THE PERSECUTOR’S DAUGHTER.

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BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.

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The last days of November are at hand, and the melancholy woods, shorn of their foliage, stand skeleton-like against the cold, lowering sky; or toss their branches to and fro, with a low moaning sound, in the fitful tempest. Hark! how the gale swells out with the deep voice of a cathedral organ, or dies plaintively away like the cry of a lost child in the forest. The sky is covered with cloud-rifts of a deep, leaden color, only a spot of blue sky being here and there visible; but occasionally the sun, bursting, like a god, from the darkness that encircles him, covers the brown hills with an effulgent glory, while the opposite firmament is lit up with a dull, fiery glow, that has something almost spectral in its aspect. The streams are swollen and discolored, and roll their turbid waters hoarsely onward. Along the fields the brown grass whistles in the wind, and the bare flower-stalks rattle, with a melancholy tone, in the garden. Now and then, drops of rain plash heavily to the ground. The wind comes with a sudden chill to the nerves—the bay is crisped into foam by the fitful gusts—and along the bleak coast the now mountain waves roll in with a hoarse, sullen roar, forewarning us of shipwreck and death. Sad thoughts insensibly possess the mind, and tales of sorrow, that had long been forgot, come up to our memories. One such is even now heavy on our heart—listen! and we will rehearse it.

It was on just such a morning as this, many a long year ago, and far away from our own happy land, that a little congregation was gathered together in the hills to worship God. The time was in those sore and evil days when the decree of a tyrannical king had gone forth, that no man should worship, except as a corrupt hierarchy and lascivious court might ordain—and when, all over Scotland, those who would not give up the free birthright of their fathers, were driven to meet in mountain glens, and on lonely moors, whither their pastors—the holy men who had baptized them in infancy, and united them to the dear objects of their love—had already been hunted. And often, in solitary places, where hitherto only the cry of the eagle had been heard, the Sabbath hymn rose sweetly up from tender maidens and tearful wives, while their brothers and husbands listened with weapons in their hands, or watched from some neighboring eminence, lest the fiery dragoons of Claverhouse should be in sight. And when these God-defying troopers, with hands red with the blood of the saints, burst into the little flock, woful was the tale, and loud the wailing that went through all the vales around. Every new Sabbath brought its tale of slaughter, until the land smoked with blood, and the incense thereof went up from a hundred hills, crying for vengeance to the Most High.

And such a congregation had now met in the hollow of three hills, far away from the usual track of the persecutors. A simple rock served the hoary headed pastor for a pulpit; while hard by, a rivulet, brawling over its pebbly bed, and then for a moment expanding into a mimic lake, bottomed with silvery sands, formed the holy font for baptism. Around was gathered the little flock—aged sires and young striplings, staid matrons and meek-eyed maidens, young children and stalwart men—all gazing upward into the pastor’s face, a sacred throng. But there was one other there, who seemed equally with him an object of anxious interest, and on whom every eye was occasionally turned—a bright, beautiful being, with far more of heaven than earth in her deep, azure eyes. Oh! lovely was that fair-haired girl, even as we may have dreamed a seraph to be, all glorious with golden wings, under the throne of God. And now there sat in those soft blue eyes an expression of meek sorrow, tempered with high and holy faith, for many and sore had been the trials of Helen Græme; but grace had been given her to endure them all, and even to rise above them, with a courage which had made her dear unto every heart among these wandering and persecuted ones.