The Fire at Tranter Sweatley's

 THEY had long met o' Zundays--her true love and she--
 And at junketings, maypoles, and flings;
 But she bode wi' a thirtover uncle, and he
 Swore by noon and by night that her goodman should be
 Naibor Sweatley--a gaffer oft weak at the knee
 From taking o' sommat more cheerful than tea--
 Who tranted, and moved people's things.

 She cried, "O pray pity me!" Nought would he hear;
 Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,
 She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi' her.
 The pa'son was told, as the season drew near
 To throw over pu'pit the names of the peäir
 As fitting one flesh to be made.

 The wedding-day dawned and the morning drew on;
 The couple stood bridegroom and bride;
 The evening was passed, and when midnight had gone
 The folks horned out, "God save the King," and anon
 The two home-along gloomily hied.

 The lover Tim Tankens mourned heart-sick and drear
 To be thus of his darling deprived:
 He roamed in the dark ath'art field, mound, and mere,
 And, a'most without knowing it, found himself near
 The house of the tranter, and now of his Dear,
 Where the lantern-light showed 'em arrived.

 The bride sought her cham'er so calm and so pale
 That a Northern had thought her resigned;
 But to eyes that had seen her in tide-times of weal,
 Like the white cloud o' smoke, the red battlefield's vail,
 That look spak' of havoc behind.

 The bridegroom yet laitered a beaker to drain,
 Then reeled to the linhay for more,
 When the candle-snoff kindled some chaff from his grain--
 Flames spread, and red vlankers, wi' might and wi' main,
 And round beams, thatch, and chimley-tun roar.

 Young Tim away yond, rafted up by the light,
 Through brimble and underwood tears,
 Till he comes to the orchet, when crooping thereright
 In the lewth of a codlin-tree, bivering wi' fright,
 Wi' on'y her night-rail to screen her from sight,
 His lonesome young Barbree appears.

 Her cwold little figure half-naked he views
 Played about by the frolicsome breeze,
 Her light-tripping totties, her ten little tooes,
 All bare and besprinkled wi' Fall's chilly dews,
 While her great gallied eyes, through her hair hanging loose,
 Sheened as stars through a tardle o' trees.

 She eyed en; and, as when a weir-hatch is drawn,
 Her tears, penned by terror afore,
 With a rushing of sobs in a shower were strawn,
 Till her power to pour 'em seemed wasted and gone
 From the heft o' misfortune she bore.

 "O Tim, my own Tim I must call 'ee--I will!
 All the world ha' turned round on me so!
 Can you help her who loved 'ee, though acting so ill?
 Can you pity her misery--feel for her still?
 When worse than her body so quivering and chill
 Is her heart in its winter o' woe!

 "I think I mid almost ha' borne it," she said,
 "Had my griefs one by one come to hand;
 But O, to be slave to thik husbird for bread,
 And then, upon top o' that, driven to wed,
 And then, upon top o' that, burnt out o' bed,
 Is more than my nater can stand!"

 Tim's soul like a lion 'ithin en outsprung--
 (Tim had a great soul when his feelings were wrung)--
 "Feel for 'ee, dear Barbree?" he cried;
 And his warm working-jacket about her he flung,
 Made a back, horsed her up, till behind him she clung
 Like a chiel on a gipsy, her figure uphung
 By the sleeves that around her he tied.

 Over piggeries, and mixens, and apples, and hay,
 They lumpered straight into the night;
 And finding bylong where a halter-path lay,
 At dawn reached Tim's house, on'y seen on their way
 By a naibor or two who were up wi' the day;
 But they gathered no clue to the sight.

 Then tender Tim Tankens he searched here and there
 For some garment to clothe her fair skin;
 But though he had breeches and waistcoats to spare,
 He had nothing quite seemly for Barbree to wear,
 Who, half shrammed to death, stood and cried on a chair
 At the caddle she found herself in.

 There was one thing to do, and that one thing he did,
 He lent her some clouts of his own,
 And she took 'em perforce; and while in 'em she slid,
 Tim turned to the winder, as modesty bid,
 Thinking, "O that the picter my duty keeps hid
 To the sight o' my eyes mid be shown!"

 In the tallet he stowed her; there huddied she lay,
 Shortening sleeves, legs, and tails to her limbs;
 But most o' the time in a mortal bad way,
 Well knowing that there'd be the divel to pay
 If 'twere found that, instead o' the elements' prey,
 She was living in lodgings at Tim's.

 "Where's the tranter?" said men and boys; "where can er be?"
 "Where's the tranter?" said Barbree alone.
 "Where on e'th is the tranter?" said everybod-y:
 They sifted the dust of his perished