TWO-FOLD. [Mrs. Adeline D. Train Whitney, born in Boston, U.S., 1824, has won reputation as a novelist and poet. Her principal works are: Footsteps on the Seas, a Poem; Faith Gartney's Girlhood: The Gayworthys; Hitherto, a Story of Yesterday; and Panzies, a volume of poems from which we quote.] A double life is this of ours; A two-fold form wherein we dwell; And heaven itself is not so strange, Nor half so far, as teachers tell. With weary feet we daily tread The circle of a self-same round; Yet the strong soul may not be held A prisoner in the petty bound. The body walketh as in sleep, A shadow among things that seem; A living dream of good or ill, In caves of gloom or fields of light; Where purpose doth itself fulfil, And longing love is instant sight. Where time, nor space, nor blood, nor bond We need not die to go to God; See how the daily prayer is given! "Tis not across a gulf we cry, "Our Father, who dost dwell in heaven!" And, "Let thy will on earth be done, As in thy heaven;" by this, thy child! What is it but all prayers in one, That soul and sense be reconciled? That inner sight and outer scene No more in thwarting conflict strive; But doing blossom from the dream, And the whole nature rise, alive? There's beauty waiting to be born, And harmony that makes no sound; And bear we ever, unaware, A glory that hath not been crowned. And so we yearn, and so we sigh, And reach for more than we can see; And, witless of our folded wings, Walk Paradise unconsciously; And dimly feel the day divine With vision half redeemed from night, Till death shall fuse the double life, And God himself shall give us light! THE BAGPIPER. BY W. BARRY. One day in the leafy month of June an angler wandered by a brook-side in a deep glen. Tall rocks and trees rose at either side, and tinkling silver threads of water ran down to the bigger stream in many places. The spot was lonely but not savage. It was full noon, and so warm that after a while the fisherman left off work and found a moss patch to rest on. And as he rested he heard that native concert which is ever going on in due season and weather amongst birds, and bees, and grasshoppers, and other creatures that rejoice in the summer for the sun in their own language. But of a sudden, in the midst of the soft croon of pigeons, the occasional flute-call of that wonderful musician with the golden bill, the deep and always as it were distant bassoon of the flower-robber, there came the queerest, quaintest tangle of sounds, scarcely more rhythmical or measured than the performances of doves, honey-gatherers, gnats, or river. It mingled with them quite naturally. And when a wind swept for a moment down the glen, and the trees whispered to each other the singular tune, or as it seemed the odds and ends of a hundred tunes, combined also with that effect as if the breeze-sigh and leaf-flutter were part of the symphony. And the fisherman gets up to go in search of the accomplished elf who has come out of the hollow hills to practise the airs he must play for his gay companions under the stars by the haunted rath. And he follows the brook path, and the music becoming louder he knows he is approaching the source of it. And this he observed, that as the tune (and it now began to have a distinct or half-distinct outline) was less dispersed by distance, it was not altogether so magical in character, though yet strangely and sweetly becoming the scene over which it was rambling. And finally the angler is drawn by the ear to the very feet of his Orpheus. Think you he saw the ghost of an ancient harper in white, seated like a gray friar on a gray stone, or the fairy fiddler above mentioned, or beheld a figure blowing into a sheaf of reeds with the power of the great goa Pan, or any other beautiful dæmon or sprite born of a poet's fancy, or of an artist's dream, or say of any ink-bottle (talk of your ocean being kind to us for casting up one Venus, how many as beautiful divinities have emerged from our oceans of ink?)-think you he saw-but this reads like a passage of the Critic-what he did see was an old man playing the Irish | There be pipers and pipers. There are fellows who could give the vagrant armed with the hurdy-gurdy or the leader of a street German band lessons on discord. These offensive pipers pipes, with a dog for an audience, unless a goat is to be counted who has stopped munching bush-tops for a moment on the other side of the brook. An old man, obviously blind, dressed poorly but not raggedly. His hat, to be-Scotch, or Irish, or Italian-disgrace their sure, has seen better days; but considered as a ruin, it has a picturesque appearance. And the angler quietly intended to listen to the music without announcing himself, but the dog would not permit such a liberty to be taken with his master's property, and so he barked a sentence of barks as who would say, Master, here is a scurvy fellow who has his ear cocked for the purpose of stealing our tunes; whereupon the pipes left off with a kind of snarl that had nothing at all pastoral or idyllic about it. The piper was on his way to a wedding and a christening in the neighbouring village. He was rehearsing for his performances. It was not difficult to set him going again. Well, he was not Pan, Orpheus, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, or Virorum. He was a common piper, and yet the music he made amongst the rocks and trees sounded still far more sympathetically than I imagine the music of the best trained orchestra would. I, for I was the eavesdropping angler, dislodged the goat and sat thus some distance from the player. The tunes are all supposed to be cheerful. "The Foxhunter's Jig," listen to that for merriment! The tallyho, tallyho! quite plain on the tenor notes, the hound-music and its echoes, the call of the horn, the death of the modereen ruadh, and through it always the dance itself, to which these mimetic references are only asides, garnish. I encore the "The Foxhunter's Jig," and my ancient bard pumps away at it again with such renewed spirit that if he doesn't move the rocks he makes them speak, for they repeat many of the wild cadences, the dog gives an awakened bark of approval, and from behind a doomed shrub peers the big astonished eyes of the goat with his beard and horns, the very picture of a faun! And so again we join the chase, and do double shuffle in the jig besides, and then an end of the Foxhunter business, and we start with "Nora Creina." Nora Creina is not as successful a hit. The musician employs his chanter with bad effect. "Oh my Nora Creina, dear," and similar affectionate passages, are not well translated into orchestral form when the phrase is expressed in hoarse asthmatic tones. You perceive I am candid as to the bagpipes, and no enthusiast about them when the measure of their function and capacity has been exceeded. And now we shall take our leave of the type of piper we have been describing, and sight one from another point of view. craft, which is so ancient that, according to a Celtic legend, one of the fraternity had the honour of playing before Moses. The tradition is embodied to this day in a current form of Irish imprecation. A medal has been found of the Nero period with a representation of a bagpipe in the obverse, from whence it has been reasonably enough conjectured, that when the amiable Roman monarch desired to express his delight at the burning of his city and the roasting of his subjects, he did not employ the violin for that purpose, but poured out the joy of his soul through the cornamusa. The instrument, in some shape or other, turns up in every quarter of the globe. It was known in Greece as the askaulos, in Germany it is to be recognized as the sacpfeiff, in Norway jockpipe, in Italy cornamusa pira and zampogua, in France as the musette, in Wales the piban, in Lapland the walpipe, in Finland the pilai, in Persia the nei aubana, and in Arab-Egypt the zoughara. Sir Robert Stewart of Dublin, in a most interesting course of lectures on the "Bagpipes of Scotland and Ireland," gives these details and much more. He claimed superiority for the latter on account of superior sweetness of tone and its more extensive range. The Irish pipe, he said, possessed a perfect chromatic scale of twenty-five notes (C to C) upon the chanter. It also had three drone basses, violincello C, tenor C, and C below the treble clef. The Scotch pipe had but two drones, A and A, no tenor, and an odd scale of nine notes only consisting of G flat (the G clef note) and above, the eight notes of the scale of A major rather imperfect. Sir Robert was so far unfair to the Scotch instrument that he did not remind his hearers that, while it remains almost in its primitive form, the Irish bagpipe, which he compared with it, is almost a modern instrument. In its original form it had nothing like the range of capabilities which now enables Mr. Bohun to perform on it not only the "Humours of Ballynahinch," "Shaun Dheerig Lanagh," "Paddy Carroll," the "Foxhunter's Jig," and the "Blackbird," but such serious productions as Corentino's song from Dinorah, and Bach's Pastorale in F major. Look for instance at the piper whose picture Sir David Wilkie painted. He certainly is not provided with an instrument which would enable him to attack such a piece as the Pastorale. And yet, I warrant, in his time he made hearts now at rest beat the quicker for his skill, and faces of old and young light up with harmless pleasure and enjoyment. For he is none of your common street performers. His head has a splendid intellectual contour, and his countenance, rugged though it is, is full of a calm settled spirit of humour, with just that overmuch expression of sensibility, a readiness to quiver and to kindle, which the representative face of a musician ought to have. He is just as ready to play you as sad a tune as "Silence O Moyle" as he is to strike up "Garry Owen," or that fantastic "Rory O'More," which always sounds to me like the tossing of the heads of wild flowers in the wind on the side of a particular hill in Munster. Wilkie's piper would scorn to drive you into frenzy like his degenerate imitator of the kerbstone. He was asked, in the good old time, to the house of his honour the squire, where, if he did not sit down with the family, he was respectfully cared for and cheerfully welcomed by the host himself after dinner, and furnished with a jorum of punch, in the consumption of which the squire bore him company. And when the mild potation was over a servant brought in the pipes, and the children were silent; and without any hint as to the exact thing wanted our piper, rambling over the keys a little, brings into the room at his will a dear plaintive air, wandering and wild, and low and loud and irregular, and yet full of meaning; and the squire and his good dame look at each other and remember when this same piper played the same tune how many many years ago, when they were younger than they are! It is all there, the romance of youth and love, in the piper's performance. And his honour when the tune closes takes a moment to clear his throat before he thanks the piper, who has, however, to amuse the youngsters, suddenly dashed into the "Cows amongst the Barley," or some other piece of imitative musical whim for which he is famous. Later on in the evening a dance will be got upnot amongst the servants mind you, our piper plays for the gentle folk; and what band of Tinney, Strauss, or Godfrey could equal for heel-powder the rapid rattling articulations of our instrument? Pipers of this quality have disappeared. The Irish gentry who encouraged them and welcomed them have gone also. But in Wilkie's picture we have fixed for ever something more than the likeness of an individual of the class; the portrait, without being idealized to a point of improbability, has still a typical expression, thoroughly Celtic and Irish, in its readiness to respond to the most diverse moods of emotion and sentiment. CHILDREN AT PLAY. "Open your mouth and shut your eyes”— 66 Life came for the two, with sweetnesses new THE PIPER OF MUCKLEBROWST. [Richard Thomson, born 1795; died 2d January, 1865. London Institute. His chief works are: The Book of He was for more than thirty years librarian of the Life, a Bibliographical Melody; Chronicles of London Bridge; Illustrations of British History: Tales of an Antiquary, chiefly illustrative of London, &c. He also wrote various sketches and tales for the annuals and magazines.] "He was a stout carle for the nones, About a century since, in the last "rugging and riving days" of Scotland, before the modern march of intellect had so completely routed the wonderful arts of magic and witchcraft as to leave neither witch nor conjuror in all the broad lands of Britain, there lived a noted fellow called RORY BLARE, who filled the office of town-piper to the prosperous fishing port of Mucklebrowst. He always affirmed his family to be of high antiquity, and as he was disclaimed by the Blairs of that Ilk, and the Blairs of Balthayock, and the Blairs of Lethendie, and the Blairs of Overdurdy, and, in short, by all the other Blairs, he set up at once to be the head of the Blares of Bletherit and Skirlawa', which have furnished Scotland with pipers ever since it was a country. In the course of his life Rory had performed the various parts of fisherman, sailor, soldier, and pedlar, none of which professions are peculiarly likely to teach a man temperance; and having procured his discharge in consequence of a wound in his head, which carried away a small fraction of his brain-pan, about the sober age of fifty-seven he settled down into a roistering and carousing town-piper. As he had a good deal of those rambling, mischief-loving, satirical characters, called in Scotland hallen-shakers and blether-skytes, and his strangest tricks were played, and his fun was ever the most furious when the malt was over the meal, all who knew him declared that “he certainly had a bee in his bonnet, puir man! ever sin' he gat that sair paik on his pow in the wars." Rory himself, however, was wont to assert that "he was as gude a man as ever;" which, perhaps, might be true in one sense, as he never was very celebrated for either his prudence or his sobriety. So much for his person and character; and for his talents as a piper, he could most merrily "blaw up the chanter," as the old song says, with some skill and "richt gude will," untired, even through a long night of active dancing and loud carousal; which, with his mirth and bold demeanour, made him a special favourite throughout Mucklebrowst and its vicinity. Without at all underrating his own knowledge of music, he was fond of attributing some part of his popularity to his instrument, which, he was accustomed to relate, had been found in one of the holy wells of St. Fillan, in Perthshire; thereby inheriting a finer tone and easier breath than any mere mortal pipes could ever boast of, beside the power of resisting all kinds of glamour or witchcraft. The truth of this was never rightly known, though it was whispered that, if the pipes had belonged even to St. Fillan himself, Rory Blare had employed them so differently, that if they ever possessed any virtue it had long since departed. As the worthy town-piper was always ready to be foremost in any kind of sport, or to bestow his counsel in any case of courtship, marriage, or witchcraft, which occupied the gossips, that is to say, all the inhabitants of Mucklebrowst-he was everywhere welcome. But, though he distributed his patronage pretty equally, he appeared to be most merry, and to make himself most at home at the Maggie Lauder's Head, a little public kept by one Bauldie Quech, whose jovial and careless disposition matched exactly with his own. They would frequently sit till "the sma' hours,' driving away time by glass after glass, rant after rant, and song after song, until the de VOL. IV. cease of Katie Quech, Bauldie's contentious spouse; when, though all expected to see him take a younger and more agreeable partner, and had even settled who it was to be, he suddenly sank into a dismal and melancholy mood, under the influence of which he drank twice as much as before, though he never laughed at all. Rory Blare, however, did not desert his old companion; for indeed the warmth of his friendship very frequently led him to sit piping and drinking with him throughout the whole night; and one dark and windy evening in autumn they were thus engaged, with a single sedate-looking stranger habited in pale gray, who had come in about night-fall. "Hout, tout, man!" exclaimed Rory, finding that even St. Fillan's blessed pipes had no effect upon his host, "ye're unco hard to please, I trow; and yet yere lugs used to ken whan they heard gude music: but I daur say the deil's cussen his cloak owre ye, as King Jamie said o' his bairn. Ye'll no think now, honest frien'" continued he, addressing himself to the guest, "that the gudeman was ance ane o' the merriest men o' Mucklebrowst, though ever sin' Luckie Quech died he's no had a word for a dog, let alone a blythe lad or a bonnie lassie." "Let him look for another Luckie, then, and the sooner the better," answered the stranger, "take heart, man, there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it." "And that's true too, though the deil himsel' spak it," rejoined the piper, "I'm thinkin', Bauldie, that I'll hae to play 'Fy, let us a' to the bridal,' before ye yet. And wha shall it be, gudeman? wha shall it be? for ye ken there's a hantle o' bonnie lassies in Mucklebrowst, to speak naething o' them o' Leven, or the limmers o' Largo. But ye'll look to the tocher, billie, and see that the lass has a quick lug for the music, and a light fit for the dance." "They may hae what they will for me," at length answered the host, with a deep sigh, "and they may be as bonnie as they will for me; but they can nane o' them be either less or mair to me." "Think again, friend," said the guest, "and you will think better of it, for I've often known as broken a ship come to land. What say ye now to Sibbie Carloups, of Gouks-haven, with golden hair on her head, and gold coin in her pouch; I promise you now, that she'd be the girl for me. "She was no that unsonsie a lassie, but she was nae muckle better than wud, or a witch, when she leevet there," returned the piper, 93 "It's a' true!" exclaimed Bauldie Quech, in voice of great distress, "it's an ower true tale, as I ken fu' weel, and fu' sadly, though I didna think to hae tauld what I ken o't to ony ane but the minister: but Rory, ye're a fearless and lang-headed chiel at a hard pass, and as ever ye did gude to a puir body at their wits' ends, ye maun e'en help me now.' "Say awa' then wi' yere story, neebor," returned the piper, "and if it be in the skeel o' man, and I dinna stand by you, may the deil burst the bag o' my pipes, and split the drone and chanter!" "but that's fu' twenty years agone, for she | der, and some little o' fear; 'Troth, lad,' said suddenly gaed awa' and no ane kenned where, she, 'I canna just tell ye where I hae been; a though folk said she went mad, or was carried frien' o' mine has taken me to see the warl', awa' to be the deil's jo, some gate about For- and made me gay rich, but ye see I dinna forfar or Glammis." get auld acquaintance; here's the half o' the saxpence we brak, and as yere first jo's dead, we'll e'en be marryit when ye will.' 'Marry thee!' thought I, 'I'll suner see thee linkit to a tar-barrel!' But I was fain to speak her fairly, and so I askit her to come ben; but she tauld me that there was sic a bush at my door that there was nae getting by it. 'Oh, ho! Luckie!' thought I again, 'it's the rowan-tree branch, is it? there it shall hing then for me:' so I drew me back a wee, and then said bauldly, 'I'll e'en tell ye the truth, cummer; folk say ye've been made a witch of, and I'm judging it's true; but for byganes' sake ye'll get nae harm frae me, only tak up yere pipes and begone; but first gie me back my siller, for I'll hae naething mair to do wi' you.'-'Aha, billie,' then said the auld carline, 'there are twa words to that; if ye're fause and ungratefu', that's yere ain fault; but while I've the broken saxpence I can weel hinder yere marrying ony body without my leave, and may be do a little mair; sae think o' that, and be wiser in yere passion.' To mak the least o' a lang story, at last she sae put up my bluid that I rushed out o' the house to lay haud on her,—when, fizz! she was gane like the whup o' a whirlwin', and the night was too dark to see whilk way the deil had carried her! And after a' I haena done wi' the auld jaud, for in the darkest and wildest nights she comes rattling at the window-bole, and crying out that she's my ain jo, and has our broken saxpence; but when I gae out I can tak haud o' nought, and see naething but a flisk o' her fiery eyes as she mounts up owre the house-rigging into the clouds on the nightmare. And now ye hae heard my story, I hae nae mair to say, than that I wad gae half my gudes to onybody wha wad get me back the half saxpence, and send Sibbie Carloups to be brunt at the Witches' Howe at Forfar." "Weel, weel," answered the host, with more composure, "I'm no misdoubting ye, though I trow it's past your art; but at ony rate it will gie some ease to my mind; so I'll e'en mak a clean breast, and tell ye a' about it. About twenty years back, as ye said, Sibbie Carloups was the wale o' the lassies o' this coast, though a wild tawpie, and I was no then a bad looking lad mysel'; and as we foregathered thegither mair than ance, I e'en tell'd her my mind, and she listened to me, and sae at last we brak a saxpence in twa for a true-love token; but frae that hour I saw her nae mair, for the vera next time I went to Gouks-haven, she was departed." "And did you no follow her, man?" demanded Rory Blare, "ye suld hae followed her ower land and lea till ye met again; I'se warrant she wadna hae 'scaped me like the blink o' a sunbeam." "I did follow her," said Bauldie Quech, "and that for mony a lang and weary mile, and speir'd at every ane that I cam nigh, but I ne'er saw her again; and sae, when I heard some auld carlines say that belike the witches had carried her awa', I e'en gied her up; for naebody can find out what they dinna like to show. Weel, I cam back to Mucklebrowst, and years passed awa', and I thought nae mair o' the matter; and at last I weddit Luckie Links, o' St. Monan's; and then, as ye ken, she went to a better warl', and left me to get through this as I could. Weel, man, wad ye think it, she hadna been gane a week or mair, when an auld, ill-fa'ard, grewsome, gyre-carline cam up to the door ae muckle dark and windy even, when I was my lane, and called me her ain gudeman, and said she was Sibbie Carloups, come to claim my promise o' marriage! And where hae ye been a' this time, Sibbie?' says I, when I could speak for won "Baith o' whilk I wad do blithely," said the piper, "gin ye could tell me where I could find the witch-carline; for I wadna think muckle o' meeting her and her haill clanjamfray wi' St. Fillan's pipes; I trow I'd gae them sic music as they ne'er dancit to before." "Waes me! then," exclaimed Bauldie Quech in reply, "for there's nae finding a witch against her will; sae there's nae help for me in this warld." "But there may be some in another," said the stranger-guest, "and I think I can show |