Poetical Scraps. A BLACKWALL BALLAD. AFTER THE MANNER OF MR. HOOD. Bob Rullock was a rower stout, And in his cap he wore A feather, on which he plum'd himself- No scientific wight was he, In rowing he took more delight, A cutter 'twas, in which he row'd, On shore he was both stauneh and stiff, The sprightly hornpipe he could dance, A kinder youth than he did ne'er A widow fair he chanc'd to meet, Whilst rowing once, he thought of her When presently the coxswain cries, No crabs must here be caught;" Said Rob, 66 I did not think of them-I thought upon my thwart. " 'Pray, do you angle?" ask'd a friend, To Gravesend with the crew he went, Their boat's way oft was stopt per force "What craft is that moor'd off the Tower? The Ark it is I see; Now if this Ark were at the Nore, Nore's Ark it sure would be." "A race upon our larboard bow! They're fouling-let's give way! There seems some foul work going on, We'll go and see fair play." Will no one for it look? The bow-man, he should always have An eye upon the hook," "We must put in and bale the boat For she makes water quite as fast "The tide is turning: if we stop "There's the beginning of Gravesend' So now my Ballad's and Gravesend, Alas! his lady play'd him false, TOM TUG, Jun. There's some born with their straight legs by natur, And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard, And this is what it was that warp'd my legs. 'Twas all along of Poll, as I may say, Down there in Hartfordshire to join the ship, The only one there was to make the trip. Two knots to one, There warn't no use in keeping on the race. Well-casting round about, what next to try on, I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, Well-there they stand, four kickers in a row, I just makes free to cut a brown'un's cable. [No. 16. But riding is'nt in a seaman's natur- Under the she-mare's keel, And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-stern. My eyes how she did pitch! And would'nt keep her own to go in no line, And was'nt she tremendous slack in stays, We had'nt run a knot-or much beyond- There I am!-all aback! So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, The leather parts, And goes away right over by the ears. What could a fellow do, Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows, Just while his craft was taking in her water? Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter; The chaise had gain'd a mile A-head, and still the she-mare stood a drinking : Her body din't take of course to shrinking. And yet the tackle held, 'Til both my legs began to bend like winkin, My eyes! but she took in enough to founder, And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder; Well, there-off Hartford Ness, And can't contrive a signal of distress; If I get on another, I'll be blow'd; And that's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd! THE LEGEND OF THE "CARMILHAN." On the In one of the outer Skerries dwelt two fishermen, whom early circumstances had made the Pylades and Orestes of this remote region, though their persons and tempers were as unlike as a sealgh and a sillock. Petie Winwig was a thick-set, Dutch-built, heavy-headed calf, with a broad, swollen, grinning counte nance. His cheeks rose like two lumps of blubber on each side of his nose, almost concealing that, as well as his little eyes, when he laughed. A perpetual smile of good humour and acquiescence sat upon his face, and his well fattened limbs and body shewed that care and discontent never prevented his stomach's doing its duty in an able manner. other hand, his associate and partner was a perfect wasp, both in appearance and activity. He was a lean and hungry-looking rogue, a complete spare Cassius in his way. His figure was tall and bony, with a length of arm fit for a king, and an eye as quick as a donkey's. His looks were prying and inquisitive, and the shrewdness of his features was greatly heightened by a long and hooked nose, which obtained for him among his countrymen who had been (as most of them have) in the Greenland seas, the designation of the Mallemak. This title he indeed well sustained, for he was as rapacious, and as constantly on the wing, as that unwearied bird: but he might as justly have been called a solan, or a pelican; for if he could not poise himself in the air, and plunge down, like one of them, on a shoal of fishes, he knew no bounds to his desire to obtain them: nor would the possession of all the inhabitants of the deep have satisfied his covetousness. His real name was Daniel, but he was most commonly called Spiel Trosk, the hardest driver of a bargain who ever brought goods to Lerwick By the most incessant activity of Spiel, and the patient industry of his co-partner, they obtained comparative wealth and consideration. At length Trosk's soul became infested with a superstitious idea that he would acquire great riches by some extraordinary means, and not by persevering labour. and anx His mind grew uneasy ious, and instead of wearing the air of an active man of business, with a keen and decisive glance of the eye, he shewed the restless and haggard countenance of a person bereft of his property. He began to prowl and roam about now, more in hopes of meeting with the gifts of chance than in pursuit of any determined object, and his looks grew rapacious from avarice, and angry from disappointment; still he did not neglect any of his former occupations, though he performed them with less alacrity of spirit and gratification than before; but he was wont to fall into reveries and calculations upon the nature of the event which was to fill up the measure of his covetousness, if, indeed, such a desire can be satiated. Another phenomenon occurred to perplex him: ever on dropping to sleep he heard a certain word, which he never could remember or repeat; and at this period his visionary hopes were further excited by finding a piece of pure gold, of the size of a bullet, on the shore, early in one of his morning prowls. Convinced that the treasures he looked for lay in the sea, whence this specimen had rolled, he fished without intermission with a grapnel, about the coast adjoining; and while thus occupied upon a time, he was interrupted by a heavy squall of rain, hail, and snow, which drove with blinding fury over the ocean, full in his face; and though he cared little for weather, he thought it as well to seek shelter in a kind of cavern in the rocks, not far from where he was standing, foreseei that the tempest would not last l Hither, then, he retreated, not entering at its mouth, for the constantly poured in at that open but by descending down a wide gap in its roof, which led by craggy steps to the cavity within. A dark and dreary retreat was this cavern, and of unusual formation, for it was not a blind cave, penetrating directly into the cliff, but a vast gallery or tunnel, which opened on one side of a steep headland, and pierced through to the other, allowing the waves to rush and tumble along its gloomy gulf, till they foamed out at the end opposite to that at which they entered. From the position of the external rocks, a constant succession of waves were directed through it, and a perpetual roar reverberated in its hollow bowels. Few but adventurous and thoughtless lads had ever ventured within its interior, and their curiosity led them not far; while the more mature, who had no motive for encountering its difficulties, were contented with warning their children not to fall down the rift that led to it, which gaped amidst a cluster of heather at the back of the promontory, and with handing down its name of the Nikkur Holl, as they had received it from their fathers. Trosk left the low beach, and hurried round the hill, to the opening that conducted to the chasm: for the storm came pelting down more angrily than he had expected, and so thickly fell the sleet, that he could scarcely see to pick his way through the peat bogs that lay at the foot of the acclivity, deluged as they were with the little rills that descended into them. He had not sought the yawn, as the mouth of the rift was called, since he had been a youth, but he found it with little difficulty. On entering, however, he perceived that its gulf was much less practicable to him now than he had been used to consider it, when younger, and more venturesome; and though he was the most expert climber within the Skerries, he felt no inclination to penetrate farther within its abyss, than was requisite to screen him from the driving. pest. At about ten or twelve feet below the edge, there was a shelf formed by the projection of a ledge of rock, and to this he let himself down, and having seated himself at length under the lee of a block of stone, he drew out his piece of gold from his pocket, and renewed his contemplations. His chief endeavour was to recollect if he had ever heard of a vessel having been cast away near the Skerries; for to some such occurrence he attributed the presence of the golden bullet, and he wished, besides, to flatter a hope he had conceived, that this prize was only the harbinger of a greater treasure; but, with all his retrospection, he could recall no tradition of a shipwreck near his native isle: and he remained lost in amazement and doubt. Meanwhile, the face of the heavens became less obscure with clouds, the wind no longer howled over the mouth of the gulf, and the deep echoing bellow of the troubled surge within the Nikkur Holl was the only sound distinguishable. The fisherman, however, did not awaken from the reverie into which he had fallen, but remained, sitting, almost unconsciously, on the ledge within the yawn. He was calling over in his mind the names of several old persons, from whom he meant to inquire what vessels had been lost on the coast within their memory, and was scarcely aware that he was not seated by his own hearth, when a voice whispered slowly in his ear, Car-mil-han." ""Good God!" cried Spiel, starting up and looking fearfully down the abyss, from whence the sound seemed to come; "this is the word that haunts me in my sleep! what can it mean?” What is Carmilhan? he would have said, but he felt unwilling to pronounce the strange term, though he now recognised it as that which he had so long endeavoured to utter. He continued a few moments gazing into the dark void beneath, and listening to the roaring waves which seemed to wrestle unceasingly within the craggy entrails of the hill, till a |