The vessels were dispersed in all directions: some attained to the honourable employ of packet-boats between Bremen and New York, in which capacity the Germania (formerly the Archduke John) and the Hansa ran for many years; the rest for the most part sank lower yet. The final act in the tragi-comedy seems to be the dismissal from the service, on June 30, 1853, of the brave and capable Brommy, the first, last, and only admiral of the German Confederation.

But the very hour of humiliation proved the beginning of better things. In January 1854 the German States were amazed to learn that Prussia had acquired by private treaty with Oldenburg— always a patriotic and large-minded State-sufficient territory at the mouth of the Jahde to form a passable naval station until Kiel could be acquired for the new national fleet-when it should come. A Prussian fleet there was already; the 'sailing corvette' and two gunboats of 1848 had developed into a squadron of forty-five vessels mostly gunboats, it is true, but well adapted for operations in the shallow shore-waters of the Baltic and of Friesland. In 1860 the number had increased to eighty-one, including thirty-one small steamers, eight sailing vessels (presumably 'corvettes '), and forty-two gunboats. From that time onward the development of the fleet becomes matter of contemporary history. It was now a navy, the germ of the great military marine which at this day protects, in yearly increasing strength, the commerce of Germany throughout the world.

Thus has the 'Little Fatherland lubber' upset the calculations both of the theorists and the practical observers. To a certain extent, no doubt, the modern German navy is the creation of the deliberate policy of semi-despotic rulers; but such a creation would have been impossible had there not existed in the nation the maritime instincts of which fifty years ago it was the fashion to deride or deny the existence. Factitious or natural, the growth of merchant marine and navy alike has been remarkable indeed; and however strong our feelings of rivalry may be at the present crisis in our trade, we cannot deny the meed of generous praise to the nation which so quickly recovered from, and so speedily effaced the memory of, that most heart-sickening of failures-the fiasco of the professors' fleet of 1848.

A. T. S. GoODRICK.

THE SOLDIER AND THE PLAGUE.

I.

Ar the swing gate the soldier paused. He looked behind him, up towards the common, and then down the steep hill ahead; while the laden donkey he was driving thrust its nose through the wooden bars and blinked profoundly.

'Down the hill we must go, friend,' said the soldier at last, with a sigh. 'Come; I like it no better than you.'

On their left as they descended there was a high bank, of red earth and gravel; on their right, the wood. The top of the bank caught the far setting sun, and flushed ruddily. The blackberry bushes were full of blossom, and here and there were beginning to show the hard pink fruit. It was the end of August, and now they would soon be ripe.

At the foot of the hill there was another pause. Again the soldier looked warily about him.

'Let us try the wood,' at length he muttered; and pray God there be no house in the midst of it.'

Swearing under his breath, through a break in the hedge he pulled Neddy, and, stumbling along through the brushwood, soon found a clearing. There he straightened himself and listened intently. In the quiet evening there was not a sound but the drawling gurgle of a brook, the comfortable murmur of a distant wood-pigeon.

There, then, he determined to make his camp for the night, and began to unload his patient companion. The pack was considerable, and was covered with an old torn sail. There was a cookingpot and a spare pair of boots, a clean shirt, some stockings, and a well-worn buff jerkin; while, wrapped in paper torn from a large book-of religion, it seemed-there was a quantity of bread and cold bacon, and in the cooking-pot a number of carrots.

He took the sail-it was an old topgallant, and had been presented to him by his master, the Wapping sailmaker, on his determination to quit the plague-stricken city-and soon rigged himself up a shelter. Meantime, the donkey was joyfully rolling and grunting, snapping and crackling the brittle, sun-dried twigs.

"Peace, brute!' growled his master, or we shall be sent on the road again.' He thwacked the donkey, and, pulling him on to his feet, tied the reins round a young oak. He fed him with carrots and bread, and, after a meal of bread and bacon and a draught from the brook, sat himself down under the tent to smoke. His ancient dragoon's sword he placed under his knees in case of a surprise.

That he had fallen asleep was certain, for at first the voice mingled with his dreams. It sounded like one of the many summons to get up and be off, the many harsh threats he had suffered from since leaving London, five days before. Suddenly he found himself wide awake, with his pipe cold in his hand, stupidly staring at an old gentleman who was angrily calling something to him from the further side of the brook.

The old gentleman was evidently very angry, and judging his quality from the feathers in his hat and the lace collar he wore, the soldier thought it politic to rise and salute him.

'A masterless man, I warrant you,' shouted the old gentleman; ' and like to set my wood afire with his foul tobacco smoke.'

'Sir,' stuttered the soldier, 'I mean no harm. I come from Newbury, and I merely rest myself '—

you.'

Come hither, rogue,' the old gentleman cried. 'I cannot hear

The soldier advanced to the brook-side, and stood facing his antagonist across the running water. The old gentleman had fierce little eyes and a thin nose, like the breastbone of a spring chicken. His moustache and chin tuft were quite white, and he was deeply pitted with the smallpox.

'Now, wretch!' he snarled, bending forward and curving his hand over his ear. 'Speak up, and tell me no lies.'

Glibly the soldier told his story, the one he always kept for the cavalier gentry, since from his dress and manner he knew the old gentleman must belong to the Court party:-that he was a cast soldier from his late Majesty of Blessed Memory's army, and since Worcester fight

'In what regiment?' the old gentleman sharply interrupted. In my lord King's troop of horse, an't please your honour,' said the soldier, pat.

Since Worcester fight had returned to his old trade of carpenter; that he had been a carpenter in Newbury a long time, ever since the troubles were ended; but, seeing that the fears of the pestilence

had stopped all house-building, he had been forced to wander abroad in search of work; that he went about from farm to farm and did odd jobs with hurdles and such like, and that at the great houses he was sometimes suffered, through the noble kindness of the gentry :--He was warming to his tale, encouraged by the old gentleman's nods and silence, when he was interrupted sharply with, 'Canst make a cask?'

Ay, your honour, that I can,' said the soldier heartily; as, indeed, he would have answered if asked whether he could make a fire-engine. Anything, to be left in peace for the night.

'Enough! Never shall it be told that an old soldier of his late Most Sacred Majesty,' said the old gentleman, pompously raising his plumed hat, 'was permitted to pass my door, while I could give him work and he was willing. See, friend; I live at Nizells, over there down the lane, not more than a pistol shot away. Come there in the morning, and say that I, Sir Randolph Cleeve, so ordered it. We shall find you work and food in plenty, I warrant you.'

'I may abide in your honour's wood for to-night?'

'Look how you smoke tobacco, though,' Sir Randolph cried, wagging a finger at him. If you raise a fire here I'll have you caught and flayed.'

'God save your honour and your honour's noble family,' crowed the soldier after him, as, with a wave of the hand, the old Cavalier haughtily drew himself up and strutted out of sight among the trees.

Anon, the soldier returned to his bivouac, and, with a queer smile, bent down to relight his pipe. The donkey, lying against the oak tree, twisted his head round solemnly, and as the soldier puffed at the tinder their eyes met.

Canst make a cask, Neddy?' the soldier chuckled.

In the gathering dusk the lighted tobacco glowed on his bearded face, the heavy lines alongside his nose, the tufted eyebrows in which there bristled a few stiff grey hairs.

II.

Once or

WHEN at last he awoke, the sun was already high. twice in the early morning he had awakened before, but with the sudden pleasant recollection of the old gentleman's permission to sleep there had luxuriously settled himself for another doze. Not

VOL. XVIII.NO. 105, N.S.

24

since leaving Wapping, five days ago, had he had so unbroken a night's rest.

Now he guessed it must be about seven o'clock-time, in all conscience, to be starting. Neddy was soon packed and roped round the belly, and soon they were in the lane again.

'Pray heaven,' grumbled the soldier, 'I do not meet the old gentleman. I can make no casks, and after his goodness I would not risk carrying him the plague.'

Down the lane they trudged, that shortly ended in the cross roads. There on the grass plot there was a handing-post, and the soldier was examining it, laboriously spelling out the directions, when a voice called to him-nay, almost screamed:

6 Sakes alive! It's never Amos Bird ?'

The soldier turned, and saw it was an elderly woman, carrying a basket, and with a linen cap on her head.

'Amos Bird?' she cried. 'Why, thou'rt never master's soldier in the wood? Yet 'tis thou and thy donkey, sure enough. Why, where be'est going? Dear heart, that's never the way to Nizells.'

Blinking in the hot sunshine, the soldier looked at her closely as she came towards him, and though the hard face was not altogether unfamiliar

'Jane Port,' she said, stepping on to the grass beside him: 'Never forgotten Jane Port o' Ramsbury, have 'ee? Here's a piece o' good fortune, to find the new workman is, arter all, an old friend. Come thy ways to Nizells,' she laughed, 'thou old rascal sweetheart o' mine, and begin thy cask-making. Here be an egg or two ready for breakfast.'

Much more she said, laughing and gabbling, till the soldier broke in upon her harshly.

'Look you, Jane,' he frowned, as he began to have some dim remembrance of the ill-favoured village girl who in his youth had terribly pursued him, 'that tale of mine was all a fudge to quiet the old gentleman and let me stay the night in his wood. I never made a cask in all my life. Besides, I am presently bound to my brother at Devizes.'

'Thy brother can wait,' declared the persistent Jane. 'Here at Nizells be good lodgings ready for 'ee, and passable good food. Why, thou'rt as thin and rusty as an old nail. As for the caskmaking, 'tis but a new hoop needed here and there. I've hammered 'em myself ere now. Come thy ways, immejiat.-Hey-up, Neddy!' she screamed. If we stay here talking, we'll be sunstrook.' And