With drowned and glassy eyes. Swiftly they tramped along the beach, They cursed themselves, they cursed their deed, PART II. SLOW by my cottage door he went, It was a hoary mariner; I bid him welcome in : "Against the poor to shut the door," Still by my cottage door he stood, He said, "though I be old; Though I be poor, no good man's door "Old man," I said, "God keep thy head From tempest and from scath." "Ah! me!" cried he, "He keepeth me, Against his day of wrath; They went before; I follow, sore; The fiend no mercy hath." "Old man! old man! thou'rt mad,” I said, "With hunger and with cold." "Ah! ha!" cried he. "A jovial three! We were three mariners bold; But when we saw it under the surf, "What saw ye in the surf, old man ?” Like one whose soul has died, And in its stead a frightful fiend Doth for a soul abide. "Hal and Jack, they went before; The deed of wicked pride. "Black was the night, and shrill the gale, We drowned her in the sea. Drowned! drowned! in the salt, salt, deep, All weltering lies she. "O God! It was the fairest maid! Her smile was like the day. The seamen's hearts beat gallantly, The ship, they swore, made never before So many leagues the day. "Come, cheer, my hearts! do each your parts, The maid no worse shall be: She loves a seaman in her soul; And I'll carry her over the sea. Take you the wealth, take you the gold, "Right free he spoke, and turned the joke, And flouted our idle fears; He'd been a rover on the main, With bloody Buccaneers ; He'd been a wealthy captain long, Of bloody Buccaneers. "The maid, he knew-the maid he loved, But she his suit denied ; And for a deep revenge, he swore To have her ere he died; To have her, said she yea or nay, A mistress or a bride. "From England sailed the gallant ship, That bore the maid away, And he went a fore-castle man, To be by her alway. Be it well or ill, he'd work his will, Said she or yea or nay. "O, woe for mariners, whose hearts Are sold to fiends of ill, For lust of flesh, for lust of gold, Or lust of wicked will. O, woe for me! it was a deed The very soul to kill. "Fair was the prize, and smote our eyes With tempting loveliness, We swore that one should not alone So sweet a prize possess: It was a fell and wicked will That did our souls oppress. "Right off the sandy Cape of May, When, by a panic fear compelled, We cast her in the sea. "Smote with the scourge of keen remorse, They two themselves did slay, But I, a wretched, homeless man, Must wander night and day. Each year, I seek the dreadful shore "Still it lies there, with drenched hair, Why will't not go? why stays it so, It breeds a madness in my brain His glaring eyes he fixed on mine, “Old man,” I said, "that hoary head, Then came he in, the man of sin; By my bed-side we knelt, And prayed I then, to God's dear Son, To ease him of his guilt. The tears rolled down his hollow cheeks, And eased him of his guilt. Ah! 'twas a piteous sight to see, The hoary marineer, When on his dying bed he lay, And prayed with many a tear, That God would cleanse him of his crime, For Christ his sake so dear. That night died he, and solemnly Next day we buried him, And o'er his grave, by the salt sea wave, We sang a pious hymn, How God is merciful to those Who die in fear of him. THE CABRIOLET: FROM UNPUBLISHED MEMORANDA OF MOUNTAIN-LAND. BY IK. MARVEL. NOTWITHSTANDING we were on a pedestrian tour, and were as determined as old Tom Coryate, we certainly did venture to enquire about coaches in the little shabby town of St. Florentin: and this not so much because our courage misgave us, as that the country thereabouts had grown sadly monotonous. True, St. Florentin is as strange an old city as ever I slept in, and it sits perched on a hill and has a mouldering, deserted watch-tower in the centre; but from the mouldy battlements we could see nothing eastward but great stretches of level plain, backed by a dim blue line in the horizon, which they told us was the chain of Burgundian hills. But at St. Florentin, no coach, not even so much as a voiture a volonte was to be found; so we harnessed on our knapsacks and toiled along under the poplars to a little village far off in the plain, where we were smuggled into what passed for the coupé of a broken down Diligence. A man and little girl, who together occupied the third seat, regaled themselves in the voiture with a fricandeau stuffed with garlic. The day was cool; the windows were down; the air close, and the perfume delightful! That night we reached a town where lived that prince of boys' story books about animals-Buffon. A tower rose on the hills beside the town, covered with ivy-gray, and venerable, and sober-looking; and the postillion said it was Buffon's tower, and that the town was named Buffon. Tigers, and Cougars and Kangaroos were leaping through my head all supper time, which we passed in company with a communicative German, just from Switzerland, en route for Paris. This French cabriolet which we took at Buffon, was very like a Scotch horse-cart with a top upon it. It had a broad leathercushioned seat in the back, large enough for three persons. One we found already occupied by a pretty enough woman, of some four or five and twenty. The postillion was squatted on a bit of timber that formed the whipple-tree. The Doctor, with his pipe in his mouth, seated himself between the lady and myself—we bade adieu to our accommodating German companiontook off our hats to the landlady's daughter, and so went jostling out of the old French town of Buffon, which, ten to one, we shall never, either of us, see again in our lives. Now nothing in the world was more natural than that the Doctor should ask |