Part 15 (1/2)

Jess licked a cold cheek, and the bonny boy spoke: ”Where's Hugh?” The pup whimpered, but Hugh never woke.

A SOLDIER'S MIRACLE

'Twas when we learnt we could be beat; Our star misled us, and' we strayed.

Elsewhere the host was in retreat; We were a guideless lost brigade.

We stumbled on a town in doubt, To halt and sup we were full fain, The man that held the chart cried out, ”'Tis Vaucouleurs in old Lorraine.”

In Vaucouleurs we will not doubt, For here, when need was sore, Saint Jane Arose, and girt herself to rout The foes that troubled her Lorraine.

So here we feast in faith to-night, To-morrow we'll rejoin the host Drink, drink! the wine is pure and bright, And Jane our maiden is the toast.

But I, that faced the window, caught A pa.s.sing cloud, a foreign plume, A Prussian helmet; and the thought Of peril chilled the tavern room.

We rose, we glared through twilight panes, We muttered curses bosom-deep; A tell-tale gallop scared the lanes, We grudged to spoil our comrades' sleep.

Then louder than the Uhlan's hoof Fell storm from sky and flood on banks, September's pa.s.sion smote the roof; We blest it, and to Jane gave thanks.

Betwixt us and that Uhlan's mates A bridgless river strongly flowed.

A sign was shown that checked the fates, And on that storm our maiden rode.

A BALLAD FOR A BOY

When George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago, He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.

”You're not afraid of shot,” said he, ”you're not afraid of wreck, So cruise about the west of France in the frigate called _Quebec_.

Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years ago King George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know, To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec, As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.

If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can beat them now.

Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.

But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name, And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same.”

Then Farmer said, ”I'll try, sir,” and Farmer bowed so low That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow.

George gave him his commission, and that it might be safer, Signed ”King of Britain, King of France,” and sealed it with a wafer.

Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his own, And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon his throne.

He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten, And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score men.

And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen brace of dogs, With two-and-thirty cannon the s.h.i.+p explored the fogs.

From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to Belleisle, She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on her keel.

The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with melting tar, The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar; The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from out the Breton bay, And ”Clear for action!” Farmer shouts, and reefers yell ”Hooray!”

The Frenchmen's captain had a name I wish I could p.r.o.nounce; A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from bounce, One like those famous fellows who died by guillotine For honour and the fleurs-de-lys, and Antoinette the Queen.

The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George, Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths could forge; And both were simple seamen, but both could under- stand How each was bound to win or die for flag and native land.