"And I heard her name the midnight hour, And name this holy eve; And say, 'Come this night to thy lady's bower; Ask no bold Baron's leave. "He lifts his spear with the bold Buccleuch ; The door she'll undo to her knight so true, "I cannot come; I must not come; I dare not come to thee: On the eve of St. John I must wander alone: In thy bower I may not be.' "Now, out on thee, faint-hearted knight! For the eve is sweet, and, when lovers meet, "And I'll chain the bloodhound, and the warder shall not sound, And rushes shall be strewed on the stair; So, by the black rood-stone, and by holy St. John, I conjure thee, my love, to be there!' For that knight is cold, and low laid in the mould, All under the Eildon-tree." "Yet hear but my word, my noble lord! And that lady bright she called the knight The bold Baron's brow then changed, I trow, "The grave is deep and dark-the corpse is stiff and stark So I may not trust thy tale. "Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose, And Eildon slopes to the plain, Full three nights ago, by some secret foe, "The varying light deceived thy sight, For Sir Richard of Coldinghame!" "Though the bloodhound be mute, and the rush He passed the court gate, and he oped the tower beneath my foot, And the warder his bugle should not blow, Yet there sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the east, And my footstep he would know.' grate, And he mounted the narrow stair To the bartizan-seat, where, with maids that on her wait, He found his lady fair. "Oh, fear not the priest, who sleepeth to the That lady sat in mournful mood; For to Dryburgh the way he has ta'en; "He turned him around, and grimly he frowned; 'He who says the mass-rite for the soul of that knight May as well say mass for me. Looked over hill and vale; Over Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood, And all down Teviotdale. "Now hail, now hail, thou lady bright!" "Now hail, thou Baron true! What news, what news from Ancram fight? What news from the bold Buccleuch ?" "The Ancram moor is red with gore, For many a Southron fell; "At the lone midnight hour, when bad spirits And Buccleuch has charged us evermore have power, In thy chamber will I be.' With that he was gone, and my lady left alone, Then changed, I trow, was that bold Baron's brow, To watch our beacons well." The lady blushed red, but nothing she said; Then she stepped down the stair to her chamber fair, And so did her moody lord. "Now, tell me the mien of the knight thou hast In sleep the lady mourned, and the Baron tossed seen, For, by Mary, he shall die!" "His arms shone full bright, in the Beacon's red light; His plume it was scarlet and blue; On his shield was a hound, in a silver leash bound, And his crest was a branch of the yew." "Thou liest, thou liest, thou little foot-page, Toud dost thou lie to me! and turned, And oft to himself he said "The worms around him creep, and his bloody grave is deep, It cannot give up the dead!" It was near the ringing of matin-bell, The night was well nigh done, When a heavy sleep on that Baron fell, The lady looked through the chamber fair, By the light of a dying flame; And she was aware of a knight stood thereSir Richard of Coldinghame! "Alas! away, away!" she cried, "For the holy Virgin's sake!" "Lady, I know who sleeps by thy side; But, lady, he will not awake. "By Eildon-tree, for long nights three, In bloody grave have I lain; The mass and the death-prayer are said for me, But, lady, they are said in vain. "By the Baron's brand, near Tweed's fair strand, Most foully slain I fell; And my restless sprite on the beacon's height "At our trysting-place, for a certain space But I had not had power to come to thy bower, Hadst thou not conjured me so." Love mastered fear-her brow she crossed; "How, Richard, hast thou sped? And art thou saved, or art thou lost ?" The Vision shook his head! "Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life, He laid his left palm on an oaken beam ; The lady shrunk, and fainting sunk, The sable score, of fingers four, And for evermore that lady wore That nun, who ne'er beholds the day, THE MONK. [LAURENCE STERNE. See Page 15.] "THEY order," said I, "this matter better in France." "You have been in France?" said my gentleman, turning quick upon me with the most civil triumph in the world. "Strange!" quoth I, debating the matter with myself, "that one-and-twenty miles' sailing, for 'tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: I'll look into them." So giving up the argument, I went straight to my lodgings, put up half-adozen shirts, and a pair of silk breeches-"the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve, "will do" -took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning, by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricassed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine-my shirts, and black pair of silk breeches-portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France. Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwary passenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to the coast! Sire, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me 'tis the monarch of a people so civilised and courteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with- But I have scarce set foot on your dominions! When I had finished my dinner, and drank the King of France's health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him no spleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his temper, I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation. "No," said I, "the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race; they may be misled, like other people, but there is a mildness in their blood. What is there in this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so many kind. hearted brethren of us fall out so cruelly as we do by the way?" When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the heaviest of metals in his hand! He pulls out his purse, and, holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he sought for an object to share it with. In doing this, I felt every vessel in my frame dilateI was at peace with the world before, and this finished the treaty with myself— a 'Now, was I a king of France," cried I; “what moment for an orphan to have begged her father's portmanteau of me!" I had searce uttered the words, when a poor monk, of the order of St. Francis, came into the room, to beg something for his convent. The moment I cast my eyes upon him I was predetermined not to give him a single sous; and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket, buttoned it up, set myself a little more upon my centre, and advanced up gravely to him. There was something, I fear, forbidding in my look. The monk, as I judged from the break in his toasure (a few scattered white hairs upon his temples being all that remained of it) might be about seventy; but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more tempered by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty. It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted-mild, pale, penetrating; free from all common-place ideas of fat, contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth-it looked forwards; but looked as if it looked at something beyond this world. The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the dis tinction by a bend forwards in the figure-but it was the attitude of entreaty; and as it now stands presented to my imagination, it gained more than it lost by it. When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff, with which he journeyed, being in his right)—when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the THE MONK. little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order; and did it with so simple a grace, and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure, I was bewitched not to have been struck with it. 319 to the disappointed without the addition of unkind language. I considered his grey hairs: his courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus. I would have given twenty I have behaved very A better reason was, I had predetermined not livres for an advocate. to give him a single scus. ""Tis very true," said I, replying to a cast upward with his eyes, with which he had concluded his address-"'tis very true; and Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it." As I pronounced the words "great claims," he gave a slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic. I felt the full force of the appeal. "I acknowledge it,” said I, "a coarse habit (and that but once in three years), with meagre diet, are no great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm the captive who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the order of mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am," continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, "full cheerfully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate." The monk made me a bow. "But of all others," resumed I, "the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon our own shore." The monk gave a cordial ware with his head, as much as to say, no doubt, there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. 'But," said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal-"we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour, and those who eat the bread of other people, and have no other plan in life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God." The poor Franciscan made no reply, a hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry-Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him; he showed none, but letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired. My heart smote me the moment he shut the door. "Psha!” said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times-but it would not do: every ungracious syllable I had uttered crowded back into my imagination: I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough ill," said I within myself; "but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along." When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage, however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise-and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walked out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose. An old désobligeant, in the further corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight; so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel: but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived at the inn, I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us; and being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and wrote the preface to it in the désobligeant. When I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the désobligeant because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived at the inn, I told him the truth; but I did not tell him the whole truth; for I was full as much restrained by the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Suspicion crossed my brain, and said he was telling her what had passed. I wished him at his convent. The impression returned upon my encounter with her in the street. The good old monk was within six paces of us, and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. He stopped, however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness; and having a horn snuff-box in his hand, he presented it open to me. 66 You shall taste mine," said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one), and putting it into his hand. ""Tis most excellent," said the monk. "Then do ine the favour," I replied, "to accept of the box and all; and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace-offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart." The poor man blushed as red as scarlet. "Mon Dieu!" said he, pressing his hands together, "you never used me unkindly." "I should think," said the lady, "he is not likely." "Mon Dieu!" cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seemed not to belong to him, "the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal." The lady opposed it; and I joined with her in maintaining that it was impossible that a spirit so regulated as his could give offence. I knew not that contention could be rendered so sweet and pleasurable a thing to the nerves as I then felt it. We remained silent, without any sensation of that foolish pain which takes place when in such a circle you look for ten minutes in one another's faces without saying a word. Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn-box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction, he made a low bow, and said, 'twas too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this contest; but be it as it would, he begged we might exchange boxes. In saying this, he presented his to me with one hand as he took mine from me in the other; and having kissed it, with a stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom and took his leave. I guard this box, and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my own in the jostlings of the world; they had found full employment for his, as I learned from his story, till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when, upon some military services ill requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent, as in himself. I feel a damp upon my spirits as I am going to add, that in my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months, and was buried, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off: I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him-when, upon pulling out his little hornbox, as I sat by his grave, and plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections, that I burst into a flood of tears. OF ST. KEYNE. THE WELL [ROBERT SOUTHEY. Born at Bristol, 12th August, 1774. Educated at Westminster, and Baliol College, Oxford Made Laureate in 1813. Died 24th March, 1843.] WELL there is in the west country, And a clearer one never was seen; There is not a wife in the west country But has heard of the well of St. Keyne. An oak and an elm-tree stand beside, And behind doth an ash-tree grow, And a willow from the bank above Droops to the water below. A traveller came to the well of St. Keyne, For from cock-crow he had been travelling, Under the willow tree. There came a man from the house hard by On the well-side he rested it, And he bade the stranger hail. "Now art thou a bachelor, stranger ? " quoth he, "For an if thou hast a wife, The happiest draught thou hast drank this day, That ever thou didst in thy life; "Or hast thy good woman, if one thou hast, Ever here in Cornwall been? For an if she have I'll venture my life She has drank of the well of St. Keyne." "I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply, "But that my draught should be the better for that, pray you answer me why ?" I "St. Keyne," quoth the Cornish man, "many a time Drank of this crystal well, And before the angels summoned her, She laid on the water a spell. "If the husband of this gifted well Shall drink before his wife, A happy man thenceforth is he, For he shall be master for life. The stranger stooped to the well of St. Keync, "You drank of the well I warrant betimes ?" But the Cornish man smiled as the stranger spake, And sheepishly shook his head. "I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done, But i' faith she had been wiser than me, |