matter, and they had begun to arrange for selling the cow and their property in general even before they went out next morning.

"I'll write to the ship's office," said Roland," and to auld sailor Jackhe were always good to me, and he'll see to all's being set as it should be." "I mun go and buy a sheet o' paper then, and borrow some ink at the public for yer," said Cassie. Literary pursuits were not common in the cottage; and she hung over him to watch the wonderful performance of making a letter, and gloried in the marvels of his scholarship.

A letter has a body common to all such compositions, to which any information it is desirable to communicate is afterwards added as a sort of extra-i.e. "This comes hoping," &c. and "leaves me at these presents," is a necessary part; your announcement that you are married, or ruined, or buried is but accidental; and Roland's epistle was no exception to the rule. The women, however, were not fated to have their time alone, for old Nathan appeared not long after.

"I've been thinkin' a very deal up and down sin' I were here," said he, standing upright in the middle of the house leaning on his staff. "It's ill living wi' a scolding woman: a man mid as lief be in a windmill; it's better to live on a house-top nor with a brawling woman in a wide place. I want my own fireside again. My missus were that good-tempered, 'twere like the sun upon one's vittles, so now I'm wantin' ye all for to come and bide wi' me-Lyddy for to marry me, and Cassie and German to be my childer. Now will ye?"

"Uncle," said the girl, half laughing, "did ye meet Roland a comin' here?"

"Roland Stracey? No, child. Is he come back i' th' country?" "Yes; and I be a goin' to marry him, so ye see I canna come."

"Whew!" said the old man, with a kind of whistle. "His father's son!" The world's talk was beginning to be heard, and " across the sea" grew fair in Cassie's eyes.

"We're thinking of going to Canada," said she.

"Well, it sounds quare, too," said Nathan. "To be sure. But there's Lyddy. Won't ye hae me, Lyddy? I'm a year younger nor Ashford and I'd make ye a kind husband."

"And I'm certain sure ye would," answered she, warmly, "and thank ye kindly, Master Nathan; "but I've a cast in my lot wi' thae three, my dear ones, for good and ill, till death do us part."

"Let be, let be," said the old man. "Think on't, turn it over a bit." "Nay, we canna spare her, uncle," answered Cassic, with a smile and a sort of pride. "There's a many wants her, ye see," added the girl, putting her arm over Lydia's shoulder as she sat at work. And Nathan saw that his long-considered scheme had melted away. Presently the young men came in together, eagerly discussing their plans.

"I've a been up to Parson Taylor for to see after the spurrings,'

* "Speer," to ask.

said Roland as he entered.

"Th' auld man were a sitting i'th' kitchen wi' his porringer upo' his knees, and he says, 'I hope as you've enough for to pay me my rights. It's a hard matter for me to get through, I can tell ye, Roland Stracey, and that's the truth. 'Tweren't but last Easter as I niver got my dues upo' th' pattens and cocks' eggs.' (The hens pay for themselves of their produce the cocks are probably punished for their remissness in not laying.) "It's queer times, these,' says he. 'I dunno whiles whether I stanns on my head or my heels. And so you and Cassie Ashford's a goin' to put yer horses togither?' he says. 'The world's fine

and changed sin' I were young.'

The class to which "the parson" belonged has completely died out, their existence being almost forgotten. Miserably paid, the difficulties of communication rendering any intercourse with the outer world impossible, "Parson Taylor," in appearance and manner, was hardly above a common labourer; and although he was not an illiterate man, his dialect was as broad as that of his parishioners, with whom indeed he was completely on a level.

"He didna think much o' them parts across the water, when we axed him; but eh, he didna seem to know nowt about it, so to speak; and one mid as well be set i' th' ground like a turmit as canna wag its own head, as not flit when one has a mind so to do. German, turning eagerly towards him.

Dunna you say so, uncle ?" said

The old man had stood by in silence and some mortification for a few minutes; but as he now began to criticise their plans, the rejected suitor became the wise Nathan once more.

"Well, it a'most dazes a man for to hearken ye youngsters talk, as blithe as bees; and there's the big watern, wi' only a board atwixt ye and death, and the wild beasts and the serpents, and the savages nak'd as when they was born. There's a man I heard no longer nor Toosday, and he'd a song as said,—

Peter Gray went out to trade

In furs and other skins,

But he got scaled and tommie-hocked
By those nasty Indahins.

Tommie-hocking-I canna rightly tell what that mid be, but it stan's to reason 'tain't anything pleasant."

The women looked a little aghast: the unknown is always terrible, and this new peril bade fair to stand more in the way of their imaginations than all the real obstacles.

"Me and German's pretty good agin thoe black people, I take it," said Roland, who was not very strong ethnographically, and somewhat doubtful as to the colour of his future enemies. But though he spoke contemptuously he was a little anxious as to the effect of this new view of the case on his womankind. "German mun take his big sword," he added, laughing uneasily.

Nathan, however, was reassured by the effect of his eloquence after

VOL. XVI.-No. 93.

17

his late discomfiture, and he began graciously to relent. "I wunna say, though, as you're wrong, a' things considered. But law, ye'll be a sight o' time getting the brass together! Come, I'll just lend ye twelve pund, or gi'e it for that matter, an ye canna pay it back. Ye're a' that's left to me o' Bessie," said he with a sigh, as he prepared to depart with rather a downcast face.

"I wish you'd go with us, uncle," said German.

"I'm too old, my lad, too old by twenty year. But ye mun think o' me whiles, where ye're a goin'."

"You've took good heed we shanna forget ye," said Cassie, with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye. "You'll come back to the wedding, uncle," she went on, following him as he left the house. "They say it ain't lucky to hae any one at a marrying as is older nor bride and groom, but Roland and me'll risk that."

CHAPTER XXII.

HOPE IN THE FAR WEST.

"I WANT to see th' auld place again afore we flit for good," said Cassie a few days later to Roland, and up the long rutted track they went, every step a memory to her. But the house at Stone Edge was dirty and ill-kept, full of screaming children, and little pleasure to see, and they passed on to the Druid's Stones on the Edge (now, alas, destroyed like many of their fellows). The grand old hills spread wide under their feet, beautiful, though the day was grey and colourless, while they looked their last over their old country.

"There's the self stone' above father's close on Win Hill," said Roland, "and Lose Hill, where yer uncle's biding now with Martha." Probably the names recorded some pre-historic battle of the aborigines with the Danes, who are generally fathered with all fights in that county. The two hills faced each other over a dale lovely to look upon. There is little positive feeling for beauty of scenery in the peasant class: it is a taste of cultivation; but there is a clinging love to the old landmarks, a sehnsucht, difficult to describe, but very real and deep.

"When I were at the worst about thee, I used to come up here," said Cassie."Winter were beginning and it were cold and windy: there were a little blue harebell as growed in among the dark stones, looking so nesh and bright through it all, and I thought it were my hope; and when the weather grew snowy I was 'fraid it would kill my hope, and I just picked it and kep' it in my Bible. Good-by," she went on, going up and stroking the solemn old stones. "You'll niver see us again no more, and you'll not break yer hearts nor yer corners for that," she added, reproachfully.

There is something chilling and disappointing in the contrast between the everlasting hills and our brief day. They will smile as fairly when we are gone, they care nothing for our love or our sorrow. The want of

sympathy falls occasionally like an ache upon one's heart. Something like this passed through her, though she could not have put it into words, and she turned away with a sigh of relief from the insensible nature to the warm human heart beside her, and clung to his arm.

"I'm a poor portion for thee, Cassie," said he, with a sigh. "I've nowt to give thee, and I tak' thee away from a' thou lovest."

"I wunna wed thee an thou sayest such things. Dostna know I care more for thee than for a' the stones as iver was born?" answered she, with a pout and a smile.

When they re-entered the cottage they found Lydia as much "put about" as was possible to her gentle nature.

"Councillor Gilbert have a been here nigh upon an hour," said she, "speering no end o' questions up and down. Why we hadn't made more rout about," and she paused; "and what for we let thee wed wi' Roland," she added in a low voice, turning to Cassie. "I could ha' cried, he deaved me so wi' it all; but I niver let on as I cared a bit, and the upshot o' it all was, where were thy feyther? I made as if I'd niver heerd tell o' thissen, and I couldna understan' thatten, and at last he got into a rage like, and went off, saying as he b'lieved I were just right down stupid silly, but he'd get what he wanted for a' that."

In fact Lydia's demeanour had been a masterpiece of defensive warfare; she had let down over her whole face and manner that impenetrable veil of apparent stolidity which is so often used by her class as armour against impertinent questions, and which is as difficult to get through as the feather-beds used in an old siege hung over the castle walls.

"The man's a bad un, and he's a grudge at father," said Roland, gloomily. "I wish we were off."

"Ye dunno think as he could forbid the banns?" put in Cassie, anxiously.

"Them lawyers is like ferrets; they're so sharp that they'd worrit and worrit through a stone wall afore they'd be denied anythink," replied

he.

And they hurried on their preparations. They had sold almost everything belonging to them to pay their passage, save warrior Ashford's big sword, which was found not to be allowed for in the square inches of "emigrant's luggage" permitted in the hold, or the still smaller space of "cabin necessaries," and German hung it up in the little chapel up the glen.

"Mebbe I may claim it still," he said, rather sadly.

The earliest possible day after the banns was appointed for the marriage. It was a still cloudy morning in July as they passed along the silent meadows, where the hay had just been carried, and the bright green of the "eddish was fair to look on; up the "clattered way" they went-the paved path necessary in these mountain regions to make the road passable at all in muddy weather-and through the copsewood, to the little chapel standing at the head of the deep wild glen on its lonely hillside, surrounded

by great old feathery ash. Nothing could be more solitary; and the stillness seemed almost increased by the sound of the single bell which rang forth from the small ornamented turret perched at one corner-a quiet note, used for strangely different purposes-a wedding, a funeral, or a birth. It belonged to the days when bells were properly baptized, and had its name engraved round its neck-"Melodià nomen Magdalenæ campana resonat "—and now gave forth its quiet welcome, that peculiarly restful, peaceful sound which a village bell seems to "gather in its still life among the trees."

"The parson ain't come," said the old clerk, looking out from a window of the tower. "I'll go down and open for ye. Things ain't hardly fettled yet within."

As they stood silently before the closed door, Cassie's face was full of thought. It is a solemn moment for a woman, and must always be so to her, if she thinks at all: the death of the old life, the birth of the new, as she stands on the threshold, as it were, of an unknown future, giving up her separate and individual existence for ever, and becoming part of another, can be no light matter to her, however deep her affection. Cassie, fortunately for her, had been made to think and feel too much by the sufferings and anxieties of her past life, to take marriage as the peasant class (and indeed a much higher one, for that matter) so often does.

"Thee'rt not afeard, Cassie, o trustin' thysen to me?" said Roland, in a low husky voice, with a pressure of her hand that was almost painful.

The girl's expression in reply, as she looked up to him, though she did not speak, told more forcibly than by any words how entire was the confidence of her love. Lydia sat silently a little way off, on the low stone wall, and waited. No one was ever less inclined to revert to herself and her own sensations, but it was impossible not to contrast her own loveless marriage, so few years before, in that very church, with theirs; to feel that, in spite of trials, in spite of griefs before and behind them, they had in their affection a blessing which could not be taken away, and which had been denied to her. Nathan stood by, with rather a rueful countenance, leaning on his staff.

"I likes a bell," observed he, for conversation. "They says as how the Deevil can't abide it nohow, and as it keps off ill things when a soul's passing. And mebbe that's wanted for a wedding as well sometimes," he ended, as the old parson came up hurriedly.

6

"Well, young uns," said he, "you was nigh having no weddin' at all this morning. I'd one wi' me this ever so long as would ha' forbid it an he could. I'd ha' Roland Stracey took up,' he says, 'as particeps to the murder, and then the old un would turn up in no time,' but I pacified him that it weren't his business, and would mak' a big scandal. I'd a hard matter to stop him, he worrited me so. You'd best mak' haste, I can tell ye."