Then I mentioned the

other German in whose company I had seen M. de la Motte. The Monsieur Lütterloh, whom Mr. Evans said he knew quite well. "If Lütterloh is engaged in the business," said Mr. Evans, "we shall know more about it ;" and he whispered something to Doctor Barnard. Meanwhile he praised me exceedingly for my caution, enjoined me to say nothing regarding the matter, and to tell my comrade to hold his tongue.

it never did or will hurt any body; and, as it | Motte's handwriting.
only concerns you and me, may be told without
fear. I frequently, I say, walked up the hill to
look at these pigeons, for a certain young per-
son was a great lover of pigeons, too, and occa-
sionally would come to see Farmer Perreau's
columbarium. Did I love the sight of this dear
white dove more than any other? Did it come
sometimes fluttering to my heart? Ah! the
old blood throbs there with the mere recollec-
tion. I feel-shall we say how many years
younger, my dear? In fine, those little walks
to the pigeon-house are among the sweetest of
all our stores of memories.

I was coming away, then, once from this house of billing and cooing, when I chanced to espy an old school-mate, Thomas Measom by name, who was exceedingly proud of his new uniform as a private of our regiment of Winchelsea Fencibles, was never tired of wearing it, and always walked out with his firelock over his shoulder. As I came up to Tom he had just discharged his piece and hit his bird too. One of Farmer Perreau's pigeons lay dead at Tom's feet, one of the carrier pigeons, and the young fellow was rather scared at what he had done, especially when he saw a little piece of paper tied under the wing of the slain bird.

He could not read the message, which was written in our German handwriting, and was only in three lines, which I was better able to decipher than Tom. I supposed at first that the message had to do with the smuggling business, in which so many of our friends were engaged, and Measom walked off rather hurriedly, being by no means anxious to fall into the farmer's hands, who would be but ill-pleased at having one of his birds killed.

I put the paper in my pocket, not telling Tom what I thought about the matter; but I did have a thought, and determined to commence with my dear Doctor Barnard regarding it. I asked to see him at the Rectory, and there read to him the contents of the paper which the poor messenger was bearing when Tom's ball brought him down.

My good doctor was not a little excited and pleased when I interpreted the pigeon's message to him, and especially praised me for my reticence with Tom upon the subject. "It may be a mare's nest we have discovered, Denny, my boy," says the doctor; "it may be a matter of importance. I will see Colonel Evans on this subject to-night." We went off to Mr. Evans's lodgings; he was the old officer who had fought under the Duke of Cumberland, and was, like the doctor, a justice of peace for our county. I translated for the colonel the paper, which was to the following effect:

[The paper is wanting.]

Mr. Evans looked at a paper before him, containing an authorized list of the troops at the various Cinque Port stations, and found the poor pigeon's information quite correct. Was this the chevalier's writing? the gentleman asked. No, I did not think it was M. de la

As for Tom Measom he was less cautious. Tom talked about his adventure to one or two cronies; and to his parents, who were tradesmen like my own. They occupied a snug house in Winchelsea, with a garden and a good paddock. One day their horse was found dead in the stable. Another day their cow burst and died. There used to be strange acts of revenge perpetrated in those days; and farmers, tradesmen, or gentry, who rendered themselves obnoxious to certain parties, had often to rue the enmity which they provoked. That my unhappy old grandfather was, and remained in the smugglers' league, I fear, is a fact which I can't deny or palliate. He paid a heavy penalty to be sure; but my narrative is not advanced far enough to allow of my telling how the old man was visited for his sins.

There came to visit our Winchelsea magistrates Captain Pearson, of the Lynx frigate, then in the Downs; and I remembered this gentleman, having seen him at the house of my kind patron, Sir Peter Denis, in London. Mr. Pearson also recollected me as the little boy who had shot the highwayman; and was much interested when he heard of the carrier pigeon, and the news which he bore. It appeared that he, as well as Colonel Evans, were acquainted with Mr. Lütterloh. "You are a good lad," the captain said; "but we know," said the captain, "all the news those birds carry."

At this time our whole coast was alarmed, and hourly expectant of a French invasion. The French fleet was said to outnumber ours in the Channel: the French army, we knew, was enormously superior to our own. I can remember the terror and the excitement; the panic of some, the braggart behavior of others; and specially I recall the way in which our church was cleared, one Sunday, by a rumor which ran through the pews that the French were actually landed. How the people rushed away from the building, and some of them whom I remember the loudest among the braggarts, and singing their "Come if you dare!" Mother and I in our pew, and Captain Pearson in the rector's, were the only people who sate out the sermon, of which Doctor Barnard would not abridge a line, and which, I own, I thought was extremely tantalizing and provoking. He gave the blessing with more than ordinary slowness and solemnity; and had to open his own pulpit-door and stalk down the steps without the accompaniment of his usual escort, the clerk, who had skipped out of his desk and run away like the rest of the congregation. Doctor Barnard had

done playing with dolls when our little passion began to bud: and the sweet talisman of innocence I wore in my heart hath never left me through life, and shielded me from many a temptation.

me home to dinner at the Rectory; my good | let began their loves? My sweet-heart had not mother being much too shrewd to be jealous of this kindness shown to me and not to her. When she waited upon Mrs. Barnard with her basket of laces and perfumeries, mother stood as became her station as a tradeswoman. "For thee, my son, 'tis different," she said. "I will have thee be a gentleman:" and faith, I hope I have done the best of my humble endeavor to fulfill the good lady's wish.

Shall I make a clean breast of it? We young hypocrites used to write each other little notes, and pop them in certain cunning corners known to us two. Juliet used to write in a great round hand in French; Romeo replied, I dare say, with doubtful spelling.

We had devised sundry queer receptacles where our letters lay poste restante. There was the China pot-pourri jar on the Japan cabinet in the drawing-room. There, into the midst of the roses and spices, two cunning young people used to thrust their hands, and stir about spice and rose-leaves, until they lighted upon a little bit of folded paper more fragrant and precious than all your flowers and cloves. Then in the hall we had a famous post-office, namely, the barrel of the great blunderbuss over the mantle-piece, from which hung a ticket on which “loaded” was written, only I knew better, having helped Martin, the doctor's man, to clean the gun. Then in the church-yard, under the wing of the

The war, the probable descent of the French, and the means of resisting the invasion, of course, formed the subject of the gentlemen's conversation; and though I did not understand all that passed, I was made to comprehend subsequently, and may as well mention facts here which only came to be explained to me later. The pigeons took over certain information to France in return for that which they brought. By these and other messengers our Government was kept quite well instructed as to the designs and preparations of the enemy, and I remember how it was stated that his Majesty had occult correspondents of his own in France, whose information was of surprising accuracy. Master Lütterloh dabbled in the information line. He had been a soldier in America, a recruiting crimp here, and I know not what besides; but the in-left cherub on Sir Jasper Billing's tomb, there formation he gave was given under the authority of his employers, to whom in return he communicated the information he received from France. The worthy gentleman was, in fact, a spy by trade; and though he was not born to be hanged, came by an awful payment for his treachery, as I shall have to tell in due time. As for M. de la Motte the gentlemen were inclined to think that his occupation was smuggling, not treason, and in that business the chevalier was allied with scores, nay hundreds, of people round about him. One I knew, my pious grandpapa: other two lived at the Priory, and I could count many more even in our small town, namely, all the mackerel men to whom I had been sent on the night of poor Madame de Saverne's funeral.

Captain Pearson shook me by the hand very warmly when I rose to go home, and I saw, by the way in which the good doctor regarded me, that he was meditating some special kindness in my behalf. It came very soon, and at a moment when I was plunged in the very dismalest depths of despair. My dear little Agnes, though a boarder at the house of those odious Westons, had leave given to her to visit Mrs. Barnard; and that kind lady never failed to give me some signal by which I knew that my little sweetheart was at the Rectory. One day the message would be, "The rector wants back his volume of the Arabian Nights, and Denis had better bring it." Another time, my dearest Mrs. Barnard would write on a card, "You may come to tea, if you have done your mathematics well;" or, "You may have a French lesson," and so forth: and there, sure enough, would be my sweet little tutoress. How old, my dear, was Juliet when she and young Capu

was a certain hole in which we put little scraps of paper written in a cipher devised by ourselves, and on these scraps of paper we wrote: well, can you guess what? We wrote the old song which young people have sung ever since singing began. We wrote "amo, amas," etc., in our childish handwriting. Ah! thanks be to Heaven, though the hands tremble a little now they write the words still! My dear, the last time I was in Winchelsea I went and looked at Sir Jasper's tomb, and at the hole under the cherub's wing; there was only a little mould and moss there. Mrs. Barnard found and read one or more of these letters, as the dear lady told me afterward, but there was no harm in them; and when the doctor put on his grand sérieux (as to be sure he had a right to do), and was for giving the culprits a scolding, his wife reminded him of a time when he was captain of Harrow School, and found time to write other exercises than Greek and Latin to a young lady who lived in the village. Of these matters, I say, she told me in later days: in all days, after our acquaintance began, she was my truest friend and protectress.

But this dearest and happiest season of my life (for so I think it, though I am at this moment happy, most happy, and thankful) was to come to an abrupt ending, and poor Humpty Dumpty having climbed the wall of bliss, was to have a great and sudden fall, which, for a while, perfectly crushed and bewildered him. I have said what harm came to my companion Tom Measom for meddling in Monsieur Lütterloh's affairs and talking of them. Now, there were two who knew Meinherr's secret, Tom Measom, namely, and Denis Duval; and though Denis held his tongue about the matter, except in con

versing with the Rector and Captain Pearson, so was sauntering homeward, lost in these hapLütterloh came to know that I had read and ex- py thoughts, when-when something occurred plained the pigeon-dispatch of which Measom which at once decided the whole course of my had shot the bearer; and, indeed, it was Cap-after-life. tain Pearson himself, with whom the German had sundry private dealings, who was Lütterloh's informer. Lütterloh's rage, and that of his accomplice, against me, when they learned the unlucky part I had had in the discovery, were still greater than their wrath against Measom. The Chevalier de la Motte, who had once been neutral and even kind to me, was confirmed in steady hatred against me, and held me as an enemy whom he was determined to get out of his way. And hence came that catastrophe which precipitated Humpty Dumpty Duval, Esq., off the wall from which he was gazing at his beloved, as she disported in her garden below.

This something was a blow with a bludgeon across my ear and temple which sent me to the ground utterly insensible. I remember half a dozen men darkling in an alley by which I had to pass, then a scuffle and an oath or two, and a voice crying, "Give it him, curse him!" and then I was down on the pavement as flat and lifeless as the flags on which I lay. When I woke up I was almost blinded with blood, I was in a covered cart with a few more groaning wretches; and when I uttered a moan, a brutal voice growled out with many oaths an instant order to be silent, or my head should be broken again. I woke up in a ghastly pain and perplexity, but presently fainted once more. When I awoke again to a half-consciousness I felt myself being lifted from the cart and carried, and then flung into the bows of a boat, where I suppose I was joined by the rest of the dismal cart's company. Then some one came and washed my bleeding head with salt-water (which made it throb and ache very cruelly). Then the man, whispering "I'm a friend," bound my forehead tight with a handkerchief, and the boat pulled out to a brig that was lying as near to land as she could come, and the same man who had struck and sworn at me would have stabbed me once more as I reeled up the side, but that my friend interposed in my behalf. It was Tom Hookham to whose family I had given the three

One evening shall I ever forget that evening? It was Friday[Left blank by Mr. Thackeray]-after my little maiden had been taking tea with Mrs. Barnard, I had leave to escort her to her home at Mr. Weston's at the Priory, which is not a hundred yards from the Rectory door. All the evening the company had been talking about battle, and danger, and invasion, and the war news from France and America; and my little maiden sate silent, with her great eyes looking at one speaker and another, and stitching at her sampler. At length the clock tolled the hour of nine, when Miss Agnes must return to her guardian. I had the honor to serve as her escort, and would have wished the journey to be ten times as long as that brief one between the two houses. "Good-guineas, and who assuredly saved my life on night, Agnes!" "Good-night, Denis! On Sunday I shall see you!" We whisper one little minute under the stars; the little hand lingers in mine with a soft pressure; we hear the servants' footsteps over the marble floor within, and I am gone. Somehow, at night and at morning, at lessons and play, I was always thinking about this little maid.

"I shall see you on Sunday;" and this was Friday! Even that interval seemed long to me. Little did either of us know what a long separation was before us, and what strange changes, dangers, adventures I was to undergo ere I again should press that dearest hand.

The gate closed on her, and I walked away by the church-wall, and toward my own home. I was thinking of that happy, that unforgotten night of my childhood, when I had been the means of rescuing the dearest little maiden from an awful death; how, since then, I had cherished her with my love of love; and what a blessing she had been to my young life. For many years she was its only cheerer and companion. At home I had food and shelter, and, from mother at least, kindness, but no society; it was not until I became a familiar of the good doctor's roof that I knew friendship and kind companionship. What gratitude ought I not to feel for a boon so precious as there was conferred on me? Ah, I vowed, I prayed, that I might make myself worthy of such friends; and

that day, for the villain who attempted it afterward confessed that he intended to do me an injury. I was thrust into the forepeak with three or four more maimed and groaning wretches, and the wind serving, the lugger made for her destination, whatever that might be. What a horrid night of fever and pain it was! I remember I fancied I was carrying Agnes out of the water; I called out her name repeatedly, as Tom Hookham informed me, who came with a lantern, and looked at us poor wretches huddled in our shed. Tom brought me more water, and in pain and fever I slept through a wretched night.

In the morning our tender came up with a frigate that was lying off a town, and I was carried up the ship's side on Hookham's arm. The captain's boat happened to pull from shore at the very same time, and the captain and his friends, and our wretched party of pressed men with their captors, thus stood face to face. My wonder and delight were not a little aroused when I saw the captain was no other than my dear rector's friend, Captain Pearson. My face was bound up, and so pale and bloody as to be scarcely recognizable. "So, my man," he said, rather sternly, "you have been for fighting, have you? This comes of resisting men employed on his Majesty's service."

"I never resisted," I said; "I was struck from behind, Captain Pearson."

"Yes, Sir," I said, and whether from emotion, or fever, or loss of blood and weakness, I felt my brain going again, and once more fainted and fell.

When I came to myself I found myself in a berth in the Serapis, where there happened to be but one other patient. I had had fever and delirium for a day, during which it appears I was constantly calling out "Agnes, Agnes!" and offering to shoot highwaymen. A very kind surgeon's mate had charge of me, and showed me much more attention than a poor wounded lad could have had a right to expect in my wretched, humiliating position. On the fifth day I was well again, though still very weak and pale; but not too weak to be unable to go to the captain when he sent for me to his cabin. My friend the surgeon's mate showed me the way.

The captain looked at me with a haughty, ingly I went by the next boat; the good-natured surprised air. Indeed a more disreputable-look- surgeon's mate, who had attended me and taken ing lad he scarcely could see. After a moment a fancy to me, lending me a clean shirt, and he said, "Why, bless my soul, is it you, my covering the wound on my head neatly so that boy? Is it young Duval ?" it was scarcely seen under my black hair. Le pauvre cher enfant! comme il est pâle! How my mother's eyes kindled with kindness as she saw me! The good soul insisted on dressing my hair with her own hands, and tied it in a smart queue with a black ribbon. Then she took me off to a tailor in the town, and provided me with an outfit a lord's son might have brought on board; and when she saw me dressed in my midshipman's uniform, she put such a great heavy purse of guineas into my pocket that I wondered at her bounty. I suppose I cocked my hat and strutted very consequentially by her side on the Mall. She had two or three friends, tradesfolk like herself, and partners no doubt in certain dubious maritime transactions at which I have hinted; but these she did not care to visit. "Remember, my son," said she, "thou art a gentleman now. Trades-people are no company for thee. For me 'tis different. I am but a poor hair-dresser and shop-keeper." And such Captain Pearson was writing at his table, but of her acquaintance as she met she saluted with sent away his secretary; and when the latter was great dignity, but never offered to present me to gone shook hands with me very kindly, and one of them. We supped together at the Antalked unreservedly about the strange accident chor, and talked about home, that was but two which had brought me on board his ship. His days off, and yet so distant. She never once officer had information, he said, "and I had in- mentioned my little maiden to me, nor did I formation," the captain went on to say, "that somehow dare to allude to her. Mother had some very good seamen of what we called the prepared a nice bedroom for me at the inn, to Mackerel party were to be taken at a public which she made me retire early, as I was still house in Winchelsea, and his officer netted a weak and faint after my fever; and when I was half dozen of them there, who will be much bet- in my bed she came and knelt down by it, and ter employed" (says Captain Pearson) "in serv- with tears rolling down her furrowed face offering the King in one of his Majesty's vessels ed up a prayer in her native German language, than in cheating him on board their own. You that He who had been pleased to succor me were a stray fish that was caught along with the from perils hitherto would guard me for the furest. I know your story. I have talked it over ture, and watch over me in the voyage of life with our good friends at the Rectory. For a which was now about to begin. Now, as it is young fellow, you have managed to make your- drawing to its close, I look back at it with an self some queer enemies in your native town; immense awe and thankfulness for the strange and you are best out of it. On the night when dangers from which I have escaped, the great I first saw you I promised our friends to take blessings I have enjoyed. you as a first-class volunteer. In due time you will pass your examination and be rated as a midshipman. Stay-your mother is in Deal. You can go ashore, and she will fit you out. Here are letters for you. I wrote to Doctor Barnard as soon as I found who you were."

I wrote a long letter to Mrs. Barnard, narrating my adventures as cheerfully as I could, though, truth to say, when I thought of home and a little Someone there, a large tear or two blotted my paper; but I had reason to be grateful for the kindness I had received, and was not With this I took leave of my good patron a little elated at being actually a gentleman, and captain, and ran off to read my two letters. and in a fair way to be an officer in his MajesOne from Mrs. Barnard and the doctor conjoint- ty's navy. My uniforms were ready in a very ly, told how alarmed they had been at my being short time. Twenty-four hours after they were lost, until Captain Pearson wrote to say how I ordered Mr. Levy brought them to our inn, and had been found. The letter from my good mo- I had the pleasure of putting them on; and ther informed me, in her rough way, how she walked on the Parade, with my hat cocked, my was waiting at the Blue Anchor Inn in Deal, hanger by my side, and mother on my arm and would have come to me; but my new com- Though I was perfectly well pleased with myrades would laugh at a rough old woman com- self, I think she was the prouder of the two. ing off in a shore boat to look after her boy. It To one or two tradesmen and their wives, whom was better that I should go to her at Deal, where she knew, she gave a most dignified nod of recI should be fitted out in a way becoming an of- ognition this day, but passed on without speakficer in his Majesty's service. To Deal accord-ing, as if she would have them understand that