“’Twas rainy and ’twas after eight, I knew that I was out too late, but when your trade’s in such a state You hardly know what cash is, You cannot stop because you get your feet all muddy, cold and wet, I knew I should be ill, and yet,-- My children needed sashes. I shivered with the wet and cold, I counted twenty times all told I’d meant to have my shoes half-soled And still they’d not been cobbled, ‘I’ll certainly,’ I thought, ‘be sick,’--and then from out the darkness thick an ancient woman with a stick In fearsome silence hobbled. [Illustration: “I held my trusty blade on high And took from him his money”] “She was an ancient, crooked crone, an ugly thing of skin and bone, she passed me silent as a stone (I thought it rather funny), But I could hear my children cry, ‘Oh, buy us ribbons, father, buy,’ and stopping her, my blade on high, I shouted, ‘Stand! Your money!’ Ah, that was just where I did make a most unfortunate mistake, for she with mirth began to shake (It made my blood run colder), And up she raised her crooked staff, she gave a most unearthly laugh, a thing I did not like by half, And touched me on the shoulder. “She stood, she looked me through and through, she said not even ‘How d’ye do,’ she merely gave a laugh or two, And munched her gums together: A witch, a sorceress of the wood! I nearly fainted where I stood, I really truly think you could Have felled me with a feather. A witch, as sure, as sure could be! You see what she has done to me! And all because I carelessly Forgot my early training. From which you learn this lesson true, that it will never, never do to speak before you’re spoken to Or stay out when it’s raining.” The voice stopped, and the wasp flew off, directly before my nose, as if leading me away. _“Why, dear me!” interrupted the Queen. “I believe this wasp was nothing more nor less than a Highwayman.”_ _“What I don’t understand is,” said the King, “how a Highwayman could have learned to make up verses.”_ _“In the Forest of Wen, your majesty,” said Solario, “the Highwaymen always talked in that fashion. It was their regular custom. I am told that no Highwayman could get his certificate until he had passed an examination in arithmetic, swordplay, and composition; and of course composition included verse making.”_