The last sad habitation for two queens, And many hundreds of the common sort. And now himself, who for so many built Eternal habitations, others have buried._ _Obiit anno aetatis, ninety-eight, July the second, fifteen ninety-four._ We should do well, sir, with a slab like that, Shouldn't we?" And the sexton leered at Lodge. "Not many boasts a finer slab than that. There's many a king done worse. Ah, well, you see, He'd a fine record. Living to ninety-eight, He buried generations of the poor, A countless host, and thought no more of it Than digging potatoes. He'd a lofty mind That found no satisfaction in small deeds. But from his burying of two queens he drew A lively pleasure. Could he have buried a third, It would indeed have crowned his old white hairs. But he was famous, and he thought, perchance, A third were mere vain-glory. So he died. I helped him with the second." The old man leered To see the shaft go home. Ben filled the stoup With ale. "So that," quoth he, "began the tale About this ruby ring?" "But who," said Lodge, "Who was the second queen?" "A famous queen, And a great lover! When you hear her name, Your hearts will leap. Her beauty passed the bounds Of modesty, men say, yet--she died young! We buried her at midnight. There were few That knew it; for the high State Funeral Was held upon the morrow, Lammas morn. Anon you shall hear why. A strange thing that,-- To see the mourners weeping round a hearse That held a dummy coffin. Stranger still To see us lowering the true coffin down By torchlight, with some few of her true friends, In Peterborough Cathedral, all alone." "Old as the world," said Ford. "It is the way Of princes. Their true tears and smiles are seen At dead of night, like ghosts raised from the grave! And all the luxury of their brief, bright noon, Cloaks but a dummy throne, a mask of life; And, at the last, drapes a false catafalque, Holding a vacant urn, a mask of death. But tell, tell on!" The sexton took a draught Of ale and smacked his lips. "Mine uncle lived A mile or more from Peterborough, then. And, past his cottage, in the dead of night, Her royal coach came creeping through the lanes, With scutcheons round it and no crowd to see, And heralds carrying torches in their hands, And none to admire, but him and me, and one, A pedlar-poet, who lodged with us that week And paid his lodging with a bunch of rhymes. By these, he said, my uncle Robert's fame Should live, as in a picture, till the crack Of doom. My uncle thought that he should pay Four-pence beside; but, when the man declared