flash
  Sweeps o’er the deep-mark’d lines which care hath left;
  As when the world is steep’d in blackest night,
  The forked lightning flashes through the sky,
  And all around leaps into life and light,
  To sink again in darkness blacker still. 
  Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long,
  As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms
  Amid his realm of charr’d and spectral stumps,
  Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling roots,
  Cling to the rocks which peep above the soil. 
  Ay! look again,
  And say if you discern the faintest trace
  Of warrior bold;—­the gait erect and proud,
  The steady glance that speaks the fearless soul,
  Watchful and prompt to do what man can do
  When duty calls.  All wreck’d and reckless now;—­
  But let the trumpet’s soul-inspiring sound
  Wake up the brattling echoes of the woods,
  Then watch his kindling eye—­his eagle glance—­
  While thoughts of glorious fields, and battles won,
  And visions bright of joyous, hopeful youth
  Sweep o’er his soul.  A soldier now once more—­
  Touch’d by the magic sound, he rears his head,
  Responsive to the well-known martial note,
  And stands again a hero ’mid his rags.

It is delightful to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse circumstances.  We may smile at the rude and clumsy attempts of the remote and isolated backwoodsman to attain something like comfort, but happy he who, with the buoyant spirits of the light-hearted Irishman, contrives to make himself happy even when all others would be miserable.

A certain degree of dissatisfaction with our present circumstances is necessary to stimulate us to exertion, and thus to enable us to secure future comfort; but where the delusive prospect of future happiness is too remote for any reasonable hope of ultimate attainment, then surely it is true wisdom to make the most of the present, and to cultivate a spirit of happy contentment with the lot assigned to us by Providence.

“Ould Simpson,” or the “Ould Dhragoon,” as he was generally called, was a good sample of this happy character; and I shall proceed to give the reader a sketch of his history, and a description of his establishment.  He was one of that unfortunate class of discharged soldiers who are tempted to sell their pensions often far below their true value, for the sake of getting a lot of land in some remote settlement, where it is only rendered valuable by the labour of the settler, and where they will have the unenviable privilege of expending the last remains of their strength in clearing a patch of land for the benefit of some grasping storekeeper who has given them credit while engaged in the work.