19.  Jacob Mayne was not so good as his word, for he did not bring Lucy by the hand to restore her to her parents; but dressed again in her own bonnet and gown, and her own plaid, in rushed their own child, by herself, with tears and sobs of joy, and her father laid her within her mother’s bosom.

Definitions.—­1.  Brae, shelving ground, a declivity or slope of a hill.  Pas’times, sports, plays, 4.  Ri’ot-ing, romping. 5.  Heath’er, an evergreen shrub bearing beautiful flowers, used in Great Britain for making brooms, etc. 6.  In-spired’, animated, enlivened.  Su-per—­nat’u-ral, more than human.  Brake, a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles.  Re-ver’ber-at-ing, resounding, echoing.  In-tent’, having the mind closely fixed. 8.  Plaid (pro. plad), a striped or decked overgarment worn by the Scotch. 9.  E-jac’u-lat-ed, ex-claimed. 11.  Scour, to pass over swiftly and thoroughly.

Note.—­The scene of this story is laid in Scotland, and many of the words employed, such as brae, brake, heather, and plaid, are but little used except in that country.

XXVIII.  THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 1807, d. 1882), the son of Hon. Stephen Longfellow, an eminent lawyer, was born in Portland, Maine.  He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825.  After spending four years in Europe, he was Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bowdoin till 1835, when he was appointed to the chair of Modern Languages and Belles-lettres in Harvard University.  He resigned his professorship in 1854, after which time he resided in Cambridge, Mass.  Longfellow wrote many original works both in verse and prose, and made several translations, the most famous of which is that of the works of Dante.  His poetry is always chaste and elegant, showing traces of careful scholarship in every line.  The numerous and varied editions of his poems are evidences of their popularity.

1.  There is a Reaper whose name is Death,
     And, with his sickle keen,
   He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
     And the flowers that grow between.

2.  “Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he;
     “Have naught but the bearded grain? 
   Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
     I will give them all back again.”

3.  He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
     He kissed their drooping leaves;
   It was for the Lord of Paradise
     He bound them in his sheaves.

4.  “My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”
     The Reaper said, and smiled;
   “Dear tokens of the earth are they,
     Where he was once a child.

5.  “They shall all bloom in the fields of light,
     Transplanted by my care,
   And saints, upon their garments white,
     These sacred blossoms wear.”

6.  And the mother gave in tears and pain
     The flowers she most did love;
   She knew she should find them all again
     In the fields of light above.