deliberation came, however, to an end, and I was
led back to my bench. The judges entering
five minutes afterwards, looked rather
flushed, but that was all. "Whatever the
verdict," whispered my advocate, "I am sure
you will bear it like a man." The court was
hushed, and, the whole assembly standing, a
long decision was read by the president,
ending with this: "Sentenced to death by
being shot, and to pay the expenses."

A low murmur ran through the assembly.
The blood seemed to run back to my heart
for an instant. But I was soon myself again,
and might have smiled had I not known that
my poor wife was awaiting the decision of the
court, only a few houses off. I thanked my
advocate. It was the dark serjeant, who I knew
had been holding out against his officers.
The gensd'armes accompanied me back to the
carriage which was waiting in the castle yard.
A crowd surrounded us; but my thoughts were
only with my wife in the hotel of the Three
Kings. At last the gensd'armes entered the
carriage, and it travelled slowly over the rough
pavement, Prussian soldiers guarding it. In
the upper story of the inn, all windows were
closed; but, as we turned the corner I heard
a shriek from behind one of them of
the ground-floor, and saw a hand stretched
towards me. I recognised my wife's voice
and leaned out towards her. The gensd'armes
pushed me back into my seat, and the coach
rolled on.

I have told how the Baden revolution was
quelled. The story of what befel me as a
sentenced revolutionist is more personal. I will
tell it; but not to-day.

ENGLISH COAST FOLK.

EARTH describers connect the mountain
system of the British islands with what they
call the Scandinavian range. Botanists find
the Scandinavian flora upon the British
mountains. The portion of the Scandinavian
range which forms the mountain system of
Scotland, running from north-east to south-
west, rises in the north-western part of
Scotland into a table-land about a thousand
or two thousand feet high, which ends abruptly
in the sea. It is covered with heath, grass,
and peat-mosses. Some of the remnants of
the Highlanders inhabit it still; and the green
patches among the brown heath, mark the
sites of the homes of the expatriated Celts,
and the spots from whence they have been
cleared away to make room for sheep and
grouse. When seen from the top of Ben
Nevis, the monarch of her mountains, Scotland
seems a vast range of blue hills inlaid with
silver lakes. The west coast is wild and the
east is bleak. The west was the land of the
Celts, and the east of the Pights. The bleak
but fertile east coast is cultivated by farmers
who gain prizes in the agricultural competitions
of the world. At the mouths of the
rivers of the east coast, from Berwick to
Cromarty, are a series of seaports whose ships
rival, for strength and speed, the best afloat.

I submit to the ethnological student, that
there is a curious coincidence and a striking
analogy between the physical and botanical
geography and the oceanic supremacy of the
united kingdoms. Just as the mountains
belong to the Scandinavian range, the
sovereignty of the seas can be traced to the
Scandinavian colonies established upon the
coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. Like
our mountain flora, our seafaring population
is chiefly of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian
origin. Wherever a port gave harbourage to
ships, and wherever a fishing-station could
be set up, the Northmen seized possession of
the coasts, firths, bays, and embouchures, of
the British islands. The northern pirates, as
the Latin nations called them, who alarmed
the Gauls of the Seine—the Celts of the Moray,
and the Saxons of the Humber, a thousand
years ago—were indeed what they called
themselves, the sea-kings of their time, and
Britannia is their daughter. Researches into
the origins of nations give a Scandinavian
genealogy to the Lady of the Trident on the
backs of the copper coins, and the great ship
seen at her feet far in the offing is her inheritance.

Charlemagne wept when he first saw the
sails of the Normans. Historians say he rose
up from table, and going to a window which
looked towards the east, gazed from it a long
time immoveable upon the ships in the
distance. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
Nobody dared to speak to him. "My faithful,"
said he to the grandees around him, "I
do not fear these pirates for myself. But I
am afflicted that during my lifetime they have
dared to insult this shore. I foresee the
evils they will inflict upon my descendants
and their people." Charlemagne was what is
politely called a conqueror, and unpolitely a
brigand, and, of course, he had an intense
disapprobation of a pirate. However, brigandage
and piracy appear indeed hitherto to have
disputed the mastery of the world.
Conquerors or brigands, from Timor, Alexander,
and the Cæsars, down to the Osmanli, the
Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs, and the Bonapartes
have lorded it over the populations of
the continents of Europe and Asia. Their
rods of iron, encased in gold and called sceptres,
have terrified into slavery the generations
and races of men inhabiting the vast regions
which stretch from the deserts of Siberia to
the Straits of Malacca. Timor, Charlemagne,
and Bonaparte have had one and the same
fixed idea: "There is but one master in
heaven, and there ought to be but one master
on earth." When, a thousand years ago,
Charlemagne saw the sails of the sea-kings,
he may have felt truly and prophetically that
it was all over with the sovereignty of the
Cæsars. He saw a race who could strike, and
then, by spreading their sails to the winds,
become unapproachable. Steam and artillery