Being detained a day or two, I wandered to the Materneté-what mutations! A grey-headed man assured me of the public institution having been converted, after my departure, into a public-house. The home of the ancient magnate-the Snuggery, had been polluted by the fumes of tobacco and the odour of usquebagh! It was again metamorphosed into the more respectable condition of a private dwelling, and the previouslydescribed "intramural range 99 was now planted with shrubs and flowers. Mrs. Mc Andrews had been long dead. Her sister had continued her old trick of intercepting letters, until she was discovered in the retention of one containing a Bank of England note, and she in consequence "left her country for her country's good." Davie had for a considerable period returned to Mull, where he occupied a little "shieling on the hill" overlooking the Sound of Tobermoray, and on the proceeds of a protracted servitude, he ate his bannocks and drank his mutchkin in content. A sunshiny Sabbath afternoon! I resolved VOL. III. Ꮓ on a walk to Colinton. The many objects as I strolled along called to memory a young and a merry band. Ere reaching the village, I took the woodland path in the vale, where the babbling stream hurried on its chequered course, and the venerable trees cast their shadow over it, and their old fantastic roots were laved at its margin. The rivulet still ran with music murmur to the sea-the tortuous branches at spring-tide put forth their verdant livery-in autumn the withered leaves were swept into the stream-seasons came and passed away, but nature was unmarred. Not so those who erst did wander there! The churchyard-yes, to the churchyard my steps were involuntarily bent. I stood by the gravestone of one who had long been dust. The damp lichens grew thick upon it-the rank grass waved over it-it seemed a well-nigh forgotten sepulchre. Beneath lay one pillowed with her babe, whose heart might now have pulsated with a wife's a mother's love. The downy cheek, the dewy lip, the golden curls were gone. The worm had rioted on the perishing flesh. It mattered not. The spirit had been exhaled to purer spheres. Oh! ungenerous, vainglorious world, thought I, how passions war with peace-how the blind worshippers of the gods of clay raise idols which crumble ere they are built-how the deep wiles and the boasted wit bring discomfiture and shame. She might have bloomed a flower in the garden of Hesperides-hers might have grown up and exulted in manhood's prime ! Years, long deleting years, had worn away—but the smile, the form, the beauty were in memory's sight--the incidents recounted in the foregoing pages crowded on recollection-the mountain wind sighed through the long waving grass-mine eye grew dim with a sympathy even then-I turned from the spot, muttering the only and still unobliterated words on the tomb"Alas, poor Emily!" THE END. |