Mr. Sapp led him to the door, and pointed to a bearded walrus,--who sat on a rock above the landing,--bidding him take the invoice to him, and land nothing more without his orders. * * * * * Poor man!--or happy man shall I call him? He had what he sought for. He had a place with nothing to do, and faithfully he had done it,--so faithfully that, in that sad loyalty, the little fragment of his untrained wits gave way. NICOLETTE AND AUCASSIN. A TROUBADOUR'S TALE. [I have introduced the beginning of this romance in my little story called "In His Name." In the form in which the reader sees it, it belongs to the twelfth century, in which the action of that story is laid. The French critics think they have found traces of the narrative at a time even earlier. Some of the English critics have spoken of the story with more harshness than I think it deserves. Aucassin's bitter contrast of the hell and heaven of which he has been taught is certainly in character; and the reader must give no more weight to it than it deserves.] I. Who will listen yet again To the old and jovial strain,-- The old tale of love that's always new? She's a girl that's fair as May; He's a boy as fresh as day; And the story is as gay as it is true. II. Who will hear the pretty tale Of my thrush and nightingale,-- Of the dangers and the sorrows that they met? How he fought without a fear, For his charming little dear,-- Aucassin and his loving Nicolette? III. For, my lords, I tell you true That you never saw or knew, Man or woman so ugly or so gray, Who would not all day long, Sit and listen to the song And the story that I tell you here to-day. Now you must know, my lords and my ladies, that the Count Bougars de Valence chose to make war with the Count Garin de Beaucaire. And the war was so cruel, that the count never let one day go by, but that he came thundering at the walls and barriers of the town, with a hundred knights, and with ten thousand men-at-arms, on foot and on horseback, who burned all the houses, and stole all the sheep, and killed all the people that they could. Now the Count Garin de Beaucaire was very old, and was sadly broken with years. He had used his time very ill, had the Count de Beaucaire. And the old wretch had no heir, either son or daughter, except one boy, whose name was AUCASSIN.