l. When
they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible: first the uncle
read the passage he had last got light upon--he was always getting light
upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been
gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the
kitchen fire.

"I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear," said Ruth. "I
heard your breathing every time I woke."

"It was, rather," answered the little man, "but I took my revenge, and
had a good crow over it."

"I know what you mean, uncle: do let me hear the crow."

He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a
half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the
following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came:

Satan, avaunt!
Nay, take thine hour;
Thou canst not daunt,
Thou hast no power;
Be welcome to thy nest,
Though it be in my breast.

Burrow amain;
Dig like a mole;
Fill every vein
With half-burned coal;
Puff the keen dust about,
And all to choke me out.

Fill music's ways
With creaking cries,
That no loud praise
May climb the skies;
And on my laboring chest
Lay mountains of unrest.

My slumber steep
In dreams of haste,
That only sleep,
No rest I taste--
With stiflings, rimes of rote,
And fingers on the throat.

Satan, thy might
I do defy;
Live core of night,
I patient lie:
A wind comes up the gray
Will blow thee clean away.

Christ's angel, Death,
All radiant white,
With one cold breath
Will scare thee quite,
And give my lungs an air
As fresh as answered prayer.

So, Satan, do
Thy worst with me,
Until the True
Shall set me free,
And end what He began,
By making me a man.

"It is not much of poetry, Ruth!" he said, raising his eyes from the
paper; "--no song of thrush or blackbird! I am ashamed that I called it
a cock-crow--for that is one of the finest things in the world--a
clarion defiance to darkness and sin--far too good a name for my poor
jingle--except, indeed, you call it a Cochin-china-cock-crow--from out a
very wheezy chest!"

"'My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" said Ruth solemnly,
heedless of the depreciation. To her the verses were as full of meaning
as if she had made them herself.

"I think I like the older reading better--that is, without the _My_,"
said Polwarth: "'Strength is made perfec