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Full on her tomb and that black Catafalque.
And on the tomb there lay-my bunch of keys!
I struggled to my feet,

Ashamed of my wild fancies, like a man
Awaking from a drunken dream. And yet,
When I picked up the keys, although that storm
Of terror had all blown by and left me calm,
I lifted up mine eyes to see the scroll
Round the rich crest of that dark canopy,
IN MY DEFENCE, GOD ME DEFEND. The moon
Struck full upon it; and, as I turned and went,
God help me, sirs, though I were loyal enough
To good Queen Bess, I could not help but say,
Amen!

And yet, methought it was not I that spake,
But some deep soul that used me for a mask,
A soul that rose up in this hollow shell
Like dark sea-tides flooding an empty cave.
I could not help but say with my poor lips,
Amen! Amen!

Sirs, 'tis a terrible thing

To move in great events. Since that strange night I have not been as other men. The tides

Would rise in this dark cave"-he tapped his skull"Deep tides, I know not whence; and when they rose My friends looked strangely upon me and stood aloof. And once, my uncle said to me-indeed,

It troubled me strangely,-'Timothy,' he said,
'Thou art translated! I could well believe

Thou art two men, whereof the one's a fool,
The other a prophet. Or else, beneath thy skin
There lurks a changeling! What hath come to thee?'
And then, sirs, then-well I remember it!
'Twas on a summer eve, and we walked home
Between high ghostly hedges white with may-
And uncle Robin, in his holy-day suit
Of Reading Tawny, felt his old heart swell
With pride in his great memories. He began
Chanting the pedlar's tune, keeping the time
Thus, jingle, jingle, slowly, with his keys :-

Carry the queenly lass along!
-Cold she lies, cold and dead,-
She whose laughter was a song,
-Lapped around with sheets of lead!-
She whose blood was wine of the South,
-Light her down to a couch of clay!-
And a royal rose her mouth,

And her body made of may!

-Lift your torches, weeping, weeping,

Light her down to a couch of clay.

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!

Hush! Between the solemn pinewoods, carry the lovely lady sleeping, Out of the cold grey Northern mists, with banner and scutcheon, plume, and lance,

Carry her southward, palled in purple, weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping,

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Well, sirs, that dark tide rose within my brain!
I snatched his keys and flung them over the hedge,
Then flung myself down on a bank of ferns

And wept and wept and wept.

It puzzled him.
Perchance he feared my mind was going and yet,
O, sirs, if you consider it rightly now,
With all those ages knocking at his doors,
With all that custom clamouring for his care,
Is it so strange a grave-digger should weep?
Well-he was kind enough and heaped my plate
That night at supper.

But I could never dig my graves at ease
In Peterborough Churchyard. So I came
To London-to St Mary Magdalen's.

And thus, I chanced to drink my ale one night
Here in the Mermaid Inn. 'Twas All Souls' Eve,
And, on that bench, where master Ford now sits
Was master William Shakespeare-him you put
In that sweet rhyme," old Scarlet turned to Ben,
"I'd like to learn it. Well, the lights burned low,
And just like master Ford to-night he leaned
Suddenly forward. 'Timothy,' he said,

'That's a most marvellous ruby!'

My blood froze!
I stretched my hand out bare as it was born;
And he said nothing, only looked at me.
Then, seeing my pipe was empty, he bade me fill
And lit it for me.

Peach, the astrologer,

Was living then; and that same night I went
And told him all my trouble about this ring.
He took my hand in his, and held it-thus-
Then looked into my face and said this rhyme:-

The ruby ring, that only three

While Time and Tide go by, shall see,
Weds your hand to history.

Honour and pride the first shall lend;
The second shall give you gold to spend;
The third-shall warn you of your end.

Peach was a rogue, some say, and yet he spake
Most truly about the first," the sexton mused,
"For master Shakespeare, though they say in youth,
Outside the theatres, he would hold your horse
For pence, prospered at last, bought a fine house.
In Stratford, lived there like a squire, they say.
And here, here he would sit, for all the world
As he were but a poet! God bless us all,
And then-to think!-he rose to be a squire!
A deep one, masters! Well, he lit my pipe!"

"Why did they bury such a queen by night?"

Said Ford. "Kings might have wept for her. Did Death Play epicure and glutton that so few

Were bidden to such a feast. Once on a time,

I could have wept, myself, to hear a tale
Of beauty buried in the dark. And hers
Was loveliness, far, far beyond the common!
Such beauty should be marble to the touch
Of time, and clad in purple to amaze

The moth. But she was kind and soft and fair,
A woman, and so she died. But, why the dark?"

"Sir, they gave out the coffin was too heavy
For gentlemen to bear!"-"For kings to bear?"
Ford flashed at him. The sexton shook his head,-
"Nay! Gentlemen to bear! But the true cause-
Ah, sir, 'tis unbelievable, even to me,

A sexton, for a queen so fair of face!
And all her beds, even as the pedlar said,
Breathing Arabia, sirs, her walls all hung
With woven purple wonders and great tales
Of amorous gods, and mighty mirrors, too,
Imaging her own softness, night and dawn,

When through her sumptuous hair she drew the combs;
And like one great white rose-leaf half her breast
Shone through it, firm as ivory."

"Ay," said Lodge,
Murmuring his own rich music under breath,
"About her neck did all the graces throng,
And lay such baits as did entangle death."

"Well, sir, the weather being hot, they feared. She would not hold the burying!"

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"In some sort,"

Ford answered slowly, "if your tale be true,

She did not hold it. Many a knightly crest
Will bend yet o'er the ghost of that small hand.”

There was a hush, broken by Ben at last,
Who turned to Ford-"How now, my golden lad?
The astrologer's dead hand is on thy purse!"

Ford laughed, grimly, and flung an angel down.
"Well, cause or consequence, rhyme or no rhyme,
There is thy gold. I will not break the spell,
Or thou mayst live to bury us one and all!"
"And, if I live so long," the old man replied,
Lighting his lanthorn, "you may trust me, sirs,
Mine Inn is quiet, and I can find you beds
Where Queens might sleep all night and never move.
Good-night, sirs, and God bless you, one and all.”

He shouldered pick and spade. I opened the door.
The snow blew in, and, as he shuffled out,

There, in the strait dark passage, I could swear
I saw a spark of red upon his hand,

Like a great smouldering ruby.

He peered at me.

I gasped. He stopped.

"Twice in a night,” he said.
"Nothing," I answered, "only the lanthorn-light."
He shook his head. "I'll tell you something more!
There's nothing, nothing now in life or death
That frightens me. Ah, things used to frighten me!
But never now! I thought I had ten years;
But if the warning comes and says 'Thou fool,
This night!' Why, then, I'm ready!"

I watched him go,

With glimmering lanthorn up the narrow street,
Like one that walked upon the clouds, through snow
That seemed to mix the City with the skies.

On Christmas Eve we heard that he was dead.

HOCKEN AND HUNKEN.

A TALE OF TROY.

BY "Q."

CHAPTER XI.-MRS BOSENNA PLAYS A PARLOUR GAME.

"WE have runned out simultaneous," announced Mrs Bowldler next morning, as the two friends sat at breakfast in Captain Cai's parlour, each immersed (or pretending to be immersed) in his own newspaper. They had slept but indifferently, and on meeting at table had avoided, as if by tacit consent, allusions to last night's entertainment. Each of the newspapers contained a full-column report of the Regatta, with its festivities, which gave excuse for silence. With a thrill of innocent pleasure Cai saw his own name in print. He harked back to it several times in the course of his perusal, and confessed to himself that it looked very well.

But Mrs Bowldler, too, had slept indifferently, if her eyeswhich were red and tear-swollen -might be taken as evidence. Her air, as she brought in the dishes, spoke of sorrow rather than of anger. Finding that it attracted no attention, she sighed many times aloud, and at each separate entrance let fall some gloomy domestic news, dropping it as who should say, "I tell you, not expecting to be believed or even

heeded, still less applauded for any vigilant care of your interests, but rather that I may not hereafter reproach myself."

"We have runned out simultaneous," she repeated as Captain Cai glanced up from the newspaper. "Which I refer to coals. Palmerston tells me there's not above two-anda-half scuttlefuls in either cellar, search them how you will." (The search at any rate could not be extensive, since the cellars measured 8 feet by 4 feet apiece.)

"Which,"resumed Mrs Bowldler, after a pause and a sigh, "it may be un-Christian to say so of a man that goes about in a bath-chair with one foot in the grave, but in my belief Mr Rogers sends us short weight."

"I'll order some more this very morning, eh, 'Bias?"

'Bias grunted approval. "And, while we're about it, we may as well order in a quantity, as much as the sheds will hold. We've pretty well reached the end o' summer, an' prices will be risin' before long. If I were you, Mrs Bowldler," added Cai with a severity beyond his wont, "I

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