try wine

As if the village vintage were divine!

And all the while he talked without sur

cease,

And told his merry tales with jovial glee

That never flagged, but rather did in

crease,

And laughed aloud as if insane were he, And wagged his red beard, matted like a fleece,

And cast such glances at Dame Cicely That Gilbert now grew angry with his guest,

And thus in words his rising wrath expressed.

"Good father," said he, "easily we see How needful in some persons, and how right,

Mortification of the flesh may be.

The indulgence you have given it tonight,

After long penance, clearly proves to me Your strength against temptation is but slight,

And shows the dreadful peril you are in Of a relapse into your deadly sin. "To-morrow morning, with the rising

As to be twice transformed into an

ass.

simple Gilbert bought him, and untied

His halter, and o'er mountain and

morass

He led him homeward, talking as he

went

Of good behavior and a mind content.

The children saw them coming, and advanced,

Shouting with joy, and hung about his neck,

Not

Gilbert's, but the ass's, - round him danced,

And wove green garlands wherewithal to deck

His sacred person; for again it chanced Their childish feelings, without rein or check,

Could not discriminate in any way
A donkey from a friar of Orders Gray.

"O Brother Timothy," the children said,

"You have come back to us just as before;

We were afraid, and thought that you were dead,

And we should never see you any more."

And then they kissed the white star on his head,

That like a birth-mark or a badge he

wore,

And patted him upon the neck and face, And said a thousand things with childish grace.

Thenceforward and forever he was known
As Brother Timothy, and led alway
A life of luxury, till he had grown
Ungrateful, being stuffed with corn
and hay,

And very vicious. Then in angry tone,
Rousing himself, poor Gilbert said one
day,
"When simple kindness is misunder-
stood

A little flagellation may do good."

His many vices need not here be told; Among them was a habit that he had

Of flinging up his heels at young and old,

Breaking his halter, running off like mad

O'er pasture-lands and meadow, wood and wold,

And other misdemeanors quite as

bad;

But worst of all was breaking from his shed

At night, and ravaging the cabbage-bed.

So Brother Timothy went back once

more

To his old life of labor and distress; Was beaten worse than he had been before.

And now, instead of comfort and caress,

Came labors manifold and trials sore; And as his toils increased his food grew less,

Until at last the great consoler, Death, Ended his many sufferings with his breath.

Great was the lamentation when he died; And mainly that he died impenitent; Dame Cicely bewailed, the children cried, The old man still remembered the event

In the French war, and Gilbert magnified

His many virtues, as he came and went,

And said: "Heaven pardon Brother Timothy,

And keep us from the sin of gluttony."

INTERLUDE.

"SIGNOR LUIGI," said the Jew,
When the Sicilian's tale was told,
"The were-wolf is a legend old,
But the were-ass is something new,
And yet for one I think it true.
The days of wonder have not ceased;
If there are beasts in forms of men,
As sure it happens now and then,
Why may not man become a beast,
In way of punishment at least ?

"But this I will not now discuss;
I leave the theme, that we may thus
Remain within the realm of song.
The story that I told before,
Though not acceptable to all,
At least you did not find too long.
I beg you, let me try again,
With something in a different vein,
Before you bid the curtain fall.
Meanwhile keep watch upon the door,
Nor let the Landlord leave his chair,
Lest he should vanish into air,
And thus elude our search once more."

Thus saying, from his lips he blew
A little cloud of perfumed breath,
And then, as if it were a clew
To lead his footsteps safely through,
Began his tale as followeth.

THE SPANISH JEW'S SECOND TALE.

SCANDERBEG.

THE battle is fought and won
By King Ladislaus the Hun,
In fire of hell and death's frost,
On the day of Pentecost.
And in rout before his path
From the field of battle red
Flee all that are not dead
Of the army of Amurath.

In the darkness of the night
Iskander, the pride and boast
Of that mighty Othman host,
With his routed Turks, takes flight
From the battle fought and lost
On the day of Pentecost;
Leaving behind him dead
The army of Amurath,
The vanguard as it led,

It was thus Iskander came
Once more unto his own;
And the tidings, like the flame
Of a conflagration blown
By the winds of summer, ran,
Till the land was in a blaze,
And the cities far and near,
Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir,

INTERLUDE.

"Now that is after my own heart,"
The Poet cried;
66 one understands
Your swarthy hero Scanderbeg,
Gauntlet on hand and boot on leg,
And skilled in every warlike art,
Riding through his Albanian lands,
And following the auspicious star
That shone for him o'er Ak-Hissar."

The Theologian added here
His word of praise not less sincere,
Although he ended with a jibe;
"The hero of romance and song
Was born," he said, "to right the
wrong;

And I approve; but all the same
That bit of treason with the Scribe
Adds nothing to your hero's fame."

The Student praised the good old times,
And liked the canter of the rhymes,
That had a hoof beat in their sound;
But longed some further word to hear
Of the old chronicler Ben Meir,
And where his volume might be found.
The tall Musician walked the room
With folded arms and gleaming eyes,
As if he saw the Vikings rise,
Gigantic shadows in the gloom;
And much he talked of their emprise,
And meteors seen in Northern skies,
And Heimdal's horn, and day of doom.
But the Sicilian laughed again;
"This is the time to laugh," he said,
For the whole story he well knew
Was an invention of the Jew,
Spun from the cobwebs in his brain,
And of the same bright scarlet thread
As was the Tale of Kambalu.

Only the Landlord spake no word;
'T was doubtful whether he had hear
The tale at all, so full of care
Was he of his impending fate,
That, like the sword of Damocles,
Above his head hung blank and bare,
Suspended by a single hair,
So that he could not sit at ease,
But sighed and looked disconsolate,
And shifted restless in his chair,
Revolving how he might evade

Days,

"Were taken as a man

Would take the tip of his ear."

The Student came to his relief By saying in his easy way