I wish in my soul that I had never come hame again, or that we had never loved as we hae done. God keep ye, and bless ye, and gie ye strength, for we hae little in oursel's. But ye shall never be troubled wi' the sicht o' me again, and if I could I would bury my very name in the bottomless pit that ye might never mair be startled even by the sound o't. A' that man can do to help ye to be a true wife I'll do for the sake o' the love I bear ye. I canna say ony mair." With an uncontrollable impulse he folded his arms round her and kissed her passionately, whilst scalding tears were on their faces. "Gae'wa, gae'wa," she cried, wildly, tearing herself from his arms; "and Heaven guide ye to He stood dumbly gazing after her; and as she disappeared round the corner of a shed, without having dared to look back once, his whole heart seemed to burst in one great sob. God bless ye, Jeanie," he faltered, and the words yearningly followed her. He gazed vacantly for a long time at the place where he had caught the last glimpse of her r treating form, and then, with a dull, hopeless face, he turned slowly away. NIAGARA IN WINTER. [By GEORGE AUGustus Sala.] AT was just the grey of the winter's day when our French-Canadian valet entered my state-room. "No boots to-day," I said, "I will wear moccasins." "It vas not de boots," he made answer; "you, are dere." "Where?" I asked, sleepily and querulously. "At Niagara, sare." I sprang from my cot, and made a toilette so swift that the circus-rider who becomes in the space of five minutes a belted knight, a kilted Highlander, a buy-a-broom girl, General Washington, and William in "Black-eyed Susan," all the while careering madly on one bare-backed steed, might have envied my celerity. I was at Niagara. Where were the Falls? About a mile and a half distant. illigant condition, and you may see them all the year round for nothing.” He was driving me along the brink of a steep and abrupt precipice — a mere ledge of road like the commencement of the Cornice at Genoa. On the near side arose, not mountains, but rows of naked larch and stunted pollard. Beyond them were the ice-bound fields, with here and there clumps of the black funereal pine, standing like mutes at the door of one who had died in midwinter. The snow was all around in lumps and nuggets-in festoons, as though old Father Christmas had hung his trees with bundles of store-candles--in great sheets, deep and compact, with the thin layer of last night's frosty glaze upon them. The sky looked thick and soft-a very envelop us. The stark saplings came up rigid and spiky through the ghastly mantle, like the beard from the cheek of a dead man. There was an evil wind blowing about a few leaves, so brown and withered that they must have belonged to the autumn before last. The declivity of the precipice looked horrible, and hundreds of feet down, so it seemed, rushed along a black, swollen, and sullen river. I was enabled to secure a little ramshackle" one-blanket-covering of snow that was to fall soon and horse shay" of a curricle, with a horse not much bigger than an Exmoor pony, and such a very tall and stout Irishman for a driver, that I expected, every moment, with my superabundant weight, that the springs would break, and the entire concern go to irremediable "pi." The Irish driver was jocular and loquacious, but appeared somewhat disgusted with the world in general, and Niagara in particular. To every remark he made he added the observation that it was "a divil of a place." I asked if there were any tourists here; just now. Begorra, there's nobody," he replied. I asked which was the best hotel. "Begorra, there's none," he responded; "they're all shut up. It's a divil of a place." I was somewhat disconsolate at the receipt of this information, so I asked him if he knew where we could get some breakfast. "Divil a bit of breakfast is there for love or money. It's a divil of a place;" but he added, with a glance of that sly humour for which his countrymen are unrivalled, "the Falls are in 66 The road made a slight curve. "Begorra, there they are!" cried the driver, pointing with his whip. I strained my eyes, looked down, and saw, so close upon me that I thought I could have leaped into their midst, but they were at least a mile distant-the Falls of Niagara. How it was that the ramshackle shay, the little horse, and the big driver utterly vanished from my view and remembrance, I shall probably never be able to realise. I suppose I must have got out of the chaise somehow, and given the man a dollar; but how it all came about I have not the dimmest almost mathematical exactitude an enormous stream of water. At the base a great cloud of foam and spray arose. This was the American Fall. Then the bank stretched away, and I could see some large and small houses, and an island thickly wooded, at whose head was a lighthouselooking tower, approached by a causeway. This was Goat Island and Terrapin Tower. Then the lower bed of the river became a cul de sac, a blind alley, its finial being curved in a great wall of rock, and over this was precipitated from the upper bed a much more enormous stream of water, its edges raggeder than those of the Canadian side of the river. Three parts of it belong incontestably to Great Britain, and it can only be seen to advantage from the British side; but our cousins are very angry that it should be called the Canadian Fall, and claim more than half of it as their own. These then were the famous Falls I had come so far to see ;-144 rods wide, 158 feet high, 1,500 millions of cubic feet of water tumbling over a wall of rock every minute, a column of spray 200 -some say 300-feet in altitude. Well, I confess that as I stood staring, there came over me a sensation of bitter disappointment. And was this all? You who have seen the field of Waterloo, who' his oar, as Charon does in Gustave Doré's picture have seen the Pyramids, who have seen St. Peter's, bear with me. Was this all? There was a great deal of water, a great deal of foam, a great deal of spray, and a thundering noise. This was all, abating the snow where I stood and the black river beneath. These were the Falls of Niagara, They looked comparatively small, and the water looked dingy. Where was the grand effect-the light and shade? There was, it is true, a considerable amount of effervescence; but the foaminess of the Falls, together with the tinge of tawny yellow in the troubled waters, only reminded me of so much unattainable soda and sherry, and made me feel thirstier than ever. of the souls crossing the Styx, in the "Inferno.” Then we scrambled over stones, rimy with ice, and slipped down glassy declivities, à la Montagne Russe, and creeping close to the base of the fall, right under the lee of Table Rock, peeped at the masses of frozen spray and great blocks and boulders of ice piled one atop of another-a cold eruption of the Glacial Period. We thus wandered about, talking very little, until early in the afternoon, when my friend suggested lunch. We had ascended to the river bank on the Canada side by this time, and in the highway, close to Table Rock, found, to our great joy, that Mr. Sol Davis's well-known establishment was open. Mr. Sol Davis sells Indian curiosities, and Lowther Arcade and Ramsgate Bazaar nicknacks of every description; and a very stiff price does Mr. Sol Davis charge for those objects of vertu. Mr. Sol Davis likewise sells cigars, and stereoscopic slides of the Falls; and Mr. Sol Davis has, to sum up his wealth of accommodation for tourists, a bar in the rear of his premises where exciseable articles are retailed. Mrs. Sol Davis I found a wretched little place open, half tavern and half Indian curiosity shop, but on the roof it had a belvedere. I was permitted to ascend this, and a civil negro serving man volunteered to accompany me. There was a good view from the belvedere, and I remained staring at the Falls for another half-hour, the negro remaining silent by my side. I asked him, almost mechanically, whether the water was continually rushing over at that rate. I had spoken like a fool, and he answered | is a very comely and affable matron, with a sharp me according to my folly. "I spect, massa," he eye to business; and Miss Sol Davis is very said, "they goes on for ebber and ebber." Re- beautiful, but haughty. marks as absurd and incongruous as mine, have become historical among the ana of Niagara. A Swiss watchmaker observed that he was very glad, "de beautiful ting was going." He looked upon "What might be your business, now ?” it as some kind of clockwork arrangement, which would run down and be wound up again. Everybody knows the story of the 'cute Yankee who called it "an almighty water privilege." It is one, and would turn all the mill-wheels in the world. Being on the American side, we crossed a smaller suspension bridge to Goat Island. We wandered around its half-snowed-up lanes, and then, so slippery was the ice, crawled on our hands and knees along a stone causeway to Terrapin Tower, and from its summit looked upon the Falls. Then we went to see the Rapids by the Cataract House, which appeared to me a mass of intolerable suds, and put me in mind of nothing half so much as a gigantic washing-day. There was no colour, no light and shade: nothing but water and foam, water and spray, water and noise. And everything dingy. We were lowered down an inclined plane in a species of horse-box on the American side, and there found a ferry-boat to convey us across the Niagara river to Canada. From the river there was a much better view of both Falls. They looked considerably taller, but they were still dingy. The boatman was a most savage-looking person; cursed us when we paid him in paper instead of silver, and I thought when we landed that he would have dismissed us with a clout of Mr. Sol Davis, junior, the fourth in this worthy quartette, is a character. Said he to me, when he became better acquainted with me: Wishing to keep within the limits of the truth, and at the same time not to be too communicative, I replied that paper-staining was my business. "Ah! paper-staining. Do pretty well at it?" continued Mr. Sol Davis, junior. I said that I did do pretty well, considering. "Ah!" pursued my interlocutor," you should go in for felt hats. My brother-in-law went out to San Francisco, a year and seven months ago, and he's made a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all out of felt hats. Think of that!" I did think that, in case the paper-staining business came to grief, I would follow the friendly advice of Mr. Sol Davis, junior, and go in for felt hats. We lunched at Mr. Sol Davis's, in a very cosy little back parlour, and an admirable roast fowl and a capital bottle of Medoc we had. Then my friend took a nap, and then, feeling somewhat relieved, with a fragrant "planter" from Mr. Sol Davis's private box between my lips, I strolled out to have another view of the Falls. It was now about three o'clock in the afternoon. I stood on the brink of Table Rock and gazed once more on the great, dreary, colourless expanse of water, foam, and spray. And this was Niagara, and there was nothing more. Nothing? With a burst like the sound of a trumpet, the sudden Sun came out. God bless him there he was; and there, too, in the midst of the foaming waters, was set the Everlasting Bow. The rainbow shone out upon the cataract; the sky turned blue; the bright clarion had served to call all Nature to arms; the very birds that had been flapping dully over the spray throughout the morning began to sing; and looking around me I saw that the whole scene had become glorified. There was light and colour everywhere. The river ran a stream of liquid gold. The dark hills glistened. The boulders of ice sparkled like gems. The snow was all bathed in iris tints-crimson, and yellow, and blue, and green, and orange, and violet. The white houses and belvederes started up against the azure like the mosques and minarets of Stamboul, and, soaring high behind the Bow, was the great pillar of spray, glancing and flashing like an obelisk of diamonds. And it was then I began, as many men have begun, perchance, to wonder at and to love Niagara. |