"No, William," replied the downcast father; "and I begin to have some very troublesome fears about him, I'll assure you." "But why should you, John?" expostulated the other; "he's only gone to try if he can't mend himself——Look you, John!" he said, pointing excitedly at what he suddenly saw; "there he goes, with the recruiting serjeant!" The father ran towards the soldier and his child; and every group on the Coal-hill was speedily in motion when they saw and heard the father endeavouring to drag off the lad from the soldier, who seized the arm of his prize, and endeavoured to detain him. An increasing crowd soon hemmed in the party,—a great tumult arose,—and three policemen were speedily on the spot. "Stick to your resolution, my boy!" cried the soldier, grasping the lad's arm with all his might; "you'll never want bread nor clothes in the army." "But he'll be a sold slave, and must be shot at, like a dog!" cried the father, striving to rescue his child,—a pale, tall stripling, who seemed to be but sixteen or seventeen years of age. "Man-butcher!—Blood-hound!" shouted several voices in the crowd: whereat the policemen raised their staves, and called aloud to the crowd to "stand back!" "I demand, in the Queen's name, that you make this fellow loose his hold of my recruit!" said the soldier, in a loud, angry tone, to the policemen; two of whom seemed to be about obeying him, when a dark, stern-browed man among the crowd, of much more strong and sinewy appearance than the majority of the working multitude who composed it, stepped forward, and said,— "Let any policemen touch him that dare! If they do they shall repent it! There's no law to prevent a father from taking hold of his own child's arm to hinder him from playing the fool!" The men in blue slunk back at these words; and the soldier himself seemed intimidated at perceiving the father's cause taken up by an individual of such determination. "Tom," said the determined man to the lad, "have you taken the soldier's money?" "Not yet," answered the lad, after a few moments' hesitation. "Then he shall have my life before he has thee!" said the father, whose heart leaped at the answer, and infused so much strength into his arm, that with another pull he brought off his lad, entirely, from the soldier's hold. The crowd now burst into a shout of triumph; and when the soldier would have followed, to recapture his victim, the stern-browed man confronted him with a look of silent defiance; and the red-coat, after uttering a volley of oaths, walked off amidst the derision of the multitude. "Don't you think you were a fool, Tom, to be juggled with that cut-throat?" said the stern-browed man to the lad, while the crowd gathered around him and his father. "I wasn't so soon juggled," replied the lad; "he's been at me this three months; but I never yielded till this morning, when I felt almost pined to death, and he made me have some breakfast with him,—but he'll not get hold of me again!"