DEATH AND THE FISHERMAN.

"COME now, dame Alice," said Hans Holder, the Dutch fisherman, to his wife; “ come, take your seat upon the opposite arm-chair, while I tell you the fine new story which I have just picked up from Mynheer Vanderlendt, the skipper from Amsterdam. It is the most wonderful tale you ever heard. Nay, Alice, don't frown, but sit you down like a good housewife, while I tell you all about it."

"A plague upon you and your stories!" said his wife, who was busily employed burnishing her pewter plates and setting them in order upon the shelves—

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a plague upon them, Hans! Have I not listened to your nonsense, times without number, and now you want to pester me with more of it? Out upon you, husband, for a credulous fool, who, not content with believing all the idle gossip you hear, must needs force it upon other people!"

"Nay, but, dear Alice, only lay aside these plates for one half hour, and sit down. I dare say half an hour will enable me to get through with my tale-at all events I sha'n't detain you above an hour, or at

most an hour and a half: so, just be seated, and you shall be delighted with the surprising adventures related to me by worthy Mynheer Vanderlendt." And, to please her husband, Alice unwillingly suspended the labour she was engaged in, and seated herself on the great oaken arm-chair, at the opposite side of the chimney.

Of a truth, a most loquacious personage was Hans Holder. He was prodigiously fond of talking; and his stories were not only most marvellously absurd, but he related them in a dry, prosing, tedious style, enough to put the patience of Job to the test. In fact, he was the wonder of the surrounding country, for Dutchmen are naturally too phlegmatic, and too much occupied in smoking, to bestow much time in talk; and such an exception as occurred in the person of our hero naturally excited much marvel among his neighbours, as well as annoyance to his wife, who was sick to death with the incessant harangues and tautological disquisitions in which her lord and master was perpetually indulging.

Well, down she sat once more, and Hans commenced his story. Half an hour passed-then an hour-then an hour and a half-and still the wonderful tale was far from being concluded. Alice meanwhile was all in the fidgets, moving from side to side with impatience, and casting many a wistful look at the remaining plates which still awaited her skilful hand. But, although she felt annoyed beyond measure, she never attempted to urge him on, know

ing, by sad experience, that, if she once broke the thread of his tale by interruption, he could by no means connect it again, but was obliged to start anew from the beginning. At last, however, after sitting for nearly two hours, her patience was completely exhausted, and, starting from the chair in a passion, she told him that he was a prosing fool, and that she was resolved never to listen to any thing he had to relate in future.

"Ah! there you go, wife!" exclaimed Hans"there you go, like all your sex: no more patience than a crab. I had just got half through one of the finest stories you ever heard, and yet you refuse to hear it out. Well, I shall take especial care hereafter how I waste my good things upon you. So good night, Alice; I to my bed and you to your plates." Then he undressed himself and went to rest, murmuring all the while at the impatience of womankind, and lamenting the miserable want of taste in his better-half, who could refuse to sit a couple of hours longer and hear out the remainder of his story. As for Alice, after finishing the business she was employed about, and setting matters to rights in her little household, she retired to bed also.

The night on which this domestic scene took place was unusually tempestuous. It was in the month of November, and during the whole afternoon a storm had evidently been brewing. The wind blew loudly and shrilly around their cottage; streaks of lightning forced their way at intervals through the lattice; and

distant thunder was audible overhead. These symptoms of elementary convulsion, instead of abating, increased as the night wore on; and the couple could distinctly hear the splashing and dashing of the agitated Zuyder Zee, although more than a mile off. Rain also came down in torrents, rattling against the roof and windows, and hissing in the fire as it descended the chimney. The evening, in short, was one of the very best for the relation of a frightful story; and such a one was evidently that of our fishermanabounding in shipwreck, ghosts, piracy, murder, and all the other attributes of the wild and wonderful. His taste, therefore, in fixing upon such a time for telling his story was, in his own opinion, as good as that of his wife was bad in refusing to hear it. But, without waiting to discuss this knotty point, certain it is that the scene raging without was soon truly appalling to the two inmates, who lay in bed listening to the tumult, which was so violent as to set all attempts to sleep at defiance. They, accordingly, lay broad awake, reflecting upon the damage which the morning would doubtless present; and visions of wrecked vessels and drowned mariners-scenes with which they were but too familiar-passed before their eyes, and made them anxious and melancholy.

Two hours did they continue in this state of sleepless solicitude, when a knocking was heard at the door. At first they took no notice of it, supposing it to proceed from the violence of the wind or rain; but it was

immediately repeated with increased loudness, and, following close upon it, they heard the voice of a man imploring to be admitted. "Good Hans Holder,” said the voice," let me have a night's lodging in your house! For the sake of Heaven, let me in, or I shall certainly perish;" and the knocks upon the door were renewed louder than at first.

"Who may you be, worthy friend?" said Hans, pitching his voice on a high key, that it might reach the ears of the applicant; "who may you be, that crave admission at this most untimely hour and in such a night ?"

Nay, husband!" exclaimed Alice, putting her hand upon his mouth, and speaking to him almost in a whisper, that not a syllable of what she said might be audible by the stranger, 66 answer him not. He may be one of a gang of thieves come to rob and murder us, so let us pretend to be asleep."

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Asleep, wife! why the poor fellow may be as honest as ourselves, and would you let him perish?"

"Honest or not honest, Hans, you must neither see him nor admit him. Let him seek his quarters somewhere else. Do, dear husband, and I shall listen to all your stories in future, although they occupy six hours each in the telling." So saying, she threw her arms around him, and attempted to prevent him from getting up.

"As to that part of the matter, Alice, you played me a very pretty trick no later than this very night, when you got up in the midst of the fine tale of Myn