seldom of native growth; he had made many
voyages in the earlier part of his prosperous
career, was shrewd and observant, his conversation
abounded in curious anecdote, and few
whom I have known deserved the epithet of
"good fellow" better than Henry F——. At
the time of our arrival in Bermuda, F——, a tall,
stout, handsome man, was some five-and-thirty
years of age, and had been married about three,
to one of those pale, delicate, dark-eyed Bermudian
girls, whom Moore the poet has rightly
described as not absolutely handsome, but having
an affectionate languor in their look and manner
which interests even more than beauty. Two
children were already the fruits of this marriage,
and there was the promise of a third at no very
distant date.

Such was F——'s condition, and if ever a
man was happy, he seemed and deserved to be
so. To complete this sketch of his domestic
relations, I must add that his only sister was
the wife of Dr. H——, a surgeon on the staff
then quartered at St. George's, a man of high
medical attainments, but of somewhat irascible
disposition, the hot temper of the Highlander
often declaring itself on very slight
provocation.

The laissez-aller of colonial life is highly
favourable to the establishment of friendly feelings
amongst the classes that mingle together
on terms of equality. Here and there the morgue
of the English aristocrat leads some silly fellow
to affect to look down upon the storekeeper,
but in a general way the case is completely
reversed; and with reason—to speak of self-
interest only—for the storekeeper is, for the most
part, the banker of the stranger in the colony,
and if accommodation in cashing bills be
required, to him must the application for money
be referred. There was no one in Bermuda
who met an officer's wants more promptly than
F——. He gave, perhaps, no higher premium
than others, for his dealings were strictly
commercial; but he never made a difficulty of
advancing cash on the simple word of the applicant,
and the confidence he displayed met with a
corresponding return; the banker became, in
every instance, the friend of the person whom
he accommodated; assuredly, among the rest,
he was mine.

A young military officer has not much in his
power to offer in requital for the kindness he
receives at the hands of a civilian. His
opportunity is generally confined to an invitation to
the regimental mess, on what is known in the
army as "a stranger day." F—— soon became
a frequent guest with us, and at last it came to
my turn to be his host. We had then been
about three months in the island, and hearing
that the messman had secured a fine turtle—
there had, moreover, been a gale of wind, bringing
a quantity of golden plover to the island,
some of which were safe to figure in his bill of
fare—I sent a note to F——, asking him to dine
with me on the following "stranger day." He
accepted at once, not formally, but in jocose
terms, alluding to the extra attractions of the
forthcoming banquet, for he had heard of the
turtle and plover, and expressing a playful regret
that it was not the season for whale, assuring
me, as was the fact, that amongst Bermudian
dainties the flesh of the young mammal held a
prominent place. He concluded by saying that
he was content to "rough it," on what he
understood was the chosen fare of the British
aldermen. I showed his merry note to several
of my brother-officers, and they all declared how
glad they were to find that F—— was coming
to dine again so soon.

The barracks at St. George's stand—unless
their site has been altered—on the table-land of
a height that completely commands the town
and harbour, at a distance from the former of
little more than a quarter of a mile. Like the
greater part of the buildings in Bermuda, though
there are exceptions—for instance, the
storekeepers' houses in St. George's-square—the
barracks consist of only a ground floor, and
make up in length for what they lack in height.
The officers' quarters, separated from those of
the men, occupy the southern extremity of the
parade-ground, where the hill slightly slopes
towards the harbour, and this inclination of the
soil is remedied by a higher foundation, to
preserve the level of the long verandah which
stretches along the entire front of the building.
The verandah was our great place of rendezvous,
whatever the occasion; whether a ship-of-war
were reported in sight, the signal espied on
Telegraph-hill announcing the arrival of the
mail-packet from Halifax, the fact of a whale
having been seen "blowing" in the offing, or
the daily advent of the dinner-hour. On the
evening when F——was my expected "friend,"
the usual muster had taken place, all the other
guests were assembled, the drummer had beaten
the Roast Beef of Old England—the military
dinner-bell—but there was a pause before
entering the mess-room. "Are we waiting for
anybody?" was the general question. The
answer from more than one was, that "C——'s,
friend" had not yet arrived. "Who is he?"
was the next inquiry; and when the delinquent
was named a considerable amount of good-
humoured reviling was uttered at his expense.
"Well," said the colonel, whose sobriquet was
Redgauntlet, on account of his descent from
the family of the hero of Walter Scott's last
novel, "at the risk of cooling the turtle soup,
and mulling the claret, we will give him five
minutes more. The fellow is so fond of his
pretty wife that he can't bear to leave her, I
suppose. We must put down all the married
ladies in the island!" "Better invite them, too,
sir!" said a gay young ensign. "I'll tell you
what," retorted the bachelor colonel, ''if any
officer of mine ventures to be merely civil to a
lady, so long as I command the regiment, I'll
bring him to a general court-martial. It is an
offence provided for in my copy of the Articles
of War, and the penalty is——"   "Death, I
suppose, colonel!" said the former speaker;
"for my part, I accept my fate."  "You are
right, you young dog! Death by dancing, or