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"I gave you a commission about my causeway," said the king. "I gave you none to interpret my laws, and to invent punishments for my people. I now deliver to you a new commission. Can you prophesy what it is?"

Hagen's countenance fell. He feared the terrible retribution of having to fulfil himself the sentence he had inflicted on Merdhin. But the king, whose faculty of reading the thoughts of his courtiers was known to all about him, continued:

"The vile task of collecting wolves' tongues is one which is not, and shall not be, imposed on any freeman; on any but criminals condemned to death."

| cording to their respective methods of admiration, the titles by which he was celebrated in his own day and afterwards—the Brave, the Generous, the Pious, the Great.

Careless of the murmur of praise which he had left behind him, Canute sat in the antechamber, in consultation with his chancellor. The hardy young warrior's face was as grave, and from its earnestness almost as reverend as that of his counsellor. The secretary sat in silence, awaiting orders or dismissal.

"I am satisfied," said the chancellor, in answer to a question from the king, "I am satisfied alike by the testimony of the wife, the monk Olaf, and the freeman Willebrod,

Under the sense of relief the commissioner that the new forest laws are not answerable loudly exclaimed:

"Canute the King is the most just of kings." "Hear then the new commission which my justice appoints you. Bring back the children of Merdhin, and place them yourself in the arms of their mother, in the presence of my lord abbot here."

"But the vessel may have sailed-must have sailed . . .

"Then let another vessel sail after it. If the wind is fair for one, it is fair for both. You shall also cause Merdhin to be brought hither, with an observance of all the rights and dues of a freeman."

"My king, he has fled no one knows where, for the offence of hunting in the royal forests." "For his offence in the forest he shall suffer according to law. That is an affair which you may leave to myself and his bail. Your affair is to find him, and bring him hither in safety. He is among the band of marauders that inhabit the forest near Crowland. Take what force is necessary; and remember I shall know how you use it. Take heed to this man's safety. You have shown small respect to the laws of this our new country; but by those laws I govern; and by them account must be rendered to me for the life of every freeman, the king being every freeman's legal lord and patron. Now-begone!"

"Such is your royal pleasure?” replied the uneasy commissioner.

"It is: but not the whole of it. It is my pleasure also to find you some commission in Denmark when this business is settled. I have sent home the greater part of my followers; and none shall remain who do not respect the laws of this island and the rights of its people."

The king retired by one door, and Hagen by another, leaving the Saxon and Danish members of the court to vent to one another their enthusiasm for the king. They gave him, ac

for the flight and ruin of this man. He was prepared to obey the summons of the bishop; was awaiting the day in the house of one of his bail. And a man must be out of his senses who would go forth in winter and bear the wolf's head from fear of a mere fine which he was well able to pay. It was oppression from a different quarter that drove him forth, and not our forest laws."

"It is well," said the king. "I would have those laws, like all others, just, doing all the good possible, with the least hardship. On the one hand, the state of the country compels us to require that every freeman shall bear arms, and arm his dependents; and on the other, it is necessary to preserve landed estates from being infested by such armed men in pursuit of beasts of chase. It appeared to us that the due and best security would be given by declaring every possessor of land the possessor of whatever was upon it, to give or to keep at his pleasure, and therefore to punish any one who laid hands without leave on the trees of any woodland, or on any beast, bird, or fish that dwells within the bounds of any estate. Does this ordinance appear to you as just as when it was made?"

"It does."

"And that the punishment should be what it is?"

"Why not? It is of the same nature as that appointed for other thefts and aggressions. The question which many ask is only whether it is not too light for the offence of chasing the king's game in the royal forests."

"That is no matter of doubt to me," replied the king. "The grass, and trees, and beasts of crown lands look like those of other lands; and my pleasure in hunting is like that of my knights, and officers: and what is protection enough for them is protection enough for me." The chancellor smiled as he said, “Great is

the humility of the king who speaks such | quiet and moderate enough till heaven or hell words."

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"A noble among nobles!" murmured the chancellor in devout admiration.

"Higher than other nobles only in this," pursued the king, "that I stand in the midst of them, and am naturally the point of appeal | to the weak and the wretched, as in this case. A man round whom most of the weak gather for justice and protection becomes more powerful than those who are so resorted to by only one or two; but his power is thus enhanced merely in extent, not in kind. No more sacredness is given to his lands, and no greater value to his beasts of chase. The battle-field is my chase when I hunt as a king; and there it is death for any one to cross my path. When I sport in my own woodland, if any one come between me and the boar, he offends merely against the proprietor of the land."

"However it may be with your beasts, birds, and fishes," observed the chancellor, "it is certain that your thoughts are kingly."

"And yours," said Canute, "are not faithful when you would darken my views of the law instead of clearing them. It was yourself who informed me of the old law of the kingdoms on the mainland on which I founded that of my new island."

The chancellor was glad to escape from his embarrassment by citing this same old law:"Cuique enim in proprio fundo quamlibet feram quoquo modo venari permissum."

"See then," said the king, rising, "that our intentions in making our forest law are fairly fulfilled in the case of this man Merdhin, and every other accused of the slaughter or pursuit of game on another man's land. I would fain pardon this Merdhin; but we must respect the law we made in deliberation. Never let it be said, however, that Canute the king bears harder than the law for offences done against Canute the hunter."

gives him power to work his full will; and then he makes men groan under his scourge. Here is a man who lived among groans, as if they were music, wherever he went as a conqueror through this land; and now that he is as great here as the sun in the sky, he moderates his flames as if his head were snowy with age instead of golden with youth. He studies night and day to make wise laws for the people's rule, and sweet ballads for their holiday hours. His sternness is, in these days, not for Saxons, but for the most obsequious, of whatever race. Heaven, who sent him, knows best where this will end. Perhaps we may see the Brave and Great a weeping pilgrim some day, or his sceptre may sprout into a saint's palm-rod before he dies.'

"

The shepherd of the monastery was rarely wrong in his predictions; and it was some years before he was proved mistaken in having said that Merdhin could never again fully enjoy his home, or recover a tranquil mind. Merdhin's terrified children were restored to his arms; his wife's shaken spirits were calmed; his servants returned home; and the dwelling and fields looked much like themselves in the course of a season or two. Moreover, the commissioner Hagen had set sail for Denmark as soon as he had brought Merdhin to Peterborough; and every Dane in the region knew that no molestation was to be offered to the household of the farmer on Thorn-ey. But this outward tranquillity did not suffice to calm the tempest which that one shock had aroused.

Good Father Olaf, who watched over the family, observed that Merdhin was most happy when working out his fine to repay his bail; and he took this hint in regard to the other offence which lay heavy on the man's conscience-his having joined the band of marauders in the forest. While his heart bled with compassion for the despair which had prompted that step-one very common in those days-the monk treated it as a solemn sin, requiring a great penance, well knowing that the larger the penance the greater was the chance of peace at the end of it. He therefore appointed to his penitent a now incredible amount of repetition of prayers and psalms. But, better than this, he recited to him, in the language of the church, the acts for which he might commute the appointed penance.

The king returned to the hall and his game at chequers, leaving his chancellor musing "He may repair churches where he can, and over the change wrought, and still working in make folkways, with bridges over deep waters him, by the leisure of peace and the possession and over miry places; and let him assist poor of power. men's widows, and step-children, and foreign"One man," thought the chancellor, "isers. He may free his own slaves, and redeem

the liberty of those of other masters, and especially the poor captives of war: and let him feed the needy, and house them, clothe and warm them, and give them bathing and beds."

Here was scope for the restless man. And ere long there was not a miry way that was not paved, nor a brook that was not bridged, within some miles of his dwelling; and he made footpaths for wayfarers through his own and the convent woodland. And when King Canute went on his long pilgrimage to Rome, Merdhin prayed loyally for his safety every day. And when the king's public letter, addressed to the whole of his English subjects, was read in the churches, preparatory to his return, Merdhin committed to memory as much of it as follows, and solaced himself with repeating it at his toil:

"And now, therefore, be it known to you all that I have dedicated my life to God to govern my kingdoms with justice, and to observe the right in all things. If, in the time that is past, and in the violence and carelessness of youth, I have violated justice, it is my intention, by the help of God, to make full compensation. Therefore I beg and command those unto whom I have intrusted the government, as they wish to preserve my good-will, and save their own souls, to do no injustice either to rich or poor. Let those who are noble, and those who are not, equally obtain their rights, according to the laws, from which no deviation shall be allowed, either from fear of me, or through favour to the powerful, or for the purpose of supplying my treasury. I want no money raised by injustice."

And when, three years after, Canute died, too soon for the peace of the kingdom, and too early for the accomplishment of many wise designs for he was under forty at his deathHildelitha told to her children in winter evenings all the stories she had heard of good King Canute, and sang to them the ballads he had made: and Merdhin taught the elder ones to pray daily for his soul.

WINTER SONG.

They were parted then at last?
Was it duty, or force, or fate?
Or only a wordy blast

Blew-to the meeting-gate?

An old old story is this

A glance, a trembling, a sigh, A gaze in the eyes, a kissWhy will it not go by?

GEORGE MACDONALD.

THE KING'S SENTINEL.

AN EASTERN LEGEND.

[Richard Henry Stoddard, born in Hingham, Massa

chusetts, 1825. His works are published by Messrs

Не Scribner & Company, Broadway, New York. has written and edited numerous works of a poetical and biographical character; notably, The Castle by the Sea and other Poems; Adventures in Fairy-land (for children); The Loves and Heroines of the Poets; Madrigals from the old English Poets, &c. &c. R. W. Griswold, in his Poets of America, says of him: "His style is characterized by purity and grace of expression. He is a master of rhythmical melody, and his mode of treating a subject is sometimes exquisitely subtle."]

Upon a time, unbidden, came a man
Before the mighty King of Teberistan.
When the king saw this daring man, he cried,
"Who art thou, fellow?" Whereto he replied,
"A lion-hunter and a swordsman, I,
Moreover, I am skilled in archery :

A famous bowman, who of men alone
Can drive his arrows through the hardest stone.
Besides my courage, tried in desperate wars,

I know to read the riddle of the stars.
First in the service of Emeer Khojend,
Who, friend to none, has none to be his friend-
Him have I left, I hope, an honest man,
To serve, if so he wills, the Lord of Teberistan."
To whom in answer: "I have men enow,
Stalwart, like thee, apt with the sword and bow;
These no king lacks, or need to; what we need
Are men who may be trusted-word and deed:
Who, to keep pain from us, would yield their breath;
Faithful in life, and faithfuller in death."
"Try me." As thrice the monarch claps his hands,
The captain of the guard before him stands,
Amazed that one, unknown of him, had come
In to the king, and fearful of his doom.
Sternly his lord: "You guard me, slave, so well
That I have made this man my sentinel."
Thus did the happy archer gain his end,
And thus his sovereign find at last a friend,
Who from that hour was to his service bound,
Keen as his hawk, and faithful as his hound.

Now when a moon of nights had ta'en its flight, Amid the darkness of a summer night, The king awoke, alarmed, with fluttering breath, Like one who struggles in the toils of death, And wandered to his lattice, which stood wide, Whence, down below him in the court, he spied A shadowy figure, with a threatening spear. "What man art thou?-if man-and wherefore here?" "Your sentinel, and servant, O my lord!" "Hearken!" They did. And now a voice was heard, But whether from the desert far away,

Or from the neighbour-garden, who could say?

So far it was, yet near, so loud, yet low;
"Who calls?" it said. It sighed, "I go! I go!"
Then spake the pallid king, in trouble sore,
"Have you this dreadful summons heard before?"
"That voice, or something like it, have I heard-
(Perchance the wailing of some magic bird)—
Three nights, and at this very hour, O king!
But could not quit my post to seek the thing.
But now, if you command me, I will try,
Where the sound was, to find the mystery."
"Go! follow where it leads, if anywhere,
And what it is, and means, to me declare;
It may be ill, but I will hope the best:
But haste, for I am weary, and must rest."
Softly, as one that would surprise a thief,
Who might detect the rustling of a leaf,
The sentinel stole out into the night,
Nor knew that the king kept him still in sight--
Behind him, with a blanket o'er his head,
Black-draped down to his feet, as he were dead;
But the spear trembled in his hands, his knees
Weakened-at length he sank beneath the trees.
Again the voice was heard, and now more near
Than when it faded last-it was so clear:
"I go! what man will force me to return?"
"Now," thought the wondering soldier, "I shall learn
Who speaks, and why." And, looking up, he saw
What filled his simple soul with love and awe-
A noble woman, standing by his side,
Who might have been the widow or the bride

Of some great king, so much of joy and woe
Hung on the perfect lips that breathed "I go,"
Shone in the quenchless eyes, dimmed the bright
hair-

No woman, born of woman, half so fair!

"Most beautiful! who art thou?" "Know, O man, I am his life, who rules in TeberistanThe spirit of your lord, whose end is nigh,

Except some friend-what friend?-for him will die." "Can I?" But she: ""Tis written you must live." "What then-my life rejected-can I give?" "You have a son," she whispered in his ear, Feeling her way, it seemed, in hope and fear, Lest what she would demand should be denied. He pressed a sudden hand against his side Where his heart ached, but spake not.

son,

"Fetch your

And I remain; refuse, and I am gone
Even while we parley." Stifling the great sigh
That heaved his breast, he answered, "He shall die!"
And now for the first time he was aware
Besides themselves there was a Presence there,
Which made his blood run cold, but did not shake
His resolution that, for the king's sake,
His boy must perish. So he said, "I go,"
And like the swiftest arrow from his bow
The phantom vanished, and he went to bring
His sleeping child as ransom for the king,
Leaving that strange, bright woman there alone;
Who, smiling sadly, soon as he was gone,
Ran to her lord, fallen upon the ground:

And while she lifted his dead weight, and wound
Her arms around him, and her tears did rain,
Kissed his cold lips, till, warmed, they kissed her
own again.

Meanwhile the sentinel down the royal park
Groped his way homeward, stumbling in the dark,
Uncertain of himself and all about;

For the low branches were as hands thrust out-
But whether to urge faster, or delay,

Since they both clutched and pushed, he could not say;

Nor, so irregular his heart's wild beat,
Whether he ran, or dragged his lagging feet!
When, half a league being over, he was near

His poor mean hut, there broke upon his ear-
As from a child who wakes in dreams of pain,
And, while its parents listen, sleeps again-
A cry like Father! Whence, and whose, the cry?
Was it from out the hut, or in the sky?
What if some robber with the boy had filed?
What dreadful thought !-what if the boy were dead?
He reached the door in haste, and found it barred,
As when at set of sun he went on guard,
Shutting the lad in from all nightly harms,
As safe as in the loving mother arms
Which could no longer fold him: all was fast,
No footstep since his own that night had passed
Across the threshold-no man had been there;
'Twas still within, and cold, and dark, and bare;
Bare, but not dark; for, opening now the door,
The fitful moon, late hidden, out once more
Thrust its sharp crescent through the starless gloom
Like a long scimitar, and smote the room
With pitiless brightness, and himself with dread-
Poor, childless man!-for there his child was dead!
He spake not, wept not, stirred not; one might say,
Till that first awful moment passed away,
He was not, but some dead man in his place
Stood, with a deathless sorrow in its face!
Then-for a heart so stricken as was his,
So suddenly set upon by agonies,
Must find as sudden a relief, or break-

He wept a little for his own sad sake,
And for the boy that lay there without breath,
Whom he so freely sacrificed to Death!
Thereafter kneeling softly by the bed,
Face buried, and hands wrung above his head,
He said what prayer came to him; and be sure
The prayers of all men at such times are pure.
At last he rose, and lifting to his heart
Its precious burden-limbs that dropped apart-
Hands that no longer clasped him-little feet
That never more would run his own to meet,
Wrapping his cloak round all with loving care,
To shield it from the dew and the cold air,
He staggered slowly out in the black night.
Nowhere was that strange woman now in sight
To take the child; but at the palace gate
The king stood waiting him-reprieved of Fate!
"What was it, soldier?" "God preserve the King!
"Twas nothing." "Tell me quickly." A small thing

Not worth your hearing. In the park I found
A lonely woman sitting on the ground,
Wailing her husband, who had done her wrong,
Whose house she had forsaken-but not long;
For I made peace between them-dried the tears,

serious! but I care not; I defy them; I dote upon trifles; and my name is Vyvyan Joyeuse, and my motto is "Vive la Bagatelle."

There are many persons who, while they have a tolerable taste for the frivolous, yet And added some, I hope, to their now happy years." profess remorse and penitence for their indul"What bear you there?" "A child I was to bring"-gence of it; and continually court and embrace He paused a moment-"It is mine, oh, king!" "I followed, and know all. So young to die—

new day-dreams, while they shrink from the

Poor thing-for me!... You should be king, not I. retrospect of those which have already faded.

You shall be my vizier-shake not your head;

I swear it shall be so. Be comforted.

For this dead child of yours, who met my doom,

I will have built for him a costly tomb
Of divers marbles, glorious to behold,
With many a rich device inlaid of gold,
Ivory, and precious stones, and thereupon
Blazoned the name and story of your son,
And yours, vizier, of whom shall history tell
That never king but one had such a sentinel!"

MY FIRST FOLLY.

"L'imagination grossit souvent les plus petits objets par une estimation fantastique jusqu'à remplir notre âme."-PENSÉES DE PASCAL.

"I have spent all my golden time
In writing many a loving rime;
I have consumed all my youth
In vowing of my faith and trueth;
O willow, willow, willow tree,
Yet can I not beleeved bee."
OLD BALLAD.

"Do you take trifle?" said Lady Olivia to my poor friend Halloran.

"No, ma'am, I am reading philosophy," said Halloran, waking from a fit of abstraction, with about as much consciousness and perception as exists in a petrified oyster, or an alderman dying of a surfeit.-Halloran is a fool.

A trifle is the one good thing, the sole and surpassing enjoyment. He only is happy who can fix his thoughts, and his hopes, and his feelings, and his affections, upon those fickle and fading pleasures which are tenderly cherished and easily forgotten, alike acute in their excitement and brief in their regret. Trifles constitute my summum bonum. Sages may crush them with the heavy train of argument and syllogism; school-boys may assail them with the light artillery of essay and of theme; members of parliament may loathe, doctors of divinity may contemn:-bag-wigs and bigwigs, blue-devils and blue-stockings, sophistry and sermons, reasonings and wrinkles, Solon, Thales, Newton's Principia, Mr. Walker's Eidouranion, the King's Bench, the bench of bishops all these are serious antagonists; very

Peace be to their everlasting laments and their ever-broken resolutions. Your true trifler, meaning your humble servant, is a being of a very different order. The luxury which I renew in the recollection of the past is equal to that which I feel in the enjoyment of the present, or create in the anticipation of the future. I love to count and recount every treasure I have flung away, every bubble I have broken; I love to dream again the dreams of my boyhood, and to see the visions of departed pleasures flitting like Ossian's ghosts around me, "with stars dim twinkling through their forms." I look back with delight to a youth which has been idled away, to tastes which have been perverted, to talents which have been misemployed; and while in imagination I wander back through the haunts of my old idlesse, for all the learning of a Greek professor, for all the morality of Sir John Sewel, I would not lose one single point of that which has been ridiculous and grotesque, nor one single tint of that which has been beautiful and beloved.

Moralists and misanthropists, maidens with starched morals and matrons with starched frills, ancient adorers of bohea and scandal, venerable votaries of whispering and of whist, learned professors of the compassionate sneer and the innocent innuendo, eternal pillars of gravity and good order, of stupidity and decorum, come not near me with your spare and spectacled features, your candid and considerate criticism. In you I have no hope, in me you have no interest. I am to speak of stories you will not believe, of beings you cannot love; of foibles for which you have no compassion, of feelings in which you have no share.

Fortunate and unfortunate couples, belles in silks and beaux in sentimentals, ye who have wept and sighed, ye who have been wept for and sighed for, victims of vapours and coiners of vows, makers and marrers of intrigue, readers and writers of songs, come to me with your attention and your salts, your sympathy and your cambric; your griefs, your raptures, your anxieties, all have been mine; I know your blushing and your paleness, your selfdeceiving and your self-tormenting,

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