Hel. Even where fate leads me-we are all her slaves, And have no dwellings of our own.

M.

Yes-graves.

Royal King and Loyal Subject.

THE period of Charles's departure for College now rapidly approached, and nothing else could be talked or thought of in the family. All hands were busy, and every thing around gave note of preparation. My mother was engaged in issuing, and the house keeper in executing, orders for a copious supply of every imaginable comfort; Jane, in marking his linen with her own hair, and making little keepsakes, that might recall her often to his memory. Even little Lucy would not be idle, and might be seen seated with unwonted gravity, assiduously employed in hemming his pocket-handkerchiefs. By my father he had been summoned to two long audiences in the library, and had been furnished with suitable directions and advice, for his guidance in the new circumstances of the life on which he was about to enter. For myself, I haunted him like his shadow. We rode and walked together, talked of our little griefs and glowing hopes, and bound ourselves by solemn promise to maintain a frequent and regular Correspondence.

There was heaviness in every heart, but most of all in mine. It was now October, and Charles was

to return home, for the summer vacation, in June. The very days were counted, and the length of his absence computed to an hour; but I would then be gone, and years might elapse before we again embraced in brotherhood and love. Our separation seemed long and limitless, for to a boy the future is an eternity, the past a point.

Thus did all things go on, until the day preceding that fixed for his departure. There is nothing in that day that is not burned deeply and indelibly on my memory. The morning dawned in clouds. Volumes of deep red vapour obscured the rising of the sun, and seemed to presage a day of rain and storm; but at ten o'clock they began to disperse, and before the sun had attained his meridian, the sky was clear, and he shone forth in all his summer brightness and glory.

After discussing several plans of amusement for the day, it was at length agreed by Charles and myself that we should take our guns, and ramble out into the fields, less for the sake of killing game, than to enjoy each other's society once more, on the eve of so long a separation as that which impended over us. It was not without difficulty that I obtained Charles's consent to this project. My father had always been peculiarly apprehensive of accidents from loaded fire-arms, and was peremptory in his injunctions that we should never join the same shooting party, though he had no objections to our singly accompanying the keeper. But on this occasion we could not bear to be divided, and I prevailed on Charles to consent on that morning to the first deliberate breach of our father's commands. Bitter indeed were the fruits of our disobedience, and deeply has it been atoned for by both.

Our intentions were, of course, kept secret, and

9

we did not summon the keeper to attend us, but sallied forth alone, conversing, as we went, of the thoughts by which our hearts were stirred, and the hopes that shed a radiance on the future.

We had

Thus had an hour or two passed on. fired several shots, but this occasioned little interruption to our colloquy. The dogs again pointed. With boyish eagerness I cocked my gun, and advanced towards the spot. It was necessary to pass a hedge. Charles leaped it, and I held his gun while he did so. I then returned it to him through the hedge, and was in the act of passing my own, which he waited to receive. It was cocked. His head was close to the muzzle-a twig caught the trigger-and the contents were lodged-in his brain.

He fell, but uttered no sound. For a moment I stood silent and motionless; then I called on Charles, and entreated him to answer me. All was silent. A dreadful presentiment of evil arose within me; and, unable longer to bear the torture of suspense, by a convulsive spring I leaped the hedge, and stood trembling beside him. He lay with his face on the ground, and there was blood on the grass. I called

I shouted aloud for assistance, and uttered wild shrieks in the helplessness of my agony. A ray of hope that the wound might not be mortal, dawned for a moment on my heart. I knelt down beside him, and raised tenderly and softly his drooping head. Then hope gave place to despair, for, through the bloody clusters in his golden hair, I saw a frightful opening in his forehead, and I knew that death would not be cheated of his victim. There was still a gurgling in his throat, and a slight quivering in his limbs, that showed life was not yet extinct. His eyes were fixed and lustreless. O God! how did

the iron enter into my soul, as I gazed on them! I threw myself on the ground beside him, bound his head with my handkerchief, and, supporting him in my arms, his head rested on my bosom. I kissed his livid lips and bloody cheeks, and talked to him wildly and fondly, and adjured him, by the blood of our Redeemer, to grant me some sign of his forgiveness. He died, and gave no sign. The pulsation of his heart became every moment feebler and less frequent, the convulsive action of the muscles gradually ceased, and my arms no longer embraced a living brother, but a cold and rigid corpse.

How long I remained in this situation I know not, for despair, like joy, takes no note of time; but I imagine it must have been for some hours. The concentration of agony and horror contained in that brief space, might be diluted into centuries of ordinary misery.

At length I observed some labourers passing at a distance. I rose, and attempted to call them, but my throat was parched and powerless, and I could produce no sound. I made a signal, and they approached. What they saw spoke too plainly, to require from me an explanation, which I was incapable of giving. They procured a blanket at a neighbouring cottage, and bore the body towards Thornhill. I almost mechanically followed, and was only roused from my stupor by our approach to the house. At sight of that, I thought on the misery I had brought on its inmates, and of the horror with which I should be regarded there as my brother's murderer. Faces that till now had ever been lighted up with love, seemed to scowl on me with hatred; and I imagined myself driven forth, by those dear to me as my heart's-blood, with curses and execrations. Such

ideas poured like a flood of fire upon my soul, and uttering a cry of torture, I fled into the neighbouring wood.

It was evening. The night set in dark and stormily, and with heavy rain. My garments were soon drenched; but I heeded it not, knew it not. I rushed into the middle of the wood, and cast myself on the ground. I attempted to pray, but I could not. I thought myself a thing accursed of God and man, a helpless and devoted cast-away, without hope or refuge. Fiendish faces glared on me from behind the trees, and strange and terrible voices were borne on the wind. Then would the scene change, and I thought myself a thing heaving on the mountainous

billows of the ocean, and I sought for death

amid the waters in vain, for I bore a charmed life, and could not die. This too passed away, and I lay in a loathsome pit, with creatures unutterably loathsome. There the toads spit upon me, and the lizards gazed on me with their sparkling eyes, and crawling things defiled me with their slime. Then peals of wild and horrid laughter sounded in my ears, and I saw my brother's face all ghastly and grinning, and he called me murderer and fratricide. Worn out as I was I could not rest. There was a voice within, that cried for ever, On, on, and I could not but obey the behest. I plunged through the thickest parts of the underwood, and found a strange delight in being gored and lacerated by the thorns.

Such are the glimmerings which my memory affords me, of the sufferings of that fearful night. At length I thought myself dying. My limbs became gradually numb and stiff, and I drew breath with difficulty. In the expectation of death, my mind became calmer. There was consolation in the idea,