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Ebook has 42 lines and 6657 words, and 1 pages

Editor: Francis Burnand

VOL. 109.

JULY 27, 1895.

THE LOST RECORD.

OF COURSE.--Directly it was known that Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT had accepted an invitation to contest West Monmouthshire, and that Mr. WARMINGTON had generously offered to retire in his favour, there was a rush for the evident joke of styling the self-effacing Q.C. "Mr. WARMINGPAN." It is uncertain which paper was the first to get the Warmingpan into its sheets. Sir WILLIAM did not find the vacated seat too hot to hold him. Just nice.

NEW TITLES.--Sir HENRY LOCH is created Baron LOCH of Drylaw. The title will be appropriately written out on parchment. For was there ever a more dry-as-dust title than that of a Barren Loch and Dry Law!! Mr. STERN comes to the front as Baron WANDSWORTH: not of Wandsworth Common, "and so," as a Shakspearian clown might say, "the title is uncommon." Finally

Cock a doodle doo! Lord HOUGHTON'S Earl of Crewe!

being, evidently, the living representative of SHAKSPEARE'S "Early Village Cock."

SCRAPS FROM CHAPS.

BALLOTERY.--The Cork Agricultural Society had before it a proposal of the County Board to rent their ground for holding sports. The Chairman said,

"LITTERAL" TRUTH.--The effects of the General Election on the Press seem to be most marked in Ireland. An Irish contemporary has the following:--

"IRELAND. THE VICEROYALTY TO BE ABOLILHED.--Colonel SAUNDERSON, addressing the Orangemen of Diamond, near Armagh, said that Lord LALISBURY'S Government would bring in a Bil to obolieh the office of Irish Viceroy."

What is really to happen to the Irish Viceroy is rather mysterious. Is he to be "abolilhed," or only "oboliehed"? Perhaps "Lord LALISBURY" will kindly explain.

DRINKING SCENE OF THE FUTURE.

'ARRY ON THE ELECTIONS.

Dear CHARLIE,--O 'ip, 'ip, 'ooray, an' three more, and a tiger! Great Scott! I'm as 'appy as ten on 'em, CHARLIE, though thusty and thundering 'ot. I've bin up to my eyes in it this time, and now these 'ere Polling Returns Are a-sending me slap off my chump, though I'm sorry they didn't chuck BURNS.

I'm the Pet of the Primrosers, CHARLIE, and, 'ang it, I've earned it all round, For I've worked like a nig, and no error. It suits me right down to the ground. I've canvassed and posted tremenjous, I'm 'usky with cheer and chi-ike, And I've mounted the Unionist colours, and blazed round the streets on a bike.

There was full arf a mile on us, CHARLIE, a scarlet percession on wheels; With Japanese lanterns a-flying, and 'underds o' kids at our 'eels. I felt I was "charging the guns," like that brave Ballyclava Brigade, With shouts for "Lord MUNGO and Malt!" and a little one in for "The Trade."

But 'ang it, I'm preaching, old oyster, and giving them Rads the straight tip. One thing, they won't take it, this lot won't; they ain't got no savvy, no grip. Bin sloppin' all over the place like, a-fillin' their cup, and that rot, And now, arter tackling the pewter, they find as they've all gone to pot.

'ARRY.

DISSOLVING VIEWS.

"You are cold as the snows," he mumbled dazedly. "I will warm you with the fire in my own blood--"

With a desperate wrench she twisted from his arms, leaving her single gossamer garment in his grasp. She sprang back and faced him, her golden locks in wild disarray, her white bosom heaving, her beautiful eyes blazing with terror. For an instant he stood frozen, awed by her terrible beauty as she posed naked against the snows.

And in that instant she flung her arms toward the lights that glowed in the skies above her and cried out in a voice that rang in Amra's ears for ever after:

Amra was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a crack like the breaking of an ice mountain, the whole skies leaped into icy fire. The girl's ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold blue flame so blinding that the warrior threw up his hands to shield his eyes. A fleeting instant, skies and snowy hills were bathed in crackling white flames, blue darts of icy light, and frozen crimson fires. Then Amra staggered and cried out. The girl was gone. The glowing snow lay empty and bare; high above him the witch-lights flashed and played in a frosty sky gone mad and among the distant blue mountains there sounded a rolling thunder as of a gigantic war-chariot rushing behind steeds whose frantic hoofs struck lightning from the snows and echoes from the skies.

Then suddenly the borealis, the snowy hills and the blazing heavens reeled drunkenly to Amra's sight; thousands of fireballs burst with showers of sparks, and the sky itself became a titanic wheel which rained stars as it spun. Under his feet the snowy hills heaved up like a wave, and the Akbitanan crumpled into the snows to lie motionless.

In a cold dark universe, whose sun was extinguished eons ago, Amra felt the movement of life, alien and un-guessed. An earthquake had him in its grip and was shaking him to and fro, at the same time chafing his hands and feet until he yelled in pain and fury and groped for his sword.

"He's coming to, Horsa," grunted a voice. "Haste--we must rub the frost out of his limbs, if he's ever to wield sword again."

"He won't open his left hand," growled another, his voice indicating muscular strain. "He's clutching something--"

Amra opened his eyes and stared into the bearded faces that bent over him. He was surrounded by tall golden-haired warriors in mail and furs.

"Amra! You live!"

"We live," grunted the Aesir, busy over Amra's half-frozen feet. "We had to fight our way through an ambush, else we had come up with you before the battle was joined. The corpses were scarce cold when we came upon the field. We did not find you among the dead, so we followed your spoor. In Ymir's name, Amra, why did you wander off into the wastes of the north? We have followed your tracks in the snow for hours. Had a blizzard come up and hidden them, we had never found you, by Ymir!"

"Swear not so often by Ymir," muttered a warrior, glancing at the distant mountains. "This is his land and the god bides among yonder mountains, the legends say."

"I followed a woman," Amra answered hazily. "We met Bragi's men in the plains. I know not how long we fought. I alone lived. I was dizzy and faint. The land lay like a dream before me. Only now do all things seem natural and familiar. The woman came and taunted me. She was beautiful as a frozen flame from hell. When I looked at her I was as one mad, and forgot all else in the world. I followed her. Did you not find her tracks. Or the giants in icy mail I slew?"

Niord shook his head.

"We found only your tracks in the snow, Amra."

"Then it may be I was mad," said Amra dazedly. "Yet you yourself are no more real to me than was the golden haired witch who fled naked across the snows before me. Yet from my very hands she vanished in icy flame."

"He is delirious," whispered a warrior.

"Not so!" cried an older man, whose eyes were wild and weird. "It was Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead she comes, and shows herself to the dying! Myself when a boy I saw her, when I lay half-slain on the bloody field of Wolraven. I saw her walk among the dead in the snows, her naked body gleaming like ivory and her golden hair like a blinding flame in the moonlight. I lay and howled like a dying dog because I could not crawl after her. She lures men from stricken fields into the wastelands to be slain by her brothers, the ice-giants, who lay men's red hearts smoking on Ymir's board. Amra has seen Atali, the frost-giant's daughter!"

"Bah!" grunted Horsa. "Old Gorm's mind was turned in his youth by a sword cut on the head. Amra was delirious with the fury of battle. Look how his helmet is dinted. Any of those blows might have addled his brain. It was an hallucination he followed into the wastes. He is from the south; what does he know of Atali?"

"You speak truth, perhaps," muttered Amra. "It was all strange and weird--by Crom!"

He broke off, glaring at the object that still dangled from his clenched left fist; the others gaped silently at the veil he held up--a wisp of gossamer that was never spun by human distaff.

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