No More Learning

'John. ' Well--after all--What know we of the secret of a man?
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,
That we should mimic this raw fool the world,
Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,
As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To Pity--more from ignorance than will,
But put your best foot forward, or I fear
That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes
With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand
As you shall see--three pyebalds and a roan.



[Footnote 1: 1842.

'John'. I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the country looks!
Is yonder planting where this byway joins
The turnpike? ]


[Footnote 2: Thus 1843 to 1850:--

'John'. Whose house is that I see
Beyond the watermills?

'James'. Sir Edward Head's: But he's abroad, etc. ]


[Footnote 3: Thus 1842 to 1851:--

'James'. You saw the man but yesterday:
He pick'd the pebble from your horse's foot.
His house was haunted by a jolly ghost
That rummaged like a rat. ]


[Footnote 4: 1842. Sets forth. Added in 1853. ]

[Footnote 5: This is a folk-lore story which has its variants, Mr.
Alfred Nutt tells me, in almost every country in Europe. The
Lincolnshire version of it is given in Miss Peacock's MS. collection of
Lincolnshire folk-lore, of which she has most kindly sent me a copy, and
it runs thus:--"There is a house in East Halton which is haunted by a
hob-thrush. . . . Some years ago, it is said, a family who had lived in the
house for more than a hundred years were much annoyed by it, and
determined to quit the dwelling. They had placed their goods on a
waggon, and were just on the point of starting when a neighbour asked
the farmer whether he was leaving. On this the hobthrush put his head
out of the splash-churn, which was amongst the household stuff, and
said, 'Ay, we're flitting'. Whereupon the farmer decided to give up the
attempt to escape from it and remain where he was. " The same story is
told of a Cluricaune in Croker's 'Fairy Legends and Traditions' in the
South of Ireland.