The sleepy, yawning starboard watch were soon on deck, half-dressed, and snuffing the morning air very discontentedly. We of the larboard division went below to our berths.
"Langley," said I to the third mate, while we were undressing, "I've got a plan in my head to get my cousins clear from their bad fix. Will you help me work it?"
"Marry, that I will," answered Langley, throwing himself into a theatrical attitude. "Look here, Frank, this is the way I'll run that bloody Alvarez through the gizzard!"
The last sounds I heard that night were the hurried trampling of feet over my head on deck, and the shouts of the watch shortening sail. I fell asleep and dreamed that I was in the fracas at the end of the mole.
[Conclusion in our next.
WHITE CREEK.
BY ALFRED B. STREET.
[This is a picturesque little stream in Washington county, State of New York. It flows through the broad and beautiful meadows of the Hon. John Savage, late Chief Justice of the State.]
Over the stirless surface of the ground
The hot air trembles. In pale glittering haze
Wavers the sky. Along the horizon's rim,
Breaking its mist, are peaks of coppery clouds.
Keen darts of light are shot from every leaf,
And the whole landscape droops in sultriness.
With languid tread, I drag myself along
Across the wilting fields. Around my steps
Spring myriad grasshoppers, their cheerful notes
Loud in my ear. The ground bird whirs away,
Then drops again, and groups of butterflies
Spotting the path, upflicker as I come.
At length I catch the sparkles of the brook
In its deep thickets, whose refreshing green
Soothes my strained eyesight. The cool shadows fall
Like balm upon me from the boughs o'erhead.
My coming strikes a terror on the scene.
All the sweet sylvan sounds are hushed; I catch
Glimpses of vanishing wings. An azure shape
Quick darting down the vista of the brook,
Proclaims the scared kingfisher, and a plash
And turbid streak upon the streamlet's face,
Betray the water-rat's swift dive and path
Across the bottom to his burrow deep.
The moss is plump and soft, the tawny leaves
Are crisp beneath my tread, and scaly twigs
Startle my wandering eye like basking snakes.
Where this thick brush displays its emerald tent,
I stretch my wearied frame, for solitude
To steal within my heart. How hushed the scene
At first, and then, to the accustomed ear,
How full of sounds, so tuned to harmony
They seemed but silence; the monotonous purl
Of yon small water-break—the transient hum
Swung past me by the bee—the low meek burst
Of bubbles, as the trout leaps up to seize
The skipping spider—the light lashing sound
Of cattle, mid-leg in the shady pool,
Whisking the flies away—the ceaseless chirp
Of crickets, and the tree-frog's quavering note.