48 THE SIMPLETON AND THE ROGUES. dainsels will then smile more favorably upon me, and I shall be the finest man at the Mosque." 4. Whilst he was thus reveling in the anticipation of his future conquests, three artful rogues concerted a stratagem for robbing him of all his possessions. As he was riding slowly along, one of the rascals slipped off the bell from the neck of the goat, and fastening it, without being perceived, to the crupper of the mule's saddle, led away the smaller beast. 5. Malek, hearing the bell, and supposing that the goat was near behind, continued to muse, without suspecting his loss. Happening, however, a short while afterward, to look round, he found with dismay that the animal which formed so large a part of his riches was gone; and he inquired with the utmost anxiety after his goat of every traveler he met. 6. The second rogue now accosted him, and said, "I have just seen, in yonder field, a man in great haste dragging along with him a goat." Malek dismounted with precipitation, and requesting the obliging stranger to hold his mule, that he might lose no time in overtaking the thief, instantly began the pursuit; but he soon returned from a fruitless search, only to find that neither his mule nor the obliging stranger, who had volunteered the information about the goat-stealer, was any where to be seen. 7. As Malek walked pensively onward, overwhelmed with shame, anger, and disappointment, his attention was roused by the loud lamentations of a poor man seated by the side of a well. "Good! Here is a brother in affliction!" thought Malek; and, turning out of his way to sympathize with him, he recounted his own misfortunes, and then inquired the reason of that violent sorrow with which his new friend seemed to be agitated. 8. "Alas!" said the poor man, in most piteous THE SIMPLETON AND THE ROGUES. 49 tones, "as I was stooping here to drink, I accidentally dropped into the water a casket full of diamonds, which I was employed to carry to the Calif, at Bagdad. Unfortunate wretch that I am! I shall certainly be put to death, on suspicion of having stolen and concealed so valuable a treasure." 9. "Why do you not jump into the well, in search of the casket, instead of making such an outery?" asked Malek, astonished at the stupidity of the man. "Because the water is deep," replied the fellow, “and I can neither dive nor swim. O! my good master, if you will venture for me, I will reward you with thirty pieces of silver." 10 Overjoyed at the prospect of making good his losses, Malek accepted the offer with exultation Pulling off his cassock, vest, trowsers, and slippers, he plunged into the well, in search of the pretended casket. He had hardly touched the water when the whining individual-who, it is needless to say, was one of the three rogues who had laid this plot for the plunder of the poor peasant-seized upon his garments, and bore them off to a place of security. 11. After diving, and spending some time in the well, in an unavailing search, Malek climbed up, and looked round for his clothes. To his consternation he found that they were gone, and that with them had disappeared his bewailing friend, the loser of the imaginary diamonds. 12. Thus, through inattention, simplicity, and cre dulity, coupled with too confident a reliance on his own sagacity and wisdom, was poor Malek duped out of all his possessions. A wiser if not a better man, he hastened back to his own humble cottage, with no other covering than a tattered cloak, which a worthy sailor, to whom he told his sorrows, lent him on the road. Do not say heerd for heard (herd); cavuns for cav'erns; dooty diæresis over the e in Israël shows that the two vowels are distinct in so The beautiful story of Ruth, on which the following poem is founde known to all readers of the Bible. FAREWELL? O no! it may not be ; I know not that I now could bear Too well I've loved in other years When sorrow dims thine eye with tears, And strong the furnace fire must be, I will not boast a martyr's might The weak are strong, the timid brave; For rays of heaven, serenely bright, On all its gathering thoughts of gloom. Then, mother, let us haste away To that blest land to Israël given, And where thy grave is, mine shall be; My firm and faithful heart from thee! W. B. O. PEABODY. (1799-1847.) XVII. REPLY TO LORD LYNDHURST. RK, a., stiff; — ad., wholly. BLENCHED, v. i., shrank; started back. ronounce Assaye (in Hin-dos-tan') As-sï'ye ; Vimieira (in Portugal)) Vim-e-a-e'ra ; ajos (in Spain) Bad-a-hōs ; Albuera (in Spain) Al-boo-ā'ra; Toulouse (in France) -looz'. Give the y sound to u in Duke. he following eloquent remarks were made by Richard Lalor Shiel, in the British Par ent, in 1837, in reply to Lord Lyndhurst, who had spoken of the Irish as "aliens! el was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1791. He died in 1851. 1. I SHOULD be surprised, indeed, if, while you are ■ing us wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to us justice. Englishmen were never wanting in ch protestations. There is, however, one exception. 2. There is a man of great abilities, not a member this House, but whose talents and boldness have aced him in the topmost place in his party, who s been heard to speak of the Irish as "aliens." Dis and chen ince all rosorve 52 REPLY TO LORD LYNDHURST. distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; that they are "aliens." Aliens? Good heavens! Was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, "Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty?" 3. The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I can not help thinking that when he heard his countrymen děsignated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply, I can not help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. 4. The "battles, sieges, fortunes, that he has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable, from Assaye to Waterloo, the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. 5. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimieira through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valor* climbed the steeps and filled the moats of Badajos? *The tone of suspension should be given at greatest, the dash indicating a sudden break in the speaker's remarks. The battle he there refers to is Waterloo, fought against Napoleon, June 18th, 1815. The opposing forces were commanded by Wellington, whose "words," to which the orator alludes, were, "Up, Guards, and at them!" Sir Henry Hardinge was the "gallant soldier" to whom Shiel appealed. |