darkness, and anon, dividing and careering along the sky, as if hurried away by some living impulse. Impelled by the fire in his brain, De Clifford threw up the casement, leaped on the leads of a portico beneath his window, and descended, as he had often done on happier occasions, by one of the pillars into the garden. He wandered he knew not whither. CHAPTER V. "A single tear he did not shed- J. W. Cunningham. AMONG the scenes which diffuse through the contemplative mind a pleasing melancholy, there is none which awakens a deeper interest than a village church-yard. The Poet and the Christian, though in different ways, feel its influence, and surrender themselves to its power. To the one it presents the long roll of years gone by. "The dead, both small and great," stand before him, invested with the charm of ideal existence, and all the incidents in the brief tale of human life, from the cradle to the tomb, crowd upon his imagination. He luxuriates in the past. The other looks upon the scene with emotions inspired by a nobler philanthropy. To VOL. II. 7* him it breathes of hope. He feels the dust of departed worth and goodness moving beneath his feet. The solemn and appalling images, rising from the tomb, in passing through his vision, are moulded, softened, and beautified into forms of surpassing loveliness and glory. Death and life appear to him mysteriously consorted, and each green hillock speaks to his heart, with all the thrilling tenderness of the best affections that proceed from their conjunction. While surveying the hallowed receptacle of so many weary pilgrims, he is delightfully conscious that they are covered by the "wings of motherly humanity," and that her children thus gathered within her tender shade, will one day emerge in all the undecaying vigour of deathless immortality. The sacred fane, around which they have found their last repose, as it points significantly to heaven, conducts his thoughts to its blissful mansions; and, sustained by the "sure and certain hope" of their resurrection to eternal life, he devoutly exclaims, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." The place of Sepulture at Beaulieu is the most retired spot in its deep seclusion, "The loveliest nook in all that lovely glen," and possesses not only the charm of romantic solitude, but is venerable, as it forms part of the demesne of the Abbey, whose dilapidated and ivied walls, standing in craggy and isolated portions, declare its remote antiquity and pristine magnificence. At no great distance from the more modern burying-place, fragments of sculp tured tombs, and massive stones, with inscriptions, rendered illegible by the foot of time, project above the surface of the ground, partially covered with moss, and grey and mouldering from the storms of many centuries. But later generations repose, where no vestiges exist of these proud but humbled trophies of departed greatness "Where no dark cypress casts a doleful gloom, One evening, while the sexton was busied in his avocation in this rural cemetry, a figure, unshorn, ghastly, and most miserable in his whole appearance, approached him, and with a voice, hollow and broken, demanded to know whose mortal remains were about to be interred. Without raising his head, or suspending his employment, the grave-digger replied, "Miss Julia's !" "Julia's!" echoed the stranger in a tone of anguish which roused the attention of the honest rustic; who, eyeing him with a look of surprise, exclaimed "Aye, master, mayhap you knowed the poor lady?" "Julia Wilmington!" uttered the stranger in accents tremulous and scarcely audible. "The same, master, the very same," rejoined the labourer, with evident emotion, and her's is a sad and dismal story;-Ah! who'd ha' thought it, who'd ha' thought it," he continued, shaking his silver locks, and wiping the starting tear. He then resumed for a moment his unwilling toil; but was soon forced to desist. "Ah!" said he, pausing, "'tis hard, very hard work this. Why, I've been sexton here, man and boy, this fifty year-ever sin old Goodman Coulter give up through long of the rheumatiz; and never, never did a grave cost me so much trouble before. Somehow there's no getting on. Every thing's out o' sorts; the ground seems as stiff and as stubborn as a hard frost; and the tools are all so dull there's no using on 'em. I must give up, for I ha'nt heart to go on." He paused, and leaned on his spade, apparently regardless of his auditor. Both seemed, for the moment, unconscious of each other's presence, and absorbed in their own thoughts. The old man was the first to speak; and when he did, it was with that elevation of sentiment and expression which distinguishes the conversation of the pious poor, when religion either awakens or hallows their feelings. "Well!" he pursued, "well! why should I take on so. One might as well weep for the angels in heaven as for her. Ah! Heaven was her home, and holy angels her only fit companions. She was too pure, too good, for such a wicked world as this. But," he said, "there is one for whom we should weep; aye, I could weep tears of blood for him. Poor Master Clifford! well do I remember when Miss Julia and he used to come and sit in my dame's chimneycorner, or afore the garden gate of a summer's evening, and talk, that it did one's heart good to hear 'em-they were so young, so handsome, and so good. Oh! it was a blessed sight. And we all blessed them both, and thought how happy they two would be; but," he added, "how is the gold changed, and the fine gold become dim. Master Clifford went to College for his learning, as they said. Well, and what did he learn there, but to forget the instructions of his youth to forsake God-to despise his holy word—and to set himself up as wiser than his Maker! And what was the end on't? Why, the end of these things was death-the death of poor Miss Julia; but oh! it's sinful to weep for her-she's gone now where sorrow and sighing shall for ever flee away. Its' for him, indeed, we must weep. There's no forgetting him, as poor Mr. Evelyn said this morning when he came to our cottage, and asked so kindly if we could tell any news of him.- Pray,' said he, 'have you heard any thing of my Edward ?" 6 Sir,' said I, he was indeed yours once;' 'but now-Now,' said he, he's more mine than ever. Forsaken outcast! prodigal! as he ishe is still mine-more than ever mine.' And then he compared him so beautifully to the Prodigal in the Gospel, saying, that his father knew him when he was yet very far off, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him. Ah!' said he, 'could I but see my poor boy returning home, however distant, however far, yet only returning, how eagerly would I hasten to welcome, to bless him;'- -but, master, what makes you tremble, and look so deadly pale?" The damp chill of horror was, indeed, on the stranger's brow, and he looked, ghastly as death -his lips moved he muttered something of. Julia-laughed hideously, and staggered back |