h, or the
beauty, spirit, and generous impulses of Maud. In a word, the captain,
when he went forth to review his men, who were now all assembled under
arms within the palisades for that purpose, went to meet a wavering,
rather than a positively disaffected or rebellious body.

"Attention!" cried Joyce, as his commanding officer came in front of a
line which contained men of different colours, statures, ages, dresses,
countries, habits and physiognomies, making it a sort of epitome of the
population of the whole colony, as it existed in that day--"Attention!
Present, arms."

The captain pulled off his hat complacently, in return to this salute,
though he was obliged to smile at the array which met his eyes. Every
one of the Dutchmen had got his musket to an order, following a sort of
fugleman of their own; while Mike had invented a "motion" that would
have puzzled any one but himself to account for. The butt of the piece
was projected towards the captain, quite out of line, while the barrel
rested on his own shoulder. Still, as his arms were extended to the
utmost, the county Leitrim-man fancied he was performing much better
than common. Jamie had correct notions of the perpendicular, from
having used the plumb-bob so much, though even he made the trifling
mistake of presenting arms with the lock outwards. As for the Yankees,
they were all tolerably exact, in everything but time, and the line;
bringing their pieces down, one after another, much as they were in the
practice of following their leaders, in matters of opinion. The negroes
defied description; nor was it surprising they failed, each of them
thrusting his head forward to see how the "motions" looked, in a way
that prevented any particular attention to his own part of the duty.
The serjeant had the good sense to see that his drill had not yet
produced perfection, and he brought his men to a shoulder again, as
soon as possible. In this he succeeded perfectly, with the exception
that just half of the arms were brought to the right, and the other
half to the left shoulders.

"We shall do better, your honour, as we get a little more drill"--said
Joyce, with an apologetic salute--"Corporal Strides has a tolerable
idea of the manual, and he usually acts as our fugleman. When he gets
back, we shall improve."

"When he gets back, serjeant--can you, or any other man, tell when that
will be?"

"Yes, yer honour," sputtered Mike, with the eagerness of a boy. "I'se
t