His head falls down on his naked breast-
He struggles, and sinks to a drunken rest.

"Humph - drunk as a beast!"—and Bonython's brow Is darker than ever with evil thought"The fool has signed his warrant; but how And when shall the deed be wrought? Speak, Ruth! why, what the devil is there,

To fix thy gaze in that empty air?

Speak, Ruth!-by my soul, if I thought that tear,"
Which shames thyself and our purpose here,
Were shed for that cursed and pale-faced dog,
Whose green scalp hangs from the belt of Mogg,
And whose beastly soul is in Satan's keeping-
This this!"-he dashes his hand upon

The rattling stock of his loaded gun

"Should send thee with him to do thy weeping!"

"Father!" the eye of Bonython
Sinks, at that low, sepulchral tone,
Hollow and deep, as it were spoken

By the unmoving tongue of death-
Or from some statue's lips had broken
A sound without a breath!
"Father! - my life I value less
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress;
And how it ends it matters not,
By heart-break or by rifle-shot:
But spare awhile the scoff and threat-
Our business is not finished yet."

"True, true, my girl-I only meant
To draw up again the bow unbent.
Harm thee, my Ruth! I only sought
To frighten off thy gloomy thought;-

Come let's be friends!" He seeks to clasp

His daughter's cold, damp hand in his.
Ruth startles from her father's grasp,

As if each nerve and muscle felt,

Instinctively, the touch of guilt,
Through all their subtle sympathies.

He points her to the sleeping Mogg
"What shall be done with yonder dog?
Scamman is dead, and revenge is thine
The deed is signed and the land is mine;
And this drunken fool is of use no more,
Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and sooth,
'T were Christian mercy to finish him Ruth,
Now, while he lies like a beast on our floor, -
If not for thine, at least for his sake,
Rather than let the poor dog awake,

To drain my flask, and claim as his bride
Such a forest devil to run by his side-
Such a Wetuomanit * as thou wouldst make !"

He laughs at his jest. Hush-what is there?-
The sleeping Indian is striving to rise,

With his knife in his hand, and glaring eyes!-
"Wagh!-Mogg will have the pale-face's hair,
For his knife is sharp and his fingers can help
The hair to pull and the skin to peel-
Let him cry like a woman and twist like an eel,

The great Captain Scamman must lose his scalp !
And Ruth, when she sees it, shall dance with Mogg."
His eyes are fixed but his lips draw in

With a low, hoarse chuckle, and fiendish grin,

And he sinks again, like a senseless log.

Ruth does not speak she does not stir;

But she gazes down on the murderer,

*Wetuomanit· —a house god, or demon. "They- the Indians—have given me the names of thirty-seven gods, which I have, all which in their solemne Worships they invocate!" R. Williams's Briefe Observations of the Customs, Manners, Worships, &c., of the Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death: on all which is added Spiritual Observations, General and Particular, of Chiefe and Special use — upon all occasions — to all the English inhabiting these parts; yet Pleasant and Profitable to the view of all Mene. p. 110, c. 21.

Whose broken and dreamful slumbers tell,
Too much for her ear, of that deed of hell.
She sees the knife, with its slaughter red,
And the dark fingers clenching the bear-skin bed!
What thoughts of horror and madness whirl
Through the burning brain of that fallen girl!

John Bonython lifts his gun to his eye,

Its muzzle is close to the Indian's ear

But he drops it again. "Some one may be nigh,

And I would not that even the wolves should hear." He draws his knife from its deer-skin belt

Its edge with his fingers is slowly felt ;

Kneeling down on one knee, by the Indian's side,

From his throat he opens the blanket wide;

And twice or thrice he feebly essays

A trembling hand with the knife to raise.

"I cannot " - he mutters "did he not save

My life from a cold and wintry grave,

When the storm came down from Agioochook,
And the north-wind howled, and the tree-tops shook -
And I strove, in the drifts of the rushing snow,
Till my knees grew weak and I could not go,

And I felt the cold to my vitals creep,

And my heart's blood stiffen, and pulses sleep!

I cannot strike him-Ruth Bonython!

In the devil's name, tell me what's to be done?"

Oh! when the soul, once pure and high,

Is stricken down from Virtue's sky,
As, with the downcast star of morn,
Some gems of light are with it drawn-
And, through its night of darkness, play
Some tokens of its primal day-

Some lofty feelings linger still

The strength to dare, the nerve to meet
Whatever threatens with defeat

Its all-indomitable will!

But lacks the mean of mind and heart,

Though eager for the gains of crime,
Oft, at this chosen place and time,
The strength to bear this evil part;
And, shielded by this very Vice,
Escapes from Crime by Cowardice.

Ruth starts erect- with bloodshot eye,

And lips drawn tight across her teeth, Showing their locked embrace beneath, In the red fire-light :

"Mogg must die!

Give me the knife!"-The outlaw turns,

Shuddering in heart and limb, away.

But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire burns,

And he sees on the wall strange shadows play.

A lifted arm, a tremulous blade,

Are dimly pictured, in light and shade,

Plunging down in the darkness. Hark, that cry! Again and again he sees it fall

That shadowy arm down the lighted wall!

He hears quick footsteps a shape flits by!The door on its rusted hinges creaks:

"Ruth-daughter Ruth!" the outlaw shrieks But no sound comes back - he is standing alone By the mangled corse of Mogg Megone!

MOGG MEGONE.

PART II.

'Tis morning over Norridgewock -
On tree and wigwam, wave and rock.
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred
At intervals by breeze and bird,
And wearing all the hues which glow
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow,
That glorious picture of the air,
Which summer's light-robed angel forms
On the dark ground of fading storms,
With pencil dipped in sunbeams there-
And, stretching out, on either hand,
O'er all that wide and unshorn land,
Till, weary of its gorgeousness,

The aching and the dazzled eye

-

Rests gladdened, on the calm blue sky -
Slumbers the mighty wilderness!
The oak, upon the windy hill,

Its dark green burthen upward heaves
The hemlock broods above its rill,
Its cone-like foliage darker still,

While the white birch's graceful stem
And the rough walnut bough receives
The sun upon their crowded leaves,
Each colored like a topaz gem;
And the tall maple wears with them

The coronal which autumn gives,
The brief, bright sign of ruin near,
The hectic of a dying year!