head mournfully, "how it has throbbed for years, long years! I know all that has passed,' and as he spoke he clasped his hands together, a dream too. frightful, and, alas! too real. The hand of affliction has been heavy upon me and upon mine, but the hour is near when our troubled hearts shall be at rest.' "He then asked for his little child, and taking her in his arms, he looked earnestly in her face, and prayed God to bless her. "I think I see him now, comrade," said the corporal, hastily brushing something from his cheek, "folding her to his breast, and kissing her as I'd seldom seen him do before. "That which he said to me is not worth repeating, only that it's as well to observe that I didn't deserve one-fourth part of what his grateful soul gave vent to. "By his wish I now led little Clara from the room, and the few remaining moments of his life were witnessed by her alone, whose broken spirit will be healed only when they are united again in heaven." Corporal Crump's voice faltered with the conclusion of the sentence; but its steadiness of tone recovered under the influence of a timely appeal to Jacob's mixture. "We remained at the cottage for some time after the lieutenant's death," continued he, "and it seemed a melancholy pleasure with my mistress to go almost daily to her husband's grave, in a small, out-o'-the-way churchyard close by, and planted with garden flowers. Poor thing! I'm afraid she often watered them with her tears." (By permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall.) TAM O'SHANTER. A TALE. ROBERT BURNS. WHEN chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, As market-days are wearin' late, This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter, O Tam, hadst thou but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November to October, Ae market-day thou was nae sober, That ilka melder, wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller, That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, e'en on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesied, that, late or soon, Thou wad be found deep drown'd in Doon; Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet, To think how mony counsels sweet, How mony lengthen'd sage advices The husband fra the wife despises ! But to our tale. Ae market night, Tam had got planted unco right Fast by an ingle bleezing finely, Care, mad to see a man sae happy, But pleasures are like poppies spread- That flit ere you can point their place; Nae man can tether time or tide : The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in And sic a night he taks the road in, 1; As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. That night a child might, understand, Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, (A better never lifted leg,) Tam skelpit on through dub and mire, Whiles hauding fast his guid blue bonnet, By this time he was cross the ford, Through ilka bore the beams were glancing, Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil! The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, Warlocks and witches in a dance! At winnock-bunker in the east, There sat auld Nick in shape o' beast: Coffins stood round like open presses, A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'. As Tammie glow'r'd, amaz'd and glorious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious; The piper loud and louder blew ; The dancers quick and quicker flew; They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, And coost her duddies to the wark, And linkit at it in her sark! Now, Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans, A' plump and strappin', in their teens; |