The witch from over the water, The fay from over the foam, The bride that rode thro' Edinbro' town A queen, and a great king's daughter,- With torches and with scutcheons, Unhonoured and unseen, With the lilies of France in the wind a-stir, Darkly, in the dead of night, They carried the Queen, the Queen!! The sexton paused and took a draught of ale. I. Though thy hands have plied their trade Robin Scarlet, never thy spade Built a house for such a guest! Carry her where, in earliest June, Slow between the low green larches, carry the lovely lady sleeping, weeping! Answering only, to any that ask you, whence ye carry her,Fotheringhay! VOL. CXCII.-NO. MCLXI. H II. She was gayer than a child! -In the North, her heart was broken. They should have left her in her vineyards, left her heart to her land's own keeping, Left her white breast room to breathe, and left her light foot free to dance. Out of the cold grey Northern mists, we carry her weeping, weeping, weeping, O, ma patrie, Adieu, plaisant pays de France! Music built the towers of Troy, but thy gray walls are built of sorrow! Wind-swept hills, and sorrowful glens, of thrifty sowing and iron reaping, What if her foot were fair as a sunbeam, how should it touch or melt your snows? What if her hair were a silken mesh? Iron breast-plates bruise fair flesh! What had their rocks to do with roses? Body and soul she was all one rose ? Thus, through the summer night, slowly they went, And Robin Scarlet. The moving flare that ringed The heralds with their torches, but their light Yet, or the darkness, or the pedlar's words Bowed shadows praying in those unplumbed aisles, We laid her in her grave. We closed the tomb. From head to foot he shivered, as with cold. 'Come back with me,' he whispered, and slid his hand As in a burning fever, 'All the wealth I was not there, not there, the day she died. Not a soul Will know. Come back! One moment, only one!' I thought the man was mad, and plucked my hand Away from him. He caught me by the sleeve, And sank upon his knees, lifting his face Most piteously to mine. One moment! See! I loved her!" I saw the moonlight glisten on his tears, Great, long, slow tears they were; and then-my GodAs his face lifted and his head sank back Beseeching me-I saw a crimson thread Circling his throat, as though the headsman's axe The head had slipped not from the trunk. I gasped; And, as he pleaded, stretching his head back, I tore my cloak Not till I saw before me in the lane The pedlar and my uncle did I halt And look at that which clasped my finger still My hand was bare! Of Prester John." (To be continued.) SNATTY. BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY. "This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war.' -KIPLING. DRIVER JOSEPH SNATT, K3 Battery, R.H.A., slouched across the barrack-square on his way to the stables. Having just received & severe punishment for the heinous crime of ill-treating a horse, in spite of his plausible excuse that he had been bitten and had lost his temper, Snatty, as he was always called, felt much aggrieved. "'Orses," he thought to himself, "is everything in this 'ere bloomin' batt'ry - men's nothing." Nor, in his own particular case, was he far wrong. For the horses of K3 were certainly quite wonderful, and Snatty was undoubtedly a "waster." His death or his desertion would have been a small matter compared with the spoiling of one equine temper. The officers disliked him because he was an eyesore to them; the N.C.O.'s hated him because he gave them endless trouble; and the men had shown their distrust of his personal cleanliness by ducking him in a horse-trough more than once. Driver Snatt felt that every man's hand was against him, and since he possessed neither the will power nor the I. desire to overcome his delinquencies by a little honest toil, he not infrequently drowned his sorrows in large potations of canteen beer. In person he was small and rather shrivelled looking-old for his age unquestionably. A nervous manner and a slight stammer in the presence of his superiors, combined with a shifty eye at all times, served to enhance the unpleasing effect which he produced on all who knew him. There was but one thing to be said for him-he could ride. Before enlisting he had been in a training stable, but had been dismissed for drink or worse. On foot he lounged about with rounded shoulders and uneven steps, always untidy and often dirty. But once upon a horse, the puny, awkward figure that was the despair of N.C.O.'s and officers alike, became graceful, supple, almost beautiful. The firm, easy seat that swayed to every motion, the hands that coaxed even the hard-mouthed gun-horses into going kindly, betrayed the horseman born. Snatty might kick his horses in the stomach; he would never jerk them in the mouth. At the conclusion of the midday stable-hour Snatt was |