"Am I obeyed?" the good knight said, as he galloped - along the shore

And rapped with the point of his lancet on the caulker's humble door.

The lance they passed through a pitchy mass that looked like a human fist,

Ugly and black, like a giant's hand lopped short from a giant's wrist;

Then high his spear did the knight uprear, and fast he rode to the wood,

Where, under the blasted oak, close bound, the martyr princess stood.

She heard the tramp of his horse's hoofs; she deemed the dragon drew near;

She pressed her cross to her beating heart, but she showed no signs of fear.

"In the name of our Holy Saviour, who died for thy sins and mine,"

Cried the voice of the knight, as he came in sight, “I bear thee help divine;

For I know, sweet fellow-Christian, by the wonders wrought to-day,

That I bring thee good defiverance, and shall the dragon slay."

She heard his words; her heart beat fast; she gazed on his lion crest,

And joy and surprise came into her eyes, as she saw the Cross on his breast.

But loud through the wood came a roaring, before they could utter more,

And fiercely out of the brushwood the furious dragon

tore:

"Presumptuous knight! Out of my sight! Dare trouble no prey of mine !

Get hence! For know, on no pretence may mortal see me dine!"

"I challenge thee; my gauntlet see! Vile reptile, take thy stand?"

The thing he bore from his lance he tore, and poised it in his hand,

And, as the monster gaped his jaws, he, with good aim and true,

Into their midst the sticky mass of pitch and oakum

threw.

The furious dragon leaped with ragé. His teeth stuck fast together.

He lost the power to use his fangs. Sir George! Sir George forever!

Then, ere the curved and cruel claws or man or steed could harm,

The knight uprose, and dealt three blows, with the strength of his good right arm. One spot there is in a dragon's throat-one spot, and

Where a deadly thrust may do its worst.

only one

dropped like a stone.

The dragon

And Sabra sank at the foot of the oak, all faint at the

reptile's blood,

But the champion raised her swift to his horse, and rode

from the darkening wood,

IV.

"Watchman! Who comes!" cried the king of On; and his voice his anguish showed.

"No man, my lord," was the watchman's word; "all's quiet along the road."

"Watchman! What comes?" “A rising dust I see in the distance now;

A little dust and I see a horse......" "His master is slain, I trow."

66

'I see a knight on the steel-clad horse......" "He has 'scaped the wood in fear;

Ho, porters! look to the city gates, for the dragon will soon be here!"

"I see the knight, and he waves his sword; a maiden lies on his arm......

"I'll follow the faith of the Christian knight if he bring her safe from harm."

"I see her now; but her robe of snow is draggled and red with blood......"

"Alas! alas! For he rode too late-too late he entered the wood."

"Nay-nay my liege, for she waves her arm! I see a cross in her hand.”

"Now, God be praised-the Christian's God-and this be a Christian land!"

V.

He bore her in through the golden gates. Too happy to to speak she lies

Close to the breast of her father pressed, and gazes into

his eyes.

Now thousands out of the city flocked to look at the monster dead,

And the burghers buried the dragon, lest a plague should arise and spread.

St. George became patron of England, the master of English knights;

There the queen bears his cross on her bosom; there brave men wear it in fights;

No honor more great in that Christian State can be paid to a hero this day

Than to give him the right to the cross of the knight who did the dragon slay.

MRS. E. W. LATIMER.

THE YORKSHIRE COBBLER.

WAÄIT

I.

AÄIT till our Sally cooms in, fur thou mun a' sights to tell.

Eh, but I be maäin glad to seeä tha sa 'arty an' well. 'Cast awaäy on a disolut land wi' a vartical soon!' Strange fur to goä fur to think what saäilors a' seëan an'

a' doon:

'Summat to drink-sa' 'ot?' I 'a nowt but Adam's

wine:

What's the 'eät o' this little 'ill-side to the 'eät o' the line?

II.

'What's i' tha bottle a-stannin theer?' I'll tell tha;

Gin.

But if thou wants thy grog, tha mun goä fur it down to

the hinn.

I be maäin-glad to see tha, but thaw tha was iver sa dry,

Thou gits naw gin fro' the bottle theer, an' I'll tell tha

why.

III.

Meä an' thy sister was married, when wur it? back end o' June,

Ten year sin', and wa' 'greed as well as a fiddle i̇' tune: I could fettle and clump owd booöts and shoes wi' the best on 'em all,

As fer as fro' Thursby thurn hup to Harmsby and Hutterby Hall.

We was busy as beeäs i' the bloom an' as 'appy as 'art could think,

An' then the babby wur burn, and then I taäkes to the drink.

IV.

Then Sally she turn'd a tongue-banger, an' raäted ma: 'Sottin' thy braäins,

Guzzlin', an' soäkin', and smoäkin', an' loungin' about i' the laänes,

Soä sow-droonk that tha doesn not touch thy 'at to the Squire;'

An' I loook'd cock-eyed at my noäse an' I seeäd 'im agittin' o' fire;

But sin' I wur hallus i' liquor an' hallus as droonk as a

king,

Foälks' coostom flitted awaäy like a kite wi' a brokken

string.