rod.

Queeker's last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the
first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was
splendid sport--magnificent sport,--but that it appeared to him there
was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to
boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually
exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It
is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,--his proper sphere,--
to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject,
which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he
sent it;--but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE LAMPLIGHTER AT HOME, AND THREATENING APPEARANCES.

We turn now to a very different scene--the pier and harbour of Ramsgate.
The storm-fiend is abroad. Thick clouds of a dark leaden hue drive
athwart a sky of dingy grey, ever varying their edges, and rolling out
limbs and branches in random fashion, as if they were fleeing before the
wind in abject terror. The wind, however, is chiefly in the sky as yet.
Down below there are only fitful puffs now and then, telling of
something else in store. The sea is black, with sufficient swell on it
to cause a few crested waves here and there to gleam intensely white by
contrast. It is early in the day, nevertheless there is a peculiar
darkness in the atmosphere which suggests the approach of night.
Numerous vessels in the offing are making with all speed for Ramsgate
harbour, which is truly and deservedly named a "harbour of refuge," for
already some two dozen ships of considerable size, and a large fleet of
small craft, have sought and found shelter on a coast which in certain
conditions of the wind is fraught with danger. About the stores near
the piers, Trinity men are busy with buoys, anchors, and cables;
elsewhere labourers are toiling, idlers are loafing, and lifeboat--men
are lounging about, leaning on the parapets, looking wistfully out to
sea, with and without telescopes, from the sheer force of habit, and
commenting on the weather. The broad, bronzed, storm-battered coxswain
of the celebrated Ramsgate lifeboat, who seems to possess the power of
feeding and growing strong on hardship and exposure, is walking about at
the end of the east pier, contemplating the horizon in the direction of
the Goodwin Sands with the serious air of a