spoke of the winter trade. An old negress, gayly and neatly dressed, came into the market place, and sitting down on a sidewalk displayed her yellow and red apples and fragrant gingerbread. She hummed to herself an old cradle-song, and in her soft, motherly black eyes shone a mild, happy radiance. A group of young ragamuffins eyed her longingly from a distance. Court was to open for the first time since the spring. The hour was early, and one by one the lawyers passed slowly in. On the steps of the court-house three men were standing: Thomas Brown, the sheriff; old Peter Leuba, who had just walked over from his music store on Main Street; and little M. Giron, the French confectioner. Each wore mourning on his hat, and their voices were low and grave.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff was saying, "it was on this very spot the day befoah the cholera broke out that I sole 'im as a vagrant. An' I did the meanes' thing a man can evah do. I hel' 'im up to public ridicule foh his weakness an' made spoht of 'is infirmities. I laughed at 'is povahty an' 'is ole clo'es. I delivahed on 'im as complete an oration of sarcastic detraction as I could prepare on the spot, out of my own meanness an' with the vulgah sympathies of the crowd. Gentlemen, if I only had that crowd heah now, an' ole King Sol'mon standin' in the midst of it, that I might ask 'im to accept a humble public apology, offahed from the heaht of one who feels himself unworthy to shake 'is han'! But gentlemen, that crowd will nevah reassemble. Neahly ev'ry man of them is dead, an' ole King Sol'mon buried them."

"He buried my friend Adolphe Xaupi," said François Giron, touching his eyes with his handkerchief.

"There is a case of my best Jamaica rum for him whenever he comes for it," said old Leuba, clearing his throat.

Yon

"But, gentlemen, while we are speakin' of ole King Sol❜mon we ought not to forget who it is that has suppohted 'im. dah she sits on the sidewalk, sellin' 'er apples an' gingerbread." The three men looked in the direction indicated. "Heah comes ole King Sol'mon now," exclaimed the sheriff. Across the open square the vagrant was seen walking slowly along with his habitual air of quiet, unobtrusive preoccupation. A minute more and he had come over and passed into the courthouse by a side door.

"Is Mr. Clay to be in court to-day?" "He is expected, I think."

"Then let's go in: there will be a crowd."

"I don't know: so many are dead.”

They turned and entered and found seats as quietly as possible; for a strange and sorrowful hush brooded over the courtroom. Until the bar assembled, it had not been realized how many were gone. The silence was that of a common overwhelming disaster. No one spoke with his neighbor; no one observed the vagrant as he entered and made his way to a seat on one of the meanest benches, a little apart from the others. He had not sat there since the day of his indictment for vagrancy. The judge took his seat, and making a great effort to control himself, passed his eyes slowly over the court-room. All at once he caught sight of old King Solomon sitting against the wall in an obscure corner; and before any one could know what he was doing, he had hurried down and walked up to the vagrant and grasped his hand. He tried to speak, but could

Old King Solomon had buried his wife and daughter, — buried them one clouded midnight, with no one present but himself.

Then the oldest member of the bar started up and followed the example; and then the other members, rising by a common impulse, filed slowly back and one by one wrung that hard and powerful hand. After them came the other persons in the courtroom. The vagrant, the gravedigger, had risen and stood against the wall, at first with a white face and a dazed expression, not knowing what it meant; afterwards, when he understood it, his head dropped suddenly forward and his tears fell thick and hot upon the hands that he could not see. And his were not the only tears. Not a man in the long file but paid his tribute of emotion as he stepped forward to honor that image of sadly eclipsed but still effulgent humanity. It was not grief, it was not gratitude, nor any sense of making reparation for the past. It was the softening influence of an act of heroism, which makes every man feel himself a brother hand in hand with every other; such power has a single act of moral greatness to reverse the relations of men, lifting up one, and bringing all others to do him homage.

It was the coronation scene in the life of "Ole" King Solomon of Kentucky.

294

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM, an Irish poet, born in Ballyshannon, Ireland, in 1828; died 1889. He began to contribute to literary periodicals at an early age, and, removing to England, he was ap pointed to a position in the customs. For several years he was editor of "Fraser's Magazine," in which many of his poems first appeared. Among these is "Lawrence Bloomfield in Ireland," which contains nearly five thousand lines, and sketches the characteristic features of contemporary Irish life. His first volume of poems was published in 1850. This was followed by "Day and Night Songs" (1854); "Fifty Modern Poems" (1865); and "Songs, Poems, and Ballads" (1877), consisting of revised versions of many pieces before published, with the addition of many new ones. His "Lawrence Bloomfield" was also republished in a separate volume, in 1864.

Drifts like a leaf,

And on its gently murmuring flow

Doth glide and go;

The bud-besprinkled boughs and hedges,
The sprouting sedges

Waving beside the water's brink,
Come like cool drink

To fevered lips, like fresh soft mead
To kine that feed.

Much happier than the kine, I fed
My dreaming head

In grass; I see far mountains blue,
Like heaven in view,

Green world and sunny sky above
Alive with love;

All, all, however came they there,
Divinely fair.

THE RUINED CHAPEL.

(From "Day and Night Songs.")

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;

Where Day and Night and Day go by And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;

Day and Night and Day go by

To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,

And Day and Night and Day go by;

Here the silence is most deep.

The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain

As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.

Here fresh funereal tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,

While Day and Night and Day go by;

And stars move calmly overhead.

THE WINTER PEAR.

(From "Ballads and Songs.")

Is always Age severe ?

Is never Youth austere?
Spring-fruits are sour to eat;
Autumn's the mellow time.
Nay, very late in the year,
Short day and frosty rime,
Thought, like a winter pear,
Stone-cold in summer's prime,
May turn from harsh to sweet.

SONG.

(From "Day and Night Songs.")

O SPIRIT of the Summer-time!

Bring back the roses to the dells; The swallow from her distant clime,

The honey-bee from drowsy cells.

Bring back the friendship of the sun;
The gilded evenings calm and late,
When weary
children homeward run,

And peeping stars bid lovers wait.

Bring back the singing; and the scent Of meadow-lands at dewy prime;

Oh, bring again my heart's content, Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!

THE BUBBLE.

(From "Ballads and Songs.")

SEE the pretty planet!
Floating sphere!

Faintest breeze will fan it

Far or near;

World as light as feather;

Moonshine rays,

Rainbow tints together,

As it plays.