Men slander thee, my honest friend,
And call thee, in their pride,
An emblem of their fickleness,
Thou ever-faithful guide.
Each weak, unstable human mind
A "weathercock" they call;
And thus, unthinkingly, mankind

Abuse thee, one and all.

They have no right to make thy name
A byword for their deeds;

They change their friends, their principles,

Their fashions, and their creeds;

Whilst thou hast ne'er, like them, been known

Thus causelessly to range;

But when thou changest sides, canst give
Good reason for the change.

Through one more dark and cheerless night

Thou well hast kept thy trust,

And now in glory o'er thy head

The morning light has burst.

And unto earth's true watcher, thus,
When his dark hours have passed,
Will come "the day-spring from on high,"
To cheer his path at last.

Bright symbol of fidelity,

Still may I think of thee;

And may the lesson thou dost teach

Be never lost on me;

But still, in sunshine or in storm,

Whatever task is mine,

May I be faithful to my trust,

As thou hast been to thine.

XI. AN INDIAN STRATAGEM.

DURING the war of the American revolution, a regiment of foot soldiers was stationed upon the confines of a boundless savanna, in the southern part of the Union. Its particular office was to guard every avenue of approach to the main army. The sentinels, whose posts penetrated into the woods, were supplied from the ranks; but they were perpetually surprised upon their posts by the Indians, and borne off their stations, without communicating any alarm, or being heard of afterwards.

One morning, the sentinels having been stationed as usual over night, the guard went at sunrise to relieve a post which extended a considerable distance into the wood. The sentinel was gone. The surprise was great; but the circumstance had occurred before. They left another man, and departed, wishing him better luck. "You need not be afraid," said the man, with warmth; "I shall not desert."

The sentinels were replaced every four hours, and, at the appointed time, the guard again marched to relieve the post. To their inexpressible astonishment the man was gone. They searched round the spot, but no traces of him could be found. It was now more necessary than ever that the station should not remain unoccupied; they left another man, and returned to the guard house.

The superstition of the ran through the regiment. occurrence, signified his

soldiers was awakened, and terror The colonel, being apprised of the intention to accompany the guard when they relieved the sentinel they had left. At the appointed time, they all marched together; and again, to their unutterable wonder, they found the post vacant, and the man gone.

Under these circumstances, the colonel hesitated whether he should station a whole company on the spot, or whether he should again submit the post to a single sentinel. The cause of these repeated disappearances of men, whose courage and

honesty were never suspected, must be discovered; and it seemed not likely that this discovery could be obtained by persisting in the old method.

Three brave men were now lost to the regiment, and to assign the post to a fourth seemed nothing less than giving him up to destruction. The poor fellow whose turn it was to take the station, though a man in other respects of incomparable resolution, trembled from head to foot.

"I must do my duty," said he to the officer; "I know that; but I should like to lose my life with more credit." "I will leave no man," said the colonel, "against his will." A man immediately stepped from the ranks, and desired to take the post. Every mouth commended his resolution.

"I will not be taken alive,” said he, "and you shall hear of me at the least alarm. At all events, I will fire my piece if I hear the least noise. If a crow chatters, or a leaf falls, you shall hear my musket. You may be alarmed when nothing is the matter; but you must take the chance as the condition of the discovery."

The colonel applauded his courage, and told him he would be right to fire upon the least noise that he could not satisfactorily explain. His comrades shook hands with him, and left him with a melancholy foreboding. The company marched back, and waited the event in the guard house.

An hour had now elapsed, and every ear was upon the rack for the discharge of the musket, when, upon a sudden, the report was heard. The guard immediately marched, accompanied, as before, by the colonel and some of the most experienced officers of the regiment.

As they approached the post, they saw the man advancing towards them, dragging another man on the ground by the hair of his head. When they came up to him, it appeared to be an Indian whom he had shot. An explanation was immediately required.

"I told you, colonel," said the man, "that I should fire if I heard the least noise. That resolution I took has saved my

life. I had not been long at my post when I heard a rustling at some short distance; I looked, and saw a wild hog, such as are common in the woods, crawling along the ground, and seemingly looking for nuts under the trees among the leaves.

"As these animals are so very common, I ceased to consider it seriously, but kept my eyes fixed upon it, and marked its progress among the trees: still there was no need to give the alarm. It struck me, however, as somewhat singular to see this animal making, by a circuitous passage, for a thick grove immediately behind my post. I therefore kept my eye more constantly fixed upon it, and, as it was now within a few yards of the coppice, I hesitated whether I should fire.

"My comrades, thought I, will laugh at me for alarming them by shooting a pig. I had almost resolved to let it alone, when, just as it approached the thicket, I thought I observed it give an unusual spring. I no longer hesitated: I took my aim, discharged my piece, and the animal was immediately stretched before me, with a groan which I thought to be that of a human creature.

“I went up to it, and judge my astonishment when I found that I had killed an Indian. He had enveloped himself with the skin of one of these wild hogs so artfully and completely, his hands and his feet were so entirely concealed in it, and his gait and appearance were so exactly correspondent to that of the animals, that, imperfectly as they were always seen through the trees and bushes, the disguise could not be detected at a distance, and scarcely discovered upon the nearest inspection. He was armed with a dagger and tomahawk.”

The cause of the disappearance of the other sentinels was now apparent. The Indians, sheltered in this disguise, secreted themselves in the coppice, watched the moment when they could throw it off, burst upon the sentinels without previous alarm, and, too quick to give them an opportunity to discharge their pieces, either stabbed or scalped them. They then bore their bodies away, and concealed them at some distance in the leaves.

XII. THE HERMIT OF NIAGARA FALLS.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

[Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney is an American lady, who has written a variety of works in prose and verse. She resided for many years in Hartford, Connecticut. This extract is from "Scenes in my Native Land."]

ABOUT fifteen years ago,* in the glow of early summer, a young stranger of pleasing countenance and person made his appearance at Niagara. It was at first supposed that he might be an artist, as a large portfolio, with books and musical instruments, was observed among his baggage. He was deeply impressed by the beauty and sublimity of the cataract and its surrounding scenery, and expressed his intention of remaining a week, that he might examine them thoroughly. But the fascination which that glorious work of the Creator has for all minds of sensibility grew strongly upon him, and he was heard to say that six weeks were not enough to become acquainted with even its most obvious features.

At the end of that period he was still unable to tear himself away, and he determined to "build there a tabernacle," that he might indulge himself in his love of nature and his love of solitude. He reared for himself a commodious place of shelter in the immediate vicinity of the falls, and there took up his abode. His simple and favorite fare of bread and milk was readily procured; and any other food he required was always prepared by his own hands.

When winter came, a cheerful fire of wood blazed upon his hearth; and by his evening lamp he beguiled the hours by the reading of books in various languages, and by music. It was startling to hear, in such depth of solitude, the long-drawn, thrilling tones of the violin, or the softest melodies of the flute, or the tinkling notes of the guitar borne from that lowly hut, and mingling with the rush and thunder of the cataract.

Yet, though the world of letters was familiar to him, and though he had travelled widely both in his native Europe and

* Written in 1845.