the sacred volume, and dwell upon the outstretched landscape, where rolled the wide spreading river, and the village sloped down its sweet declivity, until the tear stole unawares down his bronzed cheek, and fell upon the pages on which all his hopes were anchored. Those who watched his countenance might trace the varied emotions which flowed through his soul, might see when his mind was wandering amid scenes of former strife, or when it centred homeward, like a bird struggling through the storm, which at last plunges into its own nest.

Years of peril and danger had passed away, and still that wish had clung to him, through all that he had passed, to lay his bones near the place of his birth; he still had hopes

"His latest hours to crown,

Amid those humble bowers to lay him down.
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose.

Around his fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all he felt and all he saw ;

And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
He still had hopes, his long vexations past,
There to return, and die at home at last."

Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

Few are the spots which I have seen so well adapted to bring repose to a heart outwearied with the tear and tumult of the world as that on which the old fisherman had taken up his home. There his boat was moored beside the sedge, the water swelling around her with a sound of peace, a drowsy babbling that even added to the reigning repose. The lowing of the distant cattle came subdued over the water, while the tall willows, ever and anon, made a silvery shiver with their white

leaves; then again all was still. Sometimes a distant sail would be seen beyond the bend of the river, just moving along the green banks like a cloud, then hid by the tall trees which bent over the waters. And well did he love to row his boat by night, when all around was silent, and another sky seemed sleeping in the river; it was then that he became eloquent, uttered words of religious truth, or told one of his "hair-breadth perils ;" a battle, a chase, or a wreck, just as his memory suggested. Great pains, too, did he bestow to instruct me in the gentle art; wishing, perhaps, that, when he was dead, I might inhabit his lonely hut, and follow the same occupation. But I was unskilful with hooks, baits, and nets, and had no ambition to sleep in that old hammock, which in the day-time was hoisted to the very roof of his hut. Then, how he would descant upon a fisher's life, and moralize on the finny tribe, until one could scarcely credit that the same voice had often rung above the storm, been foremost to shout in battle, and that those very hands had grasped the cutlass to board an enemy, led the way over decks slippery with blood! Such things, however, had once been, although to attempt a description of them is beyond my power; such a sketch must be filled up by an abler hand than mine.

and

But the old man has long been dead, and is buried on the lone island, a meet resting-place for one whose chief days had been spent on the great deep. The shrill plover shrieks above his narrow bed, and the rustling willows and rank sedge wave and whisper in the moonlight around his silent resting-place, while the waters roll with a mournful cadence along the shore. Not a vestige of his hut remains; his boat was sold to defray the expenses of his burial; wealth he had none. he had done and suffered will never be known; he had been shipwrecked, shed his blood in battle, loved, "not

All

wisely but too well," and died. What I have adventured here is but a hasty sketch; what I have heard him recount would more than fill this volume-his adventures would require a second "Tom Cringle" to record them--it would be a task which I dare not attempt the green hills and old woods have been my home, but not

"The broad blue sea."

97

TUMBLING TOMMY.

A nimble rascal and a dapper,
Full deftly could he cut and caper,

Dance, run, and leap, frisk and curvet,
Tumble and do the somerset ;

A nimble, witty knave, I warrant,

And one that well could say his errant.

Virgil Travestie.

In running over the various fortunes of my playmates, I had entirely forgotten my old acquaintance, little Tommy Parkins, until chance threw him in my way a few weeks ago, and under such circumstances as I should never again have recognised him, had not his own invention hit upon an old trick which left me no doubt of his identity. Never did tranquil hamlet rear a wilder scape-grace than little Tommy, or village green bear a more arrant skip-Jack; his legs, instead of his thoughts, were ever turned heavenward; to him the world was always topsy-turvy, for never was he so happy as when tumbling head over heels, turning somersets, standing on his head upon a pint pot, or walking upon his hands. He was, indeed, a thing of "shreds and patches," a very Joseph in his garments of divers colours; every somerset he turned cost his mother a score or two of stitches; she did but little besides mending his clothes, or running from cottage to cottage begging bits of cloth.

"Do, neighbour," she would say, "try to find me a bit of something to mend our lad's breeches, for really

G

it takes all my time only to keep him decent; I've hardly laid down my needle, and told him not to split his things. so again, before up goes his legs over and over, like a wind-mill sail, and crack, crack, crack, crack goes all my stitching, though I've done it with white-a-brown thread of three thicknesses."

Poor Tommy's tumbling was his only pleasure, as he confessed," he did it without a thought;" he could assign no more reason for it than a bird can for throwing open its wings and flying from tree to tree. He went to school, but, poor fellow! he never could have lived had he not been permitted to go out every hour to give his heels an airing; they absolutely quivered again when the hands of the clock were upon the point of twelve or five. How wistfully would he look at the flies, running feet uppermost on the ceiling! I believe from my heart, he envied them during school hours. But, oh! when the school broke loose, when the hour was up, the signal given, the words uttered, "Boys, you may go home," to have seen Tommy shoot out!-hop-step-jump, and he had cleared the threshold, and helter-skelter, head over heels he went, never stopping to look; and as to thinking, why, his very brains were prevented from dwelling upon anything for even a moment, so he trusted to some hedge, ditch, wall, or paling to bring him up; nor would his feet remain easy even then, but hang uppermost, and knock and kick, and perhaps take it into their heads to go over and over back again. No marvel that he almost always held his book wrong end uppermost, and was fond of making X's, because they were all legs; if he looked at a picture, be invariably turned it heels upward, then marvelled why the legs were not pointed skyward; how his face was plashed in wet weather, when he walked home, head downward, on his hands, to keep his shoes clean and not dirty his