accent. "They're gettin' ready to attack us with a whole fleet of boats, and we wer'n't a-goin' to stay and be shot to pieces."

"Shame! you curs!" Increase had sprung forward; his right fist suddenly shot out from his shoulder, and the coward reeled backward, while a volley of commendatory exclamations broke on the volley of oaths that preceded it. "Now, boys!" cried the young man, stripping off his jacket. "There's our boat. I'll have it back here in half a minute. Here goes!" and turning quickly he dived off the landing - steps; two others followed; a few strong strokes brought her alongside, and the men tumbled in and sprang to the oars. "Now!" and before the astonished renegades had realized what had happened, their volunteer substitutes were swarming up the side of the brig.

For once in his life the smoke of his pipe choked Captain John. "God bless the son of a gun!" he said, hoarsely and triumphantly, shaking his fist. Orient girl, ef he gits back, you ken hev him. By, you shell hev him, right off tomorrow mornin'. Don't say no-'tain't a bit ov use. I say you shell!"

"Oh, father, please."

"Hush! Look 't thet; they're a-comin', ten, twelve-ay, fourteen ov 'em. Thet officer of theirs must be a dandy; they're a-comin' on like sheep to the slaughterhouse. I want to know-now I want to know. Did you ever see anything to beat thet? Gosh! this ain't a clam-bake! Jest you watch for Peter Tyson's first shot, and ef he don't knock e-tarnal salvation into some 'v 'em so's skunk grease won't do them not a mite o' good- Hi! there she blo-o-ows! Rattle away tell you can't hear yourselves think. Must be three hunderd them fellows in the boats. Three hunderd! Gosh! yes, 'n' more too. Whoopsy glory! there she goes agin! They won't be no three hunderd to look for their ships when this fog ov smoke lifts. wonder what Inky's doin'? Don't take on, Orient. I reckon he's doin' well-fust rate. It's an opportunity for a young man. Oh! drat this leg! I wish I was there, 'stead o' here, doin' narthin' but use up cuss words. Oh, good! Did you see that one go through 'em? Hoorah, boys! Gosh! they're haulin' off. No! there they come agi hunched like a school of herrin look out for

I

Peter. There! thet's him. Whizz-bang! See them scatter-jest watch 'em scatter. It's a good show, Orient. Them fellers 'n thet boat purty nigh got aboard. Quick, there, some o' you. Ah, that's right, they've got 'em. Busted 'em off like flies. Splash 'em in, splash 'em in, the - Et's hot in there jest 'bout now, I reckon. Now there's that cussed smoke blowin' this way agin.”

The wind had shifted suddenly, and for the next few minutes they could distinguish nothing but the flashes of flame from the guns. Then a pause; another flash or two; a minute of quiet; then a cheer from the brig, another, and yet another, rang through the cloud that was floating upwards and towards them. From the dark stillness that lay like oil upon the waters came the irregular splashing of oars and a confused noise of men's voices crying to one another, a subdued sound, yet varied and multiplied, like all voices of the night. the smoke cleared; for a brief moment the moon broke through the clouds, and they could see the things that were done, and the horrible things that were left undone.

Then

In spite of his enthusiasm, Captain John shuddered. The execution had been appalling. Three launches had completely disappeared; three more were drifting helplessly towards the rocks, their cargo of dead and wounded inextricably entangled. In another boat two sailors were vainly struggling with the sweeps and calling for help; the rest were rowing away slowly, yet as fast as they could, out of reach of the murderous fire from the brig.

Captain John looked at his watch, and said, "Twenty-eight minutes"; then, after a pause, he added, meditatively, "Thet were 'bout 's good fightin' 's ever I see." Orient had buried her head in his lap, and was sobbing in a half-frightened, half-hysterical way. "Don't do thet, Orient," he said, patting her gently. "It hurts, an' it don't do 'ny good to no one. War is war, my girl, an' thet means fighten; et's allus ben so, 'n' I kind o' reckon et allus will be; 'n' you 'n' I can't change it. Inky 'll be all right....I declar' thet girl's tryin' her best to borrow trouble, same's mother used to, an' I'm jest sot dead agin it."

The moon had disappeared again, and all became quiet and dark around them.

Across the bay the ships' lanterns flitted about like fire-flies, with the same apparent lack of purpose. At the end of the street the lights of the consulate shone dimly through the dust-covered windows, and from the town beyond came a confused murmur, like the buzzing of many insects on a summer night. After the angry, bellowing noise of the fight, the present stillness was so profound as to seem audible, and it was not like the stillness of rest, but like the ominous stillness of suspense, pregnant with impending storm. While they were waiting, the town clock struck one, and a little later the consul came down towards them.

"Ho! Captain John! Captain John!" he called out. "Is that you?"

"Ay, ay, sir. Port your helm and come alongside. Thet's the pigeon, as they say in Chiny. Shake hands, sir, on thet fight. Guess you're mighty glad you was born down on the Cape. I

am."

"H'm! Well, now that it is all over, come and take a shake-down with me. It is rather late for you and Orient to go all the way home."

"Well, now, Mr. Dabney, thet's real kind o' you," the Captain broke in; "but it ain't all over, 'ccordin' to my reckonin', an' I guess I'll jest hover round an' see it out. Thankee all the same, sir; an ef you'll send my boy João down here, an' take Orient along-"

"Oh, father, let me stay, please—” "Ho-ho! She's a chip ov the old block, you see," the old fellow cried out, delighted.

“An' ef it's a girl, she shell wear a weddin' ring, An' ef it's a boy, he shell fight agin the king!' An' thet's about the size of it, Mr. Dabney. My boy Inky's doin' the fightin', an this girl's a-goin' to wear a weddin'ring soon's ever he comes ashore. Ha! ha! It ud be real kind o' you, sir, ter fix it all ship-shape for me some time tomorrer. Will you, now? Well, I declar! Thankee, sir, thankee, an' good night to you."

While the Governor and the various consuls talked and argued and scribbled and copied their scribblings, Captain John sat in his arm-chair and swore; for after the excitement of the evening the pain in his stump and toe burned merrily through the night. But a little after daybreak he once more forgot his legs, for the British

brig Carnation was drawing inshore, with the evident intention of making short work of the privateer.

"Oh ho!" said the old Captain, as a broadside whistled across the water and shattered against the rocks; "this looks's though 't might be the end. Now, Peter, old man, let's see ef you're loaded forThet's a good shot; clean through her topmast! Look out, there-pshaw! them fellers can't shoot wuth shucks. It's 'bout as much they ken do to hit the island. Sam Reid's goin' to try a shot himself now. Good shot, Sam! Thet one took 'em square in the belly--I see the splinters fly from here. An', o' course, there's thet smoke agin, so I can't see narthin'. Well, fire away, you lubbers! Shoo! I'm a skunk ef she ain't haulin' off. She ain't, now? Yes, by the Lord God A'mighty, she is runnin' away, runnin' plumb away! Look out there, Orient; run, girl! Oh, these legs-it's comin' dead atop o' me-a-ah!"

As he spoke, a last shot from the retiring brig struck the stone coping of the landing wharf, and a large fragment spun into the air above the little group. The Captain saw it and attempted to rise, but his legs were useless, and the falling iron mass struck him squarely across the chest. At the same moment a dull report rang out from the privateer; her boats were lowered and manned, and as the brave crew reached the shore, the little vessel settled in the shallow water. The pivot of her Long Tom had become disabled, and Captain Reid, seeing that further resistance was impossible, had scuttled his ship. The fight was over, and, though none knew it at the time,

New Orleans was saved.*

After the landing, all was confusion. The Governor protested against the retention of their arms by the American sailors, and Captain Reid wisely agreed with him in order to forestall the possibility of a renewal of hostilities on land. further protection, Reid determined to quarter his men in the San Francisco

For

* Lloyd (mad Lloyd, as he was called) was on his way to Jamaica, where he was to join Admiral Cochrane and take part in the expedition against New Orleans. The fight in Fayal detained him several days, so that the armament arrived before New Orleans four days after General Jackson had arrived would have found the town unprotected, and its there himself. But for this delay the expedition capture might have materially altered the conditions of the treaty of peace with England

Church, and marched them off at once. During his three actions with the enemy he had lost one officer and one seaman only, and their dead bodies were laid out reverently before the altar. The wounded, seven in number, were made as comfortable as possible in a side chapel, and the rest of the men were told off in watches, the starboard watch doing sentinel duty at the doors. These arrangements completed, he started off at once with a few men to seek for Captain John, of whose wounding he had only just been apprised. They found him, still unconscious, on the spot where he had been struck, with Orient, Increase, and the consul bending over him.

Reid took the heavy, passive hand in his and called to his old comrade: "John, John, old man! It's me-Sam. Can't you hear me, old fellow? Poor old John, I'm afraid- Come, boys, take him up gently. My! but it's a pity! I'd rather have lost--”

The boom of a gun drowned his last words, and he started as he felt Captain John close his hand over his own and draw himself up to a sitting posture. The wounded man looked around him for a moment with a puzzled expression and laughed, a little foolishly, as the second broadside sounded over the water.

"Well, I declar'," he said, feebly, "ef they ain't still a-shellin' Sam's ship, an' she sunk, an' not a man aboard ov her! Thet's pure unadult'rated cussedness; pure cussedness, I call it, though it's a deal handier for 'em 'n when he was on deck. Hee! hee! B'golly, Sam, 's that you? You done well, Sam; you done well. I reckon you must hev- George! ain't my head queer! Inky boy, are you there? Get me a glass of so'thin' to stiffen up on. Ef it hadn't ben for them legs, Sam, them dratted old legs-- What was I sayin'? Oh yes; them legs is covered plumb up to the top with barnacles. Gosh! what's ailin' me?" he cried, falling back.

Reid called to his men. "Come, boys, quick! Take him up to the church. I'll be right along. Tell Mr. Brosonham to do what he can, and more too!"

But in spite of the surgeon's efforts Captain John remained unconscious until about two o'clock in the afternoon, when he opened his eyes and sat up.

"Guess I must hev 'nother ov them blamed bilious attacks--everything looks

kind o' blue. Eh! what's this? Looks's though 't might be a church." He paused for a moment and smiled childishly. "Must be Inky's weddin';" and with uncertain fingers he pulled off his large Guinea coast zodiac ring and held it up. "I'm glad ov it, now it's come. Who giveth this woman away? Who what? Oh yes. I forgot. I give her away. 'Ain't I got a right to? She's my daughter. Now, what's that noise?" he went on, pettishly, as a roll of muffled drums sounded at the lower end of the street.

The surgeon explained to him that the British had obtained permission to bury their dead, and that the cortége was forming below, and suddenly the old man rallied.

Sam!" he called out, in his usual highkeyed voice. "Sam! turn the boys out to salute the dead. There ain't no feelin' agin dead men but good feelin's. They're all friends, Sam. You, 'n' I, 'n' all ov us got to die some day. Listen! the drum says, 'Come; come; come, come, come!' I'll hev to set through it all 'cause o' them legs; but you can 'pologize 'bout it to 'em afterwards. Boys, by boats' crews, form! Hats off, an' no cheerin', now. They've gone afore the Chief Admiral, Him as commands all good sailors."

A murmur of approbation rippled through the crowd; the large doors swung open; the men fell in; and before they had realized what they were doing, they had formed before the church, two deep, their officers in a central group, on the little three-cornered plaza that overlooks the street.

Reid stood, bareheaded, beside Captain John's chair, and as the solemn procession passed slowly below them he heard him repeating, "Come; come; come, come, come!" moving his fingers gently to the slow rhythm of the drum-beat. Instinctively officers and men saluted as their late foes passed by on their last march, to heaven; for Jack is a poet, and the sea has taught him the reverence of death.

When the last file had passed, Reid bent over to speak to Captain John, then held up his hand in token of silence. Out of the distance down the street they still heard the drum calling, "Come; come, come, come, come!" and they understood; old John Tottencourt had gone.

dence." In writing All's Well that Ends Well, Shakespeare was "tempting" the Higher Criticism. Ever since the days of Zenodotus in Alexandria the Higher Criticism has revelled in "athetising," or marking as spurious, this part of an author's work because it is "unworthy of him," that part because it is "not in his style," a third portion because it is a repetition of something he has said elsewhere, and so on, till in Homer there are few lines to which some German or some Alexandrian Greek has not urged objections. To similar exercises of idle ingenuity has All's Well that Ends Well been exposed. When Lucian met Homer in

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 506.-22

his own. "All and every one of them," answered the shade; and Shakespeare's ghost might have made as inclusive a response to critical inquiries. Yet All's Well is certainly a play full of difficulties and enigmas. It was first printed in the folio of 1623, and very badly printed it was. None of the dramas contains so many passages that appear to be corrupt; none is so rich in the unintelligible; none so open to conjectural emendation. Dr. Hudson, in his Shakespeare,* guesses, but he only offers his opinion as a guess, that the piece is a very early one amended by the author at a later period. If this be * Boston, 1882.

so, Shakespeare may have worked over his manuscript, making additions and alterations not very legible, which puzzled the printers. In that case, Shakespeare will for once have "blotted a line." The conjecture is to some extent justified, as Dr. Hudson points out, by the extraordinary variations in the style. These might lead the Higher Criticism to believe either that the play is the work of very different ages in the development of Shakespeare's genius, or that various hands have collaborated in the comedy. There are long tirades of rhymed couplets, full of euphuistic antitheses and conceits. There are other speeches in blank verse of Shakespeare's usual felicity. These contradictions may be explained as the work of different periods, or we may, perhaps, more plausibly imagine that Shakespeare was only beginning to shake off his early bad manner, his rhymes and conceits, and emerging into the purer and more natural air of his genius. It would be pleasant to believe, if we could, that the speech

es of the Clown were interpolations, mere "gag," as players say. The Clown is quite the worst of all Shakespearian clowns. The late Count of Rousillon, Bertram's father, is said to have enjoyed his frivolities, and for old acquaintance' sake the Count's widow endures them. They are coarse and stupid, even beyond the ordinary stupidity of Elizabethan horse-play. We read them with fatigue and surprise, as we occasionally read the foolings of the comic press. The Clown, like the Scotch editor, "jocks wi' deeficulty." He has his stereotyped buffooneries about horns and the like, and, on the whole, is a preposterously tedious jester. His wit is very like that of the New Humor, and mainly consists of gabble. To be sure, we may urge that clowns were probably quite as dull in general as this lover of Isbel. His is a naturalistic" portrait; the portrait of Audrey's lover is "romantic," untrue to nature, and therefore a joy forever. As to the suggestion that the Clown's gabble is "gag" foisted in by