story to the point: but I can hardly venture to appear in such company.'

'Oh, never fear: you are always incog, you know. Nobody can find out the identity of my Protestant uncle;' and, to tell you a secret, you are rather a favourite, especially among the old Tories of our stamp.'

'Then I must consent; and perhaps record some more desperate venture than the act of recording it. But oh, the subject with which we began still presses heavily on my spirit: I cannot forgive this abandonment of the Irish Protestants-the men whose devotion to the British throne I witnessed in ninety-eight -the children of those who fell in the cause, and those who for that cause alone surrendered two years later their national independence, and thrown themselves, by the act of union, on the broken reed which has now gone into their side, and pierced them. Were I one of those men, I fear I should become a repealer.'

'No, no, uncle; you would never, in a fit of antiEnglish resentment, tack yourself to O'Connell's tail.'

The old gentleman shook his head.

'Come, uncle, look at my Pontefract shilling: see, the metal is silver, supplied from the family plate of a few loyal nobles; the mint where it was struck, such a die as the besieged soldiers' ingenuity could devise; the date, immediately after the bloody murder of king Charles the First: the device, a solitary castle which alone held out against the triumphant rebels; and the legend, uncle, with the name of the poor fugitive young king Charles the Second, is 'Dum Spiro Spero.' This was found on the field of

battle, when even Pontefract had fallen, and all seemed irretrievably gone: yet this same fugitive youth lived to mount the throne in bloodless triumph, and to issue many a goodly coinage from his royal mint in the Tower of London. Cannot you read the lesson, and take heart? Come, leave all evil bodings, and in the spirit of a purer faith than that of Charles Stuart, remember DUM SPIRO SPERO.'

The Editor was anxious to recommend a beautiful work just published by Mr. Bunting, 'The Ancient Music of Ireland,' but her notice being found too long for the present Number, is deferred to next month. She takes this method of announcing it, in the interim.

THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1840.

HELEN FLEETWOOD.

XIV.

THE broad shadow of a venerable oak was gradually lengthening as it lay across a field of pale stubble, beaten down to the smoothness of a grass-plat by the pressure of many feet on its rough but brittle points. The field was large, and its outline traced on three sides by lofty hedge-rows, the land-marks of untold generations, whence at intervals shot up, here the hollow stump of a patriarchal tree, with its few green shoots, the poor remains of pristine vigour, that had once flung many a branch on high, and overshadowed its native soil; there a vegetable monarch of later date, towering in the majesty of his leafy prime; and again, mantled in more tender green, the fairy aspirant to future greatness. At their base the hawthorn, the wild brier, the woodbine, and the sloe spread SEPTEMBER, 1840.

their berries to the ripening ray, while that ambitious rustic vine, the bramble, forced its dark masses over all opposers, and gave promise of a plentiful crop to the children, who scanned its mellowing treasures, and then peered into the well-beaten nut-trees that formed a back ground to the picturesque hedge. Beautiful picture! Other lands may outvie us in many things; but the rich variety of an old English hedge-row, down from the topmost bough of its tall trees to the tiny flowers that laugh in the long grass below, and the cress that sucks the moisture from a coy rivulet in the scarcely perceptible channel, across which a babe may stride-this variety of form and of tint, of foliage and fruit, defies competition, and marks the hedge-row our own.

I have said that three sides of the field were thus bounded in. The fourth descended with an abrupt slope, its hedge lay too low to intercept the view, and whether by design or not, it was nearly destitute of trees, leaving a prospect open that terminated in the mighty main, which now heaved an unbroken surface of the purest, deepest blue against the horizon. It was on the opposite and higher portion of the field that the oak first mentioned stood; and the hillock, formed by an accumulation of grass-grown earth upon its enormous roots, afforded to those who reclined on it a full view of this magnificent distance.

But no pensive recluse had on that evening sought the spot for meditation: a large, and to say truth, a noisy party had made it their gathering place. There might be seen the sun-burnt peasant, bare-headed, or with handkerchief knotted round his brow, in the sweat of which he had tilled the soil, and gathered in the harvest; there was the sober matron, with

clean white cap and ample border, surrounded by a broad riband, her handkerchief neatly pinned over her gown, and confined by the fastenings of a check apron. There was the stout boy, exulting in his promotion to the stronger class of labourers, and the sprightly girl, comparing notes with her fellowgleaners as to the handfuls of corn collected; and childhood in all its stages, revelling in the various enjoyments afforded by that annual treat :-it was harvest home.

There are districts in the land still retaining much of the primitive character of English rusticity-places where the blight has not come; where the demoralizing swarm of railway excavators has never alighted, nor the firebrand of political rancour scattered its darkening smoke, nor the hell-born reptile of Socialism trailed his venomous slime. Sin there is, and sorrow; folly and remorse; the spirit that is within us, lusting to envy, bears many a bitter fruit, and man is rebellious, and God is provoked every day. Still, as compared with the rest of the population, these villagers retain much of what may be called the virtue and simplicity of their forefathers; and like their own hedgerows, bear much that is beautiful to the sight, and good for use, while even the thorns and the poisons that lurk there appear in a less repulsive aspect than in the busier haunts of men. Such was the place whose cottages contributed their inhabitants on the present festive occasion; when the husbandman who with long patience had waited for the precious fruits of the earth, saw them safely built into the stack, or deposited to the barn.

The owner of the field was the principal landed proprietor in this place; and the spot was chosen