HUGH SUTHERLAND'S PANSIES.

[Robert Buchanan, born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, 18th August, 1841. Educated in Glasgow, where his father, the late Robert Buchanan, was editor and proprietor of several newspapers. As early as 1859, Mr. Buchanan had published two volumes of verse, Lyrics, and Mary, and other poems. His first important work was Undertones, first issued in 1862. It was followed by Idy's and Legends of Inverburn: London Poems; Danish Ballads (a series of admirable translations); Wayside Posies; Napoleon Fallen, a lyrical drama; The Land of Lorne, descriptive sketches; The Drama of Kings; &c. Anonymously he has published much in prose and verse, fiction, essays and plays. With singular versatility of genius he unites rare powers of poetic expression. A collected edition in five volumes of his principal Poetical and Prose Works is published by H. S. King & Co.]

The aged Minister of Inverburn,

A mild heart hidden under features stern,
Leans in the sunshine on the garden pale,
Pensive, yet happy, as he tells this tale,-
And he who listens sees the garden lie
Blue as a little patch of fallen sky.

"The lily minds me of a maiden brow,"
Hugh Sutherland would say; "the marigold
Is full and sunny like her yellow hair,
The full-blown rose her lips with sweetness tipt:
But if you seek a likeness to her eye-
Go to the pansy, friend, and find it there!"
"Ay, leeze me on the pansies!" Hugh would say
Hugh Sutherland, the weaver-he who dwelt
Here in the white-wash'd cot you fancy so-
Who knew the learned names of all the flowers,
And recognized the lily, tho' its head
Rose in a ditch of dull Latinity!

Pansies? You praise the ones that grow to-day Here in the garden: had you seen the place When Sutherland was living! Here they grew, From blue to deeper blue, in midst of each A golden dazzle like a glimmering star, Each broader, bigger, than a silver crown; While here the weaver sat, his labour done, Watching his azure pets and rearing them, Until they seem'd to know his step and touch, And stir beneath his smile like living things! The very sunshine loved them, and would lie Here happy, coming early, lingering late, Because they were so fair.

Hugh Sutherland

Was country-bred-I knew him from the time
When on a bed of pain he lost a limb,
And rose at last, a lame and sickly lad,
Apprenticed to the loom-a peevish lad.
Mooning among the shadows by himself
Among these shadows, with the privilege
Of one who loved his flock, I sought him out,
And gently as I could I won his heart;
And then, tho' he was young and I was old,

We soon grew friends. He told his griefs to me,
His joys, his troubles, and I help'd him on;
Yet sought in vain to drive away the cloud
Deep pain had left upon his sickly cheek,
And lure him from the shades that deepen'd it.
Then Heaven took the task upon itself,
And sent an angel down among the flowers!
Almost before I knew the work was done,
I found him settled in this but and ben,
Where, with an eye that brighten'd, he had found
The sunshine loved his garden, and begun
To rear his pansies.

Sutherland was poor,

Rude, and untutor'd; peevish, too, when first
The angel in his garden found him out;
But pansy-growing made his heart within
Blow fresh and fragrant. When he came to share
This cottage with a brother of the craft,
Only some poor and sickly bunches bloom'd,
Vagrant, though fair, among the garden-plots;

And idly, carelessly, he water'd these,

Spread them and train'd them, till they grew and

grew

In size and beauty, and the angel thrust

Its bright arms upward thro' the bright'ning sod,
And clung around the sickly gardener's heart.
Then Sutherland grew calmer, and the cloud
Was fading from his face. Well, by and by,
The country people saw and praised the flowers,
And what at first had been an idle joy
Became a sober serious work for fame.
Next, being won to send a bunch for show,
He won a prize-a sixth or seventh rate,
And slowly gath'ring courage, rested not
Till he had won the highest prize of all.
Here in the sunshine and the shade he toil'd
Early and late in joy, and, by and by,
Rose high in fame; for not a botanist,
A lover of the flowers, poor man or rich,
Came to the village, but the people said,
"Go down the lane to Weaver Sutherland's,
And see his pansies!"

Thus the summers pass'd,
And Sutherland grew gentler, happier;
The angel God had sent him clung to him:
There grew a rapturous sadness in his tone
When he was gladdest, like the dewiness

That moistens pansies when they bloom the best;
And in his face there dawn'd a gentle light,
Like that which softly clings about a flow'r,
And makes you love it Yet his heart was glad,
More for the pansies' sakes than for his own:
His eye was like a father's, moist and bright,
When they were praised; and, as I said, they seem'd
To make themselves as beauteous as they could,
Smiling to please him. Blessings on the flowers!
They were his children! Father never loved
His little darlings more, or for their sakes
Fretted so dumbly! Father never bent
More tenderly above his little ones,

In the still watches of the night, when sleep
Breathes balm upon their eyelids! Night and day
Poor Hugh was careful for the gentle things
Whose presence brought a sunshine to the place
Where sickness dwelt: this one was weak and small,
And needed watching like a sickly child;
This one so beauteous, that it shamed its mates
And made him angry with its beauteousness.
"I cannot rest!" cried Hughie with a smile,
"I scarcely snatch a moment to myself-
They plague me so!" Part fun, part earnest, this:
He loved the pansies better than he knew.
Ev'n in the shadow of his weaving room
They haunted him and brighten'd on his soul:
Daily while busy working at the loom
The humming humming seem'd a melody
To which the pansies sweetly grew and grew-
A leaf unrolling soft to every note,

A change of colours with the change of sound,
And walking to the door to rest himself,
Still with the humming-humming in his ears,
He saw the flowers and heard a melody
They made in growing. Pleasure such as this,
So exquisite, so lonely, might have pass'd
Into the shadowy restlesness of yore;

But wholesome human contact saved him here,
And kept him fresh and meek. The people came
To stir him with their praise, and he would show
The medals and the prizes he had got-
As proud and happy as a child who gains
A prize in school.

The angel still remain'd

In winter, when the garden plots were bare,
And deep winds piloted the shriven snow:
He saw its gleaming in the cottage fire,
While, with a book of botany on his knee,
He sat and hunger'd for the breath of spring.
The angel of the flowers was with him still!
Here beds of roses sweeten'd all the page;
Here lilies whiter than the fallen snow
Crept gleaming softly from the printed lines;
Here dewy violets sparkled till the book
Dazzled his eyes with rays of misty blue;
And here, amid a page of Latin names,
All the sweet Scottish flowers together grew
With fragrance of the summer.

Hugh and I

Were still fast friends, and still I help'd him on;
And often in the pleasant summer-time,
The service over, on the Sabbath-day,

I join'd him in the garden, where we sat
And chatted in the sun. But all at once
It came upon me that the gardener's hand
Had grown less diligent; for tho' 'twas June
The garden that had been the village pride
Look'd but the shadow of its former self;
And ere a week was out I saw in church
Two samples fairer far than any blown
In Hughie's garden-blooming brighter far

In sweeter soil.
Loving the pansies as the weaver did--
A skilful judge, moreover-should admire
Sweet Mary Moffat's sparkling pansy-eyes?

What wonder that a man,

The truth was out. The weaver play'd the game (I christen'd it in sport that very day)

Of "Love among the Pansies!" As he spoke,
Telling me all, I saw upon his face

The peevish cloud that it had worn in youth;
I cheer'd him as I could, and bade him hope:
"You both are poor, but, Sutherland, God s flower
Are poor as well!" He brighten'd as I spoke,
And answer'd, "It is settled! I have kept
The secret till the last, lest 'nay' should come
And spoil it all; but 'ay' has come instead,
And all the help we wait for is your own!"

Even here, I think, his angel clung to him. The fairies of his garden haunted him With similes and sympathies that made His likes and dislikes, though he knew it not. Beauty he loved if it was meek and mild, And like his pansies tender ev'n to tears; And so he chose a maiden pure and low, Who, like his garden pets, had love to spare, Sunshine to cast upon his pallid cheek, And yet a tender clinging thing, too weak To bloom uncared for and unsmiled upon

Soon Sutherland and she he loved were one,And bonnily a moon of honey gleam'd At night among the flowers! Amid the spring That follow'd, blossom'd with the other buds A tiny maiden with her mother's eyes. The little garden was itself again, The sunshine sparkled on the azure beds; The angel Heaven had sent to save a soul Stole from the blooms and took an infant shape: And, wild with pleasure, seeing how the flowers Had given her their choicest lights and shades, The father bore his baby to the font And had her christen'd PANSY.

After that,

Poor Hugh was happy as the days were long,
Divided in his cares for all his pets,
And proudest of the one he loved the best.
The summer found him merry as a king,
Dancing the little one upon his knee
Here in the garden, while the plots around
Gleam'd in the sun, and seem'd as glad as he

But moons of honey wane, and summer suns Of wedlock set to bring the autumn in! Hugh Sutherland, with wife and child to feed, Wrought sore to gain his pittance in a world His pansies made so fair. Came Poverty With haggard eyes to dwell within the house; When first she saw the garden she was glad, And, seated on the threshold, smiled and span. But times grew harder, bread was scarce as gold,

A shadow fell on Pansy and the flowers;
And when the strife was sorest, Hugh received
An office - lighter work and higher pay-
To take a foreman's place in Edinglass.

'Twas hard, 'twas hard, to leave the little place
He loved so dearly; but the weaver look'd
At Mary, saw the sorrow in her face,
And gave consent,-happy at heart to think
His dear ones would not want. To Edinglass
They went, and settled. Thro' the winter hours
Bravely the weaver toil'd; his wife and child
Were happy, he was heartsome-tho' his taste
Was grassy lowlands and the caller air.

The cottage here remain'd untenanted, The angel of the flowers forsook the place, The sunshine faded, and the pansies died.

Two summers pass'd; and still in Edinglass
The weaver toil'd, and ever when I went
Into the city, to his house I hied-

A welcome guest. Now first, I saw a change
Had come to Sutherland: for he was pale
And peevish, had a venom on his tongue,
And hung the under-lip like one that doubts.
Part of the truth I heard, and part I saw-
But knew too late, when all the ill was done!

At first, poor Hugh had shrunk from making friends,

And pored among his books of botany;

And later, in the dull dark nights he sat,

A dismal book upon his knee, and read:
A book no longer full of leaves and flowers,
That glimmer'd on the soul's sweet consciousness,
Yet seem'd to fill the eye,-a dismal book,-
Big-sounding Latin, English dull and dark,
And not a breath of summer in it all.
The sunshine perish'd in the city's smoke,
The pansies grew no more to comfort him,
And he began to spend his nights with those
Who waste their substance in the public-house:
The flowers had lent a sparkle to his talk,
Which pleased the muddled wits of idle men.
Sought after, treated, liked by one and all,
He took to drinking; and at last lay down
Stupid and senseless on a rainy night,
And ere he waken'd caught the flaming fire,
Which gleams to white heat on the face, and burns
Clear crimson in the lungs.

But it was long Ere any knew poor Hughie's plight; and, ere He saw his danger, on the mother's breast Lay Pansy withering; tho' the dewy breath Of spring was floating like a misty rain Down from the mountains. Then the tiny flower Folded its leaves in silence, and the sleep That dwells in winter on the pansy-beds Fell on the weaver's house. At that sad hour I enter'd, scarcely welcomed with a word Of greeting: by the hearth the woman sat

Weeping full sore, her apron o'er a face

325

Haggard with midnight watching, while the man
Cover'd his bloodshot eyes and cursed himself.
Then leaning o'er, my hand on his, I said-
"She could not bear the smoke of cities, Hugh!
God to His Garden has transplanted her,
Where summer dwells for ever, and the air
Is fresh and pure!" But Hughie did not speak;
I saw full plainly that he blamed himself;
And ere the day was out he bent above
His little sleeping flower, and wept, and said:
"Ay, sir! she wither'd, wither'd like the rest,
Neglected!" and I saw his heart was full.
When Pansy slept beneath the churchyard grass
Poor Hughie's angel had return'd to Heaven,
And all his heart was dark. His ways grew strange,
Peevish, and sullen; often he would sit

And drink alone; the wife and he grew cold,
And harsh to one another; till at last

A stern physician put an end to all,
And told him he must die.

No bitter cry,

No sound of wailing rose within the house
After the doctor spoke, but Mary mourn'd
In silence, Hughie smoked his pipe and set
His teeth together, at the ingleside.
Days pass'd; the only token of a change
Was Hughie's face-the peevish cloud of care
Seem'd melting to a tender gentleness.
After a time, the wife forgot her grief,

Or could at times forget it, in the care

Her husband's sickness brought. I went to them
As often as I could, for Sutherland
Was dear to me, and dearer for his sin

Weak as he was he did his best to toil,

But it was weary work! By slow degrees,
When May was breathing on the sickly bunch

Of mignonette upon the window-sill,

I saw his smile was softly wearing round
To what it used to be, when here he sat
Rearing his flowers; altho' his brow at times
Grew cloudy, and he gnaw'd his under lip.
At last I found him seated by the hearth,
Trying to read: I led his mind to themes
Of old langsyne, and saw his eyes grow dim:
"O sir," he cried, "I cannot, cannot rest!
Something I long for, and I know not what,
Torments me night and day!" I saw it all,
And sparkling with the brilliance of the thought,
Look'd in his eyes and caught his hand, and cried,
"Hugh, it's the pansies! Spring has come again,
The sunshine breathes its gold upon the air,
And threads it through the petals of the flowers,
Yet here you linger in the dark!" I ceased,
And watch'd him. Then he trembled as he said,
"I see it now, for as I read the book,
The lines and words, the Latin seem'd to bud,
And they peep'd thro'." He smiled, like one ashamed,
Adding in a low voice, "I long to see
The pansies ere I die!"

What heart of stone Could throb on coldly, sir, at words like those? Not mine, not mine! Within a week poor Hugh Had left the smoke of Edinglass behind, And felt the wind that runs along the lanes, Spreading a carpet of the grass and flowers For June the sunny-hair'd to walk upon. In the old cottage here he dwelt again: The place was wilder than it once had been, But buds were blowing green around about, And with the glad return of Sutherland The angel of the flowers came back again. The end was near, and Hugh was wearied out, And like a flower was closing up his leaves Under the dropping of the gloaming dews.

And daily, in the summer afternoon,

I found him seated on the threshold there, Watching his flowers, and all the place, I thought, Brighten'd when he was nigh. Now first I talk'd Of heavenly hopes unto him, and I knew The angel help'd me. On the day he died The pain had put its shadow on his face, And words of doubt were on his tremulous lips: "Ah, Hughie, life is easy!" I exclaim'd, "Easier, better, than we know ourselves: 'Tis pansy-growing on a mighty scale,

And God above us is the gardener.

The fairest win the prizes, that is just,
But all the flowers are dear to God the Lord:
The Gardener loves them all, He loves them all!"
He saw the sunshine on the pansy-beds

Night

And brighten'd. Then by slow degrees he grew
Cheerful and meek as dying man could be,
And as I spoke there came from far-away
The faint sweet melody of Sabbath bells.
And "Hugh," I said, "if God the Gardener
Neglected those he rears as you have done
Your pansies and your Pansy, it were ill
For we who blossom in His garden.
And morning He is busy at His work.
He smiles to give us sunshine, and we live:
He stoops to pluck us softly, and our hearts
Tremble to see the darkness, knowing not
It is the shadow He, in stooping, casts.
He pluckt your Pansy so, and it was well.
But, Hugh, though some be beautiful and grand,
Some sickly, like yourself, and mean and poor,
He loves them all, the Gardener loves them all!"
Then later, when no longer he could sit
Out on the threshold, and the end was near,
We set a plate of pansies by his bed

To cheer him. "He is coming near," I said;
"Great is the garden, but the Gardener

Is coming to the corner where you bloom
So sickly!" And he smiled, and moan'd, "I hear!
And sank upon his pillow wearily.
His hollow eyes no longer bore the light.
The darkness gather'd round him as I said,
"The Gardener is standing at your side,
His shade is on you, and you cannot see:

O Lord, that lovest both the strong and weak,
Pluck him and wear him!" Even as I pray'd,
I felt the shadow there and hid my face;
But when I look'd again the flower was pluck'd,
The shadow gone: the sunshine thro' the blind
Gleam'd faintly, and the widow'd woman wept.

ROSE SONG.

BY WILLIAM SAWYER.

Sunny breadths of roses,
Roses white and red,
Rosy bud and rose leaf
From the blossom shed!
Goes my darling flying

All the garden through,
Laughing she eludes me,

Laughing I pursue.

Now to pluck the rose-bud,
Now to pluck the rose,
(Hand a sweeter blossom)
Stopping as she goes:
What but this contents her,
Laughing in her flight?
Pelting with the red rose,
Pelting with the white.

Roses round me flying,
Roses in my hair,

I to snatch them trying,-
Darling, have a care!
Lips are so like flowers,
I might snatch at those
Redder than the rose leaves,
Sweeter than the rose.

-Legend of Phyllis

TO ENGLAND.

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England! sweet her artless daughters,
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters!

JOHN KEATS.

causing him to be equally reverenced and dreaded-dreaded, I mean, by evil-doers, to

AS RELATED BY MASTER CISBURY OLDFIRLE,

SCHOOLMASTER OF POYNINGS.

[William Harrison Ainsworth, born in Manchester, 1805. Novelist. He studied law, but before he had attained his majority he published Sir John Chiverton, a romance which obtained the favour of Sir Walter Scott. Soon afterwards Mr. Ainsworth devoted himself entirely to literature; he became editor of Bentley's Miscellany on the retirement of Dickens in 1840; he also edited Colburn's New Monthly, and the magazine which bore his own name in the title. His chief works are: Rookwood; Crichton; Guy Fawkes; The Tower of London; Out St. Paul's; Windsor Castle; The Miser's Daughter; Lancashire Witches; The Flitch of Bacon; The Star Chamber: The Constable of the Tower: Mervyn Clitheroe: Ovingdean Grange, a romance of the times of the Common

wealth (from which we quote); John Law, the Projector;

Hilary St. Ives; Myddleton Pomfret, &c. &c. He has also written a number of poems, amongst which are Ballads, Romantic, Fantastical, and Humorous; and The Combat of the Thirty, a Breton legend. Cheap editions of his works are issued by Routledge and Sons.]

The wondrous event I am about to detail happened in the time of the good Saint Cuthman of Steyning, in this county—a holy man, who, from his extraordinary piety and austerity, was believed to be endowed with supernatural power. Many miracles are attributed to him, some of which occurred long before his canonization. While yet a boy, and employed in tending his father's sheep on the downs, in order to pursue his devotional exercises undisturbed, he was wont to trace a large circle round the flock with his crook, beyond which none of them could stray, neither could any enemy approach them. Moreover, the good saint could punish the scoffer, as well as bless and sustain the lowly and the well-doer. Derided by certain blasphemous haymakers for carrying his palsied mother in a barrowno better means of conveyance being at hand at the time he brought down a heavy shower upon their heads, rendering their labour of no account; and thenceforward, whenever grass was cut and dried within that meadow, rain would fall upon it, and turn it to litter. Such was holy Cuthman—a man, you will perceive, whom it was necessary to treat with the respect due to his exalted virtues.

At a later period of the saint's life, when his aged mother had gone from him, when he had built a wooden church with his own hands at Steyning wherein, in the fulness of time, he was interred-and when his reputation for sanctity and austerity had greatly increased,

man walked forth one afternoon in early autumn, wholly unattended, across the downs; his purpose being to visit a recluse named Sister Ursula, who dwelt in a solitary cell on the summit of a hill adjoining Poynings, and whom he had been told was sick, and desirous of being shriven by him. Now Saint Cuthman had his staff in his hand, without which he never journeyed abroad, and he walked on until he reached the eminence for which he was bound. On the brow of this hill in former times the heathen invaders of the land had made a camp, vestiges of which may still be discerned. But it was not with these memorials of a by-gone and benighted people that Saint Cuthman concerned himself. If he thought about the framers of those mighty earthworks at all, it was with thanksgiving that they had been swept away, and had given place to a generation to whom the purer and brighter light of the gospel was vouchsafed.

Thus communing with himself, it may be, holy Cuthman reached the northern boundary of the rampart surrounding the old Roman camp, and cast his eyes over the vast weald of Sussex, displayed before him like a map. The contemplation of this fair and fertile district filled his soul with gladness; but what chiefly rejoiced him was to note how the edifices reared for worship had multiplied since he first looked upon the extensive plain. He strove to count the numerous churches scattered about, but soon gave up the attempt-he might as well have tried to number the trees. But the difficulty he experienced increased his satisfaction, inasmuch as it proved to him that true religion had taken deep root in the land. And he gave glory and praise accordingly, where glory and praise are due.

Scarcely were his audibly-uttered thanksgivings ended when he became aware that some one stood nigh him, and turning his head, he beheld a tall man of singularly swarthy complexion, haughty mien, and eyes that seemed to burn like coals of fire. The habiliments of this mysterious and sinisterlooking personage were of blood-red hue, and though their richness and the egret in his velvet cap betokened princely rank, he bore the implements of a common labourer, namely, a pickaxe and a shovel. No sound had proclaimed the stranger's approach, and his appearance was as sudden and startling as if he had risen from the earth. As Saint Cuthman regarded him with the aversion inspired by