ENUMERATES THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MASTER THOMAS
BILLINGS--INTRODUCES BROCK AS DOCTOR WOOD--AND ANNOUNCES THE EXECUTION
OF ENSIGN MACSHANE.

We are obliged, in recording this history, to follow accurately that
great authority, the "Calendarium Newgaticum Roagorumque Registerium,"
of which every lover of literature, in the present day knows the value;
and as that remarkable work totally discards all the unities in its
narratives, and reckons the life of its heroes only by their actions,
and not by periods of time, we must follow in the wake of this mighty
ark--a humble cock-boat. When it pauses, we pause; when it runs ten
knots an hour, we run with the same celerity; and as, in order to carry
the reader from the penultimate chapter of this work unto the last
chapter, we were compelled to make him leap over a gap of seven blank
years, ten years more must likewise be granted to us before we are at
liberty to resume our history.

During that period, Master Thomas Billings had been under the especial
care of his mother; and, as may be imagined, he rather increased than
diminished the accomplishments for which he had been remarkable while
under the roof of his foster-father. And with this advantage, that while
at the blacksmith's, and only three or four years of age, his virtues
were necessarily appreciated only in his family circle and among those
few acquaintances of his own time of life whom a youth of three can be
expected to meet in the alleys or over the gutters of a small country
hamlet,--in his mothers residence, his circle extended with his own
growth, and he began to give proofs of those powers of which in
infancy there had been only encouraging indications. Thus it was nowise
remarkable that a child of four years should not know his letters, and
should have had a great disinclination to learn them; but when a
young man of fifteen showed the same creditable ignorance, the
same undeviating dislike, it was easy to see that he possessed much
resolution and perseverance. When it was remarked, too, that, in case of
any difference, he not only beat the usher, but by no means disdained to
torment and bully the very smallest boys of the school, it was easy to
see that his mind was comprehensive and careful, as well as courageous
and grasping. As it was said of the Duke of Wellington, in the
Peninsula, that he had a thought for everybody--from Lord Hill to the
smallest drummer in the army--in like manner Tom Billings besto