ut warning,
upon her prey, as soon as she had anchored in the roads, sent ashore the
press-gang to pick up as many of the stout boat-builder lads as they
could catch. The towns-people, however, were not so unprepared as the
captain of the tender imagined; some of those, indeed, who were fit for
sea, ran up into the hills, but by far the greater number collected
about the corner of a building-shed as you go on to the main street,
and, when the signal of hostility was given, by the capture of a man by
the press-gang, they rushed down upon them in a body, every one with his
axe on his shoulder like a troop of Indians with their tomahawks. It had
now become so dark that the sailors had much to do to keep their footing
upon the loose stones of the beach, which was just at this time rendered
a still more troublesome passage by the scattered materials of a pier,
then beginning to be built; and, besides, their number was so small
compared to the townspeople, that, after a few strokes of the cutlas,
and as many oaths as would have got a line-of-battle ship into action
and out again, they were fain to retreat to their boat, pursued by the
boat-builders, young and old, like furies. A midshipman, sitting in the
stern, whose name was William Morrison, a fine lad of fifteen, observed
the fate of the action with feelings in which local and professional
spirit struggled for the mastery. One moment he would rub his hands with
glee, and the next unsheath his dagger in anger, as he saw the axe of a
fellow-townsman descend on the half-guarded head of a brother sailor;
but, when the combatants came within oar's length of the boat, and the
retreat began to resemble a flight, the _esprit de corps_ got the upper
hand in the Auchinbrecken midshipman's feelings, and, unsheathing his
dagger, he jumped nimbly ashore and joined in the fray. At last the
sailors got fairly into their boat without a single man being either
missing or killed, although the list of the wounded included the whole
party; and the landsmen, apparently pretty much in the same
circumstances, although unable, from their number and the darkness, to
reckon as instantaneously the amount of the loss or damage, after giving
three cheers of triumph, retired in good order.

William Morrison, after discharging his duty so manfully, was permitted
to go on shore the same evening, to visit his friends; and, indeed, the
captain could not have known before that he belonged to the place, as h