THE nonresistant, resolving to make the street his castle, stood for some minutes making grimaces, and hurling coarse invective at the landlord, who, with sundry idlers, had gathered into the portico. He then took his leave, swearing to have satisfaction of his assailants, as Giles Sheridan, looking out at the window, said he should long remember the fellow for the courtesy he had manifested towards him.

Peace being restored, the landlord, his shirt ruffle in a sad plight, returned to apologize for the disturbance to his guests; while peeping in at the door, I saw Bessie, her black eyes almost swimming in tears, and evidently alarmed for my safety. Again Giles Sheridan spoke up and said: "It can be no good that brought the fellow hither. He must have been begotten under an evil star, and nursed by a virago. The fellow has but to take good care of his invective; and if he adopt the ass instead of the madman, he may in time become an excellent critic." Here he paused, turned his head quickly, and frisked his fingers nervously through his straight, silvery hair. The clerical looking groom, hearing the little deformed man speak thus, led his young bride frightened to bed.

The lecturer now drew a much worn and almost illegible manuscript from his pocket, and commenced reading to me a few passages from it, in a clear, shrill voice, and with much earnestness of manner. His love of approbation, I saw, was only equaled by his want of self-confidence, which made him anxious to hear what I would say of it. So I listened with more than ordinary attention while he read, and then expressed a firm belief that the people of Barnstable could not fail to appreciate his ascetics. This so encouraged him that his heart seemed beating with joy, and he warmed into enthusiasm, and read on, watching intently the changes of my countenance, as if he wished to read in them my fleeting thoughts. I was about to inquire whether it were good policy to measure public taste by one's own, when he paused, and heaving a sigh, said in a modulated tone of voice, that so many queer inquiries had been made of him respecting Crabbe, that he began to doubt whether he could interest the people in a discourse upon the character of one they had scarce heard of. No longer ago than yesterday, he said, General Sam Wheeler, the popular high school committeeman, looked in to say, that it was getting all over Barnstable, and had very nearly got into the columns of the Patriot, that he had been got down by the evil agency of the anti-temperance men to lecture on a new process of making brandy from crab apples. And the Baptist clergyman rather encouraged this report, which was doing serious damage. I was told, too, that the subject of my lecture had been warmly debated by the ladies of the Orthodox Sewing Circle, where Mrs. Silas Heywood, who had written several strong articles for the Patriot, which journal adopted them as its own, was heard to declare emphatically that she had never heard of this man Crabbe, though she had read no end of books. Miss Bruce had been six quarters at the high-school, knew something of Latin and algebra, and had taken music lessons of Monsieur Pensiné; but she had never heard of Crabbe until she read "Night and Morning," where, out of sheer affectation, as it seemed to her, she found that the author had made sundry quotations from him to adorn the heads of his chapters. As for Miss Leland, who had been two years abroad with her father and mother, and was supposed to know all about literature and the poets, she thought Mr. Crabbe could not be much, since she had not even heard of him while in England. Mr. Faulkner, the storekeeper, had not a book of Crabbe on his shelves, though he dealt largely in hardware and literature, and was a very respectable scholar. And Squire Brigham, the lawyer, who mixed himself up with other people's business a great deal, busied himself in saying: Crabbe must have been an obscure fellow, for though there was a pyramid of old books in his library, he had not one of this author's among them; and perhaps he ought to be thankful for it, for indeed Mrs. Forbush had said to him in confidence, that she understood of the little deformed man that Crabbe had written some very bad things of lawyers. Mrs. Forbush went regularly to Boston to get the fashions and attend the Lowell lectures; Mrs. Forbush had written a religious novel for the "Olive Branch;" Mrs. Forbush said, who would have thought of giving such a looking little creature five dollars and his victuals for lecturing upon such a subject

The cry of fire without, and the loud peals of an alarm bell, suddenly threw the town and the tavern into a state of great excitement. Giles Sheridan stopped short in his discourse, and the inmates of the house rushed in great agitation into the street. The alarm spread rapidly, and people began to run in every direction but the right one. One declared it a false alarm. That it was set on foot to afford recreation for the mischievous, another was quite sure. A third was ready to swear he saw the incendiary run down "the lane." People ran in opposite directions, crying fire. People, wayward and confused, were endeavoring to persuade one another that the scene of the fire was not in the direction they were going, though neither smoke nor flame could be seen in any part of the town. And while the people were thus confused, an harsh and grating voice cried out that the fire was down the lane, a narrow pathway that led from one part of the town to another. The confused figures of men who had stood contemplating here and there about the square, now rushed down the lane, and soon came in hearing of moans and lamentations, which grew louder and louder, as of one in great distress. "Oh! unworthy sinner that I am, le............