its head towards the sun. That child's religion was like all the other parts of his character-as prone to tears as that of other children, when they read of the Divine Friend dying for them on the cross; but it was profounder far than theirs, when it shed no tears, and only made the paleness of his countenance more like that which we imagine to be the paleness of a phantom. No one ever saw him angry, complaining, or displeased; for angelical indeed was his temper, purified, like gold in fire, by suffering. He shunned not the company of other children, but loved all, as by them all he was more than beloved. In few of their plays could he take an active share; but sitting a little way off, still attached to the merry brotherhood, though in their society he had no part to enact, he read his book on the knoll, or, happy dreamer, sunk away among the visions of his own thoughts. There was poetry in that child's spirit, but it was too essentially blended with his whole happiness in life, often to be embodied in written words. A few compositions were found in his own small beautiful handwriting after his death-hymns and psalms. Prayers, too, had his heart indited-but they were not in measured language-framed, in his devout simplicity, on the model of our Lord's. How many hundred times have we formed a circle round him in the gloaming, all sitting or lying on the greensward, before the dews had begun to descend, listening to his tales and stories of holy or heroic men and women, who had been greatly good and glorious in the days of old! Not unendeared to his imagination were the patriots, who, living and dying, loved the liberties of the land-TellBruce-or Wallace, he in whose immortal name a thousand rocks rejoice, while many a wood bears it on its summits as they are swinging to the storm. Weak as a reed that is shaken in the wind, or the stalk of a flower that tremblingly sustains its blossoms beneath the dews that feed their transitory lustre, was he whose lips were so eloquent to read the eulogies of mighty men of war riding mailed through bloody battles. What matters it that this frame of dust be frail, and of tiny size-still may it be the tenement of a lordly spirit. But high as such warfare was, it satisfied not that thoughtful child-for other warfare there was to read of, which was to him a far deeper and more divine delight-the warfare waged by good men against the legions of sin, and closed triumph

antly in the eye of God-let this world deem as it will-on obscurest death-beds, or at the stake, or on the scaffold, where a profounder even than Sabbath silence glorifies the martyr far beyond any shout that from the immense multitude would have torn the concave of the heavens.

What a contrast to that creature was his elder brother! Lawrie was eighteen years old when first we visited Logan Braes, and was a perfect hero in strength and stature-Bob Howie alone his equal-but Bob was then in the West Indies. In the afternoons, after his work was over in the fields or in the barn, he had pleasure in getting us Manse-boys to accompany him to the Moor-Lochs for an hour's angling or two in the evening, when the large trouts came to the gravelly shallows, and, as we waded mid-leg deep, would sometimes take the fly among our very feet. Or he would go with us into the heart of the great wood, to show us where the foxes had their earths—the party being sometimes so fortunate as to see the cubs disporting at the mouth of the briery aperture in the strong and root-bound soil. Or we followed him, so far as he thought it safe for us to do so, up the foundations of the castle, and in fear and wonder that no repetition of the adventurous feat ever diminished, saw him take the young starling from the crevice beneath the tuft of wall-flowers. What was there of the bold and daring that Lawrie Logan was not, in our belief, able to perform? We were all several years younger-boys from nine to fifteen-and he had shot up into sudden manhood-not only into its shape but its strength-yet still the boyish spirit was fresh within him, and he never wearied of us in such excursions. The minister had a good opinion of his principles, knowing how he had been. brought up, and did not discountenance his visits to the Manse, nor ours to Logan Braes. Then what danger could we be in, go where we might, with one who had more than once shown how eager he was to risk his own life when that of another was in jeopardy? Generous and fearless youth! To thee we owed our own life-although seldom is that rescue now remembered (for what will not in this turmoiling world be forgotten?) when in pride of the newly-acquired art of swimming, we had ventured-with our clothes on toosome ten yards into the Brother-Loch, to disentangle our line from the water-lilies.

It seemed that a hundred cords had

got entangled round our legs, and our heart quaked too desperately to suffer us to shriek—but Lawrie Logan had his hand on us in a minute, and brought us to shore as easily as a Newfoundland dog lands a bit of floating wood.

But that was a momentary danger, and Lawrie Logan ran but small risk, you will say, in saving us; so let us not extol that instance of his intrepidity. But fancy to yourself, gentle reader, the hideous mouth of an old coal-pit, that had not been worked for time immemorial, overgrown with thorns, and briers, and brackens, but still visible from a small mount above it, for some yards down its throat-the very throat of death and perdition. But can you fancy also the childish and superstitious terror with which we all regarded that coalpit, for it was said to be a hundred fathom deep-with water at the bottom-so that you had to wait for many moments— almost a minute-before you heard a stone, first beating against its sides-from one to the other-plunge at last into the pool profound. In that very field, too, a murder had been perpetrated, and the woman's corpse flung by her sweetheart into that coal-pit. One day some unaccountable impulse had led a band of us into that interdicted field-which we remember was not arable—but said to be a place where a hare was always sure to be found sitting among the binweeds and thistles. A sort of thrilling horror urged us on closer and closer to the mouth of the pit-when Wee Wise Willie's foot slipping on the brae, he bounded with inexplicable force along-in among the thorns, briers, and brackens—through the whole hanging mat, and without a shriek, down-downdown into destruction. We all saw it happen-every one of us-and it is scarcely too much to say, that we were for a while all mad with horror. Yet we felt ourselves borne back instinctively from the horrible pit—and as aid we could give none, we listened if we could hear any cry-but there was none—and we all flew together out of the dreadful field, and again collecting ourselves together, feared to separate on the different roads to our homes. "Oh! can it be that our Wee Wise Willie has this moment died sic a death-and no a single ane amang us a' greetin for his sake?" said one of us aloud; and then indeed did we burst out into rueful sobbing, and ask one another who could carry such tidings to Logan Braes?

All at once we heard a clear, rich, mellow whistle

as of a blackbird-and there with his favourite collie, searching for a stray lamb among the knolls, was Lawrie Logan, who hailed us with a laughing voice, and then asked us, "Where is Wee Willie ?-hae ye flung him like another Joseph into the pit ?" The consternation of our faces could not be misunderstood-whether we told him or not what had happened we do not know—but he staggered, as if he would have fallen down-and then ran off with amazing speednot towards Logan Braes—but the village. We continued helplessly to wander about back and forwards along the near edge of a wood, when we beheld a multitude of people rapidly advancing, and in a few minutes they surrounded the mouth of the pit. It was about the very end of the hay-harvestand many ropes that had been employed that very day in the leading of the hay of the Landlord of the Inn, who was also an extensive farmer, were tied together to the length of at least twenty fathom. Hope was quite dead-but her work is often done by Despair. For a while there was confusion all round the pit-mouth, but with a white fixed face and glaring eyes, Lawrie Logan advanced to the very brink, with the rope bound in many firm folds around him, and immediately behind him stood his grey-headed father, unbonneted, just as he had risen from a prayer. Is't my ain father that's gaun to help me to gang doun to bring up Willie's body? O! merciful God, what a judgment is this! Father-fatherOh! lie doun at some distance awa frae the sicht o' this place. Robin Alison, and Gabriel Strang, and John Borland 'ill haud the ropes firm and safe. O, father-father-lie doun, a bit apart frae the crowd; and have mercy upon him—O thou, great God, have mercy upon him!" But the old man kept his place; and the only one son who now survived to him disappeared within the jaws of the same murderous pit, and was lowered slowly down, nearer and nearer to his little brother's corpse. They had spoken to him of foul air, of which to breathe is death, but he had taken his resolution, and not another word had been said to shake it. And now, for a short time, there was no weight at the line, except that of its own length. It was plain that he had reached the bottom of the pit. Silent was all that congregation, as if assembled in divine worship. Again, there was a weight at rope, and in a minute or two, a voice was heard far down

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the pit that spread a sort of wild hope-else, why should it have spoken at all-and lo! the child-not like one of the dead-clasped in the arms of his brother, who was all covered with dust and blood. "Fall down on your knees-in the face o' heaven, and sing praises to God, for my brother is yet alive!"

During that Psalm, father, mother, and both their sons— the rescuer and the rescued-and their sweet cousin too, Annie Raeburn, the orphan, were lying embraced in speechless-almost senseless trances; for the agony of such a deliverance was more than could well by mortal creatures be endured.

The child himself was the first to tell how his life had been miraculously saved. A few shrubs had for many years been growing out of the inside of the pit, almost as far down as the light could reach, and among them had he been entangled in his descent, and held fast. For days, and weeks, and months, after that deliverance, few persons visited Logan Braes, for it was thought that old Laurence's brain had received a shock from which it might never recover; but the trouble that tried him subsided, and the inside of the house was again quiet as before, and its hospitable door open to all the neighbours.

Never forgetful of his primal duties had been that bold youth-but too apt to forget the many smaller ones that are wrapt round a life of poverty like invisible threads, and that cannot be broken violently or carelessly, without endangering the calm consistency of all its ongoings, and ultimately causing perhaps great losses, errors, and distress. He did not keep evil society-but neither did he shun it: and having a pride in feats of strength and activity, as was natural to a stripling whose corporeal faculties could not be excelled, he frequented all meetings where he was likely to fall in with worthy competitors, and in such trials of power, by degrees acquired a character for recklessness, and even violence, of which prudent men prognosticated evil, and that sorely disturbed his parents, who were, in their quiet retreat, lovers of all peace. With what wonder and admiration did all the Manse-boys witness and hear reported the feats of Lawrie Logan! It was he who, in pugilistic combat, first vanquished Black King Carey the Egyptian, who travelled the country with two wives and a waggon of Staffordshire pottery, and had struck the "Yokel,"