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XCVIII.—VISIT TO A HIGHLAND SCHOOL.

S

OME years ago I was in one of the wildest recesses of the Perthshire Highlands. It was in autumn, and the little school-supported mainly by the chief-was to be examined by the minister, whose native tongue, like that of his flock, was Gaelic, and who was often awkward and ineffectual, and sometimes unconsciously indecorous in his English.

2. It was a great occasion: the keen-eyed, firm-limbed, brown-cheeked little fellows were all in a buzz of excitement as we came in, and before the examination began every eye was looking at us strangers as a dog looks at his game, or when seeking it; they knew everything we had on, everything that could be known through their senses. I never felt myself so studied and scrutinized before. If any one could have examined them upon what they thus mastered, he would have come away astonished, and, I trust, humble.

3. Well, then, the work of the day began; the mill was set a-going, and what a change! In an instant their eyes were like the windows of a house with the blinds down; no one was looking out; everything blank; their very features changed their jaws fell, their cheeks flattened, they drooped and looked ill at ease-stupid, drowsy, sulky and getting them to speak, or think, or in any way to energize, was like trying to get any one to come to the window at three of a summer morning, when, if he does come, he is half awake, rubbing his eyes and growling.

4. So with my little Celts. They were like an idle and half-asleep dog by the fireside, as contrasted with the dog on the hill and in the joy of work; the form of dog and boy are there-he, the self of each, was elsewhere. I noticed that anything they really knew roused them somewhat; what they had merely to transmit or pass along, as if they were a tube through which the master blew the pea of knowledge into our faces, was performed as stolidly as if they were nothing but a tube.

5. At last the teacher asked where Sheffield was, and was answered; it was pointed to by the pupil as a dot on the skeleton map. And now came a flourish. "What is Sheffield famous for?" Blank stupor, hopeless vacuity till he came to a sort of sprouting Dougal Cratur—almost as wee, and as shaggy about the head, as my own terrier, whom I saw at that moment through the open door careering after a hopeless rabbit, with much benefit to his muscles and his wind-who was trembling with keenness. He shouted out something which was more like "cutlery " than anything else, and was received as such amid our rapturous applause.

6. I then ventured to ask the master to ask small and red Dougal what cutlery was; but from the sudden erubescence of his pallid, ill-fed cheek, and the alarming brightness of his eyes, I saw at once that he did n't himself know what it meant. So I put the question myself, and was not surprised to find that not one of them, from Dougal up to a young strapping shepherd of eighteen, knew what it was.

7. I told them that Sheffield was famous for making knives, and scissors, and razors; and that cutlery meant the manufacture of anything that cuts. Presto! and the blinds were all up, and eagerness, and wits, and brains at the window. I happened to have a jack-knife, with "Rodgers & Sons, Sheffield," on the blade. I sent it round, and finally presented it to the enraptured Dougal. Would not each one of those boys know that knife again when he saw it, and be able to pass a creditable competitive examination on all its ins and outs? and would n't they remember "cutlery" for a day or two?

8. Well, the examination over, the minister performed an oration, of much ambition and difficulty to himself and to us, upon the general question, and a great many other questions, into which his Gaelic subtilty fitted like the mists into the hollows of a mountain, with, it must be allowed, a somewhat similar tendency to confuse and conceal what was beneath; and he concluded with thanking the chief, as he well might, for his generous support of this "aixlent

CEMETERY of ædication." Cemetery indeed! The blind leading the blind, with the ancient result; the dead burying their dead.

9. Now not greater is the change we made from that low, small, stifling, gloomy, mephitic room, into the glorious open air,—the loch lying asleep in the sun, and telling over again on its placid face, as in a dream, every hill and cloud, and birch and pine, and passing bird and cradled boat; the Black Wood of Rannoch standing in the midst of its own darkness; and far off in the clear ether, as in another and a better world, the Shepherds of Etive pointing, like ghosts at noonday, to the weird shadows of Glencoe;-not greater was this change than is that from the dingy, oppressive, weary "cemetery" of mere word-knowledge to the open air, the light and liberty, the divine infinity and richness of Nature and her teaching.

JOHN BROWN, M. D.

XCIX.-THE FACE AGAINST THE PANE.

I.

ABEL, little Mabel.

M with face against the pane,

Looks out across the night
And sees the Beacon Light
A-trembling in the rain.

She hears the sea-birds screech,
And the breakers on the beach
Making moan, making moan.
And the wind about the eaves
Of the cottage sobs and grieves;
And the willow-tree is blown

To and fro, to and fro,

Till it seems like some old crone
Standing out there all alone,
With her woe!

Wringing, as she stands,
Her gaunt and palsied hands,

While Mabel, timid Mabel,
With face against the pane,
Looks out across the night,
And sees the Beacon Light
A-trembling in the rain.

II.

Set the table, maiden Mabel,
And make the cabin warm;
Your little fisher-lover

Is out there in the storm,
And your father-you are weeping!
O Mabel, timid Mabel,

Go, spread the supper-table,
And set the tea a-steeping.

Your lover's heart is brave,

His boat is stanch and tight;
And your father knows the perilous reef
That makes the water white.

-But Mabel, Mabel darling,
With face against the pane,
Looks out across the night
At the Beacon in the rain.

III.

The heavens are veined with fire!
And the thunder, how it rolls!
In the lullings of the storm

The solemn church-bell tolls
For lost souls!

But no sexton sounds the knell
In that belfry old and high;
Unseen fingers sway the bell
As the wind goes tearing by!
How it tolls for the souls

Of the sailors on the sea!
God pity them, God pity them,
Wherever they may be!
God pity wives and sweethearts
Who wait and wait in vain!

And pity little Mabel,

With face against the pane.

IV.

A boom!-the Lighthouse gun!
(How its echo rolls and rolls!)
'Tis to warn the home-bound ships
Off the shoals!

See! a rocket cleaves the sky

From the Fort-a shaft of light! See! it fades, and, fading, leaves Golden furrows on the night!

V.

What made Mabel's cheek so pale? What made Mabel's lips so white? Did she see the helpless sail

That, tossing here and there, Like a feather in the air, Went down and out of sight? Down, down, and out of sight! O, watch no more, no more, With face against the pane;

You cannot see the men that drown By the Beacon in the rain!

VI.

From a shoal of richest rubies

Breaks the morning clear and cold; And the angel on the village spire, Frost-touched, is bright as gold. Four ancient fishermen,

In the pleasant autumn air,
Come toiling up the sands,
With something in their hands,-
Two bodies stark and white,

Ah, so ghastly in the light,

With sea-weed in their hair!

VII.

O ancient fishermen,

Go up to yonder cot! You'll find a little child,

With face against the pane, Who looks toward the beach,

And, looking, sees it not.

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