atience,
and--"So," he exclaimed, "this is the way, you teach my daughter to
renounce the devil, is it? A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heard
before of a hunting friar? A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing,
neck-breaking, catch-singing friar?"

"Under favour, bold baron," said the friar; but the friar was warm
with canary, and in his singing vein; and he could not go on in plain
unmusical prose. He therefore sang in a new tune,--

Though I be now a grey, grey friar,
Yet I was once a hale young knight:
The cry of my dogs was the only choir
In which my spirit did take delight.
Little I recked of matin bell,
But drowned its toll with my clanging horn:
And the only beads I loved to tell
Were the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.

The baron was going to storm, but the friar paused, and Matilda sang in
repetition,--

Little I reck of matin bell,
But drown its toll with my clanging horn:
And the only beads I love to tell
Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.

And then she and the friar sang the four lines together, and rang the
changes upon them alternately.

Little I reck of matin bell,

sang the friar.

"A precious friar," said the baron.

But drown its toll with my clanging horn, sang Matilda.

"More shame for you," said the baron.

And the only beads I love to tell
Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn,

sang Matilda and the friar together.

"Penitent and confessor," said the baron: "a hopeful pair truly."

The friar went on,--

An archer keen I was withal,
As ever did lean on greenwood tree;
And could make the fleetest roebuck fall,
A good three hundred yards from me.
Though changeful time, with hand severe,
Has made me now these joys forego,
Yet my heart bounds whene'er I hear
Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!

Matilda chimed in as before.

"Are you mad?" said the baron. "Are you insane? Are you possessed? What
do you mean? What in the devil's name do you both mean?"

Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!

roared the friar.

The baron's pent-up wrath had accumulated like the waters above the dam
of an overshot mill. The pond-head of his passion being now filled
to the utmost limit of its capacity, and beginning to overflow in the
quivering of his lips and the flashing of his eyes, he pulled up all
the flash-boards at once, and gave loose to the full torrent of his
indignation, by seizing, like fur