becoming your bride. But what of the burninghow was that? Surely it was not your work, after partaking of my father's hospitality. Speak!"

"You judge me truly. No, not my work, or according to my will; but, notwithstanding, the work of my followers, who lodged that night beneath your father's roof. But let me explain. When I was carried within the castle, in an insensible state, my men were allowed to follow me. Feeling myself sufficiently recovered the next morning, I sent for a confidential servant, and told him to be ready for departure by the evening, and to see to it that my people did not misbehave themselves, and that they laid their match-locks in a safe place. 'Do you attend to this, Thomas,' said I. Your honour wishes I should lay the match-locks in a safe place -do you?' I thought he said; but it was matches he said. 'Of course I do,' I replied in return. attend to that, your honour. What time in the evening will your honour leave the castle ?' said he. 'Eight o'clock,' said I. That will be a good hour,' I heard him say to himself, with a significant nod of the head, the meaning of which I did not understand at the time. We started, according to arrangement, at this hour, and had proceeded but two or three miles from the castle, when the man of whom I speak rode up to me, and observed:-

เ

I'll

'What

'I thought we'd see the blaze before now.' blaze, Thomas?' said I. "The blaze of the castle, to be sure, yer honour,' said he ; 'if we put a match in one part of the thatch, we put them in a dozen.' 'What mean you, you scoundrel? Is it lighted matches?' said I. 'Didn't your honour tell me to lay the matches, before we left-before eight o'clock?' 'There's the blaze,' said another of the men. Looking round, I saw the castle on fire. 'Blaze away, and hell's blazes to them as is within,' said a scoundrel near me. 'Halt!' cried I, in fury. To the castle to the rescue!' 'Is your honour mad?' said the first man. 'Mad! you scoundrel,' said I; 'no-follow me: the first who refuses dies !' and I drew out a pistol. Folly! your honour-we'd folly your honour to hell! and who dar' refuse?' replied the man. Then, away,' said I, driving my spurs into the horse; and away we swept, like a wild hurricane, across the country, each trying to be foremost. Indeed, to do the poor fellows credit, they did their utmost to counteract the mischief. Tare away, boys,' said one, as we started, or we'll be too late.' 'Oh, murther, make haste!' said another, or the crathurs will be burnt to a cindher.' • Will we

6

เ

ever be in time to quinch it?' said a third.

'Tare

away, your sowls to blazes-tare away,' said a fourth-the same man who wished hell's blazes on

those within the walls, five minutes before. I saw your poor father, as our company crossed the lawn, with his face blackened and bloody, rushing hither and thither among the flames, like a maniac, crying out for his wife and child."

"Oh, my father!" exclaimed Ellen, wringing her hands at the recital of the scene.

66

He was so blinded by the flame and smoke, and so confounded by sorrow, that he did not see one of the objects of his search, standing in her nightgown, at a window, to which the flames were rapidly approaching."

66

Oh, my mother!" exclaimed Ellen, clasping her hands in agony.

66

Yes, it was she; and I feared at first it would have been impossible to rescue her; for the window at which she stood was a considerable distance from the ground; but I resolved to try, and spurred my horse up to the wall of the castle, just beneath her. I then leaped upon the saddle, and sprung from it to the window-sill below her's, from which the flames were rushing. By the aid of the bars, I raised myself, and got a standing on the sill, but further I found it impossible to climb. Her only chance, therefore, was to let herself down from the upper window, into my arms, which she hesitated for some time to do, but at length consented."

CHAPTER XXI.

"But all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears."

SHAKSPEARE.

"WHERE children," observes Lord Bacon, "have been exposed, or taken away young, and afterwards have approached to their parents' presence, the parents, though they have not known them, have had a secret joy, or other alteration, thereupon."

A child's love for its parents seems also a divine and holy instinct, which does not die out when it loses them, any more than does the parents' love when they lose their children; nor does it disappear at full age, like the instinct of animals. A young infant does not understand its loss, as it does not know its parents; it therefore clings with affection to those who perform for it a father's or a mother's part, and pours out upon them something of the same kind of love which God intended for the authors of its being. It was thus that our heroine, Ellen Spenser, as we shall now call her, loved Miss Cavendish, and her brother, the priest. But there