card at the door, but neither was admitted, nor were their visits returned. The old man, for he had long passed the meridian of life, seldom stirred abroad, but shewed himself occasionally on the front of the lawn, seated by the side of a table, and solacing himself with grog and tobacco.

Passing the house one day with the clergyman while its inmate was thus employed, he hailed us after a nautical fashion; and partly out of civility, and partly from curiosity, we accepted his invitation, and entered the gate, which was opened by the negro, who grinned horribly a ghastly smile as he gave us admittance. We declined a participation in the grog, which our host liberally pressed upon us; but qualifying our refusal by some well-timed compliments upon the improvements he had made in his house, he called out to his wife to get tea, and ushered us into a handsome drawing-room. This apartment was very richly furnished; and to persons accustomed to the fantastic assemblage of ornaments which marks the taste of the present day, would not have appeared so extraordinary as it seemed to the eyes of my companion, who gazed with curiosity and surprise upon the foreign wonders it contained. Superb Indian jars were mixed with great lumps of coral; the bead, bark, and grass-work of North America, and the cloths, weapons, and toys of the Gold Coast; table-covers printed by the Ashantees with human blood, and leather from Kandy made of human skin; while the curtains, carpets, and rugs were of Persian silk, some of the chairs carved ivory, and the tables of the richest woods. Pleased with our comments, Captain Grindell, in a fit of good-humour, offered to shew us over the house. We found the whole of it furnished in the same way, apparently without the least regard to expense, but without an atom of taste-a promiscuous and multitudinous variety of articles from every part of the world being jumbled together. Notwithstanding the ostentation with which our host stated the sums he had laid out in furniture and repairs, we could easily perceive that meanness was an inherent trait in his disposition: windows

were blocked up in places in which they appeared to be the most essential to comfort, avowedly to save the tax; and, with the exception of the negro, no regular servant was kept in the house. We were struck by the total absence of books: Captain Grindell was evidently no reader, nor did he appear to consider a library essential to his family.

Upon our return to the drawing-room, we found the family assembled; few words were uttered excepting by the master of the house, for if we addressed the ladies, they replied courteously, but as briefly as possible, while Edward, the young man before mentioned, never spoke at all. Mrs Grindell sat at the tea-table the personification of wo, her eyes fixed upon the ground, and apparently afraid to move a finger without the permission of her lord and master. Mary, a little less constrained, seemed anxious to conciliate our good-will, and to improve the acquaintance: her countenance brightened as the pastor expressed a hope that he should see the family at church; and by watching a face, which, though pretty, owed its greatest beauty to its expression, I knew when to throw in a word to advantage in seconding the suggestions of my companion. Apparently our visit gave general satisfaction; we had allowed Captain Grindell the largest share of the conversation, with the exception of the invitation to church, restricting our remarks to expressions of admiration of the novelties which met our eyes, and compliments to the collector. As we took leave, the master of the house shook us cordially by the hand, and asked us to come again; Mrs Grindell cast one look of gratitude upon us; and the eyes of Mary, and of Edward also, though neither spoke, assured us that we had been most welcome. It was now Thursday, and as my friend and I walked down the road together, we agreed not to pass the house again until after the following Sunday; both felt sincerely anxious to contribute, if possible, to the happiness of the unfortunates, for such we deemed them, who languished under the iron rule of this sea-monster. We saw that he was exceedingly tenacious of his own

authority, and that it would be necessary to go cautiously to work, to prevent him from suspecting that he was not the person whose acquaintance we were the most desirous to cultivate. On Sunday, we had the satisfaction of seeing the whole party come to church; the ladies and Edward took possession of a pew belonging to the house in which they lived, but the captain came no further than the porch, where he fidgeted about, now casting his eye upon his family, and now looking out upon the fields, scarcely settling himself down to the sermon, to which it was very clear he paid no sort of attention. As soon as the service had ended, he started up in great satisfaction, bustled to the pew door, and got his wife and son and daughter out with as little delay as possible. He paused, however, in the church-yard; said something civil to the curate and myself, as he hitched up his trousers, and passed a quid from one side of his mouth to the other; and, finally, asked us to walk over in the evening. We readily accepted this invitation, being more than ever interested in the welfare of the grief-stricken trio, who had not ventured more than a silent salutation in the presence of their tyrant. All had seemed deeply impressed with the service, joining in it with a fervour of devotion which could not be mistaken.

Nothing particular occurred during our second visit; the same silence prevailed upon the part of Mary, her mother, and of Edward; while Captain Grindell engrossed nearly all the conversation to himself. He had a strange, rambling, discursive style, partly springing, I thought, from a natural disposition to pass from one thing to another, and partly from an unwillingness to communicate too much. He would tell of actions in which he had been engaged, and suddenly stop short, commencing a fresh sentence with something totally distinct from the previous subject. Persons who are known to be wealthy usually obtain the respect of the vulgar of all classes; and Captain Grindell, with nothing else to recommend him, was rather a favourite in the neighbouring village. His guns, and his fierce dog, and volleys of horrid oaths, scared beggars from his

door; but he paid liberally for everything, and lived well; consequently, there was always a remnant of provisions, besides other perquisites, for those who might be employed about the house. He thus could not fail to be in some degree popular. At length some particulars of the family transpired through an old charwoman, who was employed to do some of the work of the house.

It appeared that Edward was not the son of Mrs Grindell, and that he was treated very ill by his father, who was jealous of the kindness shewn him by Mary and her mother. The young man sometimes ventured to remonstrate upon the usage he received, and threatened to go out into the world and seek his fortune; a step from which he was only deterred by considerations for the two females, whom he should in that case leave entirely to the tender mercies of as brutal a tyrant as ever walked a deck. This woman's account and my own observations agreed perfectly, and there seemed to me to be something extraordinary in the extreme watchfulness which marked Grindell's conduct towards the members of his own family. The charwoman had never been alone with any one of them; he went abroad very seldom, always during her short absences, leaving the black in charge of the house. He was fond of flowers, and seemed to derive some amusement from their cultivation; but his time was principally spent in sitting over his grog, apparently absorbed in recollections of the past, only desiring, when he happened to be in a particularly good-humour, the society of strangers, and then, with characteristic arrogance, sending for the curate or myself, to come and keep him company for an hour or so.

Several weeks passed on in this manner; our presenco always seemed to afford gratification to those in whom we felt most interested, but we gained little or no ground in the way of more intimate acquaintanceship. They appeared to be afraid to make the slightest advances in the presence of one whom they held so much in awe; and though Edward once seemed inclined to address me, the words died upon his lips, as a movement of Grindell

alarmed him with the idea that he was about to turn round. I observed that this strange personage always carried pistols in his bosom. On one occasion, in stooping forward, the but-end of one of them appeared. I turned my head away before he could perceive that I had made the discovery, and afterwards I contrived to ascertain beyond a doubt that he was constantly armed in this manner. He seldom spoke about family affairs, but one morning, when I called, he told me that Edward had left him, choosing forsooth to be independent, and to see the world. The ladies did not appear that day; but afterwards, when I did see them, I was astonished at the alteration which had taken place. Both had grown thin and haggard, their eyes were sunk into their heads, and looked dim as if from constant weeping It was impossible not to feel the strongest indignation while surveying the despot who had caused all this misery; but, especially in the absence of any appeal from the suffering party, I could have no right to interfere in his domestic concerns. It had often formed a subject of surprise to my friend the curate and myself, that so ladylike a person as Mrs Grindell could ever have been induced to connect herself with a vulgar sea-faring man, almost wholly without education, and certainly destitute of everything that could prove attractive to a woman of any refinement. The sex, however, are so often compelled to marry for a maintenance, that we concluded that she had taken him as the only escape from poverty, an alternative which she must now bitterly regret ever having adopted.

The dislike which I entertained for Captain Grindell was nearly equalled by that inspired by his factotum, the black. Generally speaking, there is something conciliating about a negro, even in his most degraded state, but this fellow revolted one's feelings in every way. He seemed always to enjoy the distress of the people whom Grindell tyrannised over, and to whom he acted something of the part of jailer; and now that Edward had departed, he grinned, and chattered, and gazed with malignant triumph upon me, as if he had penetrated my