The saint out of the solid stone His chapel yonder cut, and lived alone, Carving, beside the door, a tall, armed knight, Who had Estoteville's dream filled with affright: For this Estoteville, local lord, saw smoke, That from the hermits shady kitchen broke, And vowed he would again despoil the knave, As wantonly he had laid waste his cave

At Grimbald craig,-cave since of much remark As that where Aram hid his victim Clarke;

Estoteville gave erelong the saint a cow Hopelessly mad, who tamed her none knew how, But all the neighbourhood, to see him came, Leading her home as gentle as a lamb! This cow an envious beggar tried to get, Who limping and distressed Robert beset;

The kindly hermit gave her, and exclaimed-
"Be, as thou seemest, lame!" and he was lamed:
Yet, begging mercy, Robert mercy gave

And, followed with new plaudits, sought his cave.
Troubled that deer should spoil his growing grain,
He drove them up like oxen in a train,

Then yoked them to a plough and ploughed the ground While gazing multitudes collected round.

Drawn hither by the holy hermit's fame, King John himself to see and hear him came,

And gave him lands, held by the brotherhood
Whose abbey in the plain three centuries stood,
Till the last Harry, filled with wanton rage,
Quarrelled with Rome and seized her heritage.

Foretelling his own death St. Robert died,
His tomb a shrine for all the country-side:
While in the Church's window many a year
The cow, the beggar and the ploughing deer
Depicted were, a rich transparent view,
In sacred proof these miracles were true.

Thus would old Robert these old stories tell : Explain the morning, noon, and curfew bell: The peal at eve of market and fair-days, Once leading travellers through the forest ways; Still heard if useless; and relate beside Marvellous doings of blind Jack,* the guide Employed by wayfarers, when roads were not, Safely to pilot them from spot to spot.

Well I remember would each youngster go Beside this man whose locks were white as snow, And, while against the keep-wall he would lean, Catch all he said of what himself had seen, And what his sires before him could relate When war, intestine war, raged in the State: How, when his Ironsides victorious proved At Marston, Cromwell o'er the country moved

Whom he called hypocrite, tyrant, and vile,
So held by courtly flatterers for long while :
Witness the lines inscribed on Slingsby's tomb,
Who met in those stern days a martyr's doom:
But, wiser now, impartial thinkers can

In Cromwell own a great though austere man,
Oft seen to seek, of notice unaware,

Guidance and strength divine in secret prayer:
Hither was Lilburn with his soldiers sent,
Who three whole weeks in a vain storming spent ;
Treachery at last, existing in the town,

Stronger than force, disarmed the garrison.

Then with his stick he showed the fir-clad spot
On Scotton-moor, whence furiously were shot
The whizzing balls that round the stronghold raved,
That nigh the brunt of centuries six had braved:
His stories charmed the young, amused the old,
For sweet romance spiced all the truths he told.
Ill-omened as of yore, many believe

An anguished soul does in that screech-owl grieve;
For, as they sit around their chimney-hearth,
Awhile they pause and ope the cottage-door,
And the lost woman of the wood deplore.
This is the tale they tell.

Y.N.Q.

A village-maid,

Whose humble fortunes careless ease forbade,
Young, fresh and fair, with service well-content,
Filled with gay hopes, to Belmont-farm was sent
The kine to milk, the small stock tend and feed,
Now in the dairy busy, now the mead,
The circle of her knowledge small indeed.
Her rustic charms her false protector saw,
Who, reckless of results, spurned duty's law;
Ties sweetly human swift to violate,
And lapse to barbarism as his normal state.
"Call me your friend-not master: my reward
To catch some smiling token of regard:
So the base tempter, watchful to entice
In love's own name the ignorant to vice :-
Erelong the child and mother disappear;
When wild suspicion whispers loud her fear:
A search is made, an outcry raised around;
Yet none responds and nought they seek is found.
But oft, 'tis said, on lands where footsteps swerved
Seldom or never, fires had been observed

Early and late,-of stubble, leaves and ferns,
Which a good farmer to rich ashes burns;

G

And these 'tis now believed were means he used
To dissipate his crime, in air diffused :-

But thence, dire sentence! was the mother's shade Into the body of an owl conveyed;

There doomed to dwell 'till bleached be every stain, And her true form through penance she regain.

Quick fled the murderer, shunned on every hand, A wandering outcast from his native land, To seek, vain hope! upon a distant shore, That forfeit peace which he could find no more:

[Mother Shipton, from an old drawing.]
O'erawed by gloomy superstition's power,
And the mysterious beauty of the hour,
On such a night well might weird sisters tune
Their wild enchantments to the full-faced moon,
To beg the triple Hecate's favoring glance,
While nimbly on the scented turf they dance
Concocting charms, in the swung caldron placed,
Or raise a spirit, the magic circle traced,
To do their bidding, or some secret show

That these sharp censors of their time should know,