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allotted, as having brought up a large family in credit and respectability, without receiving parochial assistance. The hale old man, in his well-preserved Sunday coat, with his grey hair smoothed down over his honest face, and his pretty daughter hanging upon his arm, as they walked to the ground after the match was over, formed one of the most interesting groups of the day.

The scene was really beautiful. Upon an extensive lawn, richly dotted with magnificent trees, and backed by a noble mansion embowered in woods, stood a splendid central marquée, with smaller tents on either side; flags and banners waved around the tents, and crowned the lofty decorated building, arched with lilacs and laburnums, where the gentlemen were to dine; and the large low open cart-house, overhung by a down-hanging elm, prepared for the ploughmen; carriages were driving up in close succession, horses prancing, music playing, and (to borrow the words of the County Chronicle) all the beauty and fashion of the neighbourhood were collected in front of the tents to witness the distribution of the prizes, and, best of all, they who had earned those prizes, the sturdy tillers of the soil, clean, healthy, and happy, their delighted wives and daughters, and the stout yeomen, their masters, triumphing in the success of their labourers. Add to this the lucky accident of a sunny day in the most genial of the seasons, and every advantage of light and shadow, and shifting clouds, and the result will be a scene too wide for the painter, but rich and bright, and joyous as ever inspired a poet in the merry month of May.

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old peasant; "Add his son-in-law, for such I shall be as soon as the bans can be published, for I have no money now to throw away upon a license. All is settled," continued he in a lower tone to the old man; "Phœbe consented as soon as ever I proved to her that not only my happiness but my prosperity depended upon my marrying such a wife as herselfpooh! as soon as I proved that my happiness depended upon marrying her, for there is not such another in the world; and Joseph Clarkson, finding that I am to have her to manage the dairy, has consented to let me rent his thirty acres down in the Moors, and the little homestead belonging to it. There's a capital garden, and during my spare time, I shall raise vegetables for the Belford market, and mother 'll live with us, and you'll see how happy we shall be !" And happiness danced in the young man's eyes, as again wringing the old labourer's hand, he turned away to join his Phœbe.

"Stop!" exclaimed Colonel Lisle, who, irresistibly attracted by the sudden alteration in his tenant's manner and conduct, had been unable to refrain from listening to the conversation. "Stop one moment, Maurice Elliott," said he, kindly; "and tell me what this means? Joseph Clarkson's land in the Moors! and your mother to live with you there! Why, in leaving the Linden, there will be the stock and the crops, and the farming utensils, enough, whether you retain or dispose of them, to set you up in one of the best farms in the country. All was left, I know, to you and your mother. Surely, you have not, since your father's death, involved yourself in such debt as to render this change of situation necessary?"

Phoebe looked only for one figure, there, dressed like the rest of the competitors, in a white smock-frock, his head decked with "I owe no man a farthing, sir," replied a double cockade, winner not only of the regu- Maurice, with some pride of accent and manlar match, but of a subsequent prize for plough- ner; then catching the kindly glance of his | ing with two horses, stood Maurice Elliott, landlord, he continued, mildly and respectfully, and close beside him, her little cousin George," Every thing was left to my mother and mysticking his hat, also doubly cockaded, as high self; but, either by accident or design-I beas possible upon his head, and fairly standing lieve-I am sure by accident, the will is so on tiptoe, that his honours might be more con- worded, that although, in case of our continuspicuous. Near him, so placed as to appearing at the Linden farm, the stock and property to belong rather to the gentry than to the wealthy yeomen, in which order he was really classed, leaned his uncle Stephen, his accustomed scornful sneer darkened as if by stronger passions.

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of every sort was to remain for my use, upon paying a small annuity to my mother, yet, if we removed, it appears that the whole is to be sold; the money to be invested in the three per cents., and not to be touched either by her or me, until her death-neither of us receiving any benefit from this sum beyond the yearly payment of her annuity,-which heaven grant may continue for many years!"

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This is new to me, Maurice, and strange as well as new. Who is the executor?" "Mr. Stephen Elliott, my uncle."

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Humph!-your uncle!-have you seen the will? Has any lawyer seen it? Your uncle, Mr. Stephen Elliott, is the executor, you say? Is the will in your father's handwriting?"

"No, sir; in that of Mr. Ball."

hanging down his head, pale with impotent "The little pettifogging lawyer of Bew-malice, and muttering ineffectual curses, the ley-a man thirty miles off-Stephen Elliott's most contemned and miserable wretch of that factotum; I thought so. Well, we must get large assembly. some one learned in the law to look it over. Not to touch the money until after your mother's death! That could never have been the design of the testator, however well it might meet the views of This must be looked

THE GLEANER.

"They have all been touched, and found base metal."

"So! This is my return to my native village! This my reception from relatives who owe me so much!" Thus thought, rather than said, a poor-looking man, as he stood leaning over the gate of a newly-cleared wheat-field in the bright, bustling, busy, harvest time.

to, Maurice; send me a copy of the will." "You are very good, sir," replied Maurice, firmly; "but with all gratitude for your kindness, I have made up my mind to let the matter rest. Firmly as I believe that my father did not contemplate this state of things-that he never dreamt of our leaving the Linden Farm, it is, nevertheless, so set down; and there is something in contesting the last will of a parent which I cannot endure. Besides," One," exclaimed he, as his musings took a we shall do very well. My mother will have the comforts to which she has been accustomed, if my labour can provide them; and it will be better for me to be a working man. I was getting to like sporting better than farming. Phoebe said so, sir, as well as you. But now all that is out of the question. I can work, as I have proved to her; and, with her for a companion and a reward, I shall be a better and a happier man at the Moors than I should have been at our old house, well as I love it."

tone of passion which broke unconsciously into words; "One-yonder portly landlady, forsooth, sitting in her bar, as she is pleased to call it her bar, quotha! In my young days it was the little boarded parlour opening from the tap-room. A bar in the old Red Lion! What shall we hear of next? One, bedecked and bedizened, with her gown like a rainbow, her fringed apron, and her cap stuck out with flowers, sitting in her bar, if that be its style and title, amongst her glasses and punch-bowls, with a bell upon her table and a net of lemons dangling above her head; she, Miss Collins as she calls herself-she used to answer to the name of Jenny Collins, twenty years agone-refused point-blank to acknowledge me! denied to my face that she had ever

"Better and happier, perhaps, than you might have been, had this not occurred," replied Colonel Lisle, grasping his young tenant's hand with a pressure full of heart; "but not better or happier than you will be there now. The new lease shall be made out to-morrow. Your uncle, for views of his own, and in re-seen me! called me a cheat and an impostor! venge for your refusal of his daughter, represented you to me as dissipated, idle, extravagant, and careless of all except the caprice of the hour. He even contrived to turn your love for Phoebe into a proof of the lowness of your mind and degradation of your habits. Under this view, I sent the notice, fully intending, however, especially after I found that he wanted the farm, to examine more closely into the facts. I ought to have looked into the matter at once; but I can hardly regret not having done so, since the experiment has not only made your character better known to me, but to yourself. And now you must introduce me to Phœbe! There she stands, looking at us;-no! now that she sees that we are looking at her, she turns away blushing. But that is Phoebe! I should know the fresh, innocent smile among a thousand."

And, as a lover of all justice-even that shadowy justice, called poetical, which is the branch over which we poor authors have most control-I must add, that whilst Phoebe's smiles grew sweeter and sweeter, as her blushes deepened, Stephen Elliott, the rich and purse-proud uncle, who had crept stealthily within hearing of the conversation, and felt himself detected and defeated, slunk away,

wondered at my impudence in attempting to pass myself for her dear uncle, Michael Norris! threatened me with the stocks and the round-house, the justice and the jail! Precious minx! She whom I rescued from drudgery and starvation, from living half shop-woman, half-maid, with the stingy, termagant clear-starcher, in Belford Marsh! whom I set up in that very Red Lion!-perched upon her throne, the arm-chair, in the bar!-purchased the lease, the furniture, the good-will! paid her first year's rent! stocked her cellars! clapped a hundred pound bank-note into her hand! And how that I come home, old and lame, sick and ragged, she reviles me as a vagabond and an impostor, and tells me to be thankful to her compassion and tender-heartedness that she does not send for the constable to carry me to jail! Liar that she is! base, ungrateful, perjured liar! for she knew me. I say that she knew me; ay, as well as I knew her. She would be glad to be no more altered in the years that have changed her from a slim girl of twenty-five to a bloated woman of fiveand-forty, than I, in those same years, with all my griefs!

"Then her brother-faugh! it maddens one to think of their baseness!-her brother, whom

I educated and apprenticed, finding him money | lately dead, after a series of undeserved misafterwards to put him into partnership with old fortunes and a long and wasting illness; and Jones, the thriving linen-draper. He, indeed, she, working as hard as ever woman did work, did not pretend to deny that I might be his to keep herself and her family out of the workuncle!-but, grant that I were, what claim had house-that Union to whose comforts my preI upon his charity more than any other starv- cious cousin Anthony so tenderly consigns me. ing wretch? What was I to him? He pi- Poor things! They may well deny any knowtied me, Heaven knew! but what could I ledge of me! for they never saw me; and I expect from him? Oh, the smooth-speaking, have had a good sample of the slight impressoft-spoken knave! with his pity and his cha- sion that benefits conferred leave behind them! rity! Hypocrite in look and word! His tone William was only eighteen when I left Engwas as gentle as if he had been bidding me land and returned to Jamaica after my last welcome to bed and board for my whole life visit. A fine, frank-hearted lad he was! I long. What a fawning parasite that would remember wishing to take him with me. But have been now, if I had accosted him like a my poor sister would not part with him. She rich man! Well! there is some virtue in had married again after the death of her first these rags, since they teach false tongues to husband, William's father, and a wretched speak truth. Then came my cousin Anthony, match she made; for this second husband whose daughter I portioned, whose runaway proved to be an habitual drunkard, always son I clothed and sent to sea. And this An- half-mad when intoxicated, who broke out at thony is now a great meal man-a rich miser last into desperate frenzy, and, but for my inwho could buy up half the country. What terposition, would have murdered the poor boy. said he? Why, he was poor himself-the I seem to see the struggle now," thought the scoundrel!-nobody knew how poor, and had old man, closing his eyes; "he flinging himbeen forced to make a rule to give nothing to self upon William with a table-knife, and I beggars; ay, he called me a beggar! I might rushing between them just soon enough to rego to the Union, he said, that was the fittest ceive the blade in my arm. I bear the mark place for me. To the Union! the workhouse! of the wound still. The madman was sent to Oh, the precious rascal! The son of my fa- an asylum, and there soon died. And my ther's brother, brought up in my father's house, poor sister, well off for her station, could not -worth a hundred thousand pounds, and would part with this only son. He was a fine lad, have sent me to the workhouse-me, his only was William, spirited and generous; and when living kinsman! Oh, this world! this world! she also died, he was already attached to the this world! Then-for I was resolved to try girl whom he afterwards married. I helped them all-I sought out my old school-fellow, them too, for I loved the boy; I helped on that Nicholas Hume, the spendthrift, whom I match, for it was one of sincere affection, and bailed in my young days, when little richer they were in the way to earn a handsome comthan himself, and saved from prison by paying petence; there must have been some impru his debts. What was his gratitude? Why, dence or great ill luck, to have reduced them he, forsooth, had never heard my name. Mi- to such poverty." So ran the train of the old chael Norris? Who was Michael Norris ?- cripple's reverie. "I never suspected it; he Oh, they knew me well enough twenty years never wrote to me, and I engaged in my own ago, when I returned from the West Indies a affairs, and with children then of my own. rich man, husband of a wealthy creole, master Well, I will see them, however; they are in of flourishing plantations, to visit my early this field gleaning. So said their neighbour. haunts, help my poor relations-I found them Yes! This is the field! There they are. all in distress some way or other-and shake I'll see them," thought Michael Norris, hands with my old friends. Nobody had for- "though it is probable that they too will know gotten me then. But now that I come back a nothing of me." And, opening the gate, the ragged cripple, houseless and friendless- -" old man limped slowly across the furrows, and And the old man paused and lifted his wretch- began gathering the scattered ears of corn in ed hat from his thin grey hairs, and passed his his withered hand. tattered handkerchief over his furrowed brow, with an air which proved that he was as much oppressed by mental suffering, by indignation, and disappointment, as by the sultry heat of an August noon.

"There are none left now," thought old Michael to himself, as, exhausted by his vehemence, he sank into a milder mood, "none left for me to apply to now, except the three orphan children of my poor nephew, William Leslie, the cousin of these hard-hearted Collinses, and their mother; and they, I fear, are themselves in great want and trouble. He,

We have said the field, although, after passing the gate which admitted him between the two high hedges that bounded it on the northern side, the wide expanse from which the wheat had just been carried, assumed the appearance rather of a large open ridge of arable land, bordered by the high road, and terminated by a distant village, than of the small wooded enclosures so common in the midland counties. A pretty scene it was, as it lay before him, bathed in the sunshine, and a lovely group was that to which his attention was immediately directed. A pale young woman,

whose regular and beautiful features received | to the gentle creature whom a feeling of unadditional interest from her close widow's usual interest still detained at his side, he cap, stood before him, holding a fine infant in her arms; a very pretty girl of twelve or thirteen was flourishing a tuft of wheat-ears before the baby's eyes, smiling herself at the smile she excited, while her little brother clung to the mother's petticoat in momentary fear of two high-fed dogs, attending a gentleman and lady riding slowly along the road.

The poor cripple drew back and sat down under a clump of maple and hawthorn, gay with the purple wild veitch, the white bindweed, and the pretty clematis, known by the still prettier name of "the traveller's joy;" whilst the riding party called off their dogs, spoke graciously to the child and his mother, and passed slowly out of sight. As they left her, Mrs. Leslie, for she it was, approached the old man, to replace her infant in his cradle, niched under the fragrant shade of some overhanging hazel-stems just beside his rude seat. Struck by the evidence of poverty, sickness, and sorrow afforded by his tattered apparel and his wrinkled yet venerable countenance, she I took up a pitcher which stood by the cradle, and, with the kindness which the very poor so often show to each other, and a remark upon the heat of the day, offered him a small cupfull of the milk which formed the contents of the jug. He took it with a trembling hand, and thanked her with an emotion which our readers will comprehend, but which at once surprised and interested its object.

"Your name is Leslie ?" asked he, as, after returning the cup with thanks and blessings, he made room for her beside him on the thymy bank.

"Your name is Leslie ?" "Margaret Leslie. It is so." "The wife of William Leslie!" "His widow. Ah, me! his widow!" replied she with a sigh. "The widowed mother of those children. Michael," added she, as the boy came near them, "take some milk yourself, and carry a cupful to your sister, and bring what wheat-ears she and you have gathered to my little heap."

"Michael!" echoed the old man, "your husband's name was William! How came you to call his son Michael? But the name belongs to your family perhaps ;-your father, or some favourite brother?"

"No," replied the widow, "it was for a different reason. A very dear kinsman of my husband's bore that name, and in token of love and gratitude to him, and in fulfilment of an old promise, so our only son was christened."

"I remember,"-muttered the cripple to himself," I remember William said that his first boy should bear my name, and I think he wrote to that effect after the child was born; but the letter must have arrived at that time of misery." Then rousing himself, and turning

added aloud, "I do remember now, that Wil-
liam Leslie had an uncle called Michael Nor-
ris, but what peculiar cause of gratitude-
"What cause!" interrupted Mrs. Leslie;
"a thousand causes; from a mere infant,
when I have heard my husband say that he
gave him the first shilling he ever possessed,-
that kind uncle, absent or present, was his
good genius. He insisted upon his being sent
to Belford school; paid himself for masters
whom his guardians thought superfluous; res-
cued him from the frantic frenzy of his step-
father; saved his life at the most imminent
peril of his own from the furious assaults of
that wretched madman; placed him in the
paper-mill, which, but for the rash specula-
tions of his partner, would have been not
merely a comfortable income for himself, but
an affluent provision for his family; and, last
and dearest kindness, when William, with his
characteristic generosity, loved a poor girl, the
portionless orphan of a naval officer, when in-
terested connexions and officious friends all
opposed the union, did not he, from across the
wide ocean, send himself not merely his ap-
probation of the destined marriage, but a por-
tion for the destitute bride? I never saw
him," continued Mrs. Leslie in a lower tone
than that which had been dictated by her en-
thusiastic recollection of her benefactor's good-
ness; "but night and morning I have prayed
for him, and night and morning do my poor
children join in those prayers; and my dear
husband amongst his latest words”

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"Did he too pray for the uncle who seemed to have forgotten him?" asked the old man, his voice half stifled with emotion. "Look, Margaret," added he, stripping up his sleeve, and showing a deep scar extending diagonally across his left arm; "this scar was received from the knife with which his furious and frantic stepfather was pursuing William Leslie. I am Michael Norris. You will not disdain to acknowledge the cripple who comes to your door hungry and ragged. Here too," said he, taking from his pocket a bundle of papers, are characters that you well know." Tearfully yet joyfully the warm-hearted and grateful Margaret returned the embraces of her venerable kinsman, presented her three children to him one by one, and replied to his questions as to their change of circumstances.

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It needed few words to tell the story. Nothing is more rapid than a descent. The rolling of a stone down hill is a true type of falling fortune. Taking advantage of a long illness with which William Leslie was afflicted, his partner engaged in desperate speculations. They failed. The rash speculator absconded, and William remained, a bankrupt without friend or resource. Honest to the last, his wife resigned her small settlement to satisfy the creditors. His debts being paid, he had tried

every means of living, and whilst he retained | sake, is a boy of a thousand. We have had his health had supported his family by the most much to be thankful for. Farmer Rogers, the persevering industry; but a fever, occasioned overseer, whose books my husband kept (litby over-exertion, had come on; his constitu- tle Michael keeps them now, as well the fartion, impaired by anxiety and labour, had been mer says as his father did,) supplies us with unable to resist the attack, and since that pe- milk twice a-day. Mrs. Lascelles, the rector's riod the wife who had been the faithful partner wife, employs Anne and me constantly in neeof his cares and his toils had at least so far dlework for her large family; and if we can succeeded as to maintain her children without but keep our pretty cottage-if we can but| the assistance of charity, whether public or keep that cottage at whose porch poor Wilprivate. liam planted the honeysuckle and the China rose, and the vine which now half covers the thatch that cottage where we worked and wept together, and where he died the death of the righteous-if we can but live together there, within sight of the turf that covers his dear remains, I should ask for nothing better on this side of the grave."

"Why not have written to me when this bankruptcy took place?" inquired the uncle. "Alas, dear sir! we had before heard of that terrible hurricane in which

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“In which," said the old man, filling up with stern composure the sudden pause that from a mixture of delicacy and sympathy had arrested Margaret Leslie's words, "in which the plantation where I resided was laid waste, my house levelled with the ground, and my wife with four hopeful children, buried in the ruins! in striving to rescue them, this thigh-" striking the withered limb with a hazel-twig"this thigh was broken. I owe my preservation to the gratitude of an emancipated negro; but for months, for years, all life, all nature was a blank before me! I have sometimes wondered how I could have survived such a blow!-for what purpose I was spared! The doubt was sinful, and finds its rebuke, its thrice-merciful rebuke, in this blissful hour. You heard then of my losses, dear Margaret? Poor William heard of them?"

The widow's tears flowed afresh, and once again the old man pressed her hand.

"Is there any doubt of your retaining this beloved habitation, dear Margaret? And does my coming cause that doubt?"

"Oh no! no! dear uncle, not in the slightest degree. The cause of doubt is, that we have no lease, and that Miss Collins, as she calls herself, poor William's cousin, wants it for some purpose or other; people say with some view of marrying. But this is idle talk, village gossip. What is certain is, that she wishes to take it, and is willing to give two pounds a-year more rent than I now give or can afford to give. If our landlord, Mr. Godfrey, had stayed, he and Lady Eliza"We were sure that something must have beth had promised that I should remain; but gone amiss, from receiving no reply to the let the Hall, and the village, and the whole estate ter which announced the birth of our boy, and are sold, and the new lord of the manor is claimed your promise of standing godfather at coming this evening. Hark! you may hear his christening. William did not like to write the bells ringing even now. Mr. Godfrey and again upon such an occasion; it would have Lady Elizabeth intend staying a few days at seemed like encroaching upon your too gene- the rectory; you saw them ride by with their rous spirit. But when the news of that awful dogs; they have promised to speak in my fahurricane arrived, and Nicholas Hume and the vour to the new landlord; they mentioned it Collinses made inquiries in London and ascer- even now, and the good rector and his exceltained that your plantation had indeed been lent lady will second my petition; still—” amongst those laid waste,-then your silence Be of good cheer, Margaret! Even if you was too well explained! I heard this sad should leave your pretty cottage, I would wanews first; for it arrived during the dreadful ger something- The old man checked illness which preceded my husband's bank- himself, and resumed in an indifferent tone, ruptcy. And when he regained so much" Who is this new lord of the manor? What breathing time after his own misfortunes as to is his name?" ask news of you, no tidings could be obtained; all trace of you seemed lost. Oh that he had lived to see this day! His will be done! But oh that my poor husband had but lived to see once more the kinsman he loved so well!" The old man pressed her hand in speechless emotion, and Margaret, smiling through her

tears, went on:

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"The property was purchased by a Mr. Price; but he is understood to be an agent, and I have not heard the name of the real proprietor, who is said to be an elderly gentleman, and so rich that he will hardly be tempted to turn an old tenant from her cottage for so trifling an addition of rent. Nevertheless

"Once again, Margaret, be of good heart!" reiterated her uncle.

• You must live with us, dear uncle, and we shall wait upon you and work for you, and "The tenants are to meet him in the avebe happy together-as happy as we can be nue; the farmers and their sons on horseback; without him-after all. My Annie is a good the cottagers, women, and children, on foot. girl-oh such a good girl! and pretty, is she Ought I to join them? I have no shame in not, dear uncle? and poor Michael, your name-honest labour, but I do shrink from meeting the

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