e
blow was necessarily a severe one, he lay motionless on the floor of
the kitchen. The landlady ran to offer some aid, but Mr. Fleecebumpkin
would not permit her to approach.

"Let him alone," he said, "he will come to within time, and come up to
the scratch again. He has not got half his broth yet."

"He has got all I mean to give him though," said his antagonist, whose
heart began to relent towards his old associate; "and I would rather by
half give the rest to yourself, Mr. Fleecebumpkin, for you pretend to
know a thing or two, and Robin had not art enough even to peel before
setting to, but fought with his plaid dangling about him.--Stand up,
Robin, my man! all friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak
a word against you, or your country, for your sake."

Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his passion, and eager to
renew the onset; but being withheld on the one side by the
peace-making Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware that Wakefield no
longer meant to renew the combat, his fury sunk into gloomy
sullenness.

"Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man," said the brave-spirited
Englishman, with the placability of his country; "shake hands, and we
will be better friends than ever."

"Friends!" exclaimed Robin Oig with strong emphasis--"friends!--Never.
Look to yourself, Harry Waakfelt."

"Then the curse of Cromwell on your proud Scots stomach, as the man
says in the play, and you may do your worst and be d----; for one man
can say nothing more to another after a tussel, than that he is sorry
for it."

On these terms the friends parted; Robin Oig drew out, in silence, a
piece of money, threw it on the table, and then left the alehouse. But
turning at the door, he shook his hand at Wakefield, pointing with his
fore-finger upwards, in a manner which might imply either a threat or
a caution. He then disappeared in the moonlight.

(_To be concluded in our next_.)

* * * * *

ARCANA OF SCIENCE.

_Sheppey_.--The isle of Sheppey is quickly giving way to the sea, and
if measures are not hereafter taken to remedy this, possibly in a
century or two hence its name may be required to be obliterated from
the map. Whole acres, with houses upon them, have been carried away in
a single storm, while clay shallows, sprinkled with sand and gravel,
which stretch a full mile beyond the verge of the cliff, over which
the sea now sweeps, demonstrate the original area of