be—it probably was—a statement of Captain
Reid's imperiousness in trifles, very much
exaggerated by the narrator, who had written
it while fresh and warm from the scene of
altercation. Some sailors being aloft in the
main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered
them to race down, threatening the hindmost
with the cat-of-nine-tails. He who was the
farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility
of passing his companions, and yet passionately
dreading the disgrace of the flogging,
threw himself desperately down to catch a
rope considerably lower, failed, and fell
senseless on deck. He only survived for a
few hours afterwards, and the indignation of
the ship's crew was at boiling point when
young Hale wrote.

"But we did not receive this letter till
long, long after we heard of the mutiny.
Poor Fred! I dare say it was a comfort to
him to write it, even though he could not
have known how to send it, poor fellow!
And then we saw a report in the papers—
that's to say, long before Fred's letter reached
us—of an atrocious mutiny having broken
out on board the Russell, and that the mutineers
had remained in possession of the ship
which had gone off, it was supposed, to be a
pirate; and that Captain Reid was sent adrift
in a boat with some men—officers or something
—whose names were all given, for they
were picked up by a West-Indian steamer.
Oh, Margaret! how your father and I turned
sick over that list, when there was no name
of Frederick Hale. We thought it must be
some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine
fellow, only perhaps rather too passionate,
and we hoped that the name of Carr, which
was in the list, was a misprint for that of Hale
—newspapers are so careless. And towards
post-time the next day, papa set off to walk to
Southampton to get the papers; and I could
not stop at home, so I went to meet him. He
was very late—much later than I thought he
would have been; and I sat down under the
hedge to wait for him. He came at last, his
arms hanging loose down, his head sunk, and
walking heavily along, as if every step was
a labour and a trouble. Margaret, I see
him now."

"Don't go on, mamma. I can understand
it all," said Margaret, leaning up caressingly
against her mother's side, and kissing her
hand.

"No, you can't, Margaret. No one can who
did not see him then. I could hardly lift
myself up to go and meet him, everything
seemed so to reel around me all at once.
And when I got to him he did not speak, or
seem surprised to see me there, more than
three miles from home, beside the Oldham
beech-tree; but he put my arm in his, and
kept stroking my hand, as if he wanted to
soothe me to be very quiet under some great
heavy blow; and when I trembled so all
over that I could not speak, he took me in
his arms, and stooped down his head on mine,
and began to shake and to cry in a strange
muffled, groaning voice, till I, for very fright,
stood quite still, and only begged him to tell
me what he had heard. And then, with his
hand jerking, as if some one else moved it
against his will, he gave me a wicked newspaper
to read, calling our Frederick a 'traitor
of the blackest dye,' 'a base, ungrateful
disgrace to his profession.' Oh! I cannot tell
what bad words they did not use. I took the
paper in my hands as soon as I had read it—
I tore it up to little bits—I tore it—oh! I
believe, Margaret, I tore it with my teeth.
I did not cry. I could not. My cheeks were
as hot as fire, and my very eyes burnt in my
head. I saw your father looking grave at me.
I said it was a lie, and so it was. Months
after, this letter came, and you see what
provocation Frederick had. It was not for
himself, or his own injuries, he rebelled; but
he would speak his mind to Captain Reid,
and so it went on from bad to worse; and,
you see, most of the sailors stuck by
Frederick.

"I think, Margaret," she continued, after
a pause, in a weak, trembling, exhausted
voice, "I am glad of it—I am prouder of
Frederick standing up against injustice, than
if he had been simply a good officer."

"I am sure I am," said Margaret, in a firm,
decided tone. "Loyalty and obedience to
wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer
to defy arbitrary power unjustly and cruelly
used—not on behalf of ourselves, but on
behalf of others more helpless."

"For all that, I wish I could see Frederick
once more—just once. He was my first
baby, Margaret." Mrs. Hale spoke wistfully,
and almost as if apologising for the yearning,
craving wish, as though it were a depreciation
of her remaining child. But such an idea never
crossed Margaret's mind. She was thinking
how her mother's desire could be fulfilled.

"It is six or seven years ago—would they
still prosecute him, mother? If he came and
stood his trial, what would be the punishment?
Surely he might bring evidence of
his great provocation."

"It would do no good," replied Mrs. Hale.
"Some of the sailors who accompanied
Frederick were taken, and there was a
court-martial held on them on board the Amicia;
I believed all they said in their defence, poor
fellows, because it just agreed with Frederick's
story—but it was of no use,—" and for the
first time during the conversation Mrs. Hale
began to cry; yet something possessed
Margaret to force the information she foresaw
yet dreaded from her mother.

"What happened to them, mamma?" asked
she.

"They were hung at the yard-arm," said
Mrs. Hale, solemnly. "And the worst was
that the court, in condemning them to death,
said they had suffered themselves to be led
astray from their duty by their superior
officers."