far and how fast that mare could go, when her master's hand was on her
mane and he whispered in her ear. Indeed, some people thought we might
reckon ourselves very lucky if we were not out of the frying-pan into
the fire, and had not got a certain well-known Gentleman of the Road to
protect us against the French. But that, of course, made him none the
less useful to the Johnson's Nurse, when the little Miss Johnsons were
naughty.

"You leave off crying this minnit, Miss Jane, or I'll give you right
away to that horrid wicked officer. Jemima! just look out o' the windy,
if you please, and see if the Black Cap'n's a-coming with his horse to
carry away Miss Jane."

And there, sure enough, the Black Captain strode by, with his sword
clattering as if it did not know whose head to cut off first. But he did
not call for Miss Jane that time. He went on to the Green, where he came
so suddenly upon the eldest Master Johnson, sitting in a puddle on
purpose, in his new nankeen skeleton suit, that the young gentleman
thought judgment had overtaken him at last, and abandoned himself to the
howlings of despair. His howls were redoubled when he was clutched from
behind and swung over the Black Captain's shoulder, but in five minutes
his tears were stanched, and he was playing with the officer's
accoutrements. All of which the Grey Goose saw with her own eyes, and
heard afterwards that that bad boy had been whining to go back to the
Black Captain ever since, which showed how hardened he was, and that
nobody but Bonaparte himself could be expected to do him any good.

But those were "trying times." It was bad enough when the pickle of a
large and respectable family cried for the Black Captain; when it came
to the little Miss Jessamine crying for him, one felt that the sooner