Chapter C: A. L (3)

It happened at Bonn. One moonlight winter's evening I called upon Beethoven; for I wished him to take a walk, and afterwards sup with me. In passing through a dark, narrow street, he suddenly paused. "Hush!" he said, "what sound is that? It is from my Sonata in F. Hark! how well it is played!"

It was a little, mean dwelling, and we paused outside and listened. The player went on; but, in the midst of the finale, there was a sudden break; then the voice of sobbing: "I cannot play any more. It is too beautiful; it is utterly beyond my power to do it justice. Oh! what would I not give to go to the concert at Cologne!"

"Ah! my sister," said her companion; "why create regrets when there is no remedy? We can scarcely pay our rent."

"You are right, and yet I wish for once in my life to hear some really good music. But it is of no use."

Beethoven looked at me. "Let us go in," he said.

"Go in!" I exclaimed. "What can we go in for?"

"I will play to her," he said, in an excited tone. "Here is feeling--genius--understanding! I will play to her, and she will understand it."

And before I could prevent him his hand was upon the door. It opened and we entered.

A pale young man was sitting by the table, making shoes, and near him, leaning sorrowfully upon an old-fashioned piano, sat a young girl, with a profusion of light hair falling over her face.

"Pardon me," said Beethoven, "but I heard music and was tempted to enter. I am a musician."

The girl blushed, and the young man looked grave and somewhat annoyed.

"I--I also overheard something of what you said," continued my friend. "You wish to hear--that is, you would like--that is--shall I play for you?"

There was something so odd in the whole affair, and something so comical and pleasant in the manner of the speaker, that the spell was broken in a moment.

"Thank you!" said the shoemaker; "but our piano is so wretched, and we have no music."

"No music!" echoed my friend; "how, then, does the young lady--" he paused and coloured; for, as he looked in the girl's face, he saw that she was blind. "I--I entreat your pardon," he stammered. "I had not perceived before. Then you play by ear? But when do you hear the music, since you frequent no concerts?"

"We lived at Bruhl for two years, and while there I used to hear a lady practising near us. During the summer evenings her windows were generally open, and I walked to and fro outside to listen to her."

She seemed so shy that Beethoven said no more, but seated himself quietly before the piano and began to play. He had no sooner struck the first chord than I knew what would follow. Never, during all the years I knew him, did I hear him play as he then played to that blind girl and her brother. He seemed to be inspired; and, from the instant that his fingers began to wander along the keys, the very tones of the instrument seemed to grow sweeter and more equal.

The brother and sister were silent with wonder and rapture. The former laid aside his work; the latter, with her head bent slightly forward, and her hands pressed tightly over her breast, crouched down near the end of the piano, as if fearful lest even the beating of her heart should break the flow of those magical sounds.

Suddenly the flame of the single candle wavered, sank, flickered, and went out. Beethoven paused, and I threw open the shutters, admitting a flood of brilliant moonlight. The room was almost as light as before, the moon rays falling strongest upon the piano and the player. His head dropped upon his breast; his hands rested upon his knees; he seemed absorbed in deep thought. He remained thus for some time. At length the young shoemaker arose and approached him eagerly.

"Wonderful man!" he said, in a low tone. "Who and what are you?"

"Listen!" said Beethoven, and he played the opening bars of the Sonata in F. A cry of recognition burst from them both, and exclaiming: "Then you are Beethoven!" they covered his hands with tears and kisses.

He rose to go, but we held him back with entreaties.

"Play to us once more--only once more!"

He suffered himself to be led back to the instrument. The moon shone brightly in through the window, and lighted up his glorious, rugged head and massive figure.

"I will improvise a Sonata to the Moonlight!" said he, looking up thoughtfully to the sky and stars. Then his hands dropped on the keys, and he began playing a sad and infinitely lovely movement, which crept gently over the instrument, like the calm flow of moonlight over the dark earth. This was followed by a wild, elfin passage in triple time--a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of spirits upon the lawn. Then came a swift agitato finale--a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in emotion and wonder.

"Farewell to you!" said Beethoven, pushing back his chair, and turning towards the door--"farewell to you!"

"You will come again?" asked they in one breath.

He paused and looked compassionately, almost tenderly, at the face of the blind girl.

"Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "I will come again, and give the young lady some lessons! Farewell! I will come again!"

Their looks followed us in silence more eloquent than words till we were out of sight.

"Let us make haste back," said Beethoven, "that I may write out that Sonata while I can yet remember it."

We did so, and he sat over it till long past day dawn. And this was the origin of the Moonlight Sonata with which we are all so fondly acquainted.

UNKNOWN

THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

Black beneath as the night,
With wings of a morning glow,
From his sooty throat three syllables float,
Ravishing, liquid, low;
And 'tis oh, for the joy of June,
And the bliss that ne'er can flee
From that exquisite call, with its sweet, sweet fall--
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

Long ago as a child,
From the bough of a blossoming quince,
That melody came to thrill my frame,
And whenever I've caught it since,
The spring-soft blue of the sky
And the spring-bright bloom of the tree
Are a part of the strain--ah, hear it again!--
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

And the night is tenderly black,
The morning eagerly bright,
For that old, old spring is blossoming
In the soul and in the sight.
The red-winged blackbird brings
My lost youth back to me,
When I hear in the swale, from a gray fence rail,
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

ETHELWYN WETHERALD

TO THE CUCKOO

Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear.
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy, wandering through the wood
To pull the primrose gay,
Starts, the new voice of Spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest thy vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!

Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the Spring.

JOHN LOGAN

THE STORY OF A STONE

A great many years ago, when nearly the whole of Canada was covered with water, and the Northern Ocean, which washed the highest crests of the Alleghanies, made an island of the Laurentian Hills, and wrote its name on the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior, there lived somewhere near Toronto, in the Province of Ontario, a little animal called a Polyp. He was a curious creature, very small, not unlike a flower in appearance, a plant-animal.

One day, the sun shone down into the water and set this little fellow free from the egg in which he was confined. For a time he floated about near the bottom of the ocean, but at last settled down on a bit of shell, and fastened himself to it. Then he made an opening in his upper side, formed for himself a mouth and stomach, thrust out a whole row of feelers, and began catching whatever morsels of food came in his way. He had a great many strange ways, but the strangest of all was his gathering little bits of limestone from the water and building them up round him, as a person does who builds a well.

But this little Favosite, for that was his name, became lonesome on the bottom of that old ocean; so one night, when he was fast asleep and dreaming as only a coral animal can dream, there sprouted out of his side another little Favosite, who very soon began to wall himself up as his parent had done. From these, other little Favosites were formed, till at last there were so many of them, and they were so crowded together, that, to economize the limestone they built with, they had to make their cells six-sided, like those of a honey-comb: on this account they are called Favosites.

The colony thrived for a long time, and accumulated quite a stock of limestone. But at last a change came: there was a great rush of muddy water from the land, and all the Favosites died, leaving only a stony skeleton to prove that industrious Polyps had ever existed there.

This skeleton remained undisturbed for ages, until the earth began to rise inch by inch out of the water. Then our Favosites' home rose above the deep, and with it came all that was left of its old acquaintances the Trilobites, who were the ancestors of our crabs and lobsters.

Then the first fishes made their appearance, great fierce-looking fellows like the gar pike of our lakes, but larger, and armed with scales as hard as the armour of a crocodile. Next came the sharks, as savage and voracious as they now are, with teeth like knives. But the time of these old fishes and of many more animals came and went, and still the home of the Favosites lay in the ground.

Then came the long, hot, damp epoch, when thick mists hung over the earth, and great ferns and rushes, as stout as an oak and as tall as a steeple, grew in Nova Scotia, in Pennsylvania, and in other parts of America where coal is now found. Huge reptiles, with enormous jaws and teeth like cross-cut saws, and smaller ones with wings like bats, next appeared and added to the strangeness of the scene.

But the reptiles died; the ferns and the rush-trees fell into their native swamps, and were covered up and packed away under great layers of clay and sand brought down by the rivers, till at last they were turned into coal, forming for us, what someone has called, beds of petrified sunshine. But all this while the skeleton of the Favosites lay undisturbed.

Then the mists cleared away as gradually as they had come, the sun shone out, the grass grew, and strange four-footed animals came and fed upon it. Among these were odd-looking little horses no bigger than foxes; great hairy monsters larger than elephants, with tremendous tusks; hogs with snouts nearly as long as their bodies; and other strange creatures that no man has ever seen alive. But still the house of the Favosites remained where it was.

Next came the great winter, and it continued to snow till the mountains were hidden. Then the snow was packed into ice, and Canada became one solid glacier. This ice age continued for many thousands of years.

At last the ice began to melt, and the glacier came slowly down the slopes, tearing up rocks, little and big, and crushing and grinding and carrying away everything in its course. It ploughed its way across Ontario, and the skeleton of our Favosites was rooted out from the quiet place where it had lain so long, and was caught up in a crevice of the ice. The glacier slid along, melting all the while, and covering the land with clay, pebbles, and boulders. At last it stopped, and as it gradually melted away, all the rocks and stones and dirt it had carried with it thus far, were deposited into one great heap, and the home of the Favosites along with them.

Ages afterwards a farmer, near Toronto, when ploughing a field, picked up a curious bit of "petrified honey-comb," and gave it to a geologist to hear what he would say about it. And now you have read what he said.

D. B.

THE SNOW-STORM

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,--
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows:
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bed-time came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,--
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendour, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: "Boys, a path!"
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.

The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornèd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.

WHITTIER: "Snow-bound."

THE HEROINE OF VERCHÈRES

Verchères was a fort on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about twenty miles below Montreal. A strong block-house stood outside the fort, and was connected with it by a covered way. On the morning of the twenty-second of October, (1692) the inhabitants were at work in the fields, and nobody was left in the place but two soldiers, two boys, an old man of eighty, and a number of women and children. The commandant was on duty at Quebec; his wife was at Montreal; and their daughter, Madeline, fourteen years of age, was at the landing-place not far from the gate of the fort, with a man-servant.

Suddenly she heard firing from the direction where the settlers were at work, and an instant after the servant called out: "Run, miss!--run! here come the Indians!" She turned and saw forty or fifty of them at the distance of a pistol-shot. She ran to the fort as quickly as possible, while the bullets whistled about her ears, and made the time seem very long. As soon as she was near enough to be heard, she cried out: "To arms!--to arms!" hoping that somebody would come out and help her; but it was of no use. The two soldiers in the fort were so scared that they had hidden in the block-house.

When she had seen certain breaches in the palisade stopped, she went to the block-house, where the ammunition was kept; and there she found the two soldiers, one hiding in a corner, and the other with a lighted match in his hand.

"What are you going to do with that match?" she asked. He answered: "Light the powder and blow us all up." "You are a miserable coward!" said she. "Go out of this place." She then threw off her bonnet, put on a hat, and taking a gun in her hand she said to her two brothers: "Let us fight to the death. We are fighting for our country and our religion."

The boys, who were ten and twelve years old, aided by the soldiers, whom her words had inspired with some little courage, began to fire from the loop-holes on the Indians, who, ignorant of the weakness of the garrison, showed their usual reluctance to attack a fortified place, and occupied themselves with chasing and butchering the people in the neighbouring fields. Madeline ordered a cannon to be fired, partly to deter the enemy from an assault, and partly to warn some of the soldiers who were hunting at a distance.

A canoe was presently seen approaching the landing-place. In it was a settler named Fontaine, trying to reach the fort with his family. The Indians were still near; and Madeline feared that the new-comers would be killed, if something were not done to aid them. Distrusting the soldiers, she herself went alone to the landing-place.

"I thought," she said, in her account of the affair, "that the savages would suppose it to be a ruse to draw them towards the fort, in order to make a sortie upon them. They did suppose so; and thus I was able to save the Fontaine family. When they were all landed, I made them march before me in full sight of the enemy. We put so bold a face on it, that they thought they had more to fear than we. Strengthened by this reinforcement, I ordered that the enemy should be fired on whenever they showed themselves.

"After sunset a violent north-east wind began to blow, accompanied with snow and hail, which told us that we should have a terrible night. The Indians were all this time lurking about us; and I judged by all their movements that, instead of being deterred by the storm, they would climb into the fort under cover of darkness."

She then assembled her troops, who numbered six, all told, and spoke to them encouraging words. With two old men she took charge of the fort, and sent Fontaine and the two soldiers with the women and children to the block-house. She placed her two brothers on two of the bastions, and an old man on a third, while she herself took charge of the fourth. All night, in spite of wind, snow, and hail, the cry of "All's well" was kept up from the block-house to the fort, and from the fort to the block-house. One would have supposed that the place was full of soldiers. The Indians thought so, and were completely deceived, as they afterwards confessed.

At last the daylight came again; and as the darkness disappeared, the anxieties of the little garrison seemed to disappear with it. Fontaine said he would never abandon the place while Madeline remained in it. She declared that she would never abandon it: she would rather die than give it up to the enemy.

She did not eat or sleep for twice twenty-four hours. She did not go once into her father's house, but kept always on the bastion, except when she went to the block-house to see how the people there were behaving. She always kept a cheerful and smiling face, and encouraged her little company with the hope of speedy succour.

"We were a week in constant alarm," she continues, "with the enemy always about us. At last a lieutenant, sent by the governor, arrived in the night with forty men. As he did not know whether the fort was taken or not, he approached as silently as possible. One of our sentinels, hearing a slight sound, cried: 'Who goes there?' I was at the time dozing, with my head on a table and my gun lying across my arms. The sentinel told me that he heard voices from the river. I went at once to the bastion to see whether they were Indians or Frenchmen who were there. I asked: 'Who are you?' One of them answered: 'We are Frenchmen come to bring you help.'"

"I caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel there, and went down to the river to meet them. As soon as I saw the lieutenant I saluted him, and said: 'I surrender my arms to you.' He answered gallantly: 'They are in good hands, Miss.' He inspected the fort, and found everything in order, and a sentinel on each bastion. 'It is time to relieve them,' said I; 'we have not been off our bastions for a week.'"

A band of converts from St. Louis arrived soon afterwards, followed the trail of their heathen countrymen, overtook them on Lake Champlain, and recovered twenty or more French prisoners.

PARKMAN: "Frontenac and New France." (Adapted)

JACQUES CARTIER

In the seaport of St. Malo, 'twas a smiling morn in May,
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away;
In the crowded old Cathedral, all the town were on their knees,
For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas;
And every autumn blast that swept o'er pinnacle and pier,
Filled manly hearts with sorrow, and gentle hearts with fear.

A year passed o'er St. Malo--again came round the day,
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away;
But no tidings from the absent had come the way they went,
And tearful were the vigils that many a maiden spent;
And manly hearts were filled with gloom, and gentle hearts with fear,
When no tidings came from Cartier at the closing of the year.

But the earth is as the Future, it hath its hidden side,
And the Captain of St. Malo was rejoicing in his pride;
In the forests of the North--while his townsmen mourned his loss--
He was rearing on Mount Royal the _fleur-de-lis_ and cross;
And when two months were over, and added to the year,
St. Malo hailed him home again, cheer answering to cheer.

He told them of a region, hard, iron-bound and cold,
Nor seas of pearl abounded, nor mines of shining gold;
Where the wind from Thule freezes the word upon the lip,
And the ice in spring comes sailing athwart the early ship;
He told them of the frozen scene, until they thrilled with fear,
And piled fresh fuel on the hearth to make them better cheer.

But when he changed the strain,--he told how soon is cast
In early Spring, the fetters that hold the waters fast;
How the Winter causeway, broken, is drifted out to sea,
And the rills and rivers sing with pride the anthem of the free;
How the magic wand of Summer clad the landscape to his eyes,
Like the dry bones of the just when they wake in Paradise.

He told them of the Algonquin braves--the hunters of the wild;
Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child;
Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every living thing
A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping;
Of how they brought their sick and maimed for him to breathe upon;
And of the wonders wrought for them, thro' the Gospel of St. John.

He told them of the river, whose mighty current gave
Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave;
He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height;
And of the fortress cliff, that keeps of Canada the key;--
And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from perils over sea.

THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE

ANTS AND THEIR SLAVES

Peter Huber, the son of the noted observer of the ways and habits of bees, was walking one day in a field near Geneva, Switzerland, when he saw on the ground an army of reddish-coloured ants on the march. He decided to follow them and to find out, if possible, the object of their journey.

On the sides of the column, as if to keep it in order, a few of the insects sped to and fro. After marching for about a quarter of an hour, the army halted before an ant-hill, the home of a colony of small, black ants. These swarmed out to meet the red ones, and, to Huber's surprise, a combat, short but fierce, took place at the foot of the hill.

A small number of the blacks fought bravely to the last, but the rest soon fled, panic-stricken, through the gates farthest from the battle-field, carrying away some of their young. They seemed to know it was the young ants that the invaders were seeking. The red warriors quickly forced their way into the tiny city and returned, loaded with children of the blacks.

Carrying their living booty, the kidnappers left the pillaged town and started toward their home, whither Huber followed them. Great was his astonishment when, at the threshold of the red ants' dwelling, he saw numbers of black ants come forward to receive the young captives and to welcome them--children of their own race, doomed to be bond-servants in a strange land.

Here, then, was a miniature city, in which strong red ants lived in peace with small black ones. But what was the province of the latter? Huber soon discovered that, in fact, these did all the work. They alone were able to build the houses in which both races lived; they alone brought up the young red ants and the captives of their own species; they alone gathered the supplies of food, and waited upon and fed their big masters, who were glad to have their little waiters feed them so attentively.

The masters themselves had no occupation except that of war. When not raiding some village of the blacks, the red soldiers did nothing but wander lazily about.

Huber wanted to learn what would be the result if the red ants found themselves without servants. Would the big creatures know how to supply their own needs? He put a few of the red insects in a glass case, having some honey in a corner. They did not go near it. They did not know enough to feed themselves. Some of them died of starvation, with food before them. Then he put into the case one black ant. It went straight to the honey, and with it fed its big, starving, silly masters. Here was a wonder, truly!

The little blacks exert in many things a moral force whose signs are plainly visible. For example, those tiny wise creatures will not give permission to any of the great red ones to go out alone. Nor are these at liberty to go out even in a body, if their small helpers fear a storm, or if the day is far advanced. When a raid proves fruitless, the soldiers coming back without any living booty are forbidden by the blacks to enter the city, and are ordered to attack some other village.

Not wishing to rely entirely on his own conclusions, Huber asked one of the great naturalists of Switzerland, Jurine, to decide whether or not mistakes had been made regarding these customs of the ants. This witness, and indeed others, found that Huber's reports were true.

"Yet, after all," says Huber, "I still doubted. But on a later day I again saw in the park of Fontainebleau, near Paris, the same workings of ant life and wisdom. A well-known naturalist was with me then, and his conclusions were the same as mine.

"It was half-past four in the afternoon of a very warm day. From a pile of stones there came forth a column of about five hundred reddish ants. They marched rapidly toward a field of turf, order in their ranks being kept by their sergeants. These watched the flanks, and would not permit any to straggle.

"Suddenly the army disappeared. There was no sign of an ant-hill in the turf, but, after awhile, we detected a little hole. Through this the ants had vanished. We supposed it was an entrance to their home. In a minute they showed us that our supposition was incorrect. They issued in a throng, nearly every one of them carrying a small black captive.

"From the short time they had taken, it was plain that they knew the place and the weakness of its citizens. Perhaps it was not the reds' first attack on this city of the little blacks. These swarmed out in great numbers; and, truly, I pitied them. They did not attempt to fight. They seemed terror-stricken, and made no attempt to oppose the warrior ants, except by clinging to them. One of the marauders was stopped thus, but a comrade that was free relieved him of his burden, and thereupon the black ant let go his grasp.

"It was in fact a painful sight. The soldiers succeeded in carrying off nearly five hundred children. About three feet from the entrance to the ant-hill the plundered black parents ceased to follow the red robbers, and resigned themselves to the loss of their young. The whole raid did not occupy more than ten minutes.

"The parties were, as we have seen, very unequal in strength, and the attack was clearly an outrage--an outrage no doubt often repeated. The big red ants, knowing their power, played the part of tyrants; and, whenever they wanted more slaves, despoiled the small weak blacks of their greatest treasures--their children."

MICHELET

LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT

Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on.
I loved the garish day; and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost a while.

NEWMAN

THE JOLLY SANDBOYS

The Jolly Sandboys was a small road-side inn with a sign, representing three Sandboys, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road. As the travellers had observed many indications of their drawing nearer to the race town, such as gypsy camps, showmen of various kinds, and beggars and trampers of every degree, Mr. Codlin was fearful of finding the accommodation forestalled; but had the gratification of finding that his fears were without foundation, for the landlord was leaning against the door-post, looking lazily at the rain which had begun to descend heavily.

"Make haste in out of the wet, Tom," said the landlord; "when it came on to rain I told 'em to make the fire up, and there's a glorious blaze in the kitchen, I can tell you."

Mr. Codlin followed with a willing mind. A mighty fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring up the wide chimney with a cheerful sound, which a large iron cauldron, bubbling and simmering in the heat, lent its pleasant aid to swell. There was a deep red ruddy blush upon the room, and when the landlord stirred the fire, sending the flame skipping and leaping up--when he took off the lid of the iron pot and there rushed out a savoury smell, while the bubbling sound grew deeper and more rich, and an unctuous steam came floating out, hanging in a delicious mist above their heads--when he did this, Mr. Codlin's heart was touched.

He sat down in the chimney-corner and smiled.

Mr. Codlin sat smiling in the chimney-corner, eyeing the landlord as with a roguish look he held the cover in his hand, and feigning that his doing so was needful to the welfare of the cookery, suffered the delightful steam to tickle the nostrils of his guest. The glow of the fire was upon the landlord's bald head, and upon his twinkling eye, and upon his watering mouth, and upon his pimpled face, and upon his round fat figure. Mr. Codlin drew his sleeve across his lips, and said in a murmuring voice: "What is it?"

"It's a stew of tripe," said the landlord, smacking his lips, "and cow-heel," smacking them again, "and bacon," smacking them once more, "and steak," smacking them for the fourth time, "and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrow-grass, all working up together in one delicious gravy." Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long, hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.

"At what time will it be ready?" asked Mr. Codlin, faintly.

"It'll be done to a turn," said the landlord looking up to the clock--and the very clock had a colour in its fat white face, and looked a clock for Jolly Sandboys to consult--"it'll be done to a turn at twenty-two minutes before eleven."

Mr. Codlin now bethought him of his companions, and acquainted mine host of the Sandboys that his partner Short, Nell and her grandfather might shortly be looked for. At length they arrived drenched with rain and presenting a most miserable appearance. But their steps were no sooner heard upon the road than the landlord, who had been at the outer door anxiously watching for their coming, rushed into the kitchen and took the cover off. The effect was electrical. They all came in with smiling faces though the wet was dripping from their clothes upon the floor, and Short's first remark was: "What a delicious smell!"

It is not very difficult to forget rain and mud by the side of a cheerful fire, and in a bright room. They were furnished with slippers and such dry garments as the house or their own bundles afforded, and seating themselves, as Mr. Codlin had already done, in the warm chimney-corner, soon forgot their late troubles or only remembered them as enhancing the delights of the present time.

Strange footsteps were now heard without, and fresh company entered. These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in one after the other, headed by an old bandy dog of particularly mournful aspect, who, stopping when the last of his followers had got as far as the door, erected himself upon his hind legs and looked round at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs, in a grave and melancholy row. Nor was this the only remarkable circumstance about these dogs, for each of them wore a kind of little coat of some gaudy colour trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied very carefully under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose and completely obscured one eye; add to this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through and discoloured with rain, and that the wearers were splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual appearance of these new visitors to the Jolly Sandboys.

Neither Short nor the landlord nor Thomas Codlin, however, was in the least surprised, merely remarking that these were Jerry's dogs, and that Jerry could not be far behind. So there the dogs stood, patiently winking and gaping and looking extremely hard at the boiling pot, until Jerry himself appeared, when they all dropped down at once, and walked about the room in their natural manner. This posture, it must be confessed, did not much improve their appearance, as their own personal tails and their coat tails--both capital things in their way--did not agree together.

Jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, was a tall black-whiskered man in a velveteen coat, who seemed well known to the landlord and his guests and accosted them with great cordiality. Disencumbering himself of a barrel organ which he placed upon a chair, and retaining in his hand a small whip wherewith to awe his company of comedians, he came up to the fire to dry himself, and entered into conversation.

"Your people don't usually travel in character, do they?" said Short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs. "It must come expensive, if they do."

"No," replied Jerry, "no, it's not the custom with us. But we've been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new wardrobe at the races, so I didn't think it worth while to stop to undress. Down, Pedro!"

This was addressed to the dog with the cap on, who, being a new member of the company, and not quite certain of his duty, kept his unobscured eye anxiously on his master, and was perpetually starting up on his hind legs when there was no occasion, and falling down again.

The landlord now busied himself in laying the cloth, in which process Mr. Codlin obligingly assisted by setting forth his own knife and fork in the most convenient place and establishing himself behind them. When everything was ready, the landlord took off the cover for the last time, and then, indeed, there burst forth such a goodly promise of supper, that if he had offered to put it on again or had hinted at postponement, he would certainly have been sacrificed on his own hearth.

However, he did nothing of the kind, but instead assisted a stout servant girl in turning the contents of the cauldron into a large tureen; a proceeding which the dogs, proof against various hot splashes which fell upon their noses, watched with terrible eagerness. At length the dish was lifted on the table, and mugs of ale having been previously set round, little Nell ventured to say grace, and supper began.

At this juncture the poor dogs were standing on their hind legs quite surprisingly; the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she was, when their master interposed.

"No, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine if you please. That dog," said Jerry, pointing out the old leader of the troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, "lost a halfpenny to-day. _He_ goes without his supper."

The unfortunate creature dropped upon his forelegs directly, wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master.

"You must be more careful, sir," said Jerry, walking coolly to the chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. "Come here. Now, sir, you play away at that, while we have supper, and leave off if you dare."

The dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. His master, having shown him the whip, resumed his seat and called up the others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of soldiers.

"Now, gentlemen," said Jerry, looking at them attentively: "The dog whose name's called, eats. The dogs whose names an't called, keep quiet. Carlo."

The lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. In this manner they were fed at the discretion of their master. Meanwhile the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant. When the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl, but he immediately checked it on his master looking round, and applied himself with increased diligence to the Old Hundredth.

DICKENS: "Old Curiosity Shop."

So, when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.

LONGFELLOW

THE GLADNESS OF NATURE

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves on that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

BRYANT

OLD ENGLISH LIFE

When the sun rose on England of olden time, its faint red light stirred every sleeper from the sack of straw, which formed the only bed of the age. Springing from this rustling couch, where he had lain naked, and throwing off the coarse coverlets, usually of sheepskin, the subject of King Alfred donned the day's dress. Gentlemen wore linen or woollen tunics, which reached to the knee; and, over these, long fur-lined cloaks, fastened with a brooch of ivory or gold. Strips of cloth or leather, bandaged crosswise from the ankle to the knee over red and blue stockings; and black, pointed shoes, slit along the instep almost to the toes and fastened with two thongs, completed the costume of an Anglo-Saxon gentleman. The ladies, wrapping a veil of linen or silk upon their delicate curls, laced a loose-flowing gown over a tight-sleeved bodice, and pinned the graceful folds of their mantles with golden butterflies and other tasteful trinkets.

Breakfast consisted probably of bread, meat, and ale, but was a lighter repast than that taken when the hurry of the day lay behind. Often it was eaten in the bower or private apartment.

The central picture in Old English life--the great event of the day--was _Noon-meat_, or dinner in the great hall. A little before three, the chief and all his household, with any stray guests who might have dropped in, met in the hall, which stood in the centre of its encircling bowers--the principal apartment of every Old English house. Clouds of wood smoke, rolling up from a fire which blazed in the middle of the floor, blackened the carved rafters of the arched roof before they found their way out of the hole above which did duty as a chimney.

Tapestries, dyed purple, or glowing with variegated pictures of saints and heroes, hung, and if the day was stormy, flapped upon the chinky walls. In palaces and in earls' mansions coloured tiles, wrought into a mosaic, formed a clean and pretty pavement; but the common flooring of the time was clay, baked dry with the heat of winter evenings and summer noons. The only articles of furniture always in the hall were wooden benches; some of which, especially the _high settle_ or seat of the chieftain, boasted cushions, or at least a rug.

While the hungry crowd, fresh from woodland and furrow, were lounging near the fire or hanging up their weapons on the pegs and hooks that jutted from the wall, a number of slaves, dragging in a long, flat, heavy board, placed it on movable legs, and spread on its upper half a handsome cloth. Then were arranged with other utensils for the meal some flattish dishes, baskets of ash-wood for holding bread, a scanty sprinkling of steel knives shaped like our modern razors, platters of wood, and bowls for the universal broth.

The ceremony of "laying the board," as the Old English phrased it, being completed, the work of demolition began. Great round cakes of bread--huge junks of boiled bacon--vast rolls of broiled eel--cups of milk--horns of ale--wedges of cheese--lumps of salt butter--and smoking piles of cabbages and beans, melted like magic from the board under the united attack of greasy fingers and grinding jaws. Kneeling slaves offered to the lord and his honoured guests long skewers or spits, on which steaks of beef or venison smoked and sputtered, ready for the hacking blade.

Poultry, too, and game of every variety, filled the spaces of the upper board; but the crowd of _loaf-eaters_, as old English domestics were suggestively called, saw little of these daintier kinds of food, except the naked bones. Nor did they much care, if, to their innumerable hunches of bread, they could add enough pig to appease their hunger. Hounds, sitting eager-eyed by their masters, snapped with sudden jaws at scraps of fat flung to them, or retired into private life below the board with some sweet bone that fortune sent them.

The solid part of the banquet ended with the washing of hands, performed for the honoured occupants of the high settle by officious slaves. The board was then dragged out of the hall; the loaf-eaters slunk away to have a nap in the byre, or sat drowsily in corners of the hall; and the drinking began. During the progress of the meal, Welsh ale had flowed freely in horns or vessels of twisted glass. Mead and, in very grand houses, wine now began to circle in goblets of gold and silver, or of wood inlaid with those precious metals. In humbler houses, story-telling and songs, sung to the music of the harp by each guest in turn, formed the principal amusement of the drinking-bout.

Meantime the music and the mead did their work in maddening brains; the revelry grew louder; riddles, which had flown thick around the board at first, gave place to banter, taunts, and fierce boasts of prowess; angry eyes gleamed defiance; and it was well if, in the morning, the household slaves had not to wash blood-stains from the pavement of the hall, or in the still night, when the drunken brawlers lay stupid on the floor, to drag a dead man from the red plash in which he lay.

From the reek and riot of the hall the ladies of the household soon withdrew to the bower, where they reigned supreme. There, in the earlier part of the day, they had arrayed themselves in their bright-coloured robes, plying tweezers and crisping-irons on their yellow hair, and often heightening the blush that Nature gave them with a shade of rouge. There, too, they used to scold their female slaves, and beat them, with a violence which said more for their strength of lung and muscle than for the gentleness of their womanhood.

When their needles were fairly set a-going upon those pieces of delicate embroidery, known and prized over all Europe as "English work," some gentlemen dropped in, perhaps harp in hand, to chat and play for their amusement, or to engage in games of hazard and skill, which seem to have resembled modern dice and chess. When in later days supper came into fashion, the round table of the bower was usually spread for _Evening-food_, as this meal was called. And not long afterwards, those bags of straw, from which they sprang at sunrise, received for another night their human burden, worn out with the labours and the revels of the day.

W. F. COLLIER (Adapted)

PUCK'S SONG

See you the dimpled track that runs,
All hollow through the wheat?
O that was where they hauled the guns
That smote King Philip's fleet.

See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was where the Saxons broke,
On the day that Harold died.

See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled,
When Alfred's ships came by.

See you our pastures wide and lone,
Where the red oxen browse?
O there was a City thronged and known,
Ere London boasted a house.

And see you, after rain, the trace
Of mound and ditch and wall?
O that was a Legion's camping-place,
When Caesar sailed from Gaul.

And see you marks that show and fade,
Like shadows on the Downs?
O they are the lines the Flint Men made
To guard their wondrous towns.

Trackway and Camp and City lost,
Salt Marsh where now is corn;
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,
And so was England born!

She is not any common Earth,
Water or wood or air,
But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,
Where you and I will fare.

KIPLING: "Puck of Pook's Hill."

THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS

The thirteenth of October, 1812, is a day ever to be remembered in Canada. All along the Niagara river the greatest excitement had prevailed: many of the inhabitants had removed with their portable property into the back country; small bodies of soldiers, regulars and volunteers, were posted in the towns and villages; Indians were roving in the adjacent woods; and sentinels, posted along the banks of the river, were looking eagerly for the enemy that was to come from the American shore and attempt the subjugation of a free, a happy, and a loyal people.

In the village of Queenston, that nestles at the foot of an eminence overlooking the mighty waters of Niagara, two companies of the Forty-ninth Regiment, or "Green Tigers," as the Americans afterwards termed them, with one hundred Canadian militia, were posted under the command of Captain Dennis.

When tattoo sounded on the night of the twelfth, the little garrison retired to rest. All was silent but the elements, which raged furiously throughout the night. Nothing was to be heard but the howling of the wind and the sound of falling rain mingled with the distant roar of the great cataract. Dripping with rain and shivering with cold, the sentries paced their weary rounds, from time to time casting a glance over the swollen tide of the river towards the American shore. At length, when the gray dawn of morning appeared, a wary sentinel descried a number of boats, filled with armed men, pushing off from the opposite bank below the village of Lewiston. Immediately the alarm was given. The soldiers were roused from their peaceful slumbers, and marched down to the landing-place. Meanwhile, a battery of one gun, posted on the heights, and another about a mile below, began to play on the enemy's boats, sinking some and disabling others.