And I'll lay five to two that you carry us through, Only scamper as fast as you can.'

XVIII.

[He runneth, and the Tartars after him.-How the friars sweated, and the pursuers fixed arrows into their tayls.-How, at the last gasp, the friars won, and jumped into Borysthenes fluvius.]

Away went the priest through the little back door,

And light on his shoulders the image he bore : The honest old priest was not punished the

least,

Though the image was eight feet, and he measured four.

Away went the prior, and the monks at his tail Went snorting, and puffing, and panting full sail; And just as the last at the back door had passed,

In furious hunt behold at the front

The Tartars so fierce, with their terrible cheers; With axes, and halberts, and muskets, and

spears,

With torches a-flaming the chapel now came in. They tore up the mass-book, they stamped on the psalter,

They pulled the gold crucifix down from the altar;

The vestments they burned with their blasphemous fires,

And many cried, "Curse on them! where are the friars?"

When loaded with plunder, yet seeking for more, One chanced to fling open the little back door, Spied out the friars' white robes and long shad

OWS

In the moon, scampering over the meadows,

And stopped the Cossacks in the midst of their

arsons,

By crying out lustily, "THERE GO THE PARSONS!"

With a whoop and a yell, and a scream and a

shout,

At once the whole murderous body turned out; And swift as the hawk pounces down on the pigeon,

Pursued the poor short-winded men of religion.

When the sound of that cheering came to the monks' hearing,

O Heaven! how the poor fellows panted and

blew!

At fighting not cunning, unaccustomed to running,

When the Tartars came up, what the deuce should they do?

"They'll make us all martyrs, those blood-thirsty Tartars!"

Quoth fat Father Peter to fat Father Hugh. The shouts they came clearer, the foe they drew

nearer;

Oh, how the bolts whistled, and how the lights shone !

"I cannot get further, this running is murther; Come carry me, some one !" cried big Father

John.

And even the statue grew frightened :

you!"

"Od rat

It cried, "Mr. Prior, I wish you'd get on!" On tugged the good friar, but nigher and nigher Appeared the fierce Russians, with sword and with fire.

On tugged the good prior at Saint Sophy's desire,

A scramble through bramble, through mud, and through mire,

The swift arrows' whizziness causing a dizziness. Nigh done his business, fit to expire,

Father Hyacinth tugged, and the monks they tugged after:

The foemen pursued with a horrible laughter, And hurl'd their long spears round the poor brethren's ears

So true, that next day in the coat of each priest, Though never a wound was given, there were found

A dozen arrows at least.

Now the chase seemed at its worst,
Prior and monks were fit to burst;
Scarce you knew the which was first,
Or pursuers or pursued ;

When the statue, by Heaven's grace,
Suddenly did change the face
Of this interesting race,

As a saint, sure, only could.

For as the jockey who at Epsom rides,
When that his steed is spent and punished

sore,

Diggeth his heels into the courser's sides, And thereby makes him run one or two furlongs more;

Even thus, betwixt the eighth rib and the

ninth,

The saint rebuked the prior, that weary creeper; Fresh strength into his limbs her kicks im

parted,

One bound he made, as gay as when he started. Yes, with his brethren clinging at his cloak, The statue on his shoulders-fit to choke

One most tremendous bound made Hyacinth, And soused friars, statue, and all, slapdash into the Dnieper!

XIX.

[And how the Russians saw the statue get off Hyacinth his back, and sit down with the friars on Hyacinth his cloak.-How in this manner of boat they sayled away.]

And when the Russians, in a fiery rank,

Panting and fierce, drew up along the shore ; (For here the vain pursuing they forbore, Nor cared they to surpass the river's bank,) Then, looking from the rocks and rushes dank, A sight they witnessed never seen before, And which, with its accompaniments glorious, Is writ i' the golden book, or liber aureus.

Plump in the Dneiper flounced the friar and friends,

They dangling round his neck, he fit to choke,
When suddenly his most miraculous cloak

Over the billowy waves itself extends,
Down from his shoulders quietly descends
The venerable Sophy's statue of oak;
Which, sitting down upon the cloak so ample,
Bids all the brethren follow its example!

Each at her bidding sat, and sat at ease;
The statue 'gan a gracious conversation,
And (waving to the foe a salutation)
Sail'd with her wondering happy protégés
Gaily adown the wide Borysthenes,

Until they came unto some friendly nation. And when the heathen had at length grown shy

of

Their conquest, she one day came back again to Kioff.

XX.

[Finis, or the end.]

THINK NOT, O READER, THAT WE'RE LAUGHING AT YOU;

YOU MAY GO TO KIOFF NOW AND SEE THE STATUE!

TITMARSH'S CARMEN LILLIENSE.

LILLE, Sept. 2, 1843.

My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
How shall I e'er my woes reveal?

I have no money, I lie in pawn,
A stranger in the town of Lille.

I.

WITH twenty pounds but three weeks since
From Paris forth did Titmarsh wheel,

I thought myself as rich a prince
As beggar poor I'm now at Lille.

Confiding in my ample means-
In troth, I was a happy chiel !
I passed the gates of Valenciennes,
I never thought to come by Lille.

I never thought my twenty pounds
Some rascal knave would dare to steal;

I gayly passed the Belgic bounds

At Quiévrain, twenty miles from Lille.