THE COTTER'S DAUGHTER.


It was a cold stormy night in December, and the green logs as they
blazed and crackled on the Cotter's hearth, were rendered more
delightful, more truly comfortable, by the contrast with the icy showers
of snow and sleet which swept against the frail casement, making all
without cheerless and miserable.

The Cotter was a handsome, intelligent old man, and afforded me much
information upon glebes, and flocks, and rural economy; while his
spouse, a venerable matron, was humming to herself some long since
forgotten ballad; and industriously twisting and twirling about her long
knitting needles, that promised soon to produce a pair of formidable
winter hose. Their son, a stout, healthy young peasant of
three-and-twenty, was sitting in the spacious chimney corner, sharing
his frugal supper of bread and cheese with a large, shaggy sheep dog,
who sat on his haunches wistfully watching every mouthful, and snap,
snap, snapping, and dextrously catching every morsel that was cast
to him.

We were all suddenly startled, however, by his loud bark; when, jumping
up, he rushed, or rather flew towards the door.

"Whew! whew!" whistled the youth--"Whoy--what the dickens ails thee,
Rover?" said he, rising and following him to the door to learn the cause
of his alarm. "What! be they gone again, ey?" for the dog was silent.
"What do thee sniffle at, boy? On'y look at 'un feyther; how the beast
whines and waggles his stump o' tail!--It's some 'un he knows for
sartain. I'd lay a wager it wur Bill Miles com'd about the