THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE. 421 THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE. YOME to me, darling, I'm lonely without thee; COME Day-time and night-time I'm dreaming about thee; Night-time and day-time in dreams I behold thee, Unwelcome the waking that ceases to fold thee; Swallows shall flit round the desolate ruin, Figure which moves like a song through the even, Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother, You have been glad when you knew I was gladdened; 422 SCROOGE AND MARLEY. Come swift and strong as the words which I speak, love, Haste, for my spirit is sickened and weary; Come to the arms which alone shall caress thee; THE BUGLE SONG.-TENNYSON. HE splendor falls on castle walls, THE And snowy summits old and hoary; Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying: Oh, hark! oh, hear! how thin and clear, Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Oh, love, they die in yon rich sky, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, SCROOGE AND MARLEY.-CHARLES DICKENS. MAR ARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change. for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. SCROOGE AND MARLEY. 423 Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterward, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 424 EVENING AT THE FARM. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind-men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. EVENING AT THE FARM.-TROWBRIDGE. VER the hill the farm-boy goes, A giant staff in a giant hand; In the poplar-tree, above the spring, The katy-did begins to sing; The early dews are falling; Into the stone-heap darts the mink; - "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" Farther, farther, over the hill, Faintly calling, calling still, "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!" Now to her task the milkmaid goes. The cattle come crowding through the gate, While the pleasant dews are falling; THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY. The new milch heifer is quick and shy, And the white stream into the bright pail flows, "So, boss! so, boss! so! so! so!" Το supper at last the farmer goes. The housewife's hand has turned the lock; "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.-JEAN INGELOW. THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers rang by two, by three; "Pull, if ye never pulled before; Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. "Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells, 425 |