ion do you feel inclined to come to? 'Tis
a fine breezy place to clear the brain, and a briny air to sharpen the
judgment."

"Only one tree need come down--this crooked one at the southeast
corner." Captain Stubbard began to swing his arms about, like a windmill
uncertain of the wind. "All gentlemen hate to have a tree cut down,
all blackguards delight in the process. Admiral, we will not hurt
your trees. They will add to our strength, by masking it. Six long
twenty-fours of the new make, here in front, and two eighteens upon
either flank, and I should like to see the whole of the Boulogne
flotilla try to take yonder shore by daylight. That is to say, of
course, if I commanded, with good old salts to second me. With
your common artillery officers, landlubbers, smell-the-wicks,
cross-the-braces sons of guns, there had better not be anything at all
put up. They can't make a fortification; and when they have made it,
they can't work it. Admiral Darling, you know that, though you have not
had the bad luck to deal with them as I have. I may thank one of them
for being up here on the shelf."

"Of one thing you may be quite certain," replied the commander of the
sea defence; "if we have any battery on this Fox-hill, it shall be
constructed and manned by blue-jackets. I have a large draft of them now
at discretion. Every man in Springhaven will lend a hand, if paid for
it. It would take at least a twelvemonth to get it done from Woolwich. A
seaman does a thing before a landsman thinks about it."

CHAPTER XVII

SEA-SIDE LODGINGS

To set a dog barking is easier than to stop him by the soundest
reasoning. Even if the roof above his honest head, growing loose on its
nails, is being mended, he comes out to ask about the matter, and in
strong terms proclaims his opinion to the distance.

After this kind behaved the people about to be protected by this
battery. They had dreamed of no danger till they saw their houses
beginning to be protected, and for this--though it added to their
importance--they were not truly thankful. They took it in various ways,
according to their rich variety of reflection; but the way in which
nobody took it was that of gratitude and humility.

"Everything upside down," they said, "everything gone clean topsy-turvy!
And the deep meaning of it is to rob our fishing, under pretence of the
Nationals. It may bring a good bit of money to the place, for the lining
of one or two pockets, such as John