madmen, and, before you could say Jack Robinson, had the cattle houghed, the wenches carried off, and Grana Weal's house burning over her head like a tar barrel. Such of the boys as they found about the place, they knocked on the head, and it was as much as Grana herself could do to make her escape with life and honour. Peter's poor fellows came in for another guess sort of handling than they had ever been used to before The murdering heathens cut their throats in all the pews of the church, chucked their wafers out upon the dunghill, and swilled up their consecrated wine like so much swipes in a pot house. There was nothing to be heard but screams, shouts, and the smashing open of doors and strong boxes-nothing to be seen but slaughtered men and cattle, smoke, flames, and the ill-looking ruffians themselves, running back and forward with sacks full of plunder on their backs.

Grana, and as many of the boys as she could gather, effected a retreat in

tolerable order to her farm-house on the other side of the estate, and having barricaded the windows and doors, prepared to make a stand for life or death. As many of Peter's men as were left, followed, with their books and papers under their arms, and as much of the church plate as they had been able to save, stowed away in their cassocks; but it was impossible for the poor fellows to carry off more than a mere trifle; so that the plundering pagans never were in such luck either before or since. Chalice, salver, censer, bell, book, and candles, they stuffed into their greasy pouches at every turn; but nothing was, in my mind, so pitiable as the havoc they made in the schoolmaster's library, dog-earing the best grammars and dictionaries, and tearing out whole chapters of the lives of saints, for wrappers, matches, and the vilest purposes. Relics and images were tumbled about, and trampled under foot with the commonest rubbish; but not till they had been picked pretty clear of their gold and silver cases and crowns of fillagree. In a word, the marauding sons of white bears crammed their boat to the gunnel with Grana's best, and then made off; only, by way of retainer, leaving Turgy the boatswain,, with a couple of dozen rogues, well

armed, to keep the coast clear till their return.

Ac

And now I am going to tell you a rare joke about Turgy. The carrotyheaded scamp kicked up the deuce's delights for a while, thrashing all the boys he could lay hold of, and vowed that he would fire Grana's crops from one end of the estate to the other, unless he and his rogues got leave to do as they liked with a score of the tenants' daughters. Now, the knave, you must know, had ensconced himself, as safe as old Chassé, in a casement behind the walls of Grana's burned house; so that, although her boys would have eaten him like an oyster, could they have caught him out of his shell, or get the least bit of their knives in by any chinck or cranny, when he might be gaping for the tide yet, while he kept the close doors and sharp look-out he did, they saw the they had no chance of getting at him by fair means, and therefore, making as if they did not care though they should give him his will, although they could hardly keep from spitting in his face over the wall, as he made them his rascally proposal, they said they would consider of it, and he should have their answer that evening. cordingly, about dusk, they brought the girls, strapping hussies all, as Turgy and his blackguards admitted when signing the receipt. I'll warrant you the churls' chops watered at a proper rate as the twenty wenches stepped into the courty; and, like three-year olds, only holding their handkerchiefs to their faces, as was natural. The foxy old sinner himself was up to the foremost one, throws his arms about her neck, and was beginning to salute her cheeks, when making, as if to return his embrace, he griped him so hard round the middle, that he thought his back bone would have gone by the small; and, i' faith, before he had time to ask her what she meant, he found himself on the broad of his back, and a smart fellow of eighteen, with a knife in his fist as long as your arm, squeezing his heel into his weazend, and swearing like ten troopers that he'd rip him from chin to chine, unless he gave in without more ado. The rest were at the same game all over the court-yard; and clapping on the thumb-ropes and hand-cuffs, like proper lads of war; having done

which, they threw open the gates, struck the rogues' flag, and having turned it upside down, nailed it on the barn gable, where it was a mark many a day after, for mud enough to build a small cabin.

This success set Grana on her legs again, but it was only for a month or 80. Redhead's rascals having discharged their cargo, and held one or two carouses, grew so impatient for another lark, that, leaving a dozen half-sickened carcasses hanging by the heels in the log-house, and staving God knows how many pipes of wine on the beach, lest Frank or any of the neighbours should come in for snacks while they'd be from home, they fairly hoisted sail one morning, and were down on Grana's marshes, smashing and burning like old Harry, before she had well got her tattered cap put to rights on her head again. Grana's steward at this time was a gay sort of fellow, called Brian; he had trounced about a score of competitors for the bost, and made them come down with bail for their future good behaviour, so handsomely, that he commonly went by the name of Brian Bind-'em-over. I forgot to tell you that Redhead would not have found it such an easy matter to plunder and burn as he did, had it not been for the old bad blood among the tenants, which had come to such a head a little time before he made his first onslaught, that it gave rise to the saying that holds to this day, namely that if you'll put one of Grana's boys on a spit, you'll find another to roast him. So, hardly one at first would lend a hand to help his next-door neighbour, though he knew his own turn was coming; and but for Brian, it would have been so again. Bind-'em-over, however, was a fellow that would take no denial. "Come along, Bill," he'd say to a sturdy knave, standing with his hands in his pockets, though the thieves were romping through the next field, "lay hold of your hatchet, old boy, and turn out." I'll not," the sulky hound would answer, you may get Tom to fight for you; but I'm cursed if I fight in Tom's company to-day." Well, Sir, I wish you had seen the rousing box in the ear Brian would fetch the unlucky blackguard-" Here Jerry and Jem," he'd say, "tie this fellow and Tom together-lightly, look you-neck and

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heels: then pitch them over the hedge, and let them take what they get from the lads on the other side." Bless your heart, before they had clapped on more than a couple of turns of the thumb rope, the fellows were shaking hands like the best friends in the world, and marching next minute side by side, as civil recruits as you'd ever wish to see.

When Brian had scraped a score or two of the tenants together in this way, he drew them up on the holm, and made them a speech. My lads," said he, " our mistress is the handsomest, liberalest, and best bred young lady in the north. It would be a sin and a shame not to fight for her like lads of taste and mettle. Only look at her beautiful face," says he, for Grana was kissing her hand to them out of the parlour window, "only look at her bright eyes, like drops of dew upon the grass, and her cheeks like the roses in June, and then say if he wouldn't be a knave and a poltroon that would let the gentle darling fall into the hands of such an unlicked cub of a sea calf as this murdering thief that's threatening to play the devil with her and with us all. Think of your own wives and daughters, of your sisters and sweethearts," says Brian, with strong emphasis; "think how you'd like to see them given up to some Turgy in earnest. Ah, ha, my boys, we must fight for the young mistress, or God help her maids. So here go three cheers for Grana Weal, and let's have at the villains of the world.”

The scoundrels on the other side were all the while handling their boarding pikes and cutlasses, and Redhead himself ogling Grana with the tail of his eye. Faith, lads," says he, "you must lay on load presently, for these scum are beginning to look as if they meant to show fight; and as I'm set on having the wench by fair means or foul, why, you must give them a keelhauling. My wig, what a pair of eyes she has got! who knows but I may marry the quean yet, if I like her on trial ?" With that he led his jail birds throug the gap, thinking to make minced meat of Brian and his men, but, on my conscience, it would have been as good as ten pounds to you to see the infernal licking that Brian's boys gave the whole scurvy crew of them.

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already told you, had taken up her quarters at the back of the wall, and was by the ears with his tormentors; but Peg very soon taught him his mistake she pulled across the ferry in her punt, and had whipped up a score of bullocks before John could pluck up heart enough to get his knife out. Then came the Redheads on the opposite quarter, burning and pillaging all before them like incarnate fiends; and they had hardly turned their backs till two or three of Grana's discharged bailiffs stepped across the pond and curry'd him till he roared again. Poor John was like a man distracted; he went about tearing his hair and wringing his hands, bemoaning himself at all the neighbours' doors, and praying most piteously that some good soul would turn out for love or money, and lend him a hand to clear his grounds of the thieves.

There was one of the Porkers, a stout fellow, called Hog-Hog Porker, who lived beyond the Fiery sculls, that finding himself hard bestead to hold his own in such a perilous vicinity, had long been casting a covetous eye on John's fat meadows. He pricked up his ears when he heard John's offer, and shouldering his staff-“Come along, Master Bull," says he, "I'll stand by you; and ask nothing but a long lease and a low rent for keeping your estate clear of these vermin hence forth and for ever." "Done," says John, and back they came in a twinkling-routed Redhead like shot, and sent Peg home with her petticoat torn all to tatters. John gave Hog the lease he had promised, and all was well till the first quarter day. I'faith, John found then he was likely to have little rent, but plenty of tenants; for they came over in droves, ousting the old holders, and telling John that they hadn't saved his neck for nothing, and they were amind to look to their own payment. Poor John, after kicking a while to no purpose, was fain to make the best of a bad bargain, and submit. He was a good tempered fellow and never bore malice, so he had forgotten the whole affair in a twelvemonth, and was as good friends with the Porkers as with his own people.

To tell the truth, they had left him very few of his own people to be friends with, or foes either. They had rooted them out for five miles round

VOL. III.

John's, as completely as if they had never been for John himself, they had him altogether in their hands, and managed him as they pleased. They had put him on a regimen from the first, feeding him on nothing but roast beef and suet dumplings, never letting him walk more than a mile a day, and keeping him on a bench by the fire side, sucking stout till he had grown a very porpoise. His temper, which had been as fiery as flint before, mellowed under this treatment till it was as mild as syllabub; and now, instead of leading the harum scarum scrambling life he had been accustomed to before, he took to minding his concerns like a man of the world-kept a ledger and day-book-paid no money without a receipt, and in a word became one of the most respectable yeomanly good fellows in the country. His stewards, indeed, were little better than those of his neighbours: he had no less than seven in one season, and all that time the rogues were at loggerheads. Still John throve and Hog multiplied; and neither Redhead, Peg, nor Grana, cared to disturb their prosperity.

But Hog's time was up-he was to get a ringing he little dreamed of. Frank Fieryskull, who had quartered himself, of late, over against John's estate on the other side of the pond, clapped him alongside one morning, by surprise, and boarded fore and aft with all hands. John was cooking some hasty pudding, in the caboose, and, though grown heavy and soft, was anything but a spooney. He turned to with fork and ladle, and fought till he was floored, then submitted to his fate with the best grace he could. Never was such a ringing of swine known, as ensued. You'd hear the fellow's horns sounding at every corner, and, then such a squealing and grunting as they'd lay the Porkers by the leg, and begin to handle their awls, as would have created ears in a post, and deafened them after. Some made a slant stroke or two, but it would'nt do: if a fellow but showed his tusks or set up his bristles-" turn another pin in his nose," was the word, and that lad laid no snout to trough for a month again. As for John, Fieryskull sweated him down from sixteen to eleven stone in the first six weeks, and that, partly by curryings and bastings before breakfast,

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