



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: "_Down sank the gallant ship, driving her crew to the
spar-deck._"  Page 96.]





TERRY'S TRIALS

AND

TRIUMPHS



BY

J. MACDONALD OXLEY



Author of "In the Wilds of the West Coast," "Diamond Rock,"
  "Up Among the Ice-Floes," "My Strange Rescue,"
  &c., &c.




T. NELSON AND SONS

London, Edinburgh, and New York

1900




CONTENTS.


    I.  A POOR START
   II.  THE WAY OPENS
  III.  UNEVEN GOING
   IV.  PERILS BY THE WAY
    V.  ON BOARD THE "MINNESOTA"
   VI.  IN HAMPTON ROADS
  VII.  THE GREAT NAVAL COMBAT
 VIII.  ADVENTURES ASHORE
   IX.  FROM FRIEND TO FRIEND
    X.  REINSTATED
   XI.  IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO
  XII.  ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL



ILLUSTRATIONS


"Down sank the gallant ship, driving her crew to the spar-deck."

"On being lifted carefully in, Miss Drummond fainted for the moment."

"Terry, attired as never before, set out for Long Wharf."

"The whole ship had the appearance of being in readiness for an
expected foe."

"He succeeded in ingratiating himself with the driver of the train."




TERRY'S TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS.


CHAPTER I.

A POOR START.

"Give it to him, Terry--that's the style!" "Punch his head!" "Hit him
in the face, Mike!" "Good for you, Terry--that was a daisy!" "Stick to
him, me hearty; ye'll lick him yet!"

The shouts came from a ring of ragged, dirty youngsters, who were
watching with intense excitement a hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot fight
between two of their own kind--a rough-and-tumble affair of the most
disorderly sort.

They were not well-matched combatants, the one called Terry being much
inferior in size and weight to the other; but he evidently had the
sympathy of the majority of the spectators, and he displayed an amount
of vigour and agility that went far to make up for his deficiencies in
other respects.

In point of fact, he was not fighting his own battle, but that of
little Patsy Connors, whose paltry, yet to him precious, plaything had
been brutally snatched away from him by Mike Hoolihan, and who had
appealed to Terry to obtain its return.

The contest had waged but a few minutes, and the issue was still
uncertain, when a shrill cry of, "The peelers! the peelers! they're
comin' up the street!" caused a dispersion of the crowd, so speedy and
so complete that the boys composing it seemed to vanish like spirits;
and when the big blue-coated, silver-buttoned policemen reached the
spot, there was nothing to arrest but a woebegone puppy, who regarded
them with an expression that meant as plainly as possible,--

"Please, sirs, it wasn't me; and I don't know where they've gone to."

So the guardians of the peace were fain, after giving an indignant
glance around, to retire in good order, but with empty hands.

      *      *      *      *      *

A life divided between Blind Alley and the Long Wharf could hardly have
had a hopeful outlook.  Blind Alley was the most miserable collection
of tumble-down tenements in Halifax.  It led off from the narrowest
portion of Water Street, in between two forbidding rows of filthy,
four-storied houses, nearly every window of which represented a family,
and brought up suddenly against the grim and grimy walls of a brewery,
whence issued from time to time the thick, oppressive vapours of
steaming malt.

The open space between the rows of houses was little better than a
gutter, through which you had to pick your way with careful steps if
you did not wish to carry off upon your boots and clothing unsavoury
reminders of the place.

Little wonder, then, that so soon as the children of Blind Alley were
big enough to walk they hastened to desert their repulsive playground,
in spite of the shrill summons back from their unkempt mothers, who,
though they made