1856.] A Yankee Man-Trap. 823 



An outburst of lamentation from the women interrupted the further 

 progress of the tale, which Ethan's awkward attempts at consolation did 

 not avail to quench. They gradually recovered themselves, however, and 

 proceeded to inquire how it happened. 



*' It was," Ethan said, " by means of a well-known row galley belong- 

 ing to Admiral Hardy's flag-ship, the Eamillies, seventy-four, which had 

 already captured many small coasting-crafts, and which had secured its 

 booty, in the present instance, by ' snakin' out,' as he described it with 

 joint use of sails and oars, the fair breeze with which the Martha (as 

 Ethan's boat was named) had set sail, having unexpectedly died away 

 nearly to a calm." 



Miss Martha Eobbins having cried a good deal, did now, as woman- 

 kind are often apt to do, experience a sudden and not very reasonable 

 reaction into anger ; and chose to insinuate, first, that her lover had 

 cunningly avoided any personal risk to himself, by sending her brothers 

 oif alone with the boat ; and, secondly, that anybody that hadn't brains 

 enough to keep him from such losses as that, was hardly likely to make 

 a thrifty or prosperous helpmate. 



These aspersions Ethan vigorously repelled, asserting that " the boys " 

 had chosen to go together, both desiring to visit Xew Loudon ; and that 

 as three were not necessary for managing the boat, or for selling the 

 cargo, he had given them their own way ; and as to the latter part of the 

 accusation, he inquired — 



** I want to know if you think a man ort to hev brains enough to 

 know exactly when it's agoin' to fall calm out on the Sound, ten hours 

 ahead ? " 



But Miss Bobbins being, as we have insinuated, a womanly woman, 

 vouchsafed no answer to these considerations, which were urged by way 

 of argument — argument being a thing totally unknown and unintelli- 

 gible to a majority of the female sex — and of the male, too, for that 

 matter. And she accordingly said over again what she had said before, 

 rather more loudly and earnestly ; and having thus refuted Ethan in 

 the discussion, she informed him that unless he could get her brothers 

 out of the captivity into which he had been the means of their fulling, 

 he need not look upon her face again. 



Ethan remonstrated, and even Mrs. Eobbins ventured a few mild 

 expostulations, but all in vain ; the Yankee damsel's blood was up, 

 and the discomfited lover, not considering that it was highly compli- 

 mentary to him that his lady-love should take it for granted that he 

 was simply able to rescue prisoners from the whole British fleet, pursued 

 his homeward way in much dejection of mind. 



