and looked from the soap to the pie, and from the pie to the soap. He was really in great distress, for what the pirate had said was true. The old woman could make pies, but she could not make soap, and soap cost money.

"Is it good soap?" he inquired cautiously.

"Best in the world," answered the pirate, confidently. "A whole box now, for nothing! Just because I want a pie. Is it a go?"

Old Ephraim went over to the box, handled the soap, unwrapped several cakes, smelled them, moistened one piece at the corner, and stirred a bit of lather. Being finally convinced and converted, he grinned broadly at the pirate.

"I guess the old woman won't miss one pie she don't know nuffin' about," he argued; "and I guess I can trade half them soaps at the store for plug terbacker."

The pirate encouraged him in this belief.

"Well, heah 's the pie," old Ephraim concluded, and that peripatetic piece of pastry passed once more into the possession of the pirate, who promptly placed it under the driving seat of the Saucy Sally.

He quickly nailed up the box of soap, helped old Ephraim tuck it away under one arm, and with deep satisfaction watched the darky hobble down the road.

XII

BARBARA very nearly melted into tears when, after a thorough search of the toolhouse, it became certain that the satchel was no longer there. Her lips trembled and she uttered a little, helpless, weary groan, and Tom again asserted his rights, and proceeded to perform those offices of comfort which fall to the share of a strong

man.

They walked slowly away, around the barn again, and back to their original meeting-place, where, side by side, they leaned solemnly on the top rail of the fence, and Tom tried heroically to figure out what the next best thing to do might be.

To them, in this crisis, came Gentle Jim. He burst upon them suddenly, for the back road was narrow and deep

shaded, and made a sharp turn just below the barn. The Saucy Sally was in full view before either Tom or Barbara could

move.

"That's the pirate man," she said quickly, placing her hand on Tom's arm. By this time the Saucy Sally had heaved to, and the pirate was approaching, hat in hand.

"I am awfully sorry about this morning and Mr. Beecroft," began Barbara, as Gentle Jim drew near.

"Don't say a word, Miss," replied the pirate, good-naturedly.

"Especially," continued Barbara, before the pirate could add another word, "as I have since learned that what you said about putting the pie under the box was absolutely true."

Gentle Jim looked a trifle embarrassed. "Yes," added Tom, pleasantly, "I found the pie under the box, and took it." Gentle Jim actually turned pale. "You've got the pie?" he exclaimed. "I found it," answered Tom; "but, alas! I have n't got it now."

The pirate looked relieved, and turned back toward his wagon.

"No," he said over his shoulder, "I could n't understand how you should have it; for I have it," and he pulled the battered treasure from under the seat.

"That's it!" shouted Tom, vaulting the fence. "I recognize it by the brown lump on the side.”

He tore the pie away from the pirate before the latter had time to resist, and handed it quickly over the fence to Barbara. Barbara thrust a finger through the crust, and with a little cry of "That 's it!" sank to the ground and began to cry, sobbing just as she had cried when she learned of its loss.

Tom was over the fence again in a second, and Gentle Jim was left an embarrassed spectator, twisting his hat, in the middle of the road. After a while he ventured:

"Is the pie still worth money to you, Miss?"

"Indeed it is," replied Barbara, drying her eyes, and letting Tom lift her to her feet. "You shall have the money at once. But tell me how you got the pie."

"Off an old darky," he said, and recounted, with many flourishes, his meeting and bartering with Ephraim.

"The old rascal!" commented Barbara. And then to Tom: "I promised a hundred dollars for the return of the pie. You hold it while I go into the house and get the money."

"Not on your life!" cried Tom, holding Barbara by the wrist. "I'll pay him. And now that we have the pie, we will consider our own escape."

"But we can't get away now," Barbara cried. "The last train left long ago. But wait!-" She had suddenly been struck with an idea. "The express stops at the junction at 8:15. It is nearly nine miles to the junction

"We'll get that train," interrupted Tom. "We can get off at Farmingdale, and you can go to your cousin's for the

night." Then, turning to Gentle Jim: "Mr. Pirate," he said in a businesslike way, "I will pay you twenty-five dollars if you will drive us to the junction in time to catch that 8:15 express. It is 6:20 now. If it kills the horse, I'll pay for him, too."

Things were certainly beginning to come the pirate's way. He did not hesitate a moment. He turned his wagon and headed it toward the wide world of freedom. Tom and Barbara clambered to the seat beside him, Tom sitting in the middle, holding the pie tightly with both hands on his lap.

The pirate whipped up the old horse, and the Saucy Sally glided off into the deep sea of the great highway.

POET

OETS are the best judges of poetry, and however indifferent the public may be to a poet's work, he has not failed if he has succeeded in enlisting the appreciation of his contemporary fellow-singers: such a reward is more to be desired than much gold. Moreover, whatever fashions there may be in poetry in various ages, the rank of the poets is ultimately fixed by the consensus of the poets that come after them.

Keats's comments on other poets were particularly incisive and illuminating. His letters flash with precipitating suggestions about his art, which play through his deep thought with the effect of lightning through heavy-freighted clouds. Spenser Spenser awoke him, Dante inspired him, Homer filled his vision, but Shakspere and Milton satisfied him. What a superb tribute he makes in saying: "You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close before you the real Isle of Tenedos. You would rather read Homer afterward than remember, yourself." At one time he wrote, "I read Shakspere-indeed, I shall, I think, never read any other book much"; and again, "The sonnets are full of fine things, said unintentionally"; and, summing up the great Elizabethan, "He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything."

It is easy to see that Milton had upon Keats a creative influence, which is shown particularly in numerous pages of "Hyperion" and in some of the most sonorous of the sonnets. Indeed, Keats felt that "Hyperion" had "too many Miltonic inversions," but certainly none of those inversions can be spared from that opening passage, which, it will be remembered, Herbert Spencer, in his essay, "The Philosophy of Style," cites for the strength of its poetic expression. Keats's letters contain, however, not much mention of Milton, but such as it is, it conveys the reverence he felt for the great epic poet. Writing from Carisbrooke, he

speaks of having pinned up a print of "Milton with his daughters." Later, from Teignmouth, he says to Reynolds, "I long to feast upon old Homer as we have upon Shakspere and as I have lately upon Milton." A little later, comparing Wordsworth with Milton, he says of the former:

He is a genius and superior [to] us, in so far as he can, more than we, make discoveries and shed a light in them. Here I must think Wordsworth is deeper than Milton, though I think it has depended more upon the general and gregarious advance of intellect than individual greatness of mind. From the "Paradise Lost," and the other works of Milton, I hope it is not too presuming, even between ourselves, to say that his philosophy, human and divine, may be tolerably understood by one not much advanced in years. In his time, Englishmen were just emancipated from a great superstition, and men had got hold of certain points and resting-places in reasoning which were too newly born to be doubted, and too much opposed by the rest of Europe not to be thought ethereal and authentically divine. Who could gainsay his ideas on virtue, vice, and chastity, in "Comus," just at the time of the dismissal of a hundred social disgraces? Who would not rest satisfied with his hintings at good and evil in the "Paradise Lost" when just free from the Inquisition and burning in Smithfield? The Reformation produced such immediate and great benefits that Protestantism was considered under the immediate eye of Heaven, and its own remaining dogmas and superstitions, then, as it were, regenerated, constituted those restingplaces and seeming sure points of reasoning. From that I have mentioned, Milton, whatever he may have thought in the sequel, appears to have been content with these by his writings. He did not think with the human heart as Wordsworth has done; yet Milton, as a philosopher, had surely as great powers as Wordsworth. What is then to be inferred? O! many things: it proves there

is really a grand march of intellect; it proves that a mighty Providence subdues the mightiest minds to the service of the time being, whether it be in human knowledge or religion.

Once at Leigh Hunt's he saw an authenticated lock of Milton's hair" (the italics are his), and wrote his lines on the event, beginning,

Chief of organic numbers!
Old Scholar of the Spheres,

in which he vows to write of the great poet in years to come when he shall be more confident through ripeness of intellectual perceptions, and closing,

When I do speak, I'll think upon this hour.

Keats learned much from Milton of dignity and clear poetic expression, but if

there was one quality he had yet to learn and which we may be reasonably sure would have come with the growth of years, it is the majestic repose of "Paradise Lost." For no poet ever had more growth in him than Keats, in his twentyfive years of life and his scant seven of poetic composition. His revisions were always improvements and one's fancy may regale itself in thinking how, had he lived to maturity, he probably would have heightened the beauty of even his most boyish work.

Mr. Sidney Colvin has admirably characterized the difference between the two poets, in his penetrating comparison of "Paradise Lost" and "Hyperion":

The influence, and something of the majesty, of "Paradise Lost" are in truth to be found in "Hyperion "; and the debate of the fallen Titans in the second book is obviously

to some extent modeled on the debate of the fallen angels. But Miltonic the poem hardly is in any stricter sense. Passing by those general differences that arise from the contrast of Milton's age with Keats's youth, of his austerity with Keats's luxuriance of spirit, and speaking of palpable and technical differences only, in the matter of rhythm Keats's blank

Eden stretch'd her line From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings, Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar.

But then neither is Milton a match for Keats in work like this:

Throughout all the isle

There was no covert, no retired cave Unhaunted by the murmurous noise

verse has not the flight of Mil-. ton's. Its periods do not wheel through such stately evolutions to so solemn and far-foreseen a close, though it indeed lacks neither power nor music, and ranks unquestionably with the finest blank-verse written since Milton-beside that of Shelley's "Alastor," perhaps a little below that of Wordsworth, when Wordsworth is at his infrequent best. As to diction and poetic use of words, Keats shows almost as masterly an instinct as Milton himself; but while of Milton's diction the characteristic colour is derived from reading and meditation, from an impassioned conversance with the contents of books, the characteristic colour of Keats's diction is rather derived from conversance with nature and with the extreme refinements of physical sensation. He is no match for Milton in a passage of this kind:

With duller steel than the Persean sword They cut away no formless monster's head.

Similar Miltonic echoes occur in "Hyperion," as in the introduction already quoted to the speech of Oceanus; or again thus:

Then, as was wont, his palace-door flew ope
In smoothest silence, save what solemn tubes,
Blown by the serious Zephyrs, gave of sweet
And wandering sounds, slow-breathed melodies.