluggish and shallow pool. Then poising himself erect on his staff, the boatman drew three times the end of a strong chain which hung among the underwood. In a few minutes a basket descended from the pinnacle of the cliff, and having moored his boat, he placed himself in the wicker carriage, and was safely drawn into a crevice high in the wall of rock, where he disappeared. The boat was moored, but the adventurer had not observed that it contained another passenger. Underneath a plank laid artfully along its bottom, and shrouded in a plaid of the darkest grain, another man had been lurking more than an hour before the owner of the boat entered it, and remained hidden by the darkness of the night. His purpose was answered. He had now discovered what he mentators, stands in the seventh Heaven, on the right had sacrificed many perilous nights to obtain, hand of the Throne of God. a knowledge of the mode by which the owner Andrew of Drummond's Keep gained access to his im- | become the leader of a gipsy gang,1 the most pregnable fortress unsuspected. He instantly numerous and savage of the many that haunted unmoored the boat, and rowed slowly back Scotland. He was not deceived. across the loch to an island near the centre. He rested on his oars, and looked down on its transparent water."It is there still," he said to himself; and drawing close among the rocks, leaped on dry land. A dog of the true shepherd's breed sat waiting under the bushes, and ran before him till they descended together under an archway of stones and withered branches. "Watch the boat!" said the Highlander to his faithful guide, who sprang immediately away to obey him. Meanwhile his master lifted up one of the gray stones, took a bundle from underneath it, and equipped himself in such a suit as a trooper of Cameron's regiment usually wore, looked at the edge of his dirk, and returned to his boat. That island had once belonged to the heritage of the Gordons, whose ancient family, urged by old prejudices and hereditary courage, had been foremost in the ill-managed rebellion of 1715. One of the clan of Argyle then watched a favourable opportunity to betray the laird's secret movements, and was commissioned to arrest him. Under pretence of friendship he gained entrance to his stronghold in the isle, and concealed a posse of the king's soldiers at Gordon's door. The unfortunate laird leaped from his window into the lake, and his false friend seeing his desperate efforts threw him a rope, as if in kindness, to support him, while a boat came near. "That rope was meant for my neck," said Gordon, "and I leave it for a traitor's. With these bitter words he sank. Cameron saw him, and the pangs of remorse came into his heart. He leaped himself into a boat, put an oar towards his drowning friend with real oaths of fidelity, but Gordon pushed it from him, and abandoned himself to death. The waters of the lake are singularly transparent near that isle, and Cameron beheld his victim gradually sinking, till he seemed to lie among the broad weeds under the waters. Once, only once, he saw, or thought he saw him lift his hand as if to reach his, and that dying hand never left his remembrance. Cameron received the lands of the Gordon as a recompense for his political services, and with them the tower called Drummond's Keep, then standing on the edge of a hideous defile, formed by two walls of rock beside the lake. But from that day he had never been seen to cross the loch, except in darkness, or to go abroad without armed men. He had been informed that Gordon's only son, made desperate by the ruin of his father and the Stuart cause, had His Gordon, with a body of most athletic composition, a spirit sharpened by injuries, and the vigorous genius created by necessity, had assumed dominion over two hundred ruffians, whose exploits in driving off cattle, cutting drovers' purses, and removing the goods brought to fairs or markets, were performed with all the audacious regularity of privileged and disciplined thieves. Cameron was the chosen and constant object of their vengeance. keep or tower was of the true Scottish fabric, divided into three chambers; the highest of which was the dormitory, the second or middle served as a general refectory, and the lowest contained his cattle, which required this lodgment at night, or very few would have been found next morning. His enemy frequented the fairs on the north side of Forth, well mounted, paying at inns and ferries like a gentleman, and attended by bands of gillies or young pupils, whose green coats, cudgels, and knives were sufficiently feared by the visitors of Queensferry and Dumfermline. The gipsy chieftain had also a grim cur of the true blackfaced breed, famous for collecting and driving off sheep, and therefore distinguished by his own name. In the darkest cleughs or ravines, or in the deepest snow, this faithful animal had never been known to abandon the stolen flock intrusted to his care, or to fail in tracing a fugitive. But as sight and strength failed him, the four-footed chieftain was deposed, imprisoned in a byre loft, and finally sentenced to be drowned. From this trifling incident arose the most material crisis of his patron's fate. Between the years of 1715 and 1745 many changes occurred in Captain Gordon and his enemy. The Laird of Drummond Keep had lost his only son in the battle of Preston Pans, and was now lingering in a desolate old age, mistrusted by the government, and abhorred The Lochgellie and Linlithgow gipsies were very distinguished towards the middle of the last century, and had desperate fights at Raploch, near Stirling, and in the shire of Mearns. Lizzy Brown and Ann M'Donald were the leading Amazonians of these tribes, and their authority and skill in training boys to thievery were audaciously systematic. As the poor of Scotland derive their maintenance from usage rather than law, and chiefly from funds collected at the church-door, or small assessments on heritors (never exceeding two pence in the pound), a set of vagrants still depend on voluntary aid, and are suffered to obtain it by going from house to house in families or groups, with a little of the costume, and a great deal of the cant and thievery of ancient gipsics. by the subdued Jacobites. Gordon's banded' rendered his concealment necessary. Gavin's marauders had provoked the laws too far, and hopes and love had been all revived by these some sanguinary battles among themselves rumours, and the sudden apparition, the voice, threatened the downfall of his own power. It the appeal for mercy, had full effect on the was only a few nights after a desperate affray bereaved father's imagination. The voice, with the Linlithgow gipsies that the event eyes, and figure of Gordon resembled his son; occurred which begins my narrative. He had all else might and must be changed by thirty been long lying in ambush to find access to years. He wept like an infant on his shoulder, his enemy's stronghold, intending to terminate grasped his hand a hundred times, and forgot his vagrant career by an exploit which should to blame him for the rash disloyalty he had satisfy his avarice and his revenge. Equipped, shown to his father's cause. His pretended as I have said, in a Cameronian trooper's garb, son told him a few strange events which had he returned to the foot of the cliff from whence befallen him during his long banishment since he had seen the basket descending to convey 1715, and was spared the toil of inventing Gavin Cameron; and climbing up its rough many by the fond delight of the old man, face with the activity required by mountain weeping and rejoicing over his prodigal rewarfare, he hung among furze and broken stored. He only asked by what happy chance rocks like a wild cat, till he found the crevice he had discovered his secret entrance, and through which the basket had seemed to issue. whether any present danger threatened him. It was artfully concealed by tufts of heather; Gordon answered the first question with the but creeping on his hands and knees, he forced mere truth, and added, almost truly, that he his way into the interior. There the deepest feared nothing but the emissaries of the godarkness confounded him, till he laid his hand vernment, from whom he could not be better on a chain, which he rightly guessed to be the concealed than in Drummond Keep. Old same he had seen hanging on the side of the Cameron agreed with joyful eagerness, but lake when Cameron landed. One end was presently said, "Allan, my boy, we must trust coiled up, but he readily concluded that the Annet; she's too near kin to betray ye, and ye end must have some communication with the were to have been her spouse." Then he exkeep, and he followed its course till he found plained that his niece was the only person in it inserted in what seemed a subterraneous his household acquainted with the basket and wall. A crevice behind the pulley admitted a the bell; that by her help he could provide a gleam of light, and striving to raise himself mattress and provisions for his son, but without sufficiently to gain a view through it, he leaned it, would be forced to hazard the most dangertoo forcibly on the chain, which sounded a ous inconveniences. Gordon had not foreseen bell. Its unexpected sound would have startled this proposal, and it darkened his countenance; an adventurer less daring, but Gordon had but in another instant his imagination seized prepared his stratagem, and had seen, through on a rich surfeit of revenge. He was commanded the loophole in the wall, that no powerful enemy to return into the cavern passage, while his was to be dreaded. Gavin Cameron was sitting nominal father prepared his kinswoman for her alone in the chamber within, with his eyes new guest: and he listened greedily to catch fixed on the wood-ashes in his immense hearth. the answers Annet gave to her deceived uncle's At the hollow sound of the bell he cast them tale. He heard the hurry of her steps, prefearfully round, but made no attempt to rise, paring, as he supposed, a larger supper for though he stretched his hand towards a staff the old laird's table, with the simplicity and which lay near him. Gordon saw the tremor hospitality of a Highland maiden. He was of palsy and dismay in his limbs, and putting not mistaken. When the bannocks, and grouse, his lips to the crevice, repeated, "Father!" in and claret were arranged, Cameron presented a low and supplicating tone. That word made his restored son to the mistress of the feast. Gavin shudder; but when Gordon added, Gordon was pale and dumb as he looked upon "Father! father! save me!" he sprang to the her. wall, drew back the iron bolts of a narrow door invisible to any eye but his own, and gave admission to the muffled man, who leaped eagerly in. Thirty years had passed since Gavin Cameron had seen his son, and Gordon well knew how many rumours had been spread, that the younger Cameron had not really perished, though the ruin of the Chevalier's cause Accustomed to the wild haggard forms that accompanied his banditti in half-female attire, ruling their miserable offspring with iron hands and the voices of giants, his diseased fancy had fed itself on an idea of something beautiful, but only in bloom and youth. He expected and hoped to see a child full of playful folly, fit for him to steal away and hide in his den as a sport for his secret leisure: but a creature so fair, calm, and saintly, he had long | and bloodshed had formed no part of a scheme since forgotten how to imagine. She came which included far deeper craft and finer rebefore him like a dream of some lovely picture venge. He knew his life was forfeit, and his remembered in his youth, and with her came person traced by officers of justice; and he some remembrance of his former self. The hoped, by representing himself as the son of good old laird, forgetting that his niece had Cameron, to secure all the benefits of his inbeen but a child, and his son a stripling, when fluence, and the sanctuary of his roof; and if they parted, indulged the joy of his heart by both should fail to save him from justice, the asking Annet a thousand times whether she disgrace of his infamous life and death would could have remembered her betrothed husband, fall on the family of his father's murderer. So and urging his son, since he was still unmarried, from his earliest youth he had considered Camto pledge his promised bride. Gordon was eron: and the hand of that drowned father, silent from a feeling so new that he could not uplifted in vain for help, was always present comprehend his own purposes; and Annet from to his imagination. Once, during this night, fear, when she observed the darkness and the he had thought of robbing Cameron of his fire that came by turns into her kinsman's face. money and jewels by force, and carrying off his But there was yet another peril to encounter. niece as a hostage for his safety. But this Cameron's large hearth was attended by a dog, part of his purpose had been deadened by a new which roused itself when supper appeared, and and strange sense of holiness in beauty, which Gordon instantly recognized his banished fa- had made his nature human again. Yet he vourite. Black Chieftain fixed his eyes on thought of himself with bitterness and ire, his former master, and with a growl that de- when he compared her sweet society, her uncle's lighted him more than any caresses would have kindness, and the comforts of a domestic hearth, done, remained sulkily by the fire. On the with the herd which he now resembled; and other side of the ingle, under the shelter of the this self-hatred stung him to rise and depart huge chimney-arch, sat a thing hardly human, without molesting them. He was prevented but entitled, from extreme old age, to the by the motion of a shadow on the opposite protection of the owner. This was a woman wall, and in an instant the dog who had so bent entirely double, with no apparent sense of sullenly shunned his notice, leaped from besight or hearing, though her eyes were fixed on neath his bed, and seized the throat of the hag the spindle she was twirling; and sometimes as she crept near it. She had taken her sleepwhen the laird raised his voice, she put her leaning master's dirk, and would have used it like hand on the curch or hood that covered her ears. "Do you not remember poor old Marian Moome?" said Annet; and the laird led his supposed son towards the superannuated crone, though without expecting any mark of recognition. Whether she had noticed anything that had passed could not be judged from her laugh; and she had almost ceased to speak. Therefore, as if only dumb domestic animals had been sitting by his hearth, Cameron pursued his arrangements for his son's safety, advising him to sleep composedly in the wooden panelled bed that formed the closet of this chamber, without regarding the half living skeleton, who never left the corner of the ingle. He gave him his blessing, and departed, taking with him his niece and the key of this dreary room, promising to return and watch by his side. He came back in a few moments, and while the impostor couched himself on his mattress, took his station again by the fire, and fell asleep, overcome with joy and fatigue. The embers went out by degrees, while the Highland Jachimo lay meditating how he should prosper by his stratagem's success. Plunder 1 Nurse or foster mother. a faithful Highland servant, if Black Chieftain's fangs had not interposed to rescue Gordon. The broad copper broach which fastened her plaid saved her from suffocation, and clapping her hands, she yelled, "A Gordon! a Gordon!" till the roof rung. Gavin Cameron awoke, and ran to his supposed son's aid, but the mischief was done. The doors of the huge chamber were broken open, and a troop of men in the king's uniform, and two messengers with official staves, burst in together. These people had been sent by the lord-provost in quest of the gipsy chieftain, with authority to demand quarters in Drummond's Tower, near which they knew he had hiding-places. Gordon saw he had plunged into the very nest of his enemies, but his daring courage supported him. He refused to answer to the name of Gordon, and persisted in calling himself Cameron's son. He was carried before the high court of justiciary, and the importance of the indictment fixed the most eager attention on his trial. Considering the celebrity, the length, and the publicity of the gipsy chief's career, it was thought his person would have been instantly identified, but the craft he had used in tinging his hair, complexion, and eyebrows, and altering his whole appearance to resemble Cameron's son, baffled the many who appeared as his accusers. So much had Gordon attached his colleagues, or so strong was the Spartan spirit of fidelity and obedience amongst them, that not one appeared to testify against him. Gavin Cameron and his niece were cited to give their evidence on oath; and the miserable father, whatever doubts might secretly arise in his mind, dared not hazard a denial which might sacrifice his own son's life. He answered in an agony which his gray hairs made venerable, that he believed the accused to be his son, but left it to himself to prove what he had no means of manifesting. Annet was called next to confirm her uncle's account of her cousin's mysterious arrival: but when the accused turned his eyes upon her she fainted, and could not be recalled to speech. This swoon was deemed the most affecting evidence of his identity: and, finally, the dog was brought into court. Several witnesses recognized him as the prime forager of the Gordon gipsies: but Cameron's steward, who swore that he saved him by chance from drowning in the loch, also proved that the animal never showed the smallest sagacity in herding sheep, and had been kept by his master's fireside as a mere household guard, distinguished by his ludicrous attention to music. When shown at the bar, the crafty and conscious brute seemed wholly unaequainted with the prisoner, and his surly silence was received as evidence by the crowd. The lord high-commissioner summed up the whole, and the chancellor of the jury declared that a majority, almost amounting to unanimity, acquitted the accused. Gordon, under the name of Cameron, was led from the bar with acclamations; but at the threshold of the session's court, another pursuivant awaited him with an arrest for high treason, as an adherent to the Pretender in arms. The enraged crowd would have rescued him by force, and made outeries which he silenced with a haughty air of command, desiring to be led back to his judges. He insisted in such cool and firm language, and his countenance had in it such a rare authority, that after some dispute about the breach of official order, he was admitted into a room where two or three of the chief lords of session, and the chancellor of the jury, were assembled. Though still fettered both on hands and feet, he stood before them in an attitude of singular grace, and made this speech as it appears in the language of the record: "The people abroad would befriend me, because they love the cause they think I have served; and my judges, I take leave to think, would pity me if they saw an old man and a tender woman pleading again for my life. But I will profit in nothing by my judges' pity, nor the people's love for a Cameron. I have triumphed enough to-day, since I have baffled both my accusers and my jury. I am Gordon, chief of the wandering tribes; but since you have acquitted me on 'soul and conscience," you cannot try me again; and since I am not Cameron, you cannot try me for Cameron's treasons. I have had my revenge of my father's enemy, and I might have had more. He once felt the dead grip of a Gordon, and he should have felt it again if he had not called me his son, and blessed me as my father once did. If you had sent me to the Grassmarket, I would have been hanged as a Cameron, for it is better for one of that name than mine to die the death of a dog; but since you have set me free, I will live free as a Gordon." This extraordinary appeal astonished and confounded his hearers. They were ashamed of their mistaken judgment, and dismayed at the dilemma. They could neither prove him to be a Cameron nor a Gordon, except by his own avowal, which might be false either in the first or second cause; and after some consultation with the secretary of state, it was agreed to transport him privately to France. But on his road to a seaport his escort was attacked by a troop of wild men and women, who fought with the fury of Arabs till they had rescued their leader, whose name remained celebrated till within the last sixty years as the most formidable of the gipsy tribe. DECEMBER. JAMES HOGG. 'Tis dark December now. The early eves Hath its bright eyes, brave wines, brisk fires, dance, song, and mirth. CORNELIUS WEBBE. |