tooth, that fellow that you hold on upon yet, Mistress Pretty-bones. But, as I was saying, take the whole coast along, I know it as well as the way from here to the Bold Dragoon; and a devil of an acquaintance is that Bay of Biscay. Whew! I wish you could but hear the wind blow there. It sometimes takes two to hold one man's hair on his head. Scudding through the Bay is pretty much the same thing as travelling the roads in this country, up one side of a mountain, and down the other."

"Do tell!" exclaimed Remarkable; "and does the sea run as high as mountains, Benjamin ?"

"Well, I will tell; but first let's taste the grog. -Hem! it's the right kind of stuff, I must say, that you keeps in this country; but then you're so close aboard the West-Indies, you make but a small run of it. By the lord Harry, woman, if Garnsey only lay somewhere between Cape Hatteras and the Bite of Logann, but you'd see rum cheap! As to the seas, they runs more in lippers in the Bay of Biscay, unless it may be in a sow-wester, when they tumble about quite handsomely; thof its not in the narrow seas that you are to look for a swell; just go off the Western Islands, in a westerly blow, keeping the land on your larboard hand, with the ship's head to the south'ard, and bring too, under a close-reef'd topsail; or, mayhap, a reef'd foresail, with a fore-top-mast-staysail; and mizzenstaysail, to keep her up to the sea, if she will bear it; and lay there for the matter of two watches, if you want to see mountains. Why, good woman, I've been off there in the Boadishey frigate, when you could see nothing but some such matter as a piece of sky, mayhap, as big as the mainsail; and then again, there was a hole under your lee-quarter, big enough to hold the whole British navy,"

"Oh! for massy's sake! and wan't you afeard, Benjamin? and how did you get off?"

"Afeard! who the devil do you think was to be frightened at a little salt water tumbling about his head? As for getting off, when we had enough of it, and had washed our decks down pretty well, we called all hands, for, d'ye see, the watch below was in their hammocks, all the same as if they were in one of your best bed-rooms; and so we watched for a smooth time; clapt her helm hard a-weather, let fall the foresail, and got the tack aboard; and so, when we got her afore it, I ask you, Mistress Pretty-bones, if she didn't walk? didn't she! I'm no liar, good woman, when I say that I saw that ship jump from the top of one sea to another, just like one of these squirrels that can fly jumps from tree to tree."

66 What, clean out of the water !" exclaimed Remarkable, lifting her two lank arms, with their bony hands spread in astonishment.

"It was no such easy matter to get out of the water, good woman; for the spray flew so that you

couldn't tell which was sea and which was cloud. So there we kept her afore it, for the matter of two glasses. The first lieutenant he cun'd the ship himself, and there was four quarter-masters at the wheel, besides the master, with six forecastle men in the gun-room, at the relieving tackles. But then she behaved herself so well! Oh! she was a sweet ship, mistress! That one frigate was well worth more, to live in, than the best house in the island. If I was king of England, I'd have her hauled up above Lon'on bridge, and fit her up for a palace; because why? if any body can afford to live com fortably, his majesty can."

"Well! but Benjamin,” cried the listener, who

was in an ecstasy of astonishment, at this relation of the steward's dangers, "what did you do?"

"Do! why we did our duty, like good hearty fellows. Now if the countrymen of Mounsheer Ler Quaw had been aboard of her, they would have just struck her ashore on some of them small islands; but we run along the land, until we found her dead to leeward off the mountains of Pico, and dam'me if I know to this day how we got there, whether we jumped over the island, or hauled round it ;but there we was, and there we lay, under easy sail, fore-reaching, first upon one tack and then upon t'other, so as to poke her nose out now and then, and take a look to wind'ard, till the gale blow'd its pipe out."

"I wonder now!" exclaimed Remarkable, to whom most of the terms used by Benjamin were perfectly unintelligible, but who had got a confused idea of a raging tempest. "It must be an awful life, that going to sea! and I don't feel astonishment that you're so affronted with the thoughts of being forced to quit a comfortable home like this. Not that a body cares much for't, as there's more houses than one to live in. Why, when the Judge agreed with me to come and live with him, I'd no more notion of stopping any time than any thing. I happened in, just to see how the family did, about a week after Miss Temple died, thinking to be back home agin night; but the family was in sitch a distressed way, that I couldn't but stop awhile, and help 'em on. I thought the sitooation a good one, seeing that I was an unmarried body, and they were so much in want of help; so I tarried."

"And a long time have you left your anchors down in the same place, mistress. I think you must find that the ship rides easy?"

"How you talk, Benjamin! there's no believing a word you say. I must say that the Judge and Squire Jones have both acted quite clever, so long; but I see that now we shall have a specimen to the contrary. I heer'n say that the Judge was gone a great 'broad, and that he meant to bring his darter hum, but I did'nt calcoolate on sitch carrins on. Το my notion, Benjamin, she's likely to turn out a desput ugly gall."

"Ugly!" echoed the Major-domo, opening his eyes, that were beginning to close in a very suspicious sleepiness, in wide amazement. "By the lord Harry, woman, I should as soon think of calling the Boadishey a clumsy frigate. What the devil would you have? arn't her eyes as bright as the morning and evening stars! and isn't her hair as black and glistening as rigging that has just had a lick of tar! does'nt she move as stately as a firstrate in smooth water, on a bow-line! Why, woman, the figure-head of the Boadishey was a fool to her, and that, as I've often heard the captain say, was an image of a great Queen; and arn't Queens always comely, woman? for who do you think would be a King, and not choose a handsome bedfellow ?"

"Talk decent, Benjamin," said the housekeeper, or I won't keep your company. I don't gainsay her being comely to look on, but I will maintain, that she's likely to show but poor conduct. She seems to think herself too good to talk to a poor body. From what Squire Jones had tell'd me, I some expected to be quite captivated by her company. Now, to my reckoning, Lowizy Grant is much more pritty behaved than Betsy Temple She wouldn't so much as hold discourse with me, when I wanted to ask her how she felt, on coming home and missing her mammy."

Perhaps she didn't understand you, woman; you are none of the best linguister; and then Miss Lizzy has been exercising the King's English under a great Lon'on lady, and, for that matter, can talk the language almost as well as myself, or any native born British subject. You've forgot your schooling, and the young mistress is a great scollard."

"Mistress!" cried Remarkable; "don't make one out to be a nigger, Benjamin. She's no mistress of mine, and never will be. And as to speech, I hold myself as second to nobody out of New England. I was born and raised in Essex county; and I've always heer'n say, that the Bay State was provarbal for pronounsation!"

"I've often heard of that Bay of State," said Benjamin, “but can't say that I've ever been in it, nor do I know exactly where away it is that it lays; but I suppose that there is good anchorage in it, and that it's no bad place for the taking of ling; but for size, it can't be so much as a yawl to a sloop of war, compared with the Bay of Biscay, or, mayhap, Tor-bay. And as for language, if you want to hear the dictionary overhauled, like a long-line in a blow, you must go to Wapping, and listen to the Lon❜oners, as they deal out their lingo. Howsomever, I see no such mighty matter that Miss Lizzy has been doing to you, good woman, so take another drop of your brew, and forgive and forget, like an honest soul."

"No, indeed! and I shan't do sitch a thing, Benjamin. This treatment is a newity to me, and what I won't put up with. I have a hundred and fifty dollars at use, besides a bed and twenty sheep, to good; and I don't crave to live in a house where a body mus'nt call a young woman by her given name to her face. I will call her Betsy as much