the dove that is sent by some Jew stock-jobber, to
communicate to Dutchmen the rise or fall of the funds, from London to
Hamburg, from the clear shores of silver Thames to the muddy shallows of
the Zuyder Zee.

THE MOORS.

FLIGHT FOURTH--DOWN RIVER AND UP LOCH.

Let us inspect the state of Brown Bess. Right barrel empty--left
barrel--what is the meaning of this?--crammed to the muzzle! Ay, that
comes of visiting Stills. We have been snapping away at the coveys and
single birds all over the moor, without so much as a pluff, with the
right-hand cock--and then, imagining that we had fired, have kept
loading away at the bore to the left, till, see! the ramrod absolutely
stands upright in the air, with only about three inches hidden in the
hollow! What a narrow--a miraculous escape has the world had of losing
Christopher North! Had he drawn that trigger instead of this, Brown Bess
would have burst to a moral certainty, and blown the old gentleman
piecemeal over the heather. "In the midst of life we are in death!"
Could we but know one in a hundred of the close approachings of the
skeleton, we should lead a life of perpetual shudder. Often and often do
his bony fingers almost clutch our throat, or his foot is put out to
give us a cross-buttock. But a saving arm pulls him back, ere we have
seen so much as his shadow. We believe all this--but the belief that
comes not from something steadfastly present before our eyes, is barren;
and thus it is, since believing is not seeing, that we walk hoodwinked
nearly all our days, and worst of all blindness is that of ingratitude
and forgetfulness of Him whose shield is for ever over us, and whose
mercy shall be with us in the world beyond the grave.

By all that is most beautifully wild in animated nature, a Roe! a Roe!
Shall we slay him where he stands, or let him vanish in silent glidings
in among his native woods? What a fool for asking ourselves such a
question! Slay him where he stands to be sure--for many pleasant seasons
hath he led in his leafy lairs, a life of leisure, delight, and love,
and the hour is come when he must sink down on his knees in a sudden
and unpainful death--fair sylvan dreamer! We have drawn that
multitudinous shot--and both barrels of Brown Bess now are loaded with
ball--for Hamish is yet lying with his head on the rifle. Whiz! whiz!
one is through lungs, and another through neck--and seemingly rather to
sleep than die (so various are the many mo