ior's gleaming helmet;
the Priest in his sable robe; the hoary Grandsire, who has run life's
circle and come back to childhood; the ruddy School-boy with his golden
curls, frisking along the march; the Artisan's stuff jacket; the
Noble's star-decorated coat;--the whole presenting a motley spectacle,
yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward, into that
dimness where the lights of Time which have blazed along the
procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We know not;
and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the tramp
of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. He knows not,
more than we, our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will
not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in
infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way!

FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND

"Dickon," cried Mother Rigby, "a coal for my pipe!"

The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. She had
thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to
light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire
having been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the
order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the
pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from Mother Rigby's lips. Whence the
coal came, and how brought thither by an invisible hand, I have never
been able to discover.

"Good!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. "Thank ye, Dickon!
And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I
need you again."

The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely
sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended
to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of
May, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little,
green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn just peeping out of the soil.
She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as
ever was seen, and to finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that
it should begin its sentinel's duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby
(as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent
witches in New England, and might, with very little trouble, have made
a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. But on this
occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was
further dulcified by her pip