THE MOTHER PRAYING.

BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

SEE, in yon chamber's dim recesses,
A lady kneels with loosened tresses;
A lovely creature lowly kneeling,
With mournful eyes and brow of feeling ;
One hand before her meekly spreading,
The other back her ringlets shedding,
That ay come gushing down betwixt
Her eyes and that on which they're fixt.

She shudders. See! Hear how she's sighing,
Can one so young, so fair, be dying?
Is she some favourite saint adoring,
Confessing shame, or God imploring?
Her lustrous dark eyes wild are straying,
She bows her head-lo! she is praying.
See, see! before her, slumbering mild,
A fair-haired and a faded child;

He is her son,-could any other

Look with those rapt looks save a mother? That bosom which seems nigh the burstin', Yon child was suckled, nestled, nurst in; Those lips which o'er his sick bed hang, Have shrieked for him the birthtime pang; That heart to God outpoured and offered, Death for her son hath three times suffered.

O! of all mortal pangs there's nought
So dreadful as the death of thought.

He wakes, he smiles, looks up-and there
He rises-God hath heard her prayer;
While she, 'twixt sobbing, tears, and shrieking,
Clasps him with heart too big for speaking-
She holds him up to God. And now,
Proud priest of Rome, what canst Thou do?
In all thy miracles there's nought

Like that a mother's prayers hath wrought.

ON A LADY

WHO WOULD SING ONLY IN THE EVENING.

LIKE the sad-hearted minstrel of the Moon,
Who will not pour her misanthropic lay
Until the Night grows upward to its noon,
And the winds hymn the death-song of the day;
But silent all, in woodlands far away,
A little hermit sits within her cell,

Mossy and dim, where no intruding ray
Peeps through the solitude she loves so well:
Like her, the sweet enchantress of the dell !
THOU wilt not sing, until the stars arise:
And then, like her, for ever wilt thou dwell
On themes to make Pity weep out her eyes!
Sure thou wert once a Nightingale !—And when
Thou leav'st this world, thou shalt be one again! D.

THE CAMERONIAN PREACHER'S TALE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE QUEEN'S WAKE.

SIT near me, my children, and come nigh, all ye who are not of my kindred, though of my flock; for my days and hours are numbered; death is with me dealing, and I have a sad and a wonderful story to relate. I have preached and ye have profited; but what I am about to say is far better than man's preaching, it is one of those terrible sermons which God preaches to mankind, of blood unrighteously shed, and most wondrously avenged. The like has not happened in these our latter days. His presence is visible in it; and I reveal it that its burthen may be removed from my soul, so that I may die in peace; and I disclose it, that you may lay it up in your hearts and tell it soberly to your children, that the warning memory of a dispensation so marvellous may live and not perish. Of the deed itself, some of you have heard a whispering; and some of you know the men of whom I am about to speak; but the mystery which covers them up as with a cloud I shall remove; listen, therefore, my children, to a tale of truth, and may you profit by it!

On Dryfe Water, in Annandale, lived Walter Johnstone, a man open hearted and kindly, but proud withal and warm tempered; and on the same water lived John Macmillan, a man of a nature grasping and sordid, and as proud and hot tempered as the other. They were strong men, and vain of their strength; lovers of pleasant company, well to live in the world, extensive dealers in corn and cattle; married too, and both of the same age-five and forty years. They often met, yet they were not friends; nor yet were they companions, for bargain making and money seeking narroweth the heart and shuts up generosity of soul. They were jealous, too, of one another's success in trade, and of the fame they had each acquired for feats of personal strength and agility, and skill with the sword-a weapon which all men carried, in my youth, who were above the condition of a peasant. Their mutual and growing dislike was inflamed by the whisperings of evil friends, and confirmed by the skilful manner in which they negotiated bargains over each other's heads. When they met, a short and surly greeting was exchanged, and those who knew their natures looked for a meeting between them, when the sword or some other dangerous weapon would settle for ever their claims for precedence in cunning and in strength.

They met at the fair of Longtown, and spoke, and no more—with them both it was a busy day, and mutual hatred subsided for a time, in the love of turning the penny and amassing gain. The market rose and fell, and fell and rose; and it was whispered that

Macmillan, through the superior skill or good fortune of his rival, had missed some bargains which were very valuable, while some positive losses touched a nature extremely sensible of the importance of wealth. One was elated and the other depressed-but not more depressed than moody and incensed, and in this temper they were seen in the evening in the back room of a public inn, seated apart and silent, calculating losses and gains, drinking deeply, and exchanging dark looks of hatred and distrust. They had been observed, during the whole day, to watch each other's movements, and now when they were met face to face, the labours of the day over, and their natures inflamed by liquor as well as by hatred, their companions looked for personal strife between them, and wondered not a little when they saw Johnstone rise, mount his horse, and ride homewards, leaving his rival in Longtown. Soon afterwards Macmillan started up from a moody fit, drank off a large draught of brandy, threw down a half-guinea, nor waited for change-a thing uncommon with him; and men said, as his horse's feet struck fire from the pavement, that if he overtook Johnstone, there would be a living soul less in the land before sunrise.

Before sunrise next morning the horse of Walter Johnstone came with an empty saddle to his stable door. The bridle was trampled to pieces amongst its feet, and its saddle and sides were splashed over with blood as if a bleeding body had been carried across its back. The cry arose in the country, an instant search was made, and on the side of the public road was found