their desperate but disorderly resistance did not prevent them from being driven sword in hand into the sea. The whole time taken up in this tremendous exertion of physical strength, was less than ten minutes; and in that short time seven of the cutter's people and five of the smuggler's were killed or severely wounded. One of the smugglers, whose hand had been chopped off, and who was otherwise wounded in the body, had still strength enough left to hurl himself into the sea, but was instantly shot by one of his own people; who on the shore and from a rock kept up a close fire of small arms on the crew of the cutter; but when the cutter's guns were brought to bear on that spot, the smugglers betook themselves to the mountains.

St. Clyde was locked up in the cabin, and his surprise at seeing the

hatchway broken open by the tars of old England was only equal to theirs to find a man unemployed on board such a vessel.

It was the chief mate of the cutter who entered the cabin first, and having demanded, "Who are you, sir? one of the Terra Firma midges, I suppose; come, come, sir, you are my prisoner:" for St. Clyde had attempted to speak, but the mate went on; " bring the irons, lock him up, and take him on board his majesty's ship."

St. Clyde now protested he was not a smuggler, and had no suspicions when he came on board that the vessel he had been found in was of that description, "else he would never have entered on her deck; he was an officer in the army."

Here the sailors laughed heartily, and quizzed "the general," as they humorously called him, amidst man

gled bodies and dying groans.

St.

Clyde had no letters or memoranda about him to convince the master and mate of the cutter, that he was really an officer of the army; and all he could say or do to the contrary, did not keep him from being ironed, and put down into the hold of the cutter.

His portmanteau had a brass plate, with "Captain Colin St. Clyde, 42nd Regt." on it, but any one might have that as well as he; and, therefore, our hero suffered all the mock ceremony of an enemy's general who paid others for fighting for him. It was to no purpose he told them he was St. Clyde : that was impossible-St. Clyde, they all knew, was dead-he had fallen in America for the cutter's people had not heard of his return.

When it was high water, the lugger was got off the rock on which she had been run, and towed by the cutter

up to Lochgilpinn. And, during this time, St. Clyde got leisure to reflect on the transition he had so suddenly undergone; but he found there was nothing for him, at that time, but to submit quietly and patiently to his disagreeable lot.

When the lugger was safely har boured under the charge of an exciseman at Lochgilpinn, two gaugers came on board of the cutter to point out the retreat of the smugglers in the mountains between Dunmore and West Tarbot, or in Arran, should they have got a passage thither. St. Clyde was too important a prisoner to be allowed to remain in any insecure jail, in that corner of Argyleshire; he was, there fore, still kept on board the cutter: but the presence of the gaugers, one of whom knew the late laird, caused an enquiry to be set on foot, whether the Captain St. Clyde, in irons, knew

that gentleman; and Colin having given satisfactory answers to the questions put to him, the acting captain of the cutter expressed his sorrow for the treatment he had shown an officer of "the Black Watch," and especially the Laird St. Clyde; and now strove, by all his attentions, to remove any prejudice his former severity might have raised. St. Clyde begged he would make no apology: they were both mistaken unwittingly; he in going on board a vessel, the character of which he declared to be ignorant of, when he went on board of her at Ettrick Bay;" and the mate, in putting into irons an officer who would have been proud to have been on board of the cutter, when the lugger was carried in so gallant a manner.

The mate of the cutter was resolved to pursue the smugglers, and insisted Captain St. Clyde going with

on "