from his false." I was not talking or reading
to my neighbour with the pipe. I do not
know at what stage of my discourse or
meditation I had left my hold upon his ear. I
had been thinking about Leigh Hunt to
myself, and went on reading to myself of
those unfaithful comrades, Roger the monk,
and Midge, on whom Robin had never turned
his face but tenderly; with one or two, they
say, besides— Lord! that in this life's
dream men should abandon one true thing,
that would abide with them.

We cannot bid our strength remain,
Our cheeks continue round;
We cannot say to an aged back,
Stoop not towards the ground:

We cannot bid our dim eyes see
Things as bright as ever,
Nor tell our friends, though friends from youth,
That they'll forsake us never:

But we can say, I never will,
False world, be false for thee;
And oh, Sound Truth and Old Regard,
Nothing shall part us three.

"Woking Junction! Woking! Passengers
for Guildford, Godalming, and Alton, change
here!"

I did not change there, but sat reading
the brave legend of the knight who cured a
lady of disdain by doing battle in a shift
against three warriors in steel—a story with
a pure and tender moral for the innocent, the
noble, and the wise. And when the train
was off again I was not travelling by train
at all, but humming to myself—"The palfrey
goes, the palfrey goes, merrily well the palfrey
goes; he carrieth laughter, he carrieth woes,
yet merrily ever the palfrey goes." For I
was reading then of Sir Grey and Sir Guy,
the proper old boys, who met with a world
of coughing and noise, to mar young love
like mine and Lucy Jane's. O! if we had
but a horse that could in our behalf take,
like the palfrey, vigorous courses! Well,
but never mind that. The palfrey carried
me merrily well to Farnborough, where there
was a great tournament with lions in the
presence of King Francis, and a knight
taught vanity a lesson. The rest of the
journey was a feast of little stories. I was
shown what passed between Abou-ben-
Adhem and the Angel, told how the brave
Mondeer, in spite of the sultan's order that
no man should praise the dead Jaffàr, stood
forth in Bagdad daily in the square where
once had stood a happy house, and there
harangued the tremblers at the scimetar on
all they owed to the divine Jaffàr. "Bring
me this man," the caliph cried. The man
was brought—was gazed upon—the mutes
began to bind his arms. "Welcome, brave
cords! " cried he; "from bonds far worse
Jaffàr delivered me; from wants, from
shames, from loveless household fears; made
a man's eyes friends with delicious tears;
restored me—loved me—put me on a par
with his great self. How can I pay Jaffàr?"
Hàroun, who felt that on a soul like this, the
mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss, now
deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate
might smile upon another half as great. He
said, "Let worth grow frenzied if it will; the
caliph's judgment shall be master still. Go:
and since gifts thus move thee, take this gem,
the richest in the Tartar's diadem, and hold
the giver as thou deemest fit."—" Gifts!"
cried the friend. He took; and holding it
high tow'rds the heavens, as though to meet
his star, exclaimed, "This, too, I owe to thee,
Jaffàr!"

More stories, as full of pleasant wit and
noble feeling, were told me after this; and
when we got to Basingstoke, where my neighbour
swore a good deal at a crowd of market
people who had blocked him (and I suppose
me) up with huge baskets and wet umbrellas,
I had been introduced to Chaucer, and was
riding on the brazen horse of Cambus Khan.
The brazen horse which in a day and night,
through the dark half as safely as the light,
o'er sea and land, and with your perfect
ease, can bear your body wheresoe'er you
please. (It matters not if skies be foul or fair;
the thing is like a thought, and cuts the air
so smoothly, and so well observes the track,
the man that will may sleep upon his back).
This brazen horse, I say, suddenly dropped
me at Southampton. There were some stories
told by the Italian poets told again in
English waiting to be heard, Dante's own
Paulo and Francesca; his story of Ugolino;
Ariosto's Medora and Cloridano. I was
vexed that I had reached my journey's end,
and must in that day read no more; began
to observe with surprise that it was raining;
to look for the first time at some of my
departing fellow-passengers; to resent the
smell of my neighbour's bad tobacco, that
impregnated my clothes; to think about my
carpet bag, and all my troubles; not resenting
them, because my book had tuned me to
a brave endurance of the troubles of this
world, with, I believe, the sole exception of
the smell of stale tobacco. I had made two
journeys at one time, by packing off my body
as a parcel to Southampton, while all the
rest of me, having paid a trifling sum for a
perpetual ticket (which I shall take heed to
keep by me) set out in company with a right
genial and noble story-teller to Parnassus.
Nevertheless, there was the whole of me at
Heavohoy's when wanted; and I am happy
to say that from the counting-house of that
substantial firm I date the present
communication. I have told a plain traveller's tale
about traveller's tales, which, as the teller of
them hopes, will be read and shown to one
another by travellers who are descendants of
those travellers about whom Chaucer
discoursed: men who beguiled each other's
way with tales as they rode side by side on
horseback, while yet all horses in existence
were of flesh and blood.