et, and who should it
turn out to be but the young Cromwell! and I couldn't for the life of me
help hoisting false colours and dealing in the spirit line; so she took
me for a ghost when I delivered Mother Hays's message to Mistress
Constantia: then she blew out like a nor'-wester, and flouted, and
called names; and what else do ye think she did? By Jove, she shouted,
'Below there!--turn out the guard!' and stamped her little foot. Never
trust me, if her ankle isn't as neatly turned as the smoothest whistle
that ever hung from a boatswain's neck! After a while she said something
about jugglery, and I called her a little Roundhead; and, to be sure,
how she did stamp! Then presently down tumbled Mistress Maud from the
steeple, where, I guess, she had been making observations, and Lady
Frances rated the waiting-maid soundly, which I didn't grudge her--the
frippery, insolent baggage! It isn't a month since she called me a chip
of the jib-boom and an ugly fellow!--Ugly fellow, indeed;" repeated
Springall, twitching up his trowsers--"I wonder what she meant by ugly
fellow!"

"So do I," said the Skipper, with a sigh; for his mind was still
'harping on his daughter:' "So do I, but women have strange fancies. Let
me now ask you what news you have, for I cannot see how this concerns
me."

"Let me read my log my own way, or I cannot read it at all--and you
know, master, I never spin a long yarn, except when I can't help it."

Dalton smiled, for, of all the youths he had ever known, Springall loved
the most to hear himself talk.

"When I had delivered my message, and had the satisfaction of knowing
that a rascally Roundhead, and a princess (as they call her,) was
employed in doing my bidding," continued the lad, "I tacked about, and
loitered along, looking at the queer tackling of the hedges, and the gay
colours hoisted by the little flowers, and wondering within myself how
any one would like to be confined to the land with its hills and
hollows, where it's the same, same thing, over and over again; when I
spied two steel caps and a gentleman in black steering along the road to
Cecil Place. So I thought it would be only civil to go with them, seeing
they were strangers; but I did not care to let them spy me, so I
anchored in the hedge till they came up, and then crept along--along, on
the other side, like a tortoise, and as slowly too, faith! for the road
is so bad they were forced to lead their horses, except the black one,
w