the sea-sickness is over; his back is the familiar acquaintance of the boatswain's rattan,-and the youngster is a sailor-boy. His family are quite forgotten; the bustle of the ship soon bustles out any fond recollections; he becomes the nobody who stole the boatswain's grog. Is discovered, flogged,-placed in the mizen-top,-learns his duty,-increases in worth to his Majesty, in proportion as his whiskers grow,— is removed to the foretop,-rated an A.B. ;-and thus, after having so slightly skimmed over his griefs, his hardships, and his stripes, I shall introduce him to the reader under the name of John Ratline, secondcaptain of the foretop of his Majesty's ship the Undaunted, which ship has again returned to Portsmouth Harbour to refit; and our hero is on shore at the Point, on liberty for twenty-four hours, quite sober, clean, and spick and span, with some prize-money in his pocket, and lots of liquor in his eye for the evening.

Now the first thing that a sailor does when he arrives on shore is, either to throw stones, drink grog, or indulge his penchant towards the fair; and that is first which comes first, for he has no plan. His cruise never extends much farther than Common Hard; he increases his acquaintance only in the feminine gender; and he dreams that happiness, which other less poetically-minded men would call drunkenness and headache. It is right that I should give my readers an idea of Ratline's appearance, more especially as the circumstances following these remarks are all true, and extracted, as I said, from Jack's log. He was about five feet ten, a fine, well-built, stout young man, with an eye like a hawk's, a voice a little the worse for cold weather and strong drink; and he wore, as was customary about the time in which he served, a neat straw hat with a broad black ribbon, a round jacket, which partly covered a Guernsey frock, on which was sewed in blue letters the name of his ship; he had inexpressibles which fitted tight to his person, and which showed that he required a rear-admiral after him more than many young ladies; and his long-quartered shoes, with the broad ribbon, made his foot appear of a small size, although he told me that when he worked without his leathers, his pedestal was like an elephant's, twice the circumference equalling his height. Jack was a jolly, devil-may-care kind of fellow, always ready for a row, and generally in one. He did his duty like a man; and when on shore endeavoured to do the same.

Jack was rolling along like a ship in a trade-wind, when his breath and legs were both arrested by his eyes making the signal for a stranger close to him. There she was, as neat a craft as ever was rigged by a milliner; a pair of dark eyes, a clean dress, with a waist as round as an apple, a neat little cap with blue ribbons and bows, very pretty ancles, and most inviting feet. Jack was struck, as he described it, all of a heap; and called to his shipmate, who was in advance of him, (for sailors on shore generally walk one after the other, like geese going to market,) to heave to for a moment, for he wanted to reconnoitre the stranger. Now Mary Brown, who was a baker's daughter, seemed by no means averse to the gaze of Ratline; and Jack, who was fairly taken aback as to commencing a conversation, after turning round once or twice, ventured to hail; and going close to Mary, asked "if she could sell him a pint of brandy, and lend him a hand to drink it?"

The young maid, who was quick at a reply, and who had been brought up at a day-school in the vicinity, holding up her head with ineffable impudence, asked in return, if "Jack had ever bought a redherring at a milliner's shop?"

"Why, that's not the place I should go to look for a soldier *, excepting some of your live creatures who walk up and down the streets giving themselves as many airs as if they had been on board a man-ofwar," replied Ratline; "and a herring, after all, although it is salted, is not the fish I should expect to hook there."

"Well, then," said Miss Brown, "you might as well look for the fish at the milliner's, as liquor at the baker's."

Poor innocent Miss Brown, she knew nothing of Dr. Hicks's invention of making gin from bread; and if she did, mayhap her father might have imitated the Pimlico bakers, and stuck up at the windows— "Here you buy the bread with the gin in it."

Well, blow me," said Ratline, "if you are not as pretty a flower as ever grew here, or in America."

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"Thank you, sir," replied Mary, our flour is always reckoned the best, and it is almost all American, I assure you."

This was Ratline's first assault of the heart; and although he cast many a long and longing look behind, yet he regarded Mary Brown only as a pretty girl, and did not for one moment imagine she had made any inroad on the tough core of the second-captain of the foretop.

"I say, Jack," said his comrade, "she sold you a bargain there about those sodgers. Why did not you tell her that she was all outside show, like a marine's mess ?"

"How could I tell, if I never was inside?" snarled Jack.

"Well, Bo., let's have a glass to her health at the Jolly Waterman, at the back of the Point; and we may have two penn'orth of steps, if Moll's sober enough to reel."

"I say, shipmate! stopper before all for a bit, whilst I step back and ask her what name they muster by in the parish books. There's Brown, fancy-bread baker over the door; but that's what her father makes, I suppose."

"Well, heave ahead, Jack, and hail the craft; and then we will shake a foot with the other lads and lasses. Ask her to come and show a leg along with the rest."

Jack had now got back abreast of Mr. Brown's shop. Mary was at the door, keeping her bright eyes fixed upon the sailor; her face rather flushed, and her breast-works, as Jack called the cat-heads of the lady, heaving and setting like a billy-goat in stays. Jack's heart was in his mouth, and his tongue seemed to have given way to the intruder. At last, however, after he had stood well to windward of the shop, he bore round up, and hailed her at once.

"I beg your pardon, Ma'am," said honest Ratline; may a man make so bold as to ask what's your name, or get you to show your number?"

Mary answered, in a frank manner, that her name was Mary Brown, and that her number (for she mistook that for her age) was seventeen. "May I make so bold as just to ask you if you ever dance a little ?"

A red-herring, in the navy, is always designated as a soldier.

"Very often," said Mary; " and I like it very much."

"By the piper that played before Moses!" said Ratline, "if I had such a pretty little partner, I would dance round the world with her, and never feel tired of my companion. But do you ever step over to the Jolly Waterman?"

"Would you indeed?" replied Mary. "And I wonder how many other girls you have told the same story to before to-day, master sailor?"

"As sure as my name is Jack Ratline, I never said so much to no one before this day, because I never looked one so long in the face. But you've got the sweetest figure-head I ever saw shipped on any craft, and your head-rails are as white as elephants'."

Mary confessed herself very much flattered by the compliment, if compliment it might be, for she did not understand one word about crafts and head-rails and figure-heads.

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But, pretty Mary," said Jack, "do you cross over to the Water

man ?"

"Yes," said she," when I go to Gosport fair, I always go with a waterman."

"Go with a waterman! about in their boats, Mary."

Now you means those fellows that pull you

"I'd have you to know, Mr. Ratline," said Mary, bristling up like the back of a porcupine, "that I never allow any waterman to pull me about at all in their boats; and I didn't expect such an insinuation from an open-hearted sailor; no, that I did not. But you're all alike,—a suspicious set of deceiving fellows; and I'd thank you to go away, and not speak to me any more; for I'd have you to know, I am meat for your betters."

Jack began a stammering speech. He did not know exactly how to begin; so he took time to muster his ideas, as he commenced with— By the seven great geese that eat the grass off Solomon's grave, my pretty Mary

"Your pretty Mary, indeed!" responded the enraged girl. "Be off and pull some one else about, and don't tell me of your watermen and your elephants."

"I tell you, Ma'am," said Ratline, very respectfully, "I never meant any think at all to hurt you. I only said, that these watermen, when they get their fares and the oars into the boat, they pull them about wherever they like, and the girls only pay a penny for it. That's all I say."

Now I, the editor of Jack's narrative, feel it incumbent on me to state, in order to elucidate the next speech of Mary's, that Ratline had, very unfortunately, the prevalent fault of putting an h where no h ought to be; so that, when Mary heard the word oars pronounced in a manner most grating to the ears of any lady who has resided in Portsmouth, she very naturally imagined that Mr. Jack Ratline mistook her for one of the frail sisterhood; and being a girl of high spirit and virtuous intentions, she made a vigorous effort to inhale a sufficient quantity of breath before she let loose the sentiments of her maiden mind. But first of all, Mary pumped up a tear, for she considered herself now at open war with the man she had really fancied as exactly suited to herself. Indeed, no one had ever occupied her attention so much as Jack Ratline.

"I shall call my father, you vagabond, if you do not leave this door directly. What, have you no shame in you, to say you would like a person for a partner for life, which you afterwards call by a name that- -. I'd have you to know, that Mary Brown never did anything in her life she was ashamed of, and that you speak falsely if you say she ever did."

"I'm blowed if it is not all a mistake, Mary Brown. I meant those oars that they pull in the boats alongside the ships, either at Spithead or in the harbour."

Now, Mary knew that hundreds of these poor abandoned girls were in the habit of going on board the ships on the arrival of the vessels from any foreign station; and she therefore felt confirmed in her own mind that Ratline meant, in point of fact, that she was one of the above number, who were sold to the highest bidder. Her sweet countenance underwent a change something between despair and resentment; and turning short round, she rushed behind the counter, and there, sitting herself under the lee of a heap of loaves, she wept a stream enough to float a jolly-boat.

Jack

Jack stood at the door as fixed as the post. He was conscious that he had not said anything to hurt poor Mary's feelings intentionally; and he clapped on so sorrowful a countenance, that Mary, who saw through the crevices of the pile, could not but compassionate; and so, pocketing her briny tears, she came once more to the door. began, like a man of feeling, imploring Mary not to pipe her eye, but to swab up her tears, and get her listening tacks on board. It was long before he made her clearly understand what he did mean; but it ended as all misunderstandings end-excepting when an obstinate fool has committed an error, and he has not the moral courage to confess himself in the wrong.

Jack explained that his leave expired the next morning at nine o'clock; but that he thought next Sunday, if the ship was not ready, he could contrive to get liberty, for that he would work doubly hard for that: or perhaps he might get leave from the midshipman on duty at the dockyard to go out for a moment; and that, whenever that did happen, he would run to his dear, pretty Mary; and if she was not visible, he would sing a song, with her name in it, so loud as to ensure her hearing it; and that at nine o'clock, when her father was out, Jack would come to see that his pretty girl was in security. Mary consented to admit him, as that night both her father and mother were going out, and she would be left to take care of her younger sister, which she intended to do, by putting the child to bed before the above hour. The rendezvous having been appointed, Jack steered away, with a light heart, to the Jolly Waterman, and there found his messmate in a cloud of smoke, kicking up his heels with a fat, jetty young woman, who was shying her legs about in a Scotch reel. It was a real Highland fling, at which half a dozen others were dancing. It was the same house in which Jack had first formed the idea of being a sailor. The old fiddler was the same, and he recognised the only three tunes the aged Orpheus ever knew. Jack's heart smote him when he remembered that he had not once thought of his parents. It was only seven o'clock, and he had two hours to dispose of. It was dark, for it was in November; and forthwith, when his messmate called out "spell oh!" meaning that

another couple should replace himself and his companion, he allowed a shipmate to stand up; and getting near the door, he slipped out and steered away for the hovel in which his father did reside, he (the father) having been a fisherman, and not sufficiently affluent, on account of his large family and small gains, to possess a very extensive domain.

It was now seven years since Jack had seen the outside of the parental roof. His first cruise had been in the Channel, and it was a rule during the war, for all the Channel gropers, as they were called, always to refit at Plymouth for three years he had been on that bleak station, during which time he never once wrote to his parents, and they, ignorant of the destiny of their son, had long since believed him. dead, and forgotten him as such. The Undaunted being suddenly ordered to the East Indies, Ratline had remained away for four years in those sultry parts, and had now returned, rather browner than the object of his affections-a man grown, and so altered in appearance, that he might have entered the hovel without suspicion of being his own ghost, or even his own self. Jack's heart beat high as he reached the hovel; he thought of the money he might have saved, and the sums he might have remitted, and which had been earned with all the labour of the horse, and spent with all the dulness of the ass. The better feelings of his heart overcame his pride at his own prospects, for Ratline looked forward, at no long distance, either to wear a call or con the frigate; and once a petty officer-then for castles in the air,-a boatswain's berth or a gunner's warrant. But in the midst of all these golden prospects he arrived in front of his father's residence, the door of which was open; he pushed it gently, but he saw no one to welcome him;-it was darkness barely visible-a slight fire-merely a spark— threw all it could of a blaze over his early home; there appeared no furniture likely to impede his wanderings over the floor;-he poked the almost dying embers into a sickly flame, and his wonder increased, when he found his younger sister, a girl about nine years old, enveloped in a dirty blanket, and rolled up in one corner of the room.-Holloa! Susan, my little pet, how are you? The girl started from her slumbers, and seemed wonderfully amazed at finding a stranger in the house. Why, my little girl," said Ratline, " don't you know me? don't you know your brother John?" The girl looked in his face, and said, "No, sir, I never had a brother John, that I remember." Well," said Ratline, "where's Sarah, my little dear? she'll remember me." “Oh,” replied Susan, "Sarah has gone away with a sailor to-day, and father and mother are gone in search of her." "When did she go?" asked Ratline. "About two hours ago, just as it fell dark, she was missed from home; and neighbour Jackson said he saw her walk away between two sailors from one of the ships of war; and mother burst out a crying, and father was so ill; but they both went to bring her back, and called her a naughty and ungrateful girl." Ratline's heart was none the lighter for this intelligence; he had formed a determination in his mind to "cut out" the lovely Mary Brown, for Ratline's love was of a very questionable nature; and as for marriage, he might most certainly have consented to any rash act over the jovial bowl; for as he said no man knows if he can dance till he's heard Sam Stick's fiddle; and thus he knew enough of himself to guess that he knew not what he might do in the way of love and a splice, if Mary Brown was

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