the recall. The young officer hesitated. The man waved his hand, and blew the advance.

set the

"It must be for us answer it." His bugle did so. "Bring the pitch, men- the flax- so now break the windows, and let the air inhouse on fire; and Sergeant Guido, remain to prevent it being extinguished I shall fire the village as we pass through."

He gave the word to face about; and, desiring the men to follow at the same swinging run with which the whole of the infantry had originally advanced, he spurred his horse against the hill, and soon disappeared.

66

My host's resolution seemed now taken. Turning to the sergeant'My good fellow, the reconnoissance will soon be returning; I shall precede it into the town."

The man, a fine vieux moustache, hesitated.

My friend saw it, and hit him in a Frenchman's most assailable quarter. "The ladies, my good man - the ladies! - You would not have them drive in pell-mell with the troops, exposed most likely to the fire of the Prussian advanced-guard, would you."

"Pass on."

The man grounded his musket, and touched his cap Away we trundled, until, coming to a cross-road, we turned down towards the river; and at the angle we could see thick wreaths of smoke curling up into the air, showing that the barbarous order had been but too effectually fulfilled.

"What is that?" said ✶✶**.

"A horse, with his rider entangled and dragged by the stirrup, passed us at full speed, leaving a long track of blood on the road.

"Who is that?"

The coachman drove on and gave no answer; until, at a sharp turn, we came upon the bruised and now breathless body of the young officer, who had so recently obeyed the savage behests of his brutal commander. There was a musket-shot right in the middle of his fine forehead, like a small blue point, with one or two heavy black drops of blood oozing from it. His pale features wore a mild and placid expression, evincing that the numberless lacerations and bruises, which were evident through his torn uniform, had been inflicted on a breathless corpse.

The stuhl wagen had carried on for a mile farther or so, but the firing seemed to approximate, whereupon our host sung out, "Fahrt Zu, Schwa ger- Wir Kommen nicht weiter."

The driver of the stuhl wagen skulled along until we arrived at the beautiful, at a mile off, but the beastly, when close to, village of Blankanese. When the voiture stopped in the village, there seemed to be a nonplusation, to coin a word for the nonce, between my friend and his sisters. They said something very sharply, and with a degree of determination that startled me. He gave no answer. Presently the Amazonian attack was

renewed.

"We shall go on board," said they.

"Very well," said he; "but have patience, have patience !"

"No, no.

Wann wird man sich einschiffen mussen ?"

By this time we were in the heart of the village, and surrounded with a whole lot, forty at the least, of Blankanese boatmen. We were not long in selecting one of the fleetest-looking of those very fleet boats, when we all trundled on board; and I now witnessed what struck me as being an awful sign of the times. The very coachman of the stuhl wagen, after conversing a moment with his master, returned to his team, tied the legs of the poor creatures as they stood, and then with a sharp knife cut their jugular veins through and through on the right side, having previously reined them up sharp to the left, so that, before starting, we could see three of the team,

TOM CRINGLE'S LOG.

25 which consisted of four superb bays, level with the soil and dead; the nearer wheeler only holding out on his forelegs.

We shoved off at eleven o'clock in the forenoon; and after having twice been driven into creeks on the Holstein shore by bad weather, arrived about two next morning safely on board the Torch, which immediately got under weigh for England. After my story had been told to the captain, I left my preserver, his father, and his sisters in his hands, and I need scarcely say that they had as hearty a welcome as the worthy old soul could give them, and dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of comfort, where, in a twinkling, I was far into the secrets of a pork-pie.

HELIGOLAND light-north and by west-so many leagues - wind baffling-weather hazy - Lady passengers on deck for the first time.

Arrived in the Downs - ordered by signal from the guard-ship to proceed to Portsmouth. Arrived at Spithead-ordered to fit to receive a general officer, and six pieces of field artillery, and a Spanish ecclesiastic, the Canon of Plenty of great guns, at any rate-a regular park of artillery. Received General *** and his wife, and aid-de-camp, and two poodledogs, one white man-servant, one black ditto, and the Canon of the six nine-pound field fieces, and sailed for the Cove of Cork.

and

It was blowing hard as we stood in for the Old Head of Kinsale -- pilot boat breasting the foaming surge like a sea-gull. "Carrol Cove" in her tiny mainsail-pilot jumped into the main channel - bottle of rum swung by the lead line into the boat-all very clever.

--

Ran in, and anchored under Spike Island. A line-of-battle ship, three frigates, and a number of merchantmen at anchor-men-of-war lovely craft bands playing—a good deal of the pomp and circumstance of war. Next forenoon, Mr. Treenail, the second lieutenant, sent for me. "Mr. Cringle," said he, "you have an uncle in Cork, I believe?" I said I had.

"I am going there on duty to-night: I dare say, if you asked the captain to let you accompany me, he would do so." This was too good an offer not to be taken advantage of. I plucked up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and got it; and the evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a ride of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my superior officer was to gain information among the crimp shops, where ten men who had run from one of the West-Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed away, but I was not let farther into the secret;

so I set out to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us about nine o'clock. He was heartily welcomed, and under the plea of our being obliged to return to the ship early next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the inn. As I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I could see it full of blowsy-faced monsters, glimmering and jabbering, through the mist of hot brandy grog and gin twist; with poodle ben jamins, and great-coats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes, steaming on their pegs, with barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of sealskin, and blue cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same. Nevertheless, such a society, in my juvenile estimation, during my short escapade frem the middy's berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with a tolerable swagger, when Mr. Treenail pinched my arm.

"Mr. Cringle, come here, into my room."

From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his room was at my elbow; but no such thing- we had to ascend a long, and not over-clean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown into a miserable little double-bedded room. So soon as we had entered, the lieutenant shut the door.

"Tom," said he, “I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore 1 applied for leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger, and, I will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either. "You must enact the spy for a short space."

I did not like the notion certainly, but I had little time for consideration. "Here," he continued - "here is a bundle." He threw it on the floor. "You must rig in the clothes it contains, and make your way into the celebrated crimp shop in the neighbourhood, and pick up all the information you can regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard to the ten seamen who have run from the West-Indiaman we left below. You know the admiral has forbidden pressing in Cork, so you must contrive to frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by represent ing yourself as an apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who had run from his indentures, and that you had narrowly escaped from a pressgang this very night here."

I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops contained in the bundle; in a pair of shag trousers, red flannel shirt, coarse blue cloth jacket, and no waistcoat."

"Now," said Mr. Treenail, "stick a quid of tobacco in your cheek, and take the cockade out of your hat; or stop, leave it, and ship this striped woollen night-capSO- - and come along with me."

We left the house, and walked half a mile down the quay.

Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog-shop-a bright lamp was flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of the glass of it being broken.

Before I entered, Mr. Treenail took me to one side-"Tom, Tom Cringle, you must go into this crimp shop; pass yourself off for an apprentice of the Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we started, and pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best may." I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my superior officer, so soon as I considered I had attained my object. I rapped at the inner door, in which there was a small unglazed aperture cut, about four inches square; and I now, for the first time, perceived that a strong glare of light was cast into the lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a brilliant reflector, that, like a magazine lantern, had been mortised into the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which The spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to; I rapped again,

and looking round I noticed Mr. Treenail flitting backwards and forwards across the doorway, in the rain, with his pale face and his sharp nose, with the sparkling drop at the end on't, glancing in the light of the lamp. I heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket. "Who are you saking here, an' please ye?"

"No one in particular, my dear; but if you don't let me in, I shall be lodged in jail before five minutes be over."

"I can't help that, young man," said she; "but where are ye from, darling?"

"Hush! I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."

Oh," said my beauty, "come in ;" and she opened the door, but still kept it on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid in beneath it, yet a common-sized man could not possibly have squeezed himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to, and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen feet square, with a well-sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal table in the middle of the room but no tablecloth at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky-faced savage, dressed in a shabby great-coat of the hodden gray worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swandown vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and wellpatched shoes; he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trousers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky steam, that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather-beaten men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half drunk. When I entered, I walked up to the landlord.

"Yo ho, my young un, whence and whither bound, my hearty?"

"The first don't signify much to you," said I," seeing I have wherewithal in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so, old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can't ship me with one of them colliers that are lying alongside the quay ?"

"My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has !" grumbled mine host. "Why, my lad, we shall see to-morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about the rhino, that we must prove you a bit; so, Kate, my dear," to the pretty girl who had let me in - -" score a pint of rum against Why, what is your name?"

"What's that to you ?" rejoined I; "let's have the drink, and don't doubt but the shiners shall be forthcoming."

"Hurrah!" shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy. So the rum was produced forthwith, and as I lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle, I struck in, "Messmates, I hope you have all shipped?"

"No, we han't," said some of them.

"Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy," said others.

"Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and I recommend all of you making yourselves scarce to-night, and keeping a bright

look-out."

"Why, boy, why?"

"Simply because I have just escaped a press-gang, by bracing sharp up at the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark alley here."

"This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling of reckonings. "where do you go to, lad?"

"Where," said one of the seamen,

my

'Why, if I can't get shipped to-night, I shall trundle down to Cove immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, and take my chance of shipping with some of the outward-bound that are to sail, if the wind holds, the day after to-morrow. There is to be no pressing when blue Peter flies at the fore-- and that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and the foretopsail will be loose to-morrow."

"D-n my wig, but the small chap is right," roared one.

"I've a bloody great mind to go down with him," stuttered another, after several unavailing attempts to weigh from the bench, where he had brought himself to anchor.

"Hurrah!" yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with his maudlin caresses, "I trundles wid you too, my darling, by the piper."

"Have with you, boy-have with you," shouted half-a-dozen other voices, while each stuck his oaken twig through the handkerchief that held his bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap on the crown, on one side of his head, and staggering and swaying about under the influence of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent double, laughing like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks from his drunken half-shut eyes, while jets of tobacco juice were squirting in all directions.

I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and promising to overtake them before they reached Passage, I parted company at the corner of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.

Next morning we spent in looking about the town Cork is a fine town contains seventy thousand inhabitants, more or less -safe in that- and three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse gray greatcoats. The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the legs are short, and tails curly: here the legs are long, the flanks sharp and thin, and tails long and strait.

All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images: arrived at Cove to a late dinner - and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the same kind.

By the time it was half-past ten o'clock, I was preparing to turn in, when the master-at-arms called down to me,

"Mr. Cringle, you are wanted in the gunroom."

I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in pea-jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper," There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog- the gunner taking the watch on deck the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish priest, and aid-de-camp to the general, were playing at chess, and wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr. Treenail rumbling and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had passed, and presently he stepped into the gunroom, armed also with a cutlass and pistol.

"Mr. Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with you.

I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore, where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat,