d,--

"One of the most quaint and curious of old English ballads is
associated with Carlisle, and is founded upon a funny story which
illustrates the rude simplicity of the early English court. The ballad
may be found in the Percy Society's Collections, which you may some
day examine in the Boston Public Library, or indeed in any great
library at home or in England. It is entitled 'The Jolly Harper Man.'
I will relate it to you in the rather decorated style that I once
heard it told to a company of young people at a Christmas gathering in
one of the London charity schools. I hope it will interest you as much
now as it did the boys and girls who listened to it then.

[Illustration: DRUID SACRIFICE.]

THE STORY OF THE JOLLY HARPER MAN AND HIS GOOD FORTUNE.

"Many, many years ago,--as long ago as the days of Fair Rosamond, when
Henry Plantagenet and his unruly family governed England, and some
think as long ago as old Henry I.,--there lived in Scotland a jolly
harper man, who was accounted the most charming player in all the
world. The children followed him in crowds through the streets, nor
could they be stopped while he continued playing; even the animals in
the woods sat on their haunches to listen when he wandered harping
through the country; and the fair daughters of the nobles immediately
fell in love as often as he approached their castles.

"King Henry had a wonderful horse--a very wonderful horse--named
_Brownie_. He did not quite equal in dexterity and intelligence the
high-flying animal of whom you have read in the 'Arabian Nights,' but
he knew a great deal, and was a sort of philosopher among
horses,--just as Newton was a philosopher among men. King Henry said
he would not part with him for a province,--he would rather lose his
crown. In this he was wise, for a new crown could have been as easily
made as a stew-pan; but all the world, it may be, could not produce
such another intelligent horse.

"King Henry had fine stables built for the animal,--a sort of horse
palace. They were very strong, and were fastened by locks, and bars,
and bolts, and were kept by gay grooms, and guarded day and night by
soldiers, who never had been known to falter in their devotion to the
interests of the king.

"So strongly was the animal guarded, that it came to be a proverb
among the English yeomanry, that a person could no more do this or
that hard thing than 'they could steal Brownie from the stables of the
king.'