ut of his senses, that is clear; and how
the devil can he, who scarce can find his road from the Cleikum to his
own manse, venture himself unprotected into such a scene of
confusion?--he might as well pretend to cross the Atlantic without a
pilot--I must push off in chase of him, lest worse come of it."

But the traveller was prevented from executing his friendly purpose by a
sort of crowd which came rushing down the alley, the centre of which was
occupied by Captain MacTurk, in the very act of bullying two pseudo
Highlanders, for having presumed to lay aside their breeches before they
had acquired the Gaelic language. The sounds of contempt and insult with
which the genuine Celt was overwhelming the unfortunate impostors, were
not, indeed, intelligible otherwise than from the tone and manner of the
speaker; but these intimated so much displeasure, that the plaided forms
whose unadvised choice of a disguise had provoked it--two raw lads from
a certain great manufacturing town--heartily repented their temerity,
and were in the act of seeking for the speediest exit from the gardens;
rather choosing to resign their share of the dinner, than to abide the
farther consequences that might follow from the displeasure of this
highland Termagant.

Touchwood had scarcely extricated himself from this impediment, and
again commenced his researches after the clergyman, when his course was
once more interrupted by a sort of pressgang, headed by Sir Bingo Binks,
who, in order to play his character of a drunken boatswain to the life,
seemed certainly drunk enough, however little of a seaman. His cheer
sounded more like a view-hollo than a hail, when, with a volley of such
oaths as would have blown a whole fleet of the Bethel Union out of the
water, he ordered Touchwood "to come under his lee, and be d----d; for,
smash his old timbers, he must go to sea again, for as weather-beaten a
hulk as he was."

Touchwood answered instantly, "To sea with all my heart, but not with a
land-lubber for commander.--Harkye, brother, do you know how much of a
horse's furniture belongs to a ship?"

"Come, none of your quizzing, my old buck," said Sir Bingo--"What the
devil has a ship to do with horse's furniture?--Do you think we belong
to the horse-marines?--ha! ha! I think you're matched, brother."

"Why, you son of a fresh-water gudgeon," replied the traveller, "that
never in your life sailed farther than the Isle of Dogs, do you pretend
to play a