A gauger's stick's butt and ben;
I cam out o' a peacock hen."

In Lancashire, where this rhyme is a popular one, the reading differs,
"candlestick" being used for "gauger's stick."

"A candlestick is over-fat,
I came out of a gentleman's hat;
A gentleman's hat is over-tall,
I came over the garden wall;
The garden wall is over-high,
An angel dropped me from the sky."

The Scotch "Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe" is a sad jumble of "Old
Mother Hubbard" and "Little Blue Betty."

"There was a wee bit wifie
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many bairns
She kenn'd na what to do.

"She gaed to the market
To buy a sheep's head,
When she came back
They were a' lying dead.

"She went to the wright
To get them a coffin,
When she came back
They were a' lying laughin'.

"She gaed up the stair
To ring the bell,
The bell-rope broke,
And down she fell."

"THE MOON IS A LADY."

"The moon is a lady who reigns in the sky
As queen of the kingdom of night;
The stars are her army she leads forth on high
As bright little soldiers of light.

"Her captains are Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars,
Three glittering warriors bold;
And the Milky Way's studded with forces of stars
In numbers that cannot be told.

"When Aurora comes up through the Orient gate,
And chanticleer crows to the sun,
The moon will retire, and the stars in her wake
Will follow their queen every one."

R. A. FOSTER.[J]

FOOTNOTES:

[J] When I asked my friend, Robert Adams Foster, whose _Boy Ballads_ are
being read with unusual interest in Scotland, to write a Scotch lullaby,
he sent me the above verses.

CHAPTER XIII.

A FAVOURITE NURSERY HYMN.

Known to the rustics of England, France, and Italy since the days of the
great Charlemagne, has a peculiar history. Like many other rhymes of
yore it is fast dying out of memory. The educational influences of the
National Schools in the former part of this century, and the Board
Schools at a later date, have killed this little suppliant's prayer, as
well as most of the other rural rhymes and folk-lore tales handed down
by mother to child.

The hymn, though still used in some parts of Northern England, and
especially amongst the Nonconformists, as a child's evening ode of
praise