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The Brothers; or, The Last Embrace.

without exposing my recent fears: "when,
sir, my ears were assailed by sounds of the
most ravishing harmony, proceeding, as
I have since learned from a female ma-"
"Oh! my daughter!" groaned the patri-
archal form beside me, covering at the
same time his face with his hands-while
through his fingers I perceived the big
round tears oozing like streams from a
pent-up fountain.
"Your daughter, sir!" |
I exclaimed, with a feeling which can
neither be painted nor conceived. "Yes,
sir, my daughter-my poor, poor child,
Emma-my beloved-my unhappy child!
oh! oh! oh!" sobbed out the distressed
parent. I forgot I was a stranger to him,
his sorrows made him dear to me, I seized
his hand, and wept with him.

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The old man again dried the moisture from his cheeks, and then proceeded: "There repose as worthy a pair as ever died of a broken heart. Forty summer suns have visited this our once happy village, since first I knew Egbert Harlow,— he was then but a youth of about twelve or fourteen years of age; a merry curledheaded boy, the darling of his affectionate parents,—and, ere we had thought of it, Egbert had become a man-a young one, it is true, but old enough, he believed, to marry. That indispensable requisite to happiness, or fruitful source of misery, 'a wife,' was wished for by him, nor was he long before he had found a maiden every way worthy so worthy a young man. They were married; and well I remember that day, it was a village jubilee. They were the pride of the circle in which they movedall esteemed, and most loved them. Many were the healths that were with sobriety drunk, and sincere the wishes that were expressed on that occasion, for the welfare of Egbert Harlow and his lovely bride.

"The summer sky of prosperity was flatteringly bright above and around them ; they did not even dream of ever knowing a sadder day than their wedding-day, and a happier one they could not know. Egbert's father, who had been some time before this a widower, soon after died, and left him a comfortable property; which, together with a few hundreds which his wife had brought as her marriage portion, placed them in easy circumstances.

After nature had in part relieved herself, I attempted an apology for the grief I had innocently occasioned. He perceived my intention,—and with a smile of dignified urbanity, assured me that an apology was not necessary. "Your sympathy, sir," he continued, “ has laid me under obligation, and, if the detail of the unhappy circumstances which led to the breaking up of one of the finest minds of a created being, if the fondness of a father may be allowed to judge, would in any way interest you, I shall feel something like relief by reciting them to one, so evidently capable of judging of their aggravations as yourself." I attempted to assure the old gentleman of the mournful pleasure I should receive, by being so far obliged. "If your patience will not be worn out by its length," "One year after their marriage, saw them he replied, you shall hear the tale of the happy parents of a lovely son-who, But come," said he, rising as he at the proper period received the name of spoke, and gently taking my arm, and his father, Egbert; with a fondness such as leading me to another part of the church-parents only can conceive of, they conyard; "I must conduct you to the spot, from which the sounds you have referred to arose."

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At the western extremity of the ancient pile, I perceived another seat, constructed after the same Spartan form as the one we had just left, and on this we took our sittings in silence. After a few seconds, at the end of which the old man observed, as he dashed a tear from his eye, and pointed to a grave full in front of us, done up with more than ordinary care, "There, sir, is the place of poor Emma's mournful vigils; there, sir, on that grave she strews fresh-gathered flowers each returning evening, and beside it chants her lays of sorrow, and then harmlessly and pensively returns to her lonely chamber." perceived as he spoke the withered tokens of poor Emma's regard, half covering the raised clods of earth.

templated their "first-born, much-loved boy.' The fond mother beheld in his bright eye the sparkling intelligence of his father, while he, with equal sagacity, discovered in his artless smile the amiable and attractive spirit of his mother: he possessed in short their undivided affections. Yes, he who soon became the cause of the almost first uneasiness they felt after their happy union, was almost, if not altogether, the idol of their hearts. No sooner had he learned to run alone, than enterprise became his delight; nor did a week pass, but some juvenile misdemeanour of the infant Egbert filled the village with disquiet, and his mother's heart with uneasiness. He had attained his fourth year, when a portion at least of his parent's affections was transferred from him to a brother, by the birth of a second

son.

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The Brothers; or, The Last Embrace.

"The joy which even children partake of at such an event was scarcely felt, and but a short time enjoyed, by the first-born. The dissimilarity of the tempers and pursuits of the brothers became obvious, as the character of each developed itself in their growing years. Alfred, so the second son was named, was gentle as the shorn lamb, and unassuming as the violet of the valley. His soul appeared all affection, the very element in which he lived was kindness. Noble, generous, courageous, and manly, even in childhood, he won insensibly the hearts of all who knew him. Egbert, with the keen eye of the bird of the sun, saw the growing virtues of his brother, and learned to hate the "excellence he could not reach." There was a morosity and surliness stamped upon his forehead, which lowered in curling wrinkles of disapprobation at Alfred's growing favour. Like another Cain, his soul brooded over imaginary wrongs, and determined revenge upon his unsuspecting

rival.

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Egbert had reached his sixteenth year, when one night—the recollection brings a sickening influence over me-the wind howled dreadfully, it rose to a perfect hurricane,―occasionally cracking peals of thunder seemed to threaten some fearful destruction. The storm drew nearer and nearer, until the bursting cloud, perpendicularly above us, shot forth streams of forked lightnings-whizzing in zig-zag fury. It struck the tower of our church, and carried in its course a considerable portion of it to the ground. On that night the brothers were missing, servants were despatched in all directions in search of them. That wood which darkens in its shade the paddocks on our right, was scoured by myself and the distressed parent: We hollowed, and were answered by the bellowing thunders. We listened, and the roaring winds or mimic echoes mocked our anxieties. The storm gradually subsided, and the moon broke forth in splendour, an appalling stillness succeeded the raging tempest. Still we continued our apparently fruitless search; when, as we drew near the edge of the wood, where the swelling river, now almost overflowing its banks, wound along, a faint moan reached the listening and half-distracted father's ears-another-and another was audible. We called, but received no answer; and, while half suspended in our progress by our agitation, the glancing beams of the moon, bursting suddenly from behind a clump of trees, (the torches we had employed had gone out,) fell full on a human figure, prostrate on the ground. We rushed eagerly towards it, and

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beheld, covered with clotted blood which had flowed from a deep wound on the left cheek and forehead, the youthful Alfred. But Egbert was no where to be seen. How to act we scarcely knew, the sight had almost unmanned us. A call brought to our aid some servants, and the insensible and cold Alfred, with scarcely any signs of life, was carried home, followed by his weeping father, while I continued my search for Egbert.

"To attempt a description of the fond mother's feelings, would be folly in the extreme; while she gazed upon the bloody form of her beloved Alfred, and found, to aggravate her misery, that Egbert was still missing. Medical aid was soon procured, and the danger was pronounced to be much less than had at first been anticipated. Other small wounds than those on the cheek and forehead, with several bruises, seemed to intimate that considerable violence had been exercised upon the unfortunate youth. He was not in a fit state however to give information, and therefore questions were not put to him.

"The night had passed away—and morning's light peeped from the gray mist of the east, and still I could discover nothing of Egbert. I had taken a long circuit, and was returning by the way of the river, when just as I reached the spot where Alfred had been found, I perceived something entangled among the bushes which grew by the side of the stream, the branches of which touched the water. I hastened towards it, and soon succeeded in bringing it to land. It was a hat-on the inside was marked Egbert. Expecting I should find the body, I employed some time in examining the bushes as far as they extended, but in vain. I was compelled to return to the house of mourning, to add fresh sorrow to the bleeding hearts of my valued friends. Upon the production of the hat, no doubt was entertained that the youths had been waylaid, that Alfred had been left for dead, while his brother had been thrown into the river.

"We now regretted that we had not silently pursued our search, nothing doubting that the wretches who had committed the deed, had heard our voices and fled. The river was searched in vain. Egbert, neither living nor dead, could not be found.

"Two months passed away, and deep mourning clothed the family in its sable weeds, for the lost-for ever lost-child. In the mean time, Alfred slowly recovered; and as his weakness permitted, he continued to inquire with peculiar anxiety

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The Wild Pigeons of America.

after his brother. Waking, as from a dream one evening, while his father and mother, and myself, were sitting in his room, he exclaimed: "Oh, do forgive poor Egbert, I am sure I forgive him, he is still my dear, dear brother!' We looked at each other with amazement, as if fearful to ask what the youth could mean; but conceiving he might be labouring under some partial delirium, we were recommencing our indifferent conversation, when he again inquired, “What have you done, dear father, with Egbert? I am sure I forgive him; do let him come and see me, that I may tell him so.'

"I perceived that more than we had yet learned was to be disclosed; I therefore intimated that Mrs. Harlow should retirebut I could not succeed. Could it be possible that Egbert had done the deed; if so, whither had he fled, what was his fate? "Tell me, Alfred,' I said, 'how this sad affair happened, what was the cause of it?' If you will promise to forgive Egbert, I will.' answered the sobbing youth. We promised his request should be complied with; when he informed us of what at this moment, distant as it is, and even by faint recollection, chills my very blood:That Egbert had invited him to a ramble through the wood; and although unwilling to go, yet to please him, as he had for some days before assumed a more than ordinary degree of moroseness towards him, and hoping to gain him over, he consented. They walked together until they had reached the centre of the wood, when, fearing the approaching storm, he wished to return, but was prevented by Egbert-who still drew him onwards until they had reached its extremity, on the opposite side from that they had entered; when he suddenly charged him with having wronged him on several occasions. Alfred protested his innocence, and strove to pacify his growing anger, but in vain. With a stake which he tore from the thicket, he aimed a fierce blow at him; he staggered, and prayed his brother to spare him, but in vainanother and another blow followed; the blood gushed forth-he fell-and as his eyes closed, as he supposed in death, he saw Egbert rush fearfully from him towards the river, and, until he found himself in his bed, no recollection of what afterwards followed was possessed by him.

"The disclosure was horrifying. It was now no longer doubted that Egbert, supposing he had murdered his brother, had fled, and added to his crime self-destruction. Alfred saw our agony, but could not

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explain its cause. Supposing we had learned the principal parts of the tragic tale from Egbert, whom he imagined to be still in the house, he had unsuspectingly with his own mouth furnished the awful truth, which never, but for such supposition, would have been made known.

To be concluded in our next.)

THE WILD PIGEONS OF AMERICA.

In the autumn of 1813, I left my house in Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. Having met the pigeons flying from north-east to southwest, in the barrens of natural wastes a few miles beyond Hardensburg, in apparently greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before, I felt an inclination to enumerate the flocks that would pass within the reach of my eye in one hour. I accordingly dismounted, and seating myself on a tolerable eminence, took my pencil to mark down what I saw flying by and over me, and made a dot for every flock which passed.

Finding, however, that this was next to impossible, and feeling unable to record the flocks, as they multiplied constantly; I rose, and counting the dots then put down, discovered that one hundred and sixty-three had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more, the farther I went. The air was literally filled with pigeons; the light of noon-day became dim, as during an eclipse; the pigeons' dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of their wings over me, had a tendency to incline my senses to repose.

Before sun-set I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburg fifty-five miles, where the pigeons were still passing, and this continued for three days in succession.

The people were indeed all up in arms, and shooting on all sides at the passing flocks. The banks of the river were crowded with men and children, for here the pigeons flying rather low as they passed the Ohio, gave a fair opportunity to destroy them in great numbers. For a week or more the population spoke of nothing but pigeons, and fed on no other flesh but that of pigeons. The whole atmosphere during the time was strongly impregnated with the smell appertaining to their species.

It may not, perhaps, be out of place to attempt an estimate of the number of pigeons contained in one of those mighty flocks, and the quantity of food daily co

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The Wild Pigeons of America.

sumed by its members. The inquiry will show the astonishing bounty of the Creator in his works, and how universally this bounty has been granted to every thing on the vast continent of America.

We shall take, for example, a column of one mile in breadth, which is far below the average size; and supposing it passed over us without interruption for three hours, at the rate of one mile per minute, this will give us a parallelogram of one hundred and eighty miles by one, covering one hundred and eighty square miles, and allowing two pigeons to the square yard, we have one billion one hundred and fifteen millions one hundred and thirty-six thousand pigeons in one flock: and as every pigeon consumes fully half a pint of food per day, the quantity must be eight millions seven hundred and twelve thousand bushels per day, which is required to feed such a flock.

As soon as these birds discover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, they fly round in circles, reviewing the country below, and at this time exhibit their phalanx in all the beauties of their plumage, now displaying a large glistening sheet of bright azure, by exposing their backs to view, and suddenly veering, exhibit a mass of rich deep purple. They then pass lower over the woods, and are lost among the foliage for a moment, but they reappear as suddenly above; after which they alight, and, as if affrighted, the whole again take to wing with a roar equal to loud thunder, and wander swiftly through the forest to see if danger is near. Impelling hunger, however, soon brings them all to the ground, and then they are seen industriously throwing up the fallen leaves to seek for the last beech-nut or acorn, the rear ranks continually rising, passing over, and alighting in front in such quick succession, that the whole still bears the appearance of being on the wing.-The quantity of ground thus swept up, or, to use a French expression, moissonee, is astonishing, and so clean is the work, that gleaners never find it worth their while to follow where the pigeons have been. On such occasions, when the woods are thus filled with them, they are killed in amazing numbers, yet without any apparent diminution. During the middle of the day, after the repast is finished, the whole settle on the trees to enjoy rest, and digest their food; but as the sun sinks in the horizon, they depart en masse for the roosting place, not unfrequently hundreds of miles off, as has been ascertained by persons keeping account of their arrival, and of their depar

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ture from their curious roosting places, to which I must now conduct the reader.

To one of those general nightly rendezvous, not far from the banks of Green River in Kentucky, I paid repeated visits. It was, as is almost always the case, pitched in a portion of the forest where trees were of great magnitude of growth, but with little underwood. I rode through it lengthwise upwards of forty miles, and crossed it in different parts, ascertaining its width to be rather more than three miles. My first view of it was about a fortnight subsequent to the period when they had chosen this spot, and I arrived there nearly two hours before the setting of the sun. Few pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of persons with horses and waggons, guns and ammunition, had already established different camps on the borders. Two farmers from the neighbourhood of Russelsville, distant more than one hundred miles, had driven upwards of three hundred hogs to be fattened on pigeon meat; and here and there the people, employed in picking and salting what had already been procured, were seen sitting in the centre of large piles of those birds, all proving to me that the number resorting there at night must be astonishing, and probably consisting of all those then feeding in Indiana some distance beyond Jeffersonville, not less than one hundred and fifty miles off.

The dung of the birds was several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the roosting place like a bed of snow. Many trees, two feet in diameter, I observed were broken at no great distance from the ground, and the branches of many of the largest and tallest so much so, that the desolation already exhibited, equalled that performed by a furious tornado. As the time elapsed, I saw each of the anxious persons about to prepare for action; some with sulphur in iron pots, others with torches of pine knots, many with poles, and the rest with guns double and treble charged. The sun was lost to our view, yet not a pigeon had yet arrived-but all of a sudden, I heard a cry of "Here they come !" The noise which they made, though distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived, and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men. The current of birds, however, kept still increasing. The fires were lighted, and a most magnificent, as well as wonderful and terrifying sight was before me. The pigeons coming in by millions, alighted every where one on

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the top of another, until masses of them resembling hanging swarms of bees, as large as hogsheads, were formed on every tree in all directions. These heavy clusters were seen to give way as the supporting branches, breaking down with a crash, came to the ground, killing hundreds of those which obstructed their fall, forcing down other equally large and heavy groups, and rendering the whole a scene of uproar and of distressing confusion. 1 found it quite useless to speak, or even to shout, to those persons nearest me. The reports even of the different guns were seldom heard, and I knew only of their going off by seeing the owners reload them.

No person dared venture within the line of devastation, and the hogs had been penned up in due time; the picking up of the dead and wounded sufferers being left for the next morning's operation. Still the pigeons were constantly coming, and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued, however, the whole night; and as I was anxious to know to what distance the sound reached, I sent a man, who, by his habits in the woods, was able to tell me, two hours afterwards, that at three miles he heard it distinctly. Towards the approach of day the noise rather subsided; but long ere objects were at all distinguishable, the pigeons began to move off in a direction quite different from that in which they arrived the day before, and at sun-rise none that were able to fly remained. The howlings of the wolves now reached our ears, and the foxes, the lynx, the cougars, bears, rakoons, oppossums, and pole-cats, were seen sneaking off the spot, whilst the eagles and hawks of different species, supported by a horde of buzzards and carrion-crows, came to supplant them, and reap the benefits of this night of destruction.

It was then that I, and all those present, began our entry among the dead and wounded sufferers. They were picked up in great numbers, until each had as many as could possibly be disposed of; and afterwards the hogs and dogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.

Account of the Wild Pigeons of America, by Mr. John James Audubon. Lewis, in his excellent History of Lynn, Massachusetts, speaking of the wild pigeons which visited the early settlers of this country, remarks, that their flocks were so numerous as to obscure the light, and they continued flying for four or five hours together, to such an extent, that a person

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could see neither beginning nor end, length nor breadth, of these millions. When they alighted in the woods, they frequently broke down large limbs of trees with their weight. A single family has been known to have killed more than a hundred dozen in one night, with poles and other weapons; and they were often taken in such numbers, that they were thrown into piles, and kept to feed swine.

ST. WINIFRED'S WELL.

DOCTOR MILNER, the Roman Catholic Bishop, at Wolverhampton, author of a Tour in Ireland, and of an Appeal to Irish Catholics on the subject of the Veto, has published an account strongly attested, that Winifred White, a servant in Wolverhampton, who lost the use of one side by a palsy arising from a curvature of the spine, after suffering this disease three years, and being given over by the physician as incurable, turned to God for a remedy, and repaired to Saint Winifred's Well in Holywell, Flintshire, near Chester; and upon once bathing was cured so completely that she could walk, run, and carry a considerable weight. This account is attested by her mistress, the doctor and apothecary, and two ladies who were present when she was bathing, and these attestations were collected by Doctor Milner, with strict scrutiny into their truth, as well as the deposition of Winifred White herself, who bears a character of veracity, modesty, and devotion.

Saint Winifred's Well is of the purest water, transparent as crystal, and the spring raises one hundred tons in a minute when the bason is empty, as proved by experiment in the presence of the Rev. J. Wesley, (see Arminian Mag.)

Dr. Milner, in asserting the miracles of his church, candidly admits instances of imposture and credulity; but as he has neglected to give the history of the origin of the miraculous power in the fountain,, we shall supply it from a scarce book now before us.

The famous account of Saint Winifred, dedicated by Robert the prior of Shrewsbury to the prior of Worcester, was written in Latin, in the twelfth century, shortly after the relics of Saint Winifred were carried to the author's monastery, having been obtained from the place where they were previously deposited, by much interest, intrigue, and bribery to a large amount; and, to settle the dispute, king Stephen made a grant confirming the deposit in Shrewsbury.

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