of the room, ordered his horse, and rode to the grand chamberlain. The count came to meet him on the steps.

"I have a word to say to you, count," said Welt; "but I should wish it to be in private."

"A word also with you, for it is time to sit down to dinner, and you must be our guest," said the grand chamberlain, affably, and led him into the room.

"Count," said Welt, "you expressed a suspicion yesterday to the countess, in which I am concerned."

"Quite right,” replied the count; "people told me of these conjectures, and I repeated them to the countess."

"Count!" said Welt, "by what can you prove your conjectures ?"

We will talk about it after dinner," said the grand chamberlain ; "it is already on the table. Our conversing longer may occasion surprise, and you do not, of course, wish that we should furnish the people with more materials for conjectures ?"

Welt bowed embarrassed. "After dinner, then," said he, and his tone was somewhat milder. The grand chamberlain opened the dining-room door, and introduced him to his wife.

Two sons of the count were at table with them. The youngest, the mother's darling, sat next her, and amused himself by getting under the table to pinch the calf of his father's leg. The count drew up his feet several times, making a wry face; but the strength of the darling seemed to increase, for he clung like a crab to the calf. The grand chamberlain at last kicked him from him with an exclamation, and the darling fell screaming at his mother's feet. "The child grows unbearable," cried the grand chamberlain, as he rubbed the calf of his leg, which was smarting with pain; and the mother wiped the tears from the cheeks of the little one. "Poor child!" said she, "has he hurt you?"

"Go on spoiling him," said the count, "and he will one day give your heart as much pain as he has now done my calf."

"Only do not torment him," said the mother, stroking his cheeks; "he must be allowed to grow like the tree of the field. It was so that Jean Jacques wished boys to be educated."

"But he is to be a gentleman of the chamber," said the father, "and you will at last make a Jean Jacques of the boy. He will then be good for nothing at most but to be a stable boy."

"When the children are grown up," said she, coldly, "you may present them at court; that you may understand, but do not interfere in their education. You do not wish the tender plants to wither before their time."

The grand chamberlain was silent, and looked vexed; the coun

tess expatiated on the virtues of her children, and the cruelties of certain fathers, who had no steady principle of education.

The storm subsided by degrees, and they rose from table. Welt impatiently reminded the count of his promise, who conducted him into his room.

"Herr von Welt," said the grand chamberlain, as he begged him to be seated, "am I married?"

Herr von Welt looked at him with astonishment.

"I do not know what this question means, count?"

"You were not a witness at our marriage; you did not accompany us to the altar: may I be allowed to ask by what means you know we are married?"

"I think you must be joking," said Welt; "how I know?—people have told me so."

"You consider that as a proof, then?" said the grand chamberlain quickly.

"You embarrass me," said Welt; "I knew it before I had the honour of seeing you, and my eyes convinced me."

"What have you seen, then ?" asked the count.

"Oh!" said Welt, "there are certain trifles which soon discover that connexion. One is more familiar together, one is not so attentive to the choice of expressions when speaking together, and sometimes one differs about the mode of education."

"Precisely so," continued the grand chamberlain, "the ardour of first love is gone by, but we live together, we bestow our attention on strangers, and leave our wives to be entertained by others: we walk onwards lost in thought, and forget that a wife is following."

"Count!" said Welt embarrassed, "you describe the most minute features of the picture. But we have digressed from the main point of our conversation."

“And I think we have been constantly discussing it," said the grand chamberlain; he went to his bureau and took out a paper"will you have the kindness to deliver this to the countess? You may read it, Herr von Welt; it is the ratification of my promises. You see I therein renounce my claim according to the will."

"The countess will be astonished at your generosity," said Welt; "but she delivered you a contract yesterday which she requires back."

"Indeed!" said the grand chamberlain, "then I beg you to return me my writing.-But, Herr von Welt, you have withdrawn yourself entirely from court.-Do you know that people have made observations upon it? Thence arise conjectures; you must have rendered a few people jealous. I give you warning my dear friend;

C

no one can hurt you, but they seek to revenge themselves on the countess."

"How is that possible?" said Welt, astonished.

"I am entreated to ground a complaint on the conjectures I have heard: I have not done so, but have explained my apprehensions to the countess. The ecclesiastical court, which puts the consciences of his royal highness's subjects to proof, can put her upon her oath." Welt looked over the paper much agitated. "I will give your renunciation to the countess," said he, getting up.

"And if she wishes her contract again," said the grand chamberlain, smiling, "it lies here amongst my papers."

"Count," said Welt, "the countess will not be behind you in generosity. Her property comes from her husband, who bore your name, and I am convinced she will be happy to appropriate a part of the property to support the splendour of his family."

He took a friendly leave of the count, who accompanied him to the hall door.

"Will you not soon travel?" said the grand chamberlain, as they descended the steps.

66

Possibly very soon," said Welt; "I mean to accompany the countess, who is anxious to be in a warmer climate."

"But,

"Well, the observations you make on your journey cannot be otherwise than instructive," said the grand chamberlain. my dear friend," he continued, "when in London or at Madrid you see a man sitting opposite a lady, and the lady lets fall her fan, and he does not stoop to pick it up, or when he speaks learnedly, and the lady yawns-and they yawn at Madrid as well as herethen believe me, they are man-and wife."

Herr von Welt threw himself on his horse.

"Ride fast," said the count laughing; "make haste home; a gallop will confound the neighbours, who always walk their horses home to their wives."

Welt laughed, and spurred his animal. The grand chamberlain soon after satisfied his creditors, and returned to court.

THE BANNER OF THE COVENANTERS.*

HERE, where the rain-drops may not fall, the sunshine doth not play,
Where the unfelt and distant breeze in whispers dies away;

At the Mareschal College at Aberdeen, among other valuable curiosi. ties, they show one of the banners formerly belonging to the Covenanters ; it is of white silk, with the motto, "Spe Expecto," in red letters; and underneath, the English inscription, "For Religion, King, and Kingdoms." The banner is much torn, but otherwise in good preservation.

Here, where the stranger paces slow along the silent halls,
Why mutely art thou hanging thus against the massive walls?
Thou, that hast seen blood shed for thee-that midst the battle-tide
Hast faintly lit the soldier's eye with triumph ere he died;
Bright banner, which hath witness'd oft the struggles of the free,
Emblem of proud and holy hope, is this a place for thee?

Wake! wave aloft, thou Banner! let every snowy fold

Float on our wild, unconquer'd hills, as in the days of old :
Hang out, and give again to Death a glory and a charm,

Hang where Heaven's dew may freshen thee, and Heaven's pure sunshine

warm.

Wake, wave aloft!-I hear the silk low rustling on the breeze,

Which whistles through the lofty fir, and bends the birchen trees;

I hear the tread of warriors arm'd to conquer or to die;

Their bed or bier the heathery hill, their canopy the sky.

What, what is life or death to them? they only feel and know

Freedom is to be struggled for, with an unworthy foe

Their homes-their hearths-the all for which their fathers, too, have fought,
And liberty to breathe the prayers their cradled lips were taught.
On, on they rush-like mountain streams, resistlessly they sweep-
On! those who live are heroes now-and martyrs those who sleep-
And still the snow-white banner waves above the field of strife,
With a proud triumph, as it were a thing of soul and life.

They stand-they bleed-they fall! they make one brief and breathless pause,

And gaze with fading eyes upon the standard of their cause.
Again they brave the strife of death, again each weary limb
Faintly obeys the warrior soul, and earth's best hopes grow dim.
The mountain rills are red with blood, the pure and quiet sky
Rings with the shouts of those who win, the groans of those who die;
Taken-re-taken-raised again, but soil'd with clay and gore,
Heavily on the wild, free breeze, that banner floats once more.

I hear the wail of women now: the weary day is done :
God's creatures wait to strive and slay until to-morrow's sun:

I hear the heavy breathing of the weary ones who sleep,

The death-sob and the dying word, "the voice of them that weep ;"
The half-choked grief of those, who while they stifle back their breath,
Scarce know if what they watch be hush'd in slumber or in death;
While mournfully, as if it knew and felt for their despair,
The moon-lit banner flaps and falls upon the midnight air.

Morning! the glad and glorious day! the waking of God's earth,
Which rouses them to stain with gore the soil that gave them birth.
In the still sunshine sleeps the hill, the stream, the distant town-
In the still sunshine, clogg'd and st ff, the battle-flag hangs down.
Peace is in Heaven, and Heaven's good gifts, but war is amongst men-
Red blood is pouring on the hill, wild shouts are in the glen-

Tis past-they sink, they bleed, they fly, that faint, enfeebled host-
Right is not might-the banner-flag, the victory, are lost!

Heaven's dew hath drunk the crimson drops which on the heather lay,
The rills that were so red with gore go sparkling on their way;
The limbs that fought, the hearts that swell'd, are crumbled into dust,
The souls which strove are gone to meet the spirits of the just;
But that frail, silken flag, for which, and under which, they fought,
And which even now retains its power upon the soul of thought,
Survives-a tatter'd, senseless thing, to meet the curious eye,
And wake a momentary dream of hopes and days gone by.

A momentary dream! oh! not for one poor, transient hour,
Not for a brief and hurried day that flag exerts its power;
Full flashing on our dormant souls the firm conviction comes,
That what our fathers did for theirs, we could do for our homes.
We, too, could brave the giant arm that seeks to chain each word,
And rule what form of prayer alone shall by our God be heard:
We, too, in triumph or defeat, can drain our heart's best veins,
While the good old cause of liberty for church and State remains!
New Monthly Magazine.

THE KELP.GATHERER.

THE stranger who wanders along the terrific masses of crag that overhang the green and foaming waters of the Atlantic, on the western coasts of Ireland, feels a melancholy interest excited in his mind, as he turns aside from the more impressive grandeurs of the scene, and gazes on the small stone heaps that are scattered over the moss on which he treads. They are the graves of the nameless few whose bodies have been from time to time ejected from the bosom of the ocean, and cast upon those lonely crags to startle the early fisherman with their ghastly and disfigured bulk. Here they meet, at the hands of the pitying mountaineers, the last offices of Christian charity-a grave in the nearest soft earth, with no other ceremonial than the humble peasant's prayer. Here they lie, uncoffined, unlamented, unclaimed by mourning friends, starting like sudden spectres of death from the depths of the ocean, to excite a wild fear, a passing thought of pity, a vain inquiry in the hamlet, and then sink into the earth in mystery and in silence, to be no more remembered on its surface.

The obscurity which envelopes the history of those unhappy strangers affords a subject to the speculative traveller, on which he may give free play to the wings of his imagination. Few, indeed, can pass these deserted sepulchres without endeavouring for a moment to penetrate in fancy the darkness which enshrouds the fate of their mouldering tenants; without beholding the progress of the ruin that struck from beneath the voyager's feet, the firm