60 THE GERMAN SETTLER. 



moon scarce grew on its wane, when Carl Hantz, 

 whether from his previous martial habits, or under 

 the influence of scnaaps, or from both combined, 

 took up so hostile a position against his confiding 

 spouse, that, in the first glow of her indignation, she 

 was tempted to hand him over for restraint to 

 the secular arm. It was in the jail of Roadtown, 

 himself the very type of what he had destined for 

 the faithless trustee, his mother-in-law, that I found 

 the German veteran, and learned these his little ad- 

 ventures. The wife's anger, however, subsided — 

 almost with the going down of the sun — smiling 

 through her tears she implored his release, and thus, 

 in the course of events, Ludwig Hantz set up his 

 anvil at St. John's. 



With former partialities thick about him, the 

 blacksmith had chosen to fix his Lares near a block- 

 house that commands the town and harbour, and 

 not far from the canteen there. I found the ci-devant 

 Miss O'Hagan, not exactly as ladies wish to be, but 

 in a wooden box consisting of two rooms ; another 

 female, a Danish woman, wife to the sergeant-com- 

 mandant in the block-house, was engaged with her 

 in eating roasted bananas. In a shed adjoining, that 

 served at once the purposes of a forge and kitchen, 

 Ludwig Hantz was repairing a shark hook for the 

 black fellow whose shallop lay high and dry on the 

 beach beneath. A sturdy negro wench had just 

 ceased blowing at the forge ; whence the said shark 

 hook had been drawn from under a vessel in which 

 yams were being boiled ; in front stood a soldier busy 

 furbishing the lock of his brown Bess ; a stone bottle 

 and wine glass on a bench before him accounted for 

 certain aromatic airs that breathed through the 

 smithy. My old prison friend received me heartily, 

 and with many importunities, in which the soldier 

 took part, that I ^ would share in what remained of 

 their morning cups ; it was not without vehement 

 urging that my excuse was accepted. The sol- 

 dier would pledge the honor of his corps that the 



