BRINGING THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.

I

SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good-speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

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'Speed!" echoed the walls to us, galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place.
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup and set the peak right,
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

'Twas moonset at starting; but, while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mechelen church steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with: "Yet there is time!"

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper, Roland, at last,
With resolute shoulders each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence-ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris: "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix”—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I.

Past Loos and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our foot broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome tower sprang white,

And "Gallop," cried Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"

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"How they'll greet us!" and in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

Then I cast my loose buff-coat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is friends flocking round,

And I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
the burgesses voted by common consent-
Was no more than his due who brought good news from
Ghent.

Which

COMPOSITION.

On horses. Their courage, and their attachment to their masters. The horse is noted all through the page of history for his courage and affection. Examples: Bucephalus, owned by Alexander; the well known story of the Arab and his steed; finally, we have a very striking instance of the horse's pluck and courage in the history of "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." Give the distance between the two places. Make a small sketch showing the road. Letter the same, and indicate places mentioned in the story. Describe the start; first falter; anxiety of the other two riders; second mishap; all depends upon the third animal's heft; the second courier left behind wistfully glances after the last horse; the good steed makes his way into the town. The crowd surges about the noble animal. The rider is offered refreshment, but he first thinks of his faithful ally. "The best wine for the best horse," cries the rider, and "may it do the brave beast good," is in every one's mouth. "Will he die?" ask a hundred voices. In a few moments there is a struggle between exhausted nature and every one's desires. The public wish is satisfied. The good horse rises, shakes off the thick sweat, looks at his master, throws forward his ears, and with a neigh that sends gladness into every heart, seems to say: "Didn't we do it well?" A patting on the neck, then some choice little morsels which a fair lady allows to be nibbled from her palm, is the reward given to the brave steed that brought the good news to Aix.

"Dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."- FRANKLIN.

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone for ever."— HORACE MANN.

ONE

NE of the most important lessons to be learned in life is the art of economizing time. A celebrated Italian was wont to call his time his estate; and it is

true of this as of other estates of which the young come into possession, that it is rarely prized till it is nearly squandered. Habits of indolence, listlessness, and procrastination, once firmly fixed, cannot be suddenly thrown off, and the man who has wasted the precious hours of life's seed-time, finds that he cannot reap a harvest in life's autumn. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine; but lost time is gone for ever. In the long catalogue of excuses for the neglect of duty, there is none which drops oftener from men's lips, or which is founded on more of self-delusion, than the want of leisure. People are always cheating themselves with the idea that they would do this or that desirable thing, "if they only had time." It is thus that the lazy and the selfish excuse themselves from a thousand things which conscience dictates to be done. Now, the truth is, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any good is less than in that of leisure.

Go, seek out the men in any community who have done the most for their own and the general good, and you will find they are- who? Wealthy, leisurely people, who have abundance of time to themselves, and nothing to do? No; they are almost uniformly the men who are in ceaseless activity from January to December. Such men, however pressed with business, are always found capable of doing a little more; and you may rely on them in their busiest seasons with ten times more assurance than on idle men.

There is an instinct that tells us that the man who does much is most likely to do more, and to do it in the best manner. The reason is, that to do increases the power of doing; and it is much easier for one who is always exerting himself to exert himself a little more, than for

him who does nothing to rouse himself to action. Give a busy man ten minutes to write a letter, and he will dash it off at once; give an idle man a day, and he will postpone it till to-morrow or next week. There is a momentum in the active man which of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, while a smart one was required to set it in motion.

The men who do the greatest things do them not so much by prodigious but fitful efforts, as by steady, unremitting toil, by turning even the moments to account. They have the genius for hard work, - the most desirable. kind of genius. A continual dropping wears the stone. A little done this hour and a little the next hour, day by day, and year by year, brings much to pass. Even the largest houses are built by laying one stone upon another.

Complain not, then, of your want of leisure to do anything. Rather thank God that you are not cursed with leisure; for a curse it proves, in nine cases out of ten. What if, to achieve some good work which you have deeply at heart, you can never command an entire month, a week, or even a day? Shall you therefore stand still, and fold your arms in despair? No; the thought should only stimulate and urge you on to do what you can do in this swiftly passing life of ours.

Try what you can build up from the broken fragments of your time, rendered more precious by their brevity. It is said that in the Mint the floor of the gold-working room is a net-work of bars, to catch the falling particles of the precious metal; and that when the day's labor is done the bars are removed, and the golden dust is swept up, to be melted and coined. Learn from this the nobler economy of time. Glean up its golden dust; economize