blemished character and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex will plead as some slight excuse for this-" But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude the sentence the lady had thrust him into the passage and locked and bolted the door behind him. Whatever grounds for self-congratulation Mr. Pickwick might have for having escaped so quietly from his late awkward situation, his present position was by no means enviable. He was alone in an open passage in a strange house in the middle of the night, half dressed; it was not to be supposed that he could find his way in perfect darkness to a room which he had been wholly unable to discover with a light; and if he made the slightest noise in his fruitless attempts to do so, he stood every chance of being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller. He had no resource but to remain where he was until daylight appeared. So, after groping his way a few paces down the passage, and, to his infinite alarm, stumbling over several pairs of boots in so doing, Mr. Pickwick crouched into a little recess in the wall, to wait for morning as philosophically as he might. He was not destined, however, to undergo this additional trial of his patience; for he had not been long ensconced in his present concealment when, to his unspeakable horror, a man bearing a light appeared at the end of the passage. His horror was suddenly converted into joy, however, when he recognized the form of his faithful attendant. It was indeed Mr. Samuel Weller, who after sitting up thus late in conversation with the Boots, who was sitting up for the mail, was now about to retire to rest. "Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly appearing before him, "where's my bedroom?" "That's the very prudentest resolution as you could come to, sir," replied Mr. Weller. You rather want somebody to look arter you, sir, wen your judgment goes out awisitin'." "What do you mean by that, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick. He raised himself in bed and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more, but, suddenly checking himself, turned round and bade his valet "Good-night." "Good-night, sir," replied Mr. Weller. He paused when he got outside the door, shook his head, walked on, stopped, snuffed the candle, shook his head again, and finally proceeded slowly to his chamber, apparently buried in the profoundest meditation. THANATOPSIS. TO him who in the love of Nature holds Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak Communion with her visible forms she Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy speaks mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past- Make thee to shudder and grow sick at Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the heart, Go forth under the open sky and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters and the depths of air Comes a still voice: Yet a few days and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, vales Stretching in pensive quietness between ; Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,- Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, Where thy pale form was laid with many Are shining on the sad abodes of Death tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; up Thine individual being, shalt thou go Through the still lapse of ages. All that The globe are but a handful to the tribes And millions in those solitudes, since first And to the sluggish clod which the rude The flight of years began, have laid them In their last sleep. The dead reign there alone: STORY OF A FAWN.* So shalt thou rest. And what if thou with- DOWN from a mountain's craggy brow draw His homeward way a hunter took And over his shoulder his rifle hung, The eve crept westward; soft and pale Watching his children there at play, Faint and far through the forest wide Came a hunter's voice and a hound's deep cry; Silence, that slept in the rocky dell, So live that when thy summons comes to Scarcely waked as her sentinel join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of Death, Thou soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Challenged the sound from the mountain-side. And a doe sprang lightly by And cleared the path, and panting stood With her trembling fawn by the leaping flood. She spanned the torrent at a bound, And swiftly onward, winged by fear, Fled as the cry of a deep-mouthed hound Fell louder on her ear; * A true narrative. |