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"ye hae ma condolences, auld Andrew!" "Keep 'em, keep 'em, Andy," growled McStegall in reply; "dinna break the rule o' ye life and gie awa' something for naething! Dinna fash ye puir old head; I hae ma beastie fra' the hill a' richt,-ay, I hae ma beastie, and ye'll hae ye chantie!" His words aroused a chorus of amazement amongst his hearers. What! a beast? Was Andrew also, for the first time in his long career, making a joke? Was he mad, or, less likely, fou? "A beast?" they shouted; "an' where, in the name o' John Barleycorn, does he lie?" "In the thirrd tent on the richt adoon the thirrd field-hospital," grunted the old fellow; "go an' spy, if ye dinna believe!" And they went and looked.

McPherson's hurt proved comparatively trifling after all. The bullet had punctured the lung, and the actual closeness of the range had rushed the lead so cleanly through, that it had begun to heal almost at once by first intention. Part of his story Lord Donald heard at once from McStegall. The man, a tenant of the Duke, and an underkeeper on the forest, had suddenly vanished from the district, no one knew exactly why, when Traquair was a small boy at school. The rest was told by McPherson himself during his rapid convalescence. It appeared that the Duke, then young and foolish enough to go stalking alone, when out one day on the hill early in October, had

caught his big underkeeper red-handed in the very act of slaying a hind with calf a' foot, the unmentionable crime in the forest. An angry altercation had led to actual blows. "Ay, m' lord," narrated McPherson, "I fought ye father, just on the knobbie of Ben Hinish, where the ptarmigan nest; ye mind, Andrew?" turning to McStegall, who was present; "but 'twas none of my seekin'-the fightin' I mean

for he challenged and belled at me like a ruttin' stag, and there was no that much in the endin' o' it, either; he gie me twa stane, but he gie me also the shairpest and quickest left I aye saw on a mon. An' when 'twas over, and us twa lay pantin' amongst the whins, his Grace he said to me, 'A weel, Andy,' he said, 'ye'll jest hae the choice o' stannin' the law or quittin' the forest this varra day; which do ye tak?' 'Twas no that hard to make choice; it meant quittin' the glen any road, for which o' the lads wad speak with one wha had slain a hind? So I told his Grace, and he said, 'A' believe ye're richt, Andy, an' here's a twenty-pound note to pay yer way to Hell with.' And so a' flitted, Lord Donal', and sailed out here steerage, and became a citizen of this fusionless docken o'a clan, until the war came, and by then I had been so lang a darn't furriner that I didna' sae much mind servin', even had I the free will, which I hadna'. An' noo, m' lord, ye'll tak' me back to Traquair?-I thank ye, I thank ye!"

TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN.

BY ALFRED NOYES.

VII. FLOS MERCATORUM.

PART III.

"AND by that light," quoth Clopton, "did he keep His promise. He was rich; but in his will

He wrote those words which should be blazed with gold In London's Liber Albus :

The desire

And busy intention of a man, devout

And wise, should be to fore-cast and secure
The state and end of this short life with deeds
Of mercy and pity, especially to provide
For those whom poverty insulteth; those
To whom the power of labouring for the needs
Of life, is interdicted.

He became

The Father of the City. Felons died
Of fever in old Newgate. He rebuilt
The prison. London sickened from the lack
Of water, and he made fresh fountains flow.
He heard the cry of suffering and disease,
And built the stately hospital that still

Shines like an angel's lanthorn through the night,
The stately halls of St Bartholomew.

He saw men wrapt in ignorance, and he raised
Schools, colleges, and libraries. He heard

The cry of the old and weary, and he built
Houses of refuge.

Even so he kept

His prentice vows of Duty, Industry,

Obedience, words contemned of every fool

Who shrinks from law; yet were those ancient vows
The adamantine pillars of the State.

Let all who play their Samson be well warned

That Samsons perish, too!

Is London!"

His monument

"Ay," quoth Dekker, "and he deserves Well of the Mermaid Inn for one good law Rightly enforced. He pilloried that rogue

Will Horold, who in Whittington's third year
Of office, as Lord Mayor, placed certain gums
And spices in great casks, and filled them up
With feeble Spanish wine, to have the taste
And smell of Romeney,-Malmsey!"

"Ay, sound wine,

Indeed," replied the Clerk, "concerns the State,
That solemn structure touched with light from heaven,
Which he, our merchant, helped to build on earth.
And, while he laboured for it, all things else

Were added unto him, until the bells

More than fulfilled their prophecy.

One great eve,

Fair Alice, leaning from her casement, saw
Another Watch, and mightier than the first,
Billowing past the newly painted doors

Of Whittington Palace-so men called his house
In Hart Street, fifteen yards from old Mark Lane,-
A thousand burganets and halberdiers,

A thousand archers in their white silk coats,

A thousand mounted men in ringing mail,

A thousand sworded henchmen; then, his Guild,
Advancing, on their splendid bannerols
The Virgin, glorious in gold; and then,
Flos Mercatorum, on his great stirring steed.
Whittington! On that night he made a feast
For London and the King. His feasting hall
Gleamed like the magic cave that Prester John
Wrought out of one huge opal. East and West
Lavished their wealth on that great Citizen
Who, when the King from Agincourt returned
Victorious, but with empty coffers, lent
Three times the ransom of an Emperor
To fill them on the royal bond, and said

When the King questioned him of how and whence,
'I am the steward of your City, sire!

There is a sea, and who shall drain it dry?'
Over the roasted swans and peacock pies,

The minstrels in the great black gallery tuned
All hearts to mirth, until it seemed their cups

Were brimmed with dawn and sunset, and they drank
The wine of gods. Lord of a hundred ships,
Under the feet of England, Whittington flung

The purple of the seas.

And when the Queen,

Catharine, wondered at the costly woods

That burned upon his hearth, the Marchaunt rose,
He drew the great sealed parchments from his breast,
The bonds the King had given him on his loans,
Loans that might drain the Mediterranean dry.
'They call us hucksters, madam, we that love
Our City,' and, into the red-hot heart of the fire,
He tossed the bonds of sixty thousand pounds.
The fire burns low,' said Richard Whittington.

Then, overhead, the minstrels plucked their strings;
And, o'er the clash of wine-cups, rose a song
That made the old timbers of their feasting-hall
Shake, as a galleon shakes in a gale of wind,
When she rolls glorying through the Ocean-sea :-

Marchaunt Adventurers, O what shall it profit you
Thus to seek your kingdom in the dream-destroying sun?
Ask us why the hawthorn brightens on the sky-line:

Even so our sails break out when Spring is well begun!
Flos Mercatorum! Blossom wide, ye sails of England,
Hasten ye the kingdom, now the bitter days are done!
Ay, for we be members, one of another,

Each for all, and all for each, quoth Richard Whittington!

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Marchaunt Adventurers, the Spring is well begun!

Break, break out on every sea, O, fair white sails of England!
Each for all, and all for each,' quoth Richard Whittington.

Marchaunt Adventurers, O what 'ull ye bring home again?
Hearts of British oak and the lordship of the sea!
Whom will ye traffic with? The King of the sunset!—
What shall be your pilot, then ?-A wind from Galilee !
-Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back empty-handed?—
Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see!
Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters;
After many days it shall return with usury.

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What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be?
Englande! Englande! Englande! Englande!
Glory everlasting and the lordship of the sea.

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Deride such prayers; but, from such simple hearts,
O never doubt it, though the whole world doubt
The God that made it, came the steadfast strength
Of England, all that once was her strong soul,
The soul that laughed and shook away defeat
As her strong cliffs hurl back the streaming seas.

But, if indeed she doubt, if she forget
Utterly, though with fleet on fleet she load
The groaning deep, for lack of that pure faith
England shall perish utterly.

Whittington
Remembered. In his old age he returned
And kneeled, with Alice, at his father's grave
In little Pauntley church.

There, to his Arms,

The Gules and Azure, and the Lion's Head
So proudly blazoned on the painted panes ;
(O, sirs, the simple wistfulness of it

Might move hard hearts to laughter, but I think
Tears tremble through it, for the Mermaid Inn)
He added his new crest, the hard-won sign
And lowly prize of his own industry,

The Honey-bee. And, far away, the bells

Peal softly from the pure white City of God:

So did he remember, so did he remember,

How the might that makes a man is greater than his own! There, like little children, O their grey heads bowed together, Simply, as he prayed of old, a little lad alone.

So did he remember, as he looked upon his shield again,
How he went, unshielded, but with all the world to win,
Round by Sussex violets, a bare-foot boy to London,
FLOS MERCATORUM, ay, but England's Benjamin.

Kneeling by his father's grave in little Pauntley chancel,
By the chivalry of God, until his day was done,

So did he remember, so did he remember,

Every bare-foot boy on earth is but a younger son.

With folded hands he waits the Judgment, now!
Slowly the great bell tolls his epitaph:-

Ut fragrans nardus

Fama fuit iste Ricardus.

Slowly the great bell tolls across the world
For him who waits the reckoning, his accompt
Secure, his conscience clear, his ledger spread
A Liber Albus, to the gaze of God.

Flos Mercatorum,

Fundator presbyterorum, ..

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