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"He that had scorned to kneel or to pray
Strove to do both on his wedding day,
And could not! his stiffened joints refused
A service to which they were all unused,
And to lip and heart, alike, the change
To prayer was something cold and strange ;
The bridegroom felt in his soul a chill:
He knew he had worked in the past for ill.

"The selfish man will be selfish still,
Whether his fortunes be good or ill:
The love for which Oswald perilled his soul
Held him not long in its control;
The quiet joys of his home became
Distasteful, wearying, and tame.

Cold, and neglectful, and cruel, grown,
He stood once more in the world alone.

"After bitter years, sullenly borne,

He left his hearth with impatient scorn;
For the pallid face, and the faltering tongue,
And the breaking heart-breaking with wrong-
Suited him not. He sought the world;
The past was behind him lightly hurled;

And, when months had fled, he heard, unmoved,
That strangers were tombing her he had loved.

"Lady Isabel left an only child,
Fair as herself, as gentle, as mild,
A fragile girl, whose blossoming,
Strangers long tended. But the sting
Of late remorse touched her sire at length;
His pride was struck in its hour of strength
By God's own lightnings, and he stood
In another, wilder, solitude.

"'Mid the boundless desert wastes of sin,
There, when God's light had entered in,
He saw a pale face, and a wasted hand,
That beckoned him to the holy land :
He followed, and where javelins fly
Was still the first, but he might not die;
And the face and hand left him no more,
Till they drove him back to his native shore;

"Till they lured his feet to the home of old,
Whence the love had passed that could not grow cold;
Till his eyes were fixed upon one fair face,
Fated thenceforth to take their place;

Till father and child together stood,
And flowers sprang up in the solitude;
Till he vowed in his soul another vow,
For whose fulfilment he striveth now.'

PART IV.

Months passed away, and that castle gate
Saw not the old or the needy wait;
Months passed away, and the hour of prayer,
At morn and even, was sounded there;
Fitzallan a happier man had grown
By ceasing to brood over self alone,
By feeling that man's power to bless
Might with his will grow limitless.

And he was happy, though troubled yet
With a grief he sought not to forget;
Happy in each unfolding good
Of a mission rightly understood;
Happy in every thought that bore
His spirit on to the better shore ;
Happy in every stedfast trust
That lifted his hope above the dust.

The palmer kept by his side alway,
Clad in a costly suit of grey;

But when a year and a month were past
He resumed his former garb at last;
His pilgrim cloak that was soiled and torn,
His scrip, and staff, and his sandals worn;
For his feet no longer in peace might dwell,
And he came forth purposed to breathe farewell.

"The parting hour has arrived, my friend,
My task is crowned with a blessed end,
I leave thee bound on the upward track,
I dread not thy turning to darkness back.
Our paths on earth lie, henceforth, apart;
But the true in purpose are one in heart,
And mine shall rejoice from far to hear
Thou keepest the way of the righteous here."

Heavily fell each parting word

On Fitzallan's soul, as amazed he heard
The purpose of the faithful guide,

Whose place by none might be supplied;
But he knew, whilst sorrowed and dismayed,
That the palmer's course might not be stayed,
And he stood awhile, as one too weak
In his sudden grief to act or to speak.

The palmer resumed his speech, and said,
"I do not leave thee alone to tread
The coming years with their promise fair.
Nerve well thine heart, with true strength to bea
Such flood of joy as may well o'ercast
The brightening skies we have gained at last.
I have somewhat on thee to bestow,
With a solemn blessing, ere I go.

66 Wealth-of which thou wilt still have need,
To clothe the naked, the hungry to feed ;
Beauty and worth-but cast thine eyes
Hitherwards, and, with curbed surprise,
Of all thou seest take heedful note;"
More he spake not, but, swift as thought,
A panel from the wall he drew,
And exposed the inner scene to view.

By an oriel window, where a ray
Of the passing winter sunshine lay,
As loth to part, three maidens sate;
One than the rest had more of state-
Not of garb, but of look and mien—
Crowned with the calm grace of a queen,
Her step as the fawns was light and free,
As she rose and knelt at the palmer's knee.

Over her bosom and blushing face,
Giving each beauty a softer grace,
Thick clusters of rich ringlets rolled ;-

'Twas an angel's head, with its shadowed gold.
And the palmer stooped, and parted the hair
From the glowing cheek and the forehead fair;
And he beckoned the Lord Fitzallan near,

And his cheek was blanched, as with sudden fear.

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"Suddenly, with some skill, as thou
Wilt doubtless own, owning it now,
The Lady Alice away he bore,
Leaving the tale that she was no more;
And to thee then heavy tidings came,
On the first field of thy young fame,

Which thou didst quit with the heavy heart
In which glory had no further part.

"His spies were round thee; of them he learned
That thy grief had every solace spurned;
That stern, and sullen, and churlish, grown,
Thou liv'd'st but for thyself alone.

He saw all his former self in thee,
And vowed that Alice should never be
The bride of one that, however crost,
To each better sense of his kind was lost.

"The selfish man will be selfish still,
Whether his fortunes be good or ill:
Remember this. In thee he sought
The germs of more exalted thought,
And found them, to which saving truth
Thou ow'st the chosen of thy youth,
With whom, in gladness may'st thou dwell;
I go to prayer and penitence. Farewell!"

The records of the happy and good
Are the least valued or understood.

For generations, that castle door
Was open both to the rich and poor;
And in this our day, where yet the race

Bear rule, each sojourner may trace

On a sculptured tomb these words :-"Prape stylle

For the soul of Oswald Umphraville,
And for her that loved hym faithfullye,
The Ladye Isabel." Vale!

MARMADUKE HUTTON;

OR,

THE POOR RELATION.

BY WILLIAM DODSWORTH.

CHAPTER XIX.*

THERE never was a more inexplicable old rascal in all this world than was Marmaduke Hutton during the week that followed the Doctor's invitation, till the day itself. He was so tetchy, and suspicious, and whimsical, that his ancient friend and ally, Humphrey Pestlepolge, who seemed to have bound himself hand and foot to his humours, like some fawning hound that licks the hand that spurns it, was nearly driven to desperation by his eccentricities and peevishness, and had well-nigh vowed dissolution to the compact subsisting between them; and which he would infallibly have done had not the prospect of certain golden advantages, which seemed all the fairer in the retrospect of the future, restrained his impatience, and compelled him to wear for a time the chain that galled him so sorely.

One night the two old men were sitting by themselves in the gloomy dining-room; Marmaduke, as usual, occupying his easy chair in front of the dull red blaze, whilst Pestlepolge, who had just dismissed the charming Penelope to her virgin slumbers with a paternal blessing, was sitting far back out of the little light there was, eyeing the old man with the unslumbering vigilance of a tiger. They were sitting thus, with nothing but the firelight to enliven

* Continued from p. 327, vol. 1.

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