Rosalie's coffee came as near being nectar that night as human coffee could; and so far as she was better worth looking at than the Queen of Spades-so far as her voice and words were truer and purer than any toast that would have been honoured with three times these so far Thornton could not help being satisfied. And what with coffee and music, Mr. Penn's sallies and Rosalie's skill, the evening was lively enough to satisfy anybody.

-

CHAPTER XVII.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
With his pipe in his mouth,

And watched how the veering flaw did blow

The smoke, now west, now south.

LONGFELLOW.

THE Fourth of July fell on Sunday, and of course all celebration thereof was deferred until the next day.

But when Monday morning had but faintly broken through the gloom of Sunday night, the still air was enlivened with a roar of guns from the Battery,- and again from the Hook, and then from Staten Island, and then from every other point and place that was happy enough to have a gun. And the hills sent back a roar as their part of the celebration,—and if the younger members of society were not heard above all, it certainly was not their fault. from every hotel and public building, from every fort, and from every mast that rose into the clear air about the harbour, there floated a host of flags, streamers, pendants and pennons, that for variety of colour outshone the very tints of the morning.

And

While the citizens were thus variously engaged with gunpowder and bunting-fire crackers or cannon, hoisting flags or pocket-handkerchiefs, according to their age and ability,—while independence was noisily declaring itself on shore, a British flotilla lay off the Hook, and New York harbour was blockaded.

As the morning came on, a little fishing smack lying in Mosquito Cove began to cast off her ropes and unfurl her sail, and then quietly stood out from the Cove into the open water. For figurehead, the little vessel carried an image which the skill of the carver had quite failed to render as clear as he meant it to be. A pipe was the most self-evident thing about it; but except that the figure was tall and gaunt instead of short and thick, it might as well have graced the Flying Dutchman as any other craft that sailed. The stern of the vessel, however, made all plain; for there was inscribed in jaunty black characters,

"The Yankee."

And if the craft was Yankee, so seemingly were her crew. Three men in buff caps and fishing dress were on her deck, one attending strictly to the helm, though looking as if he attended to nothing; another lounging off on the bowsprit, by way of keeping a sharp look-out; and the third taking many an elaborate measurement of the deck, to the tune and time of first Washington's March and then a jig.

The

Midway on the deck of the little vessel were three remarkable passengers a calf, a sheep, and a goose. two quadrupeds were tied vis-à-vis, with however no check upon their feet or their vocal powers; while the goose, detained within a large and very open coop, thrust her head and neck through the bars and screamed and hissed incessantly, most of all when the unoccupied one of the crew paused in his walk to enjoin silence.

-

'I say Mr. Percival!' said this man approaching the helmsman with an air of great disgust, 'what an unendurable noise those creatures make! If you could have got some sort of live stock now that don't feel obliged to say all

they have on their minds at once-that had grown up in a Quaker barnyard, suppose—wouldn't it have served your turn just as well?'

'Quaker fetching up don't change all natures,' said the helmsman, with one of those quick looks which shewed him wide awake in the midst of his apparent sluggishness.

'No, that's a fact,' said the other man with a laugh. Though if you mean that all the unchanged ones are akin to these respectable animals, my opinion is about as far from yours as the Eagle down yonder is from the 74.'

The helmsman sent another quick glance down the bay, and then slowly moving the tiller so as to turn the vessel a little further off shore, he answered,

'We don't fly so far apart as that, Mr. Penn, not by two or three points. But you spoke of silence.'

"There's a delicate hint,' said the other, laughing again and pushing back his buff cap-to the disclosure of more ambrosially curled locks than fishermen are wont to wear. Never mind, Mr. Percival-the cackle of your live stock will either drown my voice or blend. When shall we be at the banks?'

'Late enough for a hot dinner first,' said Mr. Percival. Hot?' said Penn.

'Aye,' said the skipper.

'Curious what an amount of cold materials appear at such dinners,' said Mr. Penn. However

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest”.

and I can swim like a cat too,-I have none of Falstaff's alacrity in sinking.' And he began his whistle and his walk again.

The sun was rising higher and higher, nor did the flood tide itself make swifter progress than the flood of sunlight. Over the city with its tall spires and smoking chimneys,―

over the green shores of Staten Island and New Jersey,most of all upon the waters of the bay, did the sunlight come down and call forth beauty. The sails of the different vessels shone white and glistering, and the blue water sparkled and rippled and curled as if it were disporting itself. By means of a fresh north wind the little fishing smack went steadily on against the tide-courtesying along, and now and then dipping her bow that some fair wave might break over it. If the lookout had been a pilot he would but have said to the helmsman Thuš!'-so unerring a course did the Yankee's wooden pipe point out.

6

Sailing quietly along thus,' the little smack had come within full sight of a British sloop, the Eagle, then cruising about the Hook in the capacity of tender to the Poictiers,―a 74 gun ship and one of the blockading vessels. And as the Eagle's lookout did not belie her name, she was not long in discovering the little Yankee, and that her head was towards the fishing banks.

Swift sail made the Eagle; but as her white canvass came flying towards the Yankee, that imperturbable craft neither fled nor fainted-neither ran in shore nor towards home, but went courtesying on as before, towards the banks.

The fish bite well to-day,' remarked the skipper, when one of his keen looks had taken the latest news from the Eagle.

'Sizeable fish, too,' remarked Mr. Penn, who was now rocking lazily against the mast. 'Easy to catch and easy

to land-hey, Mr. Percival?'

6

Thereafter as may be,' replied the skipper.

race is not always to the swift!'

'But the

'On the wing, I declare she is,' said Mr. Penn after another pause. 'Swoops-don't she!'