112

THE WIDOWER'S GARLAND.1
HERE rests a mother. But from her I turn,
And from her grave.-Behold-upon that ridge,
That, stretching boldly from the mountain side,
Carries into the centre of the vale

Its rocks and woods-the cottage where she dwelt;
And where yet dwells her faithful partner, left
(Full eight years pa t) the solitary prop

Of many helpless children. I begin
With words that might be prelude to a tale
Of sorrow and dejection; but I feel

No sadness, when I think of what mine eyes
See daily in that happy family.

-Bright garland form they for the pensive brow
Of their undrooping father's widowhood,
Those six fair daughters, budding yet-not one,
Not one of all the band, a full-blown flower.
Deprest, and desolate of soul, as once

That father was, and filled with anxious fear,
Now, by experience taught, he stands assured,
That God, who takes away, yet takes not half
Of what he seems to take; or gives it back
Not to our prayer, but far beyond our prayer;
He gives it--the boon produce of a soil
Which our endeavours have refused to till,
And hope hath never watered. The abode,
Whose grateful owner can attest these truths,
Even were the object nearer to our sight,
Would seem in no distinction to surpass
The rudest habitations. Ye might think
That it had sprung self-raised from earth, or grown
Out of the living rock, to be adorned

By nature only; but, if thither led,

Ye would discover then a studious work
Of many fancies, prompting many hands.
Brought from the woods, the honeysuckle twines
Around the porch, and seems, in that trim place,
A plant no longer wild; the cultured rose
There blossoms, strong in health, and will be soon
Roof-high; the wild pink crowns the garden-wall,
And with the flowers are intermingled stones
Sparry and bright, rough scatterings of the hills.
These ornaments, that fade not with the year,
A hardy girl continues to provide ;
Who, mounting fearlessly the rocky heights,
Her father's prompt attendant, does for him
All that a boy could do, but with delight
More keen and prouder daring; yet hath she,
Within the garden, like the rest, a bed
For her own flowers and favourite herbs, a space,
By sacred charter, holden for her use.
-These, and whatever else the garden bears
Of fruit or flower, permission asked or not,

I freely gather; and my leisure draws

A not unfrequent pastime from the sight

Of the bees murmuring round their sheltered hives
In that enclosure; while the mountain rill,
That sparkling thrids the rocks, attunes his voice
To the pure course of human life which there
Flows on in solitude. But, when the gloom
Of night is falling round my steps, then most
This dwelling charms me; often I stop short,
(Who could refrain?) and feed by stealth my sight
With prospect of the company within,

Laid open through the blazing window:-there
I see the eldest daughter at her wheel

Spinning amain, as if to overtake

The never-halting time; or, in her turn,
Teaching some novice of the sisterhood
That skill in this or other household work,
Which, from her father's honoured hand, herself,
While she was yet a little-one, had learned.
Mild man he is not gay, but they are gay;
And the whole house seems filled with gaiety.

(1) See Engraving, page 97.

-Thrice happy, then, the mother may be deemed,
The wife, from whose consolatory grave

I turned, that ye in mind might witness where,
And how, her spirit yet survives on carth!
Wordsworth.

Miscellaneous.

"I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own, but the string that ties them."-Montaigne.

HYDER ALI'S REVENGE.

WHEN, at length, Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable He resolved, in the gloomy example to mankind.

recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the
whole Carnatich an everlasting monument of vengeance,
and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between
him and those, against whom the faith, which holds the
moral elements of the world together, was no protection.
He became, at length, so confident of his force, so col-
lected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever
Having terminated his
of his dreadful resolution.
disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried
their mutual animosities in their common detestation
against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew
from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could
add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and
compounding all the materials of fury, havock, and
desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on
Whilst the authors of
the declivities of the mountains.
all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this
menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it
suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its con-
tents upon the plains of the Carnatich. Then ensued a
scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no
heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately
tell. All the horrors of war, before known or heard of,
were merey to that new havock. A storin of universal
fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed
every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from
their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others,
without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or
sacredness of function- fathers torn from children,
husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry,
and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the
trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity,
in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able
to evade this tempest, fied to the walled cities; but,
escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the
jaws of famine.-Burke.

THE greatest of modern philosophers (Bacon) declares that "he would rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without mind."-Stewart.

No. 8.]

London Magazine:

A JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND INSTRUCTION
FOR GENERAL READING.

spurs to his horse, and plunged down the steep road towards home, scattering the mud and slush in all directions. He rode by the dray without further notice, and was soon out of sight. Three or four successive hills and valleys were passed on a road of ample width, enclosed on both sides by a four railed fence, and through a thickly wooded country, partly cleared and partly cumbered with trees, some standing, some fallen, and occasionally smouldering with a fire that had continued burning for many weeks. In this manner they passed Annandale and Elswick, and finally turned up a narrow lane, some three furlongs in length, at the end of which lay the garden and cottage residence of Feversham. In a secluded part of the road, Joe, having first looked around him to see that he was not observed, drew near the side of the dray, and explained to Lucy that the horseman who had thus preceded them was their master, and that he was apprehensive of the consequences of the robbery that had been committed. "Master," said he, "is a wide awake chap, and will spare neither of us; but, my girl," he continued, "shut your eyes and see nothing; shut your ears and hear nothing; shut your mouth and say nothing; or you will lead but a so so life, I can promise you." Lucy made no reply, but inwardly determined to use all the discretion she was mistress of, in dealing with her master and her fellow-servants, until she should learn with some certainty the true nature of her position.

St. James were very conspicuous. The shops were full of business; the streets resounded with the hum of men; and evidence of the English origin of the place was no where wanting. Gradually, however, the houses ceased to be continuous; open fields, which are now covered with the habitations of men, succeeded; and the turnpike-gate, of English aspect and construction, proved the limit of the town. The roads were deep in mud and clay; deep ruts and pools swallowed up the wheels, and the gutters on either side of the streets rolled their headlong torrents down the brick-field hill. The rain fell continuously, and gave no signs of intermission. To wrap herself in a coarse great coat belonging to the driver, and to take refuge beneath the folds of a heavy tarpaulin which lay upon the dray, was a natural and obvious measure. Dejection and low diet made the young woman shrink and shudder on the jolting vehicle, and a few scalding tears coursed one another down her cheeks, as the helpless, homeless, friendless nature of her position forced itself upon her thoughts. But Lucy's meditations were soon interrupted. The dray stopped by the road-side, where a red bull's portrait indicated the presence of a public-house, one only of the very many which abound in the neighbourhood of Sydney. Here, without any attempt at concealment, an official of the inn picked a few stitches in the seam of a sack of flour deposited at the side of the dray; and having permitted the meal to flow forth in a full stream, which he received into a stable pail, he quickly disappeared with the plunder down a gateway. The driver looked on with apparent indifference, until the same person reappeared, bearing in each hand an overflowing glass The driver handed one of them to Lucy, and bade her "take a ball" to keep out the wet; at the same time he poured the contents of the other down his throat, and proceeded to light his short and blackened pipe. Lucy Cooper, however, without tasting the coarse and acrid stimulant, returned the glass to her fellow-drenched with rain, could hardly summon strength to servant, who testified no small amazement at her refusal to exhaust it, but showed no unwillingness to finish what his new acquaintance had left undone.

of rum.

The bullocks resumed their plodding pace; the flour trickled from the dray into the mud; the rain continued to descend, and Lucy shrunk back into her shelter. At this moment a horseman, buttoned and cloaked up to the chin, suddenly drew up his powerful beast, and called upon the driver to stop his team. He swore vehemently at the man, and bade him secure the sack. "But stay," said he; "what scheme is this, Joe? Who cut the sack?"

"I don't know, sir," was the reply.

"Well," said his master, "I will make you know to-morrow morning, if you don't find out to night. Let us see, the seam is opened, and your track is marked upon the road by a long white line. Get home as fast as you can, and I will follow you."

Joe sounded his heavy bullock-whip, and his sluggish eattle again set forward. But his master, intent upon tracing a clue so obviously presented to his scrutiny, trotted back to the Red Bull, whither the evidence of the flour guided him, and, taking to the gateway without inquiry or delay, seized upon John Ostler in the stable, with the pail of flour in his hand. A constable was immediately procured, who, at a single word from the horseman, carried off the ostler and his pail to the nearest watch-house, which in this colony stands open day and night for the reception of visitors. Although this scene passed with as little noise and delay as possible, the landlord from within was alarmed, and with many bows and scrapes to the horseman, begged to know what was the matter.

"I will tell you," said he, " to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. You will not give me the trouble, I am sure, to send for you. At the police-office, to-morrow morning."

"Yes, your worship," said the publican, and bowed the magistrate out of his stable-yard, who once more set

reversham house, built on the ground floor, after the fashion of this colony, was a quadrangle, open in the centre, and surrounded on three sides by a wide verandah, sustained by white columns of wood at due intervals. The south side, which in this hemisphere is rarely cheered by the sun, was occupied chiefly by the offices, and was without the shelter afforded to the other sides. Here Joe assisted Lucy to alight; and the poor girl, feeble with the privations of the voyage, ill-fed, and

walk into the kitchen, whilst Joe proceeded to unload his dray, and deliver his cargo to Mrs. Caveat, who was waiting with her keys to see it safely deposited.

"I am afraid, ma'am," said Joe," this here sack is bursted, and the flour lost; hows'ever, there a'nt much on it gone."

"Ah! Joe, Joe, you are always meeting some misfortune. The Doctor is just come home, and says he will put a stitch or two between your shoulders to-morrow."

'Aye, aye," said Joe, "my back must suffer for it, I know. Whatever happens, the scourger is the man to set all to rights."

Two or three more of the men came up to assist in getting the dray unloaded, which was no sooner done, than the oxen were unyoked and turned into the paddock, the dray left standing at the kitchen-door, and the men retired to their huts to waste the day, which was wholly unfavourable for labour in the open air, and therefore spent in sleep, as soon as their scanty rations had been cooked and devoured.

Mrs. Caveat now returned to the kitchen, where an old and ill-favoured Irish woman was engaged at the washing-tub, stealing glances at the new comer, but without attempting to show her any kindness.

"What is your name, young woman," said Mrs. Caveat. "I am afraid you are very wet. But take off your shoes and stockings, and change your clothes, if your bundle contains a change, at least. Walsh shall give you a basin of hot tea and a damper, and then you shall tell the Doctor what happened upon the road; and mind you tell the truth, or you will begin by getting into trouble. The Doctor will be your friend if you deserve it; but he never pardons those who treat him ill." Mrs. Caveat left Lucy by the fire-side, which glowed in the midst of an Australian summer, with three or four logs of "iron-bark" lying on the bricks, and ministering flames to the blackened sides of a huge cauldron suspended from a ponderous bar in the

116

chimney, and neighboured by a boiler with a brass
top, designated here as a "kitchen." The roof was
unceiled, the rafters black with smoke; the window was
not glazed, but furnished with the necessary complement
of iron bars, a check curtain, partly drawn, and a wooden
shutter of the clumsiest construction. The dresser and
the shelves exhibited the shattered remnant of what
had once been a costly service of crockery ware, now
reduced by reckless servants and intruding poultry to
the true colonial condition of shabby-genteel. A huge
settle, a heavy but crippled cedar table, and a few
three-legged stools, completed the furniture of the
kitchen. Walsh, who, in obedience to her mistress's
orders, had made a cup of tea, now pointed to the
smoking beverage as it stood upon the table, and bade
Lucy make it as sweet as she pleased. But Lucy looked
for milk, which Walsh quickly understood, and said,
"You will get no milk here, until you find the way to
help yourself; all you prig you have; and if you go
Do not snivel, but drink
without, it is your own fault.
your tea, and eat your bread; master will send for you
in about an hour's time, when he has dined and taken
his wine. But if he gets anything out of you against
Joe, you will have reason to be sorry as long as you
live. Take my advice, and keep your own counsel."

The forlorn and wretched girl was overwhelmed with
her own miseries, rendered doubly oppressive by the
circumstances of the weather and her situation. She
could form no opinion of the extent and nature of the
danger which threatened Joe or herself, and felt almost
indifferent about whatever might befal her. However
she gradually recovered her cheerfulness, and was reply-
ing to certain inquiries of her repulsive acquaintance,
when a smart lad, in a pink jacket, who had been
attending on his master at dinner, put his head in at
the kitchen door, and said, "Now, then, Miss Newcome,
it is your turn. Come this way, and show yourself.
Joe is in for it, and you have begun early. Mind your
answers, and don't blow upon him. Come round by the
verandah these is the bed rooms; here is master's,
and this is the dining-room." They had reached the
north-east corner of the cottage; an outer door was
opened, and Lucy found herself in the presence of
Dr. Caveat. The room was covered with a magnificent
Turkey carpet; there were three or four large paintings,
done in a good style, upon the wall; a sideboard with
a profusion of glass and plate; the windows were cur-
tained, and every thing combined to testify to the
Dr. Caveat had
wealth and consequence of the owner.
not removed from table; Mrs. Caveat, if she was entitled
to the name, sate by his side; and a parcel of briefs and
legal documents lay loose among the glasses and the fruit.
The Doctor, without looking round, began the con-
versation. "You are just landed, I believe," said he;
"have you had a tolerable passage?"

"We were five months, and had a great deal of bad weather, sir."

"Had you any sickness on board?"
"A good deal, sir."
"How many deaths?"

"Thirteen deaths, sir; amongst the rest"-Lucy began to sob.

Amongst the rest?"-continued the doctor, in a tone of inquiry.

"Amongst them, sir, was my poor sister." "What was her age?-How old are you?" "I am twenty, sir; my sister was twenty-one." "Were you well treated?-Have you any complaints to make?"

"None at all; we were as well treated as our condition allowed, and better, I am sure, than we deserved." "Well, I rejoice to hear you say so. My inquiries have hitherto been productive of some good, at any rate. Your name," continued Dr. Caveat, examining a scrap of paper which had been forwarded with the prisoner, whose description it bore, "your name, I see, is Lucy Cooper."

Lucy acknowledged her name in a quiet way, and without speaking.

"Well, Lucy," said the Doctor, whilst he sipped his wine, "do you remember seeing me upon the road?" "I should not have known you again, sir," Lucy faltered out.

"You had halted at the Red Bull, had you not?" "We stopped for a minute at a public-house, but I did not notice the sign, sir."

"What had you to drink?" demanded the Doctor. 'I drank nothing, sir," was Lucy's answer. you have already ac"I see," said Doctor Caveat, quired the colonial accomplishment of keeping a secret. If you drank nothing, tell me girl, what did Joe drink?” "I cannot say, sir," was Lucy's answer.

"Cannot and will not are all one," said Doctor Caveat, but Joe shall tell us in the morning himself, if whipcord can make him speak. As for you, young woman, I was in hopes, from your youth and inexperience, to have found you faithful to my interest, and attached to my family-when you became acquainted with us, I mean--but you will choose your friends, I suppose, and go your own ways in spite of any thing I can offer you." Indeed, sir," replied Lucy, "I feel the want of a friend, and hope that my good conduct will recommend me to your consideration."

Enough, enough, young woman," interrupted Mrs. Caveat, startled at a word or two that Lucy uttered, and not greatly pleased with the gentle tones in which they were conveyed; "if you have nothing further to communicate to the Doctor, you may go back to the kitchen. Walsh will find you something to do."

It would seem that the examination which had taken place had been diligently reported in the kitchen by him in the pink jacket, and had produced a favourable effect upon the company there assembled, which now consisted of Jenny Muckle from the laundry, an old Scotchwoman, Betsy Shindles, the cook, a young Londoner of three-andtwenty, the foresaid Anne Walsh, and Tom Collins, in the pink jacket, who had been born in the colony, and brought up in the Male Orphan School at Liverpool. These assigned women of the Doctor's, and the privileged boy, who had the run of the whole house from the kitchen upwards, and also visited the men's huts whenever he pleased, and who thus formed an easy mode of communication between all hands, and on that account had acquired the honourable appellation of Pug Mischief, were all regaling themselves upon that choice luxury of Anstralia, a cup of tea; and were calculating the probability of an amour between the Doctor and Lucy; the desir ableness of a change in the executive by the removal of the acting Mrs. Caveat, and the suitableness of her prospective successor to the wants and wishes of the community there assembled.

Jealousy and the elder women were not unacquainted, notwithstanding all the disqualifications of original ugliness, and the dilapidations of a lengthened colonial service in the ranks of vice and debauchery; ceaseless exposure to the sun by day, and the visitations of mosquitoes by night; but with Betsy Shindles, who had already made some progress towards intimacy with her learned master, and whose hopes were accordingly raised much higher than the due value of her merits justified, that unpleasant feeling rose in her throat with suffocating power, and she gave vent to her uneasiness by staring at Lucy, and turning up her nose at her.

"I am glad you did not split upon Joe," said Walsh, though I believe his luck's against him."

"Yes, he is booked for fifty before breakfast tomorrow," added Tom Collins.

66

They'll curl his hair for him, puir fellow," said Jenny Muckle, turning her tea into a soup-plate that stood upon the dresser, and blowing upon the steaming surface; "we ne'er blow upon one anither, lassie; that's aye the rule, and so you'll find it."

"Bring your pannikin, girl, and take your tea," said Walsh, who had been cooking the beverage since Lucy