pass yourself off for an apprentice of the Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we started, and pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best may." I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my superior officer so soon as I considered I had obtained my object. I rapped at the inner door, in which there was a small unglazed aperture cut, about four inches square; and I now, for the first time, perceived that a strong glare of light was cast into the lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a brilliant reflector, that, like a magazine lantern, had been mortised into the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to: I rapped again, and, looking round, I noticed Mr. Treenail flitting backwards and forwards across the doorway, in the rain, his pale face and his sharp nose, with the sparkling drop at the end on't, glancing in the light of the lamp. I heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket.

"Who are you saking here, an' please ye?"

"No one in particular, my dear; but if you don't let me in, I shall be lodged in jail before five minutes be over." "I can't help that, young man," said she; "but where are ye from, darling!"

"Hush-I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."

"Oh," said my beauty, "come in"; and she opened the door, but still kept it on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid in beneath it, yet a common-sized man could not possibly have squeezed himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to, and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen feet square, with

a well-sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks. against the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal table in the middle of the room-but no tablecloth-at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky faced savage, dressed in a shabby greatcoat of the hodden grey worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swandown vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and wellpatched shoes; he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trousers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky steam that cast a halo round a lamp which depended from the roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather-beaten men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half, drunk. When I entered, I walked up to

the landlord.

"Yo ho, my young un! whence and whither bound, my hearty?"

"The first don't signify much to you," said I, "seeing I have wherewithal in my locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so, old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of them colliers that are lying alongside the quay?"

"My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has!" grumbled mine host. "Why, my lad, we shall see tomorrow morning; but you gammons so about the rhino, that we must prove you a bit; so, Kate, my dear,"-to the pretty girl who had let me in-"score a pint of rum against Why, what is your name?"

"What's that to you?" rejoined I, "let's have the drink, and don't doubt but the shiners shall be forthcoming."

"Hurrah!" shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy. So the rum was produced forthwith, and as I

lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle, I struck in, "Messmates, I hope you have all shipped?"

"No, we han't," said some of them.

"Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy," said others.

"Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and I recommend all of you making yourselves scarce tonight, and keeping a bright look-out."

"Why, boy, why?"

"Simply because I have just escaped a press-gang, by bracing sharp up at the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark alley here."

This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling of reckonings. "Where," said one of the seamen,-"where do you go to, my lad?"

"Why, if I can't get shipped to-night, I shall trundle down to Cove immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, and take my chance of shipping with some of the outward-bound that are to sail, if the wind holds, the day after to-morrow. There is to be no pressing when the blue Peter flies at the fore-and that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and the foretopsail will be loose to

morrow.

"D-n my wig, but the small chap is right," roared one. "I've a bloody great mind to go down with him," stuttered another, after several unavailing attempts to weigh from the bench, where he had brought himself to anchor.

"Hurrah!" yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with his maudlin caresses, "I trundles wid you too, my darling, by the piper!"

"Have with you, boy-have with you," shouted halfa-dozen other voices, while each stuck his oaken twig through the handkerchief that held his bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap

on the crown, on one side of his head, and staggering and swaying about under the influence of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent double, laughing like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks from his drunken half-shut eyes, while jets of tobacco-juice were squirting in all directions.

I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and, promising to overtake them before they reached Passage, I parted company at the corner of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.

Next morning we spent in looking about the townCork is a fine town-contains seventy thousand inhabitants more or less-safe in that-and three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse grey greatcoats. The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the legs are short, and tails curly; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp and thin, and tails long and straight.

All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images; arrived at Cove to a late dinner-and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the same kind.

By the time it was half-past ten o'clock, I was preparing to turn in, when the master at arms called down to me,— "Mr. Cringle, you are wanted in the gunroom."

I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in pea-jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistols and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog-the gunner taking the watch on deck-the doctor was piping anything

but mellifluously on the double flagolet, while the Spanish priest, and aide-de-camp to the general, were playing at chess, and wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr. Treenail rumbling and stumbling in his stateroom, as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had passed, and presently he stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol.

"Mr. Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with you."

I now knew whereabouts I was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore, where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat-lengths should any suspicious circumstances indicating an attack take place, we separated, like a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with orders to meet before Pat Doolan's door, as speedily as our legs could carry us. We had landed about a cable's length to the right of the high precipitous bank-up which we stole in straggling parties—on which that abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is situated, called the Holy Ground. Pat Doolan's domocile was in a little dirty lane, about the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his stretcher in his hand. It was very tempestuous, although moonlight, night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and one the gem-like water drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof, and lighting up the dark statue-like figures of the men, and casting their long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a black cloud, as it flew across her disk, cast everything into deep shade; while the only