Why, worthy thane You do unbend your noble strength, to think So brain-sickly of things:—go, get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand.— Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go. Carry them; and smear The sleepy grooms with blood. _Mac._ I’ll go no more; I am afraid to think on what I have done. Look out again I dare not. _Lady._ Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: _The sleeping and the dead are but as portions_: ’Tis the eye of _childhood_, that fears a _painted devil_. If he does bleed I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withall For it must seem their guilt. Thus, braving heaven, denying God, laughing to derision the idea of conscience, and impiously promising that the blood may be washed from their hands with a _little water_, glorying in the butchery of the good old king, and accumulating murder upon murder, she rushes on her fate, and, like all who oppose the Creator and Judge of the Universe, is dashed to pieces. ----- [1] “My mind she has _mated_.” This expression is supposed to be taken from chess playing. She has _confounded_ my mind. * * * * * THE GLAD RETREAT. BY E. G. SQUIRES. Beneath an elm, a green old elm, I raised a rustic seat, The boughs low bending o’er my head, The green grass at my feet. A little streamlet dancing by, With voice so clear and sweet; The air-spirit’s low and mournful sigh— Oh, ’twas a glad retreat! And often at the dewy morn, Just when the earliest ray, That from the chariot of the sun, Betokened coming day— I’d hie me to my glad retreat, To that old elm I’d stray, And by that rude and rustic seat, I’d kneel me down and pray. And at the sultry hour of noon, I’d seek the cooling shade, And listen to the murmuring sound That little streamlet made. And watched the bright birds glancing through The branches, old and young— And wondered as they gaily flew, What was the song they sung. But time has passed, those days are gone, Ay, more, long years have fled— And lying o’er that little brook, A withered trunk and dead. But memory often wanders back, On Fancy’s pinions free— I’ll ne’er forget the rustic seat Beneath the old elm tree! * * * * * THE REEFER OF ’76. BY THE “AUTHOR OF CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.” THE CONCLUSION.