Nature and Art, February 1, 18G7.] 
A BUNCH OP PIE CONES. 
39 
sure, I’d do nothing but watch for a ring of the 
bell day and night, and afeared to answer it ; and 
not able to let the dog out of my sight, for if he 
wasn’t hung for me, he’d be transported for her. 
I knew well how you hated black lies, but I com- 
mitted no falsity about Bizz. I told the bare truth 
about her ; the yard did want a watch, and she’s 
as true as fire to flint. If you’d ask me was she 
my dog, I’d have said — I think I’d have said the 
truth ; or, maybe I’d have thought it only a white 
lie. Oh, yes, I know what you’re going to say, 
that no lie can be white. But God bless you, 
ma’am, dear, for the shelter you gave her ! and I 
hope the Lord and your honour will forgive me, 
and may the power above keep all young craythurs 
from even the shadda of a bad man, for the very 
shadda stains the snow it rests on. I’ve seen the 
rose in June wither away from a blast, and drop 
leaf by leaf, until nothing was left, but the poor 
mouldy heart : but that’s nothin’ to the blight of 
the young living soul. Wasn’t I ashamed to think 
that man and I war made out of the same sod, 
neighbours’ children, with only one potato-garden 
betwixt us l” 
“ Then, it was not that you were ashamed of 
your country, Mary* that made you deny it, only 
you were ashamed of your countryman ! ” 
Her face was illuminated in a moment, and she 
sprang from the ground where Bizz and she had 
crouched together. 
“ That’s it — God bless you — that’s just it.” 
And then she recapitulated again, glancing at 
me occasionally, and saying, — “But maybe ye don’t 
believe me, maybe it’s thinking of the lies I tould. 
you are.” 
Mary volunteered to make a “ clean breast,” but 
I saw it was impossible : like us all, in the hidden 
recesses of her poor heart, something was stowed 
away, known only to her own thoughts, that refused 
to come forth. She stumbled in her disclosures, 
though I asked no questions, but listened to what 
was told, wondering at the contradictions even in 
her nature, and seeing amid the chaos, how her 
devotion to her mother’s memory strengthened all 
that was good within her. 
The day soon came for her departure. Bizz’s 
foes pursued her to the last ; the morning she left, 
she did battle with a fierce cat, which so irritated 
her temper, that for some time it was impossible to 
get her into a cab, while the magpie kept croaking, 
“ Poor Paddy, poor Paddy ! ” 
At last, Bizz, encircled by her friend’s arms, 
drove off, bestowing on me one of her most em- 
phatic winks, while her lip trembled. 
A BUNCH OF 
By W. B. Lord 
W HAT say you to being my companion in an 
expedition to the fragrant pine forests, 
where the fir needles strew the ground, and form a 
soft brown carpet, over which we noiselessly wend 
our way 1 Solemn stillness reigns amongst the tall 
straight columns, as in some vast cathedral, and 
save when some passing gust sings and whistles 
amongst the feathery foliage, or a chance group of 
busy cross-bills are encountered, twittering and 
chirping contentedly to themselves, as they hang 
parrot-like amongst the branches, and wrench forth 
the sweet seed from the scale-coated fir-fruit, few 
sounds disturb the meditations of the explorer. 
We will, therefore — should you feel so disposed — 
ramble on together, gossip as we go, and gather 
such bits and scraps of pine lore as good fortune 
may cast in our path, and, like our cheerful merry 
little friends, the cross-bills, glean our harvest 
amongst the cones. Few trees of the forest are 
more graceful in form, generally useful, or of more 
extensive range than the Larch. The Romans 
appear to have extensively availed themselves of 
their forest discoveries, and the larches found by 
them during the German wars were felled and sent 
from the Alps vid the river Po to Rome, for the 
use of the builders. Pliny, in speaking of the 
Larch, says, “ This tree is the best of the kind that 
bears rosin. It rots not, but endures a long time.” 
The high estimation in which this description of 
timber was held by him was not undeserved, for it 
' FIR CONES. 
, Eoyal Artillery. 
is related that the huge floating palace built by the 
Emperor Trajan, as a summer residence on the 
waters of Lake JSTerni, was constructed of larch and 
cypress, sheathed with lead, fastened with copper 
nails, doubly planked, and the seams caulked with 
linen rags, payed over with Greek pitch (asphaltum). 
On being raised from the bottom of the lake, this 
curious structure was found to be comparatively 
sound after 1,100 years’ immersion. Tiberius 
caused the naumachiariaii bridge built by 
Augustus, and afterwards destroyed by fire, to be 
reconstructed with larch planks obtained from 
Rhaetia. Amongst the timber brought from thence, 
was one trunk of 120 feet in length, which is said 
to have excited the admiration of all Rome. The 
painters of very early ages (in fact from the 
period at which Pliny wrote, to the time of Raphael) 
intrusted their most costly works to the wood of 
the Larch, which by the great Roman naturalist is 
entitled immortelle lignum. Wrileking, too, in his 
justly celebrated work on the construction of 
bridges, says that the Larch is preferable to the Pine, 
the Pineaster, or the Fir, for constructing the arches 
of wooden bridges. 
Switzerland abounds in larch woods, and nearly 
all the picturesque chalets, fairy bi’idges, and hanging 
galleries, over chasms where the raging torrents 
lose themselves in foam and mist, are constructed 
of the tough and trusty Larch. The wooden walls 
of old England, too, of which we are all so justly 
