a curling swell. The Jean Bart also held a closer wind; and it was evident there was nothing for it but the old formula of command:-'Now men, you see the enemy; lay your guns and point them well. Fire fast and fire true, and hurrah for Old England!' "Meantime my fellow-passengers were in the cabin busily engaged in writing. Mr. Dargle's face was very pale. Mosca's black eyes glittered, and he was so nervous that he could hardly hold the pen. He was armed to the teeth and evidently determined, as he had often said, not to be taken alive. I was beginning to contrast my position, with only a driblet of half-pay to depend upon, with Mr. Dargle's, the rich proprietor of half-a-dozen plantations, the husband of a fond, beautiful wife, and the father of a family of sprightly little Creoles. I was watching his face, as from time to time a spasm-like quiver went across it, and his hand stole to his eyes, when the faintly-heard boom of a heavy gun came up from the privateer; and at the same moment our mast-head look-out sang sharp and quick :-'A sail to windward !'

"What like?' shouted the skipper. She looks like a big frigate,' was the reply. 'She's got stunsails on both sides, and she's coming down before the wind like a race-horse.'

"Again the captain's telescope was in requisition, and every eye was directed to the windward ship, the topsails of which could be seen from the deck, when she rose upon a sea. Presently the old skipper shouted-'She is a frigate; and if I know anything of a frigate, she's one of the right sort. I know it by her topsails-and in less than half an hour, my boys, you'll see St. George's Ensign."

"And the old fellow rattled down the shrouds with singular velocity.

"Have up the two bottles of champagne,' he shouted, ‘and, steward, serve all the crew round with a double stiff ration of grog.'

"But the first mate did not seem so confident. He also had narrowly examined the coming ship so far as it could yet be seen, and was likewise an old and experienced seaman. He shook his head. There's a lot of French frigates-woundy like English ones,' he said, and some of them as I heerd tell have topsails cut English fashion, to cheat the merchant ships.'

"I don't know, captain, but I think it would be most prudent not to take sail off the schooner.'

"For Mathews had seen the skipper's fingers fidgeting with the maintop-gallant-sail haulyards.

"Well, Mathews,' he said, 'we'll compromise. We'll make short boards instead of long.'

"We'll lose ground by that, Captain Macleod.'

"Well, but so will the Johnny Crapaud. Every time we tack, he'll tack, and I don't want to get out of the way of my friend to windward.'

"So presently up went the head of the Mary Anne into the wind, and round she came on the other tack very cleverly.

"Never missed stays when she had a mouthful of wind,' said the captain approvingly. But the Mounseers,' as Mr. Mathews

called them, were every bit as quick as we, and the lively little frigate swung round, as if she had been stuck on a pivot.

"She made a deadly forge ahead then,' said the desponding mate; and the captain, as if influenced by his subordinate's evident opinions, went again into the rigging, and after a good long look at the fast-approaching ship, the hull of which was now visible, he shouted, 'Mr. Mathews, I'll put my head into a bucket of tar and eat it, if that's not an English frigate; and before ten minutes you'll know it yourself, when you see the Ensign at the peak, and the Jack at the fore-top.'

"As the captain seemed so perfectly confident, the champagne corks popped, and the men had their rum-and-water, which they infinitely preferred to wine, or indeed to spirits of any description, but all kept their eyes alternately on the frigate, now fast nearing us, and rolling majestically before the following seas.

"Look at her teeth, look at her teeth," shouted the captain in ecstacy; as the frigate gave a slight yaw on a cross sea-' A forty-four at the least. Thirty-twos and eighteens at the very least.'

"Meantime the Frenchman showed no change of tactics, unless it was a tendency to go off down to leeward, her movements betokening suspicion of the big fellow coming down before the wind, with a magnificent wreath of foam decking his ample bows.

"At length she was within a mile, when she made a sudden sweep, and then rushed round, with her broadside to us-backing her main topsail-letting go her stunsails-firing a gun-and hoisted her colours-French!

"Now then, Captain,' said Mathews, now then, what do you say now?'

"Before he could answer, the privateer also fired a gun, and also hoisted the tricolour.

"The captain had a moment's time to take counsel with himself; and then he gave a most unexpected jump on the deck, flung up his straw hat, which blew into the sea, and exclaimed-'It's a dodge-a dodge-he wants to bring the privateer closer, so that he'll be surer of her.'

"Mathews shook his head.

"At this moment the frigate fired another gun.

"No ball,' said Mathews, looking rather disappointed than otherwise.

"Then an officer appeared on the chains in French uniform. "Do you see that?' said Mathews, all but triumphantly. "The officer hailed, and the words came down distinctly on our ears. They were English.

"Do you hear that, Mr. Mathews?' retorted the captain. "Schooner, ahoy! Back your fore topsail, and lay to under our The operation was performed, and the officer hailed again"What schooner is that?'

lee.'

"The Mary Anne, of Bristol,' thundered the captain, after waiting for the first cail.

"The lieutenant bowed, and rejoined

"This is His Britannic Majesty's Frigate Hero. The ship down there is the Jean Bart. She is too fast for us in a chase; but we are going to try to trick her to-day. Haul down your colours." "It was done, and the ensign fluttered from the peak to the deck. At the same moment, the two quarter and the stern-boat of the frigate dropped like feathers into the surging water, and their crews came shinning, hand under hand, down the tackles, a cataract of blue-jackets.

"The frigate again hailed, 'Our men will board you as if you were our prize, and Captain

"Macleod!' roared the skipper.

"Macleod,' resumed the lieutenant, will be good enough to send on board a portion of his crew;' and then, as if he anticipated an objection, raising his voice, he shouted, there will be no pressing work, upon my honour. We only want to cheat our friend down yonder the better, by pretending to take on board prisoners. Our men will stay aboard you until your own come back. It is all right, Captain Macleod, is it not?"

"Aye, aye, sir!' responded the skipper, quite reassured; 'which of my lads will volunteer?'

"Me and me, and me and me !' burst from a score of voices. And the next moment the three cutters dashed their boat-hooks simultaneously into our lee side, that next the Frenchman, while the lieutenant and the midshipman in each, followed by the crew, only leaving a boat-keeper, scrambled upon our decks.

66

The second lieutenant bowed politely to the master and the passengers, and looked round at our warlike preparation.

"You were going to fight our friend down there? I hope we can save you the trouble: but meantime-' Jameson, his coxswain, came up with a French ensign- for once, captain, the Mary Anne must carry the tricolour.'

"No objection, no objection,' stammered the skipper; although he clearly didn't like it. Up however went the token of conquest, the English ensign beneath it, and our volunteers, carrying empty bags and hammockless hammock cloths, so as still further to deceive the little Frenchman, went over the side, the half of the boats' crews remaining on board with their third lieutenant and a couple of midshipmen.

Again the boats, with the apparent prisoners, pulled round the schooner's stem and stern, giving the privateer a full view of them. The trick took perfectly. The Jean Bart filled her main topsail and came up, making small tacks until we could see the swarming crew on deck. The interest of the scene was now growing intense. We could see a stealthy movement in the frigate's sails, and as the privateer made the last tack which would have carried her clear of the schooner's bowsprit, the main topsail of the frigate was suddenly filled, her top-gallant sails sheeted home, and she started like a greyhound, gathering way astonishingly quick, while, amid the banging of her bow-chasers full at the Jean Bart, the French flag passed the English on the haulyards, one descending, the other ascending; and, in a moment

more, the frigate's bowsprit was entangled in the privateer's mizen rigging, and the crash of the meeting ships was heard amid the rattle of the Hero's musketry. The breeze was fresh enough to blow away the smoke, and the instant that the ships touched, with a cheer, which only excited Englishmen can give, with rattling pistols and flashing cutlasses, a swarm of boarders poured like a cataract over the frigate's bows, and down from her bowsprit right upon the Frenchmen's heads, the marines following as fast as they might, and forming as they managed to scramble on the decks. But there was no need. Taken utterly by surprise, the men not at quarters, the guns untackled, the small arms below in the racks, and attacked by a force at least double their number, the French did no discredit to their manhood, though they followed the sentiment of sauve qui peut, and disappeared 'like rats,' said Captain Macleod, down into the interior of their vessel. A few alone kept their ground, headed by their officers, but a moment sufficed, as the ring of marines closed round them, to make them throw down the cutlasses which they had snatched up, and make a sulky surrender. And then the tricolour came down, and presently went up at the starn,' said Captain Macleod, 'the St. George and St. Andrew's ensign,' the operation, however, reminding him of the tricolour at the truck of his own ship, he speedily had it down; and the national symbol hoisted again, was received with a universal burst of acclamation.

"There remains but little more for me to say, only that there was another exchange of prisoners made,-a true one this time; and a more desperate lot of desperadoes, I give you my honour, I never saw. They seemed to be ruffians of all nations on board; but, of course, the French predominated. Now I hope you don't think that what I say is the effect of prejudice. I give you my word of honour that I speak the exact fact; but you must remember that they were not men of war's men-nor yet honest merchant sailors-but Privateersmen, who are the dregs of the seaports from which they come; and are very little better, if at all, than pirates. I know that the strict rule is, when it can be done, to give a privateer the stem; but, bad as they are, I think that's too bloodthirsty a thing for Englishmen to do; even if the privateersmen were as wicked as the devil himself. Well, we got our men on board, with the captain of the frigate's thanks and compliments, and three dozens of claret; and the frigate men, of course, returned to their own berths in their own boats.

"Gentlemen and men,' said Captain Macleod, 'we'll give the Hero and her prize a parting salute. We're clear of the ships, so the shot of the guns wont do any harm to anybody but the fishes!" "And accordingly the light carronades were very cleverly fired; one alternately from each side, while Long Tom gave a finishing bang.

"And now,' said Captain Macleod, 'Gentlemen, Dinner!'

"The following day we saw the frigate with her prize standing the same course as ourselves, and the following night we saw the Lizard Lights, when we were drinking the Hero's claret."

ARTHUR ARDEN, THE MEDICAL STUDENT.

CHAPTER I.

SINCE the regions of ancient romance have ceased to supply the idler, and the novel reader, with ghost and hobgoblin stories, tales of robbers and chieftains of equal respectability, whose strongholds and castles were the prisons of knights renowned, and shrieking maidens, whose blood was necessarily noble, to win a proper degree of interest for their troubles and disasters, I venture to come before the public with a detail of the events of an every-day life, scarcely embellished with a single scene from the fertile pencil of imagination.

If my language have not the polish of the scholar, and my pages display not the learning of the man of science, or of refined education, let no one be surprised; for my thoughts and reflections have chiefly been gathered from the pages of life, and my observations from the book of nature. The little education I received was imparted to me at a day-school in the country, where good care was taken that the minds of the pupils should not be overburthened with a weight of knowledge.

At the age of thirteen I left this school, with all the advantages I had obtained from it-a little Latin and less Greek. In fact I had blundered through the first two pages of a Greek grammar. In arithmetic I had advanced as far as Vulgar Fractions, and was not a fraction wiser for them. I learned Practice to no purpose, and never studied Interest at all, scarcely even self-interest.

On the very day on which my last lesson was repeated, and my last line carelessly scrawled in my last copy-book, my mother and myself entered into a serious consultation, with regard to the next step necessary for my progress in life. The question was, should I be apprenticed to a chemist, a grocer, an ironmonger, a tinker, a tailor, or a doctor? My mother hated law, because an attorney had stated an opinion that she had no right to throw dirty water into a gutter, that conveyed it close to the kitchen window of the

next house.

After a great deal of talking, we were unable to fix upon either trade or profession that I had any particular desire for. “I think I should like to go to sea," said I, with a flourish of my fist, "and fight for my king and my country."

My mother shut her eyes at the idea, and exclaimed-" What! go to sea and get drowned, or fight and get killed! and leave your poor mother without an arm to protect her, or a hand to smooth her pillow when she is sick or dying!"

"I never thought of that," I replied; so my prospect of becoming a hero was destroyed, and I left myself entirely to my mother's discretion.