Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 | Page 7

polluted with blood. Guardian Angels were they thought to be, and
such indeed they were, for what else are the holy powers of
innocence?--Guardian Angels sent to save some of God's servants on
earth from the choking tide and the scorching fire. Often, in the clear
and starry nights, did the dwellers among all these little dells, and up
along all these low hill-sides, hear music flowing down from heaven,
responsive to the hymns of the Blessed Family. Music without the
syllabling of words--yet breathing worship, and with the spirit of piety
filling all the Night-Heavens. One whole day and night passed by, and
not a hut had been enlightened by their presence. Perhaps they had
gone away without warning as they had come--having been sent on
another mission. With soft steps one maiden, and then another, entered
the door, and then was heard the voice of weeping and of loud lament.
The three lay, side by side, with their pale faces up to heaven. Dora, for
that is the name tradition has handed down--Dorothea, the gift of God,
lay between her Father and her Mother, and all their hands were
lovingly and peacefully entwined. No agonies had been
there--unknown what hand, human or divine, had closed their eyelids
and composed their limbs; but there they lay as if asleep, not to be
awakened by the burst of sunshine that dazzled upon their smiling
countenances, cheek to cheek, in the awful beauty of united death.
The deep religion of that troubled time had sanctified the Strangers
almost into an angelic character; and when the little kirk-bells were
again heard tinkling through the air of peace (the number of the martyrs
being complete), the beauty with which their living foreheads had been
invested, reappeared to the eyes of imagination, as the Poets whom
Nature kept to herself walked along the moonlight hills. "The Blessed
Family," which had been as a household word, appertaining to them
while they lived, now when centuries have gone by, is still full of a dim
but divine meaning; the spirit of the tradition having remained, while
its framework has almost fallen into decay.

How beautifully emerges that sun-stricken Cottage from the rocks, that
all around it are floating in a blue vapoury light! Were we so disposed,
methinks we could easily write a little book entirely about the obscure
people that have lived and died about that farm, by name LOGAN
BRAES. Neither is it without its old traditions. One May-day long
ago--some two centuries since--that rural festival was there interrupted
by a thunderstorm, and the party of youths and maidens, driven from
the budding arbours, were all assembled in the ample kitchen. The
house seemed to be in the very heart of the thunder; and the master
began to read, without declaring it to be a religious service, a chapter of
the Bible; but the frequent flashes of lightning so blinded him, that he
was forced to lay down the Book, and all then sat still without speaking
a word; many with pale faces, and none without a mingled sense of awe
and fear. The maiden forgot her bashfulness as the rattling peals shook
the roof-tree, and hid her face in her lover's bosom; the children crept
closer and closer, each to some protecting knee, and the dogs came all
into the house, and lay down in dark places. Now and then there was a
convulsive, irrepressible, but half-stifled shriek--some sobbed--and a
loud hysterical laugh from one overcome with terror sounded ghastly
between the deepest of all dread repose--that which separates one peal
from another, when the flash and the roar are as one, and the thick air
smells of sulphur. The body feels its mortal nature, and shrinks as if
about to be withered into nothing. Now the muttering thunder seems to
have changed its place to some distant cloud--now, as if returning to
blast those whom it had spared, waxes louder and fiercer than
before--till the Great Tree that shelters the house is shivered with a
noise like the masts of a ship carried away by the board. "Look, father,
look--see yonder is an Angel all in white, descending from heaven!"
said little Alice, who had already been almost in the attitude of prayer,
and now clasped her hands together, and steadfastly, and without fear
of the lightning, eyed the sky. "One of God's Holy Angels--one of those
who sing before the Lamb!" And with an inspired rapture the fair child
sprung to her feet. "See ye her not--see ye her not--father--mother! Lo!
she beckons to me with a palm in her hand, like one of the palms in that
picture in our Bible, when our Saviour is entering into Jerusalem!
There she comes, nearer and nearer the earth--Oh! pity, forgive, and
have mercy