would you strangle you strangle a man who is full of water, by giving him rum! Help me to open this hand, that I may pat it."

All this time Benjamin sat, with his muscles fixed, his mouth shut, and his hands clenching the rushes, which he had seized in the confusion of the moment, and which, as he held fast, like a true seaman, had been the means of preventing his body from rising again to the surface. His eyes, however, were open, and stared wildly on the group about the fire, while his lungs were playing like a blacksmith's bellows, as if to compensate themselves for the minute of inaction to which they had been subjected. As he kept his lips compressed, with a most inveterate determination, the air was compelled to pass through his nostrils, and he rather snorted than breathed, and in such a manner, that nothing but the excessive agitation of the Sheriff could at all justify his precipitous orders.

The bottle, applied to the steward's lips by Marmaduke, acted like a charm. His mouth opened instinctively; his hands dropped the rushes, and seized the black glass; his eyes raised from their horizontal stare, to the heavens; and the whole man was lost, for a moment, in a new sensation. Unhappily for the propensity of the steward, breath was as necessary after one of these draughts, as after his submersion, and the time at length arrived when he was compelled to let go of the bottle.

"Why, Benjamin !" roared the Sheriff; "you amaze me! for a man of your experience in drownings to act so foolishly! just now, you were half full of water, and now you are”

"Full of grog," interrupted the steward, his features settling down, with amazing flexibility, into their natural economy. 66 But, d'ye see, Squire, I kept my hatches close, and it is but little

water that ever gets into my scuttle-butt. Harkee, Master Kirby! I've followed the salt water for the better part of a man's life, and have seen some navigation on the fresh; but this here matter I will say in your favour, and that is, that you're the awk'ardest green'un that ever straddled a boat's thwart. Them that likes you for a ship-mate, may sail with you and no thanks; but dam'me if I even walk on the lake shore in your company. For why? you'd as lief drown a man as one of them there fish; not to throw a Christian creature so much as a rope's end, when he was adrift, and no life-buoy in sight!-Natty Bumppo, give us your fist. There's them that says you're an Indian, and a scalper, but you've sarved me a good turn, and you may set me down for a friend; thof it would have been more ship-shape to lower the bight of a rope, or running bow line, below me, than to seize an old seaman by his head-lanyard; but I suppose you are used to taking men by the hair, and seeing you did me good instead of harm thereby, why, it's the same thing, d'ye see.”

Marmaduke prevented any reply, and assuming the direction of matters, with a dignity and discretion that at once silenced all opposition from his cousin, Benjamin was despatched to the village by land, and the net was hauled to shore in such a manner that the fish, for once, escaped its meshes with impunity.

The division of the spoils was made in the ordinary manner, by placing one of the party with his back to the game, who declared the owner of each pile. Billy Kirby stretched his large frame on the grass, by the side of the fire, as a sentinel until morning, over the net and the fish; and the remainder of the party embarked in the batteau, to return to the village.

The wood-chopper was seen broiling his supper on the coals, as they lost sight of the fire; and when the boat approached the shore, the torch of Mohegan's canoe was shining again under the gloom of the eastern mountain. Its motion ceased suddenly; a scattering of brands was exhibited in the air, and then all remained dark as the conjunction of night, forests, and mountains, could render the scene.

The thoughts of the heiress wandered from the youth, who was holding a canopy of shawls over herself and Louisa, to the hunter and the Indian warrior; and she felt an awakening curiosity to visit a hut, where men of such different habits and temperament were drawn together, as if by one common impulse.

CHAPTER VI.

Cease all this parlance about hills and dales;

None listen to thy scenes of boyish frolic,

Fond dotard! with such tickled ears as thou dost ;
Come! to thy tale.

Duo.

MR. JONES arose, on the following morning, with the sun, and ordering his own and Marmaduke's steeds to be saddled, he proceeded, with a countenance that was big with some business of unusual moment, to the apartment of the Judge. The door was unfastened, and Richard entered, with the freedom that characterized not only the intercourse between the cousins but the ordinary manners of the Sheriff.

"Well, 'duke, to horse," he cried, "and I will explain to you my meaning in the allusions I made last night. David says, in the Psalms-no, it was Solomon, but it was all in the family-Solomon said, there was a time for all things; and in my humble opinion, a fishing party is not the moment for discussing important subjects-Ha! why, what the devil ails you, Marmaduke? an't you well? let me feel your pulse: my grandfather, you know".

"Quite well in the body, Richard," interrupted the Judge, repulsing his cousin, who was about to assume the functions that properly belonged to Dr.

Todd; "but ill at heart. I received letters by the post of last night, after we returned from the point, and this among the number."

The Sheriff took the letter, but without turning his eyes on the writing, for he was examining the appearance of the other with astonishment. From the face of his cousin, the gaze of Richard wandered to the table, which was covered with letters, packets, and newspapers; then to the apartment, and all that it contained. On the bed there was the impression that had been made by a human form, but the coverings were unmoved, and every thing indicated that the occupant of the room had passed a sleepless night. The candles had burned to the sockets, and had evidently extinguished themselves in their own fragments. Marmaduke had drawn his curtains, and opened both the shutters and the sashes, to admit the balmy air of a spring morning; but his pale cheek, his quivering lip, and his sunken eye, presented, altogether, so very different an appearance from the usual calm, manly, and cheerful aspect of the Judge, that the Sheriff grew each moment more and more bewildered with his astonishment. At length Richard found time to cast his eyes on the direction of the letter, which he still held unopened, crumbling it in his hand.

"What! a ship-letter!" he exclaimed: " and from England! ha! 'duke, here must be news of importance indeed!"

"Read it," said Marmaduke, waving his hand for silence, and pacing the floor in excessive agitation.

Richard, who commonly thought aloud, was unable to read a letter without suffering part of its contents to escape him in audible sounds. So much of the epistle as was divulged in that manner, we