“It is dreadful,” repeated Mrs. Hawkesley, slowly, “but not so dreadful as this. And your first impulse is to find an excuse for the murderer.”
“No, no, I did not, I do not. I was only saying—how eager you are to judge me!—I was only saying how it must have been, for I remember that poor Robert declared he would one day be the death of Ernest.”
“Of Ernest?” said Mrs. Hawkesley, bitterly. “Can you use the name as if—O! I cannot speak to you, Bertha. May it please God to bring you to a fitter state of mind! I cannot speak to you. There is the telegram; read it if you please, and if you can, pray to be forgiven the fearful wickedness which has brought a good man to such a grave. Oh! Bertha, Bertha!”
And, weeping the only tears which had been shed at that interview, to which she had looked with so much agitation, Beatrice hastened from the room.
“What would she have had me say,” murmured Bertha, when she was alone. “Throw myself back in an agony, and declare that I loved him better than my life. I did not, and I will not say so.”
SHADY VALLEY.
The time was toward the heats of June,
And all the mellow afternoon
With my ripe heart was just in tune,
As I lay a-dreaming.
For yes, my heart was ripe with love;
The very airs that stirr’d the grove
Blew kisses o’er me from above,
As I lay a-dreaming.
The river glided smoothly by—
The blue bright bird shot silently
Between my covert and the sky
As I lay a-dreaming.
By drooping alders doubly bound,
The water slid without a sound
Until, below the rooted ground
Where I lay a-dreaming.
It smote a bank of ruddy loam,
Where, underneath, a secret dome
Of pebbles fretted it in foam
As I lay a-dreaming.
But further, where the stream was wide,
The kine were standing side by side
Cooling their knees against the tide,
As I lay a-dreaming.
And still beyond, were orchards green,
Red cottage roofs, and in between
Bright meadows, where the scythe had been
While I lay a-dreaming.
And over all, the hollow hills,
Fill’d with that purple light, which fills
Our hearts too with such regal thrills,
As we lie a-dreaming.
But my low nest was shut within
To such a leafy calm, wherein
My thoughts went freely out and in
As I lay a-dreaming.
The squirrel on his branch at play—
The blossom falling from the may—
No creatures moved but such as they,
Where I lay a-dreaming.
So sweet a spot, so soft a breeze—
Such beauty of enfolding trees!
Ah! what could mar my luscious ease
As I lay a-dreaming?
A country wench came by, to see
Whereas her missing kine should be;
And this is what she said to me
As I lay a-dreaming:
“Git up, ye dawdlin’ gaspin’ loon!
Ah’d liever gang mah waas to t’ toon
An’ fettle t’ sheep this efternoon
Nor lig theer a-dreamin’!”
I look’d at her in strange surprise:
I could not think in anywise
She was an angel from the skies,
Though I lay a-dreaming.
For oh, too deep was the disguise:
The hand with which she veil’d her eyes
Seem’d like a Titan’s hand in size,
As I lay a-dreaming.
She was a woman though, and young—
The very creature I had sung
In fancy, with a poet’s tongue,
As I lay a-dreaming.
Therefore I spake and answer’d her:
“Maiden, you do but come to stir
My soul, and make it joyfuller
To lie here a-dreaming.
“For you too, gracious as a fawn,
By ferny glade and mossy lawn
Full oft have loved, at eve or dawn
To lie thus a-dreaming.
“And all the interwoven grace
Of sound and hue that fill’d the place
Has doubtless ‘passed into your face,’
As you lay a-dreaming.
“Oh, you then, nursed in summer woods,
And lull’d by rolling waterfloods,
Will give me leave, in these high moods,
To lie here a-dreaming.”
The maiden stared, but answered not:
Yet, striding slowly from the spot,
I heard her say—I know not what—
As I lay a-dreaming.
“Yon chap’s a snivellin’ tiv hissell,
An’ wat he meeans Ah canna tell;
He’s daft, Ah doot, or drunk wi’ yell
Te lig theer a-dreamin’.”
Arthur J. Munby.
QUEER CULPRITS.
According to Jewish law, “If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten: but the owner of the ox shall be quit.” After giving this command, Moses proceeds to enforce the doctrine of the responsibility of the beast’s owner, and to ensure his punishment, should he wittingly
