Harcla and his spirited steed, both of whom | Sir Jordayne de Harcla; the days of his guilt seemed animated with unusual vigour. The sun were accomplished. A blow of the charger's iron had already sunk beneath the horizon, when shod hoof had terminated his career. Bende suddenly a white deer of extraordinary size ap- Ayesha's resting-place he lay, dark blood from peared in the precincts of the ruined chapel. It his crushed forehead staining the pure flowers was late to commence a fresh chase, only there that seemed to weep at such pollution. Thus was a probability the beast would seek harbour were the guilty strangely united: thus was Ayesha in Middleham West Park, which lies east of avenged, and her profligate seducer punished. Capple Bank; so the hounds were immediately Early next morning the alarmed retainers dis slipped. The animal, however, took a north-covered their master's corpse. It was interred westerly direction, and crossed the Yore.

in the chapel by the Grange with all the pomp befitting the rank of one whose degree was noble, and whose crimes were unknown. His estates passed to distant relatives, who shortly afterwards forfeited them by treason. A portion of the Grange itself yet remains, incorporated in a modern farmhouse; and parties still live who assisted to pull down the chapel, which, at the period of its demolition, was used as a barn.

Worn out by previous fatigue, the sportsmen dropped off one after another, until at last Sir Jordayne rode alone. Not only was his horse quite fresh, but he was apparently endowed with supernatural energy. On-on, flew the white deer, after a wide circuit, making direct for Preston woods. The hounds could no longer pursue; twilight thickened fast, for huge clouds came over the sky; still the knight urged the Long ago the names of Sir Jordayne and chase, through thicket and briar, over green- Ayesha have been forgotten in the neighboursward and shingle. Darker and darker grew hood; but a fearful memento of them is prethe gloom : the white deer bounded more swiftly, served in the legends of its inhabitants. The almost within his reach. Preston Scaur was "Walk Mill Beck," on whose bank the former passed; the Shaw of Leyburn entered: then De died and the latter mouldered into dust so many Harcla first became aware that he rode not un-years since, is to this hour reputed by the pea assisted in that wild hunt. Two immense hounds pursued the quarry without sound-seemingly without motion. They glided rather than ran. One was white as new-fallen snow in December, the other black as perpetual darkness. Whence they came he could not tell; fear chilled him, yet he might not stop.

On, on, flew the chase: it looked no longer earthly. He saw their course led to his violated home the white deer would harbour in the thicket that contained Ayesha's grave! He suddenly remembered it was the anniversary of her death-night. Horror, united with despair, possessed him; but his horse displayed no symptoms of weariness-he felt that he must pursue the mysterious animals. Ayesha's grave! he had never seen it since the hour he trampled down the sods with all their dewed wild flowers upon her gory corpse! On-on; nearer and nearer they drew. He could hear the brook's singing murmur-with it he thought blended the voice of the dead, bidding him come to her. At last the fatal thicket was reached-the bower of love-the hiding place of crime: only the streamlet lay between. With a light bound both deer and hounds sprang across, alighting on the exact spot. At that instant the young moon looked from between white clouds. Deer and hounds were suddenly gone, and in their stead the form of Ayesha stood upon her grave!

Her features looked beautiful in a sorrowful anger. The death-mark was apparent on her bosom. Blood stained her brow, and clotted her hair and white raiment. She beckoned her murderer nearer. A shriek of fear and woe burst from his lips. The horse, terrified, trembling through every limb, nevertheless attempted the desperate leap. He fell-struggled-roseand flew wildly to Hernebei Grange. But never more from the fair margin of that stream arose

santry a haunted spot, which few care to pass in twilight, and still fewer dare approach in night's ghostly darkness.

We might fill pages with accounts of apparitions credible persons have solemnly declared they witnessed there; but we feel no wish to prac tise, even in appearance, on the faith of our readers. Sometimes, though rarely, a woman clothed in white meets the terrified traveller, of glides slowly before him. More frequently a large white or black hound, resembling the sha dowy creatures which coursed the phantom deer, stands in the path to vanish when approached. Unlike those described by Burger or Sir Walter Scott

"By day, who scour earth's caverned space,

At midnight's witching hour ascend-" these ghostly visitants occasionally manifest themselves in broad sunshine. In moonlight too, strange sounds are heard. The fences vi sibly fall with a crashing noise, as if invisible hunters were rushing wildly over them; yet morning shows all uninjured-neither trace ner token remains of the unearthly chase. Listening to cherished tales, appalling as these, we cannot but exclaim

"Can such things be.

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder?"

We have written sufficient already. Any of my readers who feel curiosity on the subject, may, if resident in or travelling through Yorkshire, by questioning old inhabitants of Leybura or Hernebei (now called Harmby), hear many marvellous tales related of that haunted spot once the resort of Sir Jordayne and Ayesha de Harcla, and of the spectral appearance known by the village name of the Walk Mill Ghost;

HENRI DE MELCI; OR, THE CITIZEN CONNOISSEUR.

The mid-day sun shone brightly into the studio of the young artist, Henri de Melci; but it found not the enthusiast, as usual, busy at his easel, creating forms which, to his own imagination at least, were certain inheritors of immortality. Henri had been but a short time before rudely recalled to the sad realities of life by the importunate demands of his landlord for the rent of his little apartment, which had indeed been too long owing; and, to satisfy him in part only, had given up all the coin he had in his possession, leaving himself literally without the means to purchase even his frugal dinner.

Lost in bitter meditation, he heard not the entrance of his gay friend and fellow-student, Francois Dumont, till roused by the loud laugh of the intruder at his deep abstraction, who exclaimed, "Why, my sober dreamer! you are deep in love at last, I vow, by all appearances. Tell me, now, the name of your charmer; you could never sigh so deeply, man, for anything but love."

Henri related to his friend the cause of his unwonted thoughtfulness, and the lively Francois laughed heartily at his embarrassment.

"Never call yourself poor, my fine fellow, with all those splendid pictures adorning your walls; you will not see any such things in my studio, for I sell them as fast as they are finished, and sometimes before. True, I never yet got a tithe of their value; but what then? a poor devil must live, and better times may come yet; so bring one of your best with you, and I will introduce you to an old picture-dealer who supplies me with the needful when I can screw it out of his miserly purse."

much talent and love for his art, made up for the smallness of the payments, and his circumstances became considerably improved.

When the order was all completed, his old friend, who had insensibly grown attached to the indefatigable and enthusiastic artist, introduced him to several parties as a portraitpainter, and amongst others to a rich old bourgeois, who had made a fortune by trade in Paris, and had now just purchased a chateau near Versailles, to which he was about to retire with his only daughter, the pretty and innocent Jeannette. The old man took with him, as a resource against the ennui of the country, a very great taste for collecting pictures, particularly those of the old masters. Henri had been very successful hitherto with his portraits, but now the simple beauty of the little bourgoise appeared more difficult to catch than the harsher features of some of his late sitters, or he had become more than usually fastidious on the subject. Certain it is that the progress of the likeness was very slow; and though it perfectly satisfied the father, and the little beauty herself, the artist found perpetual cause for alterations.

Meantime, his frank though modest manner gained much on both father and daughter, and he was at all times a welcome guest, until the preparations of his kind host for removing from Paris warned poor Henri that the picture must be at length completed. It was not till he had taken a final leave of the worthy Monsieur Lamotte, and was once more seated at his solitary easel, that he found how entirely his late enthu siastic attachment to the old masters had subsided, and how (when he wished to transfer one With deep regret poor Henri took from its of their creations of beauty to his own canvas) stand a favourite and much-admired copy of a his pencil lingered over the fair face, till the Rembrandt, on which he himself set a very con- sweet countenance of Jeannette appeared, insiderable value, but which, when exposed to the stead of that of the Madonna he was vainly trycalculating gaze of the old picture-dealer, ap-ing to copy. Amidst his anger with himself for peared quickly to lose all its attractions, so many and so glaring were the defects pointed out by the stern and cold old critic; and it was not till after much persuasion by the two friends that he was induced to allow the paltry sum of twenty francs for the painting. This relief could not last long; aud again, pressed by necessity, Henri was compelled to dispose of another of those productions which had cost him so many toilsome hours. This time, however, he found the old man much more kindly disposed, and the sum he allowed was something nearer, though still far below, what the poor artist considered the real value of his painting.

Fortune seemed now to smile a little more kindly on the struggler for fame. The picturedealer became his friend and patron, and engaged him to paint a series of copies from the old masters; and though he did not pay too liberally, the industry of Henri, who had really

having formed so hopeless an attachment, there arose at times a faint suspicion that he was not altogether an indifferent object to the fair lady herself, though he felt it too presumptuous to imagine that her father would ever consent to give his only child and heiress to a poor and unknown artist.

At length an invitation to the chateau roused him from his uneasy meditations, and with much delight he prepared to accept it. Ever an admirer of the country, from which his studies had too long estranged him, and cheered by the kind welcome of his warm-hearted host and the bewitching smiles of Jeannette, no wonder that his visits were repeated till he became a frequent guest.

One wing of the chateau was always occupied by workmen, who appeared to be making some very considerable additions there; but whenever Henri inquired as to their extent or meaning,

|

looking at. But the boy is off like an arrow, | VOICES
and never waited to hear my story out. Well, I
was in love myself once, and would rather
have heard the daughter's account of the matter
than her father's."

A few hours afterwards Henri stood again in the picture gallery, and beside him was the blushing and happy Jeannette. He gazed for an instant on his copy from Rembrandt, and, drawing the arm of his betrothed closer within his own, whispered with much feeling, "Who could have thought, dearest Jeannette, that the necessity which compelled me to part with that painting, should have led me insensibly to so much happiness!"

A REMEMBRANCE.

We stood upon a strand

Where the heavy tides did roll,

And we saw a ship that made for land
Strike midway on a shoal.

The sand and shingles rough
Were grating on her keel,
As she grounded on and off

With a sudden heave and wheel.

So close she was awhile,

We could distinctly trace
The gesture and the smile

Of men of foreign race.

When a wave, more huge and round,
Upbuoy'd her with its force;
And again the Outward Bound
Went proudly on her course.

To what fair clime she bore

It was not ours to learn;
But we know that to our shore
She never will return!

And thus it was with thee,
Child-spirit, now at rest,
Who from Creation's sea
Wert stranded on my breast.

So closely didst thou lie,

That in thy budding powers
Bright traces could we spy

Of better lands than ours.

Thy face had foreign charms
Unknown to earthly clay;
While in our clasping arms
We felt thee slide away.

One mighty wave of death

That clasp hath burst in twain,
And thee with sorrowing breath
Swept back upon the main.

What fair worlds round thee glow
It is not ours to learn;
But we know, and weep to know,
Thou never canst return!

E. A. H. O.

FROM THE SEA-SIDE AND
THE FIELDS.

BY CALDER CAMPBELL.

No. V.

THE PINK CONVOLVULUS.

Sandhills, girding Ocean's margent,
Whence each passing skiff I watch;
And through clouds of gules and argent
MUMBLES* rocks romantic catch,

Fare ye well, a long farewell!
Bare ye are, in sooth, nor showing
Trunk of tree, nor mossy seat;
But not the less with beauty glowing,
Not the less with fragrance sweet;

For the little Pink Convolvulus
Here shakes its scented bell!

All before me stretcheth ocean,
All behind me (yet not near)
Swelling hills, that seem in motion
When thick fogs begin to clear

July sunbeams' smiles before:
But among these sands of Swansea,
Few the pleasant flowers I find;
Wild horse-radish, wormwood, tansy,
Bentgrass, rustling in the wind,

And the fairy Pink Convolvulus,
That perfumes all the shore!

Beauteous are its red-streaked blossoms,
Sweet the essence they exhale ;
While the bee glides to their bosoms,
Humming many a honey-tale !

Be the weather what it will,
Sweetly still their breath steals to me,
Brightly still their petals glow;
Nature seems through them to woo me
From each memory of woe:

Oh! I love the Pink Convolvulus,
Let it grow on dale or hill!

Here and there the bedstraw yellow
Carpets it with golden thread;
Here and there it finds a pillow
On the downy hawkweed's head,
Though of such there is small store;
While its buds in rich abundance
Run all o'er the silver sands,
Like perfumed pages in attendance
Where some stately Empress stands !
Yes, I love the Pink Convolvulus,
That studdeth all the shore!
Farewell, Swansea ! and those sandhills
Where Imagination often

Came, to scatter by her wand, ills
Sober Reason failed to soften
In their heavy fall on me;
Farewell! sickness here hath blighted
Many a flower-like thought; but yet
Hath my spirit been delighted
By what I never can forget-

Swansea,

The pretty Pink Convolvulus, That groweth by the sea! 1846.

* No visitor of South Wales will leave Swansea without admiring the picturesque hamlet, and cliffs of the Mumbles, with the ruins of Oystermouth Castle, near them.