With a great many more of lesser degree

In sooth a goodly company;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween, Was a prouder seen,

Read of in books, or dreamed of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims !

In and out Through the motley rout

That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;

Here and there Like a dog in a fair

Over comfits and cakes, And dishes and plates,

Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,

Miter and crosier! he hopped upon all!

With saucy air, He perched on the chair

Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat

In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat;

And he peered in the face Of his Lordship's Grace, With a satisfied look, as if he would say,

"We two are the greatest folks here to-day!"

And the priests, with awe, As such freaks they saw, Said, "The devil must be in that little Jackdaw!"

The feast was over, the board was cleared,
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little Singing Boys, dear little souls!
In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,
Came, in order due, Two by two
Marching that grand refectory through.

A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water, as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Carried lavender water and eau de Cologne;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope.
One little boy more A napkin bore,

Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
And a Cardinal's Hat marked in "permanent ink."

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight

Of these nice little boys dressed all in white:

From his finger he draws His costly turquoise;

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,

Deposits it straight By the side of his plate, While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait; Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing, That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring.

There's a cry and a shout, And a deuce of a rout,
And nobody seems to know what they're about,
But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out;
The friars are kneeling, And hunting, and feeling
The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
The Cardinal drew Off each plum-colored shoe,
And left his red stockings exposed to the view;
He peeps, and he feels In the toes and the heels;
They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates, -
They take up the poker and poke out the grates,

They turn up the rugs, They examine the mugs: But no!no such thing; They can't find the RING! And the Abbot declared that, "when nobody twigged it, Some rascal or other had popped in and prigged it!"

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,

He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!

In holy anger, and pious grief,

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;
He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking,
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying!-
Never was heard such a terrible curse!

But what gave rise To no little surprise,

Nobody seemed one penny the worse!

The day was gone, The night came on,

The Monks and the Friars they searched till dawn;
When the Sacristan saw, On crumpled claw,
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw;

No longer gay, As on yesterday;

His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way;
His pinions drooped - he could hardly stand-

His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;

His eye so dim, So wasted each limb,
That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM!-
That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing!
That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's Ring!"

The poor little Jackdaw, When the monks he saw,
Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;

And turned his bald head, as much as to say, "Pray, be so good as to walk this way!"

Slower and Slower He limped on before, Till they came to the back of the belfry door,

Where the first thing they saw, Midst the sticks and the straw Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw!

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book,

And off that terrible curse he took;

The mute expression Served in lieu of confession, And, being thus coupled with full restitution,

The Jackdaw got plenary absolution! —

When those words were heard,

That poor little bird
Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd,
He grew sleek, and fat; In addition to that,
A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!

His tail waggled more Even than before;
But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,
No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair.

He hopped now about With a gait devout;
At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out;
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads.
If any one lied, or if any one swore,

Or slumbered in prayer time and happened to snore,
That good Jackdaw Would give a great "Caw!"

As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!"

While many remarked, as his manners they saw,
That they "never had known such a pious Jackdaw!"
He long lived the pride Of that country side,

And at last in the odor of sanctity died;

When, as words were too faint, His merits to paint,
The Conclave determined to make him a Saint;
And on newly made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It's the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
So they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow!

ROARING RALPH AND THE JIBBENAINOSAY.

[ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD, novelist and playwright, was born at Newcastle, Del., 1803 or 1805; studied medicine and practiced a year in Philadelphia, but gave his time chiefly to letters, and wrote three very popular plays, "The Gladiator " (a favorite part of Forrest), "Oraloosa," and "The Broker of Bogota." His novels were "Calavar" (1834), "The Infidel" (1835), both on the Spanish conquest of Mexico; "The Hawks of Hawk Hollow"; "Sheppard Lee "; "Nick of the Woods" (1837), still remembered and effectively dramatized; "Peter Pilgrim" (1839), tales and sketches; and "Robin Day" (1839). Dr. Bird in his later years became joint owner and editor of the Philadelphia North American Gazette, and died there in 1854.]

"WHAT'S the matter, Tom Bruce?" said the father, eying him with surprise.

"Matter enough," responded the young giant, with a grin of mingled awe and delight; "the Jibbenainosay is up again!” "Whar?" cried the senior, eagerly; "not in our limits?" "No, by Jehoshaphat!" replied Tom; "but nigh enough to be neighborly on the north bank of Kentuck, whar he has left his mark right in the middle of the road, as fresh as though it war but the work of the morning!"

"And a clear mark, Tom? no mistake in it?"

"Right to an iota!" said the young man; "a reggelar cross on the breast, and a good tomahawk dig right through the skull; and a long-legg'd fellow, too, that looked as though he might have fou't old Sattan himself!"

"It's the Jibbenainosay, sure enough, and so good luck to him!" cried the commander; "thar's a harricane coming!" “Who is the Jibbenainosay?" demanded Forrester. "Who?" cried Tom Bruce. "Why, Nick, Nick of the Woods."

"And who, if you please, is Nick of the Woods?"

"Thar," replied the junior, with another grin, "thar, strannger, you're too hard for me. Some think one thing, and some another; but thar's many reckon he's the devil." "And his mark that you were talking of in such mysterious terms, what is that?"

66

Why, a dead Injun, to be sure, with Nick's mark on him, a knife-cut, or a brace of 'em, over the ribs in the shape of a

cross. That's the way the Jibbenainosay marks all the meat of his killing. It has been a whole year now since we h'ard of him.”

"Captain," said the elder Bruce, "you don't seem to understand the affa'r altogether, but if you were to ask Tom about the Jibbenainosay till doomsday, he could tell you no more than he has told already. You must know thar's a creatur’ of some sort or other that ranges the woods round about our station h'yar, keeping a sort of guard over us like, and killing all the brute Injuns that ar' onlucky enough to come in his way, besides scalping them and marking them with his mark. The Injuns call him Jibbenainosay, or a word of that natur', which them that know more about the Injun gabble than I do say means the Spirit-that-walks; and if we can believe any such lying devils as Injuns (which I am loath to do, for the truth ar'nt in 'em), he is neither man nor beast, but a great ghost or devil that knife cannot harm nor bullet touch; and they have always had an idea that our fort h'yar in partickelar, and the country round about, war under his friendly protection many thanks to him, whether he be a devil or not; for that war the reason the savages so soon left off a worrying of us."

"Is it possible," said Roland, "that any one can believe such an absurd story?"

"Why not?" said Bruce, stoutly. "Thar's the Injuns themselves, Shawnees, Hurons, Delawares, and all, but partickelarly the Shawnees, for he beats all creation a-killing of Shawnees, that believe in him, and hold him in such etarnal dread that thar's scarce a brute of 'em has come within ten miles of the station h'yar this three y'ar because as how he haunts about our woods h'yar in partickelar, and kills 'em wheresomever he catches 'em, especially the Shawnees, as I said afore, against which the creatur' has a most butchering spite; and there's them among the other tribes that call him Shawneewannaween, or the Howl of the Shawnees, because of his keeping them ever a howling. And thar's his marks, captain, what do you make of that? When you find an Injun lying scalped and tomahawked, it stands to reason thar war something to kill him."

"Ay, truly," said Forrester; "but I think you have human beings enough to give the credit to without referring it to a supernatural one."

"Strannger," said Big Tom Bruce, the younger, with a sagacious nod, "when you kill an Injun yourself, I reckon