Denham learned later on that a consultation was held over him, while he lay sleeping from sheer exhaustion during a short halt, in which some of the party urged that it was folly to hamper the flight by the burden of a man who would probably die. One man, however, spoke up stoutly for the unconscious foreigner, vowing that one who had been preserved through so much must be fated to be saved. To him Major Denham owed it that, after infinite danger, pain and fatigue, he arrived, with the remnants of the army, at Kouka, and lived to set foot again, two years later, on English shores, there to delight the stay-at-homes with such a traveller's tale as has rarely been equalled, even from the mysterious land of the 'ever new.'
SANTA CLAUS'S POSTMAN.
WAS Santa Claus's Postman!
I heard him singing low
Among the trees beyond the hill,
And through the valley dark and still,
Where frozen rushes grow.
And cosy 'neath my counterpane
I listened as he sang,
While miles, and miles, and miles away
I heard him cross the marshes grey,
Till close to where I snugly lay,
His changing carol sang.
I heard him slam the garden gate
As o'er the lawn he crossed,
Till, half in fright, I raised my head
To hear how through the grove he sped;
Then far away, and farther still,
By vale and wood and moor and hill,
His noisy song was lost.
Upon the pillow, soft and white,
I nestled down once more,
To think about this Postman, who
Goes singing all the dark world through,
And beats a noisy, wild tattoo
On every winter door.
And when again with joy I saw
The frosty sunshine glow,
I quickly drew the blind aside,
And through the frosty window spied
The letters he had scattered wide
In drifts of dazzling snow.
The leafless trees stood mute and still
By snowy field and lawn;
Each twig was graced with whiteness new,
And everything that met the view
Showed how the Storm, the Postman true.
Had done his work and—gone.
THE HOOF-MARK ON THE WALL.
A German Legend.
If you visit the Castle of Nuremberg, in South Germany, you are certain to be shown a mark, said to be that of a horse's hoof, on the top of the outer wall; and the following story will be told to you, to account for its presence.
Some four hundred years ago there was constant war between the Count of Gailingen and the citizens of Nuremberg, and, after numerous encounters, the Count had at last the misfortune to fall into the hands of his enemies, and was at once imprisoned in one of the gloomy dungeons of Nuremberg Castle.