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XI.-TOM PINCH'S JOURNEY.

T was a charming evening, mild and bright. The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass-work on the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling-reins to the handle of the hind boot, was one great instrument of music.

2. Yoho! past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages and barns, and people going home from work. Yoho! past donkey chaises drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a bound upon the little water-course, and held by struggling carters close to the five-barred gate until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the road. Yoho! by churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial grounds about them, where the graves are green, and daisies sleep-for it is evening-on the bosom of the dead.

3. Yoho! past streams, in which the cattle cool their feet, and where the rushes grow; past paddockfences, farms, and rick-yards; past last year's stacks, cut slice by slice away, and showing, in the waning light, like ruined gables, old and brown. Yoho! down the pebbly dip, and through the merry watersplash, and up at a canter to the level road again. Yoho! Yoho!

4. Yoho! among the gathering shades, making of no account the reflections of the trees, but scamper

ing on through light and darkness, all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy road, and through the open gate, and far away, away, into the world. Yoho!

5. See the bright moon! High up, before we know it, making the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water, hedges, trees, low cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps, and flourishing young slips, have all grown vain upon a sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair images till morning. The poplars yonder rustle, that their quivering leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling does not become him; and he watches himself in his stout old burly steadfastness without the motion of a twig.

6. The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed, swings to and fro before its glass, like some fantastic dowager; while our own ghostly likeness travels on, through ditch and brake, upon the plowed land and the smooth, along the steep hill-side and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom hunter.

7. Yoho! Why, now we travel like the moon herself. Hiding this minute in a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapor; emerging now upon our broad, clear course; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yoho! A match against the moon.

8. The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when day comes leaping up. Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous street.

Yoho! past market gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and squares, and in among the rattling pavements. Yoho! down countless turnings, and through countless mazy ways, until an old inn-yard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down, quite stunned and giddy, is in London.

"Five minutes before the time, too!" said the driver, as he received his fee from Tom.

Charles Dickens.

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

1. They went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on. 2. Yoho! down the pebbly dip, and through the merry watersplash, and up at a canter to the level road again. Yoho! Yoho!

3. See the bright moon! High up, before we know it.
4. Not so the oak; trembling does not become him.
5. Yoho! Why, now we travel like the moon herself.

[blocks in formation]

3.

Strike!

Obstacles subduing,

Harder far than iron bar.
All that's worth pursuing
Follow still with iron will,

And strike:

Tarry not, but strike.

Hickson.

THE

XIII.--FIVE OUT OF ONE SHELL.

HERE were five peas in one shell. They were green, and the pod was green, and so they thought all the world was green. The shell grew, and the peas grew, sitting all in a row. The sun shone and warmed the husk, and the rain made it clear and transparent.

2. The peas, as they sat there, became more and more thoughtful as they grew larger, for something they must do.

"I am

"Are we to sit here forever?" asked one. afraid we shall become hard by long sitting. seems to me there must be something outside."

It

3. The weeks went by: the peas became yellow and the pod shrunken. "All the world's turning yellow," said they; and they had a right to say it. Suddenly they felt a tug at the shell. It was torn off, passed through human hands, and glided down into the pocket of a jacket, in company with other full pods.

4. "Now we shall soon be opened!" they said; and that was what they were waiting for. “I should like to know who of us will get farthest!" said the smallest of the five. 66 'Yes, now it will soon

show itself." largest.

"What is to be, will be," said the

5. Crack! the pod burst, and all the five peas rolled out into the bright sunshine. There they lay in a child's hand. A little boy was clutching them, and said they were fine peas for his pea-shooter; and he put one into it directly, and shot it out.

6. "Now I'm flying out into the wide world; catch me if you can!" And he was gone.

"I shall fly straight into the sun," said the second. "That's a shell worth looking at, and one that exactly suits me." And away he went.

7. "We'll go to sleep wherever we stop," said the next two, "but we shall roll on all the same." They rolled and tumbled down on the ground before they got into the pea-shooter; but they were put in, for all that. "We shall go farthest," said they.

ture.

8. "What is to happen, will happen," said the last, as he was shot from the pea-shooter. He flew up against an old board under the garret window, into a crack which was filled with moss and soft mold; and the moss closed round him. There he lay, a prisoner indeed, but not forgotten by provident na"What is to happen, will happen," said he. 9. Within, in the little garret, lived a poor woman, who went out in the day to clean stoves, and to do other hard work of the same kind, for she was strong as well as industrious. She was very poor; and at home in the garret lay her half-grown, only daughter, who was very weak and delicate. She had kept her bed for a whole year, and it seemed as if she could neither live nor die.

10. "She is going to her little sister," the woman said. "I had only the two children, and it was not

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