This language shocked every one, and the feeling was still more increased, when Pity, who was standing not far off weeping, said, "Mother, if you cannot feed this poor woman and her many children; if you have no room for them, then for my sake take them to thy bosom, close their eyes, and hush them to sleep in everlasting slumber."

Poverty was chided in a gentle tone by the Buccaneer's High Church dignitaries there assembled, and prayers were said for her, and she was told that though she received stripes and lashes here, in the next world she would be rewarded, and she was bid to fix her gaze upon that region which lies beyond the grave, where the bright star of Hope is forever shining, and where there is neither hunger, cold, nor thirst.

Just as all sympathy was enlisted on the side of this poor woman a circumstance happened that changed the whole current of feeling. Suddenly a cry rose up of "Stop, thief." It was now found that while all interests were centred upon Poverty, one of her children, seeing the opportunity, slipped round, and getting unobserved upon the platform, had crawled along, in a most irreverent manner, under the legs of the Lords Spiritual, and being totally uninfluenced by the atmosphere of sanctity in which he moved, the young rascal had slipped his hand into the capacious pocket of the Buccaneer, and had taken therefrom ever so much gold and silver, while the old coxswain was found to have lost his best silk bandana.

This bold act of robbery caused a great commotion, and extreme indignation, and in trying to catch the thief, Poverty was entirely forgotten, for, of course, crime in a community is a much more serious thing than any amount of want, though one is frequently but the offspring of the other.

So indignant was the Buccaneer at this gross act of ingratitude, that directly he regained his composure, he read Poverty a lecture and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, and that unless she took better care of her children they would be sure to fall into either the jailer's or the hangman's hands. "No wonder," he said, "that misery darkens your doors, and hunger pinches your children's stomachs. Away with you," he cried, "and learn to be honest, thrifty, industrious, and sober, for God alone helps those who help themselves."

There was a twinkle in the old coxswain's eye. He was labouring, like a ship in a gale of wind, under the influence of a joke. A joke is of such a nature that the owner of it cannot keep it in. Like murder it will out. "Master," he said, "your doctrine is a little dangerous. You scold Poverty one moment for what you bid her do the next."

"How so?"

"Why did not her young brat help himself to my bandana and to your superfluous cash?"

The expression on the Buccaneer's face at thus being trifled with, was such that old Jack, to make use of sea-faring language, bore away, and mixed amongst the crowd, just as another great hubbub arose from the regions of the disaffected. The grand court was broken up by Demos, who having collected as many as he could of the discontented had raised his standard again and was for enthroning King Mob in the Buccaneer's chair of State. With wild shouts and with flourishes of sticks and other improvised weapons, he came on and demanded a hearing, and many thought there would be just such another to-do as when the old cox'sn so gallantly defended the gorge and regained possession of the Place of Discord.

Demos now in the attitude more of a dictator than a supplicant, demanded of the Buccaneer that capital should be confiscated and divided amongst the people. That luxury should be banished. That all should be made to work for a living and that the hours of labour should be defined, limited, and enforced by law. "By nature," he said, "all are equal, and in the sight of God there is no such thing as class distinction. Every person born is born to an inheritance, and that is a right to live." Demos declared that all property must be common, and all human drones destroyed. He raised the old cry of equality, which history and even nature has proved to be an impossibility.