It was a cold, foggy, dreary evening in May. Along the Strand blurred patches of light marked the position of the lamps. The flaring shop windows flickered vaguely with steamy brightness through the thick and heavy atmosphere. The high lines of houses which lead down to the Embankment were all dark and deserted, or illuminated […]

A BALLAD OF ’82 The Eastern day was well-nigh o’er When, parched with thirst and travel sore, Two of McPherson’s flanking corps Across the Desert were tramping. They had wandered off from the beaten track And now were wearily harking back, Ever staring round for the signal jack That marked their comrades camping. The one […]

Pennarby shaft is dark and steep, Eight foot wide, eight hundred deep. Stout the bucket and tough the cord, Strong as the arm of Winchman Ford. ‘Never look down! Stick to the line!’ That was the saying at Pennarby mine. A stranger came to Pennarby shaft. Lord, to see how the miners laughed! White in […]

[The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still called ‘Altura de los Inglesos.’ Five hundred years later Wellington’s soldiers were fighting on the same ground.] ‘Say, what saw you on the hill, Campesino Garcia?’ ‘I saw my brindled heifer there, A trail of bowmen, spent and bare, And a little man on […]

A LEGEND OF THE RING Tom Cribb, Champion of England, having finished his active career by his two famous battles with the terrible Molineux, had settled down into the public house which was known as the Union Arms, at the corner of Panton Street in the Haymarket. Behind the bar of this hostelry there was […]

A trader sailed from Stepney town – Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail! A trader sailed from Stepney town With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown: Ho, the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback Out upon the Lowland sea! The trader he had a daughter […]

It was on the North Side of Butser on the long swell of the Hampshire Downs. Beneath, some two miles away, the grey roofs and red houses of Petersfield peeped out from amid the trees which surrounded it. From the crest of the low hills downwards the country ran in low, sweeping curves, as though […]

I am speaking, my friends, of days which are long gone by, when I had scarcely begun to build up that fame which has made my name so familiar. Among the thirty officers of the Hussars of Conflans there was nothing to indicate that I was superior in any way to the others. I can […]

It’s up and away from our work to-day, For the breeze sweeps over the down; And it’s hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame, And the bracken is bronzing to brown. With the turf ‘neath our tread and the blue overhead, And the song of the lark in the whin; There’s the flag […]

Sharkey, the abominable Sharkey, was out again. After two years of the Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, The Happy Delivery, was prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the violet rim of the tropical sea. As the […]

Who carries the gun? A lad from over the Tweed. Then let him go, for well we know He comes of a soldier breed. So drink together to rock and heather, Out where the red deer run, And stand aside for Scotland’s pride – The man that carries the gun! For the Colonel rides before, […]

[Being an humble address to Her Majesty’s Naval advisers, who sold Nelson’s old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.] Who says the Nation’s purse is lean, Who fears for claim or bond or debt, When all the glories that have been Are scheduled as a cash asset? If times are black and trade […]

Master went a-hunting, When the leaves were falling; We saw him on the bridle path, We heard him gaily calling. ‘Oh master, master, come you back, For I have dreamed a dream so black!’ A glint of steel from bit and heel, The chestnut cantered faster; A red flash seen amid the green, And so […]

It came from gettin’ ‘eated, that was ‘ow the thing begun, And ‘ackin’ back to kennels from a ninety-minute run; ‘I guess I’ve copped brownchitis,’ says I to brother Jack, An’ then afore I knowed it I was down upon my back. At night there came a sweatin’ as left me deadly weak, And my […]

The horse is bedded down Where the straw lies deep. The hound is in the kennel; Let the poor hound sleep! And the fox is in the spinney By the run which he is haunting, And I’ll lay an even guinea That a goose or two is wanting When the farmer comes to count them […]

Ten mile in twenty minutes! ‘E done it, sir. That’s true. The big bay ‘orse in the further stall–the one wot’s next to you. I’ve seen some better ‘orses; I’ve seldom seen a wuss, But ‘e ‘olds the bloomin’ record, an’ that’s good enough for us. We knew as it wa’s in ‘im. ‘E’s thoroughbred, […]

Christopher Davis was up upon Mavis And Sammy MacGregor on Flo, Jo Chauncy rode Spider, the rankest outsider, But HE’D make a wooden horse go. There was Robin and Leah and Boadicea, And Chesterfield’s Son of the Sea; And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten, They backed her at seven to three. The course was […]

We started from the Valley Pride, And Farnham way we went. We waited at the cover-side, But never found a scent. Then we tried the withy beds Which grow by Frensham town, And there we found the old gray fox, The same old fox, The game old fox; Yes, there we found the old gray […]

Put the saddle on the mare, For the wet winds blow; There’s winter in the air, And autumn all below. For the red leaves are flying And the red bracken dying, And the red fox lying Where the oziers grow. Put the bridle on the mare, For my blood runs chill; And my heart, it […]

It is mine–the little chamber, Mine alone. I had it from my forbears Years agone. Yet within its walls I see A most motley company, And they one and all claim me As their own. There’s one who is a soldier Bluff and keen; Single-minded, heavy-fisted, Rude of mien. He would gain a purse or […]