hale-boats to our market, which was the nearest to their homes, and to
dispose of this fruit of their often perilous labors either for money, or
for such commodities as they required. I was standing, one afternoon,
near a group of foreign sailors, believed to be Spaniards, with the
natural curiosity of a boy, and rough-looking specimens of humanity they
certainly were. It seemed that they had fallen into dispute with the
crew, some three or four men, of an Algerine boat, and though the
language on one side and the other was altogether unintelligible to the
parties, the tones were uncommonly high. Doubtless, the Spaniards were
resenting some insult offered by the Algerines,--prompted by that sort of
jealousy and dislike with which the lower classes of English blood have
been in the habit of regarding those of other nationalities. The quarrel
seemed especially at its height between one of the Spanish crew and a
young man of remarkable stature in coarse seaman's dress, with a great
bush of long yellow locks hanging over the collar of his jacket, whose
name it appeared was Souter. The Spanish champion had drawn an ugly
looking knife, from which unfamiliar weapon, flourished so near his
person, the Algerine instinctively flinched. At this critical moment, the
patriarch of the Yankee crew, a tall, gaunt old man, with grizzled hair,
stepped into the arena, and, seizing the foreigner by the collar, cried
out,--"Now I'll bet Tom Souter" (pronounced Saouter) "could take this
'ere fellow right here by the collar and shake every g---- right aout of
him,"--using a more vulgar phrase, and suiting the action to the word so
vigorously that the reeling and astounded Spaniard was glad enough to
relinquish the field and to slink away crestfallen with his companions.

As a further illustration of the ways of our neighbors, I will give one
more anecdote of an affair which occurred years afterwards. Not far from
the hamlet of our friends, the Algerines, but within the borders of
Massachusetts, was another settlement, on the outskirts of a thriving
village, the male inhabitants of which also followed the calling of small
farmers and fishermen, some of them diversifying these pursuits by the
occupation of shoemaking, at the ungenial season of the year. They were
industrious, and far less rude than their compatriots, to whom reference
has just been made. At this point lived three young men, hard by each
other, and brothers, of the name, I will sa