And, weeping, Lamecli went
And stood before the face of Cain ; and Cain
Who pressed a hand against his rushing wound
Reddened his grandson's brow and i<issed his cheek :
' The blood of Cain alight on him who lifts
A hand against tliy life. My spear, boys ! So.
Let no foot follow. Cain must die alone.
Let no man seek me till ye see in Heaven
A sign, and know that Cain is dead.'
He smiled.
And from the hollow of his hand let fall
A crimson rain upon the crystal spring.
Which caught the blood in glassy ripple and whirl,
And reddened moss and boulder.
With gold-girt brow
Swift of stride,
thrown back to front the
Unseen,
The hoary giant through the jungle waste
Plunged, muttering in his beard ; and onward
pressed
Through the deep tangle of the trackless growtli
To reach some lair, where hidden and unheard
His savage soul in its last strife might cope
With God — perchance one moment visible.
A sweltering tract of jungle breathing flame ;
A fiery silence ; all the depth of Heaven
One blinding sapphire !
Watcliing by the cliff",
The giant brood stood waiting for the sign.
Behold ! a speck, high in the blazing blue.
Hung black — a single speck above the waste ;
Hung poised an hour ; then dropped through
leagues of air.
Plumb as a stone ; and as it dropped they saw
Through leagues of high blue air, to north and south,
To east and west, black specks that sprang from
space.
And then long sinuous lines of distant spots
Which flew converging — growing, as they flew,
To slanting streams and palpitating swarms ;
Which flew converging out of all the heavens,
And blackened, as they flew, the sapphire blaze,
And jarred the fiery hush with winnowing wings ;
Which flew converging on a single point
Deep in the jungle waste, and as they swooped
Paused in the last long slide with dangling claws.
Then dropped like stone.
That Cain was dead.
Tiius knew the giant brood
Beside a swamp they found
Hoar hair, a litter of white colossal bones.
Ensanguined shreds of jewelled lion-fells.
The huge gold crown and ponderous spear of Cain,
And fixed between the ribs the fatal shaft
Which Lamech shot unwitting ; but against
The life of Lamech no man lifted hand.
"William Canton.
FREEDOM IN THE UNIVERSITIES.
PERHAPS the most significant feature of the struggle over the Scottish Universities Bill, and the measure for founding a College in the East End of Glasgow, is the fact that while the forces of attack are drawn from the non-academic laity, those of resistance are mainly the teaching staff' of the Universities themselves. On the one hand, there are the men of business — merchants, lawyers, and physicians — all graduates of the Universities, but all settled in the booths or chambers of Gath and Ekron ; while on the other, with some auxiliary parsons, there is the Senate. It is true that here and there an exception to this broad antithesis may be discovered. A stray Professor sometimes inexplicably finds his way into the tents and councils of the assailants, though he generally Jiui'ries back again to the fortress at the first indubitable blast of war. But such exceptions are perhaps the strongest of all possible confirmations of the rule. And without injustice it maybe said that the struggle for Reform is essentially a town and gown battle, in which the o])pidans are for breadth and liberty, while the collegians are for restriction and privilege.
It is no object of this paper to discuss the present proposals of Reform. To most unbiassed people these will seem to err only on the side of extreme lenience, if not, indeed, of ludicrous inadequacy to the end which is sought to be attained. But the spirit in which they have been encountered, the bitter and tireless, though studiously covert opposi-
