the country on the other side of the Rhine; but was it possible to believe that circumstances so remarkable could be only a coincidence? And yet by this time and I endeavoured to remember the date accurately-he must have returned. If he was a living man he would have seen his mistress on the day of which their year of separation expired. The Marsh-maiden had relapsed into an attitude of watching, and the moonlight, which was now stronger, disclosed with tolerable distinctness her death-like face and long white raiment. The idea occurred to me of a beautiful and virgin corpse, in its grave dress. "Do you believe your lover to be dead?" said I, softly.

Alas, I know it too well! I am doomed to wander till I meet him, for he alone can give me rest. This night is the anniversary of his death; and I must watch for him till the dawn. He is not here-nor there-nor there. Come, I will show you where his body lies!" and she was about, as I imagined, to step backwards into a pond of black thick water.

"Hold!" cried I, endeavouring to seize her arm; but she withdrew it, and raised her paper lamp to my face in apparent astonishment. Another step would have been fatal-and I pronounced, with the solemnity of a spell, the name of Ernest Wald! A long wild scream broke from her lips at the word, and rung far over the dismal abyss.

That is the name!" she shrieked. "It is he! it is he!" and then, dropping her voice suddenly, and looking up with a smile, as if of blandishment, in

my face, " Come," she whispered, "and I will show you where he lies-give me your hand!" I shrunk back aghast; and in an instant, with a laugh that pierced my very brain, she sprang over the pond of black water.

I can no more explain my conduct than I could repeat it. I do not know what were the ideas which flashed across my mind. I do not remember whether I measured the gulf with my eye before darting across; but the next moment I stood beside her on the black, crumbling, quivering, tottering sod.

"Well done!" cried the Marshmaiden; and as I felt my footing give way, with a desperate effort I cleared the next pool.

"Well done! well done!" repeated the Marsh-maiden. There was no time to think-to stand still would have been

madness-to turn, death. Mingling, besides, with my terror, there now arose a strange feeling of exultation at her words of applause; and as I bounded after the flying phantom, a maniac pride took possession of my heart. It would be in vain to attempt to describe the dreams of this intoxication. I was in the wake of a spirit, and I knew that her goblin-light was to lead me to destruction. The words rung in my ears, and seemed to be repeated by myriads of voices from every corner of the marsh. The toads put up their heads and laughed at me as I passed; the spotted serpent looked round at me as he wriggled hastily out of my way. On swept the spectral maid, her lantern swinging to and fro in the wind, as she continued to shriek, "Well done! well done!"

Tramp, tramp, across the land we speed-
Splash, splash, across the sea—
Hurrah! the dead can ride,
Dost fear to ride with me?

On a sudden she disappeared, and I fell to the ground.

My first feelings, as I lay prostrate grasping the wet sod that seemed to melt in my grasp, were of awe and terror. The sulky splashing and gurgling of the waters were in my ear. The reeling of the frail and fearful vessel on which I floated, indicated that it was unconnected with any bottom; and my thoughts lost themselves in fathoming the loathsome gulf over which I hung, and into which I was about to descend. I raised my head, and looked round in despair. Á universal croak, like hoarse laughter at my humiliation, arose from the foul denizens of the marsh; the snakes fixed their eyes in deep hatred upon mine; and the beetles and tadpoles gamboled in grotesque triumph around

me.

At this moment I heard again the voice of the Marsh-maiden. It was hollow and sepulchral, as if it came from beneath the surface; and looking onward in a horizontal direction, I saw on a level with myself the faint halo of her lamp above the sod.

"He is here!" she cried; "we are at our journey's end come on! well done!" and as if compelled by enchant

ment, I sprang furiously upon my feet and darted forward, feeling the sod on which I had lain, part in fragments as I spurned it from me. The bank on which I now found myself, though tremulous like the rest, felt more secure, and I bounded recklessly towards the light. The next moment, however, the moon escaped providentially from the drifting clouds, and threw a steady gleam upon the scene. A single step more would have plunged me into a gulf in which hope itself could not live for

an instant.

This was a deep pit, about five yards in diameter, and half filled with black thick water. The sides projected towards the top, as if the part more exposed to the poisonous fluid had been eaten away --all except in one spot where the bank had fallen down, and hung shelving several feet over the surface.

On the edge of this bank stood the Marsh-maiden, holding her lamp down to the water as if looking for some object, and bending forward like a being at once unsusceptible of fear, and unattainable by danger. Closer and closer she neared the brink-further and further she hung over the gulf-muttering without interval." He is here! he is here! he is here!" till at length I could see pieces of the sod detaching themselves beneath her feet, and sinking into the thick and slimy wave. It may be that my human feelings had returned with the increase of light, or on the providential escape I had just had; but at this moment a cry of warning broke, almost unconsciously from my lips. Dangerous mentor! she looked up at the word; a larger fragment gave way in the motion; and I saw her sinking into the abyss. Without the hesitation of a second, I sprung down upon the bank beside her, caught her in my arms, and dragged her away from the brink. But the additional weight was fatal; for the whole mass on which we stood detached itself from the side of the pit, and plunged slowly and sullenly into the

water.

With a mighty roll, the obscene wave rose almost to the lip, on the opposite side of the chasm; but while I, by clambering up the precipice (the fallen bank having grounded near the side), and digging hands and feet into the soft mud, prepared for the reaction, it was

with the utmost difficulty I could retain my slight burden in my grasp, so intently did she watch for the secrets which might be disclosed by the motion of the tide. At the second roll, although the fluid in the middle was blacker and thicker, there was no other appearance; at the third I felt the Marsh-maiden sink lifeless in my arms-and looking down in terror, I saw a human hand stretched towards us, out of the now almost calm water, with the fingers curved, either in beckoning or grasping. It was no illusion! It neither came suddenly nor so disappeared: but having remained distinctly visible for upwards of a minute, it descended gradually into the deep from whence it had arisen.

The moon,

By almost unconscious efforts I gained the summit of the bank, with the lifeless maiden in my arms. travelling through the gusty sky, was sometimes apparent, and sometimes wholly hidden; and the shadows of the clouds chased one another like spectres along the bosom of the marsh. By and by, one, two, and three small flitting lights appeared and disappeared, glancing from bank to bank, and from pool to pool; and my imagination placed them in fitting hands. Unearthly voices then began to call and answer from every point of the desolate morass; and at length a multitudinous sound, as if of sobbing, shook the air.

I felt that this was disease, and strove to overcome it. I raised the pale, cold, lovely form in my arms; and, looking round as if to threaten the imaginary dangers by which I was environed, prepared to inquire whether escape was possible.

To leap, however, with such a burden in my arms, would have been impossible; and a rotting plank, therefore, lying near, which had perhaps been formerly used as a bridge over one of the pools, was a most welcome object. I planted it wherever I found it necessary, and when I had passed, drew it after me. If it is remembered that I could only remove one of my burdens at a time, and that this part of the morass is nothing more than a cluster of half-floating islands, it may be understood how difficult and tedious was the task I had undertaken. The poor girl, however, gave signs of returning animation, and I pursued the labour as energetically as

the exhaustion consequent on my previous excitement permitted; and at length, to shorten a story already too long, I was fully rewarded for my zeal, on arriving at the brink of the morass, on the opposite side from the village where I lodged, and seeing her open her eyes.

My name is Matilda Liebenstein," said she, faintly, "the road that you see close by, will lead us to my father's house; conduct me thither, but depart not till I recover strength enough to converse with you-for the last time." When we had gained the house, it was with much difficulty I could get the servants to hear me, or hearing, to open the door. But when at length they saw my companion face to face, great and unaffected was their surprise, on recognising their young mistress.

"She has been on the marsh again!" I heard one of them remark aside. "I suspected that all was not right, because she looked so sad and pale; but who could have thought that so good, and gentle, and civil spoken a young lady, was stark mad ?"

As soon as it was daylight, a messenger came to me from Matilda, who desired to see me instantly. This was cruelly provoking. It was my earnest desire to have ascertained in the first place (if such was the fact!) that the corpse was that of a stranger; and then, presenting myself before the sufferer, to awaken her, for the second time, to new life, by communicating the intelligence that Ernest was alive. What could I now say? It would be the height of cruelty, under the circumstances, to give her a gleam of hope; for I knew too much of the character of Ernest Wald, and his unchangeable resolves, to believe that if he was a living man he would have failed in his purpose of seeing his mistress on the last unhappy night. Might he not have recognised her lamp on the morass, and perished in the attempt to join her? The hand I had seen I recollected perfectly, was as unchanged as if the owner had not been dead an hour!

My interview with the unhappy young lady was painful in the extreme. She could tell me, however, little but what I already knew, or had correctly guessed. No sooner, it appeared, had she despatched the fatal message for her lover, than the

idea flashed upon her mind that he would require to come by the morass; and she knew enough of his devoted love and daring courage, to be well aware that he would not shrink from the peril. She waited at the place of meeting, almost in a state of frenzy, till the castle clock had tolled the hour; and then, flying to the morass, screamed her lover's name till she lost her senses. From this moment she had been subject to the fits of lunacy that are termed monomania. The strik ing of a particular hour-a certain aspect of the skies at night-any thing that recalled forcibly the event, awakened an uncontrollable desire to go to meet her lover on the marsh. I left her for the present, with the conviction on her mind that the dead hand we had seen was her lover's, extended towards her by supernatural power, as a sign and a warning of her approaching death.

At length we arrived within sight of the pit. The dreadful hole seemed indeed a fitting receptacle for every thing abhorrent to human nature; and I shuddered at the sight of the thick, black, slimy waters, reflecting as tranquilly the light of the morning sky, as if they did not contain a corpse. The domestics seemed to be impressed with awe, and their directions to each other were given in whispers. When about to throw down their grapples, a slight stir took place in the middle of the surface, and the next moment a toad put up its hideous head to reconnoitre, and then dived down and disappeared. This slight circumstance shook the nerves of the boldest among them, and it was with trembling hands and beating hearts that they went on with their task.

The dead body eluded their search for some time, but at length it was announced that some ponderous object was attached to one of the hooks. The united efforts of the men raised it gradually to the surface. The hair, seen below the water, was the colour of Ernest Wald's, and my heart sickened. The face then gleamed through the halftransparent fluid-and my sight grew dim. The corpse, in fine, was raised with a sudden jerk, and seemed to stand erect in the water-it was the corpse of a stranger!

"It is Hugo!" cried the men, gazing in horror upon the dead face of a comrade of their own. "It is the servant

of the young baron, who was to have been married to our mistress!"

It

Bring the body," said I, "to the castle:" and turning back on the instant, I sprang like a greyhound from bank to bank, till I had cleared the morass. now was explained. The man, who was a daring young fellow, instead of going round by the public road, had taken the more dangerous route, either to signalize his zeal, or in the mere wantonness of youthful courage. The neighbours, of course, supposed that he had followed his master, and no inquiry was ever made into his fate.

I now determined to state plainly to Matilda the facts so far as I knew them, but I must draw a veil over our interview, and spare the reader the description of feelings which he can easily imagine. From the very abyss of despair, her imagination bounded to the extreme of hope. She would listen to no caution. A thousand circumstances might have occurred to detain her lover. He was even now only a few hours beyond the appointed time. I became alarmed for her intellects!

"Hush! hark! he shall come! He is in the avenue-he is on the stairs he is in the room! Oh, my poor heart! He is surely here-I feel that he is in the room! Ernest, Ernest!"

"Matilda! oh, my Matilda!" It was the voice of Ernest Wald. He had glided into the room unnoticed except by the mysterious sympathies of love, and unable longer to control his feelings, appeared like a spirit summoned by magic, and clasped her in his arms.

It was his voice which the night before had swelled the burden of the sounds my distempered imagination_reckoned supernatural-it was his friendship that had kindled the lights, which mingled with the small meteors of the marsh. Passing through the village in the evening, on his way to Matilda's house, he had learned from the inhabitants, who were gathered in a knot about the inn door, that an English stranger had been decoyed away by the spectre-lights, and drowned in the marsh. At the word "English," he ran to the room which had been mine, and to his surprise and horror recognised my portmanteau. It was fortunate for all parties, that he confined his search to the borders of the morass, never imagining for a moment that a person acquainted, as he supposed me to be, with the common phenomena of nature, would be mad enough to venture into the interior, in pursuit of an ignis fatuus. Had he been early enough to have seen us, and to have followed the strange chase-had the meeting and recognition taken place among the crumbling, melting islands of the morass, the destruction of all three would probably have been the consequence.

Matilda's father is now dead; and by a judicious application of his small means, her husband continues draining, year after year, a considerable portion of the marsh. When the whole of that extensive tract is brought under cultivation, it is supposed that Ernest Wald will be one of the richest proprietors in this district of the Palatinate.

VOL. IV.

You have all heard of the Cheviot mountains. If you have not, they are a rough, rugged, majestic, chain of hills, which a poet might term the Roman wall of Nature; crowned with snow, belted with storms, surrounded by pastures and fruitful fields, and still dividing the northern portion of Great Britain from the southern. With their proud summits piercing the clouds, and their dark rocky declivities frowning upon the plains below, they appear symbolical of the wild and untameable spirits of the Borderers who once inhabited their sides. We say, you have all heard of the Cheviots, and know them to be very high hills, like a huge clasp rivetting England and Scotland together; but we are not aware that you may have heard of Marchlaw, an old, gray-looking farm-house, substantial as a modern fortress, recently, and, for aught we know to the contrary, still inhabited by Peter Elliot, the proprietor of some five hundred surrounding acres. The boundaries of Peter's farm indeed were defined neither by fields, hedges, nor stone walls. A wooden stake here, and a stone there, at consider able distances from each other, were the general landmarks; but neither Peter nor his neighbours considered a few acres worth quarrelling about; and their sheep frequently visited each other's pastures in a friendly way, harmoniously sharing a family dinner in the same spirit as their masters made themselves free at each other's table.

Peter was placed in very unpleasant

circumstances, owing to the situation of Marchlaw-house, which unfortunately was built immediately across the "ideal line" dividing the two kingdoms; and his misfortune was, that, being born within it, he knew not whether he was an Englishman or a Scotchman. He could trace his ancestral line no further back than his greatgrand father, who, it appeared from the family Bible, had, together with his grandfather and father, claimed Marchlaw as his birth-place. They, however, were not involved in the same perplexities as their descendant. The parlour was distinctly acknowledged to be in Scotland, and twothirds of the kitchen were as certainly allowed to be in England; his three ancestors were born in the room over the

parlour, and therefore were Scotchmen beyond question; but Peter, unluckily, being brought it to the world before the death of his grandfather, his parents occupied a room immediately over the debateable boundary line, which crossed the kitchen. The room, though scarcely eight feet square, was evidently situated between the two countries; but, no one being able to ascertain what portion belonged to each, Peter, after many arguments and altercations upon the subject, was driven to the disagreeable alternative of confessing he knew not what countryman he was. What rendered the confession the more painful was, it was Peter's highest ambition to be thought a Scotchman; all his arable land lay on the Scotch side; his mother was collaterally related to the Stuarts; and few