'Twas a square, black-looking thing, covered at top, with no opening whatever but a small window in the door behind. It might have been built some time in the reign of Louis le Bien-aimé, and its cracked leather sides and harness seemed as if they had been strangers to oil ever since. If people were not very corpulent, four might have squeezed into it--not that they would have been comfortable, but they could have got in, and would have sat on the opposite seats, without much room to spare. Some honest old Frenchman, thought I to myself, with his wife and daughter, and perhaps their maid. Poor man! he is coming from the Baths, cured of some painful malady, and now has had the misfortune to run the risk of his life--if, indeed, his bones be not broken--and all through that étourdi of a postilion. "If I do not report him to the maître de poste!" said I to myself. "For the love of God, messieurs," said a faint voice, "get us out!" "The door! the door! open the door then!" said at least three other voices, one after the other and all together. "Je meurs!" wept the bass-voice from the inmost recesses of the vehicle--or it might have been from under ground, so deep and sepulchral was its tone. "Don't disturb yourself, monsieur," grumbled the postilion, who had now got one of his horses on its legs; "'tis nothing! Come along, you varmint!" said he to the poor young peasant, who stood wringing his hands and looking distractedly at his whip--'twas broken clean in half--"Arrive, te dis-je!--pousse bien là!--là bien! encore! hardi! houp!" The door of the shandrydan burst open, and there emerged, in sadly rumpled state, a pitiable confusion of rustled petticoats and tumbled headgear, red as the roses on a summer's morn, and dewy as the grass on an autumn eve--_six soeurs-de-charité_, all white and black like sea-fowl thrown from the shooter's bag--and after them, slowly toiling forth and writhing through the door in unwieldy porpoise-guise--M. le Curé! HONOUR TO THE PLOUGH. Though clouds o'ercast our native sky, And seem to dim the sun, We will not down in languor lie, Or deem the day is done: The rural arts we loved before No less we'll cherish now; And crown the banquet, as of yore, With Honour to the Plough. In these fair fields, whose peaceful spoil To faith and hope are given, We'll seek the prize with honest toil, And leave the rest to Heaven. We'll gird us to our work like men Who own a holy vow, And if in joy we meet again, Give Honour to the Plough. Let Art, array'd in magic power, With Labour hand in hand, Go forth, and now in peril's hour Sustain a sinking land. Let never Sloth unnerve the arm, Or Fear the spirit cow; These words alone should work a charm-- All Honour to the Plough.