ns sounded crisp and measured in the morning air.

They were not yet half-way to the _Red Earl_, and I was still watching
their progress, when the sun rose out of the sea.

One word more, and my story is done. Years after, Northmour was killed
fighting under the colours of Garibaldi for the liberation of the Tyrol.

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT

A STORY OF FRANCIS VILLON

It was late in November 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,
relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered it
in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flake
descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable.
To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder
where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an
alternative that afternoon at a tavern window: was it only Pagan Jupiter
plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? He was
only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the question somewhat
touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A silly old
priest from Montargis, who was among the company, treated the young
rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of the jest and the grimaces with
which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white beard that he had
been just such another irreverent dog when he was Villon's age.

The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakes
were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army
might have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm.
If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like a
large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on the black
ground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery
of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue
wore a long white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gargoyles
had been transformed into great false noses, drooping towards the
point. The crockets were like upright pillows swollen on one side. In
the intervals of the wind there was a dull sound of dripping about the
precincts of the church.

The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of the snow. All the
graves were decently covered; tall white housetops stood around in grave
array; worthy burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their
domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but a little peep
from a lamp th