come from the other world to terrify the good
people of this. The confusion, however, soon ceased; for Durie began to
speak softly to them, and, taking his dear lady in his arms, pressed her
to his bosom in a way that satisfied her that he was no ghost, but her
own lord, who, by some mischance, had been spirited away by some bad
angels. The children gradually recovered their confidence, and in a
short time joy took the place of fear, and all the neighbourhood was
filled with the news that Lord Durie had come alive again, and was in
the living body in his own house. Shortly after the good lord sat down
by the fire and got his supper, and, by the quantity he ate, satisfied
his lady and family still more that he carried a good body, with as
fair a capability of reception as he ever exhibited after a walk at the
Figgate Whins. He told them all he had undergone since first he was
carried away, not forgetting the two spirits, Batty and Maudge, that had
tormented him so cruelly during the period of his enchantment. The lady
and family stared with open mouths as they heard the dreadful recital;
but a goodly potation of warm spiced wine drove off the vapours produced
by the dismal story, and, by-and-by, Lord Durie and his wife retired to
bed--the one weary and exhausted with his trials, and the other with her
terrors and her joys.

RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS.[F]

CHAPTER I.

"Wear we not graven on our hearts
The name of Robert Burns!"--_American Poet._

The degrees shorten as we proceed from the higher to the lower
latitudes--the years seem to shorten in a much greater ratio as we pass
onward through life. We are almost disposed to question whether the
brief period of storms and foul weather that floats over us with such
dream-like rapidity, and the transient season of flowers and sunshine
that seems almost too short for enjoyment, be at all identical with the
long summers and still longer winters of our boyhood, when day after day
and week after week stretched away in dim perspective, till lost in the
obscurity of an almost inconceivable distance. Young as I was, I had
already passed the period of life when we wonder how it is that the
years should be described as short and fleeting; and it seemed as if
I had stood but yesterday beside the death-bed of the unfortunate
Ferguson, though the flowers of four summers and the snows of four
winters had now been shed over his grave.

[F] Our author, Hugh Miller,