The pilot jumped on a gun, and bending to catch a glimpse through the smoke, he shouted, in those close, clear, piercing tones, that could be even heard among the roaring of the cannon,

"Port, port your helm! we are on the Devil's Grip! Pass up the trumpet, sir; port your helm, fellow; give it them, boys—give it to the proud English dogs!"

Griffith unhesitatingly relinquished the symbol of his rank, fastening his own firm look on the calm but quick eye of the pilot, and gathering assurance from the high confidence he read in the countenance of the stranger. The seamen were too busy with their cannon and their rigging to regard the new danger; and the frigate entered one of the dangerous passes of the shoals, in the heat of a severely contested battle. The wondering looks of a few of the older sailors glanced at the sheets of foam that flew before them, in doubt whether the wild gambols of the waves were occasioned by the shot of the enemy, when suddenly the noise of cannon was succeeded by the sullen wash of the disturbed element, and presently the vessel glided out of her smoky shroud, and was boldly steering in the centre of the narrow passages.

For ten breathless minutes longer the pilot continued to hold an uninterrupted sway, during which the vessel ran swiftly by ripples and breakers, by streaks of foam and darker passages of deep water, when he threw down his trumpet, and exclaimed,

"What threatened to be our destruction has proved our salvation. Keep yonder hill crowned with wood, one point open from the church tower at its base, and steer east by north; you will run through these shoals on that course in an hour, and by so doing you will gain five leagues of your enemy, who will have to double their trail."

Every officer in the ship, after the breathless suspense of uncertainty had passed, rushed to those places where a view might be taken of their enemies. The ninety was still steering boldly onward, and had already approached the two-and-thirty, which lay a helpless wreck, rolling on the unruly seas, that were rudely tossing her on their wanton billows. The frigate last engaged was running along the edge of the ripple, with her torn sails flying loosely in the air, her ragged spars tottering in the breeze, and everything above her hull exhibiting the confusion of a sudden and unlooked-for check to her progress. The exulting taunts and mirthful congratulations of the seamen, as they gazed at the English ships, were, however, soon forgotten in the attention that was required to their own vessel. The drums beat the retreat, the guns were lashed, the wounded

again removed, and every individual able to keep the deck was required to lend his assistance in repairing the damages of the frigate and securing her masts.

The promised hour carried the ship safely through all the dangers, which were much lessened by daylight; and by the time the sun had begun to fall over the land, Griffith, who had not quitted the deck during the day, beheld his vessel once more cleared of the confusion of the chase, and ready to meet another foe.

[From The Pioneers.]

APPEARANCE OF LEATHER-STOCKING.

THERE was a peculiarity in the manner of the hunter that attracted the notice of the young female, who had been a close and interested observer of his appearance and equipments from the moment he came into view. He was tall, and so meagre as to make him seem above even the six feet that he actually stood in his stockings. On his head, which was thinly covered with lank, sandy hair, he wore a cap made of fox skin, resembling in shape the one we have already described, although much inferior in finish and ornaments. His face was skinny, and thin almost to emaciation; but yet it bore no signs of disease; on the contrary, it had every indication of the most robust and enduring health. The cold and exposure had, together, given it a color of uniform red. His gray eyes were glancing under a pair of shaggy brows, that overhung them in long hairs of gray mingled with their natural hue; his scraggy neck was bare, and burnt to the same tint with his face; though a small part of a shirt collar, made of the country check, was to be seen above the overdress he wore. A kind of coat, made of dressed deer skin, with the hair on, was belted close to his lank body, by a girdle of colored worsted. On his feet were deer skin moccasons, ornamented with porcupines' quills, after the manner of the Indians, and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasons, which gartering of the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of Leather-stocking. Over his left shoulder was slung a belt of deer skin, from which depended an enormous ox horn, so thinly scraped, as to discover the powder it contained. The larger end was fitted ingeniously and securely with a wooden bottom, and the other was stopped tight by a little plug. A leathern pouch hung before him, from which, as he concluded his last speech, he took a small measure,

and filling it accurately with powder, he commenced reloading the rifle, which, as its butt rested on the snow before him, reached nearly to the top of his fox-skin cap.

THE ARREST OF LEATHER-STOCKING.

THE whole group were yet in the fulness of their surprise, when a tall form stalked from the gloom into the circle, treading down the hot ashes and dying embers with callous feet, and standing over the light, lifted his cap, and exposed the bare head and weather-beaten features of the Leather-stocking. For a moment he gazed at the dusky figures who surrounded him, more in sorrow than in anger, before he spoke.

"What would ye with an old and helpless man?" he said. "You've driven God's creaters from the wilderness, where his providence had put them for his own pleasure: and you've brought in the troubles and diviltries of the law, where no man was ever known to disturb another. You have driven me, that have lived forty long years of my appointed time in this very spot, from my home and the shelter of my head, lest you should put your wicked feet and nasty ways in my cabin. You've driven me to burn these logs, under which I've eaten and drunk- the first of Heaven's gifts, and the other of the pure springs for the half of a hundred years and to mourn the ashes under my feet, as a man would weep and mourn for the children of his body. You've rankled the heart of an old man, that has never harmed you or your'n, with bitter feelings towards his kind, at a time when his thoughts should be on a better world; and you've driven him to wish that the beasts of the forests, who never feast on the blood of their own families, was his kindred and race: and now, when he has come to see the last brand of his hut, before it is melted into ashes, you follow him up, at midnight, like hungry hounds on the track of a worn-out and dying deer. What more would ye have? for I am here - one too many. I come to mourn, not to fight; and, if it is God's pleasure, work your will on me."

LEATHER-STOCKING'S SENTENCE.

"NATHANIEL BUMPPO," commenced the judge, making the customary pause.

The old hunter, who had been musing again with his head on the bar, raised himself, and cried, with a prompt, military tone,

"Here."

The judge waved his hand for silence, and proceeded:

"In forming their sentence, the court have been governed as much by the consideration of your ignorance of the laws, as by a strict sense of the importance of punishing such outrages as this of which you have been found guilty. They have therefore passed over the obvious punishment of whipping on the bare back, in mercy to your years; but, as the dignity of the law requires an open exhibition of the consequences of your crime, it is ordered that you be conveyed from this room to the public stocks, where you are to be confined for one hour; that you pay a fine to the state of one hundred dollars; and that you be imprisoned in the jail of this county for one calendar month; and furthermore, that your imprisonment do not cease until the said fine shall be paid. I feel it my duty, Natnaniel Bumppo·

“And where should I get the money?" interrupted the Leatherstocking, eagerly; “where should I get the money? You'll take away the bounty on the painters, because I cut the throat of a deer; and how is an old man to find so much gold or silver in the woods? No, no, judge: think better of it, and don't talk of shutting me up in a jail for the little time I have to stay."

"If you have anything to urge against the passing of the sentence, the court will yet hear you," said the judge, mildly.

"I have enough to say ag'in it," cried Natty, grasping the bar, on which his fingers were working with a convulsed motion. "Where am I to get the money? Let me out into the woods and hills, where I've been used to breathe the clear air, and though I'm threescore and ten, if you've left game enough in the country, I'll travel night and day but I'll make you up the sum afore the season is over. Yes, yes — you see the reason of the thing, and the wickedness of shutting up an old man, that has spent his days, as one may say, where he could always look into the windows of heaven."

"I must be governed by the law—"

"Talk not to me of law, Marmaduke Temple," interrupted the hunter. “Did the beast of the forest mind your laws when it was thirsty and hungering for the blood of your own child? She was kneeling to her God for a greater favor than I ask, and he heard her; and if you now say no to my prayers, do you think he will be deaf?"

“My private feelings must not enter into —”

"Hear me, Marmaduke Temple," interrupted the old man, with melancholy earnestness, "and hear reason. I've travelled these

mountains when you was no judge, but an infant in your mother's arms; and I feel as if I had a right and a privilege to travel them ag'in afore I die. Have you forgot the time that you come on to the lake shore, when there wasn't even a jail to lodge in? and didn't I give you my own bear skin to sleep on, and the fat of a noble buck to satisfy the cravings of your hunger? Yes, yes; you thought it no sin then to kill a deer. And this I did, though I had no reason to love you; for you had never done anything but harm to them that loved and sheltered me. And now, will you shut me up in your dungeons to pay me for my kindness? A hundred dollars! where should I get the money? No, no; there's them that says hard things of you, Marmaduke Temple, but you ain't so bad as to wish to see an old man die in a prison because he stood up for the right. Come, friend, let me pass; it's long sin' I've been used to such crowds, and I crave to be in the woods ag'in. Don't fear me, judge - I bid you not to fear me; for if there's beaver enough left on the streams, or the buckskins will sell for a shilling apiece, you shall have the last penny of the fine. Where are ye, pups? Come away, dogs! come away! We have a grievous toil to do for our years, but it shall be done; yes, yes, I've promised it, and it shall be done.” "There must be an end to this," said the judge, struggling to overcome his feelings. "Constable, lead the prisoner to the stocks. Mr. Clerk, what stands next on the calendar?"

Natty seemed to yield to his destiny, for he sank his head on his chest, and followed the officer from the court-room in silence.

CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, daughter of Judge Theodore Sedgwick, was born in Stockbridge, Mass., on the 28th day of December, 1789. She was descended from a family in which talent was hereditary, and the influence of her distinguished father and brothers early directed her attention to literature. Her first work, A New England Tale, was published in 1822. This was followed, in 1824, by Redwood, and in 1827 by Hope Leslie, the best of her novels, and especially valuable as a picture of primitive manners, and as a transcript of the thought and opinion of a now half-forgotten age. Clarence: A Tale of the Present Day, appeared in 1830; The Linwoods, a romance of the revolution, in 1835. She also wrote a series of popular works, of which the principal ones are, Live and Let Live, The Poor Rich Man and Rich Poor Man, Means and Ends, and Home. Having made a European tour, she published, on her return in 1841, her Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home. Her Memoir of Lucretia Maria Davidson appeared in Sparks's American Biography. Her last novel, published in 1857, was entitled Married or Single. A biography of Joseph Curtis, a philanthropist of New York, published in 1858, was her last work.