Men called him William Rufus because of his red beard,
     A proud and naughty king he was, and greatly to be feared;
     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, hit him in the middell,
     And, instead of a royal stag that day, a king of England fell.

Then the correct ear and literary sense of the dominie were offended, and he opened out on his friend.

“I think, Corry, that you might at least have saved our generous hosts the infliction of your wretched travesties.  The third line, Mrs Hill, is really:—­

     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, the fiercest pride can quell.

There is nothing so vulgar as hitting in the verse, and your ear for poetry must tell you that middle cannot rhyme with fell, even if it were not a piece of the most Gothic barbarity.  Thus a fine English song, such as I love to hear, is murdered.”

“My opinion,” said the host, “my opinion is that you could’nt quell a man’s pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle.  It might be against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the consayt out of him sudden.  I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters, there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good misser and a butter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a jack knife.  He had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it.  There was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks.”

“That was very wrong of Rufus,” said the old lady with a sigh, “however, he did offer to remunerate Mr. Perrowne for his medical expenses, but the gentleman refused to accept any equivalent, and said it was the fortune of war, which made Rufus feel humiliated and sorry.”

Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit.  The old lady deposited a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family worship.  He read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten.  While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus.  The head of the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter being a signal to his wife.  She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired in the darkness.  Then four voices said “good-night”; and rest succeeded the labours of the day.  “No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an’ you love me,” whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after his head touched the pillow.  They knew