4. The white bread, the sweet milk, I clasp'd and I wound him; 5. He rein'd his proud war-steed, Concluding his song, he leaped to his feet, and motioning me to follow, went out of the house with a sidelong hop and skip, and standing at the entrance of the linn, held both his hands along a rude zig-zag trodden way, which, winding among jutting rocks and stunted bushes, dived into the centre of that unfrequented region. Imagining that my Cameronian friend had retired into the recesses of the linn, I questioned my wayward guide, but all the response I could obtain was, "Deed are theytrouth are they-twa o' them-twa o' them-the tane and the tither--daddie and daughter. Ye'll never see mair o' them-a' those who go into that linn living are borne out dead-torn with shot and hacked with iron, man and woman, and wee wailing wean.Trouth are they, trouth are they, twa o' them, twa o'them." And these disjointed expressions he continued muttering with great earnestness and rapidity, all the while directing me along the path. The sun had yet a full hour's journey ere it reached the western hills, and, parting with the simple lunatic, I proceeded along the path. This remarkable glen, now called the Cameronian Linn, from the refuge which it afforded to the persecuted Covenanters, was at that time fragrant with the bloom of summer, and the diminished waters of the brook allowed a broader path than usual to those who wished to wander into its recesses. It was not without awe that I entered a place hallowed by many a song and legend. As I glided along the margin of the stream the banks rose higher and steeper, and the red freestone rock, hung with streamers of ivy, shot over my path, and nearly united the rugged sides. The stream sounded louder, and kept leaping from stone to stonethe trees, anxious for the fresh free air and the uninterrupted enjoyment of light, shot upwards along the face of the precipice, and threw out their green tops into the open air at the height of eighty feet over-head ;while among the green boughs, hawks and ravens, and many lesser birds of carnage and rapine, sat looking down on me from a stunted branch or a shattered crag. The linn grew more wild and grand as I proceeded, expanding below and narrowing above, till a man, with a moderate exertion, might leap, and in several places step across. In one place it presented deep and immense caverns, in another it seemed smooth and regular, as if the hand of man had aided the labours of nature. At my feet the stream wheeled round and round in many a pool and trough, covered with a reddish foam, which it obtained by chafing against the soft red rock with its seams of golden clay; while overhead, at the height of a hundred feet, the freestone seam opened and gave to view a long irregular line of blue sky sprinkled with dim stars. Around me in many places had the hands of man been busied a rude altar, surmounted by a stone crucifix, defaced much by time and more by the change of human opinion, still stood before a little grotto or cave beneath a projecting rock; while on the other side the image of an armed man on a barbed horse was deeply etched in the stone. Innumerable names and dates, some of them several hundred years old, bore record of those whom war, or love of seclusion, had driven into this singular place of refuge. The sun, now moving down to the hill-top, streamed through the chasm, and tinted with a thousand changes of light the boughs, and the stream, and the rock, and fell full and undivided on the leap of the linn, where the rivulet ground its way through the hard upper shelf of stone, and threw itself down at one uninterrupted bound into a fathomless plump below. As I stood and gazed on this wild and beautiful sight, I was startled by the sound of a human voice proceeding from a rude door or opening in the face of the rock. Who this might be, I stood short while to imagine; but laying hold of some long streamers of honeysuckle which, rooted in the upper ground, dropped their thick and odorous blossom down to the surface of the stream, I ascended a steep and winding path or stair which conducted me to the entrance of a large chamber or cavern. There, beside a block or table of stone, knelt an old man-an open Bible before him-his hands clasped together, and his head, with its remaining locks made lint-white by time and sorrow, stooped so low as to touch the floor. His dress was of that homespun and common sort called moorland grey, and a large broad westland bonnet, much soiled by long use, lay at his knees. Though worn with age, and changed in look, there was something about him which recalled earlier days; but if I knew not for a surety that my ancient friend Luke Lorance was before me, I could not be deceived in the resemblance which a softer image that knelt at his side bore to the companion of my youth. This was a maiden of some eighteen or twenty years old, clad in a kirtle and jupes of grey, bare-footed and bare-headed, and trimmed out with a strict regard to the simplicity and penitential decorum of dress so rigidly enjoined by the professors of church discipline. But no neglect or austerity of dress could take away or lessen the light-the modest light, of two sweet hazel eyes; or prevent her handsome form and beautiful face, slightly browned as it was by exposure to the sun, from influencing the heart of man. A thousand recollections of youthful times rushed upon me as I gazed on the kneeling forms before me. I spoke not, lest I should interrupt what seemed a devout humiliation of the spirit; and I imagined it cost a strong religious effort to restrain the old man from welcoming me with an embrace. He subdued, however, the swellings of his heart, and, as he rose from his knees, motioned me to a seat hewn from the rock, and closing the sacred book, proceeded to sing to a prolonged and solemn sort of melody the following rude and mysterious verses. In this kind of half sacred and half-profane, half true and half prophetic poetry, the old ministers of the word allowed their hearers to indulge-with the hope, perhaps, that devotional verse would triumph over common songan event which the joyousness of youth will keep ever at a distance. THE CAMERONIAN SONG. 1. I lay and slept on Wardlaw-hill, When swords are sharpen'd, lances whet, Awake! strike in your strength, and stride O'er fields of dead and dying. Sleep'st thou, my love?-then glides away 9. Mine is a love which with the bloom And flows while my blood's flowing.- As the song proceeded I looked round on this cold and lonesome chamber, past the door of which the descending sun poured a few ineffectual streams of light. Its history was recorded on its walls-a hermit's cell-a robber's den-a place of refuge and a haunt for vagrants. Crucifixes, with kneeling devotees, were deeply cut in the centre of the side walls-attempts had been made by some scrupulous occupant to efface them; while above, a long pilgrimage or procession of saints, with images and torches, seemed winding towards a kind of altar or shrine for the purposes of making offerings and performing devotion. In another place a much more hasty, or less skilful hand, had cut a scene of deeper and more recent interest. Three youths knelt blindfolded-their hands held upwards in prayer-and their ancles wore fetters; at a little distance stood soldiers with levelled carbines, and some old men and women wrung their hands, and seemed to implore in vain, to a stern and determined captain, for tenderness and mercy. Texts from Scripture-of sorrow, of triumph, or of fortitude-were scattered thickly around,- and many a "Well done, ye good and faithful servants," was lavished on a scene, which, rude as the representation was, no one could look on without being moved. At no distant period a battle seemed to have been fought in the place the walls were dinted with strokes of swords, and several musket-balls had sunk deeply into the soft rock. Occurrences of a less tragic nature had also taken place. A fire of wood and turf had lately blazed against the wall, and the floor still bore marks of a recent feast. The bones of lambs and fowls lay about, and the smell of liquor had not wholly left some sheafs of straw, where a horde of gipsies had enjoyed themselves. The old man put on his bonnet and took me by the hand:-"Oh! Halbert Herries, long have you lingered in a far country-lingered till the winds have shaken the grain which it was your duty to reap, and there is nought left to the gleaner but stubble and chaff. The destroyer's hand has been lifted against us, and like the servant from the destruction of the house of him of Uz, I alone am escaped to tell thee." As Luke Lorance named my name, the young maiden came forward-looked wistfully in my face-the colour deepening on her cheek, and the moisture brightening in her eyes. "Aye, look on him well, my daughter," said the Cameronian, "and see how much of thy sweet mother's look is left in the face of her elder brother." "Ah! little, little I see of her meek endurance of spirit," answered the maiden; "I see a face changed by time and the suns of foreign lands, and I see an eye that looks coldly on fallen friends and on poor Scotland-of my mother I see little-" and she sobbed aloud, covering her face with her hands, while the tears streamed between her round white fingers." And are you indeed my ae sister's child?" I said: "where are all her brave brothers and relations whom I left full of youth and hope when I sailed to a far country?" "All gone, Halbert Herries, all gone,' answered Luke; "can man endure for aye?— does the sword of civil war spare the blood of the virtuous and the nobleminded? Alas! the purest blood is as soon shed as the basest; domestic war-religious feud-sudden conspi racy-open persecution-have each in their turn visited the house of Herries, and all that is spared is this young and tender maiden-the daughter of thy ae sister and sad sorrowful Luke Lorance." "Alas!" I said, "where were all thine own brethren?-were they not bold and forward in thy cause?-hadst thou no sons?-and does my sister live?-much have I to ask." The maiden wept, and throwing her arms around her father's neck, as if to restrain him from outrage to his person, cried, "Oh father! my dear father, compose yourself, and dash not your grey hairs on the ground, as you often do when my hapless brothers are named. Think of the sacred cause in which they fell-that their young blood was not shed in vain -that those who smote them with the sword have also been smitten with the sword. Did you not say when you saw them stretched and bloody on the green sward, with their faces to heaven and their swords in their hands, that they never seemed half so lovely; and when Isabel Rodan, who loved my young brother Reuben, came with a shriek, and fainted at his side, did ye not as she came from her swoon say, Why weep ye, maiden, see ye not that the youth has sought a sacred and a silent bride-and that his bridal bed is ready." Her father stood for a little space as fixed and as motionless as marble-his eyes and his hair seemed frozen, and his hand, placed on the tresses of his child, was moved with something between a shudder and a palsy. "Thou sayest true, my daughter," he said, "my ae sweet child-but though the spirit exults, the mortal part mourns-and I cannot but feel that they were fair and lovely-surpassed the youths of the land-were dear to thy mother and me-that their days on earth were few, and their call was sudden. But of them will I think no more, even now, but welcome thy mother's brother as well as I may." I was much moved by this brief and broken account of the desolation which had befallen his house; but much as I longed to learn the story of his sorrows, my anxiety was restrained by his appearance; deep grief and long mourning had preyed upon him-had unsettled his spirit, and I thought the wisest course with its chairs and tables of rude stone, and its curtains of creeping woodbine, it is a place dearer than a palace to me. I have cause to remember these walls-to think on this wild and caverned glen, and many a night I sit beside that little stream, which you hear leaping from linn to linn, and think on the fearful and stormy days which are passed, and which have swept away my happiness with them. Martha, my love, bring me a draught of water from yon little spring-pour out a cupful to Him above, as the pious king did, for it was once a place of blood-and bring the second cupful to me for my lips are parched-on this day have I vowed to humble myself from sunrise to sunset without food or drink, and the sun is setting now." And putting his hand before his eyes, and turning away from me, he busied himself for a few moments in prayer, while his daughter, with a small wooden cup, flew to the spring, which sparkled clear in a little trough of stone, and returned to his side, presenting the water with a face of anxious concern. He spilt part of the water on the floor, muttering a prayer as he spilt it, and drinking the remainder off at a draught appeared much refreshed. Martha spread a small white cloth over the rough table of stone, placed some oaten bread, and honey, and butter, upon it, and poured out from a little jar a weak. but very refreshing beverage-a sort of breg-wort, made from the refuse of honey. Water was added from the spring, with a few handfuls of wild blae-berries, which are plentiful in almost every lowland glen, and after a blessing was pronounced on them we began to partake. old Cameronian tasted of the honey and of the water, and thus he pro |