and nonsensicality. Evil principles in the hearts of men we could hope to correct; but any thing that bears the "sacred impress of custom, although in the most trivial details of life, makes us despair.

A TALE OF TWEEDDALE.

AMIDST the hills of that district of Scotland called Tweeddale, there are many lonely vallies, which seem remote from all human ken-little separate regions, where you may loiter for a summer's day without seeing a living thing, save a few straggling sheep, who lift up their heads in seeming wonder as you pass. Or there may rise from your foot a startled hare, or a covey of moorfowl, unused to such intrusion; where no sound reaches your ear excepting the song of the skylark, the bleat of the sheep, the hum of the wild bee, and the low murmuring of a burn, stealing along its quiet way to pay its tribute to the Tweed. It was to one of those sequestered spots, being a stranger in the country, that I was one day led by an old man, who undertook to be my guide to the best streams for trout-fishing. But though now deserted by man, as I have described this valley, there had been a time when it was inhabited, as appeared from a roofless and ruined hut, over the walls of which the ivy and the wild-flower had apparently crept for years. I observed to my guide what a lonely dwelling it must have been." It was so," said the old man ; "but love and youth can make any place a paradise: and happiness once dwelt there, though it did not continue; and though the fate of its hapless inhabitants made a great noise in the country at the time, it is now in a measure forgotten, for it is more than fifteen years since a fire was kindled in that lone house." Perceiving by this that something remarkable had happened to the last occupiers of the desolated hut, and being tired with ascend

ing and descending the neighbouring hills, I sat down, and requested the cld man, who was the schoolmaster of a village where I had for some days taken up my abode, to gratify my curiosity, by repeating to me the story to which he had alluded. The place where I had chosen my seat was a little grassy bank, near the brink of the rivulet, and about forty yards below the site of the little ruin, which stood on the side of a hill; and the old man, having placed himself beside me, began his narration.

"My occupation as a teacher gives me, of course, an opportunity of observing with accuracy the dispositions of the youth I instruct; and I have never met with a girl of more ardent affections, or of better temper, or who possessed more amiable qualities, than Helen Symington. She was the daughter of an honest and respectable weaver in our village, of which, as she grew up to womanhood, she was the pride. When scarce twenty years old, she married William Brydon, a sensible, well-disposed young man, who was principal shepherd to the owner of this property, and came here with him to live in that cottage which is now a ruin, but which was then, by the unwearied industry of Helen, a neat and comfortable habitation; and never, in those early days of her marriage, did lark carol more blithely to the sun, than did she while employed in her household occupations, or, as, passing over the heather with a light step, she carried some refreshment to her William, when detained with his flock in some more distant sheep-walk. Even when left by herself in this wild solitude, she felt no loneliness, for all was peace and joy within and without. William loved her entirely, and her alone : and she knew it, and in that knowledge all her earthly wishes were complete. Yet was this feeling of felicity still increased, when, before the year had completed its circle, she sat, in a summer evening, on yonder little turf seat at the door, with her infant in her arms, watching her husband descending the opposite hill, and drawing nearer and nearer, till at length her baby shared with her in his ca

resses. The second winter of their abode here was unusually severe, but it was William's care to guard his wife and his child from its inclemency, by many little ingenious contrivances to render their cottage more impervious to the cold; while Helen looked forward each day with longing solicitude to the evening hour which restored him to a participation of its comforts, and seated him by its cheerful hearth. And thus the winter had nearly passed away, and they began to anticipate the varied joys of spring, when the birds would again sing around their cot, and all nature, awakened from its wintry sleep, would start anew into life and joy. The month of February arrived, and the weather seemed so settled and serene, that, for two successive Sabbaths, Helen, with her infant enveloped in her cloak, and accompanied by her husband, had crossed the hills to the parish church. On the second of those Sabbaths, they "took sweet counsel," and, walking together to the house of God, they conversed of a better and a purer world, where they should fear no after-parting. And as Helen listened to her husband, who was eloquent on this subject, she thought she had never heard him speak so like a minister, or seen him so full of holy hope. I notice this particularly, as it was a circumstance I shall have occasion to mention again. On the next morning after this conversation, William departed with the sheep from this valley for a distant fair. The weather was still fine when he gathered his flock, and bade farewell to his beloved Helen for three days, promising to return on the evening of the third. He had never been absent from his home all night but twice since his marriage, and that for a single night each time. His wife, however, expressed no fear from being left alone for so unwonted a time; for the fact is, that there is in general more courage in women of her humble rank in life, than in any other, for they are too much occupied to find time for the indulgence of idle alarms; nor do they meet with any encouragement to affect fears till the folly becomes a habit.

Neither did William experience any uneasiness

on account of the solitariness of the dwelling in which he was to leave her, considering that very circumstance as the principal warrant for her safety.

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The weather, I have said, was fine at the time of his departure, but in our treacherous climate, and especially in these hilly districts, there is nothing more uncertain than a continuance of settled weather at that season of the year; and never did it exhibit more rapid transitions than during the three days of William's absence. Before the shades of the first night had fallen on the hills, the rain had descended their sides in torrents, and swelled the little burn into a river. On the second night, the clouds had disappeared, and a keen frost succeeded, which, ere morning, arrested the water in its course, and transformed the ground for some distance round where we now sit into a frozen lake. Again, another change came o'er the spirit of the storm: dark clouds began to muster, and showers of sleet and snow to fall, till all again was hoary winter. But still, when night came on, there was seemingly, from the quietness of its descent, no depth of snow, though it had fallen at intervals for many hours, and as the time was now arrived when Helen expected to see her husband, she felt no dread of harm; and no sooner had she put her baby to sleep, than she prepared a change of garments, a warm supper, a blazing ingle and a clean hearth-stane,' for her William, and often opened the door to listen and to look out, if haply she might discern his dark figure against the opposite white hill, descending the footpath toward his home. She was, however, as often disappointed, and returned again to heap fresh fuel on the fire, till she began to feel, first, the heart-sickness of hope deferred,' and then the heavy pressure of foreboding evil; and when her baby waked, there was in the melancholy tones of the hymn with which she soothed him to his rest, a soul-subduing pathos; for it has been my lot to hear again that lullaby when it sounded even more deeply affecting than it could then have done. Poor Helen continued all night

her visits to the door, till at length, just as morning began to dawn, she heard her name shouted out by the wellknown voice of William. Joy came to her heart, for she thought he had seen her, and though she looked in vain for him, still he was near. But again she heard his voice, and his words fell distinctly on her ear, Oh Helen, Helen, I perish!' She flew with the speed of lightning down the bank; but when she approached near to this spot, her progress was arrested, for the ice, from which the water had receded below, would not bear her weight. And then it was for the first time she discovered, through the indistinct glimmering of the dawn, and by his own words, that on William's having reached the middle of the burn, where the force of the stream below had rendered it hollow, the ice gave way, and he was only kept from sinking by his arms resting on the surrounding part, which was still firm. Again and again did Helen try in each direction to reach him, in spite of his urgent entreaties to keep off, and his assurances that he had hopes of being able to maintain his position for a length of time, from the manner in which he was wedged between the ice, and its apparent thickness in that place where it had been gurged together, though he feared to make the smallest exertion to extricate himself, lest he should go down. In this extremity there was only one course which gave the agonised Helen any chance of saving the life of her husband, and that was, to seek for aid more efficient than her own. Meantime, William was almost fainting with exhaustion from fatigue, cold, and hunger; and Helen, thinking that if she could supply him with some food, he would be better able to endure his situation till she could procure assistance, she ran to the house, and putting some of what had been intended for his supper into a small basket, she took a sheep crook, and having tied a stick to one end of it, she hooked the basket on to the other end, and in this manner conveyed it to him. At the same time she pushed a blanket close to him with the crook, and having seen him draw it by degrees round