rom Louisburg down the coast. For that matter, my duty
was to stand sentinel over that very cannon; and, if I have done the thing
once, I have twenty times squinted along the piece, to see in what quarter
it would send its shot, provided such a calamity should arrive as that it
might become necessary to fire it loaded with real warlike balls."

"And who are these?" demanded Pardon, with that species of sluggish
curiosity which had been awakened by the wonders related by the other:
"Are these mariners of the slaver, or are they idle Newporters?"

"Them!" exclaimed the tailor; "sure enough, they are new-comers, and it
may be well to have a closer look at them in these troublesome times!
Here, Nab, take the garment, and press down the seams, you idle hussy; for
neighbour Hopkins is straitened for time, while your tongue is going like
a young lawyer's in a justice court. Don't be sparing of your elbow, girl;
for it's no India muslin that you'll have under the iron, but cloth that
would do to side a house with. Ah! your mother's loom, Pardy, robs the
seamster of many an honest job."

Having thus transferred the remainder of the job from his own hands to
those of an awkward, pouting girl, who was compelled to abandon her gossip
with a neighbour, she went to obey his injunctions, he quickly removed
his own person, notwithstanding a miserable limp with which he had come
into the world, from the shop-board to the open air. As more important
characters are, however, about to be introduced to the reader, we shall
defer the ceremony to the opening of another chapter.

Chapter II.

Sir Toby. "Excellent! I smell a device."

_Twelfth Night._

The strangers were three in number; for strangers the good-man Homespun,
who knew not only the names but most of the private history of every man
and woman within ten miles of his own residence immediately proclaimed
them to be, in a whisper to his companion; and strangers, too, of a
mysterious and threatening aspect. In order that others may have an
opportunity of judging of the probability of the latter conjecture, it
becomes necessary that a more minute account should be given of the
respective appearances of these individuals, who, unhappily for their
reputations, had the misfortune to be unknown to the gossipping tailor of
Newport.

The one, by far the most imposing in his general mien, was a youth who had
apparently seen some six or seven-and-twenty seasons. That tho