“There was one, however, who stood calm and unmoved by the side of the dead body. She spoke some words of holy comfort to the women, and they were silent at her voice. She then stepped lightly forward, and took a torch from the trembling hand that held it, and bent down with it beside the corpse. As the light fell one moment on her own fair face, it showed no signs of womanish feeling at the sight and touch of mortality; a bright and lovely bloom glowed on her cheek, and a heavenly lustre beamed in her eye; and as she knelt there, her white garments and long dark hair floating far on the storm, there was that in her look which drew the gaze even of that terrified group from the object of their doubt and dread. The next moment the light fell on the face of the dead—the torch dropped from her hand, and she fell upon the body of her husband! Her prayer was granted. She held her husband in her arms that night, and although no struggles of parting life were heard or seen, she died on his breast.”
When the fisherman had concluded his story—and after some observations were made by us both, touching the mysterious warning, joined with a grateful acknowledgment that the stroke of death might be as often dealt in mercy as in wrath—we shook hands; and asking one another’s names, as it might so fortune that we should once more, in the course of our earthly pilgrimage, be within call of one another, the old man and I parted, going each his several way.—Literary Melange.
GLENMANNOW, THE STRONG HERDSMAN.
By William Bennet.
Duke James of Queensberry, like others of our nobility and gentry, resided during a part of the year in London; and on one of his visits to the metropolis, he and a party of friends happened to have a match at discus, or, as it is more commonly called, “putting the stone.” Several adepts happened to be of the party, who boasted much of their superior strength and adroitness, and after making one of their best throws, offered to stake a large sum that not one of their companions knew of or could find a person to match it.
“The throw is certainly a good one,” said the Duke of Queensberry; “yet I think it were easy to find many champions of sufficient muscle to show us a much better. I myself have a homely unpractised herdsman in Scotland, on whose head I will stake the sum you mention, that he shall throw the quoit fully two yards over the best of you.”
“Done! produce your man!” was the reply of all; and the duke accordingly lost no time in dispatching a letter to one of his servants at Drumlanrig, ordering him to set out immediately on its receipt for Glenmannow, and to come with honest John M‘Call to London without delay.
The duke’s letter with Glenmannow was not less absolute than the order of an emperor. He wondered, but never thought of demurring; and without any further preparation than clothing himself in his Sunday’s suit, and giving Mally his wife a few charges about looking to the hill in his absence, he assumed his large staff, and departed with the servant for “Lunnun.”
On his arrival, the duke informed him of the purpose for which he had been sent, and desired that on the day, and at the hour appointed, he should make his appearance along with one of his servants, who knew perfectly the back streets and by-lanes of London, and who, after he should have decided the bet, would conduct him immediately in safety from the ground, as it was not improbable that his appearance and performance might attract a crowd and lead to unpleasant consequences. When the day arrived, the party assembled and proceeded to the ground, where, to the duke’s surprise, though not to his terror, his crafty opponents chose a spot directly in front of a high wall, and at such a distance that the best of their party should pitch the quoit exactly to the foot of it; so that their antagonist, to make good the duke’s boast of “two yards over them,” should be obliged to exceed them those two yards in height, instead of straight forward distance. This implied such an effort as amounted in their minds to a physical impossibility; and as the duke, from having neglected to specify the particular nature of the ground, could not legally object to this advantage, they looked upon the victory as already their own.
The quoit chosen was a large ball of lead, and already had the champion of the party tossed it to the wall, and demanded of the duke to produce the man appointed to take it up. His grace’s servant, who fully comprehended the instructions given to him, entered at this crisis with the ‘buirdly’ and, to them, uncouth Glenmannow. His appearance attracted no small notice, and even merriment; but the imperturbable object of it regarded the whole scene with the indifference peculiar to his character; and, with his mind fixed only upon the great end for which he was there, requested to be shown the quoit, and the spots from which and to where it had been thrown. This demand was soon complied with, and while he assumed his station, with the quoit in his hand, the duke whispered in his ear the deception which had been practised, and urged him to exert his whole force in order to render it unavailing.