2. No outlaw seeks your castle gate, Though e'en an outlaw's wretched state 3. A weary palmer, worn and weak, Oh, open for our Lady's sake! 4. The hare is crouching in her form, An aged man, amid the storm, No shelter can I find. 5. You hear the Ettrick's sullen.roar; Dark, deep, and strong is he; And I must ford the Ettrick o'er, Unless you pity me. 6. The iron gate is bolted hard, At which I knock in vain ; 7. "Farewell, farewell! and Heaven grant, When old and frail you be, You never may the shelter want, 8. The Ranger on his couch lay warm, 9. For lo, when through the vapours dark, A corpse amid the alders rank, The palmer weltered there. Sir Walter Scott. Palmer, so called from the staff he used to bear on returning from the Holy Land. The Ettrick is a river in the county of Selkirk, in Scotland, rising in a mountain called Ettrick Pen, flowing through the romantic district of Ettrick Forest, and falling into the Tweed below Abbotsford. 1. Name the birds and animals which are included under the term "game." 2. A "herd of deer" means a number of deer: what is the word in each instance for a number of sheep, of geese, of fish, of soldiers, of pigs, of partridges, of bees, of young girls. 3. Express the sense of the two last stanzas in prose. TWO SIDES TO A PICTURE; OR, THE APPARITION AND THE REALITY. 1. A LITTLE girl and her grandmother were trudging wearily along the high road which leads from London to Brighton. It was a melancholy story. A working man, in the prime of life, had died gradually, after a long illness, from consumption, and his young wife, after a few days, had followed him, partly from a broken heart, leaving their only child, a little daughter, to the care of her aged grandmother. 2. It was past middle day. The sun was high in the heavens, and it was insufferably hot. Wayworn and weary, and white from head to foot with dust, they crept through a hole in the hedge into an adjoining field, where they sat down in the shadow of a hedge-row elm on the inside of the bank. 3. A party of school children are passing by, gaily chattering and laughing. They had passed without observing the wayfarers, when suddenly it occurred. to the old woman that she would inquire her way of them. Bare-headed-for she had taken off her bonnet-and with dishevelled locks, she rose, and waved her old umbrella at them. "A witch! a witch!" screamed the eldest girl, who should have known better. "There's her broomstick!" "Oh, 4. "Which is the right way to Brigh" she says she's a witch, and she rides away in the sky," shrieked another. "Stop! you silly children!" "Oh! she says, 'Stop! or I'll kill ye, children!' Oh! oh!" they yelled in chorus, and off they ran screaming to their respective homes. "You seem to have frightened them, granny," remarked the little girl, with a laugh. 5. They gathered themselves up. They continued their journey. They arrived at last at their destination-the house of a married relative-where they were received with open arms. The cousin-for such he was and his wife were childless. They adopted the little girl, and educated her, and made much of her, and she became to them as their own child. The grandmother was accommodated with a chair in the chimney corner, and passed the remainder of her days in happiness. And this was one side to the picture. 6. Meanwhile the children had carried the news of the apparition to their parents, and it spread far and wide, and the whole parish and the whole countryside were convulsed by it. At last it came to the ears of an old gentleman who was engaged in writing a very learned work on "Apparitions." He went to the school. The children were summoned before him. He examined them closely. 7. "Be careful now!" he said. "You tell me she was a skinny old woman in white, with a broomstick in her hand. What did she remark to you?" "That she was a witch, and rode away in the sky," they shouted. "And what was her subsequent observation?" "Stop! or I'll kill ye, children." 8. "There!" exclaimed the old gentleman triumphantly, turning to the school teacher, who was contemptuously sceptical about the whole affair, "was there ever a case of a supernatural appearance more completely established in every point? Follow me, as I recapitulate. An old woman'—of course, they were always old women-' in white'-that is, of the vaporous, translucent substance of the upper æther; with the customary broomstick in her hand; who admits she is a witch, and rides on the wings of the wind, and is animated by the horrible desire, which is inherent in beings of her malignant character, to compass the death of human-kind. Can you explain all these circumstances?" 9. "No, I cannot," answered the teacher; “yet I am still confidently of opinion that they do admit of some rational explanation." "We don't want your opinions, we want facts," rejoined his questioner, "and here we've got them. Never in the whole course of my experience or reading have I met with an instance of a supernatural apparition more incontestably established by the mouth of living witnesses." And the old gentleman went home, and added this story to other stories of a similar description in his very learned work on "Apparitions." And this was the other side to the picture. U. was A witch is the same as the Old English or Anglo-Saxon word wicce, which is a corruption of witga, a prophet or magician. Wicce is the feminine and wicca the masculine form of the word, and "wicked " the participle, meaning originally one who was bewitched, accursed, perverted. A witch in old time was supposed to ride through the air on a broomstick, or rake, or distaff, or the like, and witchcraft was a crime for which persons were liable to be tried and executed. 1. Mention and describe any popular superstitions which you know still to be existing. 2. Name all the articles useful for house cleaning and household work besides a broom. 3. Parse: "And this was the other side to the picture." Ac-com'-mo-da-ted. Ap-pa-ri'-ti-on, appearance, ghost. Di-shev'-el-led, with hair scattered, hanging in disorder. In-con-test'-a-ble, not to be contested or disputed. Mal-ig-nant, of evil disposition. Oc-cur'-red, happened. Trans-lu'-cent, shining through. |