Cosmo unscrewed the joints and showed her the different boxes. “There’s nothing in them,” he said; “but I suspect there is something about this stick more than we can tell. Do you remember the silly Scotch rime I repeated the other day, when you told me I had been talking poetry in my sleep?” “Yes, very well,” she answered. “Those are words an uncle of my father, whom you may have heard of as the old captain, used to repeat very often.”--At this Joan’s face turned pale, but her back was to the light, and he did not see it.--“I will say them presently in English, that you may know what sense there may be in the foolishness of them. Now I must tell you that I am all but certain this stick once belonged to that same great uncle of mine--how it came into your father’s possession I cannot say--and last night, as I was looking at it, I saw something that made me nearly sure this is the horse, insignificant as it looks, that was in my uncle’s head when he repeated the rime. But I would do nothing without you.” “How kind of you, Cosmo!” “Not kind; I had no right; the stick is yours.” “How can that be, if it belonged to your great uncle?” said Joan, casting down her eyes. “Because it was more than fifty years in your father’s possession, and he left it to you. Besides, I cannot be absolutely certain it is the same.” “Then I give it to you, Cosmo.” “I will not accept it, Joan--at least before you know what it is you want to give me.--And now for this foolish rime--in English! “Catch your horse and pull his tail; In his hind heel drive a nail; Pull his ears from one another: Stand up and call the king your brother! What’s to come of it, I know no more than you do, Joan,” continued Cosmo; “but if you will allow me, I will do with this horse what the rime says, and if they belong to each other, we shall soon see.” “Do whatever you please, Cosmo,” returned Joan, with a tremble in her voice. Cosmo began to screw off the top of the stick. Joan left her chair, drew nearer to the bed, and presently sat down on the edge of it, gazing with great wide eyes. She was more moved than Cosmo; there was a shadow of horror in her look; she dreaded some frightful revelation. Her father’s habit of muttering his thoughts aloud, had given her many things to hear, although not many to understand. When the horse was free in Cosmo’s hand, he set the stick aside, looked up, and said, “The first direction the rime gives, is to pull his tail.” With that he pulled the horse’s tail--of silver, apparently, like the rest of him--pulled it hard; but it seemed of a piece with his body, and there was no visible result. The first shadow of approaching disappointment came creeping over him, but he looked up at Joan, and smiled as he said,