y struggles every moment exciting roars of laughter from an
increasing crowd of spectators, who seemed scarcely less amused than
puzzled at the exhibition. In the midst of a torrent of imprecations
against my torturer, a loud noise attracted me. I turned my head, and
saw,--horror of horrors!--the door of the meeting-house just flung open,
and the congregation issuing forth _en masse_. Is it any wonder if I
remember no more? There I was, the chosen one of the widow Boggs, the elder
elect, the favored friend and admired associate of Mr. M'Phun, taking an
airing on a summer's evening on the back of a drunken Irishman. Oh, the
thought was horrible! and certainly the short and pithy epithets by which I
was characterized in the crowd, neither improved my temper nor assuaged my
wrath, and I feel bound to confess that my own language was neither serious
nor becoming. Tim, however, cared little for all this, and pursued the even
tenor of his way through the whole crowd, nor stopped till, having made
half the circuit of the wall, he deposited me safe at my own door; adding,
as he set me down, 'Oh, av you're as throublesome every evening, it's a
wheelbarrow I'll be obleeged to bring for you!'

"The next day I obtained a short leave of absence, and ere a fortnight
expired, exchanged into the --th, preferring Halifax itself to the ridicule
that awaited me in Londonderry."

CHAPTER XXX.

FRED POWER'S ADVENTURE IN PHILIPSTOWN.

The lazy hours of the long summer day crept slowly over. The sea, unbroken
by foam or ripple, shone like a broad blue mirror, reflecting here and
there some fleecy patches of snow-white cloud as they stood unmoved in the
sky. The good ship rocked to and fro with a heavy and lumbering motion, the
cordage rattled, the bulkheads creaked, the sails flapped lazily against
the masts, the very sea-gulls seemed to sleep as they rested on the long
swell that bore them along, and everything in sea and sky bespoke the calm.
No sailor trod the deck; no watch was stirring; the very tiller ropes were
deserted; and as they traversed backwards and forwards with every roll of
the vessel, told that we had no steerage-way, and lay a mere log upon the
water.

I sat alone in the bow, and fell into a musing fit upon the past and
the future. How happily for us is it ordained that in the most stirring
existences there are every here and there such little resting-spots of
reflection, from which, as from some eminence, we lo