beautiful rainbow ftretched its arch across the heavens to confirm them, but I had not gone a league, before all these fair promises were broken, and my clothes were completely wet through, notwithstanding my horfe did the beft in his power, for both our fakes, to prevent it.

We took fhelter at a moft miferable-looking hut at the fide of the heath, and accepted the protection it offered, with an entire good will as if it had been an eaftern palace. My horfe was obliged to crawl into a kind of out-house, where a fwine-driver and his pigs had the inftant before taken refuge, and, while I was reconciling my fteed to this fociety, a Jew pedlar with his pack, and another traveller and his dog, crowded in. Neceffity, as Shakspeare fays, brings one acquainted with ftrange company: not that thefe are the words of that immortal Bard, and of course my memory has injured even the fentiment: but you, who have literally his beft fentiments by heart, can do him juftice.

A being, fcarcely human in appearance, invited me to enter the hut.-I enter'd.-Its inhabitants How fhall I defcribe them? Fancy fomething which affembles the extremes of filth, penury, health and felicity-perfonify thefe amongst men, women, and children-give to each of them forms and features, which confer a fort of grace and beauty on the household of the barber of Barmouth by

comparison.

comparison. Put all this filth, penury, health, and felicity into motion; and having formed your group, imagine that you fee it unfhod, unstockinged, uncapped, and nearly unpetticoated and unbreeched. Young and old were bufied in counting the finest and fresheft herrings I ever faw, that inftant brought in from the fishing-boat. The father of the family, to whom the boat belonged, declared he had never had fo profperous a voyage; and, though he was almost blown away, he would hazard twice as much danger for fuch another drag: "Look what a fize they are of, and how they fhine, my boys and girls-i'faith, they feem'd plaguily afraid of the hurricane, and came in fhoals to the nets as if they took fhelter in them-little thinking, poor fools, that this was a jump from the water to the fire; and now I talk of that, here put half a dozen of them into a pan, for I am deuced hungry, and mayhap this gentleman may be fo too; and if fo be that he is, he fhall be as wel come to a fresh herring and a brown biscuit as myself;-what fay you, my heart of oak?" continued he, clapping me as familiarly on the fhoulder as if I had been his meffinate, and indeed treating me as hofpitably as if I had been fo, and we had both escaped from a wreck to his cabin. Perceiving my dripping fituation, he faid, "Come, fhipmade, doff your jacket, put on this rug, come to an anchor in that corner, warm your fhivering

timbers

timbers with a drop of this dear creature, which will make a dead fish speak like an orator-there -another fwig-don't be afraid of it-one moreand now you will do while your rigging and canvas are drying."

All this time, mine hoft of the hovel flood in his fea-drench'd apparel, on my reminding him of which, he cried out fmilingly, "Ah! you are a fresh-water failor, I perceive, and would take a deal of feasoning, before you were good for any thing; but for me, all winds and weathers are alike to old Jack, while I can get good fish abroad, and good flesh at home: fo fry away, Molly, for the wet has made me as hungry as a fhark, and though I have drank like a whale, I fhall now eat like a lion-and I hope you will do the fame, meffmate." By this time, mine hoftrefs fet before us our dish of herrings, which, with oatmeal cakes, potatoes, and buttermilk, furnished one of the heartieft dinners I ever ate; after which the failor made me partake of a can of flip-fung a fong, about the dangers and hardships of the fea-faring life; and made me take notice, that he was the happy father of a cabin full of children, that I might fee another was upon the stocks; and that if it pleased God to fend him a dozen such pieces of good fortune every year, for a dozen seasons, he fhould be as able, as he was willing, to procure a fnug birth for every one; and meantime, master,

we

we will have another fip of grog to drink fuccess to the herring fishery.

Our regale was interrupted by the fudden exclamations from without doors, of" She's loft, fhe's "loft-she cant weather it-she must go to the "bottom-there is not water enough for her to "come in, and the wind blows like the devil in "her teeth-fhe's finking-the next fea will "finish her." All the cottagers ran to the beach, which was within a few paces. I followed inftinctively. The hurricane was again renewed, the feas ran mountain high, and a fmall coafting veffel was ftruggling with them. In a few minutes the ftrand was covered with numerous, but not idle fpectators. The whole of the villagers hurried to give affiftance. Amongst the crowds, I difcovered both the pig-driver and the pedlar, whofe fituation I hadbegun to relate to my kind-hearted hoft: but the moft affiduous of the whole multitude, was a young woman, who, while the tears ran down her cheeks, was amid the first to leap into a small boat which had been anchored on the beach, and in which the mafter of our cottage and three others, refolved to truft thêmfelves to offer fuch affiftance as was in their power. The wind did not abate of its fury, but shifted a few points more in-shore; this, perhaps, to a veffel of greater burthen, might have been fatal, but was, in fome fort, favourable to the little bark in diftrefs. She F

VOL. I.

had, by tacking, gained a station parallel to a part of the harbour, where the might run afhore, which she did at length without much damage: and the only thing now to be apprehended, was the lofs of the boat that had gone out to her fuccour. The people on board the veffel were almoft inftantly on land, and one of them being fhewn the boat, and told, at the fame time, that fhe went out to the relief of the crew, was amongst the moft active to throw out a rope, and to try to return the favour intended him in kind. The fame circumstance, however, which brought in the vessel, prefently befriended the boat, who venturing to fet her fail, was, after a few defperate rolls, impelled over the billows, and driven as it were, head long on fhore: but not before the failor, who had been handing out the rope, perceived the female in the boat, on which he threw himself on the ground, You in the eagerness of catching her in his arms. already feel they were lovers: they were more. The bands of matrimony had united them the week before. The very fishing-boat, which was now driven on fhore, was the mutual property of the two fathers, who had agreed to give up each his fhare to their fon and daughter, as the wedding portion: two of the men in the little fkiff were the fathers the profits of the herring feafon were to be the children's fortune. How thin are the bounds that feparate the extremes of happiness

from