ople. The love songs,
with their extraordinary freshness and vivid emotion, delighted Neal.
Like many lovers of poetry, he tasted the full pleasure of verse best
when he read it aloud. One after another he declaimed the marvellous
songs, returning again and again to one which seemed peculiarly suited
to his circumstances--

"It's not the roar o' sea or shore
Wad make me longer wish to tarry;
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar--
It's leaving thee, my bonny Mary."

He read the song aloud for the fourth time. As he uttered the last words
he heard a laugh, and, looking up, saw his host, Felix Matier, standing
at the door of the room.

"Well, Neal, good morrow to you. You're well enough in body, to judge
by your voice. But if that poem's a measure of the state of your mind
you're sick at heart. Never mind Mary, man. There's better stuff in
Burns than that. He's no bad poet, is Rabbie Burns. Listen to this now.
Here's one I'm fond of."

He took the book out of Neal's hand, and read him "Holy Willie's
Prayer." His dry intonation', his perfect rendering of the dialect of
the poem, the sly twinkle of his eyes as he read, added exquisite malice
to the satire.

"But maybe," he said, "I oughtn't to be reading the like of that to you
that's the son of the Manse, though nobody would think of Holy Willie
and your father together. I'm not very fond of the clergy myself, Neal,
either of your Church or another. I'm much of John Milton's opinion that
new presbyter is just old priest writ large, but if there's one kind
of minister that's not so bad as the rest it's the New Light men of
the Ulster Synod, and your father's one of the best of them. But here's
something now that Micah Ward would approve of. Just let me read you
this. I'll have time enough before your uncle comes in. He's not a
man of books, that uncle of yours, and I'd be ashamed if he caught me
reading at this hour of the day. But listen to me now."

He took up the volume of "Voltaire" and read--

L'ame des grands travaux, l'objet des nobles voeux,
Que tout mortel embrasse, ou desire, ou rapelle,
Qui vit dans tous les coeurs, et dont le nom sacre
Dans les cours des tyrans est tout bas adore, La Liberte!
J'ai vu cette deesse altiere
Avec egalite repandant tous les biens,
Descendre de Morat en habit de guerriere,
Les mains teintes du sang des fiers Autrichiens
Et de Charles le Temeraire