success; and with low hearty chucklings sounded near me, suspended my steps. of laughter, which could hardly be re As I turned, a figure, emerging from the strained from bursting into shouts, they loose sand in which it had been covered, dragged the miserable rascal to the log, sprang up, and showed me the cunning and, after securely swathing his mouth, elfish face of the boy John. He came plumped him off into the water. Hays, close to me, and peering up into my face who understood my motive, assisted me with a saucy leer, he whispered, “ Ha! with great zeal in adjusting the rope. ha! ye'r gwine to help him worry the old The rapidity of the stream soon brought cat some to night—is ye?” The first him up on the surface of the water, at thought which crossed my mind on seefull length, below the log. There we ing the boy-excited and anxious as 1 left him stretched his hands clenched felt for the life of Antone, who might desperately on the rope, to prevent it give out any minute—was not surprise tightening to suffocation around his throat that he should be in such a place and so --playing to and fro, like a hooked trout concealed, but that he was the very on the current, the violence of which person to be sent to save the poor would now and then take him clear under fellow. His size and dexterity would suddenly, to bob up again as quickly, enable him to reach the log much a rather funny, but not very dangerous sooner than I could, without the fear predicament, so long as the strength of of giving the alarm. So catching him his arms lasted. The knave fully de- by the arm, I drew him with me to served the punishment, severe as it was, a more shaded place, slipped a piece of and we left him to the darkness and the money into his hand, and hastily explaininfinite agonies of such suspense ! All ing the circumstances, promised him more but Hays and myself expected him to money if he would go and extricate Andrown of course, which would be inevi. tone quickly as possible. He heard me table so soon as his arms gave out; and through, and at my urgency bounded off the diabolical ingenuity of such a mode rapidly, saying—“ Never mind; I'll fix of torturing to death gained me great ap- him for ye, boss!” It was not until the plause, and entirely reinstated me in the creature was out of sight, that I thought confidence of the Colonel, which had of the strange, vicious significancy of been greatly shaken by my officious hu- the look with which that promise had manity on a former occasion. I was now been made. I had been too greatly flurpronounced worthy of Texas !! When ried to think of or observe anything but we were all over the log the Colonel pro- the getting him off in time—for Antone ceeded to explain more fully the plan of had now been in the water half an hour, operation determined upon, and having and there was no moment to be lost. I assigned each one his post, we com now instantly associated that peculiar menced approaching the Rancho with look with a fact I had heard the Texan the precaution necessary to insure against laughing about-namely, that while we giving the alarm. The time for making were gone to Bexar after the Rangers, active demonstrations was fixed for mid- Antone had accused John to the Colonel night; until then we were to occupy se of stealing from his pork barrel—which, parately certain locations which brought it will be remembered, was the truthevery side of the Rancho under the eye and that this, together with other causes of some one, so that Agatone might be of exasperation, had gained for John a foiled in any attempt to escape prema- most brutally severe beating at the hands turely. We were then to draw up in of the Colonel ; recollecting, too, the two detachments near the great gate on boy's reputation for malignancy, it at each side, and wait the result of the in once flashed upon me that he intended to tended maneuvre. The position assigned make this the opportunity of a vengeance, me was on the river bank, near some the extent of which it would be hard to huts outside the picketing. I was re- conjecture. I set off on the moment at joiced at this chance, for it gave me the my best speed, to counteract, if possible, opportunity I desired of creeping back what might be the consequences of my inand rescuing Antone. I waited until the considerate baste. My progress was slow men, who were cautiously moving off enough—for to prevent discovery it was to their different posts, had all disap- necessary to creep close under the bank peared. I then slid lower down the next to the water's edge—and my hurry bank, and was starting off noiselessly and impatience did not improve the raunder its shadow, when a faint “whist! pidity of my progress. Now slipping

down the crumbling bank into the water ready almost bursting from their sockets, -then wading through the slush and as they were upturned in the spasm of a mire until I could drag myself out by a mute imploring agony. I had in the bush, I succeeded at last in reaching a mean time been approaching him unobpoint near the log, where I could safely served, and at this moment stood over ascend among the trees on to firm ground. him, and saw that the pain caused by this I paused a minute to listen, and could last savage expedient had compelled him distinguish the sound of heavy splash- to quit his hold upon the rope, and in an ing and struggles in the water, and a sub- instant it had tightened upon his throat. dued gutturai noise like smothered laugh. Enraged beyond all restraint at the feroter, and now and then a plunge as of cious and unparalleled deviltry of the some object falling. I stepped noiseless- young murderer, I, without any warning ly forward to where I could command a or consideration, struck him a violent view of the log. The figure of the boy blow which knocked him off the log, and lay crouched on the middle of the bridge; the swift stream instantly swept him out observing him a moment, I saw that he of sight. I then laid my gun on the log, was holding on with his feet and one and cutting loose the rope, with the end hand, while with the other he was thrust- in my hand sprang off into the water. I ing a long pole violently down at the was a good swimmer, and seizing the hands and head of the wretched Antone, body of Antone made for the bank. The evidently with the hope of breaking his force of the current. swept me down a despairing grasp of the rope, or thrusting long distance, and, encumbered as I was, his head beneath the water. He accom I should hardly have succeeded in reachpanied every blow with a hissing laughing the shore with my burden, but that and some such exclamations as —" It's the favorable accident of my being swept me! It's John She! he! I telled ye so in reach of the twigs of a tree which -said I'd fix you—cussed Yaller Belly! leaned far over the current, allowed me be! he! Let go will ye, honey! Tell to drag myself and it out with great difold Red-Head on John agin? I'll spile ficulty. Loosening the rope, and tearing them blinkers for ye! yah! yah! ha! open his shirt, I found to my relief that ha!”—and the little fiend eased himself the heart still fluttered faintly—and when up on the log to indulge a heartier burst I tore the bandage from his mouth the of merriment at his success in having water poured forth copiously. struck one of the eyes of the victim, al

WORDSWORTH.

BY WILLIAM WALLACE.

-The mind
Where Faith so deep a root could find,
Faith, which both love and life could save,

And keep the first, in age still fond,
Tnus blossoming this side the grave
In steadfast trust of fruit beyond.”

Vigil of Faith.
“He can still drink in
The unshadowed splendors of the universe,
And fill glen, wood and mountain with the bright
And glorious visions poured from the deep home
of an immortal mind.”

Boyhood Recollections.
Sunset is on the dial: and I know
My hands are feeble and my head is white
With many snows, and in my dim old eyes
Light plays the miser with a frugal care,
And soon the curtain drops : But still I know,

The Soul in sceptred majesty of will
Leaves not the royal dais.

The ancient Winds
Still chant around me all the solemn themes
I learned when young; and in the hollow flower
I hear the murmur left there by the bee;
And jubilant Rivers laugh and clap their hands
Amid the leaning Hills that nurse them there;
And far away I see the Eagles float
Along the gray tops of the billowy Woods
Like ships that go triumphing on the waves :
And over all the Sun towers steadily
Beside his flaming altar, and beholds,
As he beheld through many centuries gone,
The holocausts of light roll up to God;
And when the Evening walks the western land,
I know that Mazzaroth will sit and sing
Within his azure house; and I shall hear
Around the pathways of the dim Abyss
The deep low thunder of those spheréd wheels
Which He, the Ancient One of Days, in right
Of soveran godship strode, some ages back:
And still the play, a venerable play-
World wide of this humanity goes on,
Still dark the plot, the issues unperceived.
So, with all things thus filling every sense,
The Soul, in sceptred majesty of will,
Sites on her royal dais, and wears her crown.
Then why should I-whose thoughts were shaken down
On all the Isles and blossomed for their sons-
My office yield, and let the general Hymn
Unheeded harmonize the jangling space ?
By action only doth Creation hold
Her charter--and, that gone, the worlds are dead.
"Tis not in souls which would the Noblest find,
To rest contentedly upon old wreaths ;
For voices shout from all the moving Stars
That trouble idle Space—“ON! ON! STILL ON !"-
And all the Deeps, whose slumberous eyes were smit
By busy Godhead into blazing suns,
Join in the choral summons-ON! STILL ON!"
I will not rest and unmelodious die;
But with my full wreath on these thin, white hairs,
And rhythmic lips, and vision kindling up,
March through the Silent Halls, and bravely pass
Right on into the Land that lies beyond.
There they my Brother-Bards—this * with a soul
As large as peopled worlds which it would bless ;
And that,t a wondrous Dream whose lustrous wings
Winnowed the dull Earth's sea of sleep to life
And sun-bright motion—those majestic Bards
Who went before, quiring their holy hymns,
Watch for my coming on the misty hills.

II.

But what the burden of that latest song
Will be, as yet I know not-nor the rhythm

Southey and † Coleridge.

That shall go beating with her silver feet
The sounding aisles of thought: But this I hope,
A listening world will hear that latest song,
And seat it near the fireside of its heart
Forevermore, and by the embers' light
Look fondly on its face as men of old
Looked on the faces of the angel guests
Who tarried sometimes in their pastoral homes :
For this last hymn shall wear a holiest smile,
Befitting well the time and circumstance.

III.

Most haply I shall sing some simple words,
Rich with the wealth Experience gives to Time-
An antique tale of beauty and of tears :
Or I may wander in my thought afar
Where men have built their homes in forests vast,
And see the Atlantic rest his weary feet
And lift his large blue eyes on other stars;
Or hear the Sire of many Waters,* hoarse
With counting centuries, and rolling on
Through the eternal night of silent woods,
Whose huge trunks sentinel a thousand leagues,
His deep libation to the waiting seas :
Then would I join the choral preludes swelling
Between the wondrous acts of that great play
Which Time is prompting in another sphere :
Or I may wander in my thought afar
Mid ruins gray of columns overthrown-
When populous Towns went rocking to and fro
Wildly upon the troubled Earth’s unrest,
Like great armadas on the roused seas-
And lift up then a song of solemn march
Amid the glorious temples crumbling there-
The beautiful records of a world which was,
Majestic types of what a world must be:
Or I may turn to themes that have no touch
Of sorrow in them, piloted by joy-
And lift the burial stone from shrouded years,
And hear the laugh of youth clear ringing out,
Or feel again a sweet religious awe,
Such as I felt when floated holy chimes
In boyhood's ear, and such as stern men feel
When passing by cathedral doors they hear
A dim-remembered psalm roll softly out
And fill their eyes with tears, they know not why:
Then I shall sing of children blooming o'er
The desolate wide heath of Life, like flowers
Which daring men had stolen from Paradise,
When near its gate the wearied Cherub slept
And dreamed of Heaven.-Or to some pastoral vale
Shall pass my trembling feet. There shall I lift
To Nature, loved in all her many moods,
A chant sublimely earnest. I shall tell
To all the tribes with what a stately step
She walks the silent Wilderness of Air,
Which always puts its starry foliage on
At her serene approach, or in her lap

• The Mississippi.

Scatters its harvest-wealth of golden suns :
And many a Brook shall murmur in my verse;
And many an Ocean join his cloudy bass ;
And many a Volcan shake his flaming mane;
And many a Mountain tower aloft, whereon
The black Storm crouches, with his deep, red eyes
Glaring upon the valleys stretched below:
And many a green Wood rock the small bright birds
To musical sleep beneath the large full moon;
And many a Cloud in crumbling prison hold
The Rainbow peering through the frequent rents,
Impatiently, and longing to come out
On faithless lands, a Memory of God :
And many a Star shall lift on high her

сир
Of luminous cold chrysolite-set in gold
Chased subtily over by Angelic art-
To catch the odorous dews which Seraphs drink
In their wide wanderings: and many a Sun
Shall press the pale lips of their timorous Morns
Couched in the bridal East: and over all
Will brood the visible presence of the One
To whom my life has been a solemn chant,
Because he is and was a mighty God,
A King above all Gods. Within his hand
He holdeth the deep places of the Earth,
And also bis the strength of all the hills.
Of old he heard his stricken minstrel's voice;
Then shook the Earth and all the hills were moved.
A smoke went from his nostrils, and a fire
Went from his mouth, a great fire which devoured.
He also bowed the Heavens and came down;
And pillared darkness lay beneath his feet:
He rode upon a Cherub and did fly ;
He flew upon the white wings of the wind :
The darkness made his secret place; his tent
Around him was dark waters and thick clouds :
He thundered also in the Heavens above;
The Highest gave his voice in hail and fire :
The ancient channels of the seas were seen;
And the foundations of the world were shown
At thy rebuke, O God! From all his foes
Thy Bard was drawn, and lifted from the waves. *

IV.

Then let the sunset fall and Aush Life's Dial !
No matter how the years may smite my frame,
And cast a piteous blank upon my eyes
That seek in vain the old, accustomed stars
Which skies hold over blue Winandermere,
Be sure that I a crownéd Bard will sing
Until within the murmuring barque of verse
My Spirit bears majestically away,
Charming to golden hues the gulf of death-
Well knowing that upon my honored grave,
Beside the widowed lakes that wail for me,
Haply the dust of four great worlds will fall
And mingle-thither brought by Pilgrims' feet.

* The reader will perceive that the passage from “of old” to “waves,” is nearly word for word from two of the sublimely simple psalms of “The Monarch Minstrel." Excepting the last line and a hall, (a condensation of several verses,) the author found it necessary to introduce but five or six words of his own, for the sake of euphony.