with half the joy that she hailed the sound of voice and instrument from the passage where she had stationed her wandering minstrel. His mother smiled, and motioned silence with her finger; Alexander stared with huge eyes and wide parted lips a perfect statue of vulgar astonishment, while the following song was sung by a tongue not unaccustomed to melody. THE DEEPEST SNOW WILL DROP AWAY WITH THE SUN. The deepest snow will drop away with the sun; The thickest ice will melt ere the summer is begun ; But love devout, and warmth of heart, and prayer, and constancie, Her sweet looks would wile the wild bird from the breer; She wears a snowy hat, with a feather in the crown, Though her hose were of silk, and with silver was she shod; The gentle bird builds in the humble bower tree; On the top of the grove loves the foolish bird to be; And the hawk takes the high one, and lets the low one flee, O, she loved me once, and vow'd to be tender and true Long before the song was concluded, Sandie Roseboro had started to his feet; and with a forward step, and a clenched hand, boded no better largesse than blows to this travelling songster. His mother fastened one hand in his bosom, and anchored the other in his hair, and so succeeded in staying him till the ballad ended; but with the close of the verses came a truce to his forbearance. Leaving some of his hair and a part of his vest-scarlet bound with blue ribbon-in his mother's tenacious hands, away he broke, exclaiming, "De'il douke me in his brimstone dub, if Dick Bell of Gotterbie shall wile away my love with the glamour of a fool sang, like black Johnnie Faa;" and the clamour of hot words was heard, and the sound of earnest blows, and all the din and disturbance of a sharp scuffle in a dark and narrow place. Old Elspa held up her hands, and cried, "Oh, "A the audacious youth, smite him hard, ye, and ye maun wed me soon; for I am no that sure I have long to live, I shall have a battle to fight every day with a Bell, and there's a parish full of them,all strapping lads, and ringing deevils." It was now late, the lady of Win diewa's retired to a little nest or closet-dignified by the name of chamber, and thus the mother addressed her son, "C My bairn, you are now about to become a great man; for the lady of Windiewa's loves you, her een cannot conceal the secret-so hearken to a mother's counsel; cast aside your rustic ways, and speak English-Bible English the best of English, and dance no more with Peg Wilson, nor run about the stackyards with Kate Davison, nor hunt foumarts with Rob Burgess nor sing Stroudwater in opposition to the kirk-precentor-and, above all, cease your moon-struck hop-stepand-leap ways, and come in nae mair in the mornings, shouting, Holing wi' hunger-holing wi' hunger-Ŏ for a cog of brose and a ramhorn spoon.'-All these things, my son, ye will forget-and put on the outward man of a gentle-there's nought mair easy. Ye will no longer lay stones in mortar-square freestone with hammer and chisel-hang a plummet, nor stretch a line-you will wear gloves-cast aside the sheep skin apron and make me the mother of a finished gentleman." "Mother," said Sandie, "I have taken a handsome farewell of hammer and of trowel-of plumb and level -square, and rule, and mallet, and chisel-fortune made me for some thing grand, and I never was a witch at masonry. It was late last night I carried them to the middle of Glenlochar bridge-and down I dropped them into the deep pool among the moonlight water. O, but they looked bonnie-splash went my hammer my plummet followed, and I thought the very banks laughed out, and cried Down wi' them, Sandie!'and down they went-and may they never be lifted again till the fiend fishes them up to build a new stone and lime march-dyke between the bottomless pit and purgatory." "Oh, my bairn," said his mother, your deeds were rash and your words are sinful-though I wot weel ye cannot be a perfect gentle man without speaking of fiends and brimstone-yet lean to the homely side of gentility, and swear but when ye see it is useful to support your station. Are ye sure no one saw ye cast away your tools? it was but an ill-advised deed, and mickle fair money might have been made of them." "Ill-advised!" said her son; "what can be ill-advised that my own wit wysed me to!-and besides my own counsel, I had the unlookedfor aid of a very considerate person:" "Of whom? in the name of him whom I dare na name," said Elspa. "Ye shall hear," said her son; "as I stood looking at the moving of the moonlight water over my best hammer-I heard a voice cry, Weel done, Sandie, cast them away, the thriftless looms-and let fools work, who have nae the sense to be gentle men.' I looked about, and who was at my hand but daft Meg Meldrum, with her lang staff, and dishevelled hair; and a loud laugh raised she, and pushed o'er the last of my tools, and cried, Gallant Sandie-come to my side, let us take the road, and I will sing sangs and ye shall tell stories; and where will men see such a pair, for I am mair of a lady I trow than souple Kate of Windiewa's. Gowk, what do you glower at? will ye scorn me? will ye gang with the black cat, and slight the gray one? Weel, weel, away, man, away! but when the wives of Dumfries hold up their bairns as ye gang by, and bid them look at the silly soft lad who fell in love with souple Kate-and when the mason stops to laugh at ye, even when he groans beneath a load, and all the shoemakers of the Longvennel cast awl and strap aside, and, filling door and window with rosined hands and laughing faces, make the old town ring from port to port with the cry of Souple Kate-Souple Kate, ye will think on her whom ye slight now."" And did ye no fling the limmer after your tools?" rupted Elspa; "she shall never darken my doors again-daft! she's crafty by nature, but she's daft by design-and her feigned frenzy gets her more kindness than what comes to honest hot-browed industry." inter The reign of the lady of Windiewa's continued for a full week, and the delusion of honest Sandie continued much longer. He went with he is my father, nevertheless, and these are his servants---noble vassals to him by dale and moor.---Rover and Yarrow, here, lads, and offer your services to honest Sandie." And the dogs, at the sound of her wellknown voice, came leaping around her. Her father came---his reverend brow flushed with anger and shame, and the tears glistening in his eyes. "Alas, Katherine," he said, "ye went innocent to Glasgow, and ye came graceless back. I took ye back a torn and stray lamb, bleeding as ye were left by the fox, and I nourished ye in my old fond bosom, and my heart was glad when your bloom returned again. But ye were born to bring down these gray hairs to a sudden grave. I shall tell thee no more of thy evil ways, and of thy wicked wanderings her to the dance and danced till day-light, and bore her safely home, after another battle with Dick Bell. "In all things," said the lad of Gotterbie," this Sandie is a born fool, save in the matter of hard blows, and gore! he strikes sairer than a wiser man." He carried her to the kirk-and the feathers about her head might have nearly flown away with her body, as an old man said, who described her to me, and she behaved with much decorum after hearing a hard contest in psalmody between her lover and the precentor. On their way home, the lads laughed, and the maidens tittered, and the old women sighed, for the silly bairn of douce Elspa Roseboro-all these matters, though they shook not the belief of honest Sandie, made an impression upon the lady of Windie--for I see thee smile-and there is wa's; and when she got home she began to plume herself for flight. Sandie sat down by her side, and spoke of the pangs of delayed love, and of the bridal-day. "Alas!" said Kate, "shall I do an unwise thing? Let us go and beg my father's blessing-what hope of happiness can I have if I am undutiful? "Ye are as wise as ye are bonnie," said Elspa; 66 on the morrow shall my son go with you, even to your father's abode and may your errand be blessed." "Even so let it be," said the maiden. Before the sun rose they were on their way, and, wandering till noon, they sat down by the side of a small stream overhung with hazels, and ate some bread and honey. "When we are, married," said Sandie, "we will build a little hut where these two burns meet, and watch sheep, and pull blackberries, and lie soft on beds of brekan-and, oh, the rich ewe-milk-cheese we shall eat, and the reeking curds and cream, we shall sup." In good time is the wish uttered," said the maiden; "for we are on the limits of my father's hunting land-and, lo! here comes my father himself with his two servants by his side; up, Alexander Roseboro, an ye be a man, and let us humble ourselves before him." "Before whom?" said Sandie, in amazement ;-"I see no lord, but an old white headed man, shaking his locks at thee, and two sheepdogs by his side." Aweel, my lad," said she of the Windiewa's, 66 no hope for her who smiles in a sorrowing father's face. Go into my hut, I say-thou hast no longer a mother to make joyful or sad-when she saw thy new betrayer carry thee off, she held up her head no moreAye, aye, laughing again. And for thee, young man, return to thine own home-when a woman has been betrayed, she becomes in her turn the betrayer, and seeks to ensnare such innocents as thee. Return to thy home, I say-seek not the curse of a broken-hearted man-it clings and it stings, and nought can cast it from thee save the grace of heaven." It would fill a book to relate the thousand satirical welcomes which hailed the return of Alexander Roseboro. It seemed as if his tale had taken wings, and flown to every cot and village, and that all the land had come forth, old and young, to laugh and make mirth at his misfortune. Long afterwards, when the story had died away-had again revivedand after giving place to more fleeting pleasantries, held up its head once more as brilliant as ever, I happened to pass along the road to Glenlochar. Two fresh dark-eyed girls were trying their wit on a quiet youth who walked between them. "He's a sharp lad," said one; " he could catch a wife in the rain like Sandie Roseboro." "And throw his wits into the water out of love, like Souple Kate," said the other-and so the tale of Kate of Windiewa's lives on. NALLA. NAY! let not sorrow cloud thy brow, nor thus in thought repine, My feelings, still, as fondly thrill'd whene'er I turn to thee. I know, although thou speak'st them not, the thoughts which fill thy mind; I own I should rejoice to share what poorest peasants do, To breathe heaven's heart-reviving air, and hail its vault of blue; Yet more, far more, 'twould soothe my soul with thee, dear friend, to stray, The silent cliffs, the speaking main, the breezes blowing free, These could not look, speak, breathe in vain, if felt and shared with thee. Yet though such luxuries as these remain to us unknown, We from our scanty store may seize some joys of tend'rest tone; Proudest Prosperity had brought no purer bliss to me, Than bleak Adversity has caught in darkest hours from thee. Had Fortune on our prospects smiled and sunshine round us flung, The bird whose soft and plaintive song is heard alone at night, Thy voice in care, in grief, in pain, has been to me as dear While some, as every joy decreas'd, their sympathy denied, Though I may darkly pass away, as in the noon of life, Believe it not! the love that gives to life its truest zest, And should some fragments of my song, which thy applause endears, EXPEDITION FROM PITTSBURGH TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.❤ WITHIN the last half century, the most important and valuable additions have been made to the geography of the New World. Before that period, indeed, the operations of war and policy, and the speculations of trade, had laid open many of its wilds and recesses; but still some of its most prominent features were involved in obscurity, and the mind dwelt, with a species of awe, on its mighty waters, whose volume proclaimed the length of their course, and its interminable forests---the haunts of a race, whose very name was inseparably associated with ideas of craft, rapine, and cruelty. The skill and enterprise of different navigators have been successfully employed, in tracing the vast outline of its shores; while efforts no less persevering, and, in many cases, equally successful, have been made to explore its interior. In these attempts the American government has been honourably conspicuous; and its exertions have been at once stimulated and aided, by the progress of population in the Western States, and the acquisition of Louisiana from France, which placed at its command a rich and varied territory, inexhaustible in natural resources, and almost indefinite in extent. Between 1803, the date of this transfer, and 1807, three exploratory parties were sent out by the executive government of the United States. Major Pike first proceeded northward, to trace the current of the Mississippi towards its source; and afterwards directing his steps westerly, endeavoured to ascertain the courses of the Arkansa and Red River. In this journey he approached the stupendous Alpine chain, distinguished by the name of the Rocky Mountains, which is evidently a continuation of the Andes in the south, and may be said to traverse the whole northern Continent, and form a peculiar and striking lineament in its geography. But his researches were stopped by the Spaniards; and he was compelled to desist, without fulfilling the purpose of his employers. At a later period, another party, under Captain Sparkes, endeavoured to ascend the Red River, from its confluence with the Mississippi. When, however, they had proceeded nearly three hundred miles, they were met by a strong detachment of Spaniards, and deemed it prudent to return. The most remarkable of these enterprises, and, in fact, one of the most memorable in the annals of modern discovery, was that of Captains Lewis and Clarke, in 1804, 1805, and 1806. These gentlemen explored the Missouri to its source, traversed the stupendous barrier of the Rocky Mountains, and in their descent towards the coast of the North Pacific Ocean, dispelled the doubts which had been long entertained, respecting the origin and direction of the Columbia River. They were so fortunate as to effect their return, after a dangerous and toilsome journey of nearly 9,000 miles, without any serious casualty. Still anxious to acquire a more accurate knowledge of the chain of Rocky Mountains, and of the different streams which, from that elevated region, pour their tributary waters into the Mississippi, the American government confided to Major Long the direction of the present Expedition, composed of men of science, spirit, and enterprise, and accompanied by riflemen, hunters, and assistants. Embarking on board a steam boat at Pittsburgh, they proceeded by the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, to Fort Osage, a military post, established in 1808, which may be considered as the utmost limit of civilized population in this quarter. From hence, while the boat ascended the Missouri, to the point designated in the journey of Lewis and Clarke, by the name of Council Bluff, a detachment was ordered to penetrate westward, a * Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819 and 1820, by order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of Major S. H. Long, of the U. S. Topographical Engineers. Compiled from the notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, and other gentlemen of the party. By Edwin James, Botanist and Geologist to the Expedition. 3 Vols. 8vo. London, 1823. |