Hey, Johnny Cope, are ye waukin yet, Now it was that Bailie Sparrowpipe insisted upon exhibiting to the company the very minuet he had danced with Miss Sally Hopkins, at a grand farewell ball given by him at the Hog and Pitcher in Wapping, on the occasion of his leaving London.-Now it was that Julius Cæsar Macflae was in vain attempting to procure listeners to a speech he had composed, and spoken with great applause, in the Rum Club of Kingston, on some subject then under discussion in the House of Assembly; but Demosthenes himself, when rehearsing to the raging elements, spoke not more unprofitably. He jumped upon a stool, slapped his breast, shut his eyes, forced down his eye-brows, clenched his fist, and hammered the air; but all to no purpose. At last the barrel at the upper end of the room catching his eye, a faint hope seized him that he might have some chance of making a stronger impression from so elevated a rostrum. The idea no sooner struck him, than staggering towards it, he mounted with considerable difficulty, and poising himself erect, he began to spout forth his oration in interrupted jets and spurts, something resembling those issuing from the spiggot of the barrel itself when it lacked air. He screamed,―he vociferated, but attracted no attention, save from the Deacon, whose animal spirits, generally sluggish when in their wonted state of quiescence, but now spurred into furious gallop by the liberal potations he had imbibed, knew no bounds. No sooner did he perceive Macflae perched on the hogshead, than, rushing towards it, he ascended it with an activity no one could have expected from his round bulky figure, and short thick legs, and getting astride on it, like a Bacchus, he began roaring out his favourite song of Johnny Cope" with the lungs of a Stentor. 66 Cæsar might have fancied that he was partially heard before, but now his speech was annihilated. If he had possessed the eloquence of Marc Antony himself, it would have availed him nothing, when opposed to a voice that resembled the noise of a blast-furnace in an iron-foundery. The irritated Julius turned round upon him with bitter rage, and with a heat which nothing but Cayenne pepper and a West Indian sun could have generated, he grappled the Deacon by the throat, whilst M'Candy in his turn seized the orator by the legs, so that Macflae would have been certainly thrown down by the suddenness and violence of his gripe, had he not supported himself by twisting the assailant's neckcloth with both hands, until the purple face of poor M'Candy actually became as black as one of his own plums. The struggle now grew desperate. It was too much for the rotten gantrees,-it cracked and gave way, and down came the hogshead with a noise like thunder. All was hushed in an instant, and on rolled the barrel down the inclined plane of the uneven floor, like the stone of Sisyphus, leaving Cæsar and M'Candy struggling in a sea of claret that poured from the bung-hole opened by the shock. The Baronet and Amherst had hardly time to get out of its way, when bang it went against the end of the crazy form on which the three choristers were standing in all the ecstasy and self-imagined harmony of their first stave, and the legs giving way before it, the whole orchestra was recipitated on the table, which failing in its turn, was involved in a second ruin, and the chorus of snorers having their support thus suddenly removed, were thrown head foremost into the centre, where nothing was to be seen among the broken lumber but a moving heap of arms, heads, and legs, kicking and sprawling in so confused a manner, as to make it utterly impossible to say to whom the various members belonged. Those who had been so suddenly and rudely awakened, finding themselves, they knew not how, on the floor in the midst of such a melée, and supposing they had had foul play, and that some vile trick had been played them, began to fight, every man against him who was nearest to him, until in a very few minutes, nothing was to be seen but bloody faces, broken noses, and bunged up eyes, whilst the glee of the musical Partenclaw and his harmonious associates was changed into a medley of groans, screams, and execrations. Sir Alisander, Cleaver, Amherst, Macgillivray, and one or two of the soberest, who had escaped from the general overthrow, endeavoured for some time to separate the combatants; but this they found not only impossible to execute, but dangerous to attempt; for so numerous were the arms and legs that were striking and kicking in all directions, that one might as well have expected to come in contact with the complicated machinery of a hacklingmill without risk, as within reach of these animated flails. Sir Alisander seeing, to his great satisfaction, that the claret had all run out, and that his official duties were consequently terminated, thought it the part of a prudent general to sound a retreat whilst he could draw off his forces without observation, and communicating his intentions to Amherst and his friend, they grasped their arms and cloaks, and called O'Gollochar. The Baronet, in his hurry to escape, forgot to send for his old coach, and notwithstanding night air, and rheumatism, he sallied forth with them, leaving Macgillivray and the two females, whose shrill voices were now pitched like trumpets far above the deep roar of the battle, to restore peace and order as they best might. The approach of dawn was just visible in the eastern horizon, when the party left the publichouse. The country, as far as they could see, exhibited a variety of soil and surface, cultivated fields being intermixed with furzy pastures, and |