A few feet away a different encounter swept him into a contrasted realm of emotional excitement. A rude brawling loafer, none too sober, and reckless in oaths and obscenity, had seized the small flags of two little boys--union jacks--and throwing them down on the ground, with an outburst of profanity trampled and defaced them. The Englishman inflamed and ardent, holding a wounded heart, stood stupified and insulted. The next instant and he had snatched the flags from their degradation, and with an instantaneous revulsion struck the culprit of this outrage squarely in the face. The blow was unmistakably adequate. The ruffian reeled and fell and failed to regain his feet, before a shout of applause greeted Leacraft and a concourse of men, who had hastened to the spot on the outcry of the children surrounded him with welcome salutation. “A fine blow--well hit and straight as a gunshot man! That was the right medicine for his complaint. I’m thinking that a little water might wash it down. I say, boys, let’s duck him, souse him in the lake. A tubbing might clean his sassy mouth, and a man is none too good to be rolled in the mud himself, who treads on the English flag.” The subject of this criticism was on his feet again in rather a belligerent mood, blinking and rolling his fists in a minatory fashion, and sputtering defiance, and presenting a transient spectacle of inebriety and coarseness that would have been ludicrous, if the temper of the men behind the new speaker had not seemed so hostile. Leacraft felt that they would do some serious mischief to the miserable delinquent, and he stepped in front of them interposing his body between the foremost of the ranks, and the, now somewhat intimidated drunkard. “I think my friends, that you should spare yourselves the trouble to punish this miscreant just now. Let him alone. Neither he or his kind are likely to hurt our flag. He has learned his lesson. To-day my friends it becomes us to command ourselves, and hold ourselves above resentment. We are all sad, our hearts are heavy, the old Manse is to be left and new conquests across the waters made, new homes. Ah! how large the vision grows.” The men had enclosed Leacraft in a dense circle. He saw that he had their attention, while the stumbling object of their first anger effected a shuffling retreat with ignominious haste. His ruse now was to entirely capture their thoughts. “It is a vision of a new England, one made so by our devotion, the fixed quality of our patriotism, an undeviating union among ourselves, and just pride in our history, our race, our King. It may be a better England; it can not be a more beautiful England. We are deeply stricken. While we bow to this necessity, let us make the grandest display of fortitude of resource, of hope, of courage, of skill, of judgment, ever known. In our disaster we shall again conquer the world and hold it submissive at our feet.”