Not till he knew the old flag flew
Alone on all the deep;
Then said he, "Hardy, is that you?
Kiss me." And fell asleep.

"Well, 'twas his chosen death below
The deck in triumph trod;
'Tis well. A sailor's soul should go
From his good ship to God.
He would have chosen death aboard,
From all the crowns of rest;
And burial with the patriot sword
Upon the victor's breast.

"Not a great sinner." No, dear heart,
God grant in our death-pain,
We may have played as well our part,
And feel as free from stain.
We see the spots on such a star,
Because it burned so bright;
But on the side next God they are
All lost in greater light.

And so he went upon his way,
A higher deck to walk,
Or sit in some eternal day,
And of the old time talk
With sailors old, who, on that coast,
Welcome the homeward bound;
Where many a gallant soul we've lost,
And Franklin will be found.

Where amidst London's roar and moil
That Cross of Peace upstands,
Like martyr with his heavenward smile,
And flame-lit, lifted hands,
There lies the dark and mouldered dust;
But that magnanimous
And mighty seaman's soul, I trust,
Is living yet with us.

THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER.

THE chance use of the word " Tramp " in my
last paper, brought that numerous fraternity so
vividly before my mind's eye, that I had no
sooner laid down my pen than a compulsion was
upon me to take it up again, and make notes of
the Tramps whom I perceived on all the summer
roads in all directions.

Whenever a tramp sits down to rest by the
wayside, he sits with his legs in a dry ditch;
and whenever he goes to sleep (which is very
often indeed), he goes to sleep on his back.
Yonder, by the high road, glaring white in the
bright sunshine, lies, on the dusty bit of turf
under the bramble-bush that fences the coppice
from the highway, the tramp of the order
savage, fast asleep. He lies on the broad of his
back, with his face turned up to the sky, and one
of his ragged arms loosely thrown across his
face. His bundle (what can be the contents of
that mysterious bundle, to make it worth his
while to carry it about?) is thrown down beside
him, and the waking woman with him sits with
her legs in the ditch, and her back to the road.
She wears her bonnet rakishly perched on the
front of her head, to shade her face from the sun
in walking, and she ties her skirts round her in
conventionally tight tramp-fashion with a sort
of apron. You can seldom catch sight of her,
resting thus, without seeing her in a despon-
dently defiant manner doing something to her
hair or her bonnet, and glancing at you between
her fingers. She does not often go to sleep
herself in the daytime, but will sit for any length
of time beside the man. And his slumberous
propensities would not seem to be referable to
the fatigue of carrying the bundle, for she carries
it much oftener and further than he. When
they are afoot, you will mostly find him slouching
on ahead, in a gruff temper, while she lags
heavily behind with the burden. He is given to
personally correcting her, too—- which phase of
his character develops itself oftenest, on benches
outside alehouse doors—- and she appears to
become strongly attached to him for these reasons;
it may usually be noticed that when the poor
creature has a bruised face, she is the most
affectionate. He has no occupation whatever, this
order of tramp, and has no object whatever in
going anywhere. He will sometimes call himself
a brickmaker, or a sawyer, but only when he
takes an imaginative flight. He generally
represents himself, in a vague way, as looking out for
a job of work; but he never did work, he never
does, and he never never will. It is a favourite
fiction with him, however (as if he were the most
industrious character on earth), that you never
work; and as he goes past your garden and sees
you looking at your flowers, you will overhear
him growl, with a strong sense of contrast, " You
are a lucky hidle devil, you are!"

The slinking tramp is of the same hopeless
order, and has the same injured conviction on
him that you were born to whatever you possess,
and never did anything to get it; but he is of a
less audacious disposition. He will stop before
your gate, and say to his female companion with
an air of constitutional humility and propitiation
—- to edify any one who may be within hearing
behind a blind or a bush—- " This is a sweet
spot, ain't it? A lovelly spot! And I wonder if
they'd give two poor footsore travellers like me
and you, a drop of fresh water out of such a
pretty gen-teel crib? We'd take it wery koind
on 'em, wouldn't us? Wery koind, upon my
word, us would!" He has a quick sense of a
dog in the vicinity, and will extend his modestly-
injured propitiation to the dog chained up in
your yard: remarking, as he slinks at the yard
gate, " Ah! You are a foine breed o' dog, too,
and you ain't kep for nothink! I'd take it wery
koind o' your master if he'd elp a traveller and
his woife as envies no gentlefolk their good
fortun, wi' a bit o' your broken wittles. He'd
never know the want of it, nor more would you.
Don't bark like that, at poor persons as never
done you no arm; the poor is down-trodden
and broke enough without that; O DON'T!"
He generally heaves a prodigious sigh in moving
away, and always looks up the lane and down
the lane, and up the road and down the road,
before going on.

Both of these orders of tramp are of a very
robust habit; let the hard-working labourer at
whose cottage door they prowl and beg, have
the ague never so badly, these tramps are sure to
be in good health.

There is another kind of tramp, whom you