ppressor and a heretic; yet he loved his master
and all that belonged to him. These were contradictory feelings,
certainly; but Mike was all contradiction, both in theory and in
practice.

The Anglo-Saxon tribe now professed a willingness to retire, promising
to _think of the matter_, a course against which Mike loudly
protested, declaring he never knew any good come of thinking, when
matters had got as far as blows. Jamie, too, went off scratching his
head, and he was seen to make many pauses, that day, between the
shovels-full of earth he, from time to time, threw around his plants,
as if pondering on what he had heard. As for the Dutch, their hour had
not come. No one expected them to decide the day they first heard of
argument.

The negroes got together, and began to dwell on the marvels of a battle
in which so many Christians had been put to death. Little Smash placed
the slain at a few thousands; but Great Smash, as better became her
loftier appellation and higher spirit, affirmed that the captain had
stated _hundreds_ of thousands; a loss, with less than which, as
she contended, no great battle could possibly be fought.

When the captain was housed, Serjeant Joyce demanded an audience; the
object of which was simply to ask for _orders_, without the least
reference to _principles_.

Chapter VII.

We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear.
Each chair is fill'd--we're all _at home_;
To-night let no cold stranger come:
It is not often thus around
Our old familiar hearth we're found:
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind Affection rule the hour;
We're all--all here.

Sprague.

Although most of the people retired to their dwellings, or their
labours, as soon as the captain dismissed them, a few remained to
receive his farther orders. Among these last were Joel, the carpenter,
and the blacksmith. These men now joined the chief of the settlement
and his son, who had lingered near the gateway, in conversation
concerning the alterations that the present state of things might
render necessary, in and about the Hut.

"Joel," observed the captain, when the three men were near enough to
hear his orders, "this great change in the times will render some
changes in our means of defence prudent, if not necessary."

"Does the captain s'pose th