THE PIPER'S PROGRESS.

BY FATHER PROUT.

1. When I was a boy In my father's mud edifice, Tender and bare As a pig in a sty; Out of the door as I Looked with a steady phiz, Who but Thade Murphy, The piper, went by; Says Thady, "But few play This music—can you play?" Says I, "I can't tell, For I never did try." So he told me that he had a charm To make the pipes purtily speak; Then squeezed a bag under his arm, When sweetly they set up a squeak! Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Och hone! How he handled the drone! And then the sweet music he blew Would have melted the heart of a stone! I. Pater me clauserat Domi homunculum; Grunniens sus erat Comes, ut mos: Transibat tibicen Juxta domunculam, Quando per januam Protuli os; Ille ait impromptu, "Hâc tibiâ num tu, Ut te sine sumptu Edoceam, vis?" Tum pressit amiculam Sub ulnâ vesiculam Quæ sonum reddidit Vocibus his: Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Φευ, ϕευ! Modo flens, modo flans, Magico ελελευ Cor et aurem vel lapidi dans!
2. "Your pipe," says I, "Thady, So neatly comes over me, Naked I'll wander Wherever it blows; And, if my poor parents Should try to recover me, Sure it won't be By describing my clothes. The music I hear now Takes hold of my ear now, And leads me all over The world by the nose." So I follow'd his bagpipe so sweet, And I sung, as I leapt like a frog, "Adieu to my family seat, So pleasantly placed in a bog!" Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Och hone! How we handled the drone! And then the sweet music we blew Would have melted the heart of a stone! II. Cui ego tum: "Tu sic, ah! Me rapis musicâ, Ut sequar nudulus Tibicen, te! Et si pater, testibus, Quærat me, vestibus, Redibit, ædepol! Vacuâ re. Sic melos quod audio Me replet gaudio Ut trahor campos et Flumina trans;" Jam linquo rudibus Hic in paludibus, "Patris tigurium Splendidè stans." Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Dum tibicen, tu, Modo flens, modo flans, Iteras ελελευ, Cor et aurem vel lapidi dans.
3. Full five years I follow'd him, Nothing could sunder us; Till he one morning Had taken a sup, And slipt from a bridge In a river just under us, Souse to the bottom Just like a blind pup. He roar'd, and he bawl'd out; And I also call'd out, "Now, Thady, my friend, Don't you mean to come up?" ... He was dead as a nail in a door; Poor Thady was laid on the shelf. So I took up his pipes on the shore, And now I've set up for myself. Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Och hone! Don't I handle the drone, And play such sweet music? I too, Can't I soften the heart of a stone? III. Ut arte sic magicâ Egi quinquennium, Magistro tragica Accidit res; Bacchi nam numine, Pontis cacumine Dum staret, flumine Labitur pes! "E sinu fluctuum, O puer, duc tuum (Clamat) didascalum, Fer opem nans!" ... Ast ego renuo; Et sumens denuò Littore tibias Sustuli, fans, Fa-ra-la la-ra-la loo! Φευ, ϕευ! Modo flens, modo flans, Magico ελελευ Cor et aurem vel lapidi dans!

DARBY THE SWIFT;
OR,
THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME.

CHAPTER II.

"Aspettar' e non venire!"

The Sunday after Darby lingeringly started, I began to think it would be just as well to make "assurance doubly sure;" so I despatched a letter by post to my friend at Bally——, conveying similar instructions and advice to those contained in that entrusted to "the running footman" of my establishment. In three days I received a satisfactory answer, so I was at rest upon that point; but, as to Darby, I was quite at a loss. I turned over and over in my mind the various mishaps that might have befallen him by the way; but all to no purpose. I called up Eileen, and asked her what she thought about it. Her replies, mixed up, as they were, with her wild immoderate laughter, afforded me nothing beyond a sympathy with her mirth, which certainly was most infective. Reader, I am not a portrait-painter; but, nevertheless, I will attempt to give you an outline of Eileen. In the first place, she was a poor girl, (else she would not have been my servant,) born of honest parents; but, if fate had placed her in a higher sphere, she had natural accomplishments enough to have graced it,—namely, youth, beauty, and health,—and, beyond these, an intellectual, though uneducated, refinement of thought, when, by chance, she was serious; for gaiety seemed to be an indispensable element of her being. She was eighteen years of age,—well, what do I say?—beautifully formed, had eyes like violets, cheeks like roses, hair, when it was dishevelled (despite Goldsmith's satire), like a weeping willow in a sunset, and—but, hold! I must not go further, lest I be suspected of being enamoured of the original; so I will give up the remaining parts of the picture, and leave them to your imagination!

The Friday after Darby's setting out I was sitting in my room, very quietly poring over something or other of no importance,—I forget exactly what, but I think it was some speech in the House of Lords,—when a knock at the door agreeably disturbed me from an incipient somnolency, occasioned by a new and unprofitable line of reading.