the brief struggle of her husband and
Davie with their foes.  The fearful sight
at first benumbed every faculty—but one
cry from her baby roused her from her
stupor of grief and terror.  She snatched the
infant from the cradle, and rushed with it
into the woods, followed by Jenny, the
maid.  The two women concealed themselves
so effectually in the thick under-brush,
that they remained undiscovered, though the
shouts of the savages came to their ears with
horrible distinctness, and even the blaze of
their burning home reddened the sunlight
that struggled through the thick foliage
above them.

When, at length, the party left the little
valley, it passed within a few yards of the
fugitives.  Oh! how fervently the mother
thanked God that her baby slept tranquilly
on her bosom, and by no cry betrayed their
hiding-place!  They did not venture to leave
their leafy sanctuary until evening.  They
were on the side of the clearing opposite the
harvest-fields, and near the road leading to
Cherry Valley.  This they found, and set out
at once for the settlement, which they reached
in safety about midnight, and were kindly
received at one of the fortified houses. The
next day a party of brave men, moved by the
passionate entreaties of the two women, set
out on what was thought a hopeless search
for Captain Lindsay, his sons, and servant.
They reached the harvest-fields safely, found
there the bodies as they had been left,
hastily buried them; and, after vainly seeking
for the missing boys, returned to Cherry
Valley, taking a dread certainty and a faint
hope to the afflicted wife and mother.

Prostrated by her fearful bereavement, yet
not wholly despairing, worn with cruel
anxieties and fatigues, Mrs. Lindsay at last
slept, watched over by her faithful nurse.
She awoke in the early morning, raised herself
eagerly from her pillow, looked around, and
then sank back in tears.

"Oh, Jenny," said she, " I hae had sic a
blessed dream!  I dreamed I saw my twa
boys—only twa noo, Jenny—my brave
Douglas, and the bonnie Angus—coming over
the hill wi' the sunrise.  But they'll no'
come ony mair—they are a' taken frae me—
a' but this wee bit bairnie," she murmured,
pressing her babe to her bosom, and sprinkling
its brow with the bitter baptism of her
tears.  For some minutes she lay thus, weeping
with all that fresh realisation of sorrow and
desolation which comes with the first awakening
from sleep after a great bereavement.
Then she arose and tottered away from
the bed, saying, "Lift the window, Jenny.
I maun look on the hill o' my dream."

Jenny obeyed, and supported her mistress,
as she looked out on the lovely landscape,
kindling in the light of an August morning.
"Ah, Jenny," she said, " it is a' as I dreamed
—the yellow corn on the hill-side, and the
dark pines above—the soft blue of the sky—
the clouds a' rosy and golden, and the glory
o' the sunlight spread a' abroad, like the
smile o' the Lord on this wicked and waefu'
world.  And,—look!—look! Oh, mercifu'
God,—there are the bairns!"

This history, fortunately, has nothing to do
with the terrible massacres and burnings,
which, a few months later, desolated Cherry
Valley and the neighbouring settlements.
Mrs. Lindsay and her children were then safe
in the city of New York.  Immediately on
the close of the war they returned to their
friends in Scotland.

Among the Highlands, Angus Lindsay
lost his extreme delicacy of health, with
it, gradually, his mysterious faculty; yet
he was ever singularly sensitive, thoughtful,
and imaginative; and when he grew
into manhood, though not recognised as a
seer or a prophet, he was accorded a title
which comprehended the greatest attributes
of both—Poet.

Mrs. Lindsay returned to the family estate
with her children; but the widow of her
husband's friend was not deprived of her
sad sanctuary, to which she had finally a
dearer, if not a more sacred right, as the
home of her daughter, the wife of Douglas
Lindsay.

WILD COURT TAMED.

IN October last we described a Heathen
Court—Wild Court, in Great Wild Street,
Drury Lane—which it was proposed to
convert and civilise.  The Society for Improving
the Condition of the Labouring Classes had
obtained leases of thirteen out of the fifteen
or sixteen capacious houses whereof it is
composed; five leases for twenty-one years, and
the rest for thirty, at a ground-rent of not
quite two hundred pounds a-year.  As we
before said, in their early days, these houses
in Wild Court seemed to have been well
tenanted; they were built when Drury Lane
was almost a fashionable thoroughfare, and
were probably tenanted as chambers by
lawyers. They contained, therefore, well-
proportioned rooms, had solid staircases, and in other
respects seemed to admit rather easily of
conversion into decent and well-ordered
dwellings.  We need not repeat what we
have already said of the condition into
which they had sunk before the alterations
were attempted.  One does not easily
forget such facts as that there were open
troughs of ordure passing through the
upper rooms into a half-stagnant open sewer
in the parapet, immediately below the uppermost
windows; that the cellars were full of
refuse filth; that the open stairs were the
night haunt of the filthy, and the back yards
of a morning ankle deep in all abomination.
We have now to add to the preceding report
that what we saw was not by one-tenth so
horrible as what is found to have been