The ballad had proceeded thus far, when a band of smugglers from the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, uniting the reckless desperation of the former with the craft and tact of the latter, attracted by the secure and naked coast, and perhaps by the lonely house, which presented hope of plunder with little appearance of resistance, landed to the number of seven, and leaping over the exterior wall, seized the door and shook it violently, calling loudly for admittance. I lay down with my two companions behind a small hedge of furze, to see the issue of this visit, for at that time I imagined the mariner maintained some mysterious correspondence with these fierce and lawless men. "Open the door," said one, in a strong Irish accent, "or by the powers I'll blow your cabin to peelings of potatoes about your ears, my darlings."-" Hout, Patrick, or what's your name," said one of his comrades, in Lowland Scotch, "ye mauna gang that rough way to wark, we maun speak kindly and cannilie, man, till we get in our hand, and then we can take it a' our ain way, like Willie Wilson's sow, when she ran off with the knife in her neck." The mariner, on hearing this dialogue, prepared himself for resistance, like one perfectly well acquainted with such rencounters. With a sword in one hand, a cocked pistol in the other, and a brace in his belt, he posted himself behind the door, and in a low voice admonished his daughter to retire to a little chamber constructed for her accommodation. With a voice which, though quivering with emotion, lost nothing of its native sweetness, the young maiden answered, "Oh let me be near you?-let me but be near you?"-Her low and gentle voice was drowned in the wild exclamations of one of the smugglers. "Och, my dears, let us break the door, and clap a red turf to the roof, and all to give me light to see to kiss this maiden with the sweet voice. By the holy poker that stirred the turf-fire beneath the first potatoe, I have not been within seven acres broad of a woman since we sailed with Miles Colvine's lady. And by the bagpiper she was a bouncer, and a pretty din she made about it after all, and took it into her

head to shriek till the shores rang, and pray till the saints grew deaf; ah, my hearties, it wouldn't do.What the devil holds this door? stand by till I show you how handsomely I'll pitch it against the wall. Ah, I wish you had seen me when I upset the house of Ranald Mullagen, in Lurgen, and made the bonniest blaze you ever saw in the wide world, at all-at all." And setting his shoulders to the door, he thrust with all his might, and though seconded by his comrades, who seemed all alike eager for violence, the door resisted his utmost efforts. "Stand back, my darlings," said the miscreant," I'll show you a trick worth two of this; I'll teach you how we bring out a bonnie lass from a bolted chamber, in little Ireland;" so saying, he proceeded to prime a pistol, having previously hammered the flint with a little steel cross, curiously chased and ornamented, which he took from his bosom. "Ah," said he, "may the devil cork me up in a stone bottle, and send me to seek out the latitude of the lake of darkness, if I don't carve up that old hegoat into relics!-Now, come on, my early boys-my souls of boys; the boy that won't do as I do deserves to be whipped through Purgatory with the tail of Saint Patrick's ass. Thack an' thunder! hell's to hinder us when I clap my pistol under the thatch." In a moment the door opened, Miles Colvine stood on the threshold, a cocked-pistol in his right hand, his sword gleaming in his left, his eyes shooting from them a fierce dark light, but his manner perfectly calm and collected. Behind him came the beautiful form of his daughter, with a bent pistol in her hand, and shuddering from head to foot at the immediate peril which seemed to beset her father. These maritime desperadoes started back at this sudden apparition of an armed man, and even their miscreant leader, forward as he was, recoiled a pace or two. The mariner eyed him for a moment, and said, "Did my sword then do its work slovenly, and did the deep sea not devour thee, thou immeasurable villain? but God has given thee back to earth, to become a warning how sure and how certain just vengeance is." And leaping on him as he spoke, I saw the

man

food seem savoury and delicate unto these three men and this tender virgin, but my hands, on which the blood of man yet reeks unatoned for, may not presume to touch blessed food." And spreading the fold of his mantle over his face, and stooping down, he appeared to busy himself in mental devotion, while, tasting the supper set before us, and obeying the mute invitation of the maiden to a glass of water, we complied with all the forms which this extraordinary audience seemed to impose upon us. After this was past, the young woman took up one of the instruments, and singing as she played, with inexpressible sweetness and grace, her father gradually uncovered his face, his looks began to brighten, and uttering a deep sigh, he waved his hand, the minstrelsy ceased, and he thus addressed us :"I was not always an unhappy -I had fair domains, a stately house, a beauteous wife, and a sweet daughter: but it is not what we have, but what we enjoy, that blesseth man's heart, and makes him as one of the angels. I dwelt on a wild seacoast, full of woods and caverns, the haunt of a banditti of smugglers, those fierce, and vulgar, and intractable spirits, who find subsistence in fraud and violence, and from a continued perseverance in hostility to human law, become daily more hardened of heart and fierce of nature. I was young then, and romantic, and though I did not approve of the course of these men's lives, there appeared glimpses of generosity, and courage, and fortitude, about them, which shed a halo over a life of immorality and crime. I protected them not, neither did I associate with them; but they soon saw in the passive manner in which I regarded their nocturnal intercourse with the coast, and the ready and delighted ear which I lent to the narratives of their adventures by sea and land, that they had nothing to fear and much to hope. Their confidence increased, and their numbers augmented, and they soon found a leader capable of giving an aim to all their movements, and who brought something like regular craft and ability to their counsels.

I was reputed rich, and was rich; my treasures were mostly of gold and silver plate, and bars of the

former metal, the gain of a relative who had shared with the Buccaneers in the plunder of Panama. I had also been wedded for a number of years, my wife was young and beautiful, and our daughter, an only child, my own May Colvine, here where she sits, was in her thirteenth year, with a frame that seemed much too delicate to survive the disasters she has since been doomed to meet. We were counselled to carry her to warmer climates, and were preparing for our voyage, and my wife was ready to accompany me, when a large smuggling cutter cast anchor in a deep woody bay which belonged to my estate, and as I sat on the top of my house, looking towards the sea, a person in a naval dress came and accosted me. He was, he said, the captain of the Free trader lying in the bay, with a cargo of choice wine, and his mariners were bold lads and true, had periled themselves freely by land and water, and often experienced the protection of Miles Colvine's bay, and the hospitality of his menials. They had heard of my intention to carry my wife and daughter to a more genial climate, and, if we wished to touch at Lisbon, or to go to any of the islands where Europeans seek for health, they would give us a passage, for they honoured us next to commerce with out law or restraint. But I must tell you, that the chief of this band, knowing my love for marvellous tales, hinted, that he had men on board, who, to the traditionary lore of their maritime ancestors, added their own adventures and deeds; and could, with the romantic ballads of Denmark and Sweden, mingle the Troubadour tales of France, the Moorish legends of Spain, and the singular narratives which survive among the peasantry on my native coast. To soothe and propitiate my wife he had recourse to another charm; from the pocket of a long boat-cloak he produced a mantle of the most precious fabric, and spreading it out before her, with_all its rich variety of colour, and Eastern profusion of ornament, offered it as an humble present from himself and his mariners. I need not prolong this part of my narrative, we embarked at twilight, and standing out

of the bay, dropped anchor till morning dawn. The captain sat armed beside us; this excited no suspicion, for he went commonly armed, and related adventures of a trying and remarkable kind which had befallen him on foreign shores, with a liveliness, and a kind of maritime grace, which were perfectly captivating. All night we heard overhead the tramp and the din of sailors passing and repassing, and with the grey of the morning we plucked up our anchor, spread our sails to a shrill wind, shot away seaward, and my native land vanished from my view. All was life and gladness, we danced and we sang on deck, and drained cups of the purest wine; while the breeze favoured us, and the sky remained unclouded and serene.

In about fifteen days the spice groves of one of the Portuguese islands appeared before us, and as the sun was setting, it was resolved we should remain at the entrance of a bay till day-light. We were crowded on the deck, looking on the green and beauteous land, and a gentle seaward wind wafted the perfume of the forest about us. My wife was then in the bloom of youth and beauty, full of health, and life, and love; and as she stood leaning on my arm, the sailors smoothed their rough looks, and refrained from curses, so much were they touched by her beauty; but this awe lasted but a little while. The captain was merry far beyond his usual measure of delight, and drained one wine cup after another to my wife's health and mine; he vowed I was as a god among his men, and that my wife was reverenced as a divinity. come," said he, "Miles Colvine, I have a curious and a cunning thing to show you, which you alone deserve to see; I got it among the Moors, so come, and come alone."-I rose and followed him, for my curiosity was unbounded, he conducted me below, and opening a small wicket in the wall of his cabin with a key, ushered me in, and closing it suddenly upon me, locked it, and then I heard him bounding up the stair to the deck. I stood half imagining this to be a jest, or something, at least, of a light nature; but shriek after shriek of my wife, uttered in the piercing agony of anguish and despair, soon undeceived me. I called, I en

"But

treated, I used force, and though I was armed by anger and despair, with almost supernatural might, the door withstood all my efforts. But why should I dwell upon a scene of such unutterable misery? What I endured, and what the woman I loved and adored suffered, are fit only to be imagined, not, surely, to be spoken. Her wrongs were remembered, and her shrieks numbered by a POWER far more terrible than man, and a certain doom and deplorable death was pronounced against them, at the moment their joy was fullest.

The evening passed away, and morning came, and through a little wicket which looked upon the sea, the light showed me that my chamber was the treasure-room of the pirates, for such they were, as well as smugglers; at the same moment a hole opened above, and a piece of bread and an antique silver cup filled with wine, were lowered down. Amid the misery of my situation it seemed but a light evil that I recognized the silver vessel to be part of the treasure I had left at home, and in seeking for a weapon to force the wicket I found that my whole riches, in gold as well as silver, had been seized and put on board. I could now measure the extent of my calamity, and prepared myself for a fate, which, among such miscreants, could not be deemed far distant. The morning was not much advanced when the sun dipped at once into a dark and tempestuous ocean of clouds, the wind began to whistle shriller and shriller among our sails, and the sea, upturned by sudden and heavy gusts of wind, showed as far as the eye could reach, the dark and tremendous furrows so fatal to mariners. The wind was from the land, and I could both see and feel that the vessel was unable to gain the harbour, and had sought security from the approaching tempest by standing out to sea. I heard the wind wax louder, and saw the billows roll, with a joy that arises from the hope of revenge: the sky became darker, the sea flashed over the decks, and the tempest hurried the ship onward with a rapidity which alarmed the sailors, accustomed as they were to the element. The seams of the vessel began to admit the sea, and everywhere symptoms appeared of her immediate destruction.