3. '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 Mechlin church-steeple we heard the halfchime,

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

4. 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;

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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!"

8. "How they'll greet us!"—and all 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.

9. Then I cast loose my 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 sung, any noise, bad or good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

10. And all I remember is friends flocking round,

As 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, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Glent.

ROBERT BROWNING.

LESSON LXVIII.

THE COYOTE.

Fûr'tive, stolen; sly; secret.

Wake, track; trail.

Ål'le go ry, a description of In çensed', enraged; provoked

one thing under the image of
another.

Ve loç'i pēde, a light road

carriage for a single person, propelled by his own action. Seraw'ny, raw-boned; lean. Fren'zy, rage; madness; excite

ment.

to anger.

Fagged, exhausted; tired.
Con'çen tra'ted, brought to-

gether; condensed.
Bland'ly, mildly; gently.

HE coyote of the Plains is a long, slim, sick, and sorry-looking skeleton with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face with a slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth.

2. He has a general slinking expression all over. The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of want. He is always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that, even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it.

3. And he is so homely!- so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful! When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, lowers his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot

through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is out of pistol range. Then he stops and takes a deliberate look at you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again-another fifty and stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body blends with the gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears.

4. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you

will enjoy it ever so much-especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself and has been brought up to think that he knows something about speed. The coyote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog full of encouragement and worldly ambition.

5. And then the dog will lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely as he moves his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, leaving a broader and broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain !

6. All this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the coyote, and to save the life of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get any closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the coyote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that calm, soft-footed trot is.

7. And next the dog notices that he is getting fagged, and that the coyote actually has to slacken speed a little, to keep from running away from him. And then that town dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain, and weep, and snarl, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the coyote with concentrated and desperate energy.

8. This spurt finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the coyote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say:

9. "Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub-business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day." And forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!

MARK TWAIN.