of secret murder?"
As if from redundant happiness within himself, he was humming, or rather
cooing, a strain of music, so sweet, so wildly sweet, and so unlike the
music one hears from tutored lips in crowded rooms! I passed my hand
over my forehead in bewilderment and awe.

"Are there," I said unconsciously,--"are there, indeed, such prodigies
in Nature?"

"Nature!" he cried, catching up the word; "talk to me of Nature! Talk of
her, the wondrous blissful mother! Mother I may well call her. I am her
spoiled child, her darling! But oh, to die, ever to die, ever to lose
sight of Nature!--to rot senseless, whether under these turfs or within
those dead walls--"

I could not resist the answer,--

"Like yon murdered man! murdered, and by whom?"

"By whom? I thought that was clearly proved."

"The hand was proved; what influence moved the hand?"

"Tush! the poor wretch spoke of a Demon. Who can tell? Nature herself
is a grand destroyer. See that pretty bird, in its beak a writhing worm!
All Nature's children live to take life; none, indeed, so lavishly as
man. What hecatombs slaughtered, not to satisfy the irresistible sting
of hunger, but for the wanton ostentation of a feast, which he may
scarcely taste, or for the mere sport that he finds in destroying! We
speak with dread of the beasts of prey: what beast of prey is so dire
a ravager as man,--so cruel and so treacherous? Look at yon flock
of sheep, bred and fattened for the shambles; and this hind that I
caress,--if I were the park-keeper, and her time for my bullet had come,
would you think her life was the safer because, in my own idle whim, I
had tamed her to trust to the hand raised to slay her?"

"It is true," said I,--"a grim truth. Nature, on the surface so loving
and so gentle, is full of terror in her deeps when our thought descends
into their abyss!"

Strahan now joined us with a party of country visitors. "Margrave is
the man to show you the beauties of this park," said he. "Margrave knows
every bosk and dingle, twisted old thorn-tree, or opening glade, in its
intricate, undulating ground."

Margrave seemed delighted at this proposition; and as he led us through
the park, though the way was long, though the sun was fierce, no one
seemed fatigued. For the pleasure he felt in pointing out detached
beauties which escaped an ordinary eye was contagious. He did not talk
as talks the poet or the painter; but at some lovely effect of light
amongst the tr