ed by the reasonable creation, he would some times consort with a species of inferior rank, and lay himself down to sleep by the side of a rock, or on the banks of a rivulet. He did few things without a motive, but his motives were rather eccentric: and the useful and expedient were terms which he held to be very indefinite, and which, therefore, he did not always apply to the sense in which they are commonly understood.

The sun was now in his decline, and the evening remarkably serene, when he entered a hollow part of the road, which winded between the surrounding banks, and seamed the sward in different lines, as the choice of travellers had directed them to tread it. It seemed to be little frequented now, for some of those had partly recovered their former verdure. The scene was such as induced Harley to stand and enjoy it; when, turning round, his notice was attracted by an object, which the fixture of his eye on the spot he walked had before prevented him from observing.

An old man, who, from his dress, seemed to have been a soldier, lay fast asleep on the ground; a knapsack rested on a stone at his right hand, while his staff and brass-hilted sword were crossed at his left.

Harley looked on him with the most earnest attention. He was one of those figures which Salvator would have drawn; nor was the surrounding scenery unlike the wildness of that painter's back-grounds. The banks on each side were covered with fantastic shrub-wood; and at a little distance, on the top of one of them, stood a finger-post, to mark the directions of two roads which diverged from the point where it was placed. A rock, with some dangling wild-flowers, jutted out above where the soldier lay; on which grew the stump of a large tree, white with age, and a single twisted branch shaded his face as he slept. His face had the marks of manly comeliness impaired by time; his forehead was not altogether bald, but its hairs might have been numbered; while a few white locks behind crossed the brown of his neck with a contrast the most venerable to a mind like Harley's. "Thou art old," said he to himself; "but age has not brought thee rest for its infirmities: I fear those silver hairs have not found shelter from thy country, though that neck has been bronzed in its service." The stranger waked. He looked at Harley with the appearance of some confusion: it was a pain the latter knew too well to think of causing in another; he turned and went on. The old man readjusted his knapsack, and followed in one of the tracks on the opposite side of the road.

When Harley heard the tread of his feet behind him, he could not help stealing back a glance at his fellow-traveller. He seemed to bend under the weight of his knapsack; he halted in his walk, and one of his arms was

VOL. V.

supported by a sling, and lay motionless across his breast. He had that steady look of sorrow, which indicates that its owner has gazed upon his griefs till he has forgotten to lament them; yet not without those streaks of complacency, which a good mind will sometimes throw into the countenance, through all the incumbent load of its depression.

He had now advanced nearer to Harley, and, with an uncertain sort of voice, begged to know what it was o'clock; "I fear," said he, "sleep has beguiled me of my time, and I shall hardly have light enough left to carry me to the end of my journey." "Father!" said Harley, (who by this time found the romantic enthusiasm rising within him,)" how far do you mean to go?" "But a little way, sir," returned the other; " and indeed it is but a little way I can manage now: 'tis just four miles from the height to the village, whither I am going."—" I am going thither too," said Harley; make the road shorter to each other. You seem to have served your country, sir, to have served it hardly too; 'tis a character I have the highest esteem for.-I would not be impertinently inquisitive; but there is that in your appearance which excites my curiosity to know something more of you: in the mean time, suffer me to carry that knapsack."

66

we may

The old man gazed on him; a tear stood in his eye. "Young gentleman," said he," you are too good; may Heaven bless you for an old man's sake, who has nothing but his blessing to give! but my knapsack is so familiar to my shoulders, that I should walk the worse for wanting it; and it would be troublesome to you, who have not been used to its weight."-"Far from it," answered Harley, "I should tread the lighter; it would be the most honourable badge I ever wore."

"Sir," said the stranger, who had looked earnestly in Harley's face during the last part of his discourse, "is not your name Harley?"

" It is,” replied he; "I am ashamed to say I have forgotten yours." -"You may well have forgotten my face," said the stranger;" tis a long time since you saw it; but possibly you may remember something of old Edwards." "Edwards!" cried Harley, "oh, Heavens!' and sprung to embrace him; "let me clasp those knees on which I have sat so often: Edwards! I shall never forget that fire-side, round which I have been so happy! But where, where have you been? where is Jack? where is your daughter? How has it fared with them, when fortune, I fear, has been so unkind to you?"— ""Tis a long tale," replied Edwards; " but I will try to tell it you as we walk.

"When you were at school in the neighbourhood, you remember me at South-hill: that farm had been possessed by my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, which last was a younger brother of that very man's ancestor, 2 c

who is now lord of the manor. I thought I managed it as they had done, with prudence; I paid my rent regularly as it became due, and had always as much behind as gave bread to me and my children. But my last lease was out soon after you left that part of the country; and the Squire, who had lately got a London attorney for his steward, would not renew it, because, he said, he did not chuse to have any farm under 3007. a-year value on his estate; but offered to give me the preference on the same terms with another, if I chose to take the one he had marked out, of which mine was a part.

"What could I do, Mr Harley? I feared the undertaking was too great for me; yet to leave, at my age, the house I had lived in from my cradle! I could not, Mr Harley, I could not; there was not a tree about it that I did not look on as my father, my brother, or my child: so I even ran the risk, and took the Squire's offer of the whole. But I had soon reason to repent of my bargain; the steward had taken care that my former farm should be the best land of the division: I was obliged to hire more servants, and I could not have my eye over them all; some unfavourable seasons followed one another, and I found my affairs entangling on my hands. To add to my distress, a considerable corn-factor turned bankrupt with a sum of mine in his possession: I failed paying my rent so punctually as I was wont to do, and the same steward had my stock taken in execution in a few days after. So, Mr Harley, there was an end of my prosperity. However, there was as much produced from the sale of my effects as paid my debts and saved me from a jail: I thank God I wronged no man, and the world could never charge me with dishonesty.

"Had you seen us, Mr Harley, when we were turned out of South-hill, I am sure you would have wept at the sight. You remember old Trusty, my shag house-dog; I shall never forget it while I live; the poor creature was blind with age, and could scarce crawl after us to the door: he went, however, as far as the gooseberry-bush, which you may remember stood on the left side of the yard; he was wont to bask in the sun there: when he had reached that spot, he stopped; we went on: I called to him; he wagged his tail, but did not stir: I called again; he lay down: I whistled, and cried Trusty; he gave a short howl, and died! -I could have lain down and died too; but God gave me strength to live for my children." The old man now paused a moment to take breath. He eyed Harley's face; it was bathed with tears: the story was grown familiar to himself; he dropped one tear, and no more.

"Though I was poor," continued he, "I was not altogether without credit. A gentleman in the neighbourhood, who had a small farm unoccupied at the time, offered to let me have it,

on giving security for the rent; which I made shift to procure. It was a piece of ground which required management to make any thing of; but it was nearly within the compass of my son's labour and my own. We exerted all our industry to bring it into some heart. We began to succeed tolerably, and lived contented on its produce, when an unlucky accident brought us under the displeasure of a neighbouring justice of the peace, and broke all our family happiness again.

"My son was a remarkable good shooter ; he had always kept a pointer on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when, one day, having sprung a covey of partridges, in our own ground, the dog, of his own accord, followed them into the justice's. My son laid down his gun, and went after his dog to bring him back: the game-keeper, who had marked the birds, came up, and, seeing the pointer, shot him, just as my son approached. The creature fell: my son ran up to him: he died, with a complaining sort of cry, at his master's feet. Jack could bear it no longer, but, flying at the game-keeper, wrenched his gun out of his hand, and, with the butt-end of it, felled him to the ground.

"He had scarce got home, when a constable came with a warrant, and dragged him to prison; there he lay, for the justices would not take bail, till he was tried at the quarter-sessions for the assault and battery. His fine was hard upon us to pay; we contrived, however, to live the worse for it, and make up the loss by our frugality. But the justice was not content with that punishment, and soon after had an opportunity of punishing us indeed.

"An officer, with press-orders, came down to our country, and, having met with the justices, agreed, that they should pitch on a certain number, who could most easily be spared from the county, of whom he would take care to clear it my son's name was in the justice's list.

""Twas on a Christmas eve, and the birthday, too, of my son's little boy. The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with showers of hail and snow. We had made up a cheering fire in an inner room; I sat before it in my wicker-chair, blessing Providence, that had still left a shelter for me and my children. My son's two little ones were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the sight: I brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes were forgotten.

"It had long been our custom to play a game at blind-man's-buff on that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who happened to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old maid-servant, who had lived with me from a child. The lot fell on my son to be blindfolded. We had con

said he, but the Great Spirit has given you an Indian heart; may he bear up the weight of your old age, and blunt the arrow that brings it rest!' We parted, and not long after I made shift to get my passage to England. "Tis but about a week since I landed, and I am going to end my days in the arms of my son. This sum may be of use to him and his children; 'tis all the value I put upon it. I thank Heaven, I never was covetous of wealth; I never had much, but was always so happy as to be content with my little."

When Edwards had ended his relation, Harley stood a while looking at him in silence; at last he pressed him in his arms, and when he had given vent to the fulness of his heart by a shower of tears, “Edwards,” said he, "let me hold thee to my bosom ; let me imprint the virtue of thy sufferings on my soul. Come, my honoured veteran ! let me endeavour to soften the last days of a life, worn out in the service of humanity; call me also thy son, and let me cherish thee as a father." Edwards, from whom the recollection of his own sufferings had scarce forced a tear, now blubbered like a boy; he could not speak his gratitude, but by some short exclamations of blessings upon Harley.

CHAP. XXXV.

He misses an old Acquaintance.-An Adventure consequent upon it.

WHEN they had arrived within a little way of the village they journeyed to, Harley stopped short, and looked stedfastly on the mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood on the roadside. "Oh, heavens!" he cried, "what do I see! silent, unroofed, and desolate! Are all the gay tenants gone? Do I hear their hum no more?-Edwards, look there, look there! the scene of my infant joys, my earliest friendships, laid waste and ruinous! That was the very school where I was boarded when you were at South-hill; 'tis but a twelvemonth since I saw it standing, and its benches filled with little cherubs; that opposite side of the road was the green on which they sported; see it now ploughed up! I would have given fifty times its value to have saved it from the sacrilege of that plough."

"

"Dear sir," replied Edwards, " perhaps they have left it from choice, and may have got another spot as good."-" They cannot,' said Harley," they cannot; I shall never see the sward covered with its daisies, nor pressed by the dance of the dear innocents; I shall never see that stump decked with the garlands which their little hands had gathered. These two long stones, which now lie at the foot of it, were once the supports of a hut I myself assisted to rear; I have sat on the sods within it, when we had

spread our banquet of apples before us, and been more blest-Oh! Edwards! infinitely more blest than ever I shall be again."

Just then a woman passed them on the road, and discovered some signs of wonder at the attitude of Harley, who stood, with his hands folded together, looking with a moistened eye on the fallen pillars of the hut. He was too much entranced in thought to observe her at all; but Edwards civilly accosting her, desired to know if that had not been the school-house, and how it came into the condition in which they now saw it. "Alack-a-day!" said she, "it was the school-house indeed; but, to be sure, sir, the Squire has pulled it down, because it stood in the way of his prospects."—"What! how! prospects! pulled down!” cried Harley.

"Yes, to be sure, sir; and the green, where the children used to play, he has ploughed up, because, he said, they hurt his fence on the other side of it."-"Curses on his narrow heart," cried Harley," that could violate a right so sacred! Heaven blast the wretch!

And from his derogate body never spring A babe to honour him!

But I need not, Edwards, I need not," recovering himself a little; "he is cursed enough already; to him the noblest source of happiness is denied; and the cares of his sordid soul shall gnaw it, while thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on those mangled limbs that have saved thy son and his children!"-" If you want any thing with the school-mistress, sir," said the woman, "I can shew you the way to her house." He followed her, without knowing whither he went."

They stopped at the door of a snug habitation, where sat an elderly woman with a boy and a girl before her, each of whom held a supper of bread and milk in their hands. "There, sir, is the school-mistress."- "Madam," said Harley, "was not an old venerable-looking man schoolmaster here some time ago?"-"Yes, sir, he was, -poor man! the loss of his former school-house, I believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down ; and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the meantime."-" And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"-"Ay, sir, they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish; and more promising children I never saw."-" Orphans!" said Harley.-" Yes, sir, of honest, creditable parents as any in the parish; and it is a shame for some folks to forget their relations, at a time when they have most need to remember them." -“Madam,” said Harley, "let us never forget that we are all relations." He kissed the children.

"Their father," sir, continued she, "was a farmer here in the neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but nobody can help

misfortunes; what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his affairs went to wreck; and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, sir; there was not a properer man to look on in the country than John Edwards, and so indeed were all the Edwardses.”—“ What Edwardses?" cried the old soldier, hastily." The Edwardses of Southhill; and a worthy family they were."-"Southhill!" said he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water, and a smell ing bottle, with the assistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time; then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms, "Oh! my children, my children!" he cried, "have I found you thus? My poor Jack! art thou gone? I thought thou should'st have carried thy father's grey hairs to the grave! and these little ones"-his tears choked his utterance, and he fell again on the necks of his children.

My dear old man!" said Harley, “ Providence has sent you to relieve them; it will bless me if I can be the means of assisting you.""Yes, indeed, sir," answered the boy; "father, when he was a-dying, bade God bless us; and prayed, that if grandfather lived, he might send him to support us."-" Where did they lay my boy?" said Edwards." In the Old Church-yard," replied the woman, "hard by his mother." "I will shew it you," answered the boy, "for I have wept over it many a time, when first I came among strange folks." He took the old man's hand, Harley laid hold of his sister's, and they walked in silence to the church-yard.

There was an old stone with the corner broken off, and some letters, half-covered with moss, to denote the names of the dead. There was a cyphered R. E. plainer than the rest.—It was the tomb they sought. "Here it is, grandfather," said the boy. Edwards gazed upon it without uttering a word. The girl, who had only sighed before, now wept outright-her brother sobbed, but he stifled his sobbing. "I have told sister," said he, " that she should not take it so to heart; she can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig.-We shall not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grandfather neither." The girl cried afresh; Harley kissed off her tears as they flowed, and wept between every kiss.

CHAP. XXXVI.

He returns home.-A description of his Retinue.

It was with some difficulty that Harley prevailed on the old man to leave the spot where the remains of his son were laid. At last, with the assistance of the school-mistress, he prevail

ed, and she accommodated Edwards and him with beds in her house, there being nothing like an inn nearer than the distance of some miles.

In the morning, Harley persuaded Edwards to come with the children to his house, which was distant but a short day's journey. The boy walked in his grandfather's hand; and the name of Edwards procured him a neighbouring farmer's horse, on which a servant mounted, with the girl on a pillow before him.

With this train Harley returned to the abode of his fathers; and we cannot but think that his enjoyment was as great as if he had arrived from the tour of Europe, with a Swiss valet for his companion, and half a dozen snuff-boxes, with invisible hinges, in his pocket. But we take our ideas from sounds which folly has invented; Fashion, Bon-ton, and Vertù, are the names of certain idols, to which we sacrifice the genuine pleasures of the soul; in this world of semblance, we are contented with personating happiness; to feel it, is an art beyond us.

It was otherwise with Harley; he ran up stairs to his aunt, with the history of his fellowtravellers glowing on his lips. His aunt was an economist, but she knew the pleasure of doing charitable things, and withal, was fond of her nephew, and solicitous to oblige him. She received old Edwards, therefore, with a look of more complacency than is perhaps natural to maiden ladies of threescore, and was remarkably attentive to his grand-children. She roasted apples with her own hands for their supper, and made up a little bed beside her own for the girl. Edwards made some attempts towards an acknowledgment for these favours, but his young friend stopped them in their beginnings. "Whosoever receiveth any of these children"said his aunt; for her acquaintance with her Bible was habitual.

Early next morning, Harley stole into the room where Edwards lay; he expected to have found him a-bed, but in this he was mistaken; the old man had risen, and was leaning over his sleeping grandson, with the tears flowing down his cheeks. At first he did not perceive Harley; when he did, he endeavoured to hide his grief, and crossing his eyes with his hand, expressed his surprise at seeing him so early astir. "I was thinking of you," said Harley," and your children. I learned last night that a small farm of mine in the neighbourhood is now vacant; if you will occupy it, I shall gain a good neighbour, and be able, in some measure, to repay the notice you took of me when a boy; and as the furniture of the house is mine, it will be so much trouble saved." Edwards' tears gushed afresh, and Harley led him to see the place he intended for him.

The house upon this farm was indeed little better than a hut; its situation, however, was pleasant, and Edwards, assisted by the benefi cence of Harley, set about improving its neat