See other formats

Full text of "The Ontario readers. Fourth book"

l!e ht+mt +tclt 



TIlE ONTARIO READERS 

FOURTH BOOK 

AUTHORIZED BY 
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 

Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year 10, 
in the office of the lfinister of Agriculture by Ihe 
]VIINI-CtTER OF EDUCATION FOR OITA]O 

TORONTO: 
IEATO N C,M,'rED 
'14-1 



FOURTH READER 

THE CHILDREN'S SONG 

LAND of our Birth, we pledge to thee 
Our lo.ve and toil in the years to be, 
When we are grown and take our pl_ace, 
As men and women with our race. 

Father in Heaven who lovest all, 
Oh help Thy-_hijdren when they call ; 
That they may build from .age to age, 
An  heritage. 

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth 
With steadfastness and careful truth ; 
That, in our time, Thy Grace may give 
The Truth whereby the Nations live. 

Teach us to rule ourselves alway, 
Controlled and cleanly night and day, 
That we may bring, if need arise, 
No maimed or worthless sacrifice. 



2 FOURTH READER 

Teach us to look in all our ends, 
On Thee for ju__nd not our fri_%n_ds ; 
That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed 
By fear or favo__ur of the cowd. 

Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, 
By deed or thdght,-'o hurt the weak ; 
That, under Thee, we may possess 
Man's s_tre__ngth to comfort man's distress.. 

Teach us Delight in simple things, 
And Mirth-that has no bitter springs, 
Forgiveness free of evil done, 
And Love to all men 'neath the sun I 

Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride, 
For whose dear sake our fathers died, 
Oh Motherland, we pledge to thee, 
Head, heart, and hand through years to be I 
KIPLING 

OUR COUNTRY 

LOVE thou thy land, with love far-brought 
From out the storied Past, and used 
Within the Present, but transfused 
Thro' future time by power of thought. 
TENNYSON 



4 FOURTH READEE 

a little air of at.ronizing consolation. "I'm 
come to stay ex'er so long, if Mrs. Stelling asks 
me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, 
haven't I, father ? " 
" Yo help me, you silly little thing l" said 
Tom, in such high spirits at this announcement 
that he quite enjoyed the idea of confounding 
Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. " I 
should like to see you doing one of ry lessons I 
Why, I learn Latin too ! Girls never learn such 
things. They're too silly." 
"I know what Latin is very well," said 
Maggie, confidently. "Latin's a language. 
There are Latin words in the Dictionary. 
There's ' bonus, a gift.' " 
" Now, you're just wrong there, Miss 3Iaggie l" 
said Tom, secretly astonished. "You think 
you're very wise. But ' bonus' means ' good,' 
as it happens---' bonus, bona, bonum.'" 
" Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't 
mean ' gift,' " said Maggie, stoutly. " It may 
mean sex'eral things--almost every word does. 
There's ' lawn '--it means the grass-plot, as well 
as the stuff loocket-handkerchiefs are made of." 
" Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, 
laughing, xvhile Tom felt rather disgusted with 
Maggie's knowingness, though beyond measuro 



TOM TULLIVER AT SCHOOL 5 

cheerful at the thought that she was going to 
stay with him. Her conceit would soon be over- 
awed by the actual inspection of his books. 
Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did 
not mention a longer time than a week for 
Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who took her 
between his knees, and asked her where she 
stole her dark eyes from, insisted that she must 
stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr. Stelling 
was a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite 
proud to leave his little wench where she would 
have an opportunity of showing her cleverness 
to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that 
she should not be fetched home till the end of 
the fortnight. 
"Now, then, come with me into the study, 
Maggie," said Tom, as their father drove away. 
"What do you shake and toss your head now 
for, you silly ? " he continued ; for, though 
her hair was now under a new dispensation, 
and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she 
seemed still in imagination to be tossing it out 
of her eyes. "It makes you look as if you were 

crazy." 
"Oh, 
tiently. 
books !" 

I can't help it," said Maggie, impa- 
"Don't tease me, Tom. Oh, what 
she exclaimed, as she saw the book- 



TOM TULLIVER AT SCHOOL 7 

till Maggie's hair flew from behind her ears, and 
twirled about like an animated mop. But the 
revolutions round the table became more and 
more irregular in their sweep, till at last reach- 
ing Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they sent it 
thundering down with its heavy lexicons to the 
floor. Happily it was the ground-floor, and the 
study was a one-storied wing to the house, so 
that the downfall made no alarming resonance, 
though Tom stood dizzy and aghast for a few 
minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. 
Stelling. 
"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting 
up the stand, "we must keep quiet here, you 
know. If we break anything, Mrs. Stelling'll 
make us cry peccavi." 
"What's that?" said Maggie. 
"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said 
Tom, not without some pride in his knowledge. 
"Is she a cross woman ?" said Maggie. 
"I believe you !" said Tom, with an emphatic 
Ilodo 
"I think all women are crosser than men," 
said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a great deal 
crosser than Uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me 
more than father does." 
"Well, you'll be a woman some day," said 
Tom, "so you needn't talk." 



8 FOURTH READER 

"But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, 
with a toss. 
"Oh, I daresay, and a nasty, conceited thing. 
Everybody'll hate you." 
" But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom. It'll be 
very wicked of you, for I shall be your sister." 
"Yes, but if you're a nasty, disagreeable thing, 
I slall hate you." 
"Oh but, Tom, you won't!' I shan't be dis- 
agreeable. I shall be very good to you, and I 
shall be good to everybody. You won't hate 
me really, will you, Tom ?" 
"Oh, bother, never mind! Come, it's time for 
me to ]earn my lessons. See here, what I've got 
to do," said Tom, drawing Maggie towards him 
and showing her his theorem, while she pushed 
her hair behind her ears, and prepared herself to 
prove her capability of helping him in Euclid. 
She began to read with full confidence in her 
own powers; but presently, becoming quite be- 
wildered, her face flushed with irritation. It 
was unavoidable: she must confess her incom- 
petency, and she was not fond of humiliation. 
"It's nonsense ! " she said, "and very ugly 
stuff; nobody need want to make it out." 
"Ah, there now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, 
drawing the book away and wagging his head at 



10 FOURTH READER 

"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said 
Tom; "you've been reading the English at the 
end. Any donkey can do that." 
Tom seized the book and opened it with a 
determined and business-like air, as much as to 
say that he had a lesson to learn which no 
donkeys would find themselves equal to. 
Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the book-cases 
to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles. 
GEORGE ELIOT : "The 5Lill on the Floss." 

INGRATITUDE 

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind, 
Thou art not so unkind 
As luan's ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen 
Iecause thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
Thou dost not bite so nigh 
As benefits forgot; 
Though thou the waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remembered not. 
S HA-KESPEA.RE 



H, M. KING EDWARD VII, 



12 FOURTt{ READER 

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

NEXT morning, being Friday the third day of 
August, in the year 1492, Columbus set sail, a 
little before sunrise, in presence of a vast crowd 
of spectators, who sent up their supplications 
to Heaven fi)r the prosperous issue of the voy- 
age, which they wished rather than expected. 
Columbus steered directly for the Canary 
Islands, and arrived there without any 
occurrence that would have deserved notice on 
any other occasion. :But, in a voyage of such 
expectation and importance, every circum- 
stance was the object of attentiou. 
As they proceeded, the indications of ap- 
proaching land seemed to be more certain, and 
excited hope in proportion. The birds began 
to appear in flocks, making towards the south- 
--est. Columbus, in imitation of the Portu- 
guese navigators, who had been guided in 
several of their discoveries by the motion of 
birds, altered his course from due west towards 
that quarter whither they pointed their flight. 
But, after holding on for several days in this 
new direction, without any better success than 
formerly, having seen no object during thirty 



THE DISCOVERY OF AMERIC. 13 

days but the sea and the sky, the hopes of 
his companions subsided faster than they had 
risen; their fears revived with additional 
force; impatience, rage, and despair appeared 
in every countenance. All sense of subordi- 
nation was lost. The officers, who had 
hitherto concurred with Columbus in opinion, 
and supported, his authority, now took part 
with the private men; they assembled tumul- 
tuously on the deck, expostulated with their 
commander , mingled threats with their expos- 
tulations, and required him instantly to tack 
about and return to Europe. Columbus 
perceived that. it would be of no avail to 
have recourse to any of his former arts, 
which, having been tried so often, had lost 
their effect; and that it was impossible to 
rekindle any zeal for the success of the 
expedition among men in whose breasts fear 
had extinguished every generous sentiment. 
He saw that it was no less vain to think of 
employing either gentle or severe measures to 
quell a mutiny so general and so violent. It 
was necessary, on all these accounts, to soothe 
passions which he could no longer command, 
and to give way to a torrent too impetuous to 
be checked. He promised solemnly to his 



14 FOURTtt READER 

men that he would comply with their request, 
provided they would accompany him and obey 
his command for three days longer, and if, 
during that time, land were not discovered, 
he would then abandon the enterprise, and 
direct his course towards Spain. 
Enraged as the sailors were, and impatient 
to turn their faces again towards their native 
country, this proposition did not appear to 
them unreasonable; nor did Columbus hazard 
much in confining himself to a term so short. 
The presages of discovering land were now so 
numerous and promising that he deemed 
them infallible. For some days the sounding- 
line reached the bottom, and the soil which 
it brought up indicated land to be at no great 
distance. The flocks of birds increased, and 
were composed not only of sea-fowl, but of 
such land-birds as could not be supposed to 
fly far from the shore. The crew of the Pinta 
observed a cane floating, which seemed to have 
been newly cut, and likewise a piece of timber 
artificially carved. The sailors aboard the 
Nigna took up the branch of a tree with red 
berries perfectly fresh. The clouds around the 
setting sun assumed a new appearance; the 
air was more mild and warm, and during 



16 FOURTH READER 

all doubts and fears were dispelled. From 
every ship an islarid was seen about two 
leagues to the north, whose fiat and verdant 
fields, well stored with wood, and watered 
with many rivulets, presented the aspect of a 
dclightful country. 
The crcw of the Pinta instantly began the 
Te Deum, as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, 
and were joined by those of the other ships 
with tears of joy and transports of congratula- 
tion. This office of gratitude to Heaven was 
followed by an act of justice to their com- 
mander. They threw themselves at the feet of 
Columbus, with feelings of lf-condemnation, 
mingled with reverence. They implored 
him to pardon their ignorance, incredulity, 
and insolence, which had created him so 
much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often 
obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted 
plan; and passing, in the warmth of their 
admiration, front one extreme to the other, 
they now pronounced the man whom they 
had so lately reviled and threatened, to be 
a person inspired by Heaven with sagacity 
and fortitude more than human, in order to 
accomplish a design so far beyond the ideas 
and conceptions of all former ages. 
WILLIAI ROBERTSON : "The History of America." 



THE FIRST SPRING IAY 17 

THE FIRST SPRING DAY 

I WONDER if the sap is stirring yet, 
If vintry birds are dreaming of a mate, 
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun, 
And crocqga_fires are kindled one by one : 
Sing, robin, sing ! 
I still am sor_e in doubt concerning Spring. 

I wonder if the spring-tide of this year 
Will bring another spring both lost and dear; 
If heart and spirit will find out their spring, 
Or if the world alone will bu__d and sing " 
Sing, hope, to me ! 
Sweet notes, my hope, sweet notes for memory. 

The sap will surely quicken soon or late, 
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate ; 
So Spring must davn again with warmth and 
blogm, 
Or in this world, or in the world to come : 
Sing, voice of Spring ! 
Till I, too, blossom and rejoice and sing. 
CHRISTINA IOSSETTI 

Be that which you would make others. 
A.MIEL 



THE BATTLE OF THE PIPES 19 

will have heard a good deal more than that," 
says Alan. "I am not the only man who can 
draw steel in Appin; and when my kinsman 
and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a gentle- 
man of your name, not so many years back, I 
could never hear that the Macgregor had the 
best of it." 
"Do you mean my father, sir?" says Robin. 
"Well, I wouldnae wonder," says Alan. "The 
gentleman I have in my mind had the ill-taste 
to clap Campbell to his name." 
"My father was an old man," returned Robin. 
"The match was unequal. You and me would 
make a better pair, sir." 
"I was thinking that," said Alan. 
I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been 
hanging at the elbow of these fighting cocks, 
ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But 
when that word was uttered, it was a case of 
now or never; and Duncan, with something of a 
white face to be sure, thrust himself between. 
"Gentlemen," said he, "I will have been 
thinking of a very different matter. Here are 
my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who 
are baith acclaimed pipers. It's an auld dispute 
which one of ye's the best. Here will be a braw 
chance to settle it." 



0 FOURTH READER 

"Why, sir," said Alan, still addressing Robin, 
from whom indeed he had not so much as 
shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, "why, 
sir," says Alan, "I think I will have heard some 
sough of the sort. Have ye music, as folk say ? 
Are yea bit of a piper ?" 
"I can pipe like a Maccrimmon.!" cries 
obin. 
"And that is a very bold word," quoth Alan. 
"I have made bolder words good before now," 
returned obin, "and that against better adver- 
saries." 
" It is easy to try that," says Alan. 
Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the 
pair of pipes that was his principal possession, 
and to set before his guests a muttonham and a 
bottle of that drink which they call Athole 
brose. The two enemies were still on the very 
breach of a quarrel; but down they sat, one 
upon each side of the peat fire, with a mighty 
show of politeness. ]Iaclaren pressed them to 
taste his muttonham and "the wife's brose," 
reminding them the wife was out of Athole and 
had a name far and wide for her skill in that 
confection. But Robin put aside these hospi- 
talities as bad for the breath. 
"I would havo ye to remark, sir," said Alan, 



THE BATTLE OF THE PIPES 

"that I havenae broken bread for near upon ten 
hours, which will be vorse for the breath than 
any brose in Scotland." 
"I will take no advantages, Mr. Stewart," 
replied Robin. " Eat and drink; I'll fillow." 
Each ate a small portion of the ham and 
drank a glass of the brose to Mrs. Maclaren; 
and then, after a great number of civilities, 
Robin took the pipes and played a little spring 
in a very ranting nmnner. 
" Ay, ye can blow," said Alan; and, taking 
the instrument from his rival, he first played 
the same spring in a manner identical with 
Robin's; and then wandered into variations, 
which, as he went on, he decorated with a 
perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers 
love, and call the " warblers." 
I had been pleased with Robin's playing, 
Alan's ravished me. 
"That's no very bad, Mr. Stewart," said the 
rival, "but ye show a poor device ia your 
warbler." 
"Me !" cried Alan, the blood starting to his 
face. "I give ye the lie." 
"Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, 
then," said Robin, "that ye seek to change 
them for the sword ?" 



THE BATTLE OF THE PIPES 23 

:But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask 
for silence, and struck into the slow music of a 
pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, 
and nobly played; but, it seems besides, it was 
a piece peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a 
chief favourite with Alan. The first notes were 
scarce out, before there came a change in his 
face; when the time quickened, he seemed to 
grow restless in his seat; and long before that 
piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger 
died from him, and he had no thought but for 
the music. 
" Robin Oig," he said, when it was done, 
" ye are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in 
the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye 
have more music in your sporran than I have in 
my head! And, though it still sticks in my 
mind that I could show ye another of it with 
the cold steel, I warn ye beforehand--it'll no be 
fair ! It would go against my heart to haggle a 
man that can blow the pipes as you can ! " 
Thereupon the quarrel was made up. All 
night long the pipes were changing hands, and 
the day had come pretty bright before Robin 
as much as thought upon the road. 
I:OBEttT Locs STEVENSON : " Kidnapped." 



24 FOURTH READER 

BEGA 

FROI the clouded belfry calling 
Hear 1-ny soft ascending swells, 
Hear my notes like swallows falling : 
I am Bega, least of bells. 
When great Turkeful rolls and rings 
All the storm-touched turret swings, 
Echoing battle, loud and long. 
When great Tatwin wakening roars 
To the far-off shining shores, 
All the seame know his song. 
I am Bega, least of bells ; 
Iu my throat my message swells. 
I, with all the wiuds athrill, 
Iurmuring softly, murmuring still, 
" God around me, God above me, 
God to guard me, God to love me." 

I am Bega, least of bells ; 
Weaving wonder, wind-born spells. 
High above the morning mist, 
Wreathed in rose and amethyst, 
Still the dreams of music float 
Silver from my silver throat, 
Whispering beauty, whispering peace. 



When great Tatwin's golden voice 
Bids the listening land rejoice, 
When great Turkeful rings and rolls 
Thunder down to trembling souls, 
Then my notes, like curlews flying, 
Sinking, falling, lifting, sighing, 
Softly answer, softly cease. 
I, with all the airs at ilay, 
Murmuring softly, murmuring say, 
"God around me, God above me, 
God to guard me, God to love me." 
[ARJORIE L. C. PICKTHAL, 

LOVE as brethren, be iitiful, be courteous : not 
rendering evil for evil or railing for railing- but 
contrariwise blessing. 
For he that will love life, and see good days, 
let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his 
lips that they speak no guile: 
Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him 
seek peace and ensue it. 
For the eyes of the Lord are over the right- 
eous, and His ears are open unto their irayers : 
but the face of the Lord is against them that do 
evil. 
And who is he that will harm you, if ye be 
followers of that which is good ? 
I. PETER, IIL 



 OUITH READER 

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan, 
Down in the reeds by the river ? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban, 
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 
With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan 
From the deep, cool bed of the river: 
The limpid water turbidly ran, 
And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 
And the dragon-fly had fled away, 
Ere he brought it out of the river. 

ttigh on the shore sat the great god Pan, 
While turbidly flow'd the river; 
And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can, 
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed, 
Till there was not a sign of a leaf, indeed, 
To prove it fresh from the river. 

I-Ie cut it short, did the great god Pan, 
(How tall it stood in the river !) 
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 



EGERTON RYERON 



A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

Steadily from the outside ring, 
And notch'd the poor, dry, empty thing 
In holes, as he sat by the river. 

"This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan, 
(Laugh'd while he sat by the river) 
"The only way, since gods began 
To make sweet music, they could succeed." 
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 
He blew in power by the river. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, 0 Pan ! 
Piercing sweet by the river! 
Blinding sweet, 0 great god Pan ! 
The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
And the lilies reviv'd, and the dragon-fly 
Came back to dream on the river. 

Yet, half a beast is the great god Pan, 
To laugh as he sits by the river, 
Making a poet out of a man : 
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-- 
For the reed which grows nevermore again 
As a reed vith the reeds in the river. 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROW.NLG 

If little labour, little are our gains; 
Man's fortunes are according to his pains. 
ERRIC 



8 ]OUTH EADER 

WOLFE AND MONTCALM 

rHE eventful night of the twelfth was clear and 
calm, with no light but that of the tars. Within 
two hours before daybreak thirty boats, crowded 
with sixteen hundred soldiers, cast offfrom the 
vessels and floated downward in perfect order 
with the current of the ebb-tide. To the bound- 
less joy of the army, Wolfe's nmlady had abated, 
and he was able to command in person. His 
ruined health, the gloomy prospect of the iege, 
and the disaster at Montmorenci, had oppressed 
him with the deepest melancholy, but never 
impaired for a moment the promptness of his 
decisions, or the impetuous energy of his action. 
He sat in the stern of one of the boats, pale 
and weak, but borne up to a calm height of 
resolution. Every order had been given, every 
arrangement made, and it only remained to face 
the issue. The ebbing tide sufficed to bear the 
boats along, and nothing broke the silence of the 
night but the gurgling of the river, and the low 
voice of Wolfe, as he repeated to the officers 
about him the stanzas of Gray's " Elegy in a 
Country Churchyard," which had recently ap- 
peared, and which he had just received from 



WOLFE AND MONTCALM 

England. Perhaps as he uttered those strangely 
appropriate words :-- 
"The paths of glory lead but to the grave," 
the shadows of his own approaching fate stole 
with mournful prophecy across his mind. 
"Gentlemen," he said, as he closed his recital, 
"I would rather have written those lines than 
take Quebec to-morrow." 
As they approached the landing-place, the 
boats edged closer in towards the northern shore, 
and the woody precipices rose high on their left 
like a wall of undistinguished blackness. 
" Qui vve ?" shouted a French sentinel from 
out the impervious gloom. 
"La France !" answered a captain of Fraser's 
Highlanders from the foremost boat. 
As boats were frequently passing down the 
river with supplies for the garrison, and as a 
convoy from :Bougainville was expected that 
very night, the sentinel was deceived and allow- 
ed the English to proceed. A few moments 
later, they were challenged again, and this time 
they could discern the soldier running close 
down to the water's edge, as if all hs suspicions 
were aroused ; but the skilful replies of the High- 
lander once more saved the party from discovery. 
They reached the landing-place in safety,man 



dispersed, or made prisoners, while men after 
men came swarming up the height and quickly 
formed upon the plains above. Meanwhile the 
vessels had dropped downward with the current 
and anchored opposite the landing-place. The 
remaining troops disembarked, and with the 
dawn of day, the whole were brought in 
safety to the shore. 
The sun rose, and from the ramparts of Quebec 
the astonished people saw the Plains of Abraham 
glittering with arms, and the dark-red lines of 
the English forming in array of battle. Breath- 
less messengers had borne the evil tidings to 
Nontealm, and far and near his wide-extended 
camp resounded with the rolling of alarm-drums 
and the din of startled preparation. He, too, 
had had his struggles and his sorrows. The 
civil power had thwarted him; famine, discon- 
tent, and disaffection were rife among his 
soldiers; and no small portion of the Canadian 
militia had dispersed from sheer starvation. In 
spite of all, he had trusted to hold out till the 
winter frosts should drive the invaders from 
before the town, when on that disastrous morn- 
ing the news of their successful temerity fell like 
a cannon-shot upon his ear. Still he assumed a 
tone of confidence. "They have got to the weak 



32 FOURTH READER 

side of us at last," he is reported to have said, 
"and we must crush them with our numbers." 
With headlong haste his troops were pouring 
over the bridge of St. Charles, and gathering in 
heavy masses under the western ramparts of the 
town. Could numbers give assurance of success, 
their triumph would have been secure, for five 
French battalions and the armed colonial peas- 
antry amounted in all to more than seven 
thousand five hundred men. Full in sight 
before stretched the long, thin lines of the British 
forces--the Highlanders, the steady soldiery of 
England, and the hardy levies of the provinces 
---less than five thousand in number, but all 
inured to battle, and strong in the full assurance 
of success. 
It was nine o'clock, and the adverse armies 
stood motionless, each gazing on the other. 
The clouds hung low, and at intervals warm 
light showers descended besprinkling both 
alike. The coppice and corn-fields in front 
of the British troops were filled with French 
sharp-shooters, who kept up a distant spatter- 
ing fire. Here and there a soldier fell in the 
ranks, and the gap was filled in silence. 
At a little before ten the British could see 
that Montcalm was preparing to advance, and 



WOLFE AND MONTCALM 

in a few moments all his troops appeared 
in rapid motion. They came on in three 
divisions, shouting after the manner of their 
nation, and firing heavily as soon as they came 
within range. In the British ranks not a 
trigger was pulled, not a soldier stirred, and 
their ominous composure seemed to damp the 
spirits of the assailants. It ws not till the 
French were within forty yards that the fatal 
word was given, and the British muskets 
blazed forth at once in one crashing explosion. 
Like a ship at full career arrested with sudden 
ruin on a sunken rock, the ranks of Montcalm 
staggered, shivered, and broke before that wast- 
ing storm of lead. The smoke rolling along 
the. field for a moment shut out the view, 
but, when the white wreaths were scattered on 
the wind, a wretched spectacle was disclosed: 
men and officers tumbled in heaps, battalions 
resolved into a mob, order and obedience gone; 
and, when the British muskets were levelled for 
a second volley, the masses of the militia were 
seen to cower and shrink with uncontrollable 
panic. For a few minutes the French regulars 
stood their ground, returning a sharp and not 
ineffectual fire. But now, echoing cheer on 
cheer, redoubling volley on volley, tramp- 



FOURTH READER 

ling the dying and the dead, and driving 
the fugitives in crowds, the British troops 
advanced and swept the field before them. 
The ardour of the men burst all restraint. 
They broke into a run and with unsparing 
slaughter chased the flying multitude to the 
gates of Quebec. Foremost of all, the light- 
footed ttighlanders dashed along in furious 
pursuit, hewing down the Frenchmen with 
their broadswords and slaying many in the 
very ditch of the fortifications. -ever was 
victory more quick or more decisive. 
In the short action and pursuit the French 
lost fifteen hundred men, killed, wounded, and 
taken. Of the remainder some escaped within 
the city, and others fled across the St. Charles 
to rejoin their comrades who had been left to 
guard the camp. The pursuers were recalled 
by sound of trumpet, the broken ranks were 
formed afresh, and the English troops with- 
drawn beyond reach of the cannon of Quebec. 
Townshend and Murray, the only general 
officers who remained unhurt, passed to the 
head of every regiment in turn and thanked 
the soldiers for the bravery they had shown; 
yet the triumph of the victors was mingled 
with sadness as tidings went from rank to 
rank that Wolfe had fallen. 



WOLFE AND MONTCALM  

In the heat of the action, as he advanced 
at the head of the grenadiers of Louisburg, a 
bullet shattered his wrist, but he wrapped his 
handkerchief about the wound, and showed 
no sign of pain. A moment more and a ball 
pierced his side. Still he pressed forward 
waving his sword and cheering his soldiers 
to the attack, when a third shot lodged deep 
within his breast. He paused, reeled, and 
staggering to one side, fell to earth. Brown, a 
lieutenant of the grenadiers, Henderson, a 
volunteer, an officer of artillery, and a private 
soldier, raised him together in their arms, and 
bearing him to the rear laid him softly on the 
grass. They asked if he would have a surgeon, 
but he shook his head and answered that all 
was over with him. His eyes closed with the 
torpor of approaching death, and those around 
sustained his fiainting form. Yet they could 
not withhold their gaze from the wild turmoil 
before them, and the charging ranks of their 
companions rushing through fire and smoke. 
"See how they run," one of the officers ex- 
claimed, as the French fell in confusion before 
the levelled bayonets. "Who run ?" demanded 
Wolfe, opening his eyes like a man aroused 
from sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the reply; 



FOURTH READER 

"they give way everywhere." "Then," said 
the dying general, "tell Colonel Burton to 
march Webb's regiment down to Charles 
River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. 
Now, God be praised, I shall die in peace," he 
murmured; and turning on his side he calmly 
breathed his last. 
Almost at the same moment fell his great 
adversary, Montcalm, as he strove with vain 
bravery to rally his shattered ranks. Struck 
down with a mortal wound, he was placed upon 
a litter and borne to the General Hospital on 
the banks of the ,_t.,q Charles. The surgeons 
told him that he could not recover. "I am 
glad of it," was his calm reply. He then asked 
how long he might survive, and was told that 
he had not many hours remaining. "So much 
the better," he said; "I am happy that I shall 
not live to see the surrender of Quebec." 
Officers from the garrison came to his bedside 
to ask his orders and instructions. "I will give 
no more orders," replied the defeated soldier; 
"I have much business that must be attended 
to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison 
and this wretched country. My time is very 
short, therefore, pray leave me." 
The victorious army encamped before Quebec 



 FOUrtH EADE 

On soft Pacific slopes,--beside 
Strange floods that northward rave and fall,-- 
Where chafes Acadia's chainless tide-- 
Thy sons await thy call. 

They wait; but some in exile, some 
With strangers housed, in stranger lands,-- 
And some Canadian lips are dumb 
Beneath Egyptian sands. 

O mystic Nile ! Thy secret yields 
Before us; thy most ancient dreams 
Are mixed with far Canadian fields 
And murmur of Canadian streams. 

But thou, my country, dream not thou I 
Wake, and behold how night is done,-- 
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow, 
:Bursts the uprising sun ! 

Love your country, believe in her, honour 
her, work for her, live for her, die for her. 
:Never has any people been endowed with a 
nobler birthright or blessed with prospects of 
 fairer future. 
Lo DUFI 



SCROOGE'S CHRISTMAS 39 

SCROOGE'S CHRISTMAS 

{ON Christmas Eve, Scrooge, "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, 
scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner," is visited by three ghosts 
in succession--The Ghost oI Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas 
Prent, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The tirst 
recalled the experiences of Scrooge'syouth, the second showed him 
Christmas as it might be spent and incidentally, t0o, what some 
people thought o[ him. The third showed him th "shadows oI the 
things that have not happened, but will happen in the time 
before us." He saw himseli dead, uncured for, unwept, unwatched, 
his effects plundered by the charwoman, laun:ess, and tmder- 
taker's man and realized the end to which he must come unless he 
led an altered life. Holding up his hands he prayed to have his 
fate reversed and saw the Ghost shrink and dwindle down into a 
bedpost. ) 
YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed 
was his own, the room was his own. Best and 
happiest of all, the Time before him was his own 
to make amends in. 
" I will live in the Past, the Present, and the 
Future ! " Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out 
of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive 
within me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the 
Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on 
my knees, old Jacob ; on my knees ! " 
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his 
good intentions, that his broken voice could 
scarcely answer to his call. He had been 
sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, 
and his face was wet with tears. 
" They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, 



40 FOURTH READER 

folding one of his bed curtains in his arms,-- 
" they are not torn down, rings and all. They 
are here,--I am here,--the shadows of the things 
that would have been may be dispelled. They 
will be. I know they will !" 
His hands were busy with his garments all 
this time; turning them inside out, putting 
them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying 
them, making them parties to every kind of 
extravagance. 
" I don't know what to do !" cried Scrooge, 
laughing and crying i the same breath; and 
making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his 
stockings. " I am as light as a feather, I am as 
happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school- 
boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A 
Merry Christmas to everybody! .k Happy New 
Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! 
Hallo !" 
tie had frisked into the sitting-room, and was 
now standing there, perfectly winded. 
"There's the sauce-pan that the gruel was 
in!" cried Scrooge, starting off again, and 
going round the fireplace. "There's the door 
by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! 
There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas 
Present sat! There's the window where I saw 



SCROOGE'S CHRISTMAS 41 

the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all 
true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!" 
Really, for a man who had been out, of 
practice for so many years, it was a splendid 
laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of 
long, long line of brilliant laughs 
" I don't know what day of the month it is," 
said Scrooge. " I don't know how long I have 
been amongst the Spirits. I don't know any- 
thing. I'm quite a baby. :Never mind. I 
don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo l 
Whoop ! Hallo here 
He was checked in his transports by the 
churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had 
ever heard. Clang, clash, hammer ; ding, dong, 
bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash l 
O, glorious, glorious! 
Running to the window, he opened it, and 
put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, 
bright, jovial, stirring cold; cold, piping for the 
blood to dance to; golden sunlight; heavenly 
sky ; sweet fresh air ; merry bells. O, glorious, 
glorious ! 
"What's to-day ?" cried Scrooge, calling 
downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who 
perhaps had loitered in to look about him. 



 FOURTH READER 

"Eh ?" returned the boy, with all his might 
of wonder. 
"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said 
Scrooge. 
"To-day !" replied the boy. "Why, CHRIST- 
MAS DAY. '  
" It's Christmas Day !" said Scrooge to him- 
self. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have 
done it all in one night. They can do anything 
they like. Of course they can. Of course they 
can. Hallo, my fine fellow?" 
"Hallo !" returned the boy. 
" Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next 
street but one, at the corner ?" Scrooge inquired. 
" I should hope I did," replied the  
"An intelligent boy !" said Scrooge. " A 
remarkable boy ! Do you know whether they've 
sold the prize turkey that was hanging up 
there?--Not the little prize turkey, the big 
o12e?" 
"What, the one as big as me ?" said the boy. 
"What a delightful boy[" said Scrooge. 
"It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my 
buck !" 
"It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 
" Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it." 
"WALK-ER !" exclaimed the boy. 



SCROOGE'S CHRISTMAS 

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. 
Go and buy it and tell 'era to bring it here, that 
I may give them the direction where to take it. 
Come back with the man, and I'll give you a 
shilling. Come back with him in less than five 
minutes, and I'll give you half-a-crown!" 
The boy was off like a shot. He must have 
had a steady hand at the trigger who could 
have got a shot off half so fast. 
"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered 
Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with 
a laugh. " He shan't know who sends it. It's 
twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never 
made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will 
be !" 
The hand in which he wrote the address was 
not a steady one, but write he did, somehow, 
and went down-stairs to open the street door, 
ready for the coming of the Poulterer's man. 
As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the 
knocker caught his eye. 
"I shall love it as long as I live l" cried 
Scrooge, patting it with his hand. " I scarcely 
ever looked at it before. What an honest ex- 
pression it has in its face! It's a wonderful 
knocker !--Here's the turkey. Hallo ! Whoop l 
How are you? Merry Christmas l" 



44 FOURTH READER 

It was a turkey! He could never have stood 
upon his legs, that bird. He would have 
snapped 'era off short in a minute, like sticks 
of sealing-wax. 
"Why, it's impossible to carry that to 
Camden Town," said Scrooge. "You must 
have a cab." 
The chuckle with which he said this, and the 
chuckle with which he paid for the turkey, 
and the chuckle with which he paid for the 
cab, and the chuckle with which he recom- 
pensed the boy, were only exceeded by the 
chuckle with which he sat down breathlessly 
in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried. 
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand 
continued to shake very much; and shaving 
requires attention, even when you don't dance 
while you are at it. But, if he had cut the end 
of his nose off, he would have put a piece of 
sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. 
tie dressed himself "all in his best," and 
at last got out into the streets. The people 
were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen 
them with the Ghost of Christmas Present] 
and, walking with his hands behind him, 
Scrooge regarded everyone with a delighted 
smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a 



46 FOURTH READER 

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, 
round the door. They were looking at the 
table (which was spread out in great array); 
for these young housekeepers are always 
nervous on such points, and like to see that 
everything is right. 
" Fred l" said Scrooge. Dear heart alive, 
how his niece by marriage started! .... 
"Why, bless my soul[" cried Fred, " Who's 
that ?" 
"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come 
to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?" 
Let him in I It is a mercy he didn't shake 
his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. 
Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked 
just the same. So did Topper when he came. 
So did the plump sister when she came. So 
did everybody when they came. Wonderful 
party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, 
won-der-ful happiness [ 
But he was early at the office next morning. 
Oh, he was early there. If he could only be 
there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late[ 
That was the first thing he had set his heart upon. 
And he did it; yes, he did! The clock 
struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No 
Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a 



SCROOGF?S CHRISTMAS 

half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his 
door wide open, that he might see him come 
into the Tank. 
His hat was off, before he opened the door, 
his comforter, too. He was on his stool in a 
jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he were 
trying to overtake nine o'clock. 
" Hallo ! " growled Scrooge, in his accustomed 
voice, as near as he could feign it. "What do 
you mean by coming here at this time of day ?" 
"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am 
behind my time." 
"You are!" repeated Scrooge. "Yes, I think 
you are. Step this way, sir, if you please." 
" It only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, 
appearing from the Tank. " It shall not be 
repeated. I was making rather merry yester- 
day, sir." 
" Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said 
Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of 
thing any longer. And therefore," he con- 
tinued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob 
such a dig in his waistcoat that he staggered 
back into the Tank again,--" and, therefore, I 
am about to raise your salary!" 
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the 
mler. He had a momentary idea of knocking 



48 FOURTH READER 

Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling 
to the people in the court for help and a strain 
waistcoat. 
"A Merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, 
with an earnestness that could not be mis- 
taken, as he clapped him on the back. "A 
Merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than 
I have given you for many a year! I'll raise 
your salary, and endeavour to assist your 
struggling family, and we'll discuss your affairs 
this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of 
smoking bishop. Bob! Make up the fires, 
and buy another scuttle of coal before you dot 
another i, Bob Cratchit !" 
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it 
all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who 
did lX'OT die, he was second father. He became 
as good a friend, as good a master, and as good 
a man as the good old city knew, or any other 
good old city, town, or borough, in the good old 
world. Some people laughed to see the altera- 
tion in him, but he let them laugh, and little 
heeded them; for he was wise enough to know 
nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, 
at which some people did not have their fill of 
laughter in the outset; and knowing that such 
as these would be blind any way, he thought 



HANDS ALL ROUND 49 

it quite as well that they should wrinkle up 
their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less 
attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and 
that was quite enough for him. 
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, 
but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle 
ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, 
that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if 
any man alive possessed the knowledge. May 
that be truly said of us, and all of us ! And so, as 
Tiny Tim observed, GOD BLFSS US EVERY ONE ! 
DICKENS : "A Christmas Carol" 

ttANDS'ALL ROUND 
'edge our Queen this rsolemn night, 
 Then drink to England, eery guest; 
That man's the best Cosmopolite 
Who loves his native country best. 
May freedom's oak for ever live 
With stronger life from day to day ; 
That man's the true Conservative 
Who lops the moulder'd branch away. 
Hands all round! 
God the traitor's hope confound ! 
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, 
And the great name of England, round and 
round. 



50 FOURTH READER 

To all the loyal hearts who long 
To keep our English Empire whole I 
To all our noble sons, the strong 
New England of the Southern Pole! 
To England under Indian skies, 
To those dark millions of her realm ! 
To Canada whom we love and prize, 
Whatever statesman hold the helm. 
Hands all round I 
God the traitor's hope confound ! 
To this great name of England drink, my friends, 
And all her glorious empire, round and round. 

To all our statesmen so they be 
rue leaders of the land's desire! 
To both our ttouses, may they see 
Beyond the borough and the shire 1 
We sail'd wherever ship could sail, 
We founded many a mighty state; 
Pray God our greatness may not fail 
Through craven fears of being great. 
Hands all round I 
God the traitor's hope confound ! 
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends, 
And the great name of England, round and 
round. 



JUDAH'S SUPPLICATION TO JOSEPH 51 

JUDAH'S SUPPLICATION TO JOSEPH 

AID Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's 
house; and he was yet there: and they fell 
before him on the ground. And Joseph said 
unto them, What deed is this that ye have done? 
know ye not that such a man as I can indeed 
divine? And Judah said, What shall 'e say 
unto my lord? what shall 'e speak? or how 
shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out 
the iniquity of thy servants : behold, we are my 
lord's bondmen, both we, and he also in -hose 
hand the cup is found. And he said, God for- 
bid that I should do so: the man in whose hand 
the cup is found, he shall be my bondman; but 
as for you, get you up in peace unto your tather. 
Then Judah came near unto him, and said, 
Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak 
a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger 
burn against thy servant" for thou art even as 
Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, 
ttave ye a father, or a brother? And we said 
unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, 
and a child of his old age, a little one ; and his 
brother is dead, and he alone is left of his 
mother, and his father loveth him. And thou 



FOURTH READER 

saidst unto thy servants, Bring him down unto 
me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. And 
we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his 
father: for if he should leave his father, his 
father would die. And thou saidt unto thy 
servants, Except your youngest brother come 
down with you, ye shall see my face no more. 
And it came to pass when we came up unto thy 
servant my father, we told him the words of my 
lord. And our father said, Go again, buy us a 
little food. And we said, We cannot go down : 
if our youngest brother be with us, then will 
we go down : for we may not see the man's face, 
except our youngest brother be with us. And 
thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know 
that my wife bare me two sons: and the one 
went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn 
in pieces ; and I have not seen him since : and 
if ye take this one also from me, and mischief 
befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs 
with sorrow to the grave. Now, therefore, when 
I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be 
not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in 
the lad's life; it shall come to pass, when he 
seeth that the lad is not with us, that he Till 
die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray 
hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to 



JUDAH'S SUPPLICATION TO JOSEPH 53 

the grave. For thy servant became surety for 
the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him 
not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my 
father for ever. Now therefore, let thy servant, 
I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman 
to my lord; and let the lad go up with his 
brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, 
and the lad be not with me? lest I see the evil 
that shall come on my father. 
Then Joseph could not refrain himself before 
all them that stood by him ; and he cried, Cause 
every man to go out from me. And there stood 
no man with him, while Joseph made himself 
known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud : 
and the Egyptians heard, and the house of 
Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his 
brethren, I am Joseph ; doth my i:ather yet live? 
And his brethren could not answer him; for 
they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph 
said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray 
you. And they came near. And he said, I am 
Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt. 
And now be not grieved, nor angry with your- 
selves, that ye sold me hither : for God did send 
me before you to preserve life. For these two 
years hath the famine been in the land; and 
there are yet five years in the which there shall 



54 FOURTH READER 

be neither ploughing nor harvest. And God 
sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in 
the earth, and to save you alive by a great 
deliverance. So now it was not you that sent 
me hither, but God : and he hath made me a 
father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and 
ruler over all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and 
go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus 
saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord 
of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: 
and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshe_n, and 
thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy 
children, and thy children's children, and thy 
flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast : 
and there will I nourish thee ; for there are yet 
five years of famine ; lest thou come to poverty, 
thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast. 
And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my 
brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that 
speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father 
of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have 
seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my 
father hither. And he fell upon his brother 
Benjamin's neck, and wept ; and Benjamin wept 
upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, 
and wept upon them; and after that 
brethren talked with him. 
GF_-ss, _'LIV-V. 



MIRIAM'S SONG 
(Read ExoDus, 

SOUI'D the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea ! 
Jehovah hath triumphed--His people are free. 
Sing--for the pride of the tyrant is broken, 
His chariots and horsemen all splendid and 
brave, 
I-tow vain was their boasting l the Lord hath 
but spoken, 
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the 
wave. 
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea I 
Jehovah hath triumphed--His people are free. 

Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord I 
ttis word was the arrow, His breath was our 
sword ! 
Who shall return to tell Egypt the tory 
Of those she sent forth iu the power of her pride? 
For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of 
glory, 
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the 
tide. 
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea I 
Jehovah hath triumphed--His people are free. 
THO, MooRE 



56 FOURTH REDE 

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB 
(Read II. KGs, XIX. 35) 
THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the 
fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and 
gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on 
the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep 
Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is 
green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen : 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath 
blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and 
strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on 
the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and 
chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever 
grew still ! 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB 57 
there lay the steed with his nostril all 
e, 
But through it there rolled not the breath of his 
pride : 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the 
turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his 
mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the 
sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the 
Lord ! 
Buo 

THE house of the wicked shall be overthrown : 
But the tent of the upright shall flourish. 
In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence : 
And his children shall have a place of refuge. 
PROVERBS 



THE LARK AT THE DIGGINGS 59 

He was  confounded. "What, is it 
this we came twelve miles to see?" 
" Ay! and twice twelve wouldn't have been 
much to me." 
" Well, but what is the lark you talked of ?" 
"This is it." 
"This? This is a bird." 
"Well, and isn't a lark a bird?" 
"O, ay! Isee! ha! ha! ha! ha!" 
Robinson's merriment was i...nterrup_ted by a 
harsh r2monstrance from several of the diggers, 
who were all from the other end of the camp. 
" Hold your---cackle," cried one, " he is going 
to sing;" and the whole party had their eyes 
turned with expectation towards the bird. 
Like most singers, he kept them waiting a 
bit. But at last, just at noon, when the mist__res_s 
of the house had warranted hinl to sing, the 
little feathered exile began, as it were, to tune 
his pipes. The savage men gathered round 
the cage that moment, and amidst a dead 
stillness the bird uttered some very uncertain 
chirps, but after awhile he seemed to revive his 
memories, and call his ancient cadences back 
to him one by one, and string them sotto "voce. 
And then the same sun that had warmed his 
little heart at home came glowing down on him 



THE ANCIENT BIARINEI 6] 

they were full of oaths and drink and lusts and 
remorses,Rbut no note was changed in this 
immortal song. And so for a moment or two, 
years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from 
the memory, and the past shone out in the song- 
shine" they came back, bright as the immortal 
notes that lighted them, those faded pictures 
and those fleete._._d days; the cottage, the old 
mother's tears when he left her without one 
grain of sorrow; the village church and its 
simple chimes; the clover field hard by in 
which he lay and g_ambolled, while the lark 
praised God overhead; the chubby playmates 
that never grew to be wicked, the sweet hours 
of youth--and innocence--and home. 
CHARLES lEADE : "It is 'ever Too Late to blend "' 

THE ANCIENT MAIRINER 

IT is an ancient Mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of three. 
"By thy long gray beard and glitter"ing eye, 
Now whefore stopp'st thou me? 

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
And I am next of kin; 
The guests are met, the feast is set: 
May'st hear the merr_:Ldin." 



FOURTH READER 

He holds him with his skinny hand, 
"There was a ship," quoth he. 
"Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard, loon l" 
Eftsoonshis hand dropt he. 

He holds him with his glittering eye-- 
The Wedding-Guest stood still, 
And listens like a three years' child: 
The Mariner hath his will. 

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: 
He cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that _a_n_c_ient man, 
The brightoeyed Mariner: 

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 
Merrily did we drop 
Below the kirk, below the hill, 
Below the lighthouse top. 

The Sun came up upon the left, 
Out of the sea came he ! 
And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea. 

Higher and higher every day, 
Till over the mast at noon--" 
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, 
For he heard the loud bassaon. 



64 FOURTH READER 

And through the drifts the snowy clifts 
Did send a dismal sheen : 
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-- 
The ice was all between. 

The ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around- 
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
Like noises in a swound. 
At length did cross an Albatross,-- 
Thorough the fog it came ; 
As if it had been a Christian soul, 
We hailed it in God's name. 

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it flew. 
The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 
The helmsman steered us through! 
And a good south wind sprung up behind; 
The Albatross did follow, 
And every day, for food or play, 
Came to the mari_____ners'_ hollo! 
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
It perched for vespers nine; 
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
(Jli the white Moon-shine." 



CLOSE OF FRENCH PERIOD IN CANADA 

"God save thee, ancient Mariner, 
From the fiends, that plague thee thus !- 
Why look'st thou so ?"--" With my cross-bow 
I shot the Albatross." 
COLERIDGI 

AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH PERIOD 
IN CANADA 

WH. the flag of France departed from Canada, 
it left a people destined to find under the 
new rule a fuller freedom, an ampler p21itical 
development, a far more abundant p. 
It left a people destined to honour their new 
alleg.anceby loyalty and heroic service in the 
hour of trial. 
This people, which thus became British by 
a campaign and a treaty, was destined to form 
the solid core around which should grow the 
vast Confederation of Canada. But for them 
there woum now, in all likelihood, be no Can- 
ada. By their reor of the proposals of the 
revolted colonies, the northern half of this 
continent was preserved to Great Britain. The 
debt which the empire owes to the French 
Canadians is immeasurably greater than we at 



66 FOURTtt READER 

present realize. Let us examine the_c_harac- 
teristics of the small and isolated people which 
was to exercise such a deep influence on the 
future of this continent. 
The whole population of Canada when she 
came under the British flag was about sixty 
thousand. This hardy handful was gathered 
chiefly at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. 
The rest trailed thinly along the shores of the 
St. Lawrence and the Ri_.c_helieu. The lands 
about the Great Lakes, and the western coun- 
try, were held only by a few scattered forts, 
buried here and there in the green wilderness. 
At Detroit had sprung up a scanty settlement of 
perhaps one thousand souls. In these remote 
posts the all-important question was still that 
of the fur-trade with the Indians. The traders 
and the soldiers, cut off from civilization, 
frequently took wives from the Indian tribes 
about them, and settled down to a life half 
barbarous. These men soon grew as lawless as 
their adopted kinsfolk. They were a weakness 
and a discredit to the country in time of peace, 
but in war their skill and daring were the 
frontier's best defence. 
Quebec had seven thousand inhabitants. 
Most of them dwelt between the water's edge 



CLOSE OF FRENCH PERIOD IN CANADA 67 

and the foot of the great cliff whose top was 
crowned by the citadel. Where the shoulder 
of the promontory swept around toward the 
St. Charles, the slope became more gentle, and 
there the houses and streets began to clamber 
toward the summit. Streets that found them- 
selves growing too precipito_us had a way, then 
as now, of changing suddenly into flights of 
stairs. The city walls, grimly bastioned, ran 
in bold zigzags across the face of the steep in 
a way to daunt assailants. Down the hillside, 
past the cathedral and the college, through the 
heart of the city, clattered a noisy brook, which 
in time of freshet flooded the neighbouring 
streets. Part of the city was within walls, part 
without. Most of the houses were low, one- 
story buildings, with large expanse of steep 
roof, and high dormer windows. Along the in- 
cline leading down to the St. Charles stretched 
po_p_ulous suburbs. On the high plateau vhere 
now lies the stately :New Town, there was then 
but a bleak pasture-land whose grasses waved 
against the city gates. 
hIontreal, after its childhood of awful trial, 
had greatly prospered. Its population had 
risen to about nine thousand. The fur-trade 
of the  Northwest, developed by a 



(8 FOURTH ]READER 

stmce_ssion of daring and tireless wood-rangers, 
had poured its wealth into the lap of the city 
of Maisonneuve. The houses, some of which 
were built of the light gray stone which now 
gives dignity to the city, were usually of but 
one story. They were arra..__nged in three or 
four long lines parall____el_ to the river. The 
towers of the Semiy. of St. Sulpici__us and the 
spires of three churches, standing out against 
the green of the stately mountain, were con- 
spicuous from afar to_x:o)=agers coming up the 
river from Quebec. The city was inclosed by a 
stone wall and a shallow ditch, once useful as a 
defence against the Indians, but no protection 
in the face of serious assault. At the lower 
end of the city, covering the landing-place, 
rose a high earthwork crowned with cannon. 
The houses of the lza__'tants, tillers of the soil, 
were small cabins, humble but warm, with wide, 
overhanging eaves, and consisting at most of two 
rooms. The partition, when there was one, was 
of boards. Lath and plaster were unknown. 
The walls within, to the height of a man's 
shoulders, were worn smooth by the backs that 
leaned against them. Solid wooden boxes and 
benches usually took the place of chairs. A 
clumsy loom, on which the women wove their 



CLOSE OF FRENCH PERIOD IN CANADA 

coarse homespuns of wool or flax, occupied one 
corner of the main room; and a deep, box-like 
cradle, always rocking, stood beside the ample 
fireplace. Over the fire stood the long, black 
arms of a crane, on which was done most of the 
cooking; though the "bake-kettle" sometimes 
relieved its labours, and the brick oven was a 
standby in houses of the rich habitants, as well as 
of the gentry. For the roasting of meats the 
spit was much in use; and there was a gridiron 
with legs, to stand on the hearth, with a heap of 
hot coals raked under it. The houses even of 
the upper classes were seldom two stories in 
height. But they were generally furnished with 
a good deal of luxury; and in the cities they 
were sometimes built of stone. 
A typical country mansion, the dwelling of a 
seigneur on his own domain, was usually of the 
following fashion. The main building, one 
story in height but perhaps a hundred feet 
long, was surmounted by lofty gables and a very 
steep roof, built thus to shed the snow and to 
give a roomy attic for bed-chambers. The attic 
was lighted by numerous, high-peaked dormer 
windows, piercing the expanse of the roof. This 
main building was flanked b" one or more 
wings. Around it clustered the wash-house 



FOURTH READER 

(adjoining the kitchen), coach house, barns, 
stable, and woodsheds. This homelike cluster 
of walls and roofs was sheltered from the 
winter storm by groves of evergreen, and gird- 
led cheerily by orchard and kitchen-garden. 
On one side, and not far off, was usually a 
village with a church-spire gleaming over it; on 
the other a circular stone mill, resembling a 
little fortress rather than a peaceful aid to indus- 
try. This structure, where all the tenants of the 
seigneur were obliged to grind their grain, had 
indeed been built in the first place to serve not 
only as a mill, but as a place of refuge from 
the Iroquois. It was furnished with loopholes, 
and was impregnable to the attacks of an enemy 
lacking cannon. 
The dress of the upper classes was like that 
prevailing among the same classes in France, 
though much less extravagant. The long, wide- 
frocked coats were of gay-coloured and costly 
material, with lace at neck and wristbands. The 
waistcoat might be richly embroidered with gold 
or silver. Knee-breeches took the place of our 
unsightly trousers, and were fastened with bright 
buckles at the knee. Stockings were of white or 
coloured silk, and shoes were set off by broad 
buckles at the instep. These, of course, were the 



CLOSE OF FRENCH PERIOD IN CANADA 73 

ters they fought, like the Indians, with knife 
and hatchet, both of which were carried in their 
belts. From the ranger's belt, too, when on the 
march, hung the leathern bag of bullets, and the 
inevitable tobacco-pouch; while from his neck 
swung a powder-horn, often richly carved, to- 
gether with his cherished pipe inclosed in its 
case of skin. Very often, however, the ranger 
spared himself the trouble of a pipe by scooping 
a bowl in the back of his tomahawk and fitting 
it with a hollow handle. Thus the same imple- 
ment became both the comfort of his leisure and 
the torment of his enemies. In winter, when 
the Canadians, expert in the use of the snow- 
shoe and fearless of the cold, did much of their 
fighting, they wore thick peaked hoods over 
their heads, and looked like a procession of 
friars wending through the silent forest on some 
errand of piety or mercy. Their hands were 
covered by thick mittens of woollen yarn, and 
they dragged their provisions and blankets on 
sleds or toboggans. At night they would use 
their snow-shoes to shovel a wide, circular pit in 
the snow, clearing it away to the bare earth. In 
the centre of the pit, they would build their 
camp fire, and sleep around it on piles of spruce 
boughs, secure from the winter wind. The 



FOURTH READER 

leaders, usually members of the nobility, fared 
on these expeditions as rudely as their men, and 
outdid them in courage and endurance. Some 
of the most noted chiefs of the wood-rangers 
were scions of the noblest families ; and though 
living most of the year the life of savages, were 
able to shine by their graces and refinement in 
the courtliest society of the day. 
CHARLES G. I). ROBERTS : "History of Cmaada." 

A HYMN OF EMPIRE 

LORD, by 1Vhose might the Heavens stand, 
The Source from Whom they came, 
Vho holdest nations in Thy hand, 
And call'st the stars by name, 
Thine ageless forces do not cease 
To mould us as of yore-- 
The chiselling of the arts of peace, 
The anvil-strikes of war. 

Then bind our realm in brotherhood, 
Firm laws and equal rights, 
Let each uphold the Empire's good 
In freedom that unites; 
And make that speech whose thunders roll 
Down the broad stream of time 
The harbinger from pole to pole 
Of love and peace sublime. 



A HYMN OF EMPIIE 75 

Lord, turn the hearts of cowards who prate, 
Afraid to dare or spend, 
The doctrine of a narrower state 
More easy to defend ; 
:Not this the u.atehword of our sires, 
Who breathed with ocean's breath, 
Not this our spirit's ancient fires, 
Which naught could quench but death. 

Strong are we ? Make us stronger yet ; 
Great? Make us greater far; 
Our feet antarctic oceans fret, 
Our crown the polar star: 
Round Earth's wild coasts our batteries speak, 
Our highway is the main, 
We stand as guardian of the weak, 
We burst the oppressor's chain. 

Great God, uphold us in our task, 
Keep pure and clean our rule, 
Silence the honeyed words which mask 
The wisdom of the fool; 
The pillars of the world are Thine, 
Pour down Thy bounteous grace, 
And make illustrious and divine 
The sceptre of our race. 

F. 

COT7 



76 FOURTH READER 

STORY OF ABSALOM 

So the people went out into the field against 
Israel: and the battle was in the wood of 
Ephraim; where the people of Israel were slain 
before the servants of David, and there was there 
a great slaughter that day of twenty thousand 
men. For the battle was there scattered over 
the face of all the country: and the wood de- 
voured more people that day than the sword 
devoured. 
And Absalom met the servants of David. 
And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule 
went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and 
his head caught hold of the oak, and he was 
taken up between the heaven and the earth; 
and the mule that was under him went away. 
And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and 
said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. 
And Joab said unto the man that told him, 
And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst 
thou not smite him there to the grou.nd ? and I 
would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and 
a girdle. 
And the man said unto Joab, Though I should 
receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine 



STORY OF ABSALO!M 77 

hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand 
against the king's son: for in our hearing the 
king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, 
Beware that none touch the young man 
Absalom. Otherwise I should have wrought 
falsehood against mine own life: for there is no 
matter hid from the king, and thou thyself 
wouldest have set thyself against me. 
Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with 
thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and 
thrust them through the heart of Absalom, 
while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. 
And ten young men that bare Joab's armour 
compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew 
him. 
And Joab blew the trumpet, and the people 
returned from pursuing after Israel: for Joab 
held back the people. And they took Absalom, 
and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and 
laid a very great heap of stones upon him : and 
all Israel fled every one to his tent. 

And David sat between the two gates: and 
the watchman went up to the roof over the gate 
unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, 
and behold a man running alone. And the 
watchman cried, and told the king. And the 



8 FOURTH READII 

king said, If he be alone, there is tidings in his 
mouth. And he came apace, and drew near. 
And the watchman saw another man run- 
rig: and the watchman called unto the porter, 
and said, Behold another man running alone. 
And the king said, He also bringeth tidings. 
And the watchman said, Me thinketh the run- 
ning of the foremost is like the running of 
Ah__i_maa___z, the son of Zm:lk: And the king 
said, He is a good man, and eometh with good 
tidings./ 
And Ahi_maa__z called, and said unto the king, 
All is well. And he fell down to the earth upon 
his face before the king, and said, Blessed be the 
Lord thy God, which hath delivered up the men 
that lifted up their hand against my lord the 
king. 
And the king said, Is the young man Absalom 
safe? And Ahimaaz answered, When Joab sent 
the king's servant, and me thy servant, I saw a 
great tumult, but I knew not what it was. And 
the king said unto him, Turn aside, and stand 
here. And he turned aside, and stood still. 
And, behold, Cushi came; and Cushi said, 
Tidings, my .lord the king" for the Lord hath 
avenged thee this day of all them that rose up 
against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is 



STORY OF ABSALOM 

the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi 
answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and 
all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as 
that young man is. 
And the king was much moved, and went up 
to the chamber over the gate, and wept : and as 
he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my 
son, my son Absalom! would God I had died 
for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son ! 
And the victory that day was turned into 
mourning unto all the people: for the people 
heard say that day how the king was grieved for 
his son. And the people gat them by stealth 
that day into the city, as people being ashamed 
steal away when they flee in battle. 
But the king covered his face, and the king 
cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O 
Absalom, my son, my son ! 
II. SAMUEL, XVIII-XIX. 

I SLEPT, and dreamed that life was beauty ; 
I woke, and found that life was duty. 
Was my dream, then, a shadowy lie ? 
Toil on, brave heart, unceasingly, 
And thou shalt find thy dream to be 
A noonday light and truth to thee. 

I{OOPER 



This was the bravest warrior 
That ever buckled sword ; 
This the most gifted poet 
That ever breathed a word ; 
And never earth's philosopher 
Traced, with his golden pen, 
On the deathless page, truths half so sage 
As he wrote down for men. 

And had he not high honour,-- 
The hillside for his pall; 
To lie in state, while angels wait, 
With stars for tapers tall ; 
And the dark rock pines, like tossing 
plumes, 
Over his bier to wave ; 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, 
To lay him in the grave ;-- 

]n that strange grave, without a name, 
Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again--O wondrous thought 
:Before the judgment-day, 
And stand, with glory wrapped around, 
On the hills he never trod, 
And speak of the strife that won our life 
With the incarnate Son of God. 



0 lonely grave in Moab's land 
0 dark Beth-peor's hill ! 
Speak to these curious hearts of ours, 
And teach them to be still : 
God hath His mysteries of grace, 
Ways that we cannot tell; 
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep 
Of him He loved so well. 
CECIL 

THE CRUSADER AND THE SARACEN 

As the Knight of the Couchant Leopard con- 
tinued to fix his eyes attentively on the yet 
distant cluster of palm trees, it seemed to him as 
if some object was moving among them. The 
distant form separated itself from the trees, 
which partly hid its motions, and advanced 
towards the knight with a speed which soon 
showed a mounted horseman, whom his turban, 
long spear, and green caftan floating in the 
wind, on his nearer approach, showed to be a 
Saracen cavalier. 
"In the desert," saith an Eastern proverb, 
"no man meets a friend." The Crusader was 
totally indifferent whether the infidel, who now 
approached on his gallant barb, as if borne on 



FOURTH READER 

the wings of an eagle, came as friend or foe; 
perhaps, as a vowed champion of the Cross, he 
might rather have preferred the latter. He 
disengaged his lance from his saddle, seized it 
with the right hand, placed it in rest with its 
point half-elevated, gathered up the reins in the 
left, vaked his horse's mettle with the spur, and 
prepared to encounter the stranger with the 
calm self-confidence belonging to the victor in 
many contests. 
The Saracen came on at the speedy gallop of 
an Arab horseman, managing his steed more by 
his limbs and the inflection of his body than by 
any use of the reins, which hung loose in his 
left hand; so that he was enabled to wield the 
light round buckler of the skin of the 
rhinoceros, ornamented with silver loops, which 
he wore on his arm, swinging it as if he meant 
to oppose its slender circle to the formidable 
thrust of the Western lance. His own long 
spear was not couched or levelled like that of 
his antagonist, but 'grasped by the middle with 
his right hand, and brandished at arm's length 
above his head. 
As the cavalier approached his enemy at full 
career, he seemed to expect that the Knight of 
the Leopard should put his horse to the gallop 



THE CRUSADER AND THE SAIACEN 85 

to encounter him. But the Christian knight, 
well acquainted with the customs of Eastern 
warriors, did not mean to exhaust his good 
horse by any unnecessary exertion; and, on 
the contrary, made a dead halt, confident that, 
if the enemy advanced to the actual shock, his 
own weight, and that of his powerful charger, 
would give him sufficient advantage, without 
the additional momentum of rapid motion. 
Equally sensible and apprehensive of such a 
probable result, the Saracen cavalier, when he 
had approached towards the Christian within 
twice the length of his lance, wheeled his steed 
to the left with inimitable dexterity, and rode 
twice around his antagonist, who, turning with- 
out quitting his ground, and presenting his 
front constantly to his enemy, frustrated his 
attempts to attack him on an unguarded point; 
so that the Saracen, wheeling his horse, was 
fain to retreat to the distance of a hundred 
yards. 
A second time, like a hawk attacking a 
heron, the Heathen renewed the charge, and a 
second time was fain to retreat without com- 
ing to a close struggle. A third time he 
approached in the same manner, when the 
Christian knight, desirous to terminate this 



86 FOURTII READER 

illusory warfare, in which he might at length 
have been worn out by the activity of his 
foeman, suddenly seized the mace which hung 
at his saddle-bow, and, with a strong hand and 
unerring aim, hurled it against the head of 
the Emir, for such and not less his enemy 
appeared. The Saracen was just aware of the 
formidable missile in time to iuterpose his light 
buekler hetwixt the maee and his head; but 
the violence of the blow forced the buckler 
down on his turban, and though that defenee 
also contributed to deaden its violenee, the 
Saracen was beaten from his horse. Ere the 
Christian could avail himself of this mishap, 
his nimble foeman sprang from the ground, 
and, calling on his steed, whieh instantly 
returned to his side, he leaped into his seat 
without touehing the stirrup, and regained all 
the advantage of whieh the Knight of the 
Leopard hoped to deprive him. But the latter 
had in the meanwhile recovered his mace, and 
the Eastern cavalier, who remembered the 
strength and dexterity with whieh his antago- 
nist had aimed it, seemed to keep cautiously 
out of the reach of that weapon, of which he 
had so lately felt the force, while he showed 
his purpose of waging a distant warfare with 



FOURTH READER 

which were attached to the girdle, which he was 
obliged to abandon. He had also lost his 
turban in the struggle. These disadvantages 
seemed to incline the ]Ioslem to a truce: he 
approached the Christian with his right hand 
extended, but no longer in a menacing attitude. 
"There is truce betwixt our nations," he said, 
in the lingta fi'anca commonly used for the 
purpose of communication with the Crusaders; 
"Wherefore should there be war betwixt thee 
and me? Let there be peace betwixt us." 
"I am well contented," answered he of the 
Couchant Leopard; "but what security dost 
thou offer that thou wilt observe the truce?" 
"The word of a follower of the Prophet was 
never broken," answered the Emir. "It is 
thou, brave 1Nazarene, from whom I should 
demand security, did I not know that treason 
seldom dwells with courage." 
The Crusader felt that the confidence of the 
h'Ioslem made him ashamed of his own doubts. 
"By the cross of my sword," he said, laying 
his hand on the weapon as he spoke, "I will be 
true companion to thee, Saracen, while our 
fortune wills that we remain in company 
together." 



THE CRUSADER AND THE SARACEN 89 

"By Mohammed, Prophet of God, and by 
Allah, God of the Prophet," replied his late 
foeman, " there is not treachery in my heart 
towards thee. And now wend we to yonder 
fountain, for the hour of rest is at hand, and 
the stream had hardly touched my lip when I 
was called to battle by thy approach." 
The Knight of the Couchant Leopard yielded 
a ready and courteous assent; and the late foes, 
without an angry look or gesture of doubt, rode 
side by side to the little cluster of palm trees. 
SCOTT : "The Talismam" 
THE quality of mercy is not strained ; 
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown; 
tIis sceptre shows the force of temporal power,-- 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,-- 
But mercy is above this sceptred sway; 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute to God himself; 
And earthly power doth then shew likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. 
HAKESPEARE 



90 FOURTH READER 

From "AN AUGUST REVERIE" 

TlE ragged daisy starring all the fields, 
The buttercup abrim with pallid gold, 
The thistle and burr-flowers hedged with prickly 
shields, 
All common weeds the draggled pastures hold, 
With shrivelled pods and leaves, are kin to me, 
Like-heirs of earth and her maturity. 

They speak a silent speech that is their own, 
These wise and gentle teachers of the grass ; 
And when their brief and common days aro 
flown, 
A certain beauty from the :}'ear doth pass :-- 
A beauty of whose light no eye can tell, 
Save that it went ; and my heart knew it well. 

I may not know each plant as some men know 
them, 
As children gather beasts and birds to tame ; 
But I went 'mid them as the winds that blow 
them, 
From childhood's hour, and loved without a 
name. 
There is more beauty in a field of weeds 
Than in all blooms the hothouse garden breeds. 



WORK AND WAGE 9. 

For they are nature's children ; in their faces 
I see that sweet obedience to the sky 
That marks these dwellers of the wilding places, 
Who with the season's being live and die ; 
Knowing no love but of the wind and sun, 
Who still are nature's when their life is done. 

They are a part of all the haze-filled hours, 
The happy, happy world all drenched with 
light, 
The far-off, chiming click-clack of the mowers, 
And yon blue hills whose mists elude my 
sight ; 
And they to me will ever bring in dreams 
Far mist-clad heights and brimming rain-fed 
streams. 
W. WILFRED CAMPBELL 

WORK AND WAGES 

TIERE will always be a number of men who 
would fain set themselves to the accumulation 
of wealth as the sole object of their lives. 
Necessarily, that class of men is an unedu- 
cated class, inferior in intellect, and, more or 
less, cowardly. It is physically impossible for 
a well-educated, intellectual, or brave man to 
make money the chief object of his thoughts; 
just as it is for him to make his dinner the 



9 OURTH READER 

principal object of them. All healthy people 
like their dinners, but their dinner is not the 
main object of their lives. So all healthily- 
minded people like making money--ought to 
like it, and to enjoy the sensation of winning 
it: but the main object of their life is not 
money ; it is something better than money. A. 
good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do 
his fighting well. He is glad of his pay--very 
properly so, and justly grumbles when you 
keep him ten years without it-stil], his main 
notion of life is to win battles, not to be paid 
for winning them. So of clergymen. They 
like pew-rents, and baptismal fees, of course; 
but yet, if they are brave and well-educated, 
the pew-teat is not the sole object of their lives, 
and the baptismal fee is not the sole purpose of 
the baptism ; the clergyman's object is essentially 
to baptize and preach, not to be paid for preach- 
ing. So of doctors. They like fees no doubt,-- 
ought to like them; yet if they are brave and 
well-educated, the entire object of their lives is 
not fees. They, on the whole, desire to cure the 
sick; and,--if they are good doctors, and the 
choice were fairly put to them--would rather 
cure their patient, and lose their fee, than kill 
him, and get it. And so with all other brave 



WORK AND WAGES 93 

and rightly-trained men; their work is first, 
their fee second--very important always, but 
still second. But in every nation, as I said, 
there are a vast class who are ill-educated, 
cowardly, and more or less stupid. And with 
these people, just as certainly the fee is first, 
and the work second, as with brave people the 
'ork is first, and the fee second. And this is 
no small distinction. It is the whole distinction 
in a man ; distinction between life and death in 
him, between heaven and hell for him. You 
cannot serve two masters :--you ust serve one 
or other. If your wor.k is first -ith you, and 
your fee second, work is your master, and the 
lord of work, who is God. But, if your fee is 
first with you, and your 'ork second, fee is 
your master, and the lord of fee, who is the 
Devil; and not only the Devil but the lowest of 
devilsthe 'least erected fiend that fell.' So 
there you have it in brief terms; Work first 
you are God's servants; Fee first--you are the 
Fiend's. And it makes a difference, now and 
ever, believe me, whether you serve Him who 
has on His vesture and thigh written, 'King of 
Kings,' and whose service is perfect freedom; or 
him on whose vesture and thigh the name is 
written,' Slave of Slaves,' and whose service is 
perfect slavery. RusL 



94 FOURTH READER 

UNTRODDEN WAYS 

WHERE close the curving mountains drew 
To clasp the stream in their embrace, 
With every outline, curve, and hue, 
Reflected in its placid face, 

The ploughman stopped his team, to watch 
The train, as swift it thundered by; 
Some distant glimpse of life to catch, 
He strains his eager, wistful eye. 

His glossy horses mildly stand 
With wonder in their patient eyes, 
As through the tranquil mountain land 
The snorting monster onward flies. 

The morning freshness is on him, 
Just wakened from his balmy dreams; 
The wayfarers, all soiled and dim, 
Think longingly of mountain streams :-- 

O for the joyous mountain air ! 
The long, delightful autumn day 
Among the hills !--the ploughman thero 
Must have perpetual holiday ! 



TIlE FIRST PLOUGIIIIG 95 

And he, as all day long he guides 
His steady plough with patient hand, 
Thinks of the flying train that glides 
Into some fair, enchanted land; 

Where day by day no plodding round 
Wearies the frame and dulls the mind; 
Where life thrills keen to sight and sound, 
With plough and furrows left behind l 

Even so to each the untrod ways 
Of life are touched by fancy's glow, 
That ever sheds its brightest rays 
Upon the page we do not know ! 
AGNES MAULE 

THE FIRST PLOUGHING 

CALLS the crov from the pine-tree top 
When the April air is still. 
He calls to the farmer hitching his team 
In the farmyard under the hill. 
"Come up," he cries, "come out and come 
up, 
For the high field's ripe to till. 
Don't wait for word from the dandelion 
Or leave from the daffodil." 



FOURTH READER 

Cheeps the flycatcher--" Here old earth 
Warms up in the April sun ; 
And the first ephemera, wings yet wet, 
From the mould creep one by one. 
Under the fence where the flies frequent 
Is the earliest gossamer spun. 
Come up from the damp of the valley lands, 
For here the winter's done." 

Whistles the high-hole out of the grove 
His summoning loud and clear: 
"Chilly it may be down your way 
But the high south field has cheer. 
On the sunward side of the chestnut stump 
The woodgrubs wake and appear. 
Come out to your ploughing, come up to 
your ploughing, 
The time for ploughing is here." 

Then dips the coulter and drives the share, 
And the furrows faintly steam. 
The crow drifts furtively down from the pine 
To follow the clanking team. 
The flycatcher tumbles, the high-hole darts 
In the young noon's yellow gleam ; 
And wholesome sweet the smell of the sod 
Upturned from its winter's dream. 
CmRIES G. D. ROB-RTS 



THE ARCHERY CONTEST 97 

THE ARCHERY CONTEST 

' THE day," said Waldemar, "is not yet very far 
spentlet the archers shoot a few rounds at the 
target, and the prize be adjudged." 
One by one the archers, stepping forward, 
delivered their shafts yeomanlike and bravely. 
Of the ten shafts which hit the target, two with- 
in the inner ring were shot by Hubert, a forester 
in the service of Malvoisin, who was accordingly 
pronounced victorious. 
"Now, Locksley," said Prince John with a 
bitter smile, "wilt thou try conclusions with 
Hubert ?" 
" Sith it be no better," said Locksley, "I am 
content to try my fortune; on condition that 
when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of 
Hubert's, he shall be bound to shoot one at that 
which I shall propose." 
"That is but fair," answered Prince John, 
"and it shall not be refused thee. If thou dost 
beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle 
with silver pennies for thee." 
"A man can but do his best," answered 
Hubert; "but my grandsire drew a good long 
bow at Hastings, and I trust not to dishonour 
his memory." 



FOURTH READER 

The former target was now removed, and a 
fresh one of the same size placed in its room. 
Hubert took his aim with great deliberation, 
long measuring the distance with his eye, while 
he held in his hand his bended bow, with the 
arrow placed on the string. At length he made 
a step forward, and raising the bow at the full 
stretch of his left arm, till the centre or grasping- 
place was nigh level with his face, he drew his 
bow-string to his ear. The arrow whistled 
through the air, and lighted within the inner 
ring of the target, but not exactly in the centre. 
"You have not allowed for the wind, 
Hubert," said his antagonist, bending his bow, 
"or that had been a better shot." 
So saying, and without showing the least 
anxiety to pause upon his aim, Locksley stepped 
to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as 
carelessly in appearance as if he had not even 
looked at the mark. He was speaking almost at 
the same instant that the shaft left the bow- 
string, yet it alighted in the target two inches 
nearer to the white spot which marked the 
centre than that of Hubert. 
"By the light of heaven !" said Prince John 
to Hubert, "an thou suffer that runagate knave 
to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the 
gallows !" 



THE ARCHERY CONTEST 99 

"An your highness were to hang me," said 
Hubert, "a man can but do his best. Neverthe- 
less, my grandsire drew a good bow--" 
"The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his 
generation 1" interrupted John ; "shoot, knave, 
and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for 
thee 1" 
Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and 
making the necessary allowance for a very light 
air of wind, which had just arisen, shot so 
successfully that his arrow alighted in the very 
centre of the target. 
"Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley,'" 
said the Prince with an insulting smile. 
"I will notch his shaft for him, however," 
replied Locksley. 
And letting fly his arrow with a little more 
precaution than before, it lighted right upon 
that of his competitor, which it split to shivers. 
" And now," said Locksley, " I will crave 
your Grace's permission to plant such a mark as 
is used in the North Country, and welcome 
every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it." 
He then turned to leave the lists. "Let your 
guards attend me," he said, " if you please---I 
go but to cut a rod from the next willow-bush." 



100 OUT  

Locksley returned almost instantly with a 
willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly 
straight, and rather thicker than a man's thumb. 
He began to peel this, observing that to ask a 
good woodman to shoot at a target so broad as 
had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon 
his skill. " For my own part," he said, " and in 
the land wlJere I was bred, men would as soon 
take for their mark King Arthur's round table, 
which held sixty knights around it. A child of 
seven years old," he said, "might hit yonder 
target with a headless shaft; but," added he, 
walking deliberately to the other end of the 
lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in 
the ground, "he that hits that rod at five-score 
yards, I call him an archer fit to bear bow and 
quiver before a king." 
" My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good 
bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at 
such a mark in his life--and neither will I. If 
this yeoman ean eleave that rod, I give him the 
bueklers--or rather, I yield to the devil that is 
in his jerkin, and not to any human skill; a 
man ean but do his best, and I will not shoot 
where I am sure to miss. I might as well shoot 
at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak 
which I can hardly see." 



THE ARCHERY COIITEST 101 

"Cowardly dog !" said I'rince John--" Sirrah 
Locksley, do thou shoot; but, if thou hittest 
ouch a mark, I will say thou art the first man 
ever did so. Howe'er it be, thou shalt not crow 
over us with a mere show of superior skill." 
"I will do my best, as Hubert says," answered 
Locksley ; " no man can do more." 
So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the 
present occasion looked with attention to his 
weapon, and changed the string, which he 
thought was no longer truly round, having been 
a little frayed by the two former shots. He then 
took his aim with some deliberation, and the 
multitude awaited the event in breathless 
silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of 
his skill : his arrow split the willow rod against 
which it was aimed. .k jubilee of acclamations 
followed; and even Prince John, in admiration 
of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike 
to his person. " These twenty nobles," he said, 
" which, with the bugle, thou hast fairly won, 
are thine own ; we will make them fifty, if thou 
wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman 
of our body-guard, and be near to our person. 
For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so 
true an eye direct a shaft." 



10 FOUITH IEADER 

"Pardon me, noble Prince," said Locksley; 
"but I have vowed, that, if ever I take service, 
it should be with your royal brother, King 
Richard. These twenty nobles I leave to 
Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow 
as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his 
nmdesty not refused the trial, he would have hit 
the wand as well as I." 
Hubert shook his head as he received with 
reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and 
Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, 
mixed with the crowd, and was seen no more. 
SCOTT : "Ivanhoe." 

IN NOVEMBER 
THE hills and leafless forests slowly yield 
To the thick-driving snow. A little while 
And night shall darken down. 
file 
The woodmen's carts go by me 
wheeled, 
Past the thin fading stubbles, half-concealed, 
Now golden-gray, sowed softly through with 
snow, 
Where the last ploughman follows still his row, 
Turning black furrows through the whitening 
field. 
ARCHIBALD LAp 

In shouting 
homeward- 



WOODS 103 

AUTUMN WOODS 

ERE, in the northern gale, 
The summer tresses of the trees are gone, 
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, 
Have put their glory on. 

The mountains that infold, 
In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape 
rolll2d 
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, 
That guard the enchanted ground. 

I roam the woods that crown 
The upland, where the mingled splendours glow, 
Where the gay company of trees look down 
On the green fields below. 

My steps are not alone 
In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at 
play 
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are 
strown 
Along the winding way. 

And far in heaven, the while, 
The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, 
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,-- 
The sweetest of the year. 



104 FOURTH READER 

Where now the solemn shade, 
Verdure and gloom where many branches 
meet : 
So grateful, when the noon of summer made 
The valleys sick with heat? 

Let in through all the trees 
Come the strange rays; the forest depths are 
bright, 
Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze, 
Twinkles, like beams of light. 

The rivulet, late unseen, 
Where bickeriag through the shrubs its 
waters run, 
Shines with the image of its golden screen 
And glimmerings of the sun. 

Oh, Autumn! why so soon 
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad, 
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, 
And leave thee wild and sad! 

Ah! 'twere a lot too blest 
Forever in thy coloured shades to stray; 
Amid the kisses of the soft south-west 
To rove and dream for aye; 



And leave the vain low strife 
That makes men mad--the tug for wealth and 
power, 
The passions and the cares that wither life, 
And waste its little hour. 
BRYAT 

IN A CANOE 

Ao' all the modes of progression hitherto 
invented by restless man, there is not one that 
can compare in respect of comfort and luxury 
with travelling in a birch-bark canoe. It is 
the poetry of progression. Along the bottom 
of the boat are laid blankets and bedding; 
a sort of wicker-work screen is sloped against 
the middle tht, affording a deli__us sup- 
port to the back; and indly, in your shirt 
sleeves if the day be warm, or well covered 
with a blanket if it is chilly, you sit or lie on 
this most luxurious of couches, and are pro- 
pelled at a rapid rate over the smooth surface 
of a lake or down the swift current of some 
stream. If you want exercise, you can take a 
paddle yourself. If you prefer to be inactive, 
you can lie still and py surv_.y the 
scenery, rising occlly to have--shot at 



; 1 " 

I 

0 
m 
I'- 
Z 



108 FOURTH READER 

that madly dashes you from side to side. After 
the first plunge you are in a bewildering whirl 
of waters. The shore seems to fly past you. 
Crash! You are right on that rock, and (I 
don't care who you are) you will feel your 
heart jump into your mouth, and you will 
catch the side with a grip that leaves a mark 
on your fingers afterwards. No! With a 
shriek of command to the steersman, and a 
plunge of his paddle, the bowman wrenches the 
canoe out of its course. Another stroke or 
two, another plunge forward, and with a loud 
ex yell from the bowman, who flourishes 
his paddle round his head, you pitch headlong 
down the final leap, and with a grunt of relief 
from the straining crew glide rapidly into still 
water. 
LORD DU.X'RAVEN : "The Great Divide." 

"With whom is no variablene, neither shadow of turning." 
IT fortifies my soul to know 
That, though I perish, Truth is so : 
That, howsoe'er I stray and range, 
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change, 
I steadier step when I recall 
That, if I slip Thou dost not fall. 
CLOUGH 



109 

AFTON WATER 

FIow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green 
braes, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song iu thy praise: 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the 
glen, 
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny 
den, 
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming for- 
bear, 
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. 

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills, 
Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding 
rills, 
There daily I wander as noon rises high, 
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys be- 
low, 
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses 
blow : 



110 FOURTH READER 

There, oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, 
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides, 
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides; 
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, 
As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear 
wave. 

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green 
braes, 
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays, 
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 

DAVID COPPERFIELD'S FIRST JOURNEY 
ALONE 

I SLEPT soundly until we got to Yarmouth and 
drove to the inn yard. A lady looked out of a 
bow-window where some fowls and joints of meat 
were hanging up, and said : 
"Is that the little gentleman from Blunder- 
stone ?" 
"Yes, ma'am," I said. 



DAVID COPPERFIELD'S FIRST JOURNEY 111 

The lady then rang a bell and called out: 
"William ! show the coffee-room !" upon which 
a waiter came running out of a kitchen on the 
opposite side of the yard to show it, and seemed 
a good deal surprised when he found he was 
only to show it to me. 
It was a large, long room with some large 
maps in it. I doubt if I could have felt much 
stranger if the maps had been real foreign 
countries, and I cast away in the middle of 
them. I felt it was taking a liberty to sit down, 
with my cap in my hand, on the corner of the 
chair nearest the door; and when the waiter 
laid a cloth on purpose for me, and put a set of 
casters on it, I think I must have turned red all 
over with modesty. 
He brought me some chops, and vegetables, 
and took the covers off in such a bouncing 
manner that I was afraid I must have given 
him some offence. But he greatly relieved my 
mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and 
saying, very affably: "Now, six-foot! come on !" 
I thanked him, and took my seat at the board ; 
but found it extremely difficult to handle my 
knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or 
to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while 
he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and 



112 FOtTRH REt.DER 

making me blush in the most dreadful manner 
every time I caught his eye. After watching me 
into the second chop, he said" 
"There's half a pint of ale for you. Will you 
have it now ?" 
I thanked him and said "Yes." Upon which 
he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler, 
and held it up against the light, and made it 
look beautififl. 
" My eye ! " he said. " It seems a good deal, 
don't it ?" 
"It does seem a good deal," I answered with a 
smile. For it was quite delightful to me to find 
him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, 
pimple-faced man, with his hair standing up- 
right all over his head; and as he stood with 
one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the 
light with the other hand, he looked quite 
friendly. 
" There was a gentleman here, yesterday," he 
said" a stout gentleman, by the name of Top- 
sawyerperhaps you know him." 
" In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, 
gray coat, speckled choker," said the waiter. 
"No," I said, bashfully, "I haven't the 
pleasures" 



DAVID COPPERFIELD'S FIRST JOURNEY 113 

"He came in here," said the waiter, looking at 
the light through the tumbler, "ordered a glass 
of this ale---would order itI told him not 
drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. 
It oughtn't to be drawn ; that's the fact." 
I was very much shocked to hear of this 
melancholy accident, and said I thought I had 
better have some water. 
" Why, you see," said the waiter, still looking 
at the light through the tumbler, with one of 
his eyes shut up, " our people don't like things 
being ordered and left. It offends 'em. But 
Ill drink it, if you like. I'm used to it, and use 
is everything. I don't think it'll hurt me, if I 
throw my head back, and take it off quick. 
Shall I ?" 
I replied that he would much oblige me by 
drinking it, if he thought he could do it safely, 
but by no means otherwise. When he did 
throw his head back and take it off quick, I had 
a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the 
fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall life- 
less on the carpet. But it didn't hurt him. On 
the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher 
for it. 
"What have we got here ?" he said, putting a 
fork into my dish. "Not chops ?" 



FOURTH READER 

"Chops," I said. 
" Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, " I didn't 
know they were chops. Vhy, a chop's the very 
thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! 
Ain't it lucky ?" 
So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, 
and a potato in the other, and ate away with a 
very good appetite., to my extreme satisfaction. 
He afterwards took another chop, and another 
potato; and after that another chop, and another 
potato. When he had done, he brought me a 
pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to 
ruate, and to become absent in his mind for 
some moments. 
"How's the pie ?" he said, rousing himself. 
" It's a pudding," I made answer. 
" Pudding ! " he exclaimed. "Why, bless me, 
so it is ! What ! " looking at it nearer. " You 
don't mean to say it's a batter-pudding? " 
" Yes, it is indeed." 
" Why, a batter-pudding," he said, taking up 
a table-spoon, "it's my favourite pudding ! Ain't 
that lucky? Come on, little 'un, and let's see 
who'll get most." 
The waiter certainly got most. He entreated 
me more than once to come in and win, but 
what with his table-spoon to my tea-spoon, his 



DAVID COPPERFIELD'S FIRST JOURNEY 115 

despatch to my despatch, and his appetite to my 
appetite, I was left far behind at the first mouth- 
ful, and had no chance with him. I neversaw 
any one enjoy a pudding so much, I think ; and 
he laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoy- 
ment of it lasted still. 
Finding him so very friendly and companion- 
able, it was then that I asked for the pen and 
ink and paper, to write to Peggoty. He not 
only brought it immediately, but was good 
enough to look over me while I wrote the letter. 
When I had finished it, he asked me where I 
was going to school. 
I said:" Near London," which was all I knew. 
"Oh! my eye!" he said, looking very low- 
spirited, " I am sorry for that." 
"Why ?" I asked him. 
"Oh !" he said, shaking his head, "that's the 
school where they broke the boy's ribs--two 
ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he was 
--let me see--how old are you, about ?" 
I told him between eight and nine. 
"That's just his age," he said. "He was eight 
years and six months old when they broke his 
first rib ; eight years and eight months old when 
they broke his second, and did for him." 
I could not disguise from myself, or from the 



DAVID COPPERFIELD'S FIRST JOURNEY 117 

If I had a good place, and was treated well here, 
I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of 
taking of it. But I live on broken wittles-- 
and I sleep on the coals "--here the waiter 
burst into tears. 
I was very much concerned for his misfor- 
tunes, and felt that any recognition short of 
ninepence would be mere brutality and hard- 
ness of heart. Therefore I gave him one of my 
three bright shillings, which he received with 
much humility and veneration, and spun up 
with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the 
goodness of. 
It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, 
when I was being helped up behind the coach, 
that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner 
without any assistance. I discovered this, from 
overhearing the lady in the bow-window say to 
the guard: "Take care of that child, George, or 
he'll burst!" and from observing that the 
women-servants who were about the place came 
out to look and giggle at me as a young pheuom- 
enon. My unfortunate friend, the waiter, who 
had quite recovered his spirits, did not appear to 
be disturbed by this, but joined in the general 
admiration without being at all confused. If 
I had any doubt of him, I suppose this half- 



118 FOURTH READER 

awakened it; but I am inclined to believe that, 
with the simple confidence and natural reliance 
of a child upon superior years (qualitiesI am 
very sorry any children should prematurely 
change for worldly wisdom), I had no serious 
mistrust of him on the whole, even then. 
DICE.S: "David Copperfield." 

THE BAREFOOT BOY 

BLESS'6S on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan I 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace 
From my heart I give thee joy,-- 
I was once a barefoot boy ! 
Prince thou art,the grown-up man 
Only is republican. 
Let the million-dollared ride ! 
Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
Thou hast more than he can buy 
In the reach of ear and eye, 
Outward sunshine, inward joy ; 
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy! 



TIlE BAREFOOT BOY 119 

Oh for boyhood's painless play, 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned of schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild-flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the ground-mole sinks his well; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
lIason of his walls of clay, 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans !- 
For, eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks ; 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks, 
Part and parcel of her joy,-- 
Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 



FOURTH READER 

Oh for boyhood's time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw, 
Me, their master, waited for. 
I was rich in flowers and trees, 
Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
For my sport the squirrel played, 
Plied the ShOUted mole his spade ; 
For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone; 
Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night, 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked with me from fall to fall, 
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 
Mine, on bending orchard trees, 
Apples of Hesperides ! 
Still, as my horizon grew, 
Larger grew my riches, too; 
All the world I saw or knew 
Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 

Oh for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread 
Pewter spoon nel bowl of wood, 



THE BAREFOOT BOY 121 

On the door-stone, gray and rude l 
O'er me, like a regal tent, 
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frogs' orchestra; 
And, to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, my little man, 
Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Everv evening from thy feet 
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat; 
All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod, 
Made to tread the mills of toil, 
Up and down in ceaseless moil ; 
Happy if their track be found 



122 FOURTH READER 

Never on forbidden ground; 
Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know tby joy, 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy I 
WHITTIER 

COUNTRY LIFE IN CANADA IN THE 
"THIRTIES" 

COUTY life in Western Canada in the "Thir. 
ties" was very simple and uneventful. There 
were no lines of social division such as now 
exist. All alike had to toil to win and maintain 
a home ; and if, as was natural, some were more 
successful in the rough battle of pioneer life than 
others, they did not feel, on that account, 
disposed to treat their neighbours as their 
inferiors. Neighbours, they well knew, were too 
few and too desirable to be coldly and haughtily 
treated. Had not all the members of each 
community hewn their way side by side into 
the fastnesses of the Canadian bush ? And what 
could a little additional wealth do for them, 
when the remoteness of the centres which might 
supply luxuries, enforced simplicity and made 
superfluities almost impossible ? 



m 
Z 



LIFE IN CANADA IN THE  THIRTIES  125 

hour, and drive the dasher up and down through 
the thick cream. How often did we examine 
the handle for evidence that the butter was 
forming, and what was the relief when the 
monotonous task was at an end.  s soon as my 
legs were long enough, I had to follow a team; 
indeed, I drove the horses, mounted on the back 
of one of them, when my nether limbs were 
scarcely sufficiently grown to give me a grip. 
The instruments for the e 
tions were few and rough. Iron ploughs with 
ca-gg-ron mould-boards and shares were com- 
monly employed. Compared with our modern 
ploughs, they were clumsy things, but a vast 
improvement on the earlier wooden ploughs 
which, even at that date, had not wholly gone 
out of use. For drags, tree-tops were frequently 
used. 
In June came sheep-washing. The sheep 
were driven to the bay shore and secured in a 
pen. One by one they were taken out, and the 
fleeces carefully washed. Within a day or two, 
shearing followed in the barn. The wool was 
sorted; some was reserved to be carded by 
hand ; the remainder was sent to the mills to be 
turned into rolls. Then, day after day, for 
weeks, the noise of the spinning-wheel was 



26 FOIRTH READEl 

heard, accompanied by the steady beat of the 
girls' feet,as they walked forward and backward 
drawing out and twisting the thread and run- 

ning it on the spindle. This vas vork that 
required some skill, for on the fineness and 
evenness of the thread the character of the 
fabric largely depended. Finally, the yarn was 

carried to the veavers to be converted into cloth. 
The vomen of the family found their hands 
very full in the "Thirties." Besides the daily 
round of housewifely cares, every season brought 
its special duties. There were wild strawberries 
and raspberries to be picked and prepared for 
daily consumption, or to be preserved for winter 
use. Besid-'-milking, there was the making 
both of butter and cheese. There was no nurse 
to take care of the children, no cook to prepare 
the dinner. To be sure, in households when the 
work 'as beyond the powers of the family, the 
daughter of some neighbour might come as a 
helper. Though hired, she was treated in all 
respects as one of the family, and in return was 
likely to take the same sort of interest in the 
work,as if the tie that bound her to the family 
was closer than wages. In truth, such help vas 
regarded as a favour, and not as in any way 
affecting the girl's social position. 



LIFE IN CANADA IN THE THIRTIES " 127 

The girls in those days were more at 
home in a kitchen than a drawing-room. 
They did better execution at a tub than at a 
spinet, and could handle a rolling-pin more 
satisfactorily than a sketch-book. At a pinch, 
they could even use a rake or fork to good 
purpose in field or barn. Their finishing edu- 
cation was received at the country school along 
with their brothers. Of fashion books and 
milliners, few of them had any experiences. 
Country life in Canada was plodding in the 
"Thirties" and there was no varied outlook. 
The girls' training for future life was mainly at 
the hands of their mothers; the boys followed 
in the footsteps of their fathers. Neither sex 
felt that life was cramped or burdensome on 
that account. They were content to live as 
their parents had done. And though we can 
see that, as compared with later conditions, there 
may be something wanting in such an existence, 
this at least we know, that, in such a school and 
by such masters, the foundations of Canadian 
character and prosperity were laid. 
CANNIFF I-IAGHT : "Country Life in Canada in the ' Thirties'." 
(Adapted) 

HE who knows most grieves most for wasted time. 



HEAT 
FRo plains that reel to southward, dim, 
The road runs by me white and })are; 
Up the steep hill it seems to swim 
Beyond, and melt into the glare. 
Upward half-way, or it may be 
Nearer the summit, slowly steals 
A hay-cart, moving dustily 
With idly clacking wheels. 
By his cart's side the wagoner 
Is slouching slowly at his ease, 
Half-hidden in the windless blur 
Of white dust puffing to his knees. 
This wagon on the height above, 
From sky to sky on either hand, 
Is the sole thing that seems to move 
In all the heat-held land. 
Beyond me in the fields the sun 
Soaks in the grass and hath his will ; 
I count the marguerites one by one; 
Even the buttercups are still. 
On the brook yonder not a breath 
Disturbs the spider or the midge. 
The water-bugs draw close beneath 
The cool gloom of the bridge. 



HEAT 129 

Where the far elm-tree shadows flood 
Dark patches in the _burni_ng grass, 
The cows, each with her peaceful cud, 
Lie waiting for .the heat to pass. 
From somewhere on the slope near by 
Into the pale depths of the noon 
A wandering thrush slides leisurely 
His thin revolving tune. 

In intervals of dreams I hear 
The cricket from the droughty ground ; 
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear 
A small innumerable sound. 
I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze : 
The burning sky-line blinds my sight : 
The woods far off are blue with haze : 
The hills are drenched in light. 

And yet to me not this or that 
Is always sharp or always sweet; 
In the sloped shadow of my hat 
I lean at rest, and drain the heat; 
Nay more, I think some blessed power 
Hath brought me wandering idly here 
In the full furnace of this hour 
lIy thoughts grow keen and clear. 
ARCHIBALD LAM PIKAN 



130 FOURTH READER 

THE TWO PATHS 

HEAR, O my son, and receive my sayings ; 
And the years of thy life shall be many. 
I have taught thee in the way of wisdom ; 
I have led thee in paths of uprightness. 
When thou goest, thy steps shall not 
straitened ; 
And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. 
Take fast hold of instruction ; 
Let her not go : 
Keep her ; 
For she is thy life. 

be 

Enter not into the Path of the Wicked, 
And walk not in the way of evil men. 
Avoid it, 
Pass not by it ; 
Turn from it, 
And pass on. 
For they sleep not, except they have done mis- 
chief ; 
And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause 
some to fall. 
For they eat the bread of wickedness, 
And drink the wine of violence. 



BERNARDO DEL CARPIO 

But the Path of the Righteous is as the light 
of dawn, 
That shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day. 
The way of the wicked is as darkness : 
They know not at what they stumble. 
POVERBS IV. 

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO 

(The Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many 
ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count 
Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso, at last took 
up arms. The war proved so destructive that the people demanded 
of the King, Saldana's liberty. Alfonso offered Bernardo possession 
of his father's person in exchange for his castle. Bernardo 
accepted the offer, gave up his castle, and rode forth with the king 
to meet his father.) 

TIlE warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed 
his heart of fire, 
And sued the haughty king to free his long- 
imprisoned sire : 
" I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my 
captive train, 
I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord !---oh, 
break my father's chain !" 

"Rise, rise! even now thy father comes a 
ransomed man this day : 



FOURTH READER 

Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet 
him on his way." 
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded 
on his steed, 
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's 
foamy speed. 

And lo ! from far, as on they pressed, there came 
a glittering band, 
With one that midst them stately rode, as a 
leader in the land; 
"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very 
truth, is he, 
The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned 
so long to see." 

His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, 
his cheek's blood came and went, 
He reached that gray-haired chieftain's side, and 
there, dismounting, bent: 
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand 
he took,-- 
What was there in its touch that all his fiery 
spirit shook ? 

That hand was coldma frozen thing--it dropped 
from his like lead : 
I-Ie looked up to the face above--the face was of 
the dead ! 



:BERIARDO DEL CARPIO 133 

A plume waved o'er the noble brow--the brow 
was fixed and white; 
He met at last his father's eyesbut in them 
was no sight ! 

Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed, but 
who could paint that gaze ? 
They hushed their very hearts, that saw its 
horror and amaze ; 
They might have chained him, as before that 
stony form he stood, 
For the power was stricken from his arm, and 
from his lip the blood. 

"Father !" at length he murmured low, and 
wept like childhood, then-- 
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of 
warlike men !- 
He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his 
young renown,-- 
He flung the falchion from his side, and in the 
dust sat down. 
Then, covering with his steel-gloved hands his 
darkly mournful brow, 
" No more, there is no more," he said, " to lift 
the sword for now.m 



FOURTH READER 

My king is false, my hope betrayed, my father-- 
oh ! the worth, 
The glory and the loveliness, are passed away 
from earth I 

"I thought to stand where banners waved, my 
sire ! beside thee yet-- 
I would that there our kindred blood on Spain's 
free soil had met! 
Thou wouldst have known my spirit then--for 
thee my fields were won,-- 
And thou hast perished in thy chains, as though 
thou hadst no son 

Then, starting from the ground once more, he 
seized the monarch's rein, 
Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the 
courtier train ; 
And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rear- 
ing war-horse led, 
And sternly set them face to face---the king 
before the dead !-- 

" Came I not forth upon thy pledge, my father's 
hand to kiss  
Be still, and gaze thou on, false king ! and tell 
me what is this[ 



BERNARDO DEL CARPIO 15 

The voice, the glance, the heart I sought---give 
answer, where are they ?- 
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life 
through this cold clay ! 

"Into these glassy eyes put light---be still! 
keep down thine ire,-- 
Bid these white lips a blessing speak--this earth 
is not my sire ! 
Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom 
my blood was shed,-- 
Thou canst not--and a king! His dust be 
mountains on thy head !" 

He loosed the steed ; his slack hand fell--upon 
the silent face 
He cast one long, deep, troubled look--then 
turned from that sad place: 
His hope was crushed, his after-fate untold in 
martial strain,- 
His banner led the spears no more amidst the 
hills of Spain. 
FELICL HES 

--To thine own self be true ; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
HAKESPEARE 



136 ou READER 

MOSES' BARGAINS 

"iIy second boy, Moses, whom I designed for business," says 
the Yicar, "received a sort of miscellaneous education at home." 

As we were now to hold up our heads a little 
higher in the world, it would be proper to sell 
the colt, which was grown old, at a neighbouring 
fair, and buy us a horse that would carry single 
or double upon an occasion, and make a pretty 
appearance at church or upon a visit. This at 
first I opposed stoutly; but it was as stoutly 
defended. However, as I weakened, my antago- 
nists gained strength, till at last it was resolved 
to part with him. 
As the fair happened on the following day, I 
had intentions of going myself; but my wife 
persuaded me that I had got a cold, and nothing 
could prevail upon her to permit me from home. 
" No, nay dear," said she, " our son Moses is a 
discreet boy and can buy and sell to very good 
advantage ; you know all our great bargains are 
of his purchasing. He always stands out and 
higgles, and actually tire them till he gets a 
bargain." 
As I had some opinion of my son's prudence, 
I was willing enough to intrust him with this 



138 FOVr, T READER 

As she spoke, Moses came slowly on foot, and 
sweating under the deal box, which he had 
strapped round his shoulders like a pedlar. 
"Welcome, welcome, Moses; well, my boy, 
what have you brought us from the fair?" 
"I have brought you myself," cried Moses, 
with a sly look, and resting the box on the 
dresser. 
"._h, Moses," cried mv wife, "that we know, 
but where is the horse ?" 
"I have sold him," cried Moses, " for three 
pounds, five shillings, and twopence." 
"Well done, my good boy," returned she, "I 
knew you would touch them off. Between 
ourselves, three pounds, five shillings, and 
twopence is no bad day's work. Come, let us 
have it then." 
" I have brought back no money," cried 
Moses again. "I have laid it all out in a 
bargain, and here it is," pulling out a bundle 
from his breast: "here they are, a gross of 
green spectacles, with silver rims and shagreen 
cases." 
"A gross of green spectacles !" repeated my 
wife, in a faint voice. "And you have parted 
with the colt and brought us back nothing but 
a gross of green paltry spectacles !" 



140 FOURT READER 

" There again you are wrong, my dear," cried 
I; " for though they be copper, we will keep 
them by us, as copper spectacles, you know, 
are better than nothing." 
By this time the unfortunate Moses was unde- 
ceived. He now saw that he had been imposed 
UlSOn by a prowling sharper, who, observing his 
figure, had marked him for an easy prey. I 
therefore asked the circumstances of his decep- 
tion. He sold the horse, it seems, and walked 
the fair in search of another. A reverend- 
looking man brought him to a tent, under 
pretence of having one to sell. 
" Here," continued Moses, " we met an)ther 
man, very well dressed, who desired to borrow 
twenty pounds upon these, saying that he 
wanted money and would dispose of them for 
a third of the value. The first gentleman, 
who pretended to be my friend, whispered 
me to buy them, and cautioned me not to 
let so good an offer pass. I sent for Mr. 
Flamborough, and they talked him up as 
finely as they did me, and so at last we 
were persuaded to buy the two gross between 
GOLDSMITH: "The Vicar of Wakefield." 



142 FOURTH READER 

THE GREENWOOD TREE 

UNDER the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry note 
Unto the sweet bird's throat, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither; 
Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. 

Who doth ambition shun 
And loves to live i' the sun ; 
Seeking the food he eats, 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, eome hither ; 
Here shall he see 
No enemy 
But winter and rough weather. . 
SHAKESPEARE 

BELIEVE me, thrift of time will repay you in 
after life with a usury of profit beyond your 
most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will 
make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and 
moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings. 
GLADSTONE 



LAKE SUPERIOR 143 

LAKE SUPERIOR 

BEFORE turning our steps westward from this 
inland ocean, Lake Superior, it will be well to 
pause a moment on its shore and look out over 
its bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world 
possesses not its equal. Four hundred English 
miles in length, one hundred and fifty miles in 
breadth, six hundred feet above Atlantic level, 
nine hundred feet in depth ; one vast spring of 
purest crystal water, so cold that during summer 
months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear 
that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks 
stand out as distinctly as though seen through 
plate-glass. Follow in fancy the outpourings of 
this wonderful basin; seek its future course in 
Huron, Erie, and Ontario--in that wild leap 
from the rocky ledge which makes Niagara 
famous through the world. Seek it farther still 
Bin the quiet loveliness of the Thousand Isles, 
in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar Rapids, in 
the silent rush of the great current under the 
rocks at the foot of Quebec. Ay, and even 
farther away stillown where the lone Lauren- 
tian Hills come forth to look again upon that 
water whose earliest beginnings they cradled 



144 FOURTH READER 

along the shores of Lake Superior. There, close 
to the sounding s of the Atlantic, two 
thousand miles from Superior, these hills--the 
only ones that ever last---guard the great gate 
by which the St. Lawrence seeks the sea. 
There are rivers  hose currents, running red 
with the silt and mud of their soft 
shores, carry far into the ocean the record of 
their muddy progress; but this glorious river 
system, through its many lakes and various 
names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing 
pure from the fountain-head of Lake Superior. 
Great cities stud its shores ; but they are power- 
less to dim the tra_a_.nsparenc_y of its waters. 
Steam-ships cover the broad bosom of its lakes 
and e_t_uaries.__.; but they change not the beauty 
of the water, no more than the fleets of the 
world mark the waves of the ocean. Any 
person looking at a map of the region bounding 
the great lakes of North America will be 
struck by the absence of rivers flowing into 
Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron, from the 
south--in fact, the drainage of the States bor- 
dering these lakes on the south is altogether 
carried off by the valley of the Mississippi. It 
follows that this valley of the Mississippi is at a 
much lower level than the surface of the lakes. 



'FIE nED IIVER PLAII J_45 

These lakes, containing an area of some seventy- 
three thousand square miles, are therefore an 
immense reservoir held high over the level of the 
great ]XIississippi valley, from which they are sep- 
arated by a barrierof slight elevation and 
extent. 
IAJOR V. F. BUTLER : "The GreatLone Land." 

THE RED RIVER PLAIN 

TE plain through which Red River flows is 
fertile beyond description. At a little distance 
it seems one vast level plain, through which the 
windings of the river are marked by a dark line 
of woods frf_ging_the whole length of the 
stream. Each tributary has also its line of 
forest,--a line visible many miles away over the 
great sea of grass. _As one travels on, there first 
rise above the prairie the tops of the trees ; these 
gradually grow larger, until finally, after many 
hours, the river is reached. Nothing else breaks 
the uniform level. Standing upon the ground, 
the eye ranges over many miles of grass; stand- 
ing on a wagon, one doubles the area of vision ; 
and to look over the plains from an elev_t.ion of 
twelve feet above the earth, is to survey at a 
glance a space so vast that distance a-l-one seems 



146 FOURTH READER 

to bound its limits. The effect of sunset over 
these oceans of verdure is very beautiful. A 
thousand hues spread themselves upon the 
grassy plains, a thousand tints of gold are cast 
along the heavens, and the two oceans of the sky 
and of the earth intermingle in one great blaze 
of glory at the very gate of the setting sun. 
But to speak of sunsets now is only to a 
Here, at the Red River, we are only at the 
threshold of the sunset; its true home lies yet 
many days' journey to the west--there, where 
the long shadows of the vast herds of bisonn__ 
(used to) trail slowly over the immense plains, 
huge and dark against the golden west-there, 
where the red man still sees, in the glory of the 
setting sun, the realization of his dream of 
heaven.  
IAJOR W. F. ]UTLER : "The Great Lone Land." 

As every action is capable of a peculiar dignity 
in the manner of it, so also it is capable of dig- 
nity still higher in the motive of it. There is no 
action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done 
to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore; nor 
is any purpose so great but that slight actions 
may help it, and may be so done as to help it 
much, most especially that chief of all purposes, 
the pleasing of God. RsK. 



HE IITNAMED LAKE 147 

THE UNNAMED LAKE 

IT sleeps among the thousand hills 
Where no man ever trod, 
And only nature's music fills 
The silences of God. 

Great mountains tower above its shore, 
Green rushes fringe its brim, 
And o'er its breast for evermore 
The wanton breezes skim. 

Dark clouds that intercept the sun 
Go there in Spring to weep, 
And there, when Autumn days are done, 
White mists lie down to sleep. 

Sunrise and sunset crown with gold 
The peaks of ageless stone, 
Where winds have thundered from of old 
And storms have set their throne. 

1o echoes of the world afar 
Disturb it night or day, 
But sun and shadow, moon and star, 
Pass and repass for aye. 



148 FOURTH READER 

'Twas in the gray of early dawn 
When first the lke we spied, 
And fragments of a cloud were drawn 
Half down the mountain side. 

Along the shore a heron flew, 
And from a speck on high, 
That hovered in the deepening blue, 
We heard the fish-hawk's cry. 

Among the cloud-capt solitudes, 
No sound the silence broke, 
Save when, in whispers down the woods, 
The guardian mountains spoke. 

Through tangled brush and dewy brake, 
Returning whence we came, 
We passed in silence, and the lake 
We left without a name. 
F. G. ScoT 

WE are not sent into this world to do anything 
into which we cannot put our hearts. We have 
certain work to do for our bread, and that is 
to be done strenuously; other work to do for 
our delight, and that is to be done heartily; 
neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but 
with a will. Ruskin 



LIFE IN IWORMAN ENGLAND 149 

LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND 

TEtE tall, frowning keep and solid walls of the 
great stone castles, in which the Norman barpns 
lived, betokened an age of violence and s__uspi- 
cion. Beauty gave way to the needs of safety. 
Girdled with a green and slimy ditch, round 
the inner side of which ran a parapeted wall 
pierced along the top with shot-holes, stood the 
buildings, spreading often over many acres. 
If an enemy managed to cross the Inoata__nd 
force the gateway, in spite of a portcpl_lis crash- 
ing from above, and melted lead pouring in 
burning streams from the perfo_rated_ top of the 
rounded arch, but little of his work was yet 
done; for the keep lifted its huge angular block 
of masonry within the inner bailey or court- 
yard, and from the narrow chinks in its ten-foot 
wall rained a sharp incessant shower of arrows, 
sweeping all approaches to the high and narrow 
stair, by which alone access could be had to its 
interior. 
These loopholes were the only windows, except 
in the topmost story, where the chieftain, like a 
vulture in his rocky nest, watched all the sur- 
rounding country. The day of splendid oriels 
had not yet come in castle architecture. 



150 FOURTH READER 

Thus a baron in his keep could defy, and 
often did defy, the king upon his throne. 
Under his roof, eating daily at his board, lived a 
throng of armed retainers ; and around his castle 
lay farms tilled by martial franklins, who at his 
call laid aside their implements of husbandry, 
took up the sword and spear, which they could 
wield with equal skill, and marched beneath his 
banner to the war. 
The furniture of a Norman keep was not un- 
like that of an English house. There was 
richer ornament--more elaborate carving. A 
fiddestol, the original of our arm-chair, spread its 
drapery and cushions for the chieftain in his 
lounging moods. His bed now boasted curtains 
and a roof, although, like the English lord, he 
still lay ouly upon straw. Chimneys tunnelled 
the thick walls, and the cupboards glittered with 
glass and silver. Horn lanterns and the old 
spiked candle-sticks lit up his evening hours, 
when the chess-board arrayed its clumsy men, 
carved out of walrus-tusk, then commonly called 
whale's-bone. But the baron had an unpleasant 
trick of breaking the chess-board on his oppo- 
nent's head, when he found himself checkmated; 
which somewhat marred that player's enjoy- 
ment of the game. Dice of horn and bone 



IIFE I IORMAI ENOLAND 151 

emptied many a purse in Norman England. 
Draughts were also sometimes played. 
Dance and music whiled away the long 
winter nights; and on summer evenings the 
castle courtyards e with the noise of 
football, wrestling,--boxing, leaping, and the 
fierce joys of the bull-bait. But out of doors, 
when no fighting was on hand, the hound, the 
hawk, and the lance attracted the best energies 
and skill of the Norman gentleman. 
The Normans probably dined at nine in the 
morning. When they rose they took a light 
meal; and ate something also after their day's 
work, immediately before going to bed. Goose 
and garlic formed a favourite dish. Their cook- 
ery was more elaborate, and, in eomparison, 
more delicate, than the preparations for an Eng- 
lish feast; but the eharacter for temperance, 
which they brought with them from the eonti- 
nent, soon vanished. 
The poorer classes hardly ever ate flesh, living 
principally on.bread, butter, and cheese; a fact 
in.soeial life which seems to underlie that usage 
of our tongue by which the living animals in 
field or stall bore English names--ox, sheep, 
calf, pig, deer ; while their flesh, promoted to 
Norman dishes, rejoiced in names of French ori- 



152 FOURTH READER 

gin-beef, mutton, veal, pork, venison. Round 
cakes, piously marked with a cross, piled the 
tables, on which pastry of various kinds also 
appeared. In good houses cups of glass held 
the -ine, which was borne from the cellar below 
in jugs. 
Squatted around the door or on the stairs lead- 
ing to the Norman dining-hall, ,hich was often 
on an upper floor, 'as a crowd of beggars or 
gluttons, who grew so insolent in the days of 
Rufus, that ushers, armed with rods, were posted 
outside to beat back the noisy throng, 'ho 
thought little of snatching the dishes as the 
cooks carried them to table! 
The juggler, -ho under the Normans filled 
the place of the English gleeman, tumbled, sang, 
and balanced knives in the hall ; or, out in the 
bailey of an afternoon, displayed the acquire- 
ments of his trained monkey or bear. The fool, 
too, clad in coloured patch-ork, cracked his 
ribald jests and shook his cap and bells at the 
elbow of roaring barons, when the board was 
spread and the circling of the wine began. 
5[onasteries served many useful purposes at 
this time. Besides their manifest value as 
centres of study and literary work, they gave 
alms to the poor, a supper and a bed to travellers; 



LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND 153 

their tenants were better off and better treated 
than the tenants of the nobles; the monks could 
store grain, grow apples, and cultivate their 
flower-beds -ith little risk of injury from war, 
because they had spiritual penalties at their call, 
which usually awed even the most reckless of 
the soldiery into a respect for sacred property. 
As schools, too, the monasteries did no trifling 
service to society in the Middle Ages. In 
addition to their influence as great centres of 
learning, English law had enjoined every mass- 
priest to keep a school in his parish church 
where all the young committed to his care 
 might be instructed. The youth of the middle 
classes, destined for the cloister or the merchant's 
stall, chiefly thronged these schools. The aris- 
tocracy cared little for book-learning. Very few 
indeed of the barons could read or write. But 
all could ride, fence, tilt, play at cards, and 
carve extremely well; for to these accomplish- 
ments many years of pagehood and squirehood 
were given. 
W. F. COLLIER, (Adapted) 

SELF-REVERENCE, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
TENNYSON 



HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD 157 

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD 
OH, to be in England 
Now that April's there, 
And whoever wakes in England 
Sees, some morning, unaware, 
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf 
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf, 
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 
In England--now ! 
And after April, when May follows, 
And the white-throat builds, and all the 
swallows ! 
Hark ! where my blossomed pear-tree in the 
hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdropsMat the bent spray's 
edge-- 
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song 
twice over, 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture ! 
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
The buttercups, the little children's dower, 
DFar brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! 
BROWNING 



158 FOURTH READER 

THE BELLS OF SHANDON 

WITH deep affection and recollection 
I often think of those Shandon bells, 
Whose sounds so wild would, in the days of 
childhood, 
Fling round my cradle their magic spells. 
On this I ponder where'er I wander, 
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee; 
With thy bells of Shandon that sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters of the River Lee. 
I've heard bells chiming full many a clime in, 
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine; 
While at a glib rate brass tongues would 
vibrate ;- 
But all their music spoke naught like thine. 
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling 
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free, 
Made the bells of Shandon sound far more grand 
on 
The pleasant waters of the River Lee. 
I've heard bells tolling old Adrian's Mole in, 
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican; 
And cymbals glorious swinging uproarious 
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame. 



THE BELLS OF SHANDON 159 

:But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of 
Peter 
Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly ; 
O, the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on 
The pleasant waters of the River Lee. 

There's a bell in Moscow; while on tower and 
kiosk 0 
In Saint Sophi, the Turkman gets, 
And loud in air calls men to prayer 
From the tapering summits of tall minarets. 
Such empty phantom I freely grant them ; 
But there's an anthem more dear to me ; 
'Tis the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on 
The pleasant waters of the River Lee. 
FRA.CS MAUO.'Y 

TgE man whom I call worthy of the name, is 
one whose thoughts and exertions are for others 
rather than for himself; whose high purpose is 
adopted on just principles, and is never aban- 
doned while heaven or earth affords means of 
accomplishing it. He is one who will neither 
seek an indirect advantage by a specious road, 
nor take an evil path to secure a really good 
purpose. ScoT 



160 FOU aa 

THE VISION OF MIRZAH 

WrrE I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up 
several Oriental manuscripts, which I have still 
by me. Among others, I met with one entitled, 
" The V/s/ons of Mi'czah," which I have read 
over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to 
the public when I have no other entertainment 
for them ; and shall begin with the first Vision, 
which I have translated word for word, as 
follows :- 
"On the fifth day of the moon, which, 
according to the custom of my forefathers, I 
always keep holy, after having washed myself, 
and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended 
the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the 
rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I 
was here airing myself on the tops of the 
mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation 
on the vanity of human life ; and passing from 
one thought to another, 'Surely,' said I, 'man 
is but a shadow, and life a dream.' 
"Yvhilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes 
towards the summit of a rock that was not far 
from me, where I discovered one in the habit of 
a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in 



VISION OF IIIRZAt 161 

his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it 
to his lips, and began to play upon it. The 
sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought 
into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly 
melodious, and altogether different from any- 
thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind 
of those heavenly airs that are played to the 
departed souls of good men upon their first 
arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions 
of the last agonies, and qualify them for the 
pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted 
away in secret raptures. 
"I had been often told that the rock before 
me was the haunt of a genius ; and that several 
had been entertained with music who had 
passed by it, but never heard that the musician 
had before made himself visible. When he had 
raised my thoughts by those transporting airs 
which he played, to taste the pleasures of his 
conversation, as I looked upon him like one 
astonished, thereupon he beckoned to me and, 
by the waving of his hand, directed me to 
approach the place where he sat. 
" I drew near with that reverence which is 
due to a superior nature ; and as my heart was 
entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had 
heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The 



162 FOURTH READER 

Genius smiled upon me with a look of 
compassion and affability that familiarized him 
to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the 
fears and apprehensions with which I approach- 
ed him. He lifted me from the ground, and 
taking me by the hand, 'Mirzah,' said he, 
' I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; fol- 
low me.' ""-" 
"He then led me to the highest pinnacle of 
the rock, and placing me on the top of it, ' Cast 
thy eyes eastward,' said he, ' and tell me what 
thou seest.' ' I see,' said I, ' a huge valley, and 
 prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' 
' The valley that thou seest,' said he, 'is the 
\Tale of Misery, and the Tide of Water that thou 
seest is part of the great Tide of Eternity.' 
' What is the reason,' said I, ' that the tide I see 
rises out of a thick mist at one end, and 
again loses itself in a thick mist at the other?' 
' What thou seest,' said he, ' is that portion of 
eternity which is called Time, measured out by 
the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the 
world to its consummation.' 
"'Examine now,' said he, 'this sea that 
is bounded with darkness at both ends, and 
tell me what thou discoverest in it.' 'I see 
a bridge,' said I, 'standing in the midst of the 



THE VlSlOl OF MIRZAH 163 

tide.' ' The bridge thou seest,' said he, ' is 
Human Life; consider it attentively.' Upon a 
more leisurely survey of it, I found that it 
consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, 
with several broken arches, 'hich, added to 
those that were entire, made up the number 
about an hundred. As I was counting the 
arches, the Genius told me that this bridge had 
consisted at first of a thousand arches ; but that 
a great flood swept away the rest and left the 
bridge in the ruinous condition I now be- 
held it. 
" 'But tell me further,' said he, ' what thou 
discoverest on it.' ' I see multitudes of people 
passing over it,' said I, 'and a black cloud 
hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more 
attentively, I saw several of the passengers 
dropping through the bridge, into the great tide 
that flowed underneath it; and, upon further 
examination, perceived that there were in- 
numerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the 
bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod 
upon, but they fell through them into the tide 
and immediately disappeared. 
"These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at 
the entrance of the bridge, so that the throngs of 
people no sooner broke through the cloud, but 



164 FOURTH READER 

many of them fell into them. They grew 
thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and 
lay closer together towards the end of the 
arches that were entire. 
"There were indeed some persons, but their 
numbers were very small, that continued a kind 
of hobbling march on the broken arches, but 
fell through one after another, being quite tired 
and spent with so long a walk. 
" I passed some time in the contemplation of 
this wonderful structure, and the great variety 
of objects which it presented. My heart was 
filled with a deep melancholy to see several drop- 
ping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and 
jollity, and catching at everything that stood by 
them to save themselves. 
"Some were looking up towards the heavens 
in a thoughtful posture, and, in the midst of a 
speculation, stumbled and fell out of sight. 
Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of 
bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced 
before them ; but often, when they thought them- 
selves within reach of them, their footing failed 
and down they sunk. 
"In this confusion of objects, I observed some 
with scymetars in their hands, who ran to and 
fro upon the bridge,thrusting several persons on 



'I''E VlSlOI',I OF MIZAH 16 

trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their 
way, and which they might have escaped had 
they not been thus forced upon them. 
"The Genius, seeing me indulge myself on this 
melancholy prospect, told me that I had dwelt 
long enough upon it: 'Take thine eyes off the 
bridge,' said he, ' and tell me if thou yet seest 
anything thou dost not comprehend.' Upon look- 
ing up, ' What mean,' said I, ' those great flights 
of birds that are perpetually hovering about the 
bridge and settling upon it from time to time ? 
I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and, 
among many other feathered creatures, several 
little winged boys that perch in great numbers 
upon the middle arches.' 'These,' said the 
Genius, 'are envy, avarice, superstition, despair, 
love, with the like cares and passions that 
infest human life.' 
" I here fetched a deep sigh, 'Alas,' said I, 
' man was made in vain ! How is he given away 
to misery and mortality! tortured in life, and 
swallowed up in death.' 
"The Genius, being moved with compassion 
towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a 
prospect : ' Look no more,' said he, ' on man in 
the first stage of his existence, in his setting out 
for eternity; but cast thine eye on that thick 



THE VISIOI OF IIIRZAI-I 167 

sage t) them, except through the gates of Death, 
which I saw opening every moment upon the 
bridge. 
"' The islands,' said he, ' that lie so fresh and 
green before thee, and with which the whole 
face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou 
canst see, are more in number than the sands on 
the sea-shore: there are myriads of islands be- 
hind those which thou here discoverest, reaching 
farther than thine eye or even thine imagina- 
tion can extend itself. These are the mansions 
of good men after death, who, according to the 
degree and kinds of virtue in which they ex- 
celled, are distributed among these several 
islands, which abound with pleasures of differ- 
ent kinds and degrees, suitable to the relishes 
and perfections of those who are settled in them : 
every island is a paradise accommodated to its 
respective inha]itants. Are not these, 0 Mirzah, 
habitations worth contending for? Does life 
appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of 
earning such a reward ? Is death to be feared, 
that will convey thee to so happy an existence? 
Think not man was made in vain, who has such 
an eternity reserved for him.' 
"I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on these 
happy islands. At length, I said: 'Show me 



168 FOUrtH EADEa 

now, 1 beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid 
under those dark clouds which cover the ocean 
on the other side of the rock of adamant.' 
"The Genius making me no answer, I turned 
about to address myself to him a second time, 
but found that he had left me; I theu turned 
again to the Vision which I had been so long 
contemplating; but instead of the rolling tide, 
the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw 
nothing but the long, hollow valley of Bagdat, 
with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the 
sides of it." 
DDISON -" "The Spectator, No. 159." 

FORBEARANCE 

HAST thou named all the birds without a gun ? 
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk ? 
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse ? 
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust ? 
And loved so well  high behaviour, 
In man or maid, that thou from speech re- 
frained, 
Nobility more nobly to repay? 
O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine [ 
Eraso 



MERCY TO Ah'IMALS 169 

MERCY TO ANIMALS 

I WOULD not enter on my list of friends 
(Though graced with polished manners and fine 
sense, 
Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
An inadvertent step may crush the snail 
That crawls at evening in the public path; 
But he that has humanity, forewarned, 
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, 
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes 
A visitor unwelcome into scenes 
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, 
The chamber, or refectory, may die. 
A necessary act incurs no blame. 
The sum is this: if man's convenience, health, 
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims 
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 
Else they are all--the meanest things that are-- 
As free to live, and to enjoy that life, 
As God was free to form them at the irst, 
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all. 
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 
To love it,too. CoweER 



. 70 FOURTH READER 

THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS 

THE Americans inaugurated their Declaration 
of Independence by enacting that all the United 
Empire Loyalists--that is the adherents to con- 
nection with the mother country--were rebels 
and traitors; they followed the recognition of 
Independence by England with an order exil- 
ing such adherents from their territories. But 
while this policy depleted the United States of 
some of their best blood, it laid the foundation 
of the settlement and the institutions of the 
country which has since become the great, free, 
and prosperous Dominion of Canada. 
Upper Canada was then unknown, or known 
only as a region of dense wilderness and 
swamps; of venomous reptiles and beasts of 
prey; of numerous and fierce Indian tribes; of 
intense cold in winter ; and with no redeeming 
feature except abundance of game and fish. 
After the war of Independence, many Loyal- 
ists went to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
and settled there. The British Commander 
of New York, having found out that Upper 
Canada was capable of supporting a numerous 
population along the great river and the lakes 
undertook to send colonies of Loyalists there. 



THE NITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS 171 

Five vessels were procured and furnished to 
convey the first colony from New York. They 
sailed round the coasts of Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick, and up the St. Lawrence to Sorel, 
where they arrived in October, 1783. Here 
they wintered, having built themselves huts, or 
shanties, and in May, 1784, they continued 
their voyage in boats, and reached their des- 
tination, Cataraqui, afterwards Kingston, in the 
month of July. 
Other bands of Loyalists came by land over 
the military highway to Lower Canada, as far 
as Plattsburg, and then northward to Cornwall 
and up the St. Lawrence, along the north side 
of which many of them settled. 
:But the most common route was by way of 
the Hudson and the Mohawk Pivers, through 
Oneida Lake and down the Oswego Piver to 
Lake Ontario. Flat-bottomed boats, specially 
built or purchased for the purpose by the 
Loyalists, were used in this journey. The por- 
tages, over which the boats had to be hauled 
and all their contents carried, are said to have 
been thirty miles long. 
On reaching Oswego, some of the Loyalists 
coasted along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario 
to Kingston, and thence up the :Bay of Quinte; 



FOURTH READER 

others went vestward along the south shore of 
the lake to ]Tiagara and Queenston. Some 
conveyed their boats over the portage of ten or 
twelve miles to Chippewa, thence up the river 
and into Lake Erie, settling chiefly in what 
was called " Long Point Country," now the 
County of Norfolk. 
This journey of hardship, privation, and 
exposure occupied from two to three months. 
The obstacles encountered may readily be 
imagined in a country where the primeval 
forest covered the eath, and where the only 
path was the river or the lake. The parents 
and family of the writer of this history were 
from the middle of May to the middle of July 
making the journey in an open boat. Gener- 
ally two or more families would unite in one 
company, and thus assist each other in carrying 
their boats and goods over the portages. 
"These excellent men," wrote Sir :Richard 
Bonnycastle, "were willing to sacrifice life and 
fortune rather than forego the enviable distinc- 
tion of being British subjects." The stern 
adherence of the Pilgrim Fathers to their prin- 
ciples was quite equalled by the stern adherence 
of the Loyalists to their principles; but the 
privations and hardships experienced by many 



OFT IN THE STILLY 1%IGHT 173 

of the Loyalist patriots for years after the first 
settlement in Canada were much more severe 
than anything experienced by the Puritans 
during the first years of their settlement in 
lIassachusetts. 
Canada has, indeed, a noble parentage, the 
remembrance of which its inhabitants may well 
cherish with respect, affection, and pride. 
F, GERTON IYERSON." "The Loyalists of Americ and their 
Times." (Adapted) 

OFT, IN THE STILLY NIGHT 

OFT, in the stilly night, 
Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Fond Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me; 
The smiles, the tears, 
Of boyhood's years, 
The words of love then spoken ; 
The eyes that shone, 
low dimmed and gone, 
The cheerful hearts now broken 
Thus, in the stilly night, 
Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 



When I remember all 
The friends, so linked together, 
I've seen around me fall, 
Like leaves in wintry weather; 
I feel like one, 
Who treads alone 
Some banquet-hall deserted, 
Whose lights are fled, 
Whose garlands dead, 
And all but he departed! 
Thus, in the stilly night, 
Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

OOILE 

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH 
TARA'S HALLS 

THE harp that once through Tara's halls 
The soul of music shed, 
low hangs as mute on Tara's walls 
As if that soul were fled. 
So sleeps the pride of former days, 
So glory's thrill is o'er, 
And hearts that once beat high for praise, 
low feel that pulse no more. 



HUDSON STRAIT 175 

:No more to chiefs and,ladies bright 
The harp of Tara swells ; 
The chord alone, that breaks at night, 
Its tale of ruin tells. 
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, 
The only throb she gives, 
Is when some heart indignant breaks, 
To show that still she lives. 
MooR 

HUDSON STRAIT 

ttvDso Strait opens from the Atlantic between 
Resolution Island on the north and the Button 
Islands on the south. From point to point, this 
end of the strait is forty-five miles wide. At the 
other end, the west side, between Digges' Island 
and Nottingham Island, is a distance of thirty- 
five miles. From east to west, the straits are 
four hundred and fifty miles long--wider at the 
east where the south side is known as Ungava 
Bay, contracting at the west, to the Upper 
Narrows. The south side of the strait is Lab- 
rador; the north, Baffin's Land. Both sides are 
lofty, rocky, cavernous shores lashed by a tide 
that rises in places as high as thirty-five feet and 



176 FOURT READER 

runs in calm weather ten miles an hour. Pink 
granite islands dot the north shore in groups 
that afford harbourage, but all shores present an 
adamant front, edges sharp as a knife or else 
rounded hard to have withstood and cut the 
tremendous ice jam of a floating world suddenly 
contracted to forty miles, 'hich Davis Strait 
pours down at the east end and Fox Channel at 
the west. 
Sex'en hundred feet is considered a good-sized 
hill; one thousand feet, a mountain, toth the 
north and the south sides of the straits rise two 
thousand feet in places. Through these rock 
walls ice has poured and torn and ripped a way 
since the ice age preceding history, cutting a 
great channel to the Atlantic. Here, the iron 
walls suddenly break to secluded silent valleys, 
moss-padded, snow-edged, lonely as the day 
Earth first saw light. Down these valleys pour 
the clear streams of the eternal snows, burnished 
as silver against the green, setting the silence 
echoing with the tinkle of cataracts over some 
rock wall, or filling the air with the voice of 
many waters at noontide thaw../One old navi- 
gator-Coates--describes the beat of the angry 
tide at the rock base and the silver voice of the 
mountain brooks, like the treble and bass of some 



tIUDSON STRAIT 177 

great cathedral organ sounding its diapason to 
the glory of God in this peopleless wilderness. 
Perhaps the kyacks of some solitary Eskimo, 
lashed abreast twos and threes to prevent capsiz- 
ing, may shoot out from some of these bog- 
covered valleys like sea-birds; but it is only 
when the Eskimos happen to be hunting here, 
or the ships of the whalers and fur traders are 
passing up and down--that there is any sign of 
human habitation on the straits. 
Walrus wallow on the pink granite islands in 
huge herds. Polar bears flounder from icepan 
to icepan. The arctic hare, white as snow but 
for the great bulging black eye, bounds over the 
boulders. Snow buntings, whistling swans, snow 
geese, ducks in myriads--flacker and clacker and 
hold solemn conclave on the adjoining rocks, as 
though this were their realm from the beginning 
and for all time. 
Of a tremendous depth are the waters of the 
straits. Not for nothing has the ice world been 
grinding through this narrow channel for bil- 
lions of years. No fear of shoals to the mariner. 
Fear is of another sort. When the ice is running 
in a whirlpool and the incoming tide meets the 
ice jam and the waters mount thirty-five feet 
high and a wind roars between the high shores 



FOURTH READER 

like a bellows--then it is that the straits roll and 
pitch and funnel their waters into black troughs 
where the ships go down. "Undertow," the old 
Hudson's Bay captains called the suck of the 
tide against the ice wall; and that black hole, 
where the lumpy billows seemed to part like a 
passage between wall of ice and wall of water, 
was what the mariners feared. The other great 
danger was just a plain crush, getting nipped be- 
tween two icepans rearing and plunging like 
fighting stallions, with the ice blocks going off 
like pistol shots or mashed glass. No child's 
play is such navigating either for the old sailing 
vessels of the fur traders or the modern ice- 
breakers propelled by steam! Yet, the old 
sailing vessels and the whaling fleets have 
navigated these straits for two hundred years. 
A6NES C. LA'a" : "The Conque of the Great N-orthwes" 

GOOD name in man and woman, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 
YVho steals my purse steals trash ; 'tis some- 
thing, nothing ; 
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to 
thousands ; 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed. Se.. 



SCOTS WnA nAE 179 

SCOTS WHA HAE 

SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ; 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victorie. 
Now's the day, and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lour : 
See approach proud Edward's power-- 
Chains and slaverie ! 

Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Let him turn and flee ! 
Wha for Scotland's King and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Free-man stand, or free-man fa', 
Let him follow me ! 

By Oppression's woes and pains l 
By your sons in servile chains, 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free! 
Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow[ 
Let us do, or die[ 

URNS 



CREW 181 

said, cheerily; "four short strokes to get way on 
her, and then, steady. Here, pass up the lemon." 
And he took a sliced lemon out of his pocket, 
put a small piece in his own mouth, and then 
handed it to Blake, who followed his example, 
and passed it on. Each man took a piece ; and 
just as Bow had secured the end, Miller called 
out,-- 
"Now, jackets off, and get her head out 
steadily." 
The jackets were thrown on shore, and 
gathered up by the boatman in attendance. 
The crew poised their oars, Number Two 
pushing out her head, and the captain doing 
the same for the stern. Miller took the start- 
ing-rope in his hand. 
"How the wind catches her stern," he said; 
"here, pay out the rope one of you. No, not 
you--some fellow with a strong hand. Yes, 
you'll do," he went on, as Hardy stepped down 
the bank and took hold of the rope; "let me 
have it foot by foot as I want it. Not too quick; 
make the most of itthat'll do. Two and Three, 
just dip your oars in to give her way." 
The rope paid out steadily, and the boat set- 
tled to her place. But now the wind rose again, 
and the stern drifted in towards the bank. 



182 FOVRT READER 

" You must back her a bit, Miller, and keep 
her a little further out or our oars on stroke side 
will catch the bank." 
"So I see; curse the wind. Back her, one 
stroke all. Back her, I say!" shouted Miller. 
It is no easy matter to get a crew to back her 
an inch just now, particularly as there are in her 
two men who have never rowed a race before, 
except in the torpids, and one who has never 
rowed a race in his life. 
However, back she comes; the starting-rope 
slackens in Miller's left hand, and the stroke, 
unshipping his oar, pushes the stern gently out 
again. 
There goes the second gun ! one short minute 
more, and we are off. Short minute, indeed! 
you wouldn't say so if you were in the boat, 
with your heart in your mouth and trembling 
all over like a man with the palsy. Those sixty 
seconds before the starting-gun in your first race 
--why, they are a little lifetime. 
"By Jove, we are drifting in again," said 
Miller, in horror. The captain looked grim but 
said nothing; it was too late now for him to be 
unshipping again. "Here, catch hold of the 
long boat-hook and fend her off." 
Hardy, to whom this was addressed, seized the 



boat-hook, and, standing with one foot in the 
water, pressed the end of the boat-hook against 
the gunwale, at the full stretch of his arm, and 
so, by main force, kept the stern out. There 
was just room for stroke oars to dip, and that was 
all. The starting-rope was as taut as a harp- 
string; will Miller's left hand hold out? 
It is an awful moment. But the coxswain, 
though almost dragged backwards off his seat, is 
equal to the occasion. He holds his watch in 
his right hand with the tiller rope. "Eight 
seconds more only. Look out for the flash. 
Remember, all eyes in the boat." 
There it comes, at last---the flash of the start- 
ing-gun. Long before the sound of the report 
can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and 
energy which has been held in leash, as it were, 
for the last six minutes, is loose, and breaks 
away with a bound and a dash which he who 
has felt it will remember for his life, but the 
like of which, will he ever feel again? The 
starting-ropes drop from the coxswains' hands, 
the oars flash into the water and gleam on the 
feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats 
leap forward. 
The crowds on the bank scatter and rush 
along, each keeping as near as may be to its own 



184 FOURTH RE/kDER 

boat. Some of the men on the towing-path, 
some on the very edge of, often in, the water; 
some slightly in advance, as if they could help 
to drag their boat forward; some behind, where 
they can see the pulling better; but all at full 
speed, in wild excitement, and shouting at the 
top of their voices to those on whom the honour 
of the college is laid. 
"Well pulled, all!" "Pick her up there, 
Five !" "You're gaining every stroke !" "Time 
in the bows !" " Bravo, St. Ambrose !" 
On they rushed by the side of the boats, 
jostling one another, stumbling, struggling, and 
panting along. 
For a quarter of a mile along the bank the 
glorious, maddening hurly-burly extends, and 
rolls up the side of the stream. 
For the first ten strokes Tom was in too great 
fear of making  mistake to feel or hear or see. 
His whole soul was glued to the back of the 
man before him, his one thought to keep time 
and get his strength into the stroke. But,as the 
crew settled down into the well-known long 
sweep, what we may call consciousness returned; 
and, while every muscle in his body was strain- 
ing, and his chest heaved, and his heart leaped, 
every nerve seemed to be gathering new life, 



AMBROSE CREW 185 

and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. 
I-te caught the scent of wild thyme i the air, 
and found room in his brain to wonder how it 
could have got there, as he had never seen the 
plant near the river, or smelt it before. Though 
his eye never wandered from the back of 
Diogenes, he seemed to see all things at once. 
The boat behind, which seemed to be gaining ;- 
it was all he could do to prevent himself from 
quickening on the stroke as he fancied that;-- 
the eager face of Miller, with his compressed 
lips, and eyes fixed so earnestly ahead that Tom 
could almost feel the glance passing over his 
right shoulder; the flying banks and the shout- 
ing crowd; see them with his bodily eyes he 
could not, but he knew, nevertheless, that Grey 
had been upset and nearly rolled down the bank 
into the water in the first hundred yards, that 
Jack was bounding and scrambling and barking 
along by the very edge of the stream; above all, 
he was just as well aware.as if he had been look- 
ing at it, of a stalwart form in cap and gown, 
bounding along, brandishing the long boat-hook, 
and always keeping just opposite the boat; and 
amid all the Babel of voices, and the dash and 
pulse of the stroke, and the labouring of his own 
breathing, he heard Hardy's voice coming to 



186 FOURTH READER 

him again and again, and clear as if there had 
been no other sound in the air, "Steady, Two! 
steady ! well pulled I steady, steady." The 
voice seemed to give him strength and keep him 
to his work. And what work it was! he had 
had many a hard pull in the last six weeks, but 
never aught like this. 
But it can't last forever; men's muscles are 
not steel, or their lungs bulls' hide, and hearts 
can't go on pumping a hundred miles an hour 
long, without bursting. The St. Ambrose boat 
is well away from the boat behind, there is a 
great gap between the accompanying crowds; 
and now, as they near the Gut, she hangs for a 
moment or two in hand, though the roar from 
the bank grows louder and louder, and Tom is 
already aware that the St. Ambrose crowd is 
melting into the one ahead of them. 
"We must be close to Exeter ! " The thought 
flashes into him, and, it would seem, into the 
rest of the crew at the same moment; for, all at 
once, the strain seems taken off their arms 
again ; there is no more drag; she springs to the 
stroke as she did at the start ; and Miller's face, 
which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens 
up again. 
Miller's face and attitude are a study. Coiled 



ST. AMBROSE CREW 187 

up into the smallest possible space, his chin 
almost resting on his knees, his hands close to 
his sides, firmly but lightly feeling the rudder, 
as a good horseman handles the mouth of a free- 
going hunter ; if a coxswain could make a bump 
by his own exertions, surely he will do it. No 
sudden jerks of the St. Ambrose rudder will you 
see, watch as you will from the bunk ; the boat 
never hangs through fault of his, but easily and 
gracefully rounds every point. "You're gain- 
ing! you're gaining!" he now and then mutters 
to the captain, who responds with a wink, 
keeping his breath for other matters. Isn't he 
grand, the captain, as he comes forward like 
lightning, stroke after stroke, his back flat, his 
teeth set, his whole frame working from the 
hips n-ith the regularity of a machine? As the 
space still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little 
coxswain flash with excitement, but he is far too 
good a judge to hurry the final effort before the 
victory is safe in his grasp. 
The two crowds are mingled now, and no 
mistake; and the shouts come all in a heap 
over the water. ":Now, St. Ambrose, six strokes 
more." "Now, Exeter, you're gaining; pick 
her up." "Mind the Gut, Exeter." "Bravo, 
St. Ambrose!" The water rushes by, still eddy- 



188 FOURTH READER 

ing from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom 
fancies now he can hear their oars and the 
workings of their rudder, and the voice of their 
coxswain. In another moment both boats are 
in the Gut, and a perfect storm of shouts reaches 
them from the crowd, as it rushes madly off to 
the left to the footbridge, amidst which "Oh, 
well steered, well steered, St. Ambrose!" is 
the prevailing cry. Then Miller, motionless as 
a statue till now, lifts his right hand and 
whirls the tassel round his head. " Give it 
her now, boys; six strokes and we're into 
them." Old Jervis lays down that great broad. 
back and lashes his oar through the water with 
the might of a giant, the crew catch him up in 
another stroke, the tight new boat answers to 
the spurt, and Tom feels a little shock behind 
him, and then a grating sound, as hliller shouts, 
"Unship oars, Bow and Three ! " and the nose 
of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up 
the side of the Exeter till it touches their 
stroke oar. 
"Take care where you're coming to." It is 
the coxswain of the bumped boat who speaks. 
Tom finds himself within a foot or two of 
him when he looks round; and, being utterly 
unable to contain his joy, and yet unwilling to 



UNTNC soNo 189 

exhibit it before the eyes of a gallant rival, 
turns away towards the shore, and begins tele- 
graphing to Hardy. 
"Now, then, what are you at there in the 
bows? Cast her off, quick. Come, look alive l 
Push across at once out of the way of the other 
boats." 
"I congratulate-you, Jervis," says the Exeter 
stroke, as the St. Ambrose boat shoots past him. 
"Do it again next race and I shan't care." 
THOMAS I-IUGHES : ,t Tom Brown at Oxford." 

HUNTING SONG 

WAKEN, lords and ladies gay, 
On the mountain dawns the day; 
All the jolly chase is here 
With hawk and horse and hunting-spear; 
Hounds are in their couples yelling, 
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, 
Merrily, merrily mingle they, 
'Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
The mist has left the mountain gray, 
Springlets in the dawn are steaming, 
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming, 



190 FOURTtt READER 

And foresters have busy been 
To track the buck in thicket green; 
Now we come to chant our lay, 
'Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
To the greenwood haste away; 
We can show you where he lies, 
Fleet of foot and tall of size ; 
We can show the marks he made 
When 'gainst the oak his antlers frayed ; 
You shall see him brought to bay : 
' Waken, lords and ladies gay.' 

Louder, louder chant the lay, 
Waken, lords and ladies gay ! 
Tell them youth and mirth and glee 
Run a course as well as we ; 
Time, stern huntsman ! who can baulk, 
Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk ; 
Think of this, and rise with day, 
Gentle lords and ladies gay I 
SCOTT 

Iw is not what he has, nor even what he does, 
which directly expresses the worth of a man, but 
what he is. 
AIE. 



BORDER BALLAD 191 

BORDER BALLAD 

]IARCR, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, 
Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in 
order ! 
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale, 
All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the 
Border. 
Many a banner spread 
Flutters above your head, 
Many a crest that is famous in story ; 
Mount and make ready then, 
Sons of the mountain glen, 
Fight for the Queen and our old Scottish glory I 
Come from the hills where your hirsels* are 
grazing, 
Come from the glen of the buck and the roe; 
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing, 
Come with the buckler, the lance,and the bow; 
Trumpets are sounding, 
War-steeds are bounding, 
Stand to your arms, and march in good order; 
England shall many a day 
Tell of the bloody fray 
When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border. 
Cattle ScoTt 



192 FOURTII READER 

THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 

THE weird, long call, or the shrill, demoniacal 
laugh coming out of the night tells of the 
sleepless activity of the loon. The whip-poor- 
will in the adjacent shrubbery, seems com- 
panionable, and there is a friendly spirit in the 
short, shrill tremolo of the night-hawk from 
the invisible sky. Even the plaint of the 
screech-owl has a tone of human sympathy. 
But the dreary cadence of the loon is the 
voice of the inhospitable night, repelling every 
thought of human association. It does not 
entreat, it does not varn ; yet there is a fascina- 
tion in its expressionless strength. Over the 
black water, under the lowering sky, or through 
the bright still moonlight, the same unfeeling 
tone fills the ear of night. And sometimes, 
when the lingering moon sheds a broad trail of 
light along the still waters of the lake, the 
graceful swimmer will glide across and dis- 
appear in the darkness, breaking the bright 
reflection into a multitude of chasing, quiver- 
ing, trailing threads of silver. Throughout the 
day, where the cedars come down to meet their 
shadows in the dark water, he swims ceaselessly 
about, sitting low, with black, glossy neck 



THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 193 

gracefully curved and displaying its delicate 
white markings. Sometimes he stretches him- 
self wearily, flapping his wings, and displaying 
his white breast and the handsome, showy mark- 
ings of his sides. Though wary and aloof, and 
without a trace of animation in his loud, pene- 
trating cries, he shows his kinship by the sc_gLu= 
pu_q].o care with which he preens his handsome 
feathers-even lying on his back in the water to 
comb out and smooth his glossy, white breast. 
A hurried cry from overhead may unexpect- 
edly revea._..__l the presence of a pair of loons in 
another element, and it is always fascinating to 
watch their steady, strained, energetic flight 
above the tops of the pines, generally to curve 
down to some more attractive expanse in the 
cedar-girt lake. For the water is the loon's 
natural element. There is an amusing de- 
liberateness in his graceful, silent dive. He 
does not make the hurried dip of his smaller 
cousin, the grebe, but more calmly curves both 
neck and body, disappearing under the surface 
in a graceful arch. Settling down and swim- 
ruing with only head and neck exposed is an 
evidence of suspicion, and is generally followed 
by a long dive, with a belated reappearance in 
some remote part of the lake. 



THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 195 

regaling himself on the unsuspecting fish. A 
boat comes out from the shore, rowed by an 
industrious guide, with an angler, picturesquely 
protected by mosquito net, sitting in the stern. 
The mother loon pushes and urges her indolent 
pair in the direction of safety. How slow they 
must seem as she hurries and encourages them ! 
The trio moves at a snail's pace compared with 
her ordinary speed, but the young ones show no 
inclination to dive out of harm's way. Their 
clinging, crowding tendency serves but to 
incommode and obstruct her. And where is the 
male protector? Alas for the romance of 
chivalry ! When the boat comes near, he de- 
liberately dives, and, after the usual protracted 
wait, reappears in another part of the lake, away 
from the danger that alarms and threatens the 
defenceless trio. But the mother remains and 
urges the encumbering young things to speed. 
They do make some headway, though slowly, 
toward the marshy bay from which they 
recently emerged with so much loud, wild 
laughter. The indifference of the fisherman 
and the guide does not reassure them, and they 
never cease their entangled struggle till lost to 
sight in the winding lagoon. 
B. T. Woo) 



196 OUT READER 

TO THE CUCKOO 

O LITtIE New-comer I I have heard, 
I hear thee and rejoice. 
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice ? 

While I am lying on the grass 
Thy twofold shout I hear; 
From hill to hill it seems to pass, 
At once far off, and near. 

Though babbling only to the Vale, 
Of sunshine and of flowers, 
Thou bringest unto me a tale 
Of visionary hours. 

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! 
Even yet thou art to me 
No bird, but an invisible thing, 
A voice, a mystery; 

The same whom in my school-boy days 
I listened to; that Cry 
hich made me look a thousand ways 
In bush, and tree, and sky. 



To TE CVCOO 197 

To seek thee did I often rove 
Through woods and on the green ; 
And thou wert still a hope, a love; 
Still longed for, never seen. 

And I can listen to thee yet; 
Can lie upon the plain 
And listen, till I do beget 
That golden time again. 

0 blessed Bird ! the earth we pace 
Again appears to be 
An unsubstantial faery place, 
That is fit home for Thee I 

rORDSWORTtl 

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET 

THE poetry of earth is never dead : 
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown 
mead ; 
That is the Grasshopper's---he takes the lead 
In summer luxury---he has never done 
,-With his delights; for when tired out with 
fun 



198 FOR READER 
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 
The poetry of earth is ceasing never : 
On a lone winter evening, when the frost 
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there 
shrills 
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 
And seems to one in drowsiness half-lost, 
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. 
Krrs 

THE GREAT NORTHWEST 

A_-D now let us turn our glance to this great 
Northwest, whither my wandering steps are 
about to lead me. Fully nine hundred miles as 
bird would fly, and one thousand two hundred 
as horse can travel, west of Red River, an 
immense range of mountains eternally capped 
with snow rises in rugged masses from a vast 
stream-scarred plain. They who first beheld 
these grand guardians of the cen_rairies 
named them the Montagnes des Rochers (Rocky 
Mountains),--a fitting title for such vast accumu- 
lations of rugged ma__gnificence. From the 
glaciers and ice-valleys of this great range of 
mountains innumerable streams descend into 



THE GREAT IORTHWEST 

199 

the plains. For a time they wander, as if 
heedless of direction, through groves and glades 
and green-spreading declivities; then, assuming 
greater fixity of purpose, they gather up many 
a wandering rill and start eastward upon a long 
journey. At length the many detached streams 
resolve themselves into two great water systems. 
Through hundreds of miles these two rivers 
pursue their parallel courses, now approaching, 
now opening out from each other. Suddenly 
the southern river bends towards the north, 
and, at a point some six hundred miles from 
the mountains, pours its volume of water into 
the northern channel. Then the united river 
roils, in vast, c curves, steadily towards 
the north-east, turns once more towards the 
south, opens out into a great reed-covered 
marsh, sweeps on into a large cedar-lined lake, 
and finally, roiling over a rocky ledge, casts its 
waters into the northern end of the great Lake 
Winnipeg, fully one thousand three hundred 
miles from the glacier cradle where it took its 
birth. This river, 'hich has along it every 
di2versity of hill and vale, meadow-land and 
forest, treeless plain and fertile hillside, is called 
by the wild tribes who dwell along its glorious 
shores, the Saskatchewan or "rapid-flowing 



200 FOURTH READER 

river." But this Saskatchewan is not the only 
river which drains the great central region 
between Red River and the Rocky Mountains. 
The Assiniboine or "stony river" drains the 
rolling prairie-lands five hundred miles west 
from Red River; and many a smaller stream, 
and rushing, bubbling brook, carries into its 
devious channel the waters of that vast country 
which lies between the American boundary line 
and the pine woods of the Lower Saskatchewan. 
So much for the rivers ; and now for the land 
through which they flow. How shall we picture 
it? how shall we tell the story of that great, 
boundless, solitary waste of verdure ? The old, 
old maps, which the navigators of the sixteenth 
century formed from the discoveries of Cabot 
and Cartier, of Verrazanno and Hudson, played 
strange pranks with the geography of the New 
World. The coast-line, with the estu__axies of 
large rivers, was tolerably accurate; but the centre 
of America was represented as a vast inland sea, 
whose shores stretched far into the Polar North 
--a sea through which lay the much-coveted 
passage to the long-sought treasures of the old 
realms of Cathay. Well, the ggof 
that period erred only in the description of 
ocean which they placed in the centre of the 



TI:tE GREAT NORTHWEST 201 

continent; for an ocean there is---an ocean 
through which men seek the treasures of Ca- 
thay even in our own times. ,But the ocean is 
one of grass, and the shores are the crests of 
mountain ranges and the dark pine forests of 
sub-Arctic regions. The great ocean itself does 
not present such infinite variety as does this 
prairie-ocean of which we speak :--in winter, a 
dazzling surface of purest snow; in early sum- 
mer, a vast expanse of grass and pale pink 
roses; in autumn, too often a wild sea of raging 
fire! No ocean of water in the world can vie 
with its gorgeous sunsets; no solitude can equal 
the loneliness of a night-shadowed prairie: one 
feels the stillness, and hears the silence: the 
wail of the prowling wolf makes the voice of 
solitude audible; the stars look down through 
infinite silence upon a silence almost as intense. 
This ocean has no past ;--time has been nought 
to it, and men have come and gone, leaving 
behind them no track, no vestige of their 
presence. Some French writer, speaking of 
these prairies, has said that the sense of this 
utter negation of life, this complete absence of 
history, has struck him with a loneliness, 
oppressive and sometimes terrible in its intensi- 
ty, Perhaps so, but, for my part, the prairies 



202 vou  

had nothing terrible in their aspect, nothing. 
oppressive in their loneliness. One saw here 
the world, as it had taken shape and form from 
the hands of the Creator. Nor did the scene 
look less beautiful because nature alone tilled 
the earth, and the unaided sun brought forth 
the flowers. 
October had reached its latest week; the wild 
geese and swans had taken their long flight to 
the south, and their wailing cry no more 
d.escended through the darkness; ice had set- 
tled upon the quiet pools and was settling 
upon the quick-running streams; the horizon 
glowed at night with the red light of moving 
prairie fires. It was the close of the Indian 
Summer, and Winter was coming quickly down 
from his far northern home. 
I[AJOI. W. F. BUTLER : "The Great Lone Land." 

RULE, BRITANNIA 

WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command, 
Arose from out the azure main, 
This was the charter of the land/ 
And guardian angels sung this strain: 
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves ! 
Britons never will be slaves ! 



04 FOURTH READER 

THE COMMANDMENT AND THE 
REWARD 

MY sou, forget not my law ; 
But let thine heart keep my commandments : 
For length of days, and years of life, 
And peace, shall they add to thee. 
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee : 
Bind them about thy neck ; 
Write them upon the table of thine heart: 
So shalt thou find favour, 
And good repute in the sight of God and 
man. 
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, 
And lean not upon thine own understanding : 
In all thy ways acknowledge him, 
And he shall direct thy paths. 
Be not wise in thine own eyes ; 
Fear the LORD, and depart from evil : 
tIonour the LORD with thy substance, 
And with the flint-fruits of all thine increase: 
So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, 
And thy vats shall overflow with new wine. 
PRovv.RBs, 



THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT 205 

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT 
THE spacious firmament on high, 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their great Original proclaim. 
Th' unwearied Sun from day to day 
Does his Creator's power display; 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 
Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale; 
And nightly to the listening Earth 
:Repeats the story of her birth : 
Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
What though in solemn silence all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball; 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found ? 
In Reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice; 
Forever singing as they shine, 
"The Hand that made us is divine." 

ADDISON 



206 FOURTH READER 

JUNE 
--WAT is so rare as a day in June ? 
Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 
An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
The flush of life may well be seen 
Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
Atilt like a blossom among the ]eaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 
With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and 
sings ; 
:He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-- 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? 



207 

low is the high-tide of the year, 
And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it; _ 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help 
knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 
That maize has sprouted, that streams are 
flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing.u 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing I 
LOWELL 



08 FOURTH EADER 

THE FIFTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD THE 
SAILOR 

ALL the troubles and calamities I had under- 
gone could not cure me of my inclination to 
make new voyages. I therefore bought goods, 
departed with them for the best seaport, and 
there, that I might not be obliged to depend 
upon a captain, but have a ship at my own 
command, I remained till one was built on 
purpose at my own charge. When the ship 
was ready, I went on board with my goods: but 
not having enough to load her, I agreed to take 
with me several merchants of different nations, 
with their merchandise. 
We sailed with the first fair wind, and after a 
long navigation the first place we touched at was 
a desert island, where we found an egg of a roe, 
equal in size to that I saw on a former voyage, 
fifty paces round, and shining as a great white 
dome when seen even from afar. There was  
young roe in it, just ready to be hatched, and its 
bill had begun to appear. 
The merchants whom I had taken on board, 
and who landed with me, broke the egg with 
hatchets, and having made a hole in it, pulled 



210 OURT READER 

almost see the bottom. The other roc, to our 
misfortune, threw his massy burden so exactly 
into the middle of the ship as to split it into 
a thousand pieces. The mariners and pas- 
sengers were all crushed to death, or sunk. I 
myself was of the number of the latter, but, as 
I came up again, I fortunately caught hold of 
a piece of the wreck, and swimming, sometimes 
with one hand and sometimes with the other, 
but always holding fast my board, the wind and 
tide favouring me, I came to an island whose 
shore was very steep. I overcame that difficulty, 
however, and got ashore. 
I sat down upon the grass to recover myself 
from my fatigue, after which I went into the 
island to explore it. It seemed to be a delicious 
garden. I found trees ever3where, some of 
them bearing green, and others ripe fruits ; and 
there were streams of fresh, pure water running 
in pleasant meanders. I ate of the fruits, which 
I found excellent; and drank of the water, 
which was very light and good. 
When I was a little advanced into the island 
I saw an old man, who appeared very weak and 
infirm. He was sitting on the bank of a stream, 
and at first I took him to be one who had been 
shipwrecked like myself. I went towards him 



SINBAD THE SAILOR 211 

and saluted him, but he only slightly bowed his 
head. I asked him why he sat so still; but 
instead of answering me, he made a sign for me 
to take him upon my back and carry him over 
the brook, signifying that it was to gather fruit. 
I believed him really to stand in need of my 
assistance, took him upon my back, and having 
carried him over, bade him get down, and for 
that end stooped, that he might get off with 
ease; but instead of doing so (which I laugh at 
every time I think of it), the old man who 
appeared to me quite decrepit, threw his legs 
nimbly about my neck. He sat astride upon 
my shoulders, and held my throat so tight 
that I thought he would have strangled me, the 
apprehension of which made me swoon and fall 
down. 
Notwithstanding my fainting, the ill-natured 
old fellow kept fast about my neck. When 
I had recovered my breath, he thrust one 
of his feet against my stomach, and struck me so 
rudely on the side with the other, that he forced 
me to rise up against my will. Having arisen, 
he made me carry him under the trees, and 
forced me now and then to stop, to gather and 
eat fruit such as we found. He never left me all 
day, and when I lay dovn to rest at night, he 



212 FOIRT H READEI 

laid himself down with me, holding always fast 
about my neck. Every morning he pushed mo 
to make me awake, and afterwards obliged me to 
get up and walk, and pressed me with his 
feet. You may judge then, what trouble I was 
in. to be loaded with such a burden of which I 
could not get rid. 
One day I found in my way several dry 
calabashes that had fallen from a tree. I took 
a large one, and after cleaning it, pressed into it 
some juice of grapes, which abounded in the 
island. Having filled the calabash, I put it by 
in a convenient place; and going thither again 
some days after, I tasted it and found the wine 
so good that it oon made me forget my sorrow, 
gave me new vigour, and so exhilarated my 
spirits, that I began to sing and dance as I 
walked along. 
The old man, perceiving the effect which this 
liquor had upon me, and that I carried him with 
more ease than before, made me a sign to give 
him some of it. I handed him the calabash, 
and the liquor pleasing his palate, he drank it 
all off: There being a considerable quantity of 
it, and the fumes getting into his head, he 
began to sing and dance upon my shoulders, and 
to loosen his legs from about me by degrees. 



SINBAD THE SAILOR 213 

Finding that he did not press me as before, I 
threw him upon the ground, where he lay 
without motion; then I took up a great stone 
and crushed his head. 
I was extremely glad to be thus freed for ever 
from this troublesome fellow. I now walked 
towards the beach, where I met the crew of a 
ship that had cast anchor, to take water. They 
were surprised to see me, but more so at the 
particulars of my adventures. " You fell," said 
they, " into the hands of the old man of the 
sea, and are the first who ever escaped strangling 
by his malicious tricks. He never quitted 
those he had once made himself master of till 
he had destroyed them, and he has made this 
island notorious by the number of men he has 
slain." 
After having informed me of these things, 
they carried me with them to the ship; the 
captain received me with great kindness when 
they told him what had befallen me. He put 
out again to sea, and after some days' sail, we 
arrived at the harbour of a great city, the houses 
of which were built with hewn stone. 
One of the merchants who had taken me into 
his friendship invited me to go along with him 
and carried me to a place appointed for the 



FOURTH READER 

accommodation of foreign merchants, le 
gave me a large bag, and having recom- 
mended me to som. e people of the town, who 
used to gather cocoa-nuts, desired them to take 
me with them. "Go," said he, " follow them, 
and act as you see them do; but do not part 
from them, otherwise you may endanger your 
life." Having thus spoken, he gave me pro- 
visions for the journey, and I went with 
them. 
We came to a thick forest of cocoa trees, very 
lofty, with trunks so smooth that it was not 
possible to climb to the branches that bore the 
fruit. When we entered the forest, we saw a 
great number of apes of several sizes, who fled 
as soon as they perceived us and climbed up to 
the tops of the trees with surprising swiftness. 
The merchants gathered stones and threw 
them at the apes in the trees. I did the same, 
and the apes, out of revenge, threw cocoa-nuts 
at us so fast, and with such gestures, as suffi- 
ciently testified their anger and resentment. 
We gathered up the cocoa-nuts, and from time 
to time threw stones to provoke the apes; so 
that by this stratagem we filled our bags with 
cocoa-nuts, which it had been impossible other- 
wise to have done. I thus gradually collected 



SINBAD THE SAILOR 215 

as many cocoa-nuts as produced me a.consider- 
able sum. 
We sailed towards the islands, where pepper 
grows in great plenty. From thence we went to 
the isle of Comari, where the best species of wood 
of aloes grows. I exchanged my cocoa in those 
islands for pepper and wood of aloes, and 
went with other merchants a-pearl-fishing. I 
hired divers, who brought me up some that 
were very large and pure. I embarked in a 
vessel that happily arrived at Bussorah; from 
thence I returned to Bagdat, where I made 
vast sums of my pepper, wood of aloes, and 
pearls. I gave the tenth of my gains in alms, 
as I had done upon my return from my other 
voyages, and endeavoured to dissipate my 
fatigues by amusements of different kinds. 
"The Arabian Nights Entertainments." 

ALL are needed by each one; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; 
I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 
He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 
For I did not bring home the river and sky 
He sang to my ear,--they sang to my eye. 
EsoN 



216 vou REDER 

OCEAN 

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin,--his control 
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling 
groan 
ithout a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and 
unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields, 
Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee; the vile strength 
he wields 
For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful 
spray, 
And howling to his gods, where haply lies 
:His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
And dashest him again to earth ; there let him 
lay. 



OCE 217 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding "nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals; 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ." 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save 
thee-- 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are 
they? 
Thy waters washed them power while they 
were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : not so,thou ; 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest 
now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's 
form 
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, 
Calm or convulsed--in breeze or gale or storm, 



218 FOURTH READER 

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime, 
Dark-heaving,boundless, endless and sub- 
lime-- 
The image of eternity--the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made; each 
zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, 
alone. 

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers; they to me 
Were a delight; and, if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear ; 
For I was as it were a child of thee 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do 
here. 
BYRON : " Childe ttarold's Pilgrimage. ' 

BRITAIN'S myriad voices call 
"Sons be welded each and all, 
Into one imperial whole, 
One with Britain, heart and soul ! 
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne l" 
Britons, hold your own I 
TENNYSOI 



Z 



FORT DETROIT 219 

PONTIAC'S ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE 
FORT DETROIT 

Ix the year 1763, a celebrated chief of the 
Ottawas, called Pontiac, succeeded in forming 
a confederacy of the Ottawas, Hurons, Chippe- 
was, and some other tribes, with the avowed 
object of expelling the British from the lake 
regions of the country. With the craftiness 
peculiar to the Indian race, an ingenious 
stratagem was devised, by means of which it 
was hoped that the allies would-easily gain 
possession of the forts. 
For this purpose a grand Lacrosse match was 
organized at each post, and the officers of the 
garrison invited to become participators in the 
game. 
Pontiac and his attendant chiefs had, while 
the warriors and braves were engaged in the 
game of Lacrosse on the common, sought an 
audience of the governor of the fort. He 
received them in the mess-room, apparently not 
suspectin any artifice on their part. 
"The pale warrior, the friend of the Ottawa 
chief, is not here," said the governor, as he 
glanced his eye along the semi-circle of Indians. 



"How is this? Is his voice still sick, that he 
cannot come? or has the great chief of the 
Ottawas forgotten to tell him?" 
"The voice of the pale warrior is still sick, 
and he cannot speak," replied the Indian. "The 
Ottawa chief is very sorry ; for the tongue of his 
friend, the pale-face, is full of wisdom." 
Scarcely had the last words escaped his lips 
when a wild, shrill cry from without the foit 
rang on the ears of the assembled council, and 
caused a momentary commotion among the 
officers. It arose from a single voice, and that 
voice could not be mistaken by any who had 
heard it once before. A second or two, during 
which the officers and chiefs kept their eyes 
intently fixed on one another, passed anxiously 
away; and then nearer to the gate, apparently 
on the very drawbridge itself, was pealed forth 
the wild and deafening yell of a legion of 
fiendish voices. At that sound, the Ottawa and 
the other chiefs sprang to their feet, and their 
own fierce cry responded to that yet vibrating 
on the ears of all. Already were their gleaming 
tomahawks brandished wildly over their heads, 
and Pontiac had even bounded a pace forward 
to reach the governor with the deadly weapon, 
when, at the sudden stamping of the foot of the 



222 vou READER 

powerful to be dissembled; and incapable either 
of advancing or receding, they remained gazing 
on the scene before them with an air of mingled 
stupefaction, rage, and alarm. Scarcely ten 
minutes had elapsed since they had proudly 
strode through the naked area of the fort, and 
-et even in that short space of time its al 
pearance had been entirely changed. Not a 
part was there now of the surrounding buildings 
that was not replete with human life and hostile 
preparation. Through every window of the 
officers' low rooms was to be seen the dark and 
frowning muzzle of a field-piece bearing upon 
the gateway, and behind these were artillerymen 
holding their lighted matches, supported again 
by files of bayonets that glittered in their rear. 
In the block-houses the same formidable array 
of field-pieces and muskets was visible; while 
from the four angles of the square as many 
heavy guns, that had been artfully masked at 
the entrance of the chiefs, seemed ready to 
sweep away everything that should come before 
them. The guard-room near the gate presented 
the same hoile front. The doors of this, as well 
as of the other buildings, had been firmly secured 
within ; and from every wndow affording cover 
to the troops gleamed a line of bayonets, rising 



above the threatening field-pieces, pointed, at a 
distance of little more than twelve feet, directly 
upon the gateway. In addition to his musket, 
each man of the guard held a hand grenade, 
provided with a short fuse that could be ignited 
in a moment from the matches of the gunners, 
with immediate effect. The soldiers in the 
block-houses were similarly provided. 
Almost magical as was the change thus 
suddenly effected in the appearance of the garri- 
son, it was not the most interesting feature in 
the exciting scene. Choking up the gateway, in 
which they were completely wedged, and crowd- 
ing the drawbridge, a dense mass of "husky " 
Indians were to be seen casting their fierce 
glances around, yet paralyzed in their move- 
ments by the unlooked-for display of resisting 
force, threatening instant annihilation to those" 
who should attempt either to advance or recede. 
Never, perhaps, were astonishment and dis- 
appointment more forcibly depicted on the 
human countenance, than they were now ex- 
hibited by these men, who had already in 
imagination secured to themselves an easy 
conquest. They were the warriors who had so 
recently been engaged in the manly yet innocent 
exercise of the ball; but, instead of the harmless 



FOURTH READER 

hurdle, each now carried a short gun in one 
hand and a gleaming tomahawk in the other. 
After the first general yelling heard in the 
council-room, not a sound was uttered. Their 
burst of rage and triumph had evidently been 
checked by the unexpected manner of their 
reception; and they now stood on the spot on 
which the further advance of each had been 
arrested, so silent and motionless, that, but for 
the rolling of their dark eyes, as they keenly 
measured the insurmountable barriers that were 
opposed to their progress, they might ahnost 
have been taken for a wild group of statuary. 
Conspicuous at the head of these was he who 
wore the blanket; a tall warrior on whom 
rested the startled eye of every officer and 
soldier who was so situated as to behold him. 
His face was painted black as death ; and as he 
stood under the arch of the gateway, with his 
white turbaned head towering far above those of 
his companions, this formidable and mysterious 
enemy might have been likened to the spirit of 
darkness presiding over his terrible legions. 
In order to account for the extraordinary 
appearance of the Indians, armed in every way 
for death, at a moment when neither gun nor 
tomahawk was apparently within miles of their 



FORT DETROIT 225 

reach, it was necessary to revert to the first 
entrance of the chiefs into the fort. The fall of 
Pontiac had been the effect of design; and the 
yell pealed forth by him, on recovering his feet, 
as if in taunting reply to the laugh of his 
comrades, was in reality a signal intended fir 
the guidance of the Indians without. These 
now following up their game with increasing 
spirit, at once changed the direction of their 
line, bringing the ball nearer to the fort. In 
their eagerness to effect this object, they had 
overlooked the gradual secession of the unarmed 
troops, spectators of their sport from the ram- 
parts, until scarcely more than twenty stragglers 
were left. As they neared the gate, the squaws 
broke up their several groups, and, forming a 
line on either hand of the road leading to the 
drawbridge, appeared to separate solely with a 
view not to impede the players. For an instant 
a dense group collected around the ball, which 
had been drawn to within a hundred yards of 
the gate, and fifty hurdles were crossed in their 
endeavour to secure it, when the warrior, who 
formed the solitary exception to the multitude, 
in his blanket covering, and who had been 
lingering in the extreme rear of the party, came 
rapidly up to the spot where the well-affected 



226 FOVT READER 

struggle was maintained. At his approach the 
hurdles of the other players were withdrawn, 
when, at a single blow from his powerful arm, 
the ball was seen flying in an oblique direction 
and was for a moment lost altogether to the 
view. V(hen it again met the eye, it was 
descending into the very centre of the fort. 
With the fleetness of thought now com- 
menced a race which had ostensibly for its object 
the recovery of the lost ball, and in which he 
who had driven it with resistless force out- 
stripped them all. Their course lay between the 
two lines of squaws; and scarcely had the head 
of the bounding Indians reached the opposite 
extremity of those lines, when the women 
suddenly threw back their blankets, and dis- 
closed each a short gun and tomahawk. To 
throw away their hurdles and seize upon these, 
was the work of an instant. Already, in 
imagination, was the fort their own; and, such 
was the peculiar exaltation of the black and 
turbaned warrior when he felt the planks of the 
drawbridge bending beneath his feet, all the 
ferocious joy of his soul was pealed forth in the 
terrible cry which, rapidly succeeded by that of 
the other Indians, had resounded so fearfully 
through the council-room. 



228 FOURTH READER 

MORNING ON THE LIEVRE 
FAR above us where a jay 
Screams his matins to the day, 
Capped with gold and amethyst, 
Like a vapour from the forge 
Of . giant somewhere hid, 
Out of hearing of the clung 
Of his hammer, skirts of mist 
Slowly up the woody gorge 
Lift and hang. 
Softly as a cloud we go, 
Sky above and sky below, 
Down the river; and the dip 
Of the paddles scarcely breaks, 
With the little silvery drip 
Of the water as it shakes 
From the blades, the crystal deep 
Of the silence of the morn, 
Of the forest yet asleep; 
And the river reaches borne 
In a mirror, purple gray, 
Sheer away 
To the misty line of light, 
Where the forest and the stream 
In the shadow meet and plight, 
Like a dream. 



]IORNI'G ON THE LIEVRE 229 

From amid a stretch of reeds, 
Where the lazy river sucks 
All the water as it bleeds 
From a little curling creek, 
And the muskrats peer and sneak 
In around the sunken wrecks 
Of a tree that swept the skies 
Long ago, 
On a sudden seven ducks 
With a splashy rustle rise, 
Stretching out their seven necks, 
One before, and two behind, 
And the others all arow, 
And as steady as the wind 
With a swivelling whistle go, 
Through the purple shadow led, 
Till we only hear their whir 
In behind a rocky spur, 
Just ahead. 
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN 

I CALL, therefore, a complete and generous 
education, that which fits a man to perform 
justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the 
offices, both private and public, of peace and 
war. 
IILTON : u Off Edlcatioll. ' 



230 OUH 

EVENING 

FROM upland slopes I see the cows file by, 
Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward 
trail, 
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale 
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering 
high, 
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky 
Beats up into the lucent solitudes, 
Or drops with griding wing. The stilly 
woods 
Grow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously. 
Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine 
ear, 
The homely cricket gossips at my feet. 
From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear, 
Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break 
sweet 
In full Pandean chorus. One by one 
Shine out the stars, and the great night 
comes on. 
ACHIALD LAMPMAN 

FoR manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of loyal nature and of noble mind. 
TENh'SON 



AN ELIZABETHAN SEAMAN 231 

AN ELIZABETHAN SEAMAN 

SOIIE two miles above the port of Dartmouth, 
once among the most important harbours in 
England, on a projecting angle of land which 
runs out into the river at the head of one of its 
most beautiful reaches, there has stood for some 
centuries the Manor House of Greenaway. The 
water runs deep all the way to it from the sea, 
and the largest vessels may ride with safety 
within a stone's throw of the 'indows. In the 
latter half of the sixteenth century there must 
have met, in the hall of this mansion, a party as 
remarkable as could have been found anywhere 
in England. Humfrey and Adrian Gilbert, 
with their half-brother, Walter Raleigh, here, 
when little boys, played at sailors in the reaches 
of Long Stream, in the summer evenings doubt- 
less rowing down with the tide to the port, and 
wondering at the quaint figure-heads and carved 
prows of the ships which thronged it; or climb- 
ing on board, and listening, with hearts beating, 
to the mariners' tales of the new earth beyond 
the sunset. And here in later life, matured 
men, whose boyish dreams had become heroic 
action, they used again to meet in the intervals 
of quiet, and the rock is shown underneath the 



232 FOURTR READER 

house where laleigh smoked the first tobacco. 
Another remarkable man could not fail to have 
made a fourth at these meetings. A sailor-boy 
of Sandwich, the adjoining parish, John Davis, 
showed early a genius which could not have 
escaped the eye of such neighbours, and in the 
atmosphere of Greenaway he learned to be as 
noble as the Gilberts, and as tender and delicate 
as Raleigh. 
Iu 1585 John Davis left Dartmouth on his 
first voyage into the Polar Seas; and twice sub- 
sequently he went again, venturing in small, 
ill-equipped vessels of thirty or forty tons into 
the most dangerous seas. These voyages were 
as remarkable for their success as for the daring 
with which they were accomplished, and Davis' 
epitaph is written on the map of the world, 
where his name still remains to commemorate 
his discoveries. Brave as he was, he is disting- 
uished by a peculiar and exquisite sweetness of 
nature, which., from many little facts of his life, 
seems to have affected every one with whom he 
came in contact in a remarkable degree. We 
find men, for the love of Master Davis, leaving 
their firesides to sail with him, without other 
hope or motion; we find silver bullets cast to 
shoot him in a mutiny; the hard, rude natures 



ELIZABETHAN SEAMAl 233 

of the mutineers being awed by something in 
his carriage which was not like that of a com- 
mon man. He has written the account of one 
of his northern voyages himself; and there is 
an imaginative beauty in it, and a rich delicacy 
of expression, which is called out in him by the 
first sight of strange lands and things and 
people. 
We have only space to tell something of the 
conclusion of his voyage north. In latitude 
sixty-three degrees, he fell in with a barrier of 
ice, which he coasted for thirteen days without 
finding an opening. The very sight of an ice- 
berg was new to all his crew; and the ropes and 
shrouds, though it was midsummer, becoming 
compassed with ice,-- 
"The people began to fall sick and faint- 
hearted--whereupon, very orderly, and with 
good discretion, they entreated me to regard the 
safety of mine own life, as well as the preserva- 
tion of theirs; and that I should not, through 
over-boldness, leave their widows and fatherless 
children to give me bitter curses. 
Whereupon, seeking counsel of God, it pleased 
His Divine Majesty to move my heart to prose- 
cute that which I hope shall be to His glory and 
to the contentation of every Christian mind." 



234 FOURTH READER 

He had two vessels--one of some burden, the 
other a pinnace of thirty tons. The result of the 
counsel which he had sought was, that he made 
over his own large vessel to such as wished to 
return, and himself, "thinking it better to die 
with honour than to return with infamy," went 
on with such volunteers as would follow him, in 
a poor leaky cutter, up the sea now in com- 
memoration of that adventure called Davis' 
Strait. He ascended four degrees north of the 
furthest known point, among storms and ice- 
bergs, when the long days and twilight nights 
alone saved him from being destroyed, and, 
coasting back along the American shore, he 
discovered Hudson Strait, supposed then to be 
the long desired entrance into the Pacific. This 
exploit drew the attention of Walsingham, and 
by him Davis was presented to Burleigh, "who 
was also lleased to show him great encourage- 
ment." If either these statesmen or Elizabeth 
had been twenty years younger, his name would 
have filled a larger space in history than a small 
corner of the map of the world; but, if he was 
employed at all in the last years of the century, 
no rates sacer has been found to celebrate his 
work, and no clew is left to guide us. He dis- 
appears; a cloud falls over him. He is known 



AN ,LIZAB,THAN SEAMAN 

to have commanded trading vessels in the 
Eastern seas, and to have returned five tmes 
from India. But the details are all lost, and 
accident has only parted the clouds for a 
moment to show us the mournful setting with 
which he, too vent down upon the sea. 
In taking out Sir Edward Michellthorne to 
India, in 1604, he fell in with a crew of 
Japanese, whose ship had been burnt, drifting 
at sea, vithout provisions, in a leaky junk. He 
supposed them to be pirates, but he did not 
choose to leave them to so wretched a death, and 
took them on board; and in a few hours, 
watching their opportunity, they murdered him. 
As the fool dieth, so dieth the wise, and there 
is no difference; it was the ehanee of the sea, 
and the ill reward of a humane aetion--a 
melancholy end for such a manmlike the end ot 
a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the 
field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl 
or ambuseade. But so it was with all these men. 
They were eut off in the flower of their days, 
and few of them laid their bones in the 
sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the 
service whieh they had chosen, and they did 
not ask the wages for whieh they had not 
laboured. Life with them was no summer 



236 FOURTH IEADER 

holiday, but a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, 
and what their Master sent was welcome. 
Beautiful is old agembeautiful is the slow- 
dropping mellow autumn of a rich, glorious 
summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled 
her work; she loads him with her blessings; 
she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life ; 
and, surrounded by his children and his chil- 
dren's children, she rocks him softly away to a 
grave, to which he is followed with blessings. 
God forbid we should not call it beautiful. It is 
beautiful, but not the most beautiful. There is 
another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trodden 
with bleeding feet and aching brow ; the life of 
which the cross is the symbol; a battle which 
no peace follows, this side the gra-e; which the 
grave gapes to finish, before the victory is won ; 
andmstrange that it should be so-this is the 
highest life of man. Look back along the great 
names of history; there is none whose life has 
been other than this. They to whom it has 
been given to do the really highest work in this 
earthwhoever they are, Jew or Gentile, Pagan 
or Christian, warriors, legislators, philosophers, 
priests, poets, kings, slaves  one and all, their 
fate has been the same--the same bitter cup has 
been given them to drink. And so it was with 



THE SEA-KING'S BURIAL 237 

the servants of England in the sixteenth 
century. Their life was a long battle, either 
with the elements or with men; and it was 
enough for them to fulfil their work, and to pass 
away in the hour when God had nothing more 
to bid them do. 
'ROUDE : "hort Studies on Great Subjects." 

THE SEA-KING'S BURIAL 

"IY strength is failing fast," 
Said the sea-king to his men; 
" I shall never sail the seas 
As a conqueror again. 
But while yet a drop remains 
Of the life-blood in my veins, 
Raise, 0 raise me from the bed; 
Put the crown upon my head; 
Put my good sword in my hand, 
And so lead me to the strand, 
Where my ship at anchor rides 
Steadily ; 
If I cannot end my life 
In the crimsoned battle-strife, 
Let me die as I have lived. 
On the sea." 



238 

FOURTH READER 

They have raised King Balder up, 
Put his crown upon his head ; 
They have sheathed his limbs in mail, 
And the purple o'er him spread ; 
And amid the greeting rude 
Of a gathering multitude, 
Borne him slowly to the shore- 
All the energy of yore 
From his dim eyes flashing forth-- 
Old sea-lion of the north-- 
As he looked upon his ship 
Riding free, 
And on his forehead pale 
Felt the cold, refreshing gale, 
And heard the welcome sound 
Of the sea. 

They have borne him to the ship 
With a slow and solemn tread ; 
They have placed him on the deck 
With his crown upon his head, 
Where he sat as on a throne ; 
And have left him there alone, 
With his anchor ready weighed 
And his snowy sails displayed 
To the favouring wind, once more 
Blowing freshly from the shore; 



240 FOURTII READER 

Once alone, he raised his hand 
To the people on the land; 
And with shout and joyous cry 
Once again they made reply, 
Till the loud, exulting cheer 
Sounded faintly on his ear; 
For the gale was o'er him blowing 
Fresh and free; 
And ere yet an hour had passed, 
He was driven before the b.last, 
And a storm was on his path 
On the sea. 

"So blow, ye tempests, blow, 
And my spirit shall not quail: 
I have fought with many a foe, 
I have weathered many a gale; 
And in this hour of death, 
Ere I yield my fleeting breath-- 
Ere the fire now burning slow 
Shall come rushing from below, 
And this worn and wasted frame 
Be devoid to the flame--- 
I will raise my voice in triumph, 
Singing free ;- 
To the great All-Father's home 
I am driving through the foam, 



THE SEA-KI'G'S BURIAL 241 

I am sailing to Valhalla, 
O'er the sea. 

"So blow, ye stormy winds--- 
And, ye flames, ascend on high ;- 
In the easy, idle bed 
Let the slave and coward die! 
But give me the driving keel, 
Clang of shields and flashing steel; 
Happy, happy, thus I'd yield, 
On the deck or in the field, 
My last breath, shouting: ' On 
To victory.' 
But since this has been denied, 
They shall say that I have died 
Without flinching, like a monarch 
Of the sea." 

And Balder spoke no more, 
And no sound escaped his lip ;- 
Neither reeked he of the roar, 
The destruction of his ship, 
Nor the fleet sparks mounting high, 
Nor the glare upon the sky; 
Scarcely heard the billows dash, 
Nor the burning timber crash : 
Scarcely felt the scorching heat 
That was gathering at his feet, 



Y CASTLES IN SPAIN 243 

MY CASTLES IN SPAIN 

I A the owner of great estates. Many of them 
lie in the west, but the greater part in Spain. 
You may see my western possessions any 
evening at sunset when their spires and battle- 
ments flash against the horizon. But my finest 
castles are in Spain. It is a country famously 
romantic, and my castles are all of perfect 
proportions and appropriately set in the most 
picturesque situations. 
I have never been in Spain myself, but I have 
naturally conversed much with travellers to 
that country; although, I must allow, without 
deriving from them much substantial informa- 
tion about my property there. 
The wisest of them told me that there were 
more holders of real estate in Spain than in any 
other region he had ever heard of, and they are 
all great proprietors. 
Every one of them possosses a multitude of the 
stateliest castles. It is remarkable that none of 
the proprietors haveever been to Spain to take 
possession and report to the rest of us the state 
of our property there, and it is not easy for me 
to say how I know so much about my castles in 
Spain. 



244 'OVnT READER 

The sun always shines upon them. They 
stand lofty and fair in a luminous, golden 
atmosphere, a little hazy and dreamy, perhaps, 
like the Indian summer, but in which no gales 
blow and there are no tempests. 
All the sublime mountains and beautiful 
valleys and soft landscapes that I have not yet 
seen are to be found in the grounds. 
I have often wondered how I should reach my 
castles. I have inquired very particularly, but 
nobody seemed to know the way. It occurred 
to me that Bourne, the millionaire, must have 
ascertained the safest and most expeditious route 
to Spain ; so I stole a few minutes one afternoon 
and went into his office. 
He was sitting at his desk, writing rapidly, 
and surrounded by files of papers and patterns, 
specimens, boxes,--everything that covers the 
tables of a great merchant. 
"A moment, please, Mr. Bourne." He looked 
up hastily, and wished me good-morning, which 
courtesy I attributed to Spanish sympathy. 
"What is it, sir ?" he asked blandly, but with 
wrinkled brow. 
"Mr. Bourne, have you any castles in 8pain?" 
said I, without preface. He looked at me for a 
few moments, without speaking and without 



ALADDIN 247 

everything elegant, beautiful, and convenient 
when I come into possession. 
As the years go by, I am not conscious that 
my interest diminishes. 
Shall I tell a secret? Shall I confess that 
sometimes when I have been sitting reading to 
my Prue "Cymbeline," perhaps, or a " Canter- 
bury Tale," I have seemed to see clearly before 
me the broad highway to my castles in Spain, 
and, as she looked up from her work and smiled 
in sympathy, I have even fancied that I was 
already there? 
GEORGE WILLIAI CURTIS : "Prue and I." 
(Adapted) 

ALADDIN 

WHEN I was a beggarly boy 
And lived in a cellar damp, 
I had not a friend or a toy, 
But I had Aladdin's lamp; 
When I could not sleep for cold, 
I had fire enough in my brain, 
And builded with roofs of gold 
My beautiful castles in Spain l 

Since then I have toiled day and night, 
I have money and power good store, 



FOURTH READER 

But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright 
For the one that is mine no more; 
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, 
You gave, and may snatch again; 
I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose, 
For I own no more castles in Spain! 
LOWELL 

DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE 
WORLD 

FRANCIS DRAKE was born near Tavistoek in the 
year 1545. He served his time as an apprentice 
in a Channel coaster, and his master, who had 
been struck with his character, left the vessel to 
him in his will when he died. He was then 
twenty-one. His kinsman, John Hawkins, was 
fitting out his third expedition to the Spanish 
Main, and young Drake, with a party of his 
Kentish friends, went to Plymouth and joined 
him. In 1572 "he made himself whole with 
the Spaniards" by seizing a convoy of bullion 
at Panama, and on that occasion, having seen 
the South Pacific from the mountains, "he fell 
on his knees and prayed God that he might one 
day navigate those waters," which no English 
keel as yet had furrowed. 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE 249 

The time and the opportunity had come. He 
was now in the prime of his strength, thirty-two 
years old, of middle height, with crisp brown 
hair, a broad high forehead; gray, steady 
eyes, unusually long; small ears tight to the 
head; the mouth and chin slightly concealed by 
the moustache and beard, but hard, inflexible, 
and fierce. His dress, as he appears in his 
portrait, is a loose, dark, seaman's shirt, belted 
at the waist. About his neck is a plaited cord 
with a ring attached to it, in n'hich, as if the 
attitude was familiar, one of his fingers is slung, 
displaying a small, delicate, but long and sinewy 
hand. When at sea he wore a scarlet cap with a 
gold band, and was exacting in the respect with 
which he required to be treated by his crew. 
Such was Francis Drake when he stood on 
the deck of the Pelican in Plymouth harbour, 
in November, 1577. The squadron, with which 
he was preparing to sail into a chartless ocean 
and invade the dominions of the King of Spain, 
consisted of his own ship, of a hundred and 
twenty tons, the size of the smallest class of our 
modern Channel schooners, two barques of fifty 
and thirty tons each, a second ship as it was 
called, the Elizabeth, of eighty tons, not larger 
than a common revenue cutter, and a pinnace, 



50 FOUITH IEADER 

hardly more than a boat, intended to be burnt 
if it could not bear the seas. These vessels, 
with a hundred and sixty-four men, composed 
the force. The object of the expedition was 
kept as far as possible secret. On the fifteenth 
of November the expedition sailed from Ply- 
mouth Sound. The vessels struck across the 
Atlantic and made the coast of South America 
on the fifth of April in latitude thirty-three 
degrees South. 
The perils of the voyage were now about to 
commence. No Englishman had as yet passed 
Iagellan's Strait. Cape Horn was unknown. 
Tierra del Fuego was supposed to be part of a 
solid continent which stretched unbroken to the 
Antarctic pole. .k single narrow channel was 
the only access to the Pacific then believed to 
exist. There were no charts, no records of past 
experiences. It was known that [agellan had 
gone through, but that was all. It was the 
wildest and coldest season of the year, and the 
vessels in which the attempt was to be made 
were mere cockle-shells. They were taken 
on shore, overhauled and scoured, the rigging 
looked to, and the sails new bent. 
On the seventeenth of August, answering to 
the February of the northern hemisphere, all was 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE 251 

once more in order. Drake sailed from Port St. 
Julian, and on the twentieth entered the Strait 
and felt his way between the walls of mountain 
"in extreme cold with frost and cold continually." 
To relieve the crews, who were tried by con- 
tinual boat work and heaving the lead in front 
of the ships, they were allowed occasional halts 
at the islands, where they amused and pro- 
visioned themselves with killing infinite seals and 
penguins. Everything which they saw, birds, 
beasts, trees, climate, country, were strange, 
wild, and wonderful. After three weeks' toil 
and anxiety,they had accomplished the passage 
and found themselves in the open Pacific. :But 
they found also that it was no peaceful ocean 
into which they had entered, but the stormiest 
they had ever encountered. Their vessels were 
now reduced to three; the pinnace had been 
left behind at Port St. Julian, and there re- 
mained only the Pelican, the Elizabeth, and the 
thirty-ton cutter. Instantly that they emerged 
out of the Strait, they were caught in a gale 
which swept them six hundred miles to the 
south-west. For six weeks they were battered 
to and fro, in bitter cold and winds which 
seemed as if they blew in these latitudes for 
ever. The cutter went down in the fearful seas, 



252 vov J-J 

carrying her crew with her. The Elizabeth and 
the Pelican were separated. The bravest sailor 
might well have been daunted at such a com- 
mencement, and Winter, recovering the opening 
again and, believing Drake to be lost, called a 
council in his cabin and proposed to return to 
England. They had agreed to meet, if they 
were parted, on the coast in the latitude of 
Valparaiso. The men, with better heart than 
their commander, desired to keep the appoint- 
ment. But those terrible weeks had sickened 
Winter. He overruled the opinions of the rest, 
re-entered the Strait, and reached England in 
the following June. 
Drake, meanwhile, had found shelter among 
the islands of Tierra del Fuego..t length spring 
brought fair winds and smooth seas, and running 
up the coast and looking about for her consort, 
the Pelican or Golden Hind---for she had both 
name---fell in with an Indian fisherman, who 
informed Drake that in the harbour of Valpa- 
raiso, already a small Spanish settlement, there 
lay a great galleon which had come from Peru. 
Galleons were the fruit that he was in search of. 
He sailed in, and the panish seamen, who had 
never yet seen a stranger in those waters, ran up 
their flags, beat their drums, and prepared a 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE 253 

banquet for their supposed countrymen. The 
Pelican shot up alongside. The English sailors 
leaped on hoard, and one "Thomas Moore," a lad 
from Plymouth, began the play with knocking 
down the first man that he met, saluting him 
in Spanish as he fell, and crying out " Down, 
dog." The Spaniards, overwhelmed with sur- 
prise, began to cross and bless themselves. One 
sprang overboard and swam ashore; the rest 
were bound and stowed away under the hatches 
while the ship was rifled. The beginning 
was not .a bad one. Wedges of gold were 
found weighing four hundred pounds, besides 
miscellaneous plunder. The settlement, which 
was visited next, was less productive, for the 
inhabitants had fled, taking their valuables 
with them. 
At Arica, the port of Potosi, fifty-seven blocks 
of precious metal were added to the store; and 
from thence they made haste to Lima, where 
the largest booty was looked for. They found 
that they had just missed it. Twelve ships lay 
at anchor in the port without arms, without 
crews, and with their sails on shore. In all of 
these they discovered but a few chests of reals 
and some bales of silk and linen. A thirteenth, 
called by the seamen the Cacafuego, but 



254 FOURTH READER 

christened in her baptism "Our Lady of the 
Conception," had sailed for the Isthmus a few 
days before, tal:ing with her all the bullion 
which the mines had yielded for the season. 
She had been literally ballasted with silver, and 
carried also several precious boxes of gold and 
jewels. 
Not a moment was lost. The cables of the 
ships at Lima were cut, and they were left to 
drive on shore to prevent pursuit; and then 
away sped the Pelican due north, with ever), 
stitch of her canvas spread. A gold chain was 
promised to the first man who caught sight of 
the Cacafuego. A sail was seen the second day 
of the chase: it was not the vessel which they 
were in pursuit of, but the prize was worth the 
having. They took eighty pounds' weight of gold 
in wedges, the purest which they yet had seen. 
For eight hundred miles the Pelican flew on. 
At length, one degree to the north of the line, 
off Quito, and close to the shore, a look-out on 
the mast-head cried out that he saw the chase 
and claimed the promised chain; she was rec- 
ognized by the peculiarities in her sails, of 
which they had received exact information at 
Lima. There lay the Cacafuego; if they could 
take her. their work would be done, and they 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE 255 

might go home in triumph. She was several 
miles ahead of them; if she guessed their char- 
acter, she would run in under the land, and they 
might lose her. It was afternoon : several hours 
remained of daylight, and Drake did not wish 
to come up with her till dark. 
The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's 
one, and dreading that her speed might rouse 
suspicion, he filled his empty wine casks with 
water and trailed them astern. The chase mean- 
while unsuspecting, and glad of company on 
a lonely voyage, slackened sail and waited for 
her slow pursuer. The sun sank low, and at 
last set into the ocean, and then, when both 
ships had become invisible from the land, the 
casks were hoisted in, the Pelican was restored 
to her speed, and shooting up within a cable's 
length of the Cacafuego, hailed to her to run 
into the wind. The Spanish commander, not 
understanding the meaning of such an order, 
paid no attention to it. The next moment the 
corsair opened her ports, fired a broadside, and 
brought his main-mast about his ears. His decks 
were cleared by a shower of arrows, with one 
of which he was himself wounded. In a few 
minutes more he was a prisoner, and his ship 
and all that it contained was in the hands of the 



256 FOURTH READER 

English. The wreck was cut away, the ship 
cleared, and her head turned to the sea; by 
daybreak even the line of the Andes had become 
invisible, and at leisure, in the open ocean, the 
work of rifling began. The full value of the 
plunder taken in this ship was never actually 
confessed. It remained a secret between Drake 
and the Queen. In a schedule afterwards pub- 
lished, he acknowledged to have found in the 
Cacafuego alone twenty-six tons of silver bullion, 
thirteen chests of coined silver, and almost a 
hundredweight of gold. But this was only so 
much as the Spaniards could prove to have been 
on board. 
Drake imagined, like most other English 
seamen, that there was a passage to the north 
corresponding to Magellan's Strait, of which 
Frobisher conceived that he had found the 
eastern entrance. He went on therefore at his 
leisure towards the coast of Mexico, intending to 
follow the shore till he found it. Another ship 
coming from China crossed him on his way 
loaded with silks and porcelain. He took the 
best of the freight with a golden falcon and 
 superb emerald. Then needing fresh water 
he touched at the Spanish settlement of 
Guatulco. 



READER 

By the sixteenth of April, 1579, the Pelican 
was once more in order, and started on her 
northern course in search of the expected pas- 
sage. She held on up the coast for eight 
hundred miles into latitude forty-three degrees 
North, but no signs appeared of an opening. 
Though it was summer the air grew colder, and 
the crew having been long in the tropics 
suffered from the change. Not caring to run 
risks in exploring with so precious a cargo, and 
finding by observation that the passage, if it 
existed, must be of enormous length, Drake 
resolved to go no further, and expecting, as 
proved to be the case, that the Spaniards would 
be on the look-out for him at Magellan's Strait, 
he determined on the alternative route by the 
Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had long 
traded with China. In the ship going to the 
Philippines he had found a Portuguese chart of 
the Indian Archipelago, and with the help of 
this and his own skill he trusted to find his 
At the little island of Ternate, south of the 
Celebes, the ship was again docked and scraped. 
The crew were allowed another month's rest, 
when they feasted their eyes on the marvels of 
tropical life, then first revealed to them in 



DRAKE'S VOYAGE 259 

their luxuriance--vampires "as large as hens," 
crayfish a foot round, and fireflies lighting the 
midnight forest. Starting once more, they had 
now to feel their way among the rocks and 
shoals of the most dangerous waters in the 
world. They crept round Celebes among coral 
reefs and low islands scarcely visible above the 
water-line. The Malacca Straits formed the 
only route marked in the Portuguese chart, and 
between Drake and his apparent passage lay the 
Java Sea and the channel between Borneo and 
Sumatra. But it was not impossible that there 
might be some other opening, and the Pelican 
crawled in search of it along the Java coast. 
Here, if nowhere else, her small size and 
manageableness were in her favour. In spite 
of all the care that was taken, she was almost 
lost. One evening as the black tropical night 
was closing, a grating sound was heard under 
her keel: another moment she was hard and 
fast upon an invisible reef. The breeze was 
light and the water calm, or the world would 
have heard no more of Francis Drake and the 
Pelican. She lay immovable till morning; 
" we were out of all hope to escape danger," but 
with the daylight the position was seen not to 
be utterly desperate. "Our general, then as 



always, showed himself most courageous, and of 
good confidence in the mercy and protection of 
God; and as he would not seem to perish 
wilfully, so he and we did our best endeavour to 
save ourselves, and in the end cleared ourselves 
of that danger." 
The Pelican had no more adventures; and 
sweeping in clear fine weather close to the Cape 
of Good Hope, and touching for water at Sierra 
Leone, she sailed in triumph into Plymouth 
harbour in the beginning of October, having 
marked a furrow with her keel round the globe. 
-'.ot: : "lJLory of England." 

Wo, if he rise to station of command, 
Rises by open means; and there will stand 
On honourable terms, or else retire, 
And in himself possess his own desire; 
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; 
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state: 
Whom they must follow; on whose head 
mu fall, 
Like showers of manna, if they come at all. 
WORDSWORTH : "The Happy Warrior." 



THE SOLITARY REAPER 

THE SOLITARY REAPER 

BEHOLD her, single in the field, 
Yon solitary Highland Lass l 
Reaping and singing by herself; 
Stop here, or gently pass l 
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
And sings a melancholy strain; 
O listen! for the Vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No Nightingale did ever chaunt 
More welcome notes to weary bands 
Of travellers in some shady haunt 
Among Arabian sands: 
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking the silence of the seas 
Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings ?- 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
And battles long ago: 
Or is it some more humble lay, 
Familiar matter of to-day ? 
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
That has been, and may be again? 



CLOUDS, RAINS, AND IIVERS 263 

of course, becomes smaller as these tributaries 
are passed. It shrinks first to a brook, then to 
a stream; this again divides itself into a number 
of smaller streamlets, ending in mere threads of 
water. These constitute the source of the river, 
and are usually found among hills. Thus, the 
Severn has its source in the Welsh Mountains; 
the Thames in the Cotswold Hills ; the Rhine 
and the Rhone in the Alps; the Missouri in the 
Rocky Mountains; and the Amazon in the 
Andes of Peru. 
But it is quite plain, that we have not yet 
reached the real beginning of the rivers. 
Whence do the earliest streams derive their 
water ? A brief residence among the mountains 
would prove to you that they are fed by rains. 
In dry weather you would find the streams 
feeble, sometimes indeed quite dried up. In 
wet weather you would see them foaming 
torrents. In general these streams lose them- 
selves as little threads of water upon the hill- 
sides; but sometimes you may trace a river to a 
definite spring. You may, however, very soon 
assure yourself that such springs are also fed by 
rain, which has percolated through the rocks or 
soil, and which, through some orifice that it has 
found or formed, comes to the light of day. 



264 FOURTh READER 

But we cannot end here. Whence comes the 
rain which forms the mountain streams ? Ob- 
servation enables you to answer the question. 
Rain does not come from a clear sky. It comes 
from clouds. But what are clouds? Is there 
nothing you are acquainted with, which they 
resemble? You discover at once a likeness 
between them and the condensed steam of a 
locomotive. At every puff of the engine, a cloud 
is projected into the air. Watch the cloud 
sharply : you notice that it first forms at a little 
distance from the top of the funnel. Give close 
attention, and you will sometimes see a perfectly 
clear pace between the funnel and the cloud. 
Through that clear space the thing which makes 
the cloud must pass. What, then, is this thing 
which at one moment is transparent and 
invisible, and at the next moment visible as a 
dense opaque cloud? 
It is the sea,n or ,_por of vcr from the 
boiler. Within the boiler this steam is trans- 
parent and invisible; but to keep it in this 
invisible state a heat would be required as 
great as that within the boiler. When the 
vapour mingles with the cold air above the hot 
funnel, it ceases to be vapour. Every bit of 
steam shrinks, when chilled, to a much more 



CLOUDS, RAINS, AND RIVERS 265 

minute particle of water. The liquid particles 
thus produced form a kind of water-dust of 
exceeding fineness, which floats in the air, and 
is called a cloud. 
Watch the cloud-banner from the funnel of a 
running locomotive ; you see it growing gradu- 
ally less dense. It finally melts away alto- 
gether ; and if you continue your observations, 
you will not fail to notice that the speed of its 
disappearance depends upon the character of 
the day. In humid weather the cloud hangs 
long and lazily in the air ; in dry weather it is 
rapidly licked up. What has become of it? It 
has been reconverted into true invisible vapour. 
The drier the air, and the lotter the air, the 
greater is the amount of cloud which can be 
thus dissolved in it. When the cloud first 
forms, its quantity is far greater than the air is 
able to maintain in an invisible state. But, as 
the cloud mixes gradually with a larger mass of 
air, it is more and more dissolved, and finally 
passes altogether from the condition of a finely- 
divided liquid into that of transparent vapour 
or gas. 
Make the lid of a kettle air-tight, and permit 
the steam to issue from the spout; a cloud is 
formed in all respeets similar to that issuing 



CLOUDS, RAINS, AND RIVERS 267 

contains is chilled, and forms into tiny water- 
drops, like the steam from a kettle or the funnel 
of the locomotive. And so, as the air rises and 
becomes colder, the vapour gathers into visible 
masses, which we call clouds. 
This ascending moist air might become chilled, 
too, by meeting with a current of cold, dry air, 
and then clouds would be formed; and should 
this chilling process continue in either case until 
the water-drops become heavier than the sur- 
rounding air ,they would fall to the earth as rain- 
drops. Rain is, therefore, but a further stage in 
the condensation of aqueous vapour caused by 
the chilling of the air. 
Mountains also assist in the formation of 
clouds. When a wind laden with moisture 
strikes against a mountain, it is tilted and flows 
up its side. The air expands as it rises, the 
vapour is chilled and becomes visible in the 
form of clouds, and if sufficiently chilled, it 
comes down to the earth in the form of rain, 
hail, or snow. 
Thus, by tracing a river backwards, from its 
end to its real beginning, we come at length to 
the sun ; for it is the sun that produces aqueous 
vapour, from which, as we have seen, clouds are 
formed, and it is from clouds that water falls to 
the earth to become the sources of rivers. 



FOURTH D 

There are, however, rivers which have sources 
somewhat different from those just mentioned. 
They do not begin by driblets on a hillside, nor 
can they be traced to a spring. Go, for example, 
to the mouth of the river Rhone, and trace it 
backwards. You come at length to the Lake of 
Geneva, from which the river rushes, and which 
you might be disposed to regard as the source of 
the Rhone. But go to the head of the lake, and 
you find that the Rhone there enters it; that the 
lake is, in fact, an expansion of the river. Fol- 
low this upwards; you find it joined by smaller 
rivers from the mountains right and left. Pass 
these, and push your journey higher still. You 
come at length to a huge mass of ice--the end of 
a glacier--which fills the Rhone valley, and 
from the bottom of the glacier the river rushes. 
In the glacier of the Rhone you thus find the 
source of the river Rhone. 
But whence come the glaciers? Wherever 
lofty mountains, like the Alps, rise into the high 
parts of the atmosphere where the temperature 
is below the freezing-point, the vapour condensed 
from the air falls upon them, not as rain, but as 
snow. In such high mountainous regions, the 
heat of the summer melts the snow from the 
lower hills, but the higher parts remain covered, 



43LOUDS, RAINS AND RIVERS 269 
for the heat cannot melt all the snow which falls 
there in a year. When a considerable depth of 
snow has accumulated, the pressure upon the 
lower layers squeezes them into a firm mass, and 
after a time the snow begins to slide down the 
slope of the mountain. It passes downward 
from one slope to another, joined continually by 
other sliding masses from neighbouring slopes, 
until they all unite into one long tongue, which 
creeps slowly down some valley to a point where 
it melts. This tongue from the snow-fields is 
called a glacier. 
Without solar fire, therefore, we could have no 
atmospheric vapour, without vapour no clouds, 
vithout clouds no snow, and without snow no 
glaciers. Curious then as the conclusion may 
be, the cold ice of the Alps has its origin in this 
heat of the sun. 
TYNDALL: "The Forms of Water." 
(Adapted) 

FoR what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them 
friend ? 
TENNYSON 



270 FOURTH READER 

FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU 

THE Chief in silence strode before, 
And reached that torrent's sounding shore, 
Which, daughter of three mighty lakes, 
From Vennachar in silver breaks, 
Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines 
On Bochastle the mouldering lines, 
Where Rome, the Empress of the world, 
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled. 
And here his course the Chieftain staid, 
Threw down his target and his plaid, 
And to the Lowland warrior said-- 
"Bold Saxon! to his promise just, 
Vich Alpine has discharged his trust. 
This murderous Chief, this ruthless man, 
This head of a rebellious clan, 
Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward, 
Far past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard. 
Now, man to man, and steel to steel, 
A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel. 
See here, all vantageless I stand, 
Armed, like thyself, with single brand: 
For this is Coilantogle ford, 
And thou must keep thee with thy sword." 



FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU  

The Saxon paused :m,, I ne'er delayed, 
When foeman bade me draw my blade; 
Nay, more, brave Chief, I vowed thy death: 
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith, 
And my deep debt for life preserved, 
A better meed have well deserved: 
Can nought but blood our feud atone ? 
Are there no means ? "m" No, Stranger, none; 
And hear,--to fire thy flagging zeal,- 
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel; 
For thus spoke Fate, by prophet bred 
Between the living and the dead: 
' Who spills the foremost foeman's life, 
His party conquers in the strife.' " 
"Then, by my word," the Saxon said, 
"The riddle is already read. 
Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff,-- 
There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff. 
Thus Fate has solved her prophecy, 
Then yield to Fate, and not to me. 
To James, at Stirling, let us go, 
When, if thou wilt be still his foe, 
Or if the King shall not agree 
To grant thee grace and favour free, 
I plight mine honour, oath, and word, 
That, to thy native strengths restored, 
With each advantage shalt thou stand, 
That aids thee now to guard thy land." 



272 FOURTII READER 

Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye-- 
"Soars thy presumption, then, so high, 
Because a wretched kern ye slew, 
Homage to name to Roderick Dhu ? 
He yields not, he, to man nor Fate l 
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate :- 
My clansman's blood demands revenge. 
Not yet prepared ?--By heaven, I change 
My thought, and hold thy valour light 
As that of some vain carpet knight, 
Who ill deserved my courteous care, 
And whose best boast is but to wear 
A braid of his fair lady's hair."-- 
"I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! 
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; 
For I have sworn this braid to stain 
In the best blood that warms thy vein. 
Now, truce, farewell! and, ruth, begone !- 
Yet think not that by thee alone, 
Proud Chiefl can courtesy be shown; 
Though not from copse, or heath, or cairn, 
Start at my whistle Clansmen stern, 
Of this small horn one feeble blast 
Would fearful odds against thee cast. 
But fear not--doubt not--which thou wilt-- 
We try this quarrel hilt to hilt."-- 
Then each at once his falchion drew, 



FITZ-JAMES AID RODERICK DttU 273 

Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain, 
As what they ne'er might see again; 
Then foot, and point, and eye opposed, 
In dubious strife they darkly closed. 
Ill fared it then with Ioderick I)hu, 
That on the field his targe he threw, 
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide 
ttad death so often dashed aside; 
For, trained abroad his arms to wield, 
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield. 
tie practised every pass and ward, 
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard; 
While less expert, though stronger far, 
The Gael maintained unequal war. 
Three times in closing strife they stood, 
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood; 
No stinted draught, no scanty tide, 
The gushing flood the tartans dyed. 
Fierce toderick felt the fatal drain, 
And showered his blows like wintry rain; 
And, as firm rock, or castle-roof, 
Against the winter shower is proof, 
The foe, invulnerable still, 
Foiled his wild rage by steady skill; 
Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand 
Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, 



274 OURH READER 

And backward borne upon the lea, 
Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. 
"Now, yield thee, or by Him who made 
The world, thy heart's blood dyes my 
blade !"-- 
"Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy! 
Let recreant yield, who fears to die." 
--Like adder darting from his coil, 
Like wolf that dashes through the toil, 
Like mountain-cat who guards her young, 
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung; 
Received, but recked not of a wound, 
And locked his arms his foeman round.-- 
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! 
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! 
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, 
Through bars of brs and triple steel !- 
They tug, they strain! down, down they go, 
The Gael above, Fitz-James below. 
The Chieftain's gripe his throat compressed, 
His knee ws planted on his breast; 
His clotted locks he backward threw, 
Across his brow his hand he drew, 
From blood and mist to clear his sight, 
Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright !q 
--But hate and fury ill supplied 
The stream of life's exhausted tide, 



IICttOLAS I'ICKLEBY 275 

And all too late the advantage came, 
To turn the odds of deadly game; 
For, while the dagger gleamed on high, 
Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye, 
Down came the blow! but in the heath 
The erring blade found bloodless sheath. 
The struggling foe may now unclasp 
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp; 
Unwounded from the dreadful close, 
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose. 
SCOTT : "The Lady of the Lake." 

THE INDIGNATION OF NICHOLAS 
NICt,:LEBY 

(" llicholas llickleby" deals with the gross mismanagement of 
schools in Yorkshire, England. Squeers, a vulgar, craft3" dpot, 
is head o[ Dotheboys Hall. l'icholas is an usher or tmdermaster 
in the school; 8mike, a little, friendless, starved pupil who has 
rtm away to escape from drudgery and harshness. ) 

"HE is Off," said Mrs. Squeers. "The cow-house 
and stable are locked up, so he can't be there; 
and he's not down-stairs anywhere, for the girl 
has looked. He must have gone York way, 
and by a public road, too." 
"Why must he ?" inquired Squeers. 
"Stupid !" said Mrs. Squeers, angrily. "He 
hadn't any money, had he?" 



276 FOURTH READER 

"Never had a penny of Ms own in his whole 
life, that I know of," replied Squeers. 
"To be sure," rejoined Mrs. Squeers, "and he 
didn't take anything to eat with him; that I'll 
answer for. Ha ! ha ! ha !" 
"Ha! h! ha!" laughed Squeers. 
"Then, of course," said Mrs. S., "he must beg 
his way, and he could do that nowhere but on 
the public road." 
"That's true," exclaimed Squeers, clapping 
his hands. 
"True! yes; but you would never have 
thought of it for all that, if I hadn't said so," 
replied his wife. "Now, if you take the chaise 
and go one road, and I borrow Swallow's chaise 
and go the other, what with keeping our eyes 
open, and asking questions, one or other of us 
is pretty sure to lay hold of him." 
The worthy lady's plan was adopted and put 
in execution without a moment's delay. After 
a hasty breakfast, and the prosecution of some 
inquiries in the village, the result of which 
seemed to show that he was on the right track, 
Squeers started forth in the pony-chaise, intent 
upon discovery and vengeance. Shortly after- 
wards, Mrs. Squeers, arrayed in the white 
topcoat and tied up in various shawls and 



ICOLAS ICKLEBY 277 

handkerchiefs, issued forth in another chaise 
in another direction, taking with her a good- 
sized bludgeon, several odd pieces of strong 
cord, and a stout labouring man; all provided 
and carried upon the expedition with the sole 
object of assisting in the capture, and (once 
caught) insuring the safe custody of the unfor- 
tunate Smike. 
Nicholas remained behind, in a tumult of 
feeling, sensible that whatever might be the 
upshot of the boy's flight, nothing but painful 
and deplorable consequences were likely to 
ensue from it. Death, from want and exposure 
to the weather, was the best that could be 
expected from the protracted wanderings of 
so poor and helpless a creature, alone and 
unfriended, through a country of which he 
was wholly ignorant. There was little, perhaps, 
to choose between this fate and a return to the 
tender mercies of the Yorkshire school: but the 
unhappy being had established a hold upon his 
sympathy and compassion,which made his heart 
ache at the prospect of the suffering he was des- 
tined to undergo. He Iingered on in restless 
anxiety, picturing a thousand possibilities, until 
the evening of the next day when Squecrs 
returned alone and unsuccessful. 



278 OURT READER 

":No news of the scamp!" said the school- 
master, who had evidently been stretching his 
legs, on the old principle, not a few times during 
the journey. "I'll have consolation for this out 
of somebody, Nickleby, if Mrs. Squeers don't 
hunt him down. So I give you fair warning." 
"It is not in my power to console you, sir," 
said Nicholas. "It is nothing to me." 
"Isn't it?" said Squeers, in a threatening 
manner. "We shall see !" 
"We shall," rejoined Nicholas. 
"Here's the pony run right off his legs, and 
me obliged to come home with a hack cob, 
that'll cost fifteen shillings besides other ex- 
penses," said Squeers; "who's to pay for that, 
do you hear ?" 
Nicholas shrugged his shoulders and remain- 
ed silent. 
"I'll have it out of somebody, I tell you," said 
Squeers, his usual harsh, crafty manner changed 
to open bullying. "None of your whining 
vapourings here, Mr. Puppy" but be off to your 
kennel, for it's past your bed-time! Come, get 
out ! " 
Nicholas bit his lip and knit his hands invol- 
untarily, for his finger ends tingled to avenge 
the insult ; but remembering that the man was 



NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 

279 

drunk, and that it could come to little but a 
noisy brawl, he contented himself with darting 
a contemptuous look at the tyrant and walked, 
as majestically as he could, upstairs, and sternly 
resolved that the outstanding account between 
himself and Mr. Squeers should be settled 
rather more speedily than the latter anticipated. 
Another day came, and Nicholas was scarcely 
awake when he heard the wheels of a chaise 
approaching the house. It stopped. The voice 
of Mrs. Squeers was heard, and in exultation, 
ordering a glass of spirits for somebody, which 
was in itself a sufficient sign that something 
extraordinary had happened, l'icholas hardly 
dared to look out of the window ; but he did so, 
and the very first object that met his eyes wa 
the wretched Smike; so bedabbled with mud 
and rain, so haggard and worn, and wild, that, 
but for his garments being such as no scarecrow 
was ever seen to wear, he might have been 
doubtful, even then, of his identity. 
"Lift him out," said Squeers, after he had 
literally feasted his eyes in silence upon the 
culprit. "Bring him in ; bring him in !" 
"Take care," cried Mrs. Squeers, as her hus- 
band proffered his assistance. "We tied his 
legs under the apron and made 'era fast to the 



0 FOUITH IEADER 

chaise, to prevent him giving us the slip again." 
With hands trembling with delight, Squeers 
unloosed the cord; and Smike, to all appear- 
ances more dead than alive, was brought into 
the house and securely locked up in a cellar, 
until such time as Mr. Squeers should deem it 
expedient to operate upon him, in the presence 
of the assembled school. 
The news that Smike had been caught and 
brought back in triumph ran like wild fire 
through the hungry community, and expecta- 
tion was on tiptoe all morning. On tiptoe it 
was destined to remain, however, until after- 
noon; when Squeers, having refreshed himself 
with his dinner and further strenhened him- 
self by an extra libation or so, made his appear- 
ance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with 
a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful 
instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax- 
ended, and new--in short, purchased that morn- 
ing expressly for the occasion. 
"Is every boy here?" asked Squeers, in a 
tremendous voice. 
Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid - 
to speak; so Squeers glared along the lines to 
assure himself; and every eye dropped, and 
every head cowered down, as he did so. 



NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 281 

"Each boy keep his place," said Squeers, 
administering his favourite blow to the desk and 
regarding with gloomy satisfaction the universal 
start it never failed to occasion. 
" Nickleby ! to your desk, sir." 
It was remarked by more than one small 
observer that there was a very curious and un- 
usual expression in the usher's face; but he took 
his seat without opening his lips in reply. 
Squeers, casting a triumphant glance at his 
assistant and a look of most comprehensive 
despotism on the boys, left the room, and shortly 
afterward returned, dragging Smike by the 
collar-or rather by that fragment of his jacket 
which was nearest to the place where his collar 
would have been, had he boasted such a deco- 
ration. 
In any other place, the appearance of the 
wretched, jaded, spiritless object would have 
occasioned a murmur of compassion and remon- 
strance. It had some effect even there; for the 
lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats ; and a 
few of the boldest ventured to steal looks at each 
other, expressive of indignation and pity. 
They were lost on Squeers, however, whose 
gaze was fastened on the luckless Smike, as he 
inquired, according to custom in such cases, 



282 ou  

whether he had anything to say for himself. 
"Nothing, I suppose?" said Squeers, with a 
diabolical grin. 
Smike glanced round, and his eyes rested for 
an instant on Nicholas, as if he had expected 
him to intercede; but his look was riveted on 
his desk. 
" Have you anything to say ?" demanded 
Squeers again, giving his right arm two or three 
flourishes to try its power and suppleness. 
"Stand a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, 
my dear; I've hardly got enough room." 
"Spare me, sir!" cried Smike. 
"0h! that's all, is it ?" said Squeers. "Yes, 
I'll flog you within an inch of your life, and 
spare you that." 
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mrs. Squeers, "that's 
a good un !" 
"I was driven to it," said Smike, faintly ; and 
casting another imploring look about him. 
"Driven to it, were you ?" said Squeers. "Oh I 
it wasn't your fault; it was mine, I suppose--eh ?" 
"A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, 
obstinate, sneaking dog," exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, 
taking Smike's head under her arm and ad- 
ministering a cuff at every epithet ; "what does 
he mean by that? " 



ICHOLAS ICKLEBY 283 

"Stand aside, my dear," replied Squeers. 
" We'll try and find out." 
Mrs. Squeers being out of breath with her 
exertions, complied. Squeers caught the boy 
firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen 
on his body--he was wincing from the lash 
and uttering  scream of pain--it was raised 
again., and again about to fallmvhen Nicholas 
Nickleby, suddenly starting up, cried "Stop!" 
in a voice that made the rafters ring. 
" Who cried stop?" asked Squeers, turning 
savagely round. 
"I," said Nicholas, stepping forward. " This 
must not go on." 
"Must not go on!" cried Squeers, almost-in 
a shriek. 
"No ! " thundered Nicholas. 
Aghast and stupefied at the boldness of the 
interference, Squeers released his hold of Smike, 
and, falling back a pace, gazed upon Nicholas 
with looks that were positively frightful. 
" I say must not," repeated Nicholas, nothing 
daunted ; " shall not, I will prevent it." 
Squeers continued to gaze upon him with his 
eyes starting out of his head ; but astonishment 
had actually for the moment bereft him of 
speech. 



8 OUTH READE 

" You have disregarded all my quiet interfer- 
ence in this miserable lad's behalf," said 
Nicholas ; "you have returned no answer to the 
letter in which I begged forgiveness for him 
and offered to be responsible that he would 
remain quietly here. Don't blame me for this 
public interference. You have brought it upon 
yourself; not I." 
"Sit down, beggar !" screamed Squeers, almost 
beside himself with rage, and seizing Smike as 
he spoke. 
" Wretch," rejoined Nicholas,fiercely, "touch 
him at your peril ! I will not stand by and see 
it done. My blood is up, and I have the 
strength of ten such men as you. Look to your- 
self, for by Heaven I will not spare you, if you 
drive me on !" 
" Stand back !" cried Squeers, brandishing 
his weapon. 
"I have a long series of insults to avenge," 
said Nicholas, flushed with passion ; "and my 
indignation is aggravated by the dastardly 
cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this 
foul den. Have a care; for if you do raise 
the devil within me, the consequences shall 
fall heavily upon your own head !" 
He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers in a 



NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 285 

violent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like 
the howl of a wild beast, spat upon him and 
struck him a blow across the face with his instru- 
ment of torture, which raised a bar of livid flesh 
as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of 
the blow, and concentrating into that one 
moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indig- 
nation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the 
weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the 
throat beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy. 
The boys--with the exception of Master 
Sclueers , who, coming to his father's assistance, 
harassed the enemy in the rear--moved not 
hand or foot; but Mrs. Squeers, with many 
shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her 
partner's coat and endeavoured to drag him 
from his infuriated adversary; while Miss 
Squeers, who had been peeping through the 
keyhole in the expectation of a very different 
scene, darted in at the very beginning of the 
attack, and after launching a shower of ink- 
stands at the usher's head, beat Nicholas to her 
heart's content; animating herself, at every 
blow, with the recollection of his having refused 
her proffered love, and thus imparting additional 
strength to an arm which (as she took after her 
mother in this respect)was, at no time, of the 
weakest. 



ICES I E c 287 

DICKENS IN THE CAMP 

ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting, 
The river sang below; 
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting 
Their minarets of snow. 

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humour, 
painted 
The ruddy tints of health 
On haggard face and form that drooped and 
fainted 
In the fierce race for wealth; 

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant 
treasure 
A hoarded volume drew, 
And cards were dropped from hands of 
listless leisure 
To hear the tale anew. 

And then, while round them shadows 
gathered faster, 
And as the firelight fell, 
He read aloud the book wherein the Master 
Had writ of "Little Nell." 



FOURTH READER 

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,--for the reader 
Was youngest of them all,- 
But, as he read, from clustering pine and 
cedar 
A silence seemed to fall; 

The fir trees, gathering closer in the shadows, 
Listened in every spray, 
While the whole camp, with "Nell" on 
English meadows, 
Wandered and lost their way. 

And so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken 
As by some spell divine-- 
Their cares dropped from them like the 
needles shaken 
From out the gusty pine. 

Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire: 
And he who wrought that spell ?-- 
Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire, 
Ye have one tale to tell! 

Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story 
Blend with the breath that thrills 
With hopvines' incense all the pensive glory 
That fills the Kentish hills. 



WHAT HATH BEEN 

289 

And on that grave where English oak, and 
holly, 
And laurel wreaths entwine, 
Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,- 
This spray of Western pine! 
BREW HARTE 

DOST THOU LOOK BACK ON WHAT 
HATH BEEN 

:DasT thou look back on what hath been, 
As some divinely  man, 
Whose life in low e..te began 
And on a simple village green; 

Who breaks his birth's i_._nvidio_qs bar, 
And grasps the skirtsot nappy chance, 
And br__e,as the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star' "-- 

Who makes by force his merit known, 
And lives to  the golden keys, 
To  a mighty state's , 
And shape the whisper of the throne; 

And moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The ir of a people's hope, 
The centr____e of a world's desire ; 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 291 

the battle of Sir Mordred many times, and did 
full nobly as a noble king should; and at all 
times he fainted never. And Sir Mordred that 
day put him in great peril. And thus they 
fought all the long day, and never stinted, till 
the noble knights were laid to the cold ground, 
and ever they fought still, till it was near 
night, and by that time was there an hundred 
thousand laid dead upon the down. 
Then was Arthur wroth out of measure, when 
he saw his people so slain from him. Then the 
king looked about him, and then was he ware of 
all his host, and of all his good knights, were 
left no more alive but two knights, that was 
Sir Lucan de Buflere, and his brother Sir Bedi- 
vere: and they full were sore wounded. Jesu 
mercy, said the king, where are all my noble 
knights becomen. Alas that ever I should see 
this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am 
come to mine end. But would to God that I 
wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that 
hath caused all this mischief. Then was king 
Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon 
his sword among a great heap of dead men. 
Now give me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir 
Lucan, for yonder I have espied the traitor that 
all this woe hath wrought. 



Then the king gat his spear in both his 
hands, and ran toward Sir Mordred, crying, 
Traitor, now is thy death day come. And 
when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran 
until him with his sword drawn in his hand. 
And then king Arthur smote Sir Mordred 
under the shield, with a foin of his spear 
throughout the body more than a fathom. 
And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his 
death's wound, he thrust himself, with the 
might that he had, up to the bur of king 
Arthur's spear. And right so he smote 
Arthur with his sword holden in both his 
hands, on the side of the head, that the 
sword pierced the helmet and the brain-pan, 
and therewithal Sir Mordred fell stark dead to 
the earth. .nd the noble .rthur fell in a 
swoon to the earth, and there he swooned oft- 
times. And Sir Lucan de ]3utlere and Sir 
Bedivere oft-times heaved him up, and so 
weakly they led him betwixt them both to a 
little chapel not far from the sea side. 
Then Sir Lucan took up the king the one 
part, and Sir ]3edivere the other part, and in 
the lifting, the king swooned, and Sir Lucan 
fell in a swoon with the lift and therewith the 
noble knight's heart burst. And when king 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 293 

Arthur came to himself again, he beheld Sir 
Lucan how he lay foaming at the mouth. 
Alas, said the king, this is unto me a full 
heavy sight to see this noble duke so die for 
my sake, for he would have holpen me that 
had more need of help than I. Alas, he would 
not complain him, his heart was so set to help me. 
Now Jesu have mercy upon his soul. Then Sir 
Bedivere wept for the death of his brother. 
Leave this mourning and weeping, said the 
king, for all this will not avail me: for, wit 
thou well, and I might live myself the death 
of Sir Lucan would grieve me evermore; but 
my time hieth fast, said the king. 
Therefore, said Arthur, take thou Excalibur, 
my good sword, and go with it to yonder 
water side, and when thou comest there, I 
charge thee throw my sword in that water, 
and come again, and tell me what thou there 
seest. My lord, said Bedivere, your command- 
ment shall be done, and lightly bring you 
word again. So Sir Bedivere departed, and by 
the way he beheld that noble sword, that the 
pommel and haft were all of precious stones, 
and then he said to himself, If I throw this 
rich sword in the water, thereof shall never 
come good, but harm and loss. And then Sir 



294 FOORTH READER 

Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree. And as 
soon as he might he came again unto the king, 
and said he had been at the water,, and had 
thrown the sword into the water. What sawest 
thou there? said the k.ing. Sir, he said, I saw 
nothing but waves and winds. That is untruly 
said of thee, said the king; therefore go thou 
lightly again, and do my command as thou 
art to me lief and dear, spare not, but throw 
it in. 
Then Sir Bedivere returned again, and took 
the sword in his hand; and then him 
thought sin and shame to throw away that 
noble sword; and so eft he hid the sword, and 
returned again, and told to the king that he had 
been at the water, and done his commandment. 
What sawest thou there? said the king. Sir, he 
said, I saw nothing but the waters wap and 
the waves wan. Ah traitor, untrue, said king 
Arthur, now hast thou betrayed me twice. Who 
would have wend that thou that hast been to 
me so lief and dear, and thou art named a noble 
knight, and would betray me for the riches of 
the sword. But now go again lightly, for thy 
long tarrying putteth me in great jeopardy of my 
life, for I have taken cold. And unless if thou 
do now as I bid thee, if ever I may see thee, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 295 

I shall slay thee with mine own hands, for thou 
wouldest for my rich sword see me dead. 
Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the 
sword, and lightly took it up, and went to the 
water side, and there he bound the girdle about 
the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into 
the water as he might, and there came an arm 
and an hand above the water, and met it, and 
caught it, and so shook it thrice and bran- 
dished, and then vanished away the hand with 
the sword in the water. So Sir Bedivere came 
again to the king, and told him what he saw. 
Alas, said the king, help me hence, for I dread 
me I have tarried over long. 
Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his 
back, and so went with him to that water side. 
And when they were at the water side, even fast 
by the bank hoved a little barge, with many fair 
ladies in it, and among them all was a queen, 
and all they had black hoods, and all they wept 
and shrieked when they saw king Arthur. Now 
put me into the barge, said the king : and so he 
did softly. And there received him three 
queens with great mourning, and so they set 
him down, and in one of their laps king Arthur 
laid his head, and then that queen said, Ah, 
dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from 



TIE ARMADA 2[97 

It was about the lovely close of a warm summer 
day, 
There came a gallant merchant-ship full sail 
to Plymouth Bay ; 
Her crew hath seen Castile's black fleet, beyond 
Aurigny's isle, a 
At earliest twilight, on the vaves lie heaving 
many a mile. 
At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's 
especial grace ; 
And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her 
close in chase. 
Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed 
along the wall; 
The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's 
loft)" hall; 
Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along 
the coast, 
And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland 
many a post. 
With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old 
sheriff comes ; 
Behind him march the halberdiers; before him 
sound the drums; 
His yeomen, round the market-cross, make clear 
an ample space ; 
* Alderney. 



298 FOURTH READER 

For there behoves him to set up the standard 
of Her Grace. 
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily 
dance the bells, 
As slow upon the labouring wind the royal 
blazon swells. 
Look how the lion of the sea lifts up his 
ancient crown, 
And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay 
lilies down. 
So stalked he when he tunwd to flight on that 
famed Pieard field,* 
Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's 
eagle shield : 
So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he 
turned to bay, 
And crushed and torn beneath his claws the 
princely hunters lay. 
Ho! strike the flag-staff deep, Sir Knight: 
scatter flowers, fair maids: 
Ho! gunners fire a loud salute: hoI gallants, 
draw your blades : 
Thou sun, shine on her joyously; ye breezes 
waft her wide ; 
Our glorious SEMPER EADEM, the banner of our 
pride. 
 Cressy. 



TIE ARMADA 

The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that 
banner's massy fold; 
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed the 
haughty scroll of gold; 
Night sank upon the dusky beach and on the 
purple sea, 
Such night in England ne'er had been, nor e'er 
again shall be. 
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn 
to Milford Bay, 
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as 
the day ; 
For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly 
war-flame spread ; 
High on St. Michael's Mount it shone: it shone 
on Beachy Head. 
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each 
southern shire, 
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those 
twinkling points of fire. 
The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's 
glittering waves : 
The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's 
sunless caves: 
O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, 
the fiery herald flew : 
lie roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the 
rangers of Beaulieu. 



THE ARMADA 301 

And eastward straight from wild Blackheath 
the warlike errand went, 
And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant 
squires of Kent. 
Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew 
those bright couriers forth ; 
High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they 
started for the North ; 
And on, and on, without a pause, untired they 
bounded still : 
All night from tower to tower they sprang-- 
they sprang from hill to hill: 
Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o'er 
Darwin's rocky dales, 
Till like volcanoes flared to Heaven the stormy 
hills of Wales, 
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on 
Malvern's lonely height, 
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the 
Wrekin's crest of light, 
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely's 
stately fane, 
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the 
boundless plain ; 
Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln 
sent, 
And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide 
vale of Trent ; 



302 Foun nEArER 

Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on 
Gaunt's embattled pile, 
And the red glare of Skiddaw roused the 
burghers of Carlisle. 
lI.cAuY 

DEPARTURE AND DEATH OF NELSON 

NELSOn, having despatched his business at 
Portsmouth, endeavoured to elude the populace 
by taking a by-way to the beach, but a crowd 
collected in his train, pressing forward to obtain 
a sight of his face: many were in tears, and 
many knelt down before him and blessed him 
as he passed. England has had many heroes, 
but never one who so entirely possessed the love 
of his fellow-countrymen as Nelson. All men 
knew that his heart was as humane as it was 
fearless; that there was not in his nature the 
slightest alloy of selfishness or cupidity; but 
that, with perfect and entire devotion, he served 
his country with all his heart, and with all his 
soul, and with all his strength; and therefore, 
they loved him as truly and as fervently as he 
loved England. They pressed upon the parapet 
to gaze after him when his barge pushed off, and 
he returned their cheers by waving his hat. 



DEATH OF ELSO 303 

The sentinels,who endeavoured to prevent them 
from trespassing upon this ground, were wedged 
among the crowd; and an officer who, not very 
prudently upon such an occasion, ordered them 
to drive the people down with their bayonets, 
was compelled speedily to retreat; for the people 
would not be debarred from gazing till the last 
moment upon the hero--the darling hero of 
England ! 
It had been part of Nelson's prayer, that the 
lritish fleet might be distinguished by humanity 
in the victory which he expected. Setting an 
example himself, he twice gave orders to cease 
firing on the Redoubtable, supposing that she 
had struck, because her guns were silent; for, as 
she carried no flag, there was no means of 
instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, 
which he had thus twice spared, he received his 
death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, 
in the then situation of the two vessels, was 
not more than fifteen yards from that part of 
the deck where he was standing, struck the 
epaulet on his left shoulder, about a quarter 
after one, just in the heat of action. He fell 
upon his face, on the spot which was covered 
with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who 
was a few steps from him, turning round, saw 



three men raising him up. "They have done 
for me at last, Hardy," said he. " I hope not," 
cried Hardy. "Yes," he replied, "my backbone 
is shot through." Yet even now, not for a 
moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, 
as they were carrying him down the ladder, that 
the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were 
not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones 
should be rove immediately : then, that he might 
not be seen by the crew, he took out his hand- 
kerchief, and covered his face and his stars. 
Had he but concealed these badges of honour 
from the enemy, England, perhaps, would not 
have had cause to receive with sorrow the news 
of the battle of Trafalgar. 
The cockpit was crowded with wounded and 
dying men, over whose bodies he was with some 
difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in 
the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, 
upon examination, that the wound was mortal. 
This, however, was concealed from all except 
Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical 
attendants. He himself being certain, from the 
sensation in his back and the gush of blood he 
felt momently within his breast, that no human 
care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon 
should leave him and attend to those to whom 



DEATH OF NELSON 305 

he might be useful; "for," said he, "you can 
do nothing for me." All that could be done was 
to fan him with paper, and frequently to give 
him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. 
He was in great pain, and expressed much 
anxiety for the event of the action, which now 
began to declare itself. As often as a ship 
struck, the crew of the Victory hurrahed ; and at 
each hurrah, a visible expression of joy gleamed 
in the eyes and marked the countenance of the 
dying hero. But he became impatient to see 
Hardy; and as that officer, though often sent 
for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared that 
some fatal cause prevented him, and repeatedly 
cried, "Will no one bring Hardy to me? He 
must be killed ! He is surely dead !" 
An hour and ten minutes elapsed from the 
time when Nelson received his wound, before 
Hardy could come to him. They shook hands 
in silence, Hardy in vain struggIing to suppress 
the feelings of that most painful and yet 
sublime moment. " Well, Hardy," said Nelson, 
"how goes the day with us?" "Very well," 
replied Hardy : "ten ships have struck, but five 
of the van have tacked and show an intention 
to bear down upon the Victory. I have called 
two or three of our fresh ships round, and have 



306 FOURTH READER 

no doubt of giving them a d]:ubbing." "I hope," 
said Nelson, "none of our ships have struck." 
Hardy answered, "There is no fear of that." 
Then, and not till then, Nelson spoke of him- 
self. "I am a dead man, Hardy," said he; "I 
am going fast; it will be all over with me 
soon." Hardy observed that he hoped Mr. 
]eatty could yet hold out some prospect of life. 
" Oh, no," he replied ; "it is impossible. My 
back is shot through. Beatty will tell you so." 
Hardy then once more shook hands with him, 
and,with a heart almost bursting, hastened upon 
duck. 
By this time all feeling below the breast was 
gone, and Nelson, having made the surgeon 
ascertain this, said to him: "You know I am 
gone. I know it. I feel something rising in my 
breast," putting his hand on his left side, 
"which tells me so." And upon Beatty's inquir- 
ing whether his pain was very great, he replied, 
it was so great that he wished he was dead. 
"Yet," he added in a lower voice, " one would 
like to live a little longer,too !" 
Captain Hardy, some fifty minutes after he 
had left the cockpit, returned, and again taking 
the hand of his dying friend and commander, 
congratulated him on having gained a complete 



DEATH OF NELSON 307 

victory. How many of the enemy were taken 
he did not know, as it 'as impossible to perceive 
them distinctly, but fourteen or fifteen at least. 
"That's well," said Nelson; "but I bargained 
for twenty." And then, in a stronger voice, he 
said, "Anchor, Hardy, anchor." Hardy, there- 
upon, hinted that Admiral Collingwood would 
take upon himself the directio of affairs. "Not 
while I live, Hardy," said the dying Nelson, 
ineffectually endeavouring to raise himself from 
the bed : " do you anchor." His previous orders 
for preparing to anchor had shown how clearly 
he foresaw the necessity for this. 
Presently calling Hardy back, he said to him 
in a low voice, " Don't throw me overboard:" 
and he desired that he might be buried beside 
his parents, unless it should please the king to 
order otherwise. Then reverting to private 
feelings,--" Kiss me, Hardy," said he. Hardy 
knelt down and kissed his cheek; and Nelson 
said, " 1N'ow I am satisfied. Thank God, I have 
done my duty!" Hardy stood over him in 
silence for a moment or two, then knelt again 
and kissed his forehead. "Who is that?" said 
:Nelson; and being informed, he replied, "God 
bless you, Hardy." And Hardy then left him 
for ever. 



308 FOURTH READER 

Nelson now desired to be turned upon his 
right side, and said, " I wish I had not left 
the deck, for I shall soon be gone." Death was, 
indeed, rapidly approaching. His articulation 
now became difficult, but he was distinctly heard 
to say, "Thank God, I have done my duty l" 
These words he repeatedly pronounced, and they 
were the last words which he uttered. He 
expired at thirty minutes after four, three hours 
and a quarter after he had received his wound. 
The death of Nelson was felt in England as 
something more than a public calamity: men 
started at the intelligence and turned pale, as if 
they had heard of the loss of a near friend. An 
object of our admiration and affection, of our 
pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken 
from us; and it seemed as if we had never till 
then known how deeply we loved and reverenced 
him. What the country had lost in its great 
naval hero---the greatest of our own and of all 
former times--was scarcely taken into the 
account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he 
performed his part, that the maritime war, after 
the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end. 
The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated 
--they were destroyed: new navies must be 
built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, 



DEATH OF NELSON 309 

before the possibility of their invading our shores 
could again be contemplated. It was not, there- 
fore, from any selfish reflection upon the 
magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him; 
the general sorrow was of a higher character. 
The people of England grieved that the funeral 
ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthu- 
mous rewards, were all that they could now 
bestow upon him whom the king, the legislature 
and the nation would have alike delighted to 
honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; 
whose presence in every village through which 
he might have passed would have awakened the 
church bells, have given school-boys a holiday, 
have drawn children from their sports to gaze 
upon him, and "old men from the chimney- 
corner" to look upon Nelson ere they died. 
The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, 
with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were 
without joy; for such already was the glory of the 
British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, 
that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition 
from the most signal victory that ever was 
achieved upon the seas. The destruction of 
this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime 
schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly 
appeared to add to our security and strength; 



310 FOURTH READER 

for while Nelson was living to watch the com- 
bined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves 
as secure as now, when they were no longer in 
existence. 
There was reason to suppose, from the appear- 
ances upon opening his body, that in the course 
of nature he might have attained, like his father, 
to a good old age. Yet he cannot be said to have 
fallen prematurely whose work was done; nor 
ought he to be lamented who died so full of 
honours, and at the height of human fame. 
The most triumphant death is that of the 
martyr; the most awful, that of the martyred 
patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in 
the hour of victory ; and if the chariot and the 
horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's 
translation, he could scarcely have departed in a 
brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not 
indeed a mantle of inspiration, but a name 
and an example which are at this moment 
inspiring thousands of the youth of England--a 
name which is our pride, and an example which 
will continue to be our shield and strength. 
Thus it is that spirits of the great and the wise 
continue to live and to act after them. SOUEY 

ENGLAND expects that every man will do his 
duty. Ns,sos 



WATERLOO 311 

WATERLOO 

TIERE was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's c_apital had gathered then 
Her Beauty an d her Chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave 
men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage bell ; 
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a 
rising knell ! 

Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind, 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined ; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure 
meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. 
But hark !--that heavy sound breaks in once 
more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! 
Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening 
roar ! 



Within a windowed niche of that high hall 
Sate Brunswick's ted chieftain; he did hear 
That sound, the first amidst the festival, 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; 
And when they smiled because he deemed it 
near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, 
And roused the vengeance blood alone could 
quell: 
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, 
fell. 

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking 
sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated: who could 
guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn 
could rise ! 

And there was mounting in hot haste" the steed, 
The g squadron, and the  car, 



WATERLOO 313 

Went  forw_9_L. with impet_uous_speed, 
And :JDy forming in the ranks of war; 
And the deep thunder pea_all on peal  ; 
And  the beat of the alarming drum 
  the soldier ere the morning star; 
 thronged the citizens with terror d.u_., 
D. , with white lips--"The foe! They 
come ! they come !" 

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" 
rose, 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon 
foes :- 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills 
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which 
fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clans- 
man's ears ! 

And Ardennes waves above them her green 
leaves, 
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
Over the unreturning brave,--alas ! 



1 FOURTH READE 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valour, rolling on the foe, 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder 
cold and low. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 
The morn the marshalling in arms,--the day 
Battle's magnificently stern array ! 
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when 
rent 
The earth is covered thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shah cover, heaped and 
pent, 
Rider and horse,--friend, foe,win one red burial 
blent ! 
BYRON : "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." 

Srow me the man you honour ; I know by that 
symptom better than by any other, what kind 
of a man you are yourself; for you show me 
what your ideal of manhood is, what kind of a 
man you long to be. 
CARLYLE 



ODE 315 

ODE WRITTEN IN 1746 

How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest! 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 

By fairy hands their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung; 
There Honour comes, [a pilgrim gray,' 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 
And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
To dwell a weeping hermit there [' 
X{'ILLIAM COLLINS 

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, 
Assiduous wait upon her; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 
That's justified by honour ; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
Nor for a train attendant, 
But for the glorious privilege 
Of being independent. 

]URNS 



316 FOURTH ADE 

BALAKLAVA 

THE cavalry who have been pursuing the Turks 
on the right are coming up to the ridge beneath 
us, which conceals our cavalry from view. The 
heavy brigade in advance is drawn up in two 
lines. The light cavalry brigade is on their left, 
in two lines also. The silence is oppressive: 
between the cannon bursts one can hear the 
champing of bits and the clink of sabres in the 
valley below. 
The Russians on their left drew breath for a 
moment and then in one grand line dashed 
at the Highlanders. The ground flies beneath 
their horses' feet. Gathering speed at every 
stride they dash on towards that thin red streak 
topped with a line of steel. The Turks fire a 
volley at eight hundred yards and run. As the 
Russians come within six hundred yards, down 
goes that line of steel in front, and out rings 
a rolling volley of Mini6 musketry. The 
distance is too great: the Russians are not 
checked, but still sweep onward through the 
smoke with the whole force of horse and man, 
here and there knocked over by the shot of our 
batteries above. With breathless suspense every- 



BALAKLAVA 319 

The Russian line brings forward each xving 
as our cavalry advance, and threatens to an- 
nihilate them as they pass on. Turning 
a little to their left so as to meet the Rus- 
sian right the Greys rush on with a cheer 
that thrills to every heart---the wild shout of 
the Enniskilleners rises through the air at the 
same instant. As lightning flashes through a 
cloud the Greys and Enniskilleners pierced 
through the dark masses of Russians. The 
shock was but for a moment. There was a 
clash of steel and a light play of sword-blades 
in the air, and then the Greys and the Red-coats 
disappear in the midst of the shaken and quiv- 
ering columns. In another moment we see 
them emerging and dashing on with diminished 
numbers and in broken order against the second 
line, which is advancing against them as fast as 
it can to retrieve the fortune of the charge. It 
was a terrible moment. " God help them ! they 
are lost!" was the exclamation of more than 
one man and the thought of many. 
With unabated fire, the noble hearts dashed 
at their enemy. It was a fight of heroes. The 
first line of Russians--which had been smashed 
utterly by our charge and had fled off at one 
flank and towards the centre--was coming 



320 OURT READER 

back to swallow up our handful of men. By 
sheer steel and sheer courage Enniskillener and 
Scot were winning their desperate way right 
through the enemy's squadrons, and already 
gray horses and red coats had appeared right 
at the rear of the second mass, when, with irre- 
sistible force like a bolt from a bow, the second 
line of the heavy brigade rushed at the rem- 
nants of the first line of the enemy, went 
through it as though it were made of paste- 
board and, dashing on the second body of 
Russians as they were still disordered by the 
terrible assault of the Greys and their com- 
panions, put them to utter rout. 
And now occurred the melancholy catastrophe 
which fills us all with sorrow. It appears that 
the Quartermaster-General, ]Srigadier Airey, 
thinking that the light cavalry had not gone 
far enough in front when the enemy's horse 
had fled, gave an order in writing to Captain 
Nolan to take to Lord Lucan, directing his 
lordship "to advance" his cavalry nearer the 
enemy. Lord Lucan, with reluctance, gave the 
order to Lord Cardigan to advance upon the 
guns, conceiving that his orders compelled him 
to do so. 



BALAKLAVA ] 

It is a maxim of var that " cavalry never act 
without a support," that "infantry should be 
close at hand when cavalry carry guns as the 
effect is only instantaneous," and that it is 
necessary to have on the flank of a line of 
cavalry some squadrons in column--the attack 
on the flank being most dangerous. The only 
support our light cavalry had was the reserve 
of heavy cavalry at a great distance behind 
them, the infantry and guns being far in the 
rear. There were no squadrons in column at all 
and there was a plain to charge over before the 
enemy's guns could be reached, of a mile and a 
half in length ! 
At ten minutes past eleven our light cavalry 
brigade advanced. The whole brigade scarcely 
made one effective regiment according to the 
numbers of continental armies, and yet it was 
more than we could spare. As they rushed 
towards the front the Russians opened on them 
from the guns in the redoubt on the right with 
volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept 
proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in 
all the pride and splendour of war. 
We could scarcely believe the evidence of our 
senses. Surely that handful of men are not go- 
ing to charge an army in position ? Alas ! it was 



32 FOURTH READER 

but too true. Their desperate valour knew no 
bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its 
so-called better part--discretion. They advan- 
ced in two lines, quickening their pace as they 
closed upon the enemy. A more fearful specta- 
cle was never witnessed than by those who 
beheld these heroes rushing to the arms 
Death. 
At the distance of twelve hundred yards, the 
whole line of the enemy belched forth from 
thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, 
through which hissed the deadly balls. Their 
flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, 
by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wound- 
ed or riderless across the plain. The first line is 
broken--it is joined by the second they never 
halt or check their speed an instant. With 
diminished ranks thinned by those thirty guns 
which the Russians had laid with the most 
deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel 
above their heads, and with a cheer which was 
many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into 
the smoke of the batteries, but ere they were 
lost from view the plain was strewn with their 
bodies and with the carcasses of horses. They 
were exposed to an oblique fire from the bat- 
teries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a 



BALAKLAVA  

direct fire of musketry. Through the clouds of 
smoke ve could see their sabres flashing as they 
rode up to the guns and dashed into their 
midst, cutting down the gunners where they 
stood. We saw them riding through the guns, 
as I have said: to our delight we saw them 
returning after breaking through a column of 
Russian infantry and scattering it like chaff, 
when the flank fire of the battery on the hill 
swept them down scattered and broken as they 
were. Wounded men and riderless horses flying 
towards us told the sad tale. Demi-gods could 
not have done what they had failed to do. 
At the very moment when they vere about 
to retreat an enormous mass of Lancers was 
hurled on their flank. Colonel Shewell saw the 
danger and rode his few men straight to them, 
cutting his way through with fearful loss. The 
other regiments turned and engaged in a des- 
perate encounter. 
With courage too great almost for credence, 
they were breaking their way through the 
columns which enveloped them, when there 
took place an act of atrocity without parallel in 
the modern warfare of civilized nations. The 
Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry 
passed, returned to their guns. They saw their 



324 FOURTH READER 

own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had 
just ridden over them, and, to the eternal dis- 
grace of the Russian name, the miscreants 
poured a murderous volley of grape and canister 
on the mass of struggling men and horses. 
mingling friend and foe in one common ruin ! 
It was as much as our heavy cavalry could do 
to cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of 
the band of heroes as they returned to the place 
they had so lately quitted. At thirty-five min- 
utes past eleven not a British soldier, except the 
dead and the dying, was left in front of those 
guns. 
'ILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 

FUNERAL OF WELLINGTON 

WHo is he that cometh, like an honour'd 
guest, 
With banner and with music, with soldier 
and with priest, 
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my 
rest ? 
Mighty Seaman, this is he 
Yv'as great by land as thou by sea. 
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 
The greatest sailor since our world began. 



FUIERAL OF WELLIIGTOI 25 

Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 
To thee the greatest soldier comes; 
For this is he 
Was great by land as thou by sea; 
His foes were thine; he kept us free; 
O give him welcome, this is he 
Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
And worthy to be laid by thee; 
For this is England's greatest son, 
He that gain'd a hundred fights, 
lor ever lost an English gun; 
Remember him who led your hosts; 
He bad you guard the sacred coasts. 
Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 
His voice is silent in your council-hall 
For ever; and whatever tempests lour 
For ever silent; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the Man who 
spoke ; 
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
lor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 
Thro' either babbling world of high and low; 
Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life; 



326 FOURTH READER 

Who never spoke against a foe: 
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
All great self-seekers trampling on the right: 
Truth-t.cller was our England's Alfred named; 
Truth-lover was our English Duke; 
Whatever record leap t.o life, 
He never shall be shamed. 

IN A CAVE WITH A WHALE 

JvsT when the delightful days were beginning 
to pall upon us, a real adventure befell us, 
which, had we been attending strietly to 
business, we should not have eneountered. For 
a week previous we had been eruising constantly 
without ever seeing a spout., except those be- 
longing to whales out at sea, whither we knew it 
was folly to follow them. At last, one afternoon 
as we were listlessly lolling (half-asleep, except 
the look-out man) aeross the thwarts, we 
suddenly eame upon a gorge between two cliffs 
that we must have passed before several times 
unnoticed. At a certain angle it opened, 
disclosing a wide sheet of water extending a 
long distance ahead. I put the helm up, and 
we ran through the passage, finding it about a 



IN A CAVE WITH A WHALE 327 

boat's length in width and several fathoms deep, 
though overhead the cliffs nearly came together 
in places. The place was new to us, and our 
languor was temporarily dispelled, and we 
paddled along, taking in every feature of the 
shores with keen eyes that let nothing escape. 
After we had gone on in this placid manner for 
m.ybe an hour, we suddenly came to a stupen- 
dous cliff--that is, for those parts--rising almost 
sheer from the water for about a thousand feet. 
Of itself it would not have arrested our attention, 
but at its base was a semicircular opening, like the 
mouth of a small tunnel. This looked alluring, 
so I headed the boat for it, passing through a 
deep channel between two reefs which led 
straight to the opening. There was ample room 
for us to enter, as we had lowered the mast; but 
just as we were passing through, a heave of the 
unnoticed swell lifted us unpleasantly near the 
crown of this natural arch. Beneath us, at a 
great depth, the bottom could be dimly dis- 
cerned, the water being of the richest blue 
conceivable, -hich the sun, striking down 
through, resolved into some most marvellous 
colour-schemes in the path of its rays. A 
delicious sense of coolness, after the fierce heat 
outside, saluted us as we entered a vast hall, 



328 FOURTH READER 

whose roof rose to a minimum height of forty 
feet, but in places could not be seen at all. A 
sort of ]iffused light, weak, but sufficient to 
reveal the genera] contour of the place, existed, 
let in, I supposed, through some unseen crevices 
in the roof or valls. At first, of course, to our 
eyes, fresh from the fierce glare outside, the 
place seemed wrapped in impenetrable gloom, 
and we dared not stir lest we should run into 
some hidden danger. Before many minutes. 
however, the gloom lightened as our pupils 
enlarged, so that, although the light vas faint, 
we could find our way about with ease. We 
spoke in low tones, for the echoes were so 
numerous and resonant that even a whisper 
gave back from those massy walls in a series of 
recurring hisses, as if a colony of snakes had 
been disturbed. 
We paddled on into the interior of this vast 
cave, finding everywhere the walls rising sheer 
from the silent, dark waters, not a ledge or a 
crevice where one might gain foothold. Indeed, 
in some places there was a considerable over- 
hang from above, as if a great dome whose top 
was invisible sprang from some level below the 
water. Me pushed ahead until the tiny semi- 
circle of light through which we had entered 



CAVE wI'rH A WHALE 329 

was only faintly visible; and then, finding there 
was nothing to be seen except what we were 
already witnessing, unless we cared to go on 
into the thick darkness, vhich extended 
apparently into the bowels of the mountain, we 
turned and started to go back. Do what we 
would, we could not venture to break the 
solemn hush that surrounded us, as if we were 
shut within the dome of some vast cathedral in 
the twilight. So we paddled noiselessly along 
for the exit, till suddenly an awful, inexplicable 
roar set all our hearts thumping fit to break our 
bosoms. Really, the sensation was most painful, 
especially as we had not the faintest idea whence 
the noise came or what had produced it. Again 
it filled that immense cave with its thunderous 
reverberations; but this time all the sting was 
taken out of it, as we caught sight of its author. 
A goodly bull-humpback had found his way in 
after us, and the sound of his spout, exaggerated 
a thousand times in the confinement of that 
mighty cavern, had frightened us all so that we 
nearly lost our breath. So far so good; but, 
unlike the old negro though we were " doin' 
blame well," we did not "let blame well alone." 
The next spout that intruder gave, he was right 
alongside of us. This was too much for the 



n 
0 
d 
Z 



IN A CAVE WITH A WHALE 331 
which we shrank together like unfledged 
chickens on a frosty night; then, in a never-to- 
be-forgotten crash that ought to have brought 
down the massy roof, that mountainous carcass 
fell. The consequent violent upheaval of the 
water should have smashed the boat against the 
rocky walls, but that final catastrophe was merci- 
flflly spared us. I suppose the rebound was 
sufficient to keep us a safe distance off. 
A perfect silence succeeded, during which we 
sat speechless, awaiting a resumption of the 
clamour. At last Abner broke the heavy silence 
by saying: "I doan' see the do'way any too' at 
all, sir." He was right. The tide had risen, and 
that half-moon of light had disappeared, so that 
we were now prisoners for many hours, it not 
being at all probable that we should be able to 
find our way out during the night ebb. Well, 
we were not exactly children, to be afraid of the 
dark, although there is considerable difference 
between the velvety darkness of a dungeon and 
the clear, fresh night of the open air. Still, as 
long as that beggar of a whale would only keep 
quiet or leave the premises, we should be fairly 
comfortable. We waited and waited until an 
hour had passed, and then came to the con- 
clusion that our friend was either dead or had 



332 OVRT READER 
gone out, as he gave no sign of his presence. 
That being settled, we anchored the boat, and 
lit pipes, preparatory to passing as comfortable a 
night as might be under the circumstances, the 
only thing troubling me being the anxiety of the 
skipper on our behalf. Presently the blackness 
beneath was lit up by a wide band of phosphoric 
light, shed in the wake of no ordinary-sized fish, 
probably an immense shark. Another and 
another followed in rapid succession, until the 
depths beneath were all ablaze with brilliant 
foot-wide ribbons of green glare, dazzling to the 
eye and bewildering to the brain. Occasionally 
a gentle splash or ripple alongside, or a smart 
tap on the bottom of the boat, warned us how 
thick the concourse was that had gathered 
below. Until that weariness which no terror 
is proof against set in, sleep was impossible, nor 
could we keep our anxious gaze from that glow- 
ing inferno beneath, where one would have 
thought all the population of Tartarus were 
holding high revel. Mercifully, at last we sank 
into a fitful slumber, though fully aware of the 
great danger of our position. One upward rush 
of any of those ravening monsters, happening to 
.strike the frail shell of our boat, and a few fleet- 
ing seconds would have sufficed for our oblitera- 
tion as if we had never been. 



But the terrible night passed away, and once 
more we saw the tender, iridescent light stream 
into that abode of dread. As the day strength- 
ened, we were able to see what was going on 
below, and a grim vision it presented. The 
water was literally alive with sharks of enor- 
mous size, tearing with never-ceasing energy at 
the huge carcass of the whale lying on the 
bottom, who had met his fate in a singular but 
not unheard-of way. At that last titanic effort 
of his he had rushed downward with such ter- 
rific force that, striking his head on the bottom, 
he had broken his neck. I felt very grieved 
that we had lost the chance of securing him; 
but it was perfectly certain that before we could 
get help to raise him, all that would be left on 
his skeleton would be quite valueless to us. So 
with such patience as we could command, we 
waited near the entrance until the receding ebb 
made it possible for us to emerge once more into 
the blessed light of day. 
FR T. CLLEN : "The Cruise of the Cachalot2' 

FRo toil he wins his spirits light, 
From busy day the peaceful night, 
Rich, from the very want of wealth, 
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health. 
GRY 



THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS 335 

De Lorge's love o'erheard the King, a beauteous, 
lively dame, 
With smiling lips, and sharp bright eyes, which 
always seemed the same : 
She thought, "The Count, my lover, is as brave 
as brave can be ; 
:He surely would do desperate things to show 
his love of me! 
King, ladies, lover, all look on; the chance is 
wond'rous fine ; 
I'll drop my glove to prove his love; great 
glory will be mine!" 

She dropped her glove to prove his love: 
then looked on him and smiled; 
He bowed and in a moment leaped among 
the lions wild: 
The leap was quick; return was quick; he 
soon regained his place; 
Then threw the glove, but not with love, 
right in the lady's face! 
"' In truth !" cried Francis, "rightly done !" 
and he rose from where he sat: 
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a 
task like that ! " 
LEIGH HUNT 



336 FOURTH READER 

THREE SCENES IN THE TYROL 

You are standing on a narrow, thread-like 
road, which has barely room to draw itself 
along hetween the rocky hank of the River Inn, 
and the base of a frowning buttress of the 
Solstein, which towerg many hundred fee 
perpendicularly above you. You throw your 
head far back and look up ; and there you have 
a vision of a plumed hunter, lofty and chivalrous 
in his bearing, who is bounding heedlessly on 
after a chamois to the very verge of a precipice. 
Mark !--he loses his footing--he rolls helplessly 
from rock to rock l There is a pause in his 
headlong course. What is it that arrests him ? 
Ah! he puts forth his mighty strength, and 
clings, hand and foot, with the grip of despair, 
to a narrow ledge of rock, and there he hangs 
over the abyss ! It is the Emperor Iaximilian ! 
The Abbot of Wiltau comes forth from his 
cell, sees an imperial destiny suspended between 
heaven and earth, and, crossing himself with 
awe, bids prayers be put up for the welfare of a 
passing soul. 
Hark! there is a wild cry ringing through 
the upper air ! Ha! Zyps of Zirl, thou hunted 
and hunting outlaw, art thou out upon the 



heights at this fearful moment? Watch the 
hardy mountaineer ! He binds his crampons on 
his feet,--he is making his perilous way towards 
his failing Emperor ;--now bounding like a 
hunted chamois; now creeping like an insect; 
now clinging like a root of ivy ; now dropping 
like a squirrel :---he reaches the fainting monarch 
just as he relaxes his grasp on the jutting rock. 
Courage, Kaiser !--there is a hunter's hand for 
thee, a hunter's iron-shod foot to guide thee to 
safety. Look! They clamber up the face of the 
rock, on points and ledges where scarce the 
small hoof of the chamois might find a hold; 
and the peasant-folk still maintain that an angel 
came down to their master's rescue. We will, 
however, refer the marvellous escape to the 
interposing hand of a pitying Providence. 
Zyps, the outlaw, becomes Count Hallooer von 
Hohenfeldsen--" Lord of the wild cry of the 
lofty rock-; " and in the old pension-list of the 
proud house of Hapsburg may still be seen an 
entry to this effect: that sixteen florins were 
paid annually to one " Zyps of Zirl." As you 
look up from the base of the Martinswand, you 
may, with pains, distinguish a cross, which 
has been planted on the narrow ledge where the 
Emperor was rescued by the outlaw. 



338 FOURTH READER 

There is another vision, an imperial one also. 
The night is dark and wild. Gusty winds come 
howling down from the mountain passes, driving 
sheets of blinding rain before them, and whirling 
them round in hissing eddies. At intervals the 
clouds are rent asunder, and the moon takes 
a hurried look at the world below. What does 
she see ? and 'hat do we hear ? for there are 
other sounds stirring besides the ravings of the 
tempest, in that wild cleft of the mountains, 
which uard Innsbruck, on the Carinthian side. 
There is a hurried tramp of feet, a crowding 
and crushing up through the steep and narrow 
gorge, a mutter of suppressed voices, a fitful 
glancing of torches, which now flare up bravely 
enough, now wither in a moment before the 
derisive laugh of the storm. At the head of the 
melee there is a litter borne on the shoulders of 
a set of sure-footed hunters of the hills; and 
around this litter is clustered a moving con- 
stellation of lamps, which are anxiously shielded 
from the rude wrath of the tempest. A group 
of stately figures, wrapped in rich military 
cloaks, with helms glistening in the torch-light, 
and plumes streaming on the wind, struggle 
onward beside the litter. 



THREE SCENES IN THE TYROL 339 

And who is this reclining there, his teeth 
firmly set to imprison the stifled groan of 
physical anguish ? He is but fifty-three years 
of age, but the lines of premature decay are 
ploughed deep along brow and cheek, while 
his yellow locks are silvered and crisped with 
care. Who can mistake that full, expansive 
forehead, that aquiline nose, that cold, stern 
blue eye, and that heavy, obstinate, Austrian 
underlip, for other than those of the mighty 
Emperor Charles V? And can this suffering 
invalid, flying from foes who are almost on the 
heels of his attendants, jolted over craggy passes 
in midnight darkness, buffeted by the tempest, 
and withered by the sneer of adverse fortune 
--can this be the Emperor of Germany, King 
of Spain, Lord of the Netherlands, of Naples, of 
Lombardy, and the proud chief of the golden 
Western World ? Yes, Charles, thou art reading 
a stern lesson by that fitful torch-light; but 
thy strong will is yet unbent, and thy stern 
nature yet unsoftened. 
And who is the swift "avenger of blood" 
who is following close as a sleuth-hound on 
thy track ? It is lXIaurice of Saxony--a match 
for thee in boldness of daring, and in strength 
of will. But Charles wins the midnight race ; 



340 FOIRTH READER 

and yet, instead of bowing before Him whose 
" long-suffering would lead to repentance," he 
ascribes his escape to the "star of Austria," 
ever in the ascendant, and mutters his favour- 
ire saying, "Myself, and the lucky moment." 
One more scene: it is the year 1809. Bona- 
parte has decreed in the secret council chamber, 
where his own will is his sole adviser, that the 
Tyrol shall be cleared of its troublesome nest of 
warrior-hunters. Ten thousand French and 
Bavarian soldiers have penetrated as far as the 
Upper Innthal, and are boldly pushing on 
towards Prutz. 
But the mountain-walls of this profound 
valley are closing gloomily together, as if 
they would forbid even the indignant river to 
force its wild way betwixt them. Is there a 
path through the frowning gorge other than 
that rocky way which is fiercely held by the 
current? Yes, there is a narrow road, pain- 
fully grooved by the hand of man out of 
the mountain side, now running along like a 
gallery, now dropping down to the brink of the 
stream. But the glittering array winds on. 
There is the heavy tread of the foot-soldiers, 
the trampling of horse, the dull rumble of the 
guns, the waving and flapping of the colours, 



THREE SCENES IN THE TYROL 341 

and the angry remonstrance of the Inn. But 
all else is still as a midnight sleep, except, 
indeed, when the eagles of the crag, startled from 
their eyries, raise their shrill cry as they spread 
their living wings above the gilded eagles of 
France. 
Suddenly a voice is heard far up amid the 
mists of the heights--not the eagle's cry tlzis 
time--not the freak of a wayward echo---but 
human words, which say ",Shall we begiu ?" 
Silence! It is a host that holds its breath and 
listens. Was it a spirit of the upper air parley- 
ing with its kind? If so, it has its answer 
countersigned across the dark gulf. "Noch 
nicht !" --" l\bt yet !" The whole invading army 
pause: there is a wavering and writhing in the 
glittering serpent-lenh of that mighty force 
which is helplessly uncoiled along the base of 
the mountain. ]3ut hark! the voice of the hills 
is heard again, and it says "l'bw !" 
/bw, then, descends the wild avalanche of 
destruction, and all is tumult, dismay, and 
death. The very crags of the mountain side, 
loosened in preparation, come bounding, thun- 
dering down. Trunks and roots of pine trees, 
gathering speed on their headlong way, are 
launched down upon the powerless foe, mingled 



342 FOURTH READER 

with the deadly hail of the Tyrolese rifles. And 
this fearful storm descends along the whole 
line at once. 1o marx'el that two-thirds of 
all that brilliant invading army are crushed 
to death along the grooved pathway, or are 
tumbled, horse and man, into the choked and 
swollen river. 
Enough of horrors! Who would willingly 
linger on the hideous details of such a scene? 
Sorrowful that man should come, with his evil 
ambitions and his fierce revenges, to stain and 
to spoil such wonders of beauty as the hand of 
the Creator has here moulded. Sorrowful that 
man, in league with the serpent, should writhe 
into such scenes as these, and poison them with 
the virus of sin. 

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty ? May she mix 
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 
Her pillars ? Let her work prevail. 
Let her know her place ; 
She is the second, not the first, 
A higher hand must make her mild, 
If all be not in vain ; and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 
With xvisdom, like the younger child. 



Aso )oo 343 

MARSTON MOOR 
(A Cavalier Song) 
TO IORSEI tO horse! Sir Nicholas, the 
clarion's note is high! 
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas, the big 
drum makes reply ! 
Ere this hath Lucas marched, with his 
gallant cavaliers, 
And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows 
fainter in our ears. 
To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas l White Guy 
is at the door, 
And the raven whets his beak o'er the field 
of Marston Moor. 

Up rose the Lady Alice, from her brief and 
broken prayer, 
And she brought a silken banner down the 
narrow turret-stair, 
0h! many 'ere the tears that those radiant 
eyes had shed, 
As she traced the bright 'ord "Glory " in 
the gay and glancing thread; 
And mournful was the smile which o'er those 
lovely features ran 
As she said, "It is your lady's gift, unfurl it 
in the van I" 



344 FOURTH READER 

"It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best 
and boldest ride, 
lIidst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the 
black dragoons of Pride; 
The recreant heart of Fairix shall feel a 
sicklier qualm, 
And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a 
louder psalm, 
When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt 
proudly on their wing, 
And hear her loyal soldier's shout, ' For God 
and for the King.'" 

'Tis noon. The ranks are broken, along the 
royal line 
They fly, the braggarts of the court! the 
bullies of the Rhine ! 
Stout Langdale's cheer is heard no more, and 
Astley's helm is down, 
And Rupert sheathes his rapier, with a curse 
and with a frown, 
And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in 
their flight, 
"The German boor had better far have 
supped in York to-night." 

The knight is left alone, his steel-cap cleft in 
twain, 



346 OUH 

"What news? what news, old Hubert?"- 
"The battle's lost and won; 
The royal troops are melting, like mists 
before the sun! 
And a wounded man approaches ;--I'm blind, 
and cannot see, 
Yet sure I am that sturdy step my master's 
step must be ! " 

"I've brought thee back thy banner, wench, 
from as rude and red a fray, 
As e'er was proof of soldier's thew or theme 
for minstrel's lay! 
Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and 
liquor quantum surf., 
I'll make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part 
with boots and buff;-- 
Though Guy through many a gaping wound 
is breathing forth his life, 
And I come to thee a landless man, my fond 
and faithful wife! 

"Sweet! we will fill our money-bags, and 
freight a ship for France, 
And mourn in merry Paris for this poor 
land's mischance : 
For if the worst befall me, why, better axe 
and rope 



LONDON 347 

Than life with Lenthal for a king, and 
Peters for a pope l 
Alas l alas l my gallant Guy !--curse on the 
crop-eared boor, 
Who sent me with my standard, on foot 
from llarston lloor I" 

W. M. PRAED 

LONDON 

THE huge city perhaps never impressed the 
imagination more than when approaching it by 
night on the top of a coach you saw its number- 
less lights flaring, as Tennyson says "like a 
dreary dawn." The most impressive approach 
is now by the river through the infinitude of 
docks, quays, and shipping. London is not a 
city, but a province of brick and stone. Hardly 
even from the top of St. Paul's or of the.Monu- 
ment can anything like a view of the city as a 
whole be obtained. It is indispensable, how- 
ever, to make one or the other of those ascents 
when a clear day can be found, not so much 
because the view is fine, as because you will 
get a sensation of vastness and multitude not 
easily to be forgotten. There is or was, not 
long ago, a point on the ridge that connects 



348 ou 

Hampstead with Highgate from which, as you 
looked over London to the Surrey Hills beyond, 
the modern Babylon presented something like 
the a.peet of a city. The ancient Babylon may 
have -ied with London in circumference, 
the greater part of its area was occupied by 
open spaces; the modern Babylon is a dense 
mass of humanity. London with its suburbs 
has five millions of inhabitants, and still it 
grows. It grows through the passion which 
seems to be seizing mankind everywhere, on 
this continent as well as in Europe, for emigra- 
tion from the country into the town, not only 
as the centre of wealth and employment, but as 
the centre of excitement, and, as the people 
fondly fancy, of enjoyment. The Empire and 
the commercial relations of England draw rel> 
resentatives of trading communities or subject 
races from all parts of the globe, and the faces 
and costumes of the Hindoo, the Parsi, the 
Lascar, and the ubiquitous Chinaman, mingle 
in the motley crowd with the merchants of 
Europe and America. The streets of London 
are, in this respect, to the modern., what the 
great Place of Tyre must have been to the 
ancient world. But pile Carthage on Tyre, 
Yenice on Carthage, Amsterdam on Venice, and 



LOSDON 349 

you will not make the equal, or anything near 
the equal, of London. Here is the great mart 
of the world, to which the best and richest prod- 
ucts are brought from every land and clime, 
so that if you have put money in your purse 
you may command every object of utility or 
fancy which grows or is made anywhere, with- 
out going beyond the circuit of the great cos- 
mopolitan city. Parisian, German, Russian, 
Hindoo, Japanese, Chinese industry is as much 
at your service here, if you have the all-compel- 
ling talisman in your pocket., as in Paris, Berlin, 
St. Petersburg, Benares, Yokohama or Pekin. 
That London is the great distributing centre of 
the world is shown by the fleets of the carrying 
trade of which the countless masts rise along 
her wharves and in her docks. She is also the 
bank of the world. But we are reminded of 
the vicissitudes of commerce and the precarious 
tenure by which its empire is held when we 
consider that the bank of the world in the 
middle of the last century was Amsterdam. 
The first and perhaps the greatest marvel of 
London is the commissariat. How can the five 
millions be regularly supplied with food, and 
everything needful to life, even with such 
things as milk and those kinds of fruit which 



350 FOURTH READER 

can hardly be left beyond a day? Here again 
we see reason for concluding that though there 
may be fraud and scamping in the industrial 
world, genuine production, faithful service, 
disciplined energy, and skill in organization 
cannot wholly have departed from the earth. 
London is not only well fed, but well supplied 
with water and well drained. Vastly and 
densely peopled as it is, it is a healthy city. 
Yet the limit of practicable extensio seems to 
be nearly reached. It becomes a question how 
the increasing multitude shall be supplied not 
only with food and water but with air. 
There is something very impressive in the 
roar of the vast city. It is a sound of a Niagara 
of human life. It ceases not except during the 
hour or two before dawn, when the last carriages 
have rolled away from the balls and the market 
carts have hardly begun to come in. Only in 
returning from a very late ball is the visitor 
likely to have a chance of seeing what Words- 
worth saw from Westminster Bridge: 

" Earth has not anything to show more fair; 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty; 
This City now doth, like a garment, wear 



GOOD IEWS FROM GHElgT TO AIX 351 

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky; 
All bright and glittering in the open air. 
:Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendour, valley, rock or hill; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! 
The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still!" 
GOLDWIN SMITH : "A Trip to England." 

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD 
NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX 

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all 
three ; 
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate- 
bolts undrew ; 
" Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping 
through ; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to 
rest, 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 



FOURTH READER 

Not a word to each other; we kept the great 
pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never 
changing our place; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths 
tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the 
pique right, 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker 
the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 
'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew 
near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew, and twilight dawned 
clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to 
see ; 
At Dfiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as 
could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard 
the half-chime, 
So, Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is 
time !" 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
And against him the cattle stood black 
every one, 



GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX 353 

To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past, 
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 
With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
The haze, as some bluff river headland its 

spray : 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp 
ear bent back 
For my voice, and the other pricked out on 
his track ; 
And one eye's black intelligencemever that 
glance 
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, 
askance ! 
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which 
aye and anon 
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, 
"Stay spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not 
in her, 
We'll remember at A_ix "--for one heard tho 
quick wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and 
staggering knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the 
flank, 



354 FOUR]?H READER 

As down on her haunches she shuddered and 
sank. 
So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in 
the sky ; 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless 
laugh, 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright 
stubble like chaff; 
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang 
white, 
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in 
sight 

"How they'll greet us!"--and all in a moment 
his roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a 
stone ; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole 
weight 
Of the news, which alone could save Aix 
from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to 
the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' 
rim. 



GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO 

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster 
let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and 
all, 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his 
ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse 
without peer ; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any 
noise, bad or good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and 
stood ! 

And all I remember is,--friends flocking 
round, 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on 
the ground ; 
And IlO voice but was praising this Roland 
of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure 
of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common con- 
sent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good 
news from Ghent. 
BROWNI.O 



AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 357 

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace 
We've got you Iatisbon! 
The Marshal's in the market-place, 
And you'll be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 
Where I, to heart's desire, 
Perched him!" The chieis eye flashed; 
his plans 
Soared up again like fire. 

The chieis eye flashed; but presently 
Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 
When her bruised eaglet breathes; 
" You're wounded !" " Nay," the soldier's 
pride 
Touched to the quick, he said: 
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside, 
Smiling the boy fell dead. IROWNINO 

I MADE them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their 
King, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it. 
TENNYSON 



358 FOURTH EEADER 

BRITISH COLONIAL AND NAVAL 
POWER 

T sagacity of England is in nothing more 
clearly shown than in the foresight with which 
she has provided against the emergency of war. 
Let it come when it may, it will not find her 
unprepared. So thickly are her colonies and 
naval stations scattered over the face of the 
Earth, that her war-ships can speedily reach 
every commercial centre on the globe. 
There is that great centre of commerce, the 
Mediterranean Sea. It was a great centre long 
ago, when the Phcenician traversed it, and, 
passing through the Pillars of Hercules, sped on 
his way to the distant, and then savage, Britain. 
It was a great centre when Rome and Carthage 
wrestled in a death-grapple for its possession. 
But at the present day England is as much at 
home on the Mediterranean as if it were one of 
her own Canadian lakes. 
Nor is it simply the number of the British 
colonies, or the evenness with which they are 
distributed, that challenges our admiration. 
The positions which these colonies occupy, and 
their natural military strength, are quite as 



BRITISH COLONIAL AND :NAVAL POWER 359 

important facts. There is not a sea or a gulf in 
the world, which has any real commercial 
importance, but England has a stronghold on 
its shores. And wherever the continents 
tending southward come to points, around 
which the commerce of nations must sweep, 
there is a British settlement; and the cross of 
St. George salutes you as you are wafted by. 
There is hardly a little desolate, rocky island or 
peninsula, formed apparently by Nature for a 
fortress, and nothing else, but the British flag 
floats securely over it. 
These are literal facts. Take, for example, 
the great Overland Route from Europe to Asia. 
Despite its name, its real highway is on the 
waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. It 
has three gates--three only. England holds the 
key to every one of these gates. Count them-- 
Gibraltar, Malta, Aden. But she commands the 
entranee to the Red Sea, not by one, but by 
several strongholds. Midway in the narrow 
strait is the black, bare rock of Perim, sterile, 
preeipitous, a perfeet eounterpart of Gibraltar; 
and on either side, between it and the mainland, 
are the ship-ehannels whieh connect the Red 
Sea with the great Indian Oeean. This roek 
England holds. 



FOURTH READER 

A little farther out is the peninsula of Aden, 
another Gibraltar, as rocky, as sterile, and as 
precipitous, connected with the mainland by a 
narrow strait, and having a harbour safe in all 
winds, and a central coal depbt. This England 
bought in 1839. And to complete her security, 
she has purchased from some petty sultan the 
neighbouring islands of Socotra and Kouri, 
giving, as it were, a retaining fee, so that, though " 
she does not need them herself, no rival power 
may ever possess them. 
As we sail a little farther on, we come to the 
China Sea. What a beaten track of commerce 
is this ! What wealth of comfort and luxury is 
wafted over it by every breeze !--the teas of 
China; the silks of farther India; the spices 
of the East. The ships of every clime and 
nation swarm on its waters--the stately barques 
of England, France, and Holland; the swift 
ships of America; and mingled with "them, in 
picturesque confusion, the clumsy junk of the 
Chinaman, and the slender, darting canoe of the 
Malaysian islanders. 
At the lower end of the China Sea, where it, 
narrows into Malacca Strait, England holds the 
little island of Singapore--a spot of no use to 
her whatever, except as a commercial depSt, but 



BRITISH COLONIAL AND NAVAL POWER 361 

of inestimable value for that; a spot which, 
under her fostering care, is growing up to take 
its place among the great emporiums of the 
world. Half-way up the sea she holds the 
island of Labuan, whose chief worth is this, that 
beneath its surface and that of the neighbouring 
mainland there lie inexhaustible treasures of 
coal, which are likely to yield wealth and 
power to the hand that controls them. At the 
upper end of the sea she holds Hong-Kong, a 
hot, unhealthy island, but an invaluable base 
from which to threaten and control the neigh- 
bouring waters. 
Even in the broad, and as yet comparatively 
untracked Pacific, she is making silent advances 
towards dominion. The vast continent of 
Australia, which she has secured, forms its 
south-western boundary. And pushed out six 
hundred miles eastward from this lies New 
Zealand, like a strong outpost, its shores so 
scooped and torn by the waves that it must be 
a very paradise of commodious bays and safe 
havens for the mariner. The soil, too, is of 
extraordinary fertility; and the climate, though 
humid, deals kindly with the Englishman's 
constitution. Nor is this all; for, advanced 
from it, north and south, like picket stations, 



ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND 
WHAT have I done for you, 
England, myEngland ? 
What is there I would not do, 
England, my own? 
With your glorious eyes austere, 
As the Lord were walking near, 
rhispering terrible things and dear 
As the 8ong on your bugles blown, 
England-- 
Round the world on your bugles blown! 
Where shall the watchful sun, 
England, my England, 
Match the master-work you've done, 
England, my own ? 
\Vhen shall he rejoice agen 
Such a breed of mighty men 
As come forward, one to ten, 
To the Song on your bugles blown, 
England-- 
Down the years on your bugles blown ? 
Ever the faith endures, 
England, my England:-- 
"Take and break us: we are yours, 
England, my own! 



FOURTH RADE 

Life is good, and joy runs high 
Between English earth and sky" 
Death is death; but we shall die 
To the 5ong on your bugles blown, 
England-- 
To the stars on your bugles blown!" 

They call you proud and hard, 
England, my England: 
]'ou with worlds to watch and ward, 
England, my own! 
You whose mailed hand keeps the keys 
Of such teeming destinies, 
You could know nor dread nor ease 
Were the Song on your bugles blown, 
England-- 
Round the Pit on your bugles blown! 

Iother of Ships whose might, 
England, my England, 
Is the fierce old ,Sea's delight, 
England, my own, 
Chosen daughter of the Lord, 
Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword, 
There's the menace of the Word 
In the Song on your bugle blown, 
England-- 
Out of heaven on your bugles blown l 



GOOD TIME GOING 

A GOOD TIME GOING 
(Charles Mackay, at the end of his American tour in I859, was 
entertained in Boston by the leading literary men. This poem, 
written for the occasion, ws read to speed the parting guest. ) 
BAVE singer of the coming time, 
Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, 
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, 
The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,* 
Good-bye] Good-bye !--Our hearts and 
hands, 
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, 
Cry, God be with him, till he stands 
His feet among the English daisies! 

'Tis here we part ;--for other eyes 
The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, 
The dripping arms that plunge and rise, 
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, 
The kerchiefs waving from the pier, 
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, 
The deep blue desert, lone and drear, 
With heaven above and home before him 

His home I--the Western giant smiles, 
And twirls the spotty globe to find 
This little speck the British Isles ? 
'Tis but a freckle,--never mind it l 



GOD IS OUR REFUGE 367 

With cliffs of white and bowers of green, 
And Ocean narrowing to caress her, 
And hills and threaded streams between 
Our little mother isle, God bless her! 
OLY'ER WENDELL 

GOD IS OUR REFUGE 

GOD is our refuge and strength, 
A very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth 
do change, 
And though the mountains be moved ia 
the heart of the seas; 
Though the waters thereof roar and be 
troubled, 
Though the mountains shake with the 
swelling thereof. 
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US; 
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE. 

There is a river, the streams whereof make 
glad the city of God, 
The holy place of the tabernacles of the 
Most High. 
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be 
moved : 



FOURTH READER 

God shall help her at the dawn of 
morning. 
The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved: 
He uttered his voice, the earth melted. 
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US; 
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE. 

Come, behold the works of the LORD, 
What desolations he hath made in the 
earth. 
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the 
earth ; 
He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear 
in sunder ; 
He burneth the chariots in the fire. 
Be still, and know that I am God: 
I will be exalted among the nations, 
I will be exalted in the earth. 
THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US; 
THE GOD OF JACOB IS OUR REFUGE. 
PSALM XLVI. 

A GOOD man out of the good treasure of the heart 
bringeth forth good things: and an evil man 
out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 
But I say unto you that every idle word that 
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof 
in the day of judgment. ST. MAvrEw, XII. 



FOURTH READER 

Dressed in robes of gorgeous hue, 
Brown and gold with crimson blent. 
The forest to the waters blue 
Its own enchanting tints has lent ;- 
In their dark depths, lifelike glowing, 
We see a second forest growing, 
Each pictured leaf and branch bestowing 
 fairy grace to that twin wood, 
Mirrored within the crystal flood. 
'Tis pleasant now in forest shades; 
The Indian hunter strings his bow, 
To track through dark entangling gludes 
The antlered deer and bounding doe, 
Or launch at night the birch canoe, 
To spear the finny tribes that dwell 
On sand" bank, in weedy cell, 
Or pool, the fisher knows right well-- 
Seen by the red and vivid glow 
Of pine torch at his vessel's bow. 
This dreamy :Indian summer-day, 
Attunes the soul to tender sadness; 
We loveubut joy not in the ray 
:It is not summer's fervid gladness, 
But a melancholy glory, 
Hovering softly round decay, 
Like swan that sings her own sad story, 
Ere she floats in death away. 



INDIAN SUMMER 371 

The day declines; what splendid dyes, 
In fleckered waves of crimson driven, 
Float o'er the saffron sea that lies 
Glowing within the western heaven! 
Oh, it is a peerless even! 

See, the broad red sun has set, 
But his rays are quivering yet 
Through Nature's vale of violet 
Streaming bright o'er lake and hill, 
But earth and forest lie so still, 
It sendeth to the heart a chill; 
We start to check the rising tear-- 
'Tis beauty sleeping on her bier. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and 
soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
BRYANT 



372 FOURTH READER 

THE SKYLARK 
BID of the wilderness, 
Blithesome and cumberless, 
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! 
Emblem of happiness, 
Blest is thy dwelling-placew 
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee l 
Wild is thy lay and loud, 
Far in the downy cloud; 
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. 
Where, on thy dewy wing, 
Where art thou journeying? 
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. 
O'er fell and fountain sheen, 
O'er moor and mountain green, 
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, 
Over the cloudlet dim, 
Over the rainbow's rim, 
Musical cherub, soar, singing away! 
Then, when the gloaming comes, 
Low in the heather blooms, 
Sweet will thy welcome, and bed of love be I 
Emblem of happiness, 
Blest is thy dwelling-placew 
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee l 
JAMES Hoc 



WHAT IS WAR 373 

WHAT IS WAR 

WHAT iS war? I believe that half the people 
that talk about war have not the slightest idea 
what it is. In a short sentence it may be 
summed up to be the combination and 
concentration of all the horrors, atrocities, 
crimes, and sufferings of which human nature 
on this globe is capable. 
If you go into war now, you will have more 
banners to decorate your cathedrals and 
churches. Englishmen will fight nosy as well 
as they ever did; and there is ample power to 
back them, if the country can be but sufficiently 
excited and deluded. You may raise up great 
generals. You may have another Wellington, 
and another Nelson, too; for this country can 
grow men capable of every enterprise. Then 
there may be titles, and pensions, and marble 
monuments to eternize the men who have thus 
become great ;--but what becomes of you, and 
your country, and your children? 
You profess to be a Christian nation. You 
make it your boast even--though boasting is 
somewhat out of place in such questions--you 
make it your boast that you are a Christian 



374 FOURTH READER 

people, and that you draw your rule of doctrino 
and practice, as from a well pure and undefiled, 
from the lively oracles of God, and from tho 
direct revelation of the Onnipotent. You have 
even conceived the magnificent project of illu- 
minating the whole earth, even to its remotest 
and darkest recesses, by the dissemination of the 
volume of the lTew Testament, in whose every 
page are written for ever the words of peace. 
Within the limits of this island alone, every 
Sabbath-day, twenty thousand, yes, far more 
than twenty thousand temples are thrown open, 
in which devout men and women assemble to 
worship Itim who is the "Prince of Peace." 
Is this a reality? or is your Christianity a 
romance, and your profession a dream? No; I 
am sure that your Christianity is not a romance, 
and I am equally sure that your profession is 
not a dream. It is because I believe this that I 
appeal to you with confidence, and that I have 
hope and faith in the future. I believe that we 
shall see, and at no very distant time, sound 
economic principles spreading much more wide- 
ly amongst the people; a sense of justice growing 
up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed 
unfruitful; and--which will be better than 
all--the churches of the United Kingdom, the 



THE IOMES OF ENGLAND 375 

churches of Britain, awaking as it were from 
their slumbers, and girding up their loins to 
more glorious work, when they shall not only 
accept and believe in the prophecy, but labour 
earnestly for its fulfilment, that there shall come 
a time---a blessed time--a time which shall last 
for ever--when "nation shall not lift up sword 
against nation, neither shall they learn war any 
more." 

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND 

THE stately homes of England ! 
How beautiful they stand, 
Amidst their tall ancestral trees, 
O'er all the pleasant land ! 
The deer across their greensward bound, 
Through shade and sunny gleam : 
And the swan glides past them with the sound 
Of some rejoicing stream. 

The merry homes of England ! 
Around their hearths by night, 
What gladsome looks of household love 
lIeet in the ruddy light I 



376 FOURT READER 

There woman's voice flows forth in song, 
Or childhood's tale is told, 
Or lips move tunefully along 
Some glorious page of old. 

The blessed homes of England ! 
How softly on their bowers 
Is laid the holy quietness 
That breathes from Sabbath hours ! 
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime 
Floats through their woods at morn ; 
All other sounds, in that still time, 
Of breeze and leaf are born. 

The cottage homes of England l 
By thousands on her plains, 
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks, 
And round the hamlet fanes. 
Through glowing orchards forth they peep 
Each from its nook of leaves; 
And fearless there the lowly sleep, 
As the bird beneath the eaves. 

The flee, fair homes of England! 
Long, long, in hut and hall, 
May hearts of native proof be reared 
To gtmrd each hallowed wall l 



TO A WATER-FOWL 377 

And'green for ever be the groves, 
And bright the flowery sod, 
Where first the child's glad spirit loves 
Its country and its God l 
FELICIA 

TO A WATER-FOWL 

WHITHER, midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps 
of day 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou 
/ pursue 
Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee 
wrong, 
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 
Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
On the chafed ocean side ? 



378 FOtTRH READE 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,m 
The desert and illimitable air,-- 
Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have faaned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and 
rest, 
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall 
bend, 
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my 
heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
And shall not soon depart. 

I-Ie who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain 
flight, 
In the long way that I must tread alone, 
Will lead my steps aright. 
BIYIT 



THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 379 

THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 

TE strange fascination of light takes hold of all 
animated creatures, and commands a subtle 
devotion that cannot be set forth in a confession 
of faith. The delight of a boy in a bonfire is a 
breath of the heaven that is about us in our 
infancy. Though it be but a heap of rubbish, 
revealed by the removal of the mantle of snow, 
lighting up with flickering, changing glow a 
rectangular door yard, the children stand and 
gaze into the dancing flame, their vast, distorted. 
ghostlike shadows lost in the night, their faces 
reflecting every evanescent glare, and their 
spirits charmed by the same spell that took form 
in the fire-worship of their ancestors. How they 
delight in stirring up the embers and sending 
up a fountain spray of sparks! What joy in 
seeing the big sticks break into glowing coals, 
darting out new tongues of flame to lick up the 
escaping embers ! 
Fire is one of nature's universal fascinations. 
The wildest and most wary animals approach 
and gaze at it in the night, and though it 
sometimes warns them off, it always holds them 
by a spell. The night migrating birds perish in 



380 FOURTH READER 

scores against the plate-glass of coast lighthouses, 
swerving from the control of the all-powerful 
migratory instinct toward the fascinating glare 
that is their destruction. It is not sportsmanlike 
to hang a lantern in the marsh and shoot the 
duck that gather under it. But the night, the 
silent marsh,and the lantern have charms that 
the sportsman, with his legal and mechanical 
paraphernalia, can never understand. Fish are 
devoted fire-worshippers, and that boy :who has 
never speared by a jack-light is an object of 
compassion. 
The earth and the waters under the earth 
have no more fascinating sight than the gray, 
silent form of a pike, moving and motionless 
in the shallow water, a shadow more tangible 
than himself thrown by a jack-light on the 
mottled yellow rocks and sands of the bottom. 
A passing breath of wind, even the slightest 
motion of the punt, breaks every shadow and 
indentation into myriad fleeting ripples and 
waves of light, transforming the slender, silent 
fish into a sheaf of wriggling glimmers. With 
the stilling of the surface, the waiting pike and 
all the shadows and lights of the bottom grow 
once more still and distinct. There floats the 
greatest cannibal of the fishes, paying his devo- 



THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 381 

tion to the flame, and above him stands the 
greatest cannibal of all created beings, pointing 
his deadly spear. 
There is no moon. The stars cannot pene- 
trate the thickening clouds. The bay is still 
and its shores invisible, the distant light of a 
farmhouse only serving to intensify the lonely 
silence. The savage joy of that moment repays 
the boy for all his laborious preparations. He 
brought two boards down the river from the 
mill, and toiled at them with all the tools in 
the woodshed till the ends and edges were made 
smooth. He collected lumber from all available 
sources for the ends and bottom, fastening them 
on with a miscellaneous collection of nails and 
springs. Then he patiently picked an old piece 
of tarred rope into oakum, and caulked it into 
the seams with a sharpened gate-hinge. He 
notched a pine tree, gathered the gum and 
boiled it into pitch to make the joints 
tight. That extraordinary pair of oars he 
sawed, chopped, and whittled from an old 
plank. The spear is a family relic which he 
dug up and fitted with a white-ash pole, and 
the anchor is a long stone, tied by the slack of 
a clothes-line. The jack is a basket made of 
old pail-hoops, and fastened to an upright stick 



382 'OURT READER 

to hold the burning pine knot. Yet we wonder 
why it is always the country boy who succeeds 
in the city ! 
Will he. too, be lured by the seductive glim- 
mer? Will he turn away from the conquest of 
nature and embark in the conquest of his 
fellow-mortals? Will he go to a resort for his 
fishing and a preserve for his shooting? Will 
that bunch of hair protruding from under his 
hat be worn thin and gray in scrambling after 
the delights of the vain and the covetous? 
Will he devote his superb strength of body and 
mind to outstripping and circumventing his 
fellows in the pursuit of that transient glimmer, 
that all-alluring igis fatuus which the Babylon 
world calls success ? 
S. T. Woo 

DAFFODILS 

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host of golden daffodils; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 



I)ODLS 383 

Continuous  the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 
Along the margin of the bay; 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; 
A poet could not but be gay, 
In such a jocund company; 
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought 
'hat wealth the show to me had 
brought : 

For oft, when on my couch I 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 
WORDSWORTH 

I thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to 
eat; and if he be thirsty give him water to 
drink; for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his 
head, and the Lord shall reward thee. 
PROVERBS, XKV. 



38Jx FOURTH REDER 

TO THE DANDELION 

DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside 
the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 
First pledge of blithesome May, 
Which children pluck, and, full of pride, 
uphold, 
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
Which not the rich earth's ample round 
.Iay match in wealth--thou art more dear to 
me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms that be. 
LOWELL 

TRUE GREATNESS 

ON the evening of the twenty-second of .qay, 
1509, two figures were seated at the wide door- 
way of a handsome house in Florence. Lillo,  
boy of fifteen, sat on the ground, with his back 
against the angle of the door-post, and his long 
legs stretched out, while he held  large book 
open on his knee, and occasionally made a dash 
with his hand at an inquisitive fly, with n air 



385 

of interest stronger than that excited by the 
finely-printed copy of Petrarch which he kept 
open at one place, as if he were learning some- 
thing by heart. 
lomola sat nearly opposite Lillo, but she was 
not observing him. Her hands were crossed on 
her lap, and her eyes were fixed absently on the 
distant mountains: she was evidently uncon- 
scious of anything around her. An eager life 
had left its marks upon her: the finely-moulded 
cheek had sunk a little, the golden crown was 
less massive; but there was a placidity on 
lomola's face which had never belonged to it 
in youth. It is but once that we can know our 
worst sorrows, and Romola had known them 
while life was new. 
Absorbed in this way, she was not at first 
aware that Lillo had ceased to look at his book, 
and was watching her with a slightly impatient 
air, which meant that he wanted to talk to her, 
but was not quite sure whether she would like 
that entertainment just now. But persevering 
looks make themselves felt at last. lomola did 
presently turn away her eyes from the distance 
and met :Lillo's impatient dark gaze with a 
brighter and brighter smile. He shuffled along 
the floor, still keeping the book on his lap, till 



386 FOURTH READER 

he got close to her and lodged his chin on 
her knee. 
"What is it, Lillo?" said Romola, pulling 
his hair back from his brow. Lillo was a hand- 
some lad, but his features were turning out to 
be more massive and less regular than his 
father's. The blood of the Tuscan peasant was 
in his veins. 
"Mamma Romola, what am I to be?" he 
said, well contented that there was a prospect of 

talking till it would be too late to con Pe- 
trarch any longer. 
" What should you like to be, Lillo? You 
might be a scholar. My father was a scholar, 

you know, and taught me a great deal. That is 
the reason why I can teach you." 
"Yes," said Lillo, rather hesitatingly. "But 
he is old and blind in the picture. Did he get 
a great deal of glory ?" 
" Not much, Lillo. The world was not al- 
ways very kind to him, and he saw meaner men 
than himself put into higher places because 
they could flatter and say what was false. And 
then his dear son thought it right to leave him 
and become a monk ; and after that, my father, 
being blind and lonely, felt unable to do the 
things that would have mde his learning of 



TRUE GREATNESS 387 

greater use to men, so that he might still have 
lived in his works after he was in his grave." 
"I should not like that sort of life," said Lillo, 
"I should like to be something that would make 
me a great man, and very happy besides--some- 
thing that would not hinder me from having 
a good deal of pleasure." 
"That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor 
sort of happiness that could ever cone by caring 
very much about our own narrow pleasures. 
We can have the highest happiness, such as goes 
along with being a great man, only by having 
wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest 
of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort 
of happiness often brings so much pain with 
it, that we can tell it from pain only by its being 
what we would choose before everything, because 
our souls see it is good. There are so many 
things wrong and difficult in the world, that no 
man can be great---he can hardly keep himself 
from wickedness--unless he gives up thinking 
much about pleasure or rewards, and gets 
strength to endure what is hard and painful. 
My father had the greatness that belongs to 
integrity ; he chose poverty and obscurity rather 
than falsehood. And so, my L.illo, if you mean 
to act nobly and seek to know the best things 



388 FOURTH IEADER 

God has put within reach of men, you must 
learn to fix your mind on that end, and not 
on what will happen to you because of it. And 
remember, if you were to choose something 
lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek 
your own pleasure and escape from what is 
disagreeable, calamity might come just the same ; 
and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, 
which is the one form of sorrow that has no 
balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 
' It would have been better for me if I had never 
been born.' I will tell you something, Lillo." 
lomola paused for a moment. She had taken 
Lillo's cheeks between her hands, and his young 
eyes were meeting hers. 
" There was a man to whom I was very near, 
so that I could see a great deal of his life, who 
made almost everyone fond of him, for he was 
young, and clever, and beautiful, and his 
manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe, 
when I first knew him, he never thought of 
doing anything cruel or base. But because he 
tried to slip away from everything that was 
unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much 
as his own safety, he came at last to commit 
some of the basest deeds--such as make men 
infamous. He denied his father, and left him 



THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS 389 

to misery; he betrayed every trust that was 
reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe 
and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity 
overtook him." 
GEORGE ELIOT: "Romol" 

THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS 

LAST night among his fellows rough 
He jested, quaffed, and swore: 
A drunken private of the Buffs, 
Who never looked before. 
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, 
He stands in Elgin's place, 
Ambassador from Britain's crown, 
And type of all her race. 

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, 
Bewildered and alone, 
A heart, with English instinct fraught, 
He yet can call his own. 
Ay! tear his body limb from limb; 
Bring cord, or axe, or flame !- 
He only knows that not through him 
Shall England come to shame. 



390 FOVlT READER 

Far Kentish hopfields round hint seemed 
Like dreams to come and go ; 
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed 
One sheet of living snow: 
The smoke above his father's door 
In gray, soft eddyings hung :- 
Must he then watch it rise no more, 
Doomed by himself, so young? 

Yes, Honour calls i--with strength like steel 
He put the vision by : 
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel ; 
An English lad must die! 
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, 
With knee to man unbent, 
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink 
To his red grave he went. 

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed; 
Vain, those all-shattering guns; 
Unless proud England keep, untamed, 
q'he strong heart of her sons 1 
So, let his name through Europe ring-- 
A man of mean estate 
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king, 
Because his soul was great. 
F. H. Do 



HOh'OURABLE TOIL 

ttONOURABLE TOIL 

Two men I honour, and no third. First, the 
toilworn Craftsman, that, with earth-made 
Implement, laboriously conquers the Earth, and 
makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard 
I-Iand ; crooked, coarse ; wherein, notwithstand- 
ing, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as 
of the Sceptre of this Planet. Venerable, too, is 
the rugged face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, 
with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face of a 
Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable 
for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity 
as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother w 
For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy 
straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou 
wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and 
fighting our battles wert so marred. For in 
thee, too, lay a god-created Form, but it was not 
to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with 
the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour : 
and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know 
freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: thote art in thy 
duty, be out of it who may ; thou toilest for the 
altogether indispensable, for daily bread. 
A second man I honour, and still more 
highly: him who is seen toiling for the spirit- 



392 

FOURTH READER 

ually indispensable; not daily bread, but the 
bread of Life. Is not he, too, in his duty; en- 
deavouring towards inward Harmony ; revealing 
this, by act or by word, through all his outward 
endeavours, be they high or low? Highest of 
all, when his outward and his inward endeavour 
are one; when we can name him Artist; not 
earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, 
who with heaven-made Implement conquers 
Heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil 
that we have Food, must not the high and 
glorious toil for him in return, that he have 
Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality? 
--These two, in all their degrees, I honour: all 
else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow 
whither it listeth. 
Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I 
find both dignities united; and he, that must 
toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is 
also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer 
in this world know I nothing than a Peasant 
Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. 
Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth 
itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven 
spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, 
like a light shining in great darkness. 
CARLYLE : "axtor Re.rt- ' 



VITA " LAIIPADA  

VITA LAMPADA 
(The Torch of Life) 
T.R.'s a breathless hush in the Close to-night-- 
Ten to make and the match to win-- 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 
An hour to play and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote 
" Play up ! play up ! and play the game !" 
The sand of the desert is sodden red,- 
Red with the wreck of a square that broke ;- 
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, 
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 
The river of death has brimmed his banks, 
And England's far, and Honour a name, 
But the voice of a sclool-boy rallies the ranks: 
" Play up! play up! and play the game !" 
This is the word that year by year, 
While in her place the school is set, 
Every one of her sons must hear, 
And none that hears it dare forget. 
This they all with a joyful mind 
Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
And falling, fling to the host behind- 
"Play up ! play up ! and play the game I" 
HENRY NEWBOLT 



396 FOURTH READER 

THE IRREPARABLE PAST 

(" And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on 
now.. and take your rest ; it is enough, the hour is come ; behold 
the 15on of man is betrayed into the hands of inners. Rise up, let 
us go ; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." liark, XIV. 41, 42) 
THE words of Christ are not like the words of 
other men. His sentences do not end with the 
occasion which called them forth: every sen- 
tence of Christ's is a deep principle of human 
life, and it is so with these sentences. The 
principle contained in "Sleep on now" is this, 
that the past is irreparable, and after a certain 
moment waking will do no good. You may 
improve the future, the past is gone beyond 
recovery. As to all that is gone by, so far as 
the hope of altering it goes, you may sleep on 
and take your rest: there is no power in earth 
or heaven that can undo what has once been 
done. 
Let us proceed to give an illustration of this. 
This principle applies to a misspent youth. 
The young are by God's Providence, exempted 
in a great measure from anxiety; they are as 
the apostles were in relation to their Master: 
their friends stand between them and the strug- 
gles of existence. They are not called upon t 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST 397 

think for themselves: the burden is borne by 
others. They get their bread without knowing 
or caring how it is paid for: they smile and 
laugh without a suspicion of the anxious 
thoughts of day and night which a parent bears 
to enable them to smile. So to speak, they are 
sleeping--and it is not a guilty sleep--while 
another watches. 
5Iy young brethren--youth is one of the pre- 
cious opportunities of life--rich in blessing if 
you choose to make it so ; but having in it the 
materials of undying remorse if you suffer it to 
pass unimproved. Your quiet Gethsemane is 
now. Do you know how you can imitate the 
apostles in their fatal sleep ? You can suffer 
your young days to pass idly and uselessly 
away ; you can live as if you had nothing to do 
but to enjoy yourselves: you can let others 
think for you, and not try to become thoughtful 
yourselves: till the business and difficulties ot 
life come upon you unprepared, and you ind 
yourselves like men waking from sleep, hurried, 
confused, scarcely able to stand, with all the 
faculties bewildered, not knowing right from 
wrong, led headlong to evil, just because you 
have not given yourselves in time to learn what 
is good. All that is sleep. 



FOURTH READER 

And now let us mark it. You cannot repair 
that in after-life. Oh! remember every period 
of human life has its own lesson, and you can- 
not learn that lesson in the next period. The 
boy has one set of lessons to learn, and the 
young man another, and the grown-up man 
another. Let us consider one single instance. 
The boy has to learn docility, gentleness of 
temper, reverence, submission. All those feel- 
ings which are to be transferred afterwards i'n 
full cultivation to God, like plants nursed in a 
hotbed and then planted out, are to be cultivated 
first in youth. Afterwards, those habits which 
have been merely habits of obedience to an 
earthly parent, are to become religious submis- 
sion to a heavenly parent. Our parents stand 
to us in the place of God. Veneration for our 
parents is intended to become afterwards adora- 
tion for something higher. Take that single 
instance; and now suppose that that is not 
learned in boyhood. Suppose that the boy 
sleeps to the duty of veneration, and learns only 
flippancy, insubordination, and the habit of 
deceiving his father,--can that, my young 
brethren, be repaired afterwards? Humanly 
speaking not. Life is like the transition from 
class to class in a school. The school-boy who 



THE IRREPARABLE PAST 399 

has not learned arithmetic in the earlier classes, 
cannot secure it when he comes to mechanics in 
the higher: each section has its own sufficient 
work. He may be a good philosopher or a good 
historian, but a bad arithmetician he remains 
for life; for he cannot lay the foundation at the 
moment when he must be building the super- 
structure. The regiment which has not per- 
fected itself in its manoeuvres on the parade 
ground, cannot learn them before the guns of 
the enemy. And just in the same way, the 
young person who has slept his youth away, 
and become idle, and selfish, and hard, can- 
not make up for that afterwards. He may 
do something, he may be religious--yes; but he 
cannot be what he might have been. There is 
a part of his heart which will remain unculti- 
vated to the end. The apostles could share their 
Master's sufferings--they could not save him. 
Youth has its irreparable past. 
And therefore, my young brethren, let it 
be impressed upon you,--lOW is a time, infinite 
in its value for eternity, which will never return 
again. Sleep not; learn that there is a very 
solemn work of heart which must be done while 
the stillness of the garden of Gethsemane gives 
you tim Now, or Never. The treasures at 



400 FOURTH READER 

your command are infinite. Treasures of time 
--treasures of youth--treasures of opportunity 
that grown-up men would sacrifice everything 
they have to possess. Oh for ten years of youth 
back again with the added experience of age l 
But it cannot be: they must be content to sleep 
on now and take their rest. 
REV. F. W. ROBERTSON : 

A CHIISTMAS HYMN, 1837 

IT was the calm and silent night :m 
Seven hundred years and fifty-three 
Had Rome been growing up to might, 
And now was Queen of land and sea! 
No sound was heard of clashing wars; 
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; 
Apollo, Pallas, Jove,and Mars 
Held undisturbed their ancient reign, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago ! 

'Twas in the calm and silent night I 
The senator of haughty Rome 
Impatient urged his chariot's flight, 
From lordly revel rolling home l 



A CHRISTMAS ]YMN 401 

Triumphal arches gleaming swell 
His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; 
What reeked the loman what befell 
A paltry province far away, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago ! 

Within that province far away 
Went plodding home a weary boor : 
A streak of light before him lay, 
Fallen through a half-shut stable door 
Across his path. He passed--for nought 
Told what was going on within ; 
]:low keen the stars ! his only thought ; 
The air, how calm and cold and thin, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago ! 

0 strange indifference !--low and high 
Drowsed over common joys and cares : 
The earth was still--but knew not why ; 
The world was listening--unawares ; 
How calm a moment may precede 
One that shall thrill the world for ever l 
To that still moment none would heed, 
Man's doom was linked no more to sever 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago I 



402 FOURTH READER 

It is the calm and solemn night ! 
A thousand bells ring out, and throw 
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite 
The darkness, charmed and holy howl 
The night that erst no name had worn, 
To it a happy name is given ; 
For in that stable lay new-born 
The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago. 
A. Dom-r 

THE QUARREL 

Enter BRUTUS and CAssius. 
CAs. That you have wrong'd me doth appear 
in this : 
You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella 
For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
Wherein my letters, praying on his side, 
Because I knew the man, were slighted off. 
BRv. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a 
case. 
CAs. In such a time as this it is not meet 
That every nice offence should bear his com- 
ment. 



THE QUARREL 403 

BRV. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemn'd to have an itching 
palm ; 
To sell and mart your offices for gold 
To undeservers. 
CAS. I an itching palm! 
You know that you are Brutus that speak 
this, 
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your 
last. 
BRu. The name of Cassius honours this cor- 
ruption, 
And chastisement doth therefore hide his 
head. 
CAS. Chastisement ! 
BRu. Remember h[arch, the ides of March 
remember : 
Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake ? 
What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, 
And not for justice ? What, shall one of us, 
That struck the foremost man of all this 
world 
But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
nd sell the mighty space of our large 
honours 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 



404 FOURTH READER 

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman. 
CAS. Brutus, bay not me; 
I'll not endure it: you forget yourself, 
To hedge me in ; I am a soldier, I, 
Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions. 
BRU. Go to ; you are not, Cassius. 
CAS. I am. 
BRU. I say you are not. 
CAS. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; 
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no 
farther. 
BraT. Away, slight man ! 
CAs. Is't possible? 
BRU. Hear me, for I will speak. 
Must I give way and room to your rash 
choler ? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 
CAS. 0 ye gods, ye gods[ must I endure all 
this ? 
BRU. All this ! ay, more : fret till your proud 
heart break ; 
Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I 
budge ? 
])lust I observe you ? must I stand and crouch 



QUARREL 405 

Under your testy humour ? By the gods, 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
Though it do split you; for, from this day 
forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
When you are waspish. 
CAs. Is it come to this ? 
BRu. You say you are a better soldier: 
Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
And it shall please me well: for mine own 
part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men. 
CAs. You wrong me every way ; you wrong 
me, Brutus ; 
I said, an elder soldier, not a better : 
Did I say "better "? 
Bu. If you did, I care not. 
CAs. When Cesar lived, he durst not thus have 
moved me. 
Bu. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have 
tempted him. 
CAs. I durst not I 
Bu. No. 
Cs. What, durst not tempt him ! 
Bu. For your life you durst not. 
CAs. Do not presume too much upon my love; 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 



406 ovR READER 

BRV. You have done that you should be 
sorry for. 
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, 
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty 
That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
Which I respect not. I did send to you 
For certain sums of gold, which you denied 
me : 
For I can raise no money by vile means : 
By heaven, I had rather coin my hea:t, 
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to 
wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile 
trash 
By any indirection : I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions, 
Which you denied me : was that done like 
Cassius ? 
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts; 
Dash him to pieces! 
CAs. I denied you not. 
BRv. You did. 
CAs. I did not : he was but a fool that brought 
My answer back. Brutus hath rived my 
heart : 



THE QUARREL 407 

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 
:BRu. I do not, till you practise them on me. 
CAs. You love me not. 
BRU. I do not like your faults. 
CAs. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 
BRU. A flatterer's would not, though they do 
appear 
As huge as high Olympus. 
CAs. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, 
come, 
Revenge yourselves a]one on Cassius, 
For Cassius is aweary of the world ; 
Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ; 
Check'd like a bondman; a]] his faults 
observ'd, 
Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote, 
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep 
My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger, 
And here my naked breast; within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold: 
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth ; 
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart : 
Strike, as thou didst at Ceesar ; for, I know, 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst 
him better 
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. 



408 FOURTH EADER 

BRu. Sheath your dagger : 
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope; 
Do what you will, dishonour shall be burnout. 
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb 
That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again. 
CAs. Hath Cassius lived 
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
When grief, and blood ill-temper'd, vexeth 
him? 
BRv. When I spoke that I was ill-temper'd too. 
CAs. Do you confess so much ? Give me your 
hand. 
BRu. And my heart too. 
C._s. 0 Brutus ! 
BRu. What's the matter ? 
CAs. Have not you love enough to bear with 
me, 
When that rash humour which my mother 
gave me, 
Makes me forgetful ? 
BRu. Yes, Cassius; and, from henceforth, 
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He'll think your mother chides, and leave 
you so. 
SHAKESPEARE  "IIIlS Cr," I''. 3 



.CESSIO 409 

RECESSIONAL 
(1897) 

GOD of our fathers, known of old, 
Lord of our far-flung battle-line, 
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold 
Dominion over palm and pine-- 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget-lest we forget  

The tumult and the shouting dies ; 
The captains and the kings depart: 
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, 
An humble and a contrite heart. 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget lest we forget! 

Far-called our navies melt away ; 
On dune and headland sinks the fire: 
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and TyreI 
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, 
Lest we forget--lest we forget  



410 FOURTH READER 

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose 
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, 
Such boasting as the Gentiles use, 
Or lesser breeds without the Law-- 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget--lest we forget ! 

For heathen heart that puts her trust 
In reeking tube and iron shaM, 
All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, 
For frantic boast and foolish word-- 
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen.