king, has sailed out of the harbor. What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach England with the rest ?" "Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, "before morning, my fifty and the White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father, the king, if we sail at midnight!" Then, the prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out the three casks of wine; and the prince and all the noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of the White Ship. When, at last, she shot out of the harbor of Barfleur, there was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, and the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colors to protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and sang. The prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honor of the White Ship. Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts, It was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the king heard faintly on the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock was filling-going down! 66 Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few nobles. Push off," he whispered; "and row to land. It is not far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must die." But as they rowed away fast from the sinking ship the prince heard the voice of his sister, Marie, the Countess of Perche, calling for help. He never in his life had been so good as he was then. He cried in an agony, “Row back at any risk! I cannot bear to leave her!"" They rowed back. As the prince held out his arms to catch his sister, such numbers leaped in that the boat was overset; and in the same instant the White Ship went down. Only two men floated. They both clung to the mainyard of the ship, which had broken from the mast, and now supported them. One asked the other who he was? He said, "I am a nobleman, Godfrey by name, the son of Gilbert de L'Aigle. And you?" said he. "I am Berold, a poor butcher of Rouen," was the answer. Then they said together, "Lord be merciful to us both!" and tried to encourage one another, as they drifted in the cold, benumbing sea on that unfortunate November night. By-and-by, another man came swimming toward them, whom they knew, when he pushed aside his long, wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen. "Where is the prince? said he. "Gone! Gone!" the two cried together. Neither he, nor 66 his brother, nor his sister, nor the king's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, has risen above the water!" Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face, cried "Woe! woe to me!" and sunk to the bottom. The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length the young noble said faintly, "I am exhausted, and chilled with cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend! God preserve you!' So he dropped and sunk; and of all the brilliant crowd, the poor butcher of Rouen alone was saved. In the morning some fishermen saw him floating in his sheepskin coat, and got him into their boat the sole relater of the dismal tale. For three days no one dared to carry the intelligence to the king. At length, they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping bitterly, and kneeling at his feet, told him that the White Ship was lost, with all on board. The king fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, never afterward was seen to smile. CHARLES DICKENS. "MEBBE” JOE'S TRUE FEESH STORY. OLD Joe, familiar to visitors on the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands, is a mighty teller of mighty stories, in a tedious manner, and with a French accent which lent them a charm all their own. 66 Well," said Joe, on one occasion, when his fares had been telling anecdotes of singular recoveries of things lost, once there was an American young couple came here on their honeymoon-ah, she was a beauty that, sixteen years 66 mebbe seventeen-mebbe eighteen years old, and he was devoted to her like nothing. Well, and so those young couple hired me to take them out in my boat one evening, and that young woman she had on a diamond ring — ah, that was a beautiful ring, worth a thousand dollars — mebbe two thousand dollars, mebbe three thousand dollars. Well, and so that young woman was playing with her hand in the water so!-mebbe five minutes, mebbe six, mebbe seven- - and all at once she screams, My ring! My r-r-ring!' Well, and so that rings had slipped off her finger and gone down into the lake. The water was deep -thirty feet deep, mebbe forty, mebbe fifty and she was deestracted, My, I was sorry; I could 'ave cry. And that young fellow, her husband, but he was sorry, too! And he says he will give me five hundred dollars mebbe six hundred, mebbe seven hundred if I find him that rings. But what was the use, eh? Well, and so we turned the boat about, and I was rowing home-my, it would have made you sorry to see that young woman!-when z-z-zing goes the fishing-line I had over the stearn of the boat. Well, and so I pulled in the feesh. My, that was the biggest feesh I ever caught two feet long, mebbe two and a half, mebbe three- and when I hauled him into the boat there was a great, g-g-great big lump on his side, like as mebbe if he had swallowed somethings. And that young womans,my, how oxcited she was! she just scr-r-reams cut, O, do open those feesh-I am sure it must have swallowed my rings.' And her husband, he tried to make fun of her; but no, sare, that young womans — hello, was that a feesh jumped there? (Pauses in his rowing and gazes eagerly in the distance). Omnes. Never mind the fish, go on with the story. Joe. Well, and so that young womans prevailed upon her husband to buy that feesh and have me open it, no matter what it coss - a dollar, mebbe two, mebbe three- and so I take my knife and I open that feesh. Mebbe you think it was a lie, but I have lived here twenty-two years, mebbe twenty-three, mebbe twenty-four, and I never heard anything like it. Well, and so I opened that feesh, and (resting on his oars and lowering his voice to the sub-cellar of solemnity) what you think I find in that fish? Omnes - The ring! the ring! Joe, resuming his rowing.-No-o; it was a little bit of brick! There was a dead silence for some moments, and then the old boatman added, deprecatingly: 66 Mebbe you think it was a lie? No; that was the truth I was tolling you!" BIG BEN BOLTON. I REMEMBER big Ben Bolton, and the little Leontine, He could carry off a millstone, but she ruled him like a queen. He stood seven feet in his stockings; she was hardly three feet high: But she wound him round her finger, and she ruled him with her eye. The women used to snicker, and the hardy miners smiled, That they looked as fitly mated as a rabbit and a bear. He would drop his pick and shovel when she came in working hours: They would go among the gulches after gay and gaudy flowers; He would climb the dizzy ledges, he would scale the mountain side, Bearing her upon his shoulders, while he called her "little bride." He could bend an iron crowbar, he could lift a half a ton, When the hard day's work was over, when the crescent silver moon Arose above the mountain pines, we met at 66 'Blood's saloon," When Ben Bolton used to give us exhibitions of his skill In bending iron crowbars or in twisting of a drill. One day Ezekiel Parsons sent to 'Frisco on the sly And bought a bar of tempered steel, for brawny Ben to try. The boys who understood the game came down to Blood's one night, And stood serenely round the bar and waiting for the sight. Ben Bolton grasped the bar of steel, he brought it to his knee, And like a locomotive puffed, the trick he could not see; The sweat ran down his honest face, upon his hands he spit, He tugged and worked with all his might, it would not budge a bit. Ezekiel Parsons shook his sides, the boys all laughed aloud, It cut him so completely, and it made him feel so mean, roars, O'er rocks, through glens and gulches, and mining camps it pours. A cry comes from the hollow, and rushing down the ridge Beneath the narrow ledge near by, with bright dishevelled hair, They see the little Leontine - her hands are clasped in prayer. The structure quakes, the strong man shakes, no fear is in his face; "Ho! save the child," he shouts aloud, "I'll hold the bridge in place." Zeke Parsons bounds upon the bridge, the women wail with fear; He lifts the child in his strong arms, the miners loudly cheer; He leaps upon the trembling logs, the waters round him roar; He slips, he falls, he creeps, he crawls, he springs upon the shore. The child is saved, Ben Bolton, but who will help you now? The crowbar in your brawny hands breaks like a rotten bough, |