"What news? what news? your tidings tell;

Tell me you must and shall
Say why bareheaded you are come,

Or why you come at all?"

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,
And loved a timely joke;
And thus unto the calender

In merry guise he spoke:

"I came because your horse would come
And, if I well forebode,

My hat and wig will soon be here,
They are upon the road."

The calender, right glad to find
His friend in merry pin,
Returned him not a single word,

But to the house went in;

Whence straight he came with hat and wig:
Then showed his ready wit
"My head is twice as big as yours,
They therefore needs must fit.

“But let me scrape the dirt away
That hangs upon your face;
And stop and eat, for well you may
Be in a hungry case."

Said John, "It is my wedding day;
And all the world would stare
If wife should dine at Edmonton,
And I should dine at Ware."

So turning to his horse, he said, "I am in haste to dine;

'Twas for your pleasure you came here You shall go back for mine."

Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast!
For which he paid full dear;
For, while he spake, a braying ass.
Did sing most loud and clear;

Whereat his horse did snort, as he
Had heard a lion roar,

And galloped off with all his might,
As he had done before.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig:
He lost them sooner than at first,
For why? they were too big.

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down

Into the country far away,

She pulled out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said, That drove them to the Bell, "This shall be yours, when you bring back

My husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet

John coming back amain

Whom in a trice he tried to stop,

By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy's horse right glad to miss
The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy scampering in the rear,

They raised the hue and cry:

"Stop thief! stop thief!— a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again

Flew open in short space; The tollmen thinking as before,

That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,

For he got first to town;

Nor stopped till where he had got up

He did again get down.

Now let us sing, Long live the king!

And Gilpin, long live he;

And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!

WANTED: AN ENEMY

LEOPOLD BUDDE

Once upon a time there was a mourning country; enemies had vanquished it, and its people must become a new nation. They were told to forget the language which their mothers had taught them, and all the songs that had filled their hearts were to become like faded leaves in the wind. They were told to lower the flag under which their fathers had lived for centuries, to unfurl a new one that had come flying to them like a bird of prey with beak and talons. And they thought it all was like bidding farewell to themselves.

There was an old soldier who limped around with a bullet in his leg, and he had his own opinions. They called him Pepper-and-Salt because of his brusque manners and his rough speech. He had been a First Sergeant, and had fought the foe as long as he could. Even when he could fight no more, he refused to give up, and paid back in the way in which he had been taught to pay back: never to allow the victorious enemy one moment's rest, but to annoy him each and every hour of the day, show him an angry face, and spite him, even though he were the victor a thousand times that was the way, said Pepper-and-Salt; and he himself did it with all his heart.

He lived in a small and lonely house surrounded by fields. Just opposite, a few hundred yards away, was a new and stately house in which the Mounted Policeman lived a powerful, strapping fellow whom the enemy had ordered to look after that part of the conquered country. Dressed in a resplendent uniform, he rode a fiery horse, and his long sabre dangled at the side of the horse. There was constant war

between him and Pepper-and-Salt, although peace as a rule reigned about them.

Every time the Mounted Policeman passed the lonely little house, Pepper-and-Salt would sit within, humming the forbidden songs in his deep bass tones, and every moment the forbidden flag was poked out here and there, through windows or doors. But when the Mounted Policeman came to take it away, it disappeared within as quick as lightning, and neither kind words nor force could make Pepper-andSalt surrender it.

Time and time again he was summoned to court, was sent to prison, and was released from the prison. Every time he limped away he turned his grey-bearded face still more angrily against the enemy. The flag would fly out from a new hole in the wall of the old house, and the old songs would keep on, more persistently teasing than ever before.

"That's the way to treat them, the rascals," said Pepperand-Salt, and he meant it.

Therefore it worried him considerably that his countrymen went about their day's work quietly, as they did, and, when anyone reasoned that the burdens which God had given them should be carried in patience and humility, he shook his head gruffly he did not understand such speech. Most of all, however, it annoyed him that a crowd of thoughtless boys every day passed noisily just between his house and that of the Mounted Policeman.

Adjoining the battlefield was a Happy Forest. The point where this forest began was the farthest border of the conquered country, and the forest itself was outside the mourning land. Flowers bloomed there, the birds sang, and the sturdy old trees grew green and lovely.

In this Happy Forest, the red-cheeked boys played merrily,