an ungrateful scoundrel if he did not devote himself to watch over her health and safety. But Bessy shook her head and said that could not be. "It must be !" Vincent answered. "You must be my wife now, Bessy. I am determined to do what is right, and fulfil my promise." "No, Mr. Halioway," answered Bessy, "I will never be your wife. It would n't be good for you nor me, I know; and perhaps might sooner or later lead to worse than what's gone. It would never do; and I would n't say, if we had words, but I might some time cast up to you about the canal, and about your running away instead of trying to save me. Uncle Philpots and I had words about it; but I told him it was n't no use, for I would n't marry a man as wanted to marry another girl." And Bessy adhered to her wise resolution. Vincent was now free to marry Emily; even the child he was not burdened with, Uncle and Aunt Philpots having chosen to adopt it. But was he more worthy to become the husband of a virtuous woman than he was when he believed Bessy was dead? Were the black thoughts of that fatal evening-of that fatal moment-more pardonable because the life he supposed to be sacrificed had been providentially preserved? The struggle of mind these feelings occasioned became dreadful. Whilst he believed Bessy dead there had been no struggle. His path was plain; his duty was clearly to relinquish Emily; his condition was rather that of utter despondency and calm despair. But now another element had been introduced-a small scruple of hope that, setting his mind in a ferment, robbed him of his sleep, and of what little appetite he had recovered, and Emily had the pain of seeing that he was daily losing all the ground he had gained. In short, he became so ill that, for his own part, he thought death was about to relieve him from all his difficulties; and under this persuasion he resolved, before he quitted the world, to make a full confession to Emily. He felt that his own mind would be easier, and also that it was due to her to give her that last proof of his affection and confidence; but it should not be till his end was approaching, when pity would silence reproof, and the horror and aversion she felt she would in mercy forbear to exhibit. Emily began to think he must be the victim of some delusion. What crime of so black a die, and yet so secret, could a youth, situated as Vincent was, have committed? But she was resolved, having brought him thus far, not to lose the ground she had gained. 66 66 Upon my word, Vincent," she said smiling, one would think you had committed a murder to hear you talk!" "And if I had?" he sobbed, covering his face with his hands. "Oh God! Vincent," she cried, clasping hers in anguish, "don't say that! You cannot mean it!" His reply was a relation of the whole circumstances of his acquaintance with Bessy, from the first awakening of his boyish infatuation to the frenzied ideas that had beset him at their meeting by the canal, and the catastrophe which seemed to his affrighted conscience to be their result. He concluded by mentioning the offer of reparation he had now made her, together with the different phases of his own mental struggle; "And you will agree with me now," he said, "that it is bet-ter I should die!" "No," answered Emily weeping, "it is better you should live and repent. Poor, poor Vincent! How little I guessed the weight that was dragging you into the grave!" The ease of mind that followed this confession soon showed its beneficial effects upon his health, the more especially as there was no relaxation of attention on the part of Emily. She continued to tend him with the same faithful assiduity. Her cheek was paler, her lip was graver, and perhaps she was a little more reserved; but it was not till he was well enough to listen calmly to what she had to say, that she disclosed her views and resolution-a resolution which scarcely surprised him, In the mean time Emily had her project too-though a latent hope he had cherished rendered the which was to obtain his confidence; but he always blow difficult to bear. baffled her till one day, when the doctor had quitted the room with a grave face, she reëntered it with the traces of tears on her cheeks. "I think Bessy Mure quite right in refusing to marry you," she said; "such a union would be a bond of wretchedness to both. But neither, dear Vincent, must I marry you." "I knew it!" he cried; "and yet you said that whatever I might have done, you had witnessed my sufferings, and could love me still." "And so I do," she said. "Why else am I here? As brother and sister we may surely love each other. I was the innocent cause of your hallucination, and, depend on it, I will be faithful to you through life, and help you to sustain your burden." Vincent felt he had no right to complain; but his heart rebelled against this decision. He was angry with the strength of mind that could form it. He said he saw she had never loved him, and was irritable and unjust; thus convincing Emily how wisely she had resolved. But she did not I desert him in his weakness. She never ceased to uphold and to fortify him, both by precept and example, and by such proofs of devotion, as at length forced from him the confession that the love that could afford them must be rich indeed! As this dead, Nancy was married, and Bessy keeping house conviction gained on him, he became happier. He began to appreciate the purity and loftiness of her nature, and was proud to be the possessor of such a heart. This feeling reacted on his own character; it elevated him, and made him emulous to render himself worthy of so true and noble an attachment. In the mean time the world wondered and talked. "Let them talk," she said; "they will weary of us by and by, and find another subject." Of course Mr. Halkelt was surprised and puzzled; he wanted to see her married. for Uncle Philpots, who was now a widower. Jacob was as austere, and Rachel as meek as ever; when Mr. Halkelt, fancying he felt symptoms of declining health, told his daughter one day that he often felt uneasy at the idea of leaving her alone in the world. "You have no relations you would like to live with," he said; "and I cannot tell what you could do if I should die!" 66 I hope you will live many a day and year too, dear father" she replied. Well, my love, I hope I may, for your sake; but you know I must die at last, and I want to learn what your plans would be." "What do you think of my taking a husband?” she asked. "Never mind, father!" she said. "If I don't marry Vincent Halloway, you will have me always with you; for I shall never marry any one else." Rachel's woman's heart revealed to her some "I wish to goodness you would!" he answered; inkling of the truth-that is, she guessed there" but you won't marry Vincent, and you put it out had been another love, another engagement; for of the power of anybody else to ask you. I assure she too had witnessed her son's anguish. Jacob you the thought of leaving you unmarried often looked on severely. The Reform Bill being car- gives me great uneasiness." ried, his excitement had subsided, and as he rather despised himself for the relaxations it had won from him, and the follies, as he considered them, into which he had allowed his son to launch, he did not condescend to ask questions, but shut himself up in his austere silence. Thus passed seven years. Vincent was nearly thirty, and Emily six-and-twenty-he a very different being, both morally and intellectually, from the Vincent of my first chapter. Mrs. Mure was PUNCH TO LORD BROUGHAM. "During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers, attended the service of their lordships' house. During the last ten days the difficulty had increased, and become more severe. In the hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found he could struggle no more."-Lord Brougham's last Speech on Law Reform in the House of Lords. And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last? Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far? And speak what haply he had left unspoken, No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew, you. He knows the orator whose fearless tongue Lashed into infamy and endless scorn The wretches who their blackening scandal flung He knows the lover of his kind, who stood Chief of the banded few that dared to brave The accursed traffickers in negro blood, And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave; The statesman, who, in a less happy hour 66 "Well, father, as I would n't cause you uneasiness for the world," answered Emily, suppose you ask Vincent if he will forgive me my caprices, and marry me after all?" This was the way it came about, and nobody will question what Vincent's answer was. Emily continued to be his good angel after marriage as she had been before; and he was blest in knowing that she was so. And gave the keys of knowledge and of power The lawyer, who, unwarped by private aims, The man whose name men read even as they run Over untruth, or prejudice, or wrong. That voice which loudest in the combat rung Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore, Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside. This is a very interesting and very good book, intended and well calculated to inculcate good morals and Christian principle. It is written in the style of auto-biography, and there is not a line of it that one would wish to leave unread. There is no vanity, no egotism about it-two things very common in auto-biography, and which, however pleasant, always serve to mar the value of a book. It is Scotch in its character, Presbyterian in its tone, and, unlike many other books of the kind, is so little of a partisan work, that it has not a word of any kind against the established or any other church. The author, whoever she may be, and the author must be a woman, has more of the milk of kindness in her disposition Than this, maintained man's right to read and than any writer we have had the pleasure of knowing know, for some time. D. Appleton and Co.-Boston Cour. The LIVING AGE is published every Saturday, by E. LITTELL & Co., at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets, Boston. Price 12 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. LITTELI'S LIVING AGE.-No. 382.-13 SEPTEMBER, 1851. From Fraser's Magazine. CHAMOIS HUNTING. and reported three chamois, seen that morning low down on the cliffs. Hereupon up rose a vast clatter amongst the yägers as to the fortunate man who was to go after them, for chamois hunting, gentle reader, requires rather less retinue, and greater quiet, than pheasant shooting in October. The lot fell upon one Joseph something or another; I never could make out his sirname, if he had one-which I rather doubt. He was a fine, handsome, jaunty fellow, with "nut-brown hair" curling round his open forehead, and a moustache for which a guardsman would have given his little finger. I HAD been staying at Fend (one of the highest inhabited spots in Europe) for some days, existing on a light and wholesome regimen of hard-boiled eggs, harder baked rye bread, and corn brandy, exploring the magnificent scenery round me, and had returned, the way I came, to a collection of brown pcking-boxes, by courtesy called a village, which rejoiced in the euphonious name of Dumpfen, nestling cosily under the grand belt of pines that feathered the flanks of the mountains, which rose high and clear behind. In front roared, rattled, Now, as it fell out, I also got excited; I, too, and grated, a wide glacier torrent, the color of ill-thirsted after chamois' blood; but how to get it? made gruel; and on the opposite side stretched, How could I, small five foot seven, and rather light some quarter of a mile, a flat plain of gravel and in the build, persuade that Hercules to let me worn boulders, here and there gemmed with patches accompany him, unless he put me in his pocket, of short sweet turf, till it reached the base of a which would have been derogatory? It is true, noble range of cliffs, which rose gray and steep into that I, being light myself, was perfectly convinced the clear blue sky, so lofty, that the fringe of that weight was rather an incumbrance than otherworld-old pines along their summits could scarcely wise in the mountains; but how could I persuade be distinguished. the "heavy," whose opinions, of course, ran the other way to agree with me? H However, as the men thinned off, and the place became quieter, I determined to make the attempt, at least, and commenced the attack by "standing' Joseph a chopine of the aforesaid red ink, and then, fearing the consequences, followed it up by an infinity of "gouttes" of infamous corn brandy, all the while raving about the Tyrol, Andreas Hofer, and the Monk, and abusing the French, till I quite won his heart; he, innocent soul! never imagining the trap I had set for him. At last I glided into chamois hunting, the darling theme of a Tyroler, making him tell me all sorts of wild stories, and telling him some in return, (every whit as true, I have no doubt, as his own,) till at last I boldly demanded to be allowed to accompany him the next morning. On the narrow patch of turf between the village and the torrent, I found-it being a fine Sunday afternoon-much mirth and conviviality. The rifle-butts were pitched on the opposite side of the torrent, with a small hut close to them to shelter the marker, a fellow of infinite fun, attired in bright scarlet, and a fantastic cap, who placed marked pegs into the bullet-holes, and pantomimed with insane gestures of admiration, contempt, astonishment, or derision, the good or bad success of the marksmen. And splendid specimens of men they were; firm, proud, yet courteous and gentle, welldressed in their handsome and handy costume, strong as lions, which, in fact, they "needed to be" to support the weight of those young eighteenpounders which they called rifles, with brass enough in the stocks to manufacture faces for a dynasty of railroad kings. Never did I see finer Joseph humm'd and ha'ed for some time; but fellows. And the women! How lovely are those gratitude for the tipple, my admiration for Hofer, Tyrolese damsels, with their dark brown glossy and, perhaps, the knowledge that I had been over hair braided under the green hat, with a brilliant some of the stiffest bits of the surrounding ranges carnation stuck over their left ear in a pretty solus, and had been after the gems, though unsuccoquettish fashion, enough to send an unfortunate cessfully, before, made him relent, and it was bachelor raving! And their complexions!—the finally settled that I should go. He went home to very flower in their hair paling, looking dull be-get comfortably steady for the next morning, and I side their blooming cheeks; and their clear soft laid violent hands on everything eatable to stuff into hazel eyes, with such a soul of kindness, gentle-my knapsack; whilst the others, after vainly trying ness, and purity peeping through them, as one scarcely sees, even in one and another elsewhere. to persuade me out of my determination, retired,. shaking hands with me as if I was ordered for execution" at eight precisely" the next morning. Whereon I vanished into the wooden box, which it is de règle to get into in that part of the world when one wants to sleep, and slumbered inconti- nently. The shooting was at last over, the winner crowned with flowers, and the targets borne in triumph before them, the whole party retired to the wooden hut, with a mystic triangle in a circle over the door, to eat, drink, and be merry; and very merry we were, albeit the only tipple strongly re- I had been asleep about five minutes, according sembled very indifferent red ink, both in taste and to my own computation, though, in fact, it was color. Talk of the dura messorum ilia! what about as many hours, when I suddenly awoke to a insides those fellows must have had! full perception of the fact that I was "in for it." We were sitting listening to interminable stories | Alas! those treacherous fumes of "Slibowitz" no of Berg-geister, and Gemsen Könige, and rifle | longer deluded me into the idea that I was fully up practice at French live targets, when two herd lads to any existing mountain in the known world; that came in from some of the higher mountain pastures, jumping a ten-foot crevasse was as easy as taking Having rested, we turned our faces again to the mountains, and toiled anew through the pine forest, now no longer dark and gloomy, but fleckered with gleams of yellow morning light, and sparkling with a thousand dew-diamonds. a hurdle; or that climbing hand over hand up rocks | strangely diminished tones, that seemed to come so perpendicular" that one's nose scraped against from some fairy world far down in the alp-caverns. their stony bosoms, was rather safer, if anything, than taking sparrows' nests from the top of the stable ladder! However, the honor of England was at stake. Go I must! so I resigned myself to the certainty of breaking my only neck, and jumped up, thereby nearly dashing in the roof of my brainpan against the top of my box, adding, most unnecessarily, another headache to the one I already possessed-and turned out. Unfortunately, there was no one awake to see my magnanimity; and it was too dark to see it if there had been; so I groped my way down, with my upper garments on my arm. After "barking" my shins against stools and trestles, and being nearly eaten up by a big dog in the dark, I sallied out, preferring to make my morning ablutions in the clear, and particularly cold brunnen, that plashed and sparkled on the little green before the door, to dipping the tip of my nose and the ends of my fingers into the pie-dish which had been considerately placed for my private use. How intensely beautiful that dawn was! with the pine woods steeped in the deepest purple-here and there a faint, gauzy mist, looking self-luminous, marking the course of some mountain brook through the forest. The gray cliffs stood dark and silent on the opposite side of the stream, and one far-off snow-peak, just catching the faint reflected light of dawn, gleamed ghost-like and faint like some spirit lingering on the forbidden confines of day. Up, up! still up! across the little sparkling runlets, tumbling head over heels in their hurry to see what sort of a world the valley below might be-up! over masses of rock, ankle-deep in rich brown moss, bejewelled with strawberries and cowberries, garlanded with raspberries, twisting and straggling out of their crevices, covered with rich ripe fruit ;-up! over bits of open turf, green as emeralds, set in pure white gravel, sparkling like a thousand diamonds;-up! through tangled masses of fallen pines, their bleaching stumps standing out like the masts of great wrecks-terrible marks of the course of the avalanche wind!-up! through one short bit more of pine-wood, over the split fir fence, and into the little mountain meadow, smiling in the level sunlight, with its bright stream tinkling merrily through it, its scattered boulders, and wooden sennhutt, with the cows and goats clustered round it, standing ready to be milked-one of the latter, by the bye, instantly charges me, and has to be repelled by my alpenstock, bayonet fashion-while all around, the sweet breath of the cows mingles deliciously with the aromatic fragrance of the pine forest, and the rich scent of the black orchis and wild thyme. How intense was that silence!-broken only by Seat yourself on that wooden milking-stool by the harsh rattle of the torrent and the occasional the door-(beware! it has but one leg, and is faint tinkle of a cow-bell in the distance, or now"kittle to guide")-after a hearty shake of the and then by a spirit-like whispering sigh amongst the pines, that scarcely moved their long arms before the cold breath of the dying night. I had finished my toilet, and was just beginning to hug myself in the idea that I had escaped, and had a very good excuse to slip into bed again, when I heard the clang of a pair of iron-soled shoes advancing down the torrent-bed, that did duty for a road, and, to my unmitigated disgust, saw Joseph looming through the darkness, like an own brother to the Erl King, a "shooting-iron" under each arm, and a mighty wallet on his back. There was no escape-I was in for it! Setting our faces to the mountains, we entered the pine forest, and toiled up and up through the dark, silent trees, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, till the day began to break, some three quarters of an hour after our start, when we stopped with one accord, of course only to look back and see the sunrise, though I doubt if either of us could have kept up that steady treadmill pace much longer, with any degree of comfort. hand from that gray old giant of a herdsman, and enjoy yourself. 66 ་ 'Joseph, what's i' the fardel? Turn out your traps and let us see what provaunt' you have got." A mighty mass of cold boiled mutton, an infinity of little dabs of rye-bread, the size of one's hand, and as hard as flints; and-what is that thou art extracting with such a grin on thy manly countenance, as if thou hadst found the best joke in Europe, tied up in the corner of the bag? A quart bottle of corn-brandy-I simper, the gray herdsman simpers, and Joseph simpers most of all, as if he was conscious of having done a monstrous clever thing, but was modest. Schnaps at six in the morning!-hardly correct," says I.. 66 Joseph thinks that it is apt to make one thirsty (it certainly always appears to have that effect upon him); and the gray-herdsman shakes his head, and smacks his lips dubiously, as if he were not quite certain, but would rather like to try. "Well, just one thimbleful, Joseph, just to kill the larvæ, ye ken'. Ah! you don't understand, it is a mountain excuse, too. Never mind Here we breakfasted luxuriously, eking out our store with sour milk and crumbly new white cheese from the sennhutt. The gray herdsman eyes me intently, and longs to know what manner of man I am. I take pity on his thirst for knowledge. Well, we halted to look, perhaps for the last time, at the valley and the village now far below-hand us the becher." us. We had got to the height of the cliffs on the opposite side, and could look over their summits at the tumbled alp-billows that tossed their white crests for menya league beyond; the sun steeping the snow-peaks in tints of purple, pink, aud crimson, and here and there a rock-peak shone with the brightest silver and the reddest gold-enough to send one "clean wud" with their exquisite beauty. Down below in the valley the sun had not yet risen, though man had; the little columns of blue smoke wreathed gracefully upwards in the calm morning air; and the lowing of the cows, and the faint | tinkle of their bells, as they were being driven to their morning pasture, floated up ever and anon in Ein Englander?"-I am his friend for life! Ha has heard of the 30,0007. sent over in the French war time, and his nephew has seen the letter in a glass-case at Innspruck. "And I want to shoot chamois?" He looks almost sorrowfully at me, but I have gone too far to retreat, and am very valiant. "Yes, there are three up about the Wildgrad Kögle." That is enough, Adé Andre! Pack up, Joseph. Forward! and their rushing noise, as he beat the air in his first labored strokes, sounded strangely wild and spirit-like in the mountain stillness. A dozen strong strokes, and he 'took a wild swoop round to our right, and away, like a cloud before the blast, till a neighboring peak hid him from our sight, followed by a wild shout of astonishment from Joseph. I opened not my mouth, or if I did-left it open. Stop a bit, let us load here; we may stumble on | mous-I dare not guess how broad from tip to tip; something shootable. I am soon ready; but loading with Joseph is a very solemn affair, not to be undertaken lightly, or finished in a hurry. First, he takes a dose of stuff out of a cow's horn, which I, in my ignorance, suppose to be very badly made No. 7 shot. A small quantity of this he places in the pan of his rifle and crushes with the handle of his knife, the rest he pours down the barrel, and I perceive that it is powder; then he looks up and down, round and about-what the deuce is he after? Is he cockney enough to be going to flash off his rifle and afraid of some one hearing him? No, there he has it-a bunch of gray moss, "baum haar," as he calls it, from that blasted pine. Wonder again; what in the name of goodness is he going to do with that? Use it as a pocket-handkerchief? I do not believe he carries one; at any rate, if he does, he only uses that pattern said by the Fliegende Blätter to be so popular amongst the Gallician deputies of the Paul's Kirche Parliament. No-wrong again; he carefully pulls it to pieces, and, making it into a round ball, rams it down upon the powder; and a most excellent dodge it is. Colonel Hawker has only re-discovered an old secret, or, more likely, learnt it on the shores of the Bodensee; then the greased patch and the ball, and all is ready. On we go! After leaving the meadow, we entered again into the pine forest, which gradually became more open, the trees more stunted and fantastic, and their long straggling arms clothed more and more as we ascended with the ash-gray baum haar: dead trees and thunder-riven stumps became frequent, rotting in and into the black bog mould, which gives a scanty root-hold to the blushing alpen-rose. Soon we leave the trees behind us altogether; nothing but wild chaotic masses of gravel and stones, tossed and heaped one on the other, by the fierce avalanche-the very rocks gray and crumbling with age; here and there patches of black bog, with little oases of emerald green turf perched in their centre, the black orchis growing thick upon them, and perfuming the air for yards around. Nothing ever gave me such a feeling of reality as the sight of this vast vulture so near me. Often and often had I seen them, both in Switzerland and the Tyrol, sailing so high, that, although well up the mountain flank myself, I almost doubted whether they were realities or mere musca volitantes, produced by staring up into the clear bright sky, with one's head thrown back. This fellow there was no doubt of-we saw his very beard! We were really then chamois-hunting-we had penetrated into the very den of the mountain tyrant. No fear of gigs and green parasols here; we were above the world! Soon after our friend had departed, and we had recovered from the astonishment into which his unexpected visit had thrown us, we reached the end of our mauvais pas, and found ourselves at the foot of a wild valley, entirely shut in by ranges of lofty cliffs, with here and there patches of snow lying on the least inclined spots. In front, still far above us towered the wild rock masses of the Wildgrad Kögle. The Kögle itself ran up into one sharp peak, that seemed, from where we were, to terminate in a point. Great part of its base was concealed by a range of precipices, with broad sheets of snow here and there, resting at an extraordinarily high angle, as we soon found to our cost, and having their crests notched, and pillared, and serrated in the wildest manner. The floor of the valley was covered with masses of rock and boulder, hurled from the surrounding cliffs, and heaps and sheets of rough gravel, ground and crushed by the avalanches, and fissured by the torrents of melted snow. The silence of the Alpspirit, as silent as death itself, was in it; only at intervals was heard the whispering "sough" of some slip of snow, dislodged by the warmth of the Ere long, even these traces of vegetation became more scarce, and the appearance of every-mid-day sun. thing around us wilder and more sterile. Still the brilliant peaks of the Wildgrad Kögle gleamed brightly before us, and beckoned us on. We advanced stealthily, concealing ourselves behind the boulders, and searched valley and cliff in vain for our prey. Joseph was the proud possessor of a telescope, mysteriously fashioned out of paper and card-board; a pretty good one, nevertheless, brought from Italy by some travelling pedlar, and an object of great veneration, but one which failed in discovering a single chamois. Our only chance now was that they might be feeding in some of the smaller valleys, between the cliffs at the head of the basin in which we were and the Kögle itself. Feeding! what could they be feeding on, when you say yourself that you left all kind of green stuff" behind you long ago?" Our path lay now, steep and rugged, along the edge of a ravine, at the bottom of which we heard the torrent chafing and roaring many a yard below us. There was a precipitous bank of rocks and screes to our right, quite unclimbable, which seemed only to want the will-they certainly had the way-to topple us into the abyss. Just as we were turning an abrupt angle very gingerly, with our eyes fixed on our slippery path, and longing for an elephant's trunk, to try the sound bits from the rotten ones, we suddenly heard a rushing "sough," like the falling of a moist snow avaJanche, and a cloud passed across the sun. Glanc- So I thought, too, doubtless, by this time, most ing hastily upwards, I-yes I, in the body at this present, inditing this faithful description of my chase-saw, not a hundred paces from me, an enormous vulture! Anything so fiercely, so terribly grand, as this great bird saw I never before, and can scarcely hope to see again. He was so near, that we could distinctly see the glare of his fierce eye, and the hard, bitter grip of his clenched talons. The sweep of his vast wings was enor impatient reader; but on the screes at the head of the valley, Joseph showed me, for the first time, the plant on which these extraordinary animals in great measure live. It has a thick green trilobate leaf, and a flower so delicate and gauze-like, that one wonders how it can bear for a moment the harsh storms to which it is exposed. Its petals have a most curious crumpled appearance, and are of the softest pink imaginable-almost transparent |