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Mary D. Brine

TIS A A Song of the Harvest.

IS harvest-tide, and a tremulous quiver Ripples across the broad seas of grain; The breezes whisper the news to the river; That harvest time has come again!

And the river rapt in its secret, hushes, Then carries its tale to the swaying rushes, Who nod their heads in solemn pride; But the listening birds that round them throng Break blithely forth in joyous song-- "Hurrah for the ripe corn far and wide!

Hurrah for the golden harvest-tide!"

At eventide glad earnest voices Unite in chorus pure and strong; The weary son of toil rejoices, And the children join the harvest song; Until when the ruddy sunset flushes Die out in the west, the chorus hushes, And a chant of praise for wants supplied Goes up to Him who gives the grain; And then all hearts break forth again- "Thank God for the ripe corn far and wide!

Thank God for the joyous harvest-tide!"

Wonderful Instances of Courage.

MONG the many extraordinary features in the character of Charles XII of Sweden, not the least prominent were the entire contempt of coolly as if nothing had happened. At length, some one noticed that the king's boot was covered with blood, and a surgeon was at once sent for, to see the wound. By the time he came it had become so painful that Charles had to be lifted from his horse and carried to his tot. At first the surgeons were all of opinion that the only possible remedy lay in amputating the limb, until one of them, a surgeon named Neumann, declared that he was confident he could effect a cure by making deep incisions into the wound. "Go to work at once, then," cried Charles; "cut as deep as you like, and don't be afraid." The surgeon proceeded to his task, the patient holding the wounded limb in his hands, and attentively watching each incision the knife made, to all appearance as utterly indifferent to the torture he was enduring, as if the operation was being performed on somebody else.

The following incident in the native warfare of India is related by the late Sir Herbert Edwardes in his "Year in the Punjaub :" Alladad, a native chief, being baffled in the siege of a fortress, and amazed at the failure of his well-planned measures, carried the son of the Killadar, or warden, who had fallen into his hands, before the walls, and summoned the garrison to surrender. "Give up the keys," he shouted to the warden, or your son's head shall be cut off!" The intrepid warden replied: "If I lose my son, I can get another; but honor lost is neither to be recovered nor replaced." This noble speech is related to this day upon the border with enthusiasm and pride, ،، and, having plundered and fired the town, retired to the hills as rapidly as he had come. danger he always manifested, and his complete in- but it found no echo then in the inhuman and vindicdifference to physical pain. Of this latter character- tive heart of Alladad. "Strike!" he cried to the istic a very remarkable instance is recorded by Vol- guards, and the youth's head rolled in the dust before taire, in his well-known history of that prince's life. his father's eyes. A volley from the garrison replied In the year 1709 the Swedish army, with Charles at to this atrocious act, but Alladad escaped unscathed, their head, had invested the Russian town of Pultowa, now well known in history from the famous battle which a few weeks later gave so fatal a check to their victorious career. In spite of all their prowess, hitherto invincible, and Charles' untiring energy, they had failed to capture the place; while, to increase the difficulty of their task, it had lately been reinforced by the Czar in person, at the head of a large force. On the twenty-seventh of May, Charles went out to reconnoitre, and had a slight skirmish with one of the Russian outposts. In returning to the camp he was struck by a musket-ball, which ripped open his boot At the assault of Badajos, when the slaughter had been terrific, and the British had as yet been unable to effect an entrance into the town, Lieut. Shaw, of the Forty-third-afterwards Major-General Shaw Kennedy-and Captain Nicholas, of the Engineers, collecting a small body of men together, rushed up the slope of the ruins of the Santa Maria fort; but before they reached two-thirds of the ascent, nearly the whole of them were destroyed by a concentrated fire of musketry and grape. Shaw stood alone, and he and broke his ankle-bone. He did not give the was seen deliberately to pull out his watch, and, slightest sign of feeling the wound, and remained in repeating the hour aloud, declare that the breach the saddle for six hours after, giving his orders as could not be carried that night.