throughout, now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds, when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and, sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, and what it went to prove?

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove:

"That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures, provided we will but take a joke as we find it. That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to have rough riding of it. Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state."

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism; while, methought, the one in pepper and salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was very well but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant, there were one or two points on which he had his doubts. Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, “as to that matter, I don't believe one half of it myself."

66

THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

JAMES PARTON

James Parton, born in England but coming to this country when only four years old, became noted as a writer of biographies, having written the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, and Benjamin Franklin. He made many contributions to the various literary periodicals. He is a very pleasing writer. The following selection is taken from the life of Andrew Jackson, and gives a good idea of the style of Mr. Parton.

AT one o'clock on the morning of this memorable day

(January 8, 1815), on a couch in a room of the McCarty Mansion-house, General

Jackson lay asleep, in his worn uniform.

Several of his aids slept upon the floor in the same apartment, all equipped for the field, except that their sword belts were unbuckled, and their swords and pistols laid aside. A sentinel paced the adjacent passage, sentinels moved noiselessly about the building, which loomed up large, dim, and silent in the foggy night, among the darkening trees. Most of those who slept at all that night were still asleep, and there was as yet little stir in either camp to disturb their slumbers.

JACKSON

Dreaming of their Scottish hills and homes, their English fields and friends, may have been many brave Britons in their cold and wet bivouac. O tardy science, O Oer

sted, O Morse, O Cyrus Field, why were you not ready with your Oceanic Telegraph then, to tell those men of both armies, when they woke, that they were not enemies, but friends and brothers, and send them joyful into each other's arms? The ship that bore this blessed news was still in mid-ocean, contending with its wintry winds and waves. How much would have gone differently in our history if those tidings had arrived a few weeks sooner! But it was not to be. This fight, it was the decree of Providence, was to be fought out.

The suspense was soon over. Daylight struggled through the mist. About six o'clock both columns were advancing at the steady, solid, British pace to the attack; the Forty-fourth nowhere, struggling in the rear with the fascines and ladders. The column soon came up with the American outposts, who at first retreated slowly before it, but soon quickened their pace, and ran in, bearing their great news, and putting every man in the works intensely on the alert; each commander anxious for the honor of first getting a glimpse of the foe, and opening fire upon him.

Lieutenant Spotts, of battery number six, was the first man in the American lines who descried through the fog the dim, red line of General Gibbs' advancing column, far away down the plain, close to the forest. The thunder of his great guns broke the dead stillness. Then there was silence again; for the shifting fog, or the altered position of the enemy, concealed him from view once more. The fog lifted again, and soon revealed both divisions, which, with their detached companies, seemed to cover

1 Fascines: Bundles of rods or sticks for filling ditches.

two thirds of the plain, and gave the Americans a repetition of the splendid military spectacle which they had witnessed on the 28th of December. Three cheers from Carroll's men; three cheers from the Kentuckians be-, hind them; cheers continued from the advancing column, not heard yet in the American lines.

Steadily and fast the column of General Gibbs marched toward the batteries numbered six, seven, and eight, which played upon it, at first with but occasional effect, often missing, sometimes throwing a ball right into its midst, and causing it to reel and pause for a moment. Promptly were the gaps filled up; bravely the column came on. As they neared the lines, the well-aimed shot made more dreadful havoc, "cutting great lanes in the column from front to rear," and tossing men and parts of men aloft, or hurling them far one side.

At length, still, steady, and unbroken, they came within range of the small arms, the rifles of Carroll's Tennesseeans, the muskets of Adair's Kentuckians, four lines of sharpshooters, one behind the other. General Carroll, coolly waiting for the right moment, held his fire till the enemy were within two hundred yards, and then gave the word - FIRE! At first, with a certain deliberation, afterwards in hottest haste, always with deadly effect, the riflemen plied their terrible weapon.

The summit of the embankment was a line of spurting fire, except when the great guns showed their liquid, belching flash. The noise was peculiar, and altogether indescribable, a rolling, bursting, echoing noise, never to be forgotten by a man that heard it. All along the whole. line it blazed and rolled; the British batteries showering

CH. LIT. VI.-22

rockets over the scene; Patterson's batteries on the other side of the river joining in the hellish concert. Imagine it; ask no one to describe it. Our words were mostly made before such a scene had become possible.

The column of General Gibbs, mowed by the fire of the riflemen, still advanced, Gibbs at its head. As they caught sight of the ditch, some of the officers cried out: "Where are the Forty-fourth? If we get to the ditch, we have no means of crossing and scaling the lines! "Here come the Forty-fourth!" shouted the general, adding, in an undertone, for his own private solace, that if he lived till to-morrow, he would hang Mullens on the highest tree in the cypress wood.

Reassured, these heroic men again pressed on, in the face of that murderous, slaughtering fire. But this could not last. With half its numbers fallen, and all its commanding officers disabled except the general, its pathway strewed with dead and wounded, and the men falling ever faster and faster, the column wavered and reeled (so the American riflemen thought) like a red ship on a tempesAbout a hundred yards from the lines, the front ranks halted, and so threw the column into disorder, Gibbs shouting in the madness of vexation for them to reform and advance. There was no re-forming under such a fire. Once checked, the column could not but break

tuous sea.

Just as the troops began to falter, General Pakenham rode up from his post in the rear, toward the head of the column. Meeting parties of the Forty-fourth running about distracted, some carrying fascines, others firing, others in headlong flight, their leader nowhere to