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INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

ROBERT BROWNING

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon;

A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming day;

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,-"

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew

A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,

And held himself erect

7

By just his horse's mane, a boy;
You hardly could suspect-

So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through –

You looked twice ere you saw his breast

Was all but shot in two.

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace

We've got you Ratisbon !

The Marshal's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans

Where I, to heart's desire,

Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently

Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle's eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes.

"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride

Touched to the quick, he said,

"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside.

Smiling, the boy fell dead.

THE THEATRE IN OUR BARN

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Now, boys, what shall we do?" I asked, addressing a thoughtful conclave of seven, assembled in our barn one dismal, rainy afternoon.

"Let's have a theatre," suggested Binny Wallace.

The very thing! But where? The loft of the stable. was ready to burst with hay provided for Gypsy, but the long room over the carriage-house was unoccupied. The place of all places! My managerial eye saw at a glance its capabilities for a theatre. I had been to the play a great many times in New Orleans, and was wise in matters pertaining to the drama. So here, in due time, was set up some extraordinary scenery of my own painting.

The curtain, I recollect, though it worked smoothly enough on other occasions, invariably hitched during the performances; and it often required the united energies of the Prince of Denmark, the King, and the Grave-digger, with an occasional hand from "the fair Ophelia " (Pepper Whitcomb in a low-necked dress), to hoist that bit of green cambric.

The theatre, however, was a success, so far as it went.

I retired from the business with no fewer than fifteen hundred pins, after deducting the headless, the pointless, and the crooked pins with which our doorkeeper frequently got "stuck.” From first to last we took in a good deal of this counterfeit money. The price of admission to the "Rivermouth Theatre" was twenty pins. I played all the principal parts myself— not that I was a finer actor than the other boys, but because I owned the establishment.

At the tenth representation, my dramatic career was brought to a close by an unfortunate circumstance. We were playing the drama of William Tell the Hero of Switzerland. Of course I was William Tell, in spite of Fred Langdon, who wanted to act that character himself. I would not let him, so he withdrew from the company, taking the only bow and arrow we had. I made a crossbow out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him.

We had reached that exciting scene where Gessler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head. Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and women parts, was my son. To guard against mischance, a piece of pasteboard was fastened by a handkerchief over the upper portion of Whitcomb's face, while the arrow to be used was sewed up in a strip of flannel. I was a capital marksman, and the big apple,

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