 Section 6 The Succeeding Legend has long been an established favorite with all of us, as containing much of the personal history of one of the greatest ornaments of the family tree, to the wedding between the sole heiress of this redoubted hero, and a direct ancestor it is owing that the lion-cells of Shirland hang so lovingly parallel with the saltier of the engulfed spees, and now form as cherished a quartering in their escutcheon as the dozen white louses in the old coat of shallow. Gray Dolphin. A legend of Sheppy. He won't, won't he? Then bring me my boots," said the baron. Consternation was at its height in the castle of Shirland. A cadiff had dared to disobey the baron. And the baron had called for his boots. A thunderbolt in the Great Hall had been a bagatelle to it. A few days before a notable miracle had been wrought in the neighborhood. And in those times miracles were not so common as they are now. No royal balloons, no steam, no railroads. While the few saints who took the trouble to walk with their heads under their arms, or to pull the devil by the nose, scarcely a period above wants in a century. So the affair made the greater sensation. The clock had done striking twelve, and the clerk of Chatham was untrusting his points preparatory to seeking his trucklebed. A half-emptied tankard of mild ale stood at his elbow. The roasted crab was floating on its surface. Midnight had surprised the worthy functionary while occupied in discussing it, and with his task yet unaccomplished. He meditated a mighty draft. One hand was fumbling with his tags, while the other was extended in the act of grasping the joram. When a knock on the portal, solemn and sonorous, arrested his fingers, it was repeated price ere Immanuel Saddleton had presence of mind sufficient to inquire, whose sought admittance at that untimeless hour. Open, open, good clerk of St. Bridget's, said a female voice, small yet distinct and sweet, an excellent thing in woman. The clerk arose, crossed to the doorway, and undid the latchet. On the threshold stood a lady of surpassing beauty. Her robes were rich and large and full, and a diadem. Sparkling with gems that shed a halo around, crowned her brow. She beckoned the clerk as he stood in astonishment before her. Immanuel, said the lady, and her tones sounded like those of a silver flute. Immanuel Saddleton, trust up your points and follow me. The worthy clerk stared aghast at the vision, the purple robe, the samar, the coronet, above all the smile. No, there was no mistaking her. It was the blessed St. Bridget herself, and what could have brought the sainted lady out of her warm shrine at such a time of night, and on such a night, for it was as dark as pitch, and metaphorically speaking, reigned cats and dogs. Immanuel could not speak, so he looked the question. No matter for that, said the St., answering to his thought. No matter for that, Immanuel Saddleton, only follow me and you'll see. The clerk turned a wistful eye at the corner covered. Oh, never mind the lantern, Immanuel. You'll not want it. But you may bring a mattock and a shovel. As she spoke, the beautiful apparition held up her delicate hand. From the tip of each of her long taper fingers issued a lambent flame of such surpassing brilliancy as would have plunged a whole gas company into despair. It was a hand of glory. One of the uses to which this mystic chandelier was put was the protection of secreted treasure. Blow out all the fingers at one puff and you have the money. Such a one as tradition tells us yet burns in Rochester Castle, every St. Mark's eve. Many are the daring individuals who have watched in Gundolf's Tower, hoping to find it and the treasure it guards. But none of them ever did. This way, Immanuel, and a flame of peculiar radiance streamed from her little finger as it pointed to the pathway leading to the churchyard, Saddleton shouldered his tools and followed in silence. The cemetery of St. Bridget's was some half-mile distant from the clerk's domicile and adjoined a chapel dedicated to that illustrious lady who, after leading but a so-so life, had died in the odor of sanctity. Immanuel Saddleton was fat and scant of breath, the mattock was heavy, and the saint walked too fast for him. He paused to take second wind at the end of the first furlong. Immanuel said the holy lady, good-humoredly, for she heard him puffing. Rest awhile, Immanuel, and I'll tell you what I want with you. Her auditor wiped his brow with the back of his hand and looked all attention and obedience. Immanuel continued she, What did you and Father Father Gill, and the rest of you, mean yesterday by burying that drowned man so close to me? He died in mortal sin, Immanuel. No shrift, no unction, no absolution. Why he might as well have been excommunicated. He plagues me with his grinning, and I can't have any peace in my shrine. You must help him up again, Immanuel. To be sure, madam, my lady, that is, your holiness, Stammered Saddleton, trembling at the thought of the task assigned him. To be sure, your ladyship, only, that is, Immanuel said the saint, you'll do my bidding, or it would be better you had. And her eye changed from a dove's eye to that of a hawk. And a flash came from it as bright as the one from her little finger. The clerk shook in his shoes, and again dashing the cold perspiration from his brow, followed the footsteps of his mysterious guide. The next morning all chatham was in an uproar. The clerk of St. Bridget's had found himself at home at daybreak, seated in his own armchair, the fire out, and the tankard of ale out, too. Who had drunk it? Where had he been? How had he got home? All was a mystery. He remembered a mass of things, but nothing distinctly. All was fog and fantasy. What he could clearly recollect was that he had dug up the grinning sailor, and that the saint had helped to throw him into the river again. All was thenceforth wonderment and devotion. Masses were sung. Tapers were kindled. Bells were told. The monks of St. Rommel had a solemn procession. The abbot at their head, the sacriston at their tail, and the holy breaches of St. Thomas Abeket in the centre. Father Father Gill brewed a triple-X punchin of holy water. The root of Gillingham was deserted. The chapel of Rhaenam forsaken. Every one who had a soul to be saved, flocked with his offering to St. Bridget's shrine, and Emanuel Saddleton gathered more fees from the promiscuous piety of that one week than he had pocketed during the twelve preceding months. Meanwhile the corpse of the ejected reprobate oscillated like a pendulum between sheer nests and Gillingham reach, now borne by the medway into the western swale, now carried by the refluent tide back to the vicinity of its old quarters. It seemed as though the river-god and Neptune were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous battledore, and had chosen this unfortunate carcass as a marine shuttlecock. For some time the alternation was kept up with great spirit, till Boreus, interfering in the shape of a stiffish Norwester, drifted the bone and flesh of contention, ashore on the Shirland domain, where it lay in all the majesty of mud. It was soon discovered by the retainers and dragged from its oozy bed, grinning worse than ever. Tidings of the godsend were, of course, carried instantly to the castle, for the Baron was a very great man. And if a Dun Cow had flown across his property unannounced by the water, the Baron would have kicked him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch, a descent of peril, and one which Ludwig the Leaper, or the illustrious Trank himself, might well have shrunk from encountering. And please your lordship, said Peter Periwinkle. No, villain, it does not please me, roared the Baron. His lordship was deeply engaged with a peck of feversome oysters. He doted on shellfish, hated interruption at meals, and had not yet dispatched more than twenty dozen of the natives. Here's a body, my lord. Washed ashore in the lower creek, said the Seneschal. The Baron was going to throw the shells at his head, but paused in the act and said with much dignity, turn out the fellow's pockets. But the defunct had before been subjected to the double scrutiny of Father Fathergill and the Cork of St. Bridges. It was ill-gleaning after such hands. There was not a single Maravedi. We have already said that Sir Robert Descherlund, Lord of the Isle of Sheppey, and of many a fair manner on the mainland, was a man of worship. He had rites of free warren, sackage and sockage, queasage and jambage, fos and fork, infang-thief and outfang-thief, and all waifs and strays belonged to him in fee-simple. Turn out his pockets, said the knight. And please you, my lord, I must say as how they was turned out of horror. And the devil a-raps left. Then bury the blaggard. Please, your lordship, he has been buried once. Then bury him again and be—the Baron bestowed a benediction. The Seneschal bowed low as he left the room, and the Baron went on with his oysters. Scarcely ten dozen more had vanished when Periwinkle reappeared. And please you, my lord, Father Father Gill says as how that it's the grinning sailor. And he won't bury him anyhow. Oh, he won't, won't he? said the Baron. Can it be wondered at that he called for his boots? Sir Robert Descherlund, Lord of Sherlund and Minister Baron of Sheppey, in Kometatou Kent, was, as has been before hinted, a very great man. He was also a very little man. That is, he was relatively great and relatively little, or physically little, and metaphorically great, like Sir Sidney Smith and the late Mr. Bonaparte. To the frame of a dwarf he united the soul of a giant and the valor of a gamecock. Then, for so small a man, his strength was prodigious. His fist would fell an ox and his kick. Oh, his kick was tremendous. And when he had his boots on, would, to use an expression of his own, which he had picked up in the Holy Wars, would send a man from Jericho to June. He was bull-necked and bandy-legged. His chest was broad and deep, his head large and uncommonly thick, his eyes a little bloodshot, and his nose retrocey with a remarkably red tip. Strictly speaking, the Baron could not be called handsome, but his tuton saum was singularly impressive, and when he called for his boots, everybody trembled and dreaded the worst. Periwinkle said the Baron as he encased his better leg. Let the grave be twenty feet deep. Your Lordship's command is law. And, Periwinkle, Sir Robert stamped his left heel into its receptacle, and, Periwinkle, see that it be wide enough to hold not exceeding two. Yes, my Lord. And, Periwinkle, tell Father Father Gill I would feign speak with his reverence. Yet, yes, my Lord, the Baron's beard was peaked, and his moustaches, stiff and stumpy, projected horizontally like those of a tomcat. He twirled the one. He stroked the other. He drew the buckle of his sursingle a-thought tighter, and strode down the great staircase three steps at a stride. The vassals were assembled in the great hall of Sherland Castle. Every cheek was pale, every tongue was mute. Expectation and perplexity were visible on every brow. What would his Lordship do? Were the recusant anybody else? Gives to the heels and hemp to the throat were but too good for him. But it was Father Father Gill who had said, I won't. And though the Baron was a very great man, the Pope was a greater, and the Pope was Father Gill's great friend. Some people said he was his uncle. Father Father Gill was busy in the refectory, trying conclusions with a venison pasty, when he received the summons of his patron to attend him in the chapel cemetery. Of course he lost no time in obeying it, for obedience was the general rule in Sherland Castle. If anybody ever said I won't, it was the exception. And like all other exceptions, only proved the rule the stronger. The Father was a friar of the Augustan persuasion, a brotherhood which, having been planted in Kent some few centuries earlier, had taken very kindly to the soil, and overspread the county much as Hopps did some few centuries later. He was plump and portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five feet four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was, moreover, a personage of singular piety, and the iron girdle which he said he wore under his cassock to mortify with all. Might have been well mistaken for the tire of a cartwheel. When he arrived, Sir Robert was pacing up and down by the side of a newly opened grave. Benedecity, fair son, the Baron was brown as a cigar. Benedecity, said the chaplain, the Baron was too angry to stand upon compliment. Bury me that grinning catap there, cofee, pointing to the defunct. It may not be, fair son, said the friar. He hath perished without absolution. Bury the body, roared Sir Robert. Water and earth alike reject him returned the chaplain. Holy St. Bridget herself! Bridget me no Bridgets! Do me thine office quickly, Sir Shavling, or buy the Piper that played before Moses. The oath was a fearful one. But whenever the Baron swore to do mischief, he was never known to perjure himself. He was playing with the hilt of his sword. Do me thine office, I say. Give him his passport to heaven. He has already gone to hell, stammered the friar. Then do you go after him, thundered the Lord of Shirland? His sword half leaped from its scabbard. No, the trenchant blade that had cut Suleiman Ben Malik Ben Buxkin from helmet to chine, disdained to dob itself with the cerebellum of a miserable monk. It leaped back again, and as the chaplain, scared at its splash, turned him in terror, the Baron gave him a kick. One kick. It was but one. But such a one. Despite its obesity, up flew his holy body at an angle of forty-five degrees. Then having reached its highest point of elevation, sunk headlong into the open grave of that yawn to receive it. If the Reverend Gentleman had possessed such a thing as a neck, he had infallibly broken it. As he did not, he only dislocated his vertebrae. But that did quite as well. He was as dead as ditch-water. In with the other rascal, said the Baron, and he was obeyed. For there he stood in his boots. Matik and Shovel made short work of it. Twenty feet of super-incumbent mold pressed down alike the saint in the sinner. Now sing a requiem who lists, said the Baron, and his lordship went back to his oysters. The vassals at Castle Shirland were astounded, or, as the Seneschal Hugh better expressed it, perfectly conglomerated by this event. What! Murder a monk in the odor of sanctity? And on consecrated ground, too? They trembled for the health of the Baron's soul. To the unsophisticated many, it seemed that matters could not have been much worse, had he shot a bishop's coach-horse. All looked for some signal judgment. A melancholy catastrophe of their neighbors at Canterbury was yet rife in their memories. Not two centuries had elapsed since those miserable sinners had cut off the tale of the blessed Saint Thomas Mule. The tale of the Mule, it was well known, had been forthwith affixed to that of the mayor, and rumors said it had since been hereditary in the corporation. The least that could be expected was that Sir Robert should have a friar tacked on to his, for the term of his natural life. Some bolder spirits there were at his true, who viewed the matter in various lights, according to their different temperaments and dispositions. For perfect unanimity existed not even in the good old times. The murderer, roistering hob-robuck, swore roundly, tore as good a deed as eat, to kick down the chapel as well as a monk. Hob had stood there in a white sheet for kissing Giles Miller's daughter. On the other hand Simp can agnew the bell-ringer, doubted at the devil's cellar, which runs under the bottomless abyss, were quite deep enough for the delinquent, and speculated on the probability of a hole being dug in it for his special accommodation. The philosophers and economists thought, with Saunders MacBulloch, the Baron's bagpiper, that a feckless monk, more or less, was nay great subject for a clam jam-free, especially as the supply considerably exceeded the demand. While Malthouse the tapster was arguing to Dame Martin that a murder now and then was a seasonable check to population, without which the Isle of Sheppey would in time be devoured like a moldy cheese by inhabitants of its own producing, meanwhile the Baron ate his oysters and thought no more of the matter. But this tranquility of his lordship was not to last. A couple of saints had been seriously offended, and we have all of us read at school that celestial minds are by no means insensible to the provocations of anger. There were those who expected that St. Bridget would come in person and have the friar up again, as she did the sailor. But perhaps her ladyship did not care to trust herself within the walls of Shirland Castle. To say the truth it was scarcely a decent house or a female saint to be seen in. The Baron's gallantries, since he became a widower, had been but too notorious, and her own reputation was a little blown upon in the earlier days of her earthly pilgrimage. Then things were so apt to be misrepresented. In short, she would leave the whole affair to St. Austen, who being a gentleman, could interfere with propriety, avenge her affront as well as his own, and leave no loophole for scandal. St. Austen himself seems to have had his screw-poles. Though of their precise nature it would be difficult to determine, for it were idle to suppose him at all afraid of the Baron's boots. Be this as it may, the mode which he adopted was at once prudent and efficacious. As an ecclesiastic he could not well call the Baron out, had his boots been out of the question. So he resolved to have recourse to the law. Instead of Shirland Castle, therefore, he repaired forthwith to his own magnificent monastery, situate just without the walls of Canterbury, and presented himself in a vision to its abbot. No one who has ever visited that ancient city can fail to recollect the splendid gateway which terminates the vista of St. Paul's Street, and stands there yet in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train of miniature artillery which now adorns its battlements is, it is true, an ornament of a later date, and is said to have been added some centuries after, by a learned but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of shooting any wiser man than himself, who might chance to come that way. Tradition is silent, as to any discharge having taken place, nor can the oldest inhabitant of modern days recollect any such occurrence. Footnote Since the appearance of the first edition of this legend, the guns have been dismounted. Rumor hints at some alarm on the part of the town council. Footnote Here it was, in a handsome chamber, immediately over the lofty archway, that the superior of the monastery lay buried in a brief slumber snatched from his accustomed vigils. His miter, for he was a mitered abbot, and had a seat in parliament, rested on a table beside him. Near it stood a silver flag and a gaskony wine, ready, no doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching had made him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could have been better, for the purpose of the saint, who now appeared to him radiant in all the colors of the rainbow. Anselm Said the beatific vision. Anselm, are you not a pretty fellow to lie snoring there when your brethren are being knocked at head, and Mother Church herself is menaced? It is a sin and a shame, Anselm. What's the matter? Who are you? cried the abbot, rubbing his eyes. Which the celestial splendor of his visitor had set awinking. Ave Maria! St. Austin himself. Speak, Beatissime, what would you with the humblest of your votaries? Anselm, said the saint. A brother of our order, whose soul heaven assoyly hath been foully murdered. He hath been ignominiously kicked to the death, Anselm. And there he lieth cheek by jowl, with a wretched carcass. Which our sister Bridget has turned out of her cemetery for unseemly grinning. Arouse the Anselm. I so please you, St. Tissime, said the abbot. I will order forthwith that thirty masses be said, thirty potters and thirty avais. Thirty fools heads interrupted his patron, who was a little peppery. I will send for bell, book and candle, send for an inkhorn, Anselm. Write me now a letter to his holiness the pope in good round terms, send another to the coroner, and another to the sheriff. And seize me, the never enough to be anathematized villain who hath done this deed. Hang him as high as Heyman, Anselm. Up with him. Down with his dwelling place, root and branch, hearth stone and roof tree. Down with it all. And sow the sight with salt and sawdust. St. Austin, it will be perceived, was a radical reformer. Mary will I, quote the abbot, warming with the saint's eloquence. I, Mary will I. And that, in stanter. But there is one thing you have forgotten most be attified. The name of the culprit. Robert Descherlund. The Lord of Sheppey. Bless me, said the abbot, crossing himself. Won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Robert is a bold baron, and a powerful. Blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked. And what is that to you? Since yours will not be of the number. Very true, be attissime. I will don me with speed, and do your bidding. Do so, Anselm. Fail not to hang the baron, burn his castle, confiscate his estate, and buy me two large wax candles for my own particular shrine out of your share of the property. With this solemn injunction the vision began to fade. One more thing, cried the abbot, grasping his rosary. What is that? asked the saint. O beate Augustina, aura pro nobis. Of course I shall, said St. Austin. Pax for Beescombe. And abbot Anselm was left alone. End of Section 6 Section 7 of the Ingaldsby Legends, first series. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Ingaldsby Legends, first series by Richard Harris Barum. Section 7. Within an hour all counterbury was in commotion. A friar had been murdered. Two friars. Ten. Twenty. A whole convent had been assaulted, sacked, burnt. All the monks had been killed, and all the nuns had been kissed. Murder, fire, sacrilege. Never was city in such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from the Don John to the borough of Staplegate, all was noise and hubbub. Where was it? When was it? How was it? The mayor caught up his chain. The aldermen donned their furred gowns. The town clerk put on his spectacles. Who was he? What was he? Where was he? He should be hanged. He should be burned. He should be broiled. He should be fried. He should be scraped to death with red hot oyster shells. Who was he? What was his name? The abbot's apparatore drew forth his roll and read aloud. Sir Robert de Shirland. Knight Bannerette. Baron of Shirland and Minster and Lord of Sheppy. The mayor put his chain in his pocket. The aldermen took off their gowns. The town clerk put his pen behind his ear. It was a county business altogether. The sheriff had better call out the posse comatatus. While saints and sinners were thus leaking against him, the Baron de Shirland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin, nor was his appetite more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather longer over his meal than usual. Lunch in time came, and he was ready as ever for his oysters. But scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first half-dozen. When the warder's horn was heard from the Barbican, who the devil's that, said Sir Robert, I'm not at home, Perry Winkle. I hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be home to anybody. And please your lordship answered the seneschal. Paul Pryor hath given notice that there is a body. Another body roared the Baron. Am I to be everlastingly plagued with bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel? Throw it into the moat. So please you, my lord. It is a body of horse, and-and Paul says there is a still larger body of foot behind it. And he thinks, my lord. That is, he does not know, but he thinks, and we all think, my lord, that they are coming to-to besiege the castle. Besiege the castle? Who? What? What for? Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the bleeding heart of Hamo de Crebacore, the abbot's chief vassal, and there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red cross engrailed, and Haver, and Laborn, and heaven knows how many more, and they are all coming on as fast as ever they can. Periwinkle, said the Baron, up with the drawbridge, down with the portcullis. Bring me a cup of canary and my nightcap. I won't be bothered with them. I shall go to bed. To bed, my lord, cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say, he's crazy. At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice from the champagne. It was the signal for Parley. The Baron changed his mind. Instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts. Well, rapscallions, and what now, said the Baron. A herald, two Persevents, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of the scene. Behind them some three hundred paces off, upon a rising ground, was drawn up in battle-array, the main body of the ecclesiastical forces. Here you, Robert of Shirland, knight, Baron of Shirland and minster, and lord of Sheppy, and know all men by these presence that I do hereby attach you, the said Robert, of murder and sacrilege, now or of late, done and committed by you, the said Robert, contrary to the peace of our sovereign lord, the king, his crown and dignity, and I do hereby require and charge you, the said Robert, to forthwith surrender and give up your own proper person, together with the castle of Shirland, aforesaid. In order that the same may be duly dealt with according to law. And here standeth John de Northwood, Esquire, good man and true, sheriff of this his majesty's most loyal county of Kent, to enforce the same, if need be, with his posicumatatus. His what? said the Baron. His posicumatatus and Go to Bath, said the Baron. A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders. A volley of missiles rattled against the Baron's ears. Nightcaps avail little against contusions. He left the walls and returned to the great hall. Let them pelt away, quote the Baron. There are no windows to break, and they can't get in. So he took his afternoon nap, and the siege went on. Towards evening his lordship awoke and grew tired of the din. Guy Pearson too had got a black eye from a brick-bat, and the assailants were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday hobbock of Milan steel and his great two-handed sword with the terrible name. It was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords. King Arthur's was christened Excalibur. The Baron called his tickle-toby, and whenever he took it in hand it was no joke. Up with the Port Cullis, down with the bridge, said Sir Robert, and out he sallied, followed by the elite of his retainers. Then there was a pretty to-do. Heads flew one way, arms and legs another. Round went tickle-toby. And wherever it alighted, down came horse and man. The Baron excelled himself that day. All that he had done in Palestine faded in the comparison. He had fought for fun there. But now it was for life and lands. Away went John to Northwood. Away went William of Haver. And Roger of Laborn. Hamo de Crepecor, with the church vassals and the banner of St. Austen, had been gone some time. The siege was raised and the Lord of Sheppey was left alone in his glory. But brave as the Baron undoubtedly was, and total as had been the defeat of his enemies, it cannot be supposed that lost Akata would be allowed to carry it away thus. It has before been hinted that Abbot Anselm had written to the Pope, and Boniface the Eighth peaked himself on his punctuality as a correspondent in all matters connected with church discipline. He sent back an answer by return of post, and by it all Christian people were strictly enjoined to aid in exterminating the offender, on pain of the greater excommunication in this world, and a million of years of purgatory in the next. But then again, Boniface the Eighth was rather at a discount in England just then. He had affronted Longshanks as the loyal leges had nicknamed their monarch, and Longshanks had been rather sharp upon the clergy in consequence. If the Baron to Shirland could but get the king's pardon for what in his cooler moments he admitted to be a peccadillo, he might sniff at the Pope and bid him do his devilmost. Then who, as the poet says, delights to favour the bold, stood his friend on this occasion. Edward had been for some time collecting a large force on the coast of Kent to carry on his French wars for the recovery of Guyenne. He was expected shortly to review it in person, but then the troops lay principally in cantonments about the mouth of the Thames. And his majesty was to come down by water. What was to be done? The royal barge was in sight, and John de Northwood and Hamo de Crepekor had broken up all the boats to boil their camp-kettles. A truly great mind is never without resources. Bring me my boots, said the Baron. They brought him his boots and his dapple-gray steed along with them. Such a coarser, all blood and bone, short-backed, broad-chested, and—but that he was a little eunecked, faultless in form and figure. The Baron sprang upon his back and dashed at once into the river. The barge which carried Edward Longshanks and his fortunes had by this time nearly reached the gnor. The stream was broad and the current strong, but Sir Robert and his steed were almost as broad, and a great deal stronger. After breasting the tide gallantly for a couple of miles, the knight was near enough to hail the steersmen. What have we got here? said the king. It's a mermaid, said one. It's a grandpa, said another. It's the devil, said a third. But they were all wrong. It was only Robert de Shirland. Grammercy, said the king, that fellow was never born to be drowned. It has been said before that the Baron had fought in the Holy Wars. In fact he had accompanied Longshanks when only heir apparent in his expedition twenty-five years before, although his name is unaccountably omitted by Sir Harris Nicholas in his list of crusaders. He had been present at a craw when Amorand of Joppa stabbed the prince with a poisoned dagger, and had lent Princess Eleanor his own toothbrush after she had sucked out the venom from the wound. He had slain certain Saracens, contented himself with his own plunder, and never done to the commissariat for arrears of pay. Of course he ranked high in Edward's good graces, and had received the honor of knighthood at his hands on the field of battle. In one so circumstance it cannot be supposed that such a trifle as the killing of a frowsy friar would be much resented. Even had he not taken so bold a measure to obtain his pardon, his petition was granted, of course, as soon as asked. And so it would have been had the indictment drawn up by the Canterbury town clerk, Viz, that he, the said Robert Desherland, etc., had then and there, with several, to wit, one thousand pairs of boots given sundry, to wit, two thousand kicks, and therewith and thereby killed diverse, to wit, ten thousand Austin friars, been true to the letter. Thrice did the gallant gray circumnavigate the barge, while Robert de Winchelsey, the chancellor and archbishop to boot, was making out, albeit with great reluctance, the royal pardon. The interval was sufficiently long to enable his majesty, who gracious as he was had always an eye to business, just to hint that the gratitude he felt towards the barren was not unmixed with a lively sense of services to come, and that, if life were now spared him, common decency must oblige him to make himself useful. Before the archbishop who had scalded his fingers with a wax in affixing the great seal, had time to take them out of his mouth, all was settled, and the barren de Sherland had pledged himself to be forthwith in readiness, comme suis, to accompany his liege lord to Guyenne. With the royal pardon secured in his vest, boldly did his lordship turn again to the shore, and as boldly did his coarser oppose his breadth of chest to the stream. It was a work of no common difficulty or danger. A steed of less metal and bone had long since sunk in the effort, as it was the barren's boots were full of water, and great dolphins shamfrong more than once dipped beneath the wave. The convulsive snorts of the noble animal showed his distress. Each instant they became more loud and frequent, when his hoof touched the strand, and the horse and his rider stood once again in safety on the shore. Rapidly dismounting the barren was loosening the girths of his demi-peak to give the panting animal breath, when he was aware of as ugly an old woman as he had ever clapped eyes upon, peeping at him under the horse's belly. Make much of your steed, Robert Shirland. Make much of your steed, cried the hag, shaking at him her long and bony finger, groomed to the hide and corned to the manger. He has saved your life, Robert Shirland, for the nonce. But he shall yet be the means of your losing it, for all that. The barren started. What's that you say, you old faggot? He ran round by his horse's tail. The woman was gone. The barren paused. His great soul was not to be shaken by trifles. He looked around him and solemnly ejaculated the word humbug. Then slinging the bridle across his arm, walked slowly on in the direction of the castle. The appearance and still more the disappearance of the crone had, however, made an impression. Every step he took he became more thoughtful. It would be deused provoking, though, if he should break my neck after all. He turned and gazed at Dolphin, with the scrutinizing eye of a veterinary surgeon. I'll be shot if he is not groggy, said the barren. With his lordship, like another great commander, wants to be in doubt, was wants to be resolved. It would never do to go to the wars on a rickety pride. He dropped the rain, drew forth tickle-toby. And, as the enfranchised Dolphin, good easy horse, stretched out his you-neck to the herbage, struck off his head at a single blow. There you lying old Beldom, said the barren. Now take him away to the knackers. Three years were come and gone. King Edward's French wars were over. Both parties, having fought till they came to a standstill, shook hands and the quarrel, as usual, was patched up by a royal marriage. This happy event gave his majesty leisure to turn his attention to Scotland, where things, through the intervention of William Wallace, were looking rather queerish. As his reconciliation with Philip, now allowed of his biting the scotch in peace and quietness, the monarch lost no time in marching his long legs across the border. And the short ones of the barren followed him, of course. At Fallkirk, tickle-toby was in great request. And in the year following, we find a contemporary poet hinting at his master's prowess under the walls of Calaveroc. Avec ou fou acheminé le bon Robert de Shoreland, qui conne ses rois sur le cheval, n'a semblé homme que sommé, a quatrain which Mr. Simpkinson translates. With them was marching the good Robert de Shoreland, who when seated on horseback, does not resemble a man asleep. So thoroughly awake indeed does he seem to have proved himself, that the bard subsequently exclaims in an ecstasy of admiration, si je es toi un poulsolet, je l'ai d'enri que et corps tant est de lui bon l'y record. If I were a young maiden, I would give my heart in person. So great is his fame! Fortunately the poet was a tough old monk of Exeter, since such a present to a nobleman. Now in his grand climacteric would hardly have been worth the carriage. With the reduction of this stronghold of the Maxwells seemed to have concluded the barren's military services. As on the very first day of the fourteenth century we find him once more landed on his native shore and marching with such of his retainers as the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shoreland Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant from High Watermark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly old woman in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large stone in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees and her chin upon her thumbs. The barren started. The remembrance of his interview with a similar personage, in the same place some three years since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot, but the form was gone. Nothing remained but the seat it had appeared to occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the whitened skull of a dead horse. A tender remembrance of the deceased Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the barren's bosom. He drew the back of his hand across his face. The thought of the hag's prediction in an instant rose and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable kick of half its wanted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One word alone issued from his lips. Elucidatory of what was passing in his mind, it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful followers. That word was gammon. The skull bounded across the beach till it reached the very margin of the stream. One instant more, and it would be engulfed for ever. At that moment, a loud ha-ha-ha was distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and toothless jaws. It sank beneath the flood in a horse-laugh. Meanwhile, Sir Robert Descherlund felt an odd sort of sensation in his right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been taken for their preservation. They had been sold and healed more than once. Had they been galoshed, their owner might have defied fate. Well has it been said that there is no such thing as a trifle. A nobleman's life depended upon a question of nine pence. The baron marched on. The uneasiness in his foot increased. He plucked off his boot. A horse's tooth was sticking in his great toe. The result may be anticipated. Lame as he was, his lordship with a characteristic decision would hobble on to Sirlund. His walk increased the inflammation. A flagon of aqua-vitey did not mend matters. He was in a high fever. He took to his bed. Next morning the toe presented the appearance of a Bedfordshire carrot. By dinnertime it had deepened to beet-root. And when bargrave the leech, at last sliced it off, the gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it high time to send for Miss Margaret. Whoever since her mother's death had been living with her maternal aunt, the Abbas, in the Ursuline convent at Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master Ingelspie, her cousin German, by the mother's side. But the barren was too far gone in the dead-thraw to recognize either. He died as he lived, unconquered and unconquerable. His last words were, Tell the old hag, she may go to— Wither remains a secret. He expired without fully articulating the place of her destination. But who and what was the crone who prophesied the catastrophe? Aye, that is the mystery of this wonderful history. Some say it was Dame Father Gill, the late confessor's mama, others St. Bridget herself, others thought it was nobody at all, but only a phantom conjured up by conscience. As we do not know, we decline giving an opinion. And what became of the clerk of Chatham? Mr. Simpkinson averse that he lived to a good old age, and was at last hanged by Jack Cade, with his inkhorn about his neck, for setting boys' copies. In support of this he adduces his name, Emmanuel, and refers to the historian Shakespeare. Mr. Peters, on the contrary, considers this to be what he calls one of Mr. Simpkinson's anachronisms, inasmuch as, at the introduction of Mr. Cade's reform measure, the clerk, if alive, would have been hard upon two hundred years old. The probability is that the unfortunate alluded to was his great-grandson. Margaret Shirland in due course became Margaret Ingaldsby. Her portrait still hangs in the gallery at Tappington. The features are handsome, but shrewish. Betraying, as it were, a touch of the old Baron's temperament. But we never could learn that she actually kicked her husband. She brought him a very pretty fortune in chains, ouches, and saracen earrings. The barony, being a male thief, reverted to the crown. In the Abbey Church at Minster may yet be seen the tomb of a recumbent warrior, clad in the chain mail of the thirteenth century. Footnote. Subsequent to the first appearance of the foregoing narrative, the tomb alluded to has been opened during the course of certain repairs which the Church has undergone. Mr. Simpkinson, who was present at the exclamation of the body within, and has enriched his collection with three of its grinders, says the bones of one of the great toes were wanting. He speaks in terms of great admiration at the thickness of the skull, and is of opinion that the skeleton is that of a great patriot much addicted to londy-foot. And footnote. His hands are clasped in prayer. His legs crossed in that position so prized by Templars in ancient and tailors in modern days to speak him a soldier of the faith in Palestine. Close behind his dexter calf lies sculptured in bold relief, a horse's head, and a respectable elderly lady, as she shows the monument, fails not to read her auditors a fine moral lesson on the sin of ingratitude, or to claim a sympathizing tear to the memory of poor gray dolphin. END OF SECTION VIII It is on my own personal reminiscences that I draw for the following story. The scene of its leading event was most familiar to me in early life. If the principal actor in it be yet living, he must have reached a very advanced age. He was often at the hall, in my infancy, on professional visits. It is, however, only from those who praided of his whereabouts that I learned the history of his adventure with the ghost. There stands a city neither large nor small, its air and situation sweet and pretty. It matters very little, if at all, whether its denizens are dull or witty. Whether the ladies there are short or tall, brunettes or blondes only, there stands a city. Perhaps tis also requisite to minute that there's a castle and a cobbler in it. A fair cathedral, too, the story goes, and kings and heroes lie entombed within her. There pious saints in marble pomp repose, whose shrines are worn by knees of many a sinner. There, too, full many an aldermanic nose, rolled its loud diapason after dinner, and there stood high the holy sconce of Becket, till four assassins came from France to crack it. The castle was a huge and antique mound, proof against all the artillery of the quiver, ere those abominable guns were found. To send cold lead through gallant warriors' liver, it stands upon a gently rising ground, sloping down gradually to the river, resembling to compare great things with smaller, a well-scooped moly stilt in cheese, but taller. The keep-eye finds been sadly altered lately, and stead of male-clad knights of honor jealous, in martial panoply so grand and stately. Its walls are filled with money-making fellows, and stuffed unless I misinform it greatly, with leaden pipes and coke and coals and bellows. In short, so many a change has come to pass. It is now a manufactory of gas. But to my tale, before this profanation, and ere its ancient glories were cut short all, a poor hard-working cobbler took his station, in a small house just opposite the portal. His birth, his parentage, and education, I know but little of, a strange, odd mortal. His aspect ere and gate were all ridiculous. His name was Mason, he'd been christened Nicholas. Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm, and of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion. But spite of all her piety, her arm, she'd sometimes exercise when in a passion, and being of a temper somewhat warm, would now and then seize upon small occasion, a stick or stool or anything that round it lay, and baste her lord and master most confoundedly. No matter, tis a thing that's not uncommon, tis what we all have heard and most have read of. I mean a bruising, pugilistic woman, such as I own I entertain a dread of. And so did Nick, whom sometimes there would come on. The sort of fear his spouse might knock his head off, demolish half his teeth or drive a rib in. She shone so much in facers and in fibbin. There's time and place for all things, said a sage. King Solomon, I think, and this I can say. Within a well-roped ring or on a stage, boxing may be a very pretty fancy, when Messers Burke or Bendigo engage. Tis not so well in Susan Jane or Nancy. To get well milled by any one's an evil. But by a lady, tis the very devil. And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble. At least his worst was that his ribs propensity. For sometimes from the alehouse he would hobble. His sense is lost in a sublime immensity. Of cogitation then he couldn't cobble. And then his wife would often try the density. Of his poor skull and strike with all her might. As fast as kitchen wenches strike a light. Mason meek soul who ever hated strife. Of this same striking had a morbid dread. He hated it like poison or his wife. A vast antipathy, but so he said. And very often for a quiet life. On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed, grope darkling in and soon as at the door. He heard his lady he'd pretend to snore. One night then ever partial to society. Nick with a friend, another jovial fellow, went to a club I should have said society. At the city arms once called the Porta Bello. A spouting party which though some decry at eye. Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow. There they discussed the tax on salt and leather. And change of ministers. And change of weather. In short it was a kind of British forum. Like John Gale-Jones, erst in Piccadilly. Only they managed things with more decorum. And the orations were not quite so silly. Far different questions, too, would come before them. Not always politics which willy-nilly. Their London prototypes were always willing. To give one quantum suf of for a shilling. It more resembled one of later date. And tenfold talent, as I'm told in Bow Street, were kindlier-natured souls do congregate. And though there are who deem that same a low street, yet I'm assured for frolicsome debate, and genuine humor it surpassed by no street, when the chief baron enters and assumes. To rule or mimic vestiges and brooms. Here they would oft forget their ruler's faults. And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper. Enquire if Orpheus first produced the waltz. How gaslights differ from the Delphic vapor. Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's salts. And what the Romans wrote on Aired paper. This night the subject of their disquisitions was ghosts, hobgoblins, sprites, and apparitions. One learned gentleman, a sage-grave man, talked of the ghost in Hamlet sheathed in steel. His well-read friend, who next to speak began, said that was poetry and nothing real. A third of more extensive learning ran. To Sir George Villiers' ghost and Mrs. Veal. Of sheeted spectres spoke with shortened breath. And thrice he quoted Drellancourt on death. Nick smoked and smoked and trembled as he heard. The point discussed and all they said upon it. How frequently some murdered man appeared. To tell his wife and children, who had done it. Or how a miser's ghost with grizzly beard, and pale lean visage in an old scotch bonnet, wandered about to watch his varied money. When all at once Nick heard the clock strike won he, sprang from his seat not doubting but a lecture, impended from his fond and faithful she. Nor could he well to pardon him expector, for he had promised to be home to tea. But having luckily the key of the back door, he fondly hoped that unperceived he might creep upstairs again, pretend to doze, and hoax his spouse with music from his nose. Vain fruitless hope, the wearied sentinel, at eve may overlook the crouching foe, till air his hand can sound the alarm bell. He sinks beneath the unexpected blow. Before the whiskers of Grimulkin fell, when slumbering on her post the mouse may go. But woman, wakeful woman's never weary, above all when she waits to thump her dearie. Soon Mrs. Mason heard the well-known tread. She heard the key slow creaking in the door, spied through the gloom obscure towards the bed. Nick creeping soft as oft he had crept before. When bang she threw a something at his head, and Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor, while she exclaimed with her indignant face on, how dare you use your wife so, Mr. Mason. Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated, especially the length of her oration. Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated, roused by the bump into a good-set passion, so great that more than once he executed, ere he crawled into bed in his usual fashion. The muses hate brawls suffice it then to say. He ducked below the clothes, and there he lay. Twas now the very witching time of night, when churchyards groan and graves give up their dead, and many a mischievous enfranchised sprite had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead, and hurried off with schoolboy-like delight, to play his pranks near some poor wretches' bed, sleeping perhaps serenely as a porpoise, nor dreaming of this fiendish habeas corpus. Not so are Nicola's his meditations. Still to the same tremendous theme recurred, the same dread subject of the dark narrations, which back with such authority he'd heard, lost in his own horrific contemplations, he pondered or each well-remembered word. When at the beds put close beside the post, he verily believed he saw a ghost. Plain and more plain the unsubstantial sprite, to his astonished gaze each moment grew. Gastly and gaunt it reared its shadowy height, of more than mortal seeming to the view, and round its long thin bony fingers drew, a tattered winding sheet, of course all white, the moon that moment peeping through a cloud. Nic very plainly saw it through the shroud. And now those matted locks which never yet had yielded to the combs unkind divorce, their long contracted amity forget, and spring asunder with elastic force, may ene the very cap of texture course, whose ruby-sincture crowned that brow of jet, up rose an agony, the gorgon's head, was but a type of Nic's up squatting in the bed, from every pore distilled a clammy dew, quaked every limb the candle too no doubt. Enregla would have burnt extremely blue, but Nic unluckily had put it out, and he though naturally bold and stout, in short was in a most tremendous stew. The room was filled with a sulfurious smell, and where that came from Mason could not tell. All motionless the specter stood, and now its reverent form, more clearly Sean confessed, from the pale cheek a beard of purest snow, descended o'er its venerable breast, the thin gray hairs that crowned its furrowed brow. Told of years long gone by, an awful guest, it stood and with an action of command, beckoned the cobbler with its one right hand. Went sent what art thou execrable shape. Nic might have cried could he have found a tongue, but his distended jaws could only gape, and not a sound upon the welkin rung. His gooseberry orb seemed as they would have sprung, forth from their sockets like a frightened ape. He sat upon his haunches bolt upright, and shook and grinned and chattered with a fright, and still the shadowy finger long and lean. Now Beck and Nic now pointed to the door, and many an ireful glance and frown between. The angry visage and the phantom war, as if quite vexed that Nic would do no more, than stare without Ene asking, what do you mean? Because, as we are told, a sad old joke too, ghosts like the ladies never speak till spoke to, cowards tis said, in certain situations, derive a sort of courage from despair, and then perform from downright desperation, much more than many a bolder man would dare. Nic saw the ghost was getting in a passion, and therefore groping till he found the chair. Seized on his all crept softly out of bed, and followed quaking where the specter led, and down the winding stair with noiseless tread. The tenant of the tomb passed slowly on. Each mazy turning of the humble shed seemed to his step at once familiar-grown. So safe and sure the labyrinth did he tread, as though the domicile had been his own, though Nic himself in passing through the shop had almost broke his nose against the mop. Despite its wooden bolt, with jarring sound, the door upon its hinges open flew, and forth the spirit issued yet around. It turned as if its follower's fears it knew, and once more beckoning pointed to the mound. The antique keep on which the bright moon threw, with such effulgence her mild silvery gleam, the visionary form seemed melting in her beam. Beneath the ponderous archway's somber shade, where once the huge portcullis swung sublime, mid-ivy battlements in ruin laid, soul-sad memorials of the olden time. The phantom held its way, and though afraid, even of the owls that sung their vesper chime, pale Nicholas pursued its steps attending, and wondering what on earth it all would end in. Within the mouldering fabrics deep recess, at length they reached a court of skewer and loan. It seemed a drear and desolate wilderness, the blackened walls with ivy all or grown. The night-bird shrieked her note of wild distress, disturbed upon her solitary throne, as though indignant mortal steps should dare. So led at such an hour to venture there, the apparition paused and would have spoke, pointing to what Nick thought an iron ring, but when a neighbouring shanta clear awoke, and loudly gand his early matins sing, and then it started like a guilty thing, as that shrill clarion, the silence broke. We know how much dead gentle-folks eschew the appalling sound of cock-a-doodle-doo. The vision was no more, and Nick alone, his streamers waving in the midnight wind, which through the ruins cease it not to groan. His garment, too, was somewhat short behind. And worst of all he knew not where to find. The ring which made him most his fate bemoan. The iron ring, no doubt of some trapped door, neath which the old dead miser kept his door. What's to be done, he cried, twervained to stay, here in the dark without a single clue. Oh, for a candle now, or moonlight ray! For George I'm vastly puzzled what to do. Then clapped his hand behind, to his chilly, too. I'll mark the spot, and come again by day. What can I mark it by? Oh, here's the wall! The mortars yielding, here I'll stick my all. Then rose from earth to sky a withering shriek, a loud, along-protracted note of woe, such as when tempests roar and timbers creak, and o'er the side the masts in thunder go, while on the deck resistless billows break, and drag their victims to the gulfs below. Such was the scream when, for the want of candle, Nick Mason drove his all in up to the handle. Scared by his lady's heart-appealing cry, vanished at once poor Mason's golden dream. For dream it was, and all his visions high, of wealth and grandeur fled before that scream, and still he listens with averted eye, when jibing neighbors make the ghost their theme. While ever from that hour they all declare that Mrs. Mason used a cushion in her chair. On the hapless hero of the tea-earned cupid, of yow-yowing memory, Trey was an attached favorite of many years standing. Most people worth loving have had a friend of this kind. Lord Byron says he never had but one, and here he, the dog not the nobleman, lies. The Synetaph. Poor Trey Charmont. Poor Trey Demona-Me. Dog-Berry and Vergers. Oh, where shall I bury my poor dog Trey? Now his fleeting breath has passed away. Seventeen years I can venture to say, have I seen him gamble and frolic and play. Ever more happy and frisky and gay, as though every one of his months was May, and the whole of his life one long holiday. Now he's a lifeless lump of clay. Oh, where shall I bury my faithful Trey? I am almost tempted to think it hard that it may not be there in Yon's sunny churchyard, where the green willows wave or the peaceful grave, which holds all that wants was honest and brave. Kind and courteous and faithful and true, these Trey that were found in you. But it may not be Yon's sacred ground by holiest feelings fenced around, may nare within its hallowed bound receive the dust of a soulless hound. I would not place him in Yonder Fane, where the midday sun, through the storied pain, throws on the pavement a crimson stain, where the banners of chivalry heavily swing, or the pinnacled tomb of the warrior king, with helmet and shield and all that sort of thing. No, come what may, my gentle Trey, shan't be an intruder on Bluff Harry Tudor, or panoplete monarchs yet earlier and ruder, whom you see on their backs in stone or in wax, though the Sacristan's now are forbidden to axe, for what Mr. Hume calls a scandalous tax, while the Chartists insist they were right to go snacks. No, Trey's humble tomb would look but shabby at the sculptured shrines of that gorgeous abbey. Besides in the place they say there's not space to bury what wet nurses call a babby. Even rare Ben Johnson, that famous white, I am told, is interred there, bolt upright, in just such a posture beneath his bust as Trey used to sit in to beg for a crust. The epitaph, too, would scarcely do. For what could it say but here lies Trey, a very good kind of a dog in his day, as satirical folks might be apt to imagine it, meant as a quiz on the house of Plantagenet. No, no, the abbey may do very well for a feudal nob or poetical swell. Crusaders or poets or knights of St. John, or knights of St. John's Wood, who once went on to the castle of good Lord Eglinton. Count Fiddlefumpkin and Lord Fiddlefaddle. Sir Craven, Sir Gale, and Sir Campbell of Saddle, who as poor hook said when he heard of the feat, was somehow knocked out of his family seat. The esquires of the body to my Lord Tom Naughty, Sir Fairly, Sir Lamb, and the Knight of the Ram, the Knight of the Rose, and the Knight of the Dragon, who save at the Flagon and Prague in the Wagon, the newspapers tell us did little to bragon, and more though the muse knows but little concerning him. Sir Hopkins, Sir Popkins, Sir Gage, and Sir Journingham. All Prushe d'Avalier in friendly rivalry, who should best bring back the glory of chivalry? Pray be so good for the sake of my song, to pronounce here the anti-penultimate long, or some hypercritic will certainly cry. The word chivalry is but a rhyme to the eye. And I own it as clear, a fastidious ear will be more or less always annoyed with you when you insert any rhyme that's not perfectly genuine. As depleasing the eye, it isn't worth while to try, since more and Tom Campbell, themselves admit spinach, is perfectly antiphenetic to Greenwich. But stay, I say, let me pause while I may, this digression is leading me sadly astray from my object, a grave for my poor dog, Trey. I would not place him beneath thy walls, and proud or shadowing dome, St. Paul's, though I've always considered Sir Christopher Wren as an architect one of the greatest of men. And talking of epitaphs much I admire his, Kherkom Spiky C. Monumentum Requires, which an erudite verger translated to me, if you ask for his monument, Sir comes by sea. No, I should not know where to place him there. I would not have him by Sirly Johnsonby, or that queer-looking horse that is rolling on Ponsonby, or those ugly minxes the sister sphinxes, mixed creatures half lady, half lioness, ergo, Denon says the emblems of Leo and Virgo. On one of the backs of which singular jumble, Sir Ralph Abercrombie is going to tumble, with a thump which alone were enough to dispatch him, if the scotch-man in front shouldn't happen to catch him. No, I'd not have him there, nor nearer the door, where the man and the angel have got Sir John Moore, and are quietly letting him down through the floor, by Gillespie, the one who escaped at Valor. Alone from the row, neither he nor Lord Howe would like to be plagued with a little bow-wow. No, Trey, you must yield, and go further afield. To lay you by Nelson where downright a frontry will be off from the city and look at the country. It shall not be there in that sepulchred square, where folks are interred for the sake of the air. Though pay but the dews, they could hardly refuse to tray what they grant to thugs and hindues, Turks, infidels, heretics, jumpers, and Jews, where the tombstones are placed in the very best taste, at the feet and the head of the elegant dead, and no one's received who's not buried in lead. For there lie the bones of Deputy Jones, whom the widows' tears and the orphans' groans affected as much as they do the stones his executors laid on the deputies' bones. Little rest, poor knave, would Trey have in his grave. Some spirits to his plain are sent back again to roam round their bodies, the bad ones in pain, dragging after them sometimes a heavy jack-chain. Whenever they met, alarmed by its groans, his ghost all night would be barking at Jones's. Nor shall he be laid by that cross-old maid, Miss Penelope Byrd, of whom it is said, all the dogs in the parish were ever afraid. He must not be placed by one so straight laced in her temper her taste, her morals, and waste. For, to said when she went up to heaven, and St. Peter, who happened to meet her, came forward to greet her, she pursed up with scorn every vinegar feature, and bade him get out for a horrid male creature. So the saint, after looking as if he could eat her, not knowing perhaps very well how to treat her, and not being willing or able to beat her, sent her back to her grave till her temper grew sweeter, with an epithet which I declined to repeat her. No, if Trey were interred by Penelope Byrd, no dog would be ere so bewelped and becurd, all the night long her contankerous sprite would be running about in the pale moonlight, chasing him round and attempting to lick the ghost of Portray with the ghost of a stick. Stay let me see. Ah, here it shall be, at the root of this gnarled and time-worn tree, where Trey and I would often lie, and watch the bright clouds as they floated by, in the broad expanse of the clear blue sky, when the sun was bidding the world good-bye, and the plaintive nightingale warbling nigh, poured forth her mournful melody, while the tender wood pigeons cooing cry has made me say to myself with a sigh, how nice you would eat with a steak in a pie. I hear it shall be, far, far from the view of the noisy world and its maddening crew. Simple and few, tender and true, the lines or his grave, they have some of them, too, the advantage of being remarkably new. Epitaph. Affliction soar, long time he bore. Physicians were in vain. Grown blind, alacid, some prusic acid, and that put him out of his pain. Note on Sir John Moore. In the autumn of 1824 Captain Medwin, having hinted that certain beautiful lines on the burial of this gallant officer, might have been the production of Lord Byron's muse. The late Mr. Sidney Taylor, somewhat indignantly, claimed them for the rightful owner, the late Reverend Charles Wolfe. During the controversy a third claimant started up in the person of a sois-de-saint Dr. Marshall, who turned out to be a Durham blacksmith, and his pretensions a hoax. It was then that a certain Dr. Peppercorn put forth his pretensions, to what he averred was the only true and original version. Viz. Not a sue had he got, not a guinea or note, and he looked confoundedly flurried. As he bolted away without paying his shot, and the landlady after him hurried, we saw him again at dead of night, when home from the club returning. We twigged the doctor beneath the light of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning. All bare and exposed to the midnight dews, reclined in the gutter we found him, and he looked like a gentleman taking the snooze with his Marshall cloak around him. The doctor says drunk as the devil we said, and we managed a shudder to borrow. We raised him inside at the thought that his head would consumedly ache on the morrow. We bore him home and we put him to bed, and we told his wife and his daughter. To give him next morning a couple of red herrings with soda-water. Loudly they talked of his money that's gone, and his lady began to upraise him. But little he wrecked, so they let him snore on beneath the counter-pane just as we laid him. We tucked him in and had hardly done when beneath the window calling. We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun, of a watchman, one o'clock bawling. Slowly and sadly we all walked down from his room in the uppermost story, a rush-light we placed on the cold hearth-stone, and we left him alone in his glory.