given to his son Walter by a Mr. Devaynes, a factor of the Turkey company at Constantinople, and was subsequently converted into a fishing-tackle case; and as the old gentleman had not been informed of the extraordinary and mysterious visits that had been paid to the family (for his wife had been ashamed to tell her part of the story, and his daughter afraid to tell theirs), he anticipated the worst, and that some great misfortune had happened to his son; in breathless anxiety, therefore, he first inquired of the sailor if his son were alive and safe. The tar significantly shook his head, and passed the sleeve of his tattered jacket across his eyes; but it was insufficient to disguise the flood of tears that rushed down his furrowed cheeks. That alone spoke a volume to the parent's heart. His son, upon whom his own and family's fondest anticipations had long been fixed, was no more!

The sailor, having in some degree recovered from the effect of surprise in thus accidentally falling in with the parent of the lost officer and the chairman of the assembled magistracy in the same individual, thus related his sorrowful tale :—

"Just three weeks ago this blessed day, your honors, the lieftenent (we calls him lieftenant when once made acting luff), who was a passenger as well as myself, (here the poor fellow handed out a certificate of being invalided and also pensioned for long services), on board the Kentucky,' from Boston, left her in a pilot boat off the mouth of the Bristol channel; soon arterward, a ship heaving in sight, the pilot answered signal, which is a 'Jack' at the fore for a pilot, and gave us choice to pop into his skiff or jolly boat with a couple of hands, and make for the shore or stay on board; but the lieftenant was charged with despatches, and he wanted to get ashore without loss of time. Unfortunately, your honours, we closed with the last offer, and that was a settler; for in less than half an hour it came on squally, and soon blow'd great guns; then we sprung our mast, and afore we could muster any thing to fish it, or haul down our close-reefed lug, away it went by the board; the lieftenant and I, your honors, was made ballast of, cause the cockle-shell had'nt even a breaker of water aboard, and that was a bad look-out of the pilot's; and afore we could clear away the wreck, and haul the

sail on board, a heavy cross sea filled the boat, and then it was every one for himself, and God for us all. The last time I seen the leiftenant, he was striking out with the despatch bag in his hand; the small Canadian bark box what was in the boat floated ashore, and all that I could lay hold on from the Bristol sharks was that ere fishing-tackle book; the lieftenant's body was picked up, and arter it was crown'd, buried in one of the Bristol churchyards, for nobody know'd where he hailed from, as all, except I, your worships, was, as I may say, strangers, and I never had much talk with the lieftenant, 'cause as one may say, he was my officer; but a better sailor never stood 'twixt stem and starn-God receive his soul!"

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And,” said the afflicted father, "you shall never want a roof, Jack, over your head, so long as his father lives, or till God receives your own soul!" "God bless your worship!" said the poor fellow, which was all he could say, for, as he afterwards declared, “his luff was choked;" and from that moment the "vagrant" of the morning became the pet of all the deceased lieutenant's family, till he himself paid the last debt that man can pay—

"For all must die;

Passing thro' nature to eternity."

It afterwards came out, amongst the numerous questions put to the shipwrecked sailor, or "cast away," as he styled himself, "that the misfortune occurred, as near as he could guess by the sun, about half-past six in the arternoon of that very day three weeks ;—the very day, and nearly about the hour, that the two sisters had hastened to meet their long absent, and, as they at first fully believed, safely returned, but lost brother!

Upon further interrogatory by the afflicted parent, the kindhearted tar stated that "he was himself saved by laying hold of two of the floating oars, and trusting to the flood-tide then making, to drift ashore; that upon landing he had not a shot in his locker, but received every kindness from the Bristol gentlefolks, and was passed on free, by the 'Dilly,' with quite money enough to keep him out of the constables' way; but that they were like so many sharks, on the look out for somewhat, and wanted no pilot.

fish; and would have it that he was 'a vagrant by act o' Parliament.' Thanks be to God that they had laid hold on him that day, for he had had hard work to get the fishing-tackle book from the Bristol people, until he told 'em he knowed very well his lieftenant hailed from the westward (where he was bound, his own parish being St. Mary's, Scilly, tho' he had no person left in the world to care for❜n there), and p'rhaps he might diskiver the officer's family, tho' it almost 'choked his luff' to carry to them such bad news of as brave a lieftenant. or acting luff, 'twas all the same ashore, as ever walked the weather side o' the quarter-decks. But," concluded the honest fellow, 'his honor is ordered aloft by the Commander-in-chief of all, where, please God, he has a better berth than an admiral here!" "Ah, indeed! my good friend," said the venerable, vicar, holding out his hand to the sailor, or rather to the veteran, with all the warmth of of his own Christian philanthropy, and in its palm a guinea, "He is indeed the great Commander-in-Chief of all, who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm." The mother, although overwhelmed with grief for the too certain loss of her son, endeavoured to reconcile the mysterious circumstance which had occasioned so much uneasiness to herself with natural cause; but, when the daughters (finding silence upon the subject of the vision they had both witnessed, too clearly to have been deceived, altogether unnecessary) related the extraordinary circumstance to their mother; she, notwithstanding the impression which her assumed philosophy could not remove from her own mind, employed every argument in her power to convince her daughters, that the supposed vision was "merely the effect of optical illusion," but it was all to no purpose. After she had herself questioned her son's veteran shipmate (who, immediately on the justices' rising, had attended the afflicted father home, when the sailor from that moment became domiciled), scarcely allowing him to answer her multiplied interrogatories, and heard his description of the dress worn by her Walter when he left the ship "Kentucky," for the pilot-boat, and which tallied in every point with her daughter's description of it, her mind reluctantly admitted the power of superstition, and she determined never more to dispute the possibility of

that second sight, or death-fetch, for which three of her own family could then vouch by experience.

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

Some pious drops the closing eye requires ;

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires."-Gray.

CHAPTER IV.

JACK'S COMMENCEMENT OF LIFE.-DEAF KIRCH'S FAMOUS TALES.— JACK'S PREPARATION FOR A CHANGE OF AIR WITH HIS DOG NEPTUNE.

JACK TENCH, Madame Sturgeon's grandson, may be said to have commenced life at five years of At that time he was a preage. cious young scamp, and had but just recovered from the measles or small-pox; and having been ordered change of air, his nurse, a notable old body, known by the general name of "Mrs. Honor," sported a "bran-new" scarlet cloak and black silk bonnet, upon the occasion of accompanying her wayward charge to what she called the "sea-side."

Nothing less than a post-chaise would do, for in those days. doctors' orders to parents and nurses were like the laws of the ancient Medes and Persians. Jack, however, prayed hard to make the journey, of six miles only, upon the market ass of an old carrier called Deaf Kirch,* as the animal was an especial favourite with him, and next in estimation to his own Newfoundland dog Neptune, which was the only name the boy would ever hail him by, notwithstanding the "Parson" had named him Bucephalus.

Deaf Kirch and her Neddy were known throughout the country; they were inseparable, and inhabited one and the same turf hut, upon an adjoining moor. The old woman was a general favourite at all nurseries; the " young folks," as she would call the men and women in miniature, were delighted with her stories, of which she had an inexhaustible budget at her fingers' ends, including Robin Hood's celebrated exploits, of which she could recite by

* Provincial abbreviation of Christian.

heart all the ancient ballads, beginning with that of the "Pedigree, Education, and Marriage of Robin Hood, with Clarinda, Queen of Titbury Feast, as related by the fiddler who played at their wedding.” Of Deaf Kirch's other stories, was one which would occasionally make the "young folks" look over their shoulders in alarm, raise their hair, “like quills upon the fretful porcupine," whilst with widely distended mouths, and resting their cheeks upon their hands, and elbows on their knees, they were mute, and all in deep attention to the recital. That story was of " a famous lady who was buried alive in a church, whose tower is a far-famed and important land-mark and signal-station, overlooking Cawsand Bay, in the county of Cornwall. The story exhibits the extraordinary, but true occurrence of "her ladyship's having fallen into a trance, which lasted three weeks; and being then perfectly cold, was considered dead, and subsequently interred in the family vault. The young lord, her son, had ordered that the ornaments which were upon her person when she died (of which some rings were very valuable) should be buried with the corpse; which, exciting the cupidity of the sexton, he determined to seize the first safe opportunity, after the funeral, to convert those splendid jewels, which could be of no possible service to the dead, to the benefit of the living, in the persons of himself and family.

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Accordingly, after he had done all that his duty in the vault required for the night, and given the necessary orders to the grave digger to be there at a certain hour on the following day,' to complete the filling of the vault, in order that the masons might finish their part of the work, they retired from the church to their respective homes.

"Having waited rather impatiently for the moment when, according to his calculation, his neighbours would be fast locked in sleep, the sexton, taking his best lantern, under his bear's-skin great coat, and providing himself with a screw-driver and the necessary materials for the purpose, proceeded to the church, and soon succeeded in opening the coffin, when, to his consternation, which was, however, merely temporary, he found that her ladyship had turned upon her right side, with her left hand resting upon a rose which had