nd bar, and chain,
Was opened to take Willie in,
And then was shut again.
He saw the handcuffs on the wall,
The fetters on the floor;
And heavy keys with iron rings
To lock the dungeon door.

He saw the little, lonely cells
Where prisoners were kept,
And all the dreary passages,
And bitterly he wept.
And through the strong-barred iron grate,
High up and far away,
He saw a piece of clear blue sky
Out in the blessed day.

And "Oh!" he said, "my brothers now
Are out of school again,
And playing marbles on the path,
Or cricket on the plain.
"And here am I, shut up so close
Within this iron door;
If ever I get out again
I'll give this business o'er."

And Willie went to sleep that night
In his dark cell alone;
But often in his troubled dreams
He turned with heavy moan.
What sound is that at early morn
That breaks upon his ear?
A funeral bell is tolling slow,
It tolls so very near.

And in the court he sees a crowd,
So haggard and so pale,
And they are whispering fearfully
A sad and awful tale.
And all seem looking at a man
Who stands with fetters bound,
And guards and executioner
Are gathered close around.

And he beheld that wretched man,
Who trembled like a leaf:
His foot no more would stand upon
The ladder of the thief.
For he had climbed it step by step,
Till murder closed the whole;
The hangman came to take his life,
But where would be his soul?

And still the bell went tolling on;
It tolled so heavily
As that young man went up the stairs,
Out to the gallows-tree.
It tolled--it tolled--Oh! heavy sound!
It stopped--the deed is o'er;
And that young man upon the earth
Will now be seen no more:

Oh! parents watch your little ones,
Lest you have such a grief;
Help not their tender feet to climb
The ladder of the thief.
I have not heard young Willie's end,
I hope he learned that day;
But 'tis a thing most difficult
To leave a wicked way.

Sewell

[Illustration: The Prisoner's Van.]

[Page 74--Santa Claus Land]

I have given no Fairy Tales in this Childland. For in this
_matter-of-fact_ age belief in Fairy Tales and all kinds of wonderful
fictions is fast vanishing. Santa Claus, the "bestest" "goodest"
fairy of all alone remains: and even he is gradually being doubted by
al