shoe pinches. You would go readily enough if | where Mat and his party, prepared for their jourit were not for Valpi? Is it not true? Nay, why deny it now? But it is for her good; and even should she object at first, if she really love you she will go with you to the world's end. If she do not love you with her whole soul you had better not come together. But she would lose her life rather than lose you, who alone possess her undivided affections. See, Andrew's wife is going without any demur; Loy's sweetheart promised him the same, with an outburst of delight, and Peter of Hallstadt is going to take his parents out with him: surely Valpi will agree to join also! Why should she not? What a wretched, miserable life she leads here, and what awaits her over yonder? Will you suffer yourself to be trampled on for years and years by the proud Haller people, the Grödners, and all the rest of them, whilst you eat the bread of dependence? Look at your companions: none of them have hesitated, why should you? Or are you a milksop and under petticoatgovernment, Mat?” A loud laugh and a giggling from those around him sent the blood into Thalhofer's cheeks. Wolfgang Schlan (who in the interim had inspected the house and little garden, in order, after minuter investigation, to beat down their valuation to as low a figure as possible) entered the room just then, with the words: I "Mr. Thalhofer, we must start again. If you are one of us we shall soon strike a bargain. take your house and garden of you in exchange for a free passage to California, where you will be presented with ten pounds as well from the company, and can there open your workshop or go to the mines, just as you please: only decide quickly, for we are in a hurry.” Matthew stood as if lost in a dream, his breast heaving tumultuously, a sharp struggle going on within. They were all by this time in the street again; Wolfgang-the last-was just crossing the threshold. Thalhofer rushed towards him, exclaiming with gasping breath, "There is my hand; I will go to America!" "Your word as a man?" rejoined Mr. Schlan, seriously. "My word, as a man," muttered Mat, as he hurried away to arrange his clothes before joining the procession. "He is ours, and a good fellow is Matthew," shouted Nat, embracing him; and a loud huzza from every throat went up to heaven, whilst every one gave him a fraternal grasp of the hand. "At last I have succeeded," was Nat's mental comment. "I have secured the given number of emigrants for the agent, and secured a free passage for myself. Heaven will take care of the rest." Meanwhile the party marched on towards Ort, to the famous brewery, in which, in the course of two days, all the emigrants were to assemble, and where Mat was to draw up the agreement with Schlan. The next morning was then decided upon for a return to Thalhof, ney, were to join the others at an early hour. Mat's heart failed him as they marched past the Cross Inn; but he saw no one in the room. The old man had gone with his wife to church again for the first time, and Valpi was half-way up on the road to the Crab's-Saddle to the bath proprietor, whose house stood upon a slight elevation, to fetch some eye-lotion for her father. The procession was just winding round the corner of the hill, singing a joyous wanderer's song, as Valpi came out of the doctor's cottage into the fresh air. The young girl was lost in astonishment as she caught sight of the party below, amongst whom she recognized many of her neighbours. As the last couple came over the bend of the road, her limbs trembled involuntarily, as if struck by an electric shock-she had recognized Thalofer, arm in arm with Nat! Summoning all her strength, she called him by name as loudly as she could, but the singing almost drowned her voice. Mat, in whose mind an emigrant's golden expectations had already taken firm root, looked up accidentally, and caught sight of the speaker. Raising his hands to his mouth, so as to form a speakingtrumpet of them, he shouted in the direction of the rocky eminence on which she stood listening. "Valpy, we are going to America; there we shall be rich people. I shall return to you tomorrow: we start in three days." Before the young girl had time to answer, the wanderers' chorus resounded more loudly than ever, and Nat led the loiterer off with him. They reached the lake, and swift as an arrow the boatmen rowed the discontented Europeans across to Ort. Valpi had fallen to the ground with an agonizing cry, and some time elapsed before she recovered herself again. Mat's words had pierced to her heart like a dagger's thrust. When she reached home she found her father at the gate, just returned from church. Mournfully she clasped her arms round his neck, the overmastering grief raging within her breast finding utterance only in the words, "Matthew is going to America." Early in the morning Matthew appeared once more at Ort to arrange his affairs at home, Nat accompanying him. The written agreement for the little Thalhof cottage had been so cleverly drawn up and worded, that the joiner could no longer retract without leaving the Bremen company in possession of his house. As they both landed at Ebensee, Valpi, her eyes red with weeping, met them on coming out of the inn, and had nearly fainted upon recognizing the two. For a few moments the rovers stood silently confronting eech other, when Nat broke the silence, addressing the girl in a confidential tone-"Well, Valpi, have you packed up your things yet? It will be a heavenly life on the other side of the water!" The innkeeper's daughter cast a look of mingled hatred and misery upon the speaker, and leading Mat away by the hand, answered him coldly, "I will have nothing to say to you: will speak to this man's heart: but, if it no longer understands mine, take it away in God's name !" A few tears fell upon her kerchief as she spoke, and Matthew whispered to his companion to wait for him at Thalhof. Nat, laughing maliciously, continued the ascent of the hill, whilst Matthew and Valpi pursued the lonely path to the Crab's-saddle. Both were at first speechless: they reached a rocky elevation bearing a cross, erected in pious commemoration of an escape from death, and commanding a delightful prospect of the surrounding scenery. There Valpi sat down beside her lover, who broke silence. "I made a contract with the agent at Ort last night we all start off the day after to-morrow, Does that suit you, Valpi ?" : "Yes," whispered the maiden, scarcely audibly. "Loys and his sweetheart, Peter and his parents, Andrew, with his wife and many acquaintances besides, are also going with us to California. Does that suit you, Valpi?” "Yes," answered the girl, softly: her heart was too full to give utterance to any distinct sound. "We shall go into the mines over there for a year; then we shall give up gold-digging, buy a house and field, and I shall set up a large workshop. Is that all right, Valpy?" "Yes, it will be all right, as you wish, Mat-" "And then I have two free passages from the agent." "Two? So you take Nat over for nothing, then ?" "What are you thinking about? For you and me. If your parents go, the good gentleman will take them at a cheap rate." "The second place is for me? Matthew, I have something to say to you." "What is it then, Valpi?" Passionate sobs intermingled with the words, which she had difficulty in articulating. "Matthew-I-am-not going with you to and could almost have killed that hypocritical Nat. First of all I thought of going to the priest, to ask his advice; but it seemed to me that no third person has a right to interfere between lovers; they can best understand each other, who are pledged to live amicably together for a whole life-time. So then I went into our field, and sat down upon the bank, and pressed my hands tightly over my forehead to shut out everything but the thought of you and of America; but, often as I questioned myself, a voice within me answered, No, do not go to America; no, not for all the world! And if you love me, you will stay with me, Mat!" "And so you will not go?" exclaimed the joiner, angrily. "Why not, pray?" "On what account? Why I shall have a difficulty in explaining it to you. I cannot say exactly-cannot put it into words; I can only feel it-feel it very distinctly here, within me. God's blessing be with you! Find gold and happiness in America; and God protect you, Mat!" The young girl felt her voice fail her, tears ran down her cheeks, and Mat, struggling with his emotion, sat gloomily at her side. At length, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed on the ground, in a suppressed voice she continued her speech: 66 See, Mat, when I sit here and look around upon our little property; my parent's house, in which I was born, the corner room in which my grandmother died; there, where my brothers and sisters also breathed their last; there, on that bench, where I have spun many a yarn, linen for my bridal perhaps for my shroud; the window through which you looked in on All Saints' Day; up there, too, where you have often stood working so industriously, and looking down upon me so many times; on those beech trees, beneath which we have sung such beautiful songs to the guitar-I think of all these things, and the voice within me says 'Do not go away to America!' And then, if I look around upon our native land, is not this spot as lovely as any painting; who says that it will be more beautiful over yonder? Look at the lofty Traunstein up there; look at the villages scattered along the borders of the lake; look at the millions of flowers springing up as far as the eye can see; listen to the matin-bells from Altmünster, does not their silvery peal vibrate to the heart? Where can it be more lovely or more genial than in my homestead? Nowhere in the wide world; and again the voice within me says, Go not to America!' Mat, I cannot go with you. Look there, at my father in front of the house, at my mother near him, working in the garden. They would not go away from here for all the world; and I, who owe to them my life, my health, my faith in God, my all, all to them, could I leave my father in his blindness, my mother in her old age, and perhaps never see them again alive, never receive their last blessing; and all these things, amidst which I have grown up, seem to me a part of myself, like the soil to the root. I cannot go with you to America, Mat." "Come, do not worry yourself like this, Valpi! Only look at Nat; read the letters which Weymeyer, Hübel, and Heidinger write from America. They will find everything in its old place when they come back again; and they all say that they have got rich over there already." the power of the Evil One, as it were, Valpi's magic spell over the joiner seemed broken, and his soul was again trammelled by the lust for gold. "Valpi!" exclaimed he, "you have pledged me your troth; you are mine, you must go with to America!" "Bind my hands! strike me down! you are capable of anything-thus I will go with you!" "Rich? Ask if they are happy there-hap-me pier than at home? I think not, although shame may prevent their acknowledging it." "What is the meaning of all this talk? So you can really leave me then ?" "I have been to church, and there I prayed most earnestly, and am at peace with myself and with my God in Heaven!" "So then really-yes, Nat is right; you do not care about me, and only put up with me till you could find a better-the wealthy Höhpaner of Ischl, no doubt." "Mat, do not sin against me; do not give my heart too heavy a blow; it is not so hard as the boards you work upon. Let us not dispute about who cares the most for the other. It is because I love you so much, that my life seems to depend upon your not going to America. Economical living in our little cottage would not have made us rich, but happy. Father would have left everything to us, and mother would have helped us as long as she could, and then would have awaited a blissful departure in her own little room. Care for our daily food and anxiety would never have crossed our door. Our healthy activity and our mutual love would have made us the envy of thousands around. It was enough for me-it was a heaven upon earth to me; my thoughts would never have turned to a world beyond these mountains. But you, Mat, are not contented with this; your love for me does not fill your heart, and therefore it is that you seek for other happiness. It is not to please me, it is not on account of my parents that you are going over. Speak the truth; you are going because you wish to be rich, because you want to have heaps of gold. Well then, dig for it in America. You are in no need of a heart; you do not require mine with you for that; and". Valpi, seeing that her words were fruitless, tried to rise and proceed homewards; but a glance at Mat softened her again; and with clasped hands, she exclaimed, "Remain at home, Mat: let us be happy here; let me die on my mother's breast!" She sank down at the foot of the cross. Mat continued silently combating his feelings, and then the young girl arose, sadly to return home. The joiner sprang after her, and seizing her hand, cried out: Valpi, I cannot stay! I have pledged my word; Thalhof is sold." "Let them have it all. We have enough to live upon respectably; come to my parents." "To eat the bread of dependence?" "How can you speak so harshly now? What is ours is yours." Just as Mat, now somewhat mollified, was about to reply, he saw Nat at no great distance, slowly ascending the road towards them. By "Or perhaps you think I cannot live without you? You think I am under petticoat government; you shall see that I am not, though. But you do not deceive me: it is on Höhpaner's account that you refuse to go. He is dearer to you than I am. It will bring no blessing upon you; and if you prove faithless to me, I shall have a word to say to the seducer. I will seize him-throttle him, till he becomes blue in the face. Ha-ha! that strikes home, does it?" cried the joiner, scarcely able to restrain himself any longer; and with a furious gesture, rushed towards Valpi, exclaiming, "Own that you love him! own it, or" The enraged joiner could not finish his speech, for the grasp of a powerful hand from behind pushed him on one side, and Höhpaner stood between the two. Whilst strolling about the mountain, he had overheard the violent altercation, and had hastened to protect the maiden from the angry Mat. Höhpaner led Valpi, who, in her agony, was unconscious of all that was going on around her, down the mountain path; whilst Mat, foaming with rage, screamed after them "The day of reckoning has not come yet. You shall both-both have cause to remember me!" OUR LAST DAY TOGETHER. BY MRS. ABDY. How smooth is the ocean! how tranquil! how clear! Proclaiming the praise of the bright summer A tribute seems offered from earth, sea, and sky, A tribute, my friend, to our last day together! Then why should your spirit thus languish and droop, And picture a future of drear desolation? Through trial and trouble preserves its existence; A rest and a refuge from earth's fitful weather; There, happiness knows not the shackles of Time, And friends never sigh o'er a last day together! When the influence of the chimes of wellremembered bells is felt, we cannot wonder that Whittington was lured back to London by their magic spell. Poets have sung of their influence, and it is remarkable how they agree as to the effect produced. “They fling their melancholy music wide, Bidding me many a tender thought recall Of summer days, and those delightful years, When by my native streams, in life's fair prime, The mournful magic of their mingling chime First waked my wondering childhood into tears; But seeming now, when all these days are o'er, The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more." The feelings so touchingly expressed were echoed by the tender sentiments breathed by Moore in his charming melody of "Those Evening Bells," and responded to by many a sigh from a full heart. Often, while Napoleon wandered through the beautiful grounds of Mal-maison, when any wish, if not already gratified, seemed within his grasp, and when she who loved him best was by his side, he would stay his steps to hearken to the sound of the neighbouring village bells, and say, with a sigh, "How they remind me of Brienné !" In all the vicissitudes of his eventful life, how often may their music have seemed to float upon the air, when far away from the scenes of former triumph and of splendour! When, as was his custom in the still hour of night, he has stood alone, contemplating the skies, may not imagination have wafted back the sounds to which, in boyhood, he had so often listened? The sound of the bell, announcing joy and sorrow, may well be associated with all our recollections. It proclaims the principal events of life-births, marriages, and deaths. of the funeral toll has been well described by The effect William Howitt in his "Visit to Remarkable Places." "The bell," he says, 66 calling over hill and dale, with its solemn voice, the dead to his place." The green sward, which he has so often trod, shall know his steps no more. The passing-bell falls with a mournful cadence on the ear: we know that it gives notice of the departure of a fellow-creature who is lying at the point of death. We have often listened to it as its melencholy tone seemed to keep pace with the gradual parting of the soul from the body. A belief prevailed in Huntingdonshire and elsewhere, that the soul never left the body till the church-bell rang, so that to shorten the pangs of the death-struggle the passing-bell may have been introduced. But there are still more urgent reasons for it. According to old superstition, it was believed to have the power of scaring away the evil spirits that were hover TRADITIONS. ing about to seize the spirit the moment it left the body. It was customary, too, to set the bells a-ringing when tempests or thunder and lightning were impending, as they were supposed to be under the direction of evil spirits, who could only be compelled to desist from their fell purpose of destruction by the sound of holy bells. Ovid, Livy, and Lucan allude to the customs which prevailed in their days of having bronze instruments sounded during an eclipse, to avert the disaster which it was believed to betoken. Durandus says the church rings the bells when a storm is coming on, that the devils, when they hear the trumpets of the Holy King-as the bells were considered-might take flight, and so the tempest subside. Latimer alludes to this custom in one of his sermons, which is an additional confirmation of its having prevailed in England before the Reformation. Though now discontinued in protestant churches, it still prevails in Malta and Sicily, in Sardinia, Tuscany, and many parts of France. The belief was held in many places that all within hearing of the convent bells are safe from storms, and from the evil beings by whom they were promoted. So strong was the impression that bells should be used on every awful occasion, that we find that a person of the name of Dow granted £50 to the parish in which the great prison of Chester is situated, on condition that for ever after, on the night before an execution a man should go at the dead hour of night, and strike, with a hand-bell, twelve tolls with double strokes, as near the cells of the condemned criminals as possible, and then exhort them to repentance. The great bell of the church was to toll as they were passing by on their way to execution, and the bellman was to look over the wall, and exhort all good people to pray to God for the poor sinner who was going to suffer death. Southey takes notice of this in his "Letters of Espriella." Money was also bequeathed to ensure the ringing of the curfew bell in Kidderminster, on one particular night in the year, to celebrate a thanksgiving to God, for the preservatton of the life of a person, who, on his way from Bridgenorth fair, was on the point of being precipitated from a great height, when he was saved by the sound of the Kidderminster curfew, which enabled him to return by the right direction, and to reach his home in safety. Such sanctity has been ascribed to bells, that we find that, in some countries, they are baptized and given the name of some saint. The pious Dionysius Barsalabi wrote a dissertation on bells, in which he ascribes their invention to Noah, as he has found it mentioned in several histories, that a command was given to him that the workmen employed in building the ark X should be summoned to their work by strokes of wood on a bell. The direction given through Moses that the priest should have bells attached to his robe, by which his approach to the sanctuary would be announced to the people, shows the antiquity of their use. Small bells were employed by the Greeks and Romans for civil and military purposes, and were sometimes sounded from temples to summon the people to their religious duties; it is said that their first use in Christian churches was in the fourth century, by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania. Bells have been long used on occasions less sad and solemn than those to which we have alluded. They ring forth a joyous peal to welcome the married pair, who tread the aisle on their way to the altar to join their hands and plight their vows. The merry chimes of the joy-bells proclaim good news, or announce a royal visit. The castanets, which tinkle like puny bells, had a simple origin as the merry peasants danced beneath the spreading branches of the chestnut trees, they picked up the fallen chestnuts, and rattled them in their hands in time to the music of their voices and their graceful movements in the dance. The castanets in use with our public dancers are an imitation of the chestnut, the name being evidently derived from Castanea chesnut. The cap and bells given to fools may have originated from the pleasure which that unfortunate class of beings may have taken in the jingling of bells; this strikes us the more as we remember to have seen one to whom the light of reason and the light of the blessed sun was denied, who took infinite delight in the sound of the triangles with which he was furnished for his amusement; though so much was withheld, an exquisite sense of hearing gave charms to the continuous sound of the triangles, to which his own voice kept time in the monotonous chant of "Ullah, Ullah,” the only articulate sounds he could utter. became less, the sound increased till he thought all the bells of Heaven were ringing him into Paradise, and he felt the most delightful, soothing sensation; and he added, that in the district where this happened, there was not a bell within six miles: There is no end to the traditions connected with bells. Sir John Sinclair, in his account of Scotland, tells of a bell belonging to the old church of St. Fillan, in the parish of Killin, in Perthshire; it usually lay upon a gravestone in the churchyard: it was supposed to possess the miraculous power of restoring the insane to their senses: the maniac was to be dipped in the Saint's pool, after which he was to be bound with ropes, and confined all night in the chapel, and in the morning the bell was placed upon his head, with great solemnity; if this remedy failed, his case was considered incurable. Other marvellous powers were attributed to this bell; if stolen, it was asserted it had the power of extricating itself from the hands of the robber, and would then return to its original place, while it continued ringing the whole way. The belief in subterranean bells has been, from time immemorial, a common superstition in Berkshire, as stated in "Christmas, its History and Antiquity," published in London, in 1850, where if any one watches on Christmas eve, he will hear subterranean bells. And throughout the mining districts the workmen declare that at that holy season, the mine which contains the most precious ore is supernaturally illuminated in the most brilliant manner, and high mass performed with the greatest solemnity, the whole service chanted by the unseen choristers in the most devout and impressive manner. Lord Lindsay gives a translation of a stanza from the poet Upland, founded on the tradition of the Sinaitic peninsula : "Oft in the forest far, one hears A passing sound of distant bells: Can tell us whence the music swells. It is not strange that sounds, which are the prelude to communion with the unseen world, should produce an effect upon the imagination. All who have felt the effect of the Sabbath bells borne on the wind to a remote spot, may conceive how the recollection may float upon the imagination of one who is far away. In describing travelling through the desert, Eothen mentions having been awakened by the sound of a peal of bells. "My native bells, the innocent bells of Mallin, that never before sent forth their music beyond the Blaggon hills, and for upwards of two miles the sound continued, and then gradually died away." It is said that sailors often hear their native bells, when far out upon the seas; and there is many a tale of the mariner, who heard his funeral knell not long before his death, the foam of the surge too having assumed the appearance of his windingsheet. An old man, who had with difficulty been saved from drowning, described the sensations which he had experienced: he fancied he heard the ringing of bells, and, as consciousness In the last stanzas he turns, pathetically, to his But no one now the way can find." "The bell of Arragon, they say, |