How Jack Mackenzie won his epaulettes

CHAPTER V.

"HULLO, JOHNNIE GREYBREEKS! I'M YOUR UNCLE."

"Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! Why, my little man, I've been looking for you for the last six months."

It was Tom Morgan himself the two friends had run up against at the corner of Jamaica Street—big Tom Morgan, brown waving beard and all.

"Why did you never come and see me?"

"Please, sir, mother wouldn't let me. You see, sir, you were very good to me that Christmas eve, and mother said if I went back it would look just like—begging, you know, sir."

"Fiddlesticks, Johnnie Greybreeks! But talking about fiddlesticks, who is your little friend here carrying the fiddle?"

Johnnie told him.

"Now, come along, both of you," said Tom. "I know an eating-house near here where they have such capital beef."

And a splendid feed Tom ordered them; and it seemed to do the honest fellow's heart good to see them eat.

"Now," said Tom, "will you play me a tune, Peter? and then I'll be off, for time is precious."

Peter gladly did as suggested; but I am sure that big Tom Morgan merely asked him to play that he might have an excuse for giving the poor lad that half-crown.

"Now, Peter, you can run home; but I want to take Johnnie Greybreeks with me for an hour or so. Good-bye, Peter. See you again.—Come on, Johnnie."

* * * * *

In about a quarter of an hour's time Tom Morgan reached a tall, handsome building in a quiet street; and upstairs the two went together, and entered a room without knocking. It was a well-furnished office, and at a table, littered with papers and bundles of documents tied up with red tape, sat a white-haired, elderly gentleman, with a very pleasant face of his own.

When he looked up with a smile, Johnnie could see it was Mr. Dawson, whom he had met on that Christmas eve at the house of the Morgans.

"Come along, Tom, and take a seat. Ha! so you've found little Johnnie Greybreeks at last, have you?—How do you do, my little man?—I say, Tom, how is business?"

"Fairly good."

"Well, lad, let me tell you this: it will soon be better, or it will get a send back that will astonish us all."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Dawson. There must always be ships on the sea, and it is father's business to float them."

"True, true, Tom; but being a lawyer, you know, I perhaps can see farther off than you. Now, believe me, Tom Morgan, when I tell you we are drifting into war with Russia, and our country isn't prepared for it."

Tom Morgan laughed.

"We've got the money and the ships, the sailors and the soldiers. Why, Mr. Dawson, let war come, and we'll flog the Russians on shore, and whip them off the seas."

"Well, I'm not so sure; but then I'm getting old, you know. But you'll see. The Russian privateers and legalized pirates will cover the ocean, and British commerce won't have a show."

"Did you see that noble Highland regiment march past, Mr. Dawson? Man, that's the stuff!—Did you see them, Johnnie?"

"O yes, sir; me and Peter marched all the way with them. O sir, I want to be a soldier or a sailor, and help to whip the Russians. Dear father was a soldier, you know," he added sadly.

Mr. Dawson and Tom Morgan exchanged glances.

"Tell us more about your father, Johnnie."

"Oh, I don't know much. I hardly remember father; but poor mother has his picture, and, O sir, he looks so noble, with his kilt and his sword and his feather bonnet. He only had one arm, you know, and—and he was drowned in the Clyde."

"Now tell us about your mother and sister. Where are they, and what do they do?"

Then Johnnie told all the sad story of sickness, of struggle, and of poverty that the reader already knows. More than once the tears stole into his eyes as he spoke, and very patiently indeed did the two gentlemen listen to all he said.

"Tom," said Mr. Dawson, when Johnnie had finished, "I think we're on the right lay."

"I think so too; indeed, I'm sure of it."

"How pleased the old lady will be:'

"If there is any 'please' in her."

"Well, she has some strange ways with her; but I think that she really means well."

"She is extremely orthodox, Mr. Dawson."

"True; and conservative to a degree."

All this was Greek to little Johnnie Greybreeks, who sat there on a high stool waggling his legs, and looking from one to the other, uncertain whether he ought to smile or not. Ever feel in that position, reader? I have.

"Weren't you struck with the remarkable resemblance between Johnnie here and your brother's wee lassie, on the night you brought the boy home?"

"That, indeed, I was," said Tom Morgan; "and so was every one else, especially my father. So, you see," continued Tom, figuring the sentence out on his fingers, "if my oldest brother married Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister—

"That sounds rather Irish, Tom," interrupted Mr. Dawson; "but go on, my boy. Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister—"

"Well, I never was good at counting kin, as it is called, but my brother Fred did marry Johnnie's father's sister—all the world knows that: so little Tottie—Violet, you know—is Johnnie's cousin—no wonder she is like him; and my brother Fred's wife would be Johnnie's aunt; and—and—why, Dawson, I myself am Johnnie's uncle.—Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! I'm your uncle. I'm your uncle Tom; shake hands, old man."

At this moment Johnnie really could not have affirmed whether his head or his heels were uppermost, or whether this big, jolly gentleman with the big brown beard wasn't having a joke at his expense. However, he shook hands almost mechanically.

"Hush!" cried Tom; "there are little footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of childish laughter. I believe it is Violet and her governess. Talk of angels, and they appear."

Next moment in rushed Violet, screaming with delight. She kissed Uncle Tom somewhere about the beard.

"Oh," she cried, "doverness has been so dood, and buyed me such a lot of pletty fings."

Then she noticed Johnnie.

She stuck one finger in her mouth thoughtfully, but recovering her self-possession almost immediately, she advanced and held out her wee chubby hand.

"I fink," she said, "you is Dohnnie Dleybleeks? How d'ye do, little boy? You and me has met before."

Johnnie jumped off the stool and shook hands as politely as a nobleman would have done.

"Aren't they like now!" said Tom.

"Miss Gibb," he continued, addressing the governess, "we—that is, Mr. Dawson chiefly—have made a wonderful discovery. This boy you see before you, and who is called Jack Mackenzie, is my niece—no, I mean nephew—by the brother's side, as it were, and consequently first cousin-german to—I say, Mr. Dawson, bother it all, I'm getting a bit mixed again."

Miss Gibb laughed.

"So you's my fist tousin, 'ittle boy, is you?—Miss Dibb, tiss my fist tousin for me; I can't be boddled tissing 'ittle boys."

Miss Gibb dutifully did as she was told; at which condescension Johnnie was more puzzled than ever. He would have given three of his best marbles at that moment to any one who could have told him where he was in particular, and what day of the week it was.

But the interview was soon brought to an end; and when Johnnie went back to his home in Summer Loaning, a very droll story indeed he had to tell Mrs. Malony.

"Och, sure," she cried, "I always tould Malony that poor dear Mrs. Mackenzie wasn't the same as us at all, at all; that she was a lady under a cloud, sure enough. And troth and I'm roight. And it's a foine gintleman you'll be, Johnnie, some day entoirely."

* * * * *

Old Mrs. Mackenzie of Drumglen in Perthshire was certainly all that Tom and Mr. Dawson had said. She was nothing if not orthodox and conservative to a degree.

She belonged to a very old and aristocratic family in the north of Inverness-shire. The family, however, had the misfortune to be somewhat poor, and ill-natured people did say that when Miss Stuart married Mr. Mackenzie, a Jamaica merchant, it was more from love of money and what it could bring than from love of Mac himself. But, of course, ill-natured people will say anything, and charity is a flower that is not half so well cultivated as it ought to be.

Never mind. Miss Stuart was at the time of her wedding stately, tall, and handsome, and—a stanch Jacobite. Mr. Mackenzie, on the other hand, was on the weather-side of forty, and though wiry enough, he was about the same colour as a cake of gingerbread. That is what Jamaica and the West Indies had done for him.

He took his bride out with him at first to the beautiful islands of the West. She admitted they were very beautiful, but she didn't like life there, and she went in a constant state of fear and horror of the creepie-creepies. The flowers were gorgeous, but often from the very centre of a lovely bouquet brought by her black maid a centiped as long as a penholder would wriggle. In the centre of huge bunches of luscious fruit little wicked snakes would be asleep, and even as she stood admiring the fruit, one would protrude a tiny triangle of a head and venomously hiss in her face. Oh, it wasn't nice.

Fire-flies were pretty flitting about among the bushes at night, like stars that had lost their way; but she found creatures indoors even in her bedroom that were not fire-flies, and whose perfume was not like that of attar of roses. She even found things in the soup that the chef couldn't account for, and cockroaches' legs are not the thing in a cup of coffee.

So she told Mackenzie, gently but firmly, that she was going home; that she would not give one glimpse of the purple heather for all the beauty and wealth of the Indian Isles.

Mac was very fond of his aristocratic bride. If she had asked him to live in Kamschatka or build her a mansion in lonely Spitzbergen, he would have done so. Therefore, like a dutiful husband, he came home.

He brought with him a black servant-man, or boy who eventually became a man, just to remind him of those sunny isles in the beautiful West; and soon after his return he bought the mansion-house and broad lands of bonnie Drumglen.

Not long after Johnnie's father was born, Mr. Mackenzie died one wild, stormy winter's morning. After being so long in the tropics, I suppose, the climate of the Scottish Highlands hardly suited him. He was found asleep in his library chair, with his hands folded, his toes on the fender, and a red bandana laid as usual over the bald patch on his crown.

His black servant shook him—once, twice, thrice. It was the laird's last sleep, and shaking was unavailing.

So Snowball went and reported the circumstance to his mistress.

"Pore massa done gone dead, I fink, milady. I shakee he, one, two, tree time, but he not sware at me. I fink, milady, he nebber wake no mo' in dis world."

* * * * *

It was somewhat strange that Mrs. Mackenzie never seemed to take to her daughter, who was about five years older than Donald her boy—Johnnie's father. Her whole life and love seemed bound up in her son.

Under the plea of giving her the best education it was possible to obtain, the girl was sent to a school in Edinburgh. There she lived and grew up, only coming home at holiday-time.

It was at Edinburgh, too, that Flora met Fred Morgan, the son of the wealthy ship-broker. Flora, of course, asked her mother's consent to marry Fred—meaning to marry him, anyhow, for the Mackenzies had always been a self-willed race.

The letter bearing the mother's reply came in due course.

"Oh, certainly, my dear."

That was the gist of it when shorn of its studied and stately verbiage.

At the same time that Sambo, alias Snowball, posted this letter, he dropped one into the box for Mr. Dawson, the family solicitor.

Mr. Dawson went through at once to Drumglen. He arrived early in the afternoon.

But "milady" was as politely reticent as a Mohawk Indian. She said nothing about business that day.

He dined in state—with Snowball behind his high-backed chair, arrayed in a crimson waistcoat and immaculate coat and neckerchief.

Next morning Mrs. Mackenzie accorded her solicitor an interview within the gloomy precincts of the library. The lady came to the point at once, and with as much force and precision as Malony made use of when beating a red-hot horse-shoe.

"My daughter is going to be married, Mr. Dawson," she said.

Dawson bowed and smiled.

But Mrs. Mackenzie brought him up with a round turn.

"No palaver, Mr. Dawson, please," she jerked out. "My daughter is going to be married. She did me the courtesy of asking my leave—a mere matter of friendly formality, of course. She is going to marry a Morgan. The Morgans are Welsh. I don't like the Welsh; they are mere business people. I don't like that. I believe a daughter of mine might have married a lord. N'importe; it is no fault of mine. But, Mr. Dawson, these Morgans are said to be wealthy Welsh. Well, my estate is my own, is it not?"

"To have and to hold, my dear lady; to do absolutely what you please with."

"Well, Mr. Dawson, I can leave all to my dear boy if he continues to love and obey his mother as he does now; but I come of a very independent family, and, if I choose, I can leave my riches to build an hospital, or, what is even more needed, a new ship of war. Now, sir, make out a cheque for £5,000 to my daughter, and I will sign it. Write also a letter, couched in friendly but not too friendly terms, to accompany this cheque. I want my daughter, or rather the Morgans, to understand that there is a gulf fixed between the mansion-house of Drumglen and their shop in Glasgow."

And Mr. Dawson had obeyed her orders to the very letter.

He had, however, always since then managed to keep on the very best terms with the Morgans, as well as with Mrs. Mackenzie herself.

* * * * *

Long, long years, as we know, had gone by since that day when Mrs. Mackenzie turned her soldier son out to face the wide world and poverty, and the stern old dame had somewhat softened as she grew older.

Perhaps if Donald had gone to Drumglen and begged her forgiveness, she would have relented and received him into favour once more. But the same proud blood ran in the veins of both mother and son.

Mr. Dawson went very often to Drumglen, and sometimes spent weeks fishing or shooting on the estate. He enjoyed this, although the house itself and the company were hardly free and easy enough to suit the jolly solicitor.

Dawson was summoned rather hastily once. This was after the body of poor Lieutenant Donald Mackenzie, her son, had been found in the river.

The solicitor found her looking older than ever he had seen her. She seemed broken, not as to physique, but mentally.

She talked a deal about her younger days and her married life, and Dawson guessed rightly that she was working the subject round to her late son.

"O Mr. Dawson," she said at last, "I don't mind confessing to you that I have been just a little too hasty, and that if poor Donald were alive again I—I might consider the whole subject. But there, Mr. Dawson, my regrets are vain; and now I wish you to make my will, for I feel I must soon follow my husband to the grave."

"Why, Mrs. Mackenzie, you are not at all old yet, However," he added, "it is as well we should all be prepared."

"Yes, and that was just what good Mr. M'Thump, our minister, said in the pulpit yesterday. His text was, 'For ye know not the day nor the hour.' A good man and a learned is Mr. M'Thump, and he'll dine with you to-night, Mr. Dawson."

I fear the solicitor did not look overmuch pleased at the information. However, he proceeded to take pencil notes of the lady's will, and that very evening he drew it up.

It was brief in the extreme. She left all she possessed to build a new ship of war, to assist in protecting the freedom of her beloved country.*

* It would be a good thing if wealthy millionaires who have no family would follow the old lady's example. Britain stands sadly in need of more ships of war.—AUTHOR.

* * * * *

Years flew by. The old dame appeared to have renewed her age, as she certainly had her sternness and aristocratic composure. She never mentioned her son now; but Dawson took good care to tell her all about the discovery of little Johnnie Greybreeks, and how strangely he had turned up at the Christmas party. He told the story so feelingly that more than once during the recital he fancied he saw a tear in the stately lady's eyes.

Half a year after this Dawson was once more summoned to Drumglen.

"I had a strange dream last night," she told him. "I thought I saw Donald my boy. He held his little son by the hand, and looked at me, oh, so pleadingly. Heigh-ho! I suppose I am old and soft and silly; but, Mr. Dawson, I am not sure I should not like to see that boy Jack you spoke about—just for once, if you can find him."

"I will do my best, madam," said Dawson.

Dawson, however, was not much of a detective, else he might have found Johnnie before that day on which Tom Morgan met him accidentally near the bridge.

And now we shall see what this accidental meeting led to as far as Johnnie was concerned.

CHAPTER VI.

"THE OLD LADY HAD A WOMAN'S HEART AFTER ALL."

"Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered).

So said Cæsar of old, by way of describing the ease with which he gained a victory against his enemies.

"Veni, vidi, vici," Johnnie Greybreeks might have said, after his first interview with that stately and aristocratic dame his grandmother.

But wait a minute, reader. I fear I must call our little hero Johnnie Greybreeks no longer—at least not while he is under the lordly roof-tree of Drumglen. He must be Jack.

Well, it was Dawson himself who brought Johnnie—no, I mean Jack—to the mansion-house, and led him into the presence of his grandma.

Johnnie—that is Jack; you see I can't get into the swing of it all at once—was very neatly dressed in Highland tweeds, and brave he looked. The old lady sat erect in her high-backed chair. She could not but notice the striking resemblance between the boy and her Donald of the olden days; yet she had meant to receive him most soberly and stately.

"This is Jack," said Dawson, leading the boy, who was looking shy, forward.

The grandam drew herself up. She looked at Jack once. She looked at him twice. Then she opened wide her arms; and as Jack flew like a bird to her embrace, she pressed him to her heart and fairly burst into tears.

Even Dawson was affected, and wisely withdrew.

Old Mrs. Mackenzie had a woman's heart then, after all.

* * * * *

What a long, delightful letter that was Jack wrote to his mother and sister next day! It did both their hearts good.

Mrs. Mackenzie, junior, was glad, for her boy's sake, that he had found a friend that would advance him in life. For her own part, she would have died at the foot of a pine tree rather than accept a favour from the proud owner of Drumglen, albeit she was her late husband's mother.

Ah! pride, and especially Scotch pride, is a bitter feeling, and often even a cruel. Pride has been called the devil's darling sin, and by Pope

"The never-failing vice of fools."

Says Goldsmith,—

"Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by."

Well, I do believe that with Grandam Mackenzie the stream of life now began to run backwards for a time. She had invited Jack to stay but for a week or two; but the sweet summer-time was coming on, and the boy required no second invitation to make Drumglen his home for a time. The words "for a time" are Mrs. Mackenzie's own, and perhaps she hardly knew the full meaning of them herself.

Jack wasn't going to forget old friends, however, and he wrote to Mrs. Malony, and to Little Peter also, and promised to write again.

I think that young Jack had not been at Drumglen for even a week before the rigidity of the mansion began to thaw.

Jack was jolly, but never with a jollity approaching to vulgarity. Indeed, in company and at table, thanks to his mother's tuition, the boy behaved himself like a little lord. But he often said droll things that made everybody laugh, and caused even the orthodox Mr. M'Thump to smile.

As a rule, the ladies and gentlemen who assembled at a dinner-party here were as stiff and straight in the back, physically and morally, as the chairs in which they sat.

When the ladies retired, however, the men folks did unbend, and some of them drew Jack out; and Jack—he did not require a very great deal of encouragement—gave his ideas about life and things in general in such a comically philosophical way, that old-fashioned lairds thumped the table and laughed aloud.

There was just one subject, however, on which Jack was wisely silent—namely, his sad life of poverty and distress in stony-hearted Glasgow.

Some things are better left unsaid, some stories better left untold. And Jack knew this instinctively as it were, and held his peace—for his grandma's sake.

Moreover he kept his own counsel concerning the whereabouts of his mother and sister, even when so eminent and dignified an individual as the Rev. Mr. M'Thump endeavoured to draw him out.

In this, again, Jack pleased his grandma very much. Drumglen mansion-house was in itself a somewhat antiquated and dreary abode, although situated in the midst of the most beautiful Highland scenery—hill and dale, river, loch, scaur, and wild wood.

The weeping birch trees were nowhere of sweeter, softer green in early spring than on the banks and braes around here; and among their branches the mavis and blackbirds trilled their songs with a joy that seemed half hysterical, while from far aloft, skimming the clouds, the laverock showered his notes of love. Nowhere did the primroses grow bigger, cooler, sweeter, than by the banks of the bickering burn that went singing over the stones on its way to the loch, forming many a clear pool wherein the minnows darted hither and thither, and where the crimson-ticked trout loved to bask in the sunshine. Then in autumn the hills around were purpled and encrimsoned with heather and heath high up their sides, till their rugged heads were lost in the clouds.

But the garden walls of Drumglen were high and strong, and the gates of ponderous iron. It seemed as if they had been built to stand a siege in the stormy days of old.

Inside these walls the garden itself was wide and wild, and away aloft, in the black and gloomy foliage of the pine trees, the hoody crow had his nest, and eke that bird of ill-omen the magpie.

The walls of the house itself were very thick and the windows small. Not a sound did your footsteps make as you glided about the rooms. So silent did you move on the thick, soft carpets, that you could scarce help thinking at times that you were your own ghost.

The furniture of this gloomy house seemed a thousand years old at least. The stairs were of oak; and when Jack first beheld his grandmother's bed, he gazed at it with a feeling of awe. It was a huge, dark, and curtained edifice, with drapery of the snowiest white. To have slept under such a weight as that would have made a stranger dream he was about to be smothered alive.

The old dame's servants had always been chosen for their solemnity, one would have said, and their reverential stateliness. They had never been heard to laugh till Jack went to reside at the mansion.

But now things were a little bit altered. For the boy moved about the house like a ray of sunshine, and you could no more have kept him from laughing, or singing the fag-ends of old Scotch songs, than you could have prevented a lark from trilling his love-lilts in May.

I may tell you that Jack knew well enough that his grandam wished him to keep his place if ever he entered the servants' hall. So he did; and yet his presence there never failed to bring sunshine, light, and music, and oftentimes now the dark oak ceilings re-echoed the mirth of servants who had ever before been as sad and solemn as church beadles or funeral mutes.

With all her orthodox conservativeness, however, Mrs. Mackenzie seemed to know that boys like Jack cannot live without amusement, and so at no time was she averse to the visits of youngsters of his own age. She even gave entertainments, and invited to them the children of neighbouring lairds, so that on the whole Jack's life was not so solemn an affair as it might otherwise have been.

In the evenings when alone together, the old lady used to make him draw his low stool up close beside her knee and talk to her. She would even encourage him to tell her about life in what might well be called the lower regions of the great city of Glasgow.

The disinterested kindness of Mrs. Malony and poor Little Peter, the hunch-backed fiddler boy, visibly affected Jack's grandmother.

"I did not think," she said, "that the poor could be so kind to each other as that. I will send Mrs. Malony, and Peter too, a Christmas-box when the time comes round. And so they were going to make a blacksmith of my brave boy, were they?"

"Yes, grandma; but I love work."

"How terrible!"

Jack bent down to smooth an old grimalkin that snoozed upon the rug.

"Malony wasn't so very terrible, though," he said; "and I suppose, grandma, if nobody was a smithy-John, nobody's horses would have any shoes to wear."

"True, my dear, quite true. As the potter makes his wares, some to honour and some to dishonour, so are we too made, and we should do our duty in the station of life which God has appointed us to fill."

Jack didn't reply. He was gazing into the bright fire of peats and coal that blazed so cheerfully on the low hearth, and wondering what station in life it would be his to fill.

"Jack," she said, after a pause, "did it ever occur to you that you would like to be something?"

Jack looked up at her now with glowing, happy face.

"Oh yes, indeed, grandma!"

"And what have you thought of?—the church?"

"Oh no, grandma."

"But think of the honour and glory of serving Him even in this world, and the richness of the reward hereafter. Think of our minister, the Rev. Titus M'Thump. He has ere now been honoured by dining even with royalty."

"I daresay I'm not good enough," said Jack simply.

"Well, child, the law affords facilities for rising to eminence in the world. Mr. Dawson, my own solicitor, is both a great and a good man. But," she added, as Jack did not reply, "how would you like to be a leech?"

Jack looked up astonished, with eyes about as big as billiard-balls. He had seen Malony apply a leech once to his sister's neck when she was ill of quinsy, and did not know that "leech" was the old name for physician.

"A leech, grandma! a nasty, black, creepie-crawlie, blood-sucking leech! Oh no, grandma. You are making fun, aren't you?"

"Well," said the old dame gravely, "you are quite right. I don't care for the profession myself. Your strictures on the leech are probably somewhat severe, however. I had one to dine with me a few months back, and really he seemed fairly intelligent."

"Dine with a leech!" thought Jack; "why, grandmother must be going out of her mind."

"Well, Jack, what would you like to be?"

"I would like, grandma, to be a Highland soldier, and wear a feather bonnet."

Grandma smiled sadly, and for a time gazed silently at the fire.

"No, Jack, no. I would not like you to be a soldier. Anything else?"

"Oh yes," replied the boy, eagerly enough. "You see, grandma, Mr. Dawson says there is going to be a big, big war with Russia."

"Perhaps so, dear, perhaps."

"Well, sailors fight as well as soldiers, and dress all in blue and gold, for I've seen some. They don't have feather bonnets, though—only just cocked hats and long swords. Well, I would like to be a sailor like that; and I'm sure when I grow bigger I could cut off an enemy's head beautifully."

"O boy, boy, how horrible! Well, I'll think about it; and if your mother will let you stay with me for a time, I will get you a good and clever tutor."

Jack did not answer, but he took his grandma's soft hand in both his, and leaned his cheek upon it in a gently caressing way.

"Strange," thought old Mrs. Mackenzie; "that is the way poor Donald used to caress my hand when he was quite a boy. Surely the Lord has given me this child's love to cheer my old age, and to prove that he has forgiven me."

* * * * *

Dawson and Mrs. Mackenzie the elder had a consultation soon after this. The subject to be considered was this: How best could she do something for her daughter-in-law that would not wound her pride?

"I felt sure," said the solicitor, with straightforwardness, "that you would put this question to me, and I have thought it well out. The doctor has told me that she is now almost well, but that if she returns to her life of poverty and hard work in Glasgow, she will soon find her last home in the mools."

"Well, Mr. Dawson?"

"Well, my dear madam, the cottage hospital down the Clyde is turning a great success; if you could add two beds to it—"

"Nothing would please me better. I will build a small additional wing to it, with a little cottage and garden near for the matron."

"Oh, thanks. You quite anticipate what I was going to say."

"Yes—that my daughter-in-law could be appointed manageress, with Jack's sister as nurse."

"That is it."

"Well, it is as good as accomplished. Only let it be between ourselves. No one is to know who the donor is."

"Agreed."

"It is to be our little secret, Mr. Dawson; and, after all, I think one may just as well do good with one's money while alive as after death."

"It certainly is more satisfactory. How about the man-o'-war ship, then?"

"Ah! that is another subject I hope to discuss with you one day. Perhaps—but—well, the matter needs further consideration, so for the present we shall dismiss it."

* * * * *

Jack stayed all the summer at Drumglen; but when the autumn came round, his grandmother, one evening as they sat by the fire, opened the conversation by saying,—

"My dear boy, your tutor, Mr. Newington, tells me you have been working very hard, and made capital progress in your studies; so I am going to send you home for six whole weeks to your mother and sister, at the Cottage Hospital. I hear there has been a new wing built to it, and a little house and garden for the matron, and that your mother has been appointed to that position. Well, dear boy, write and tell them you are coming; and I'll give you an envelope with something in it, so that you can pay your way, and be quite the little gentleman."

Jack took her hand in the old caressing way; but he did even more—he drew her arm right round his neck and nestled more closely up to her knee.

"Dear grandma," he said, "you are so good to me."

Mrs. Malony was busy making her husband's supper one evening about a week after this, when the door opened, and in bounced Jack.

"Och, sure," she cried, "and is it me own dear bhoy, Johnnie Greybreeks? Indade and indade it was only this blissed morning I was talking to Phatrick about ye. An' how well you are looking, alanna! troth it's the foine young gintleman ye are already entoirely. See there, the very cat knows ye; and won't Peter be plazed!"

And so she rattled on. By-and-by the husband himself came in, smiling all over his black and smutty face, and right heartily Johnnie shook his hard and brooky fist.

After supper Peter came down, and brought the fiddle too. That was one of the happiest nights ever Johnnie remembered spending.

Next day he went to see Mr. Dawson and the Morgans, but only for a hurried visit. Then the steamer Iona took him down stream, and at sunset he was seated beside his mother's cottage fire, with the dearest ones on earth beside him—one on each side.

How cosy and home-like everything looked around him! even the canary and the cat seemed as if they had been specially ordained for the cheerful room. There were flowers, too, everywhere, inside and out; but Maggie Mackenzie was the sweetest flower of all—so even her brother Jack thought.

She was dressed primly, it is true, as became her position as a nurse, but that did not detract in the slightest degree from her lady-like appearance.

Jack's mother, too, was looking well.

"Strange how things come about, dear boy," she said. "You see the Lord heard our prayers, and has raised us up friends. For ever blessed be his name!"

As she spoke she wiped away a tear with her white apron. It was a tear of joy and gratitude, however.

For this evening Jack's mother felt that her heart was full to overflowing.

CHAPTER VII.

"HARD A-PORT!"

"Eep—peep—peep—eep—eep—ee!"

It was the bos'n's pipe sounding loud and shrill high over the howling of a nor'-wester and the song of the storm-stirred waves.

"Eep—peep—eep—ee!"

First forward, then further aft amidships.

"All hands shorten sail!"

"Tumble up, my lads—tumble up; it's going to blow a buster."

And hardly had the last notes of the pipe ceased as quickly as if they had been cut off clear and sharp by the wind, than the men came rattling up the ladders to duty.

There was every need for haste too, for the storm had suddenly increased to almost the force of a tornado. The sun was sinking red and angrily away in the west-sou'-west, his last rays luridly lighting up the foam and spume of each breaking billow, and casting rusty rays even on the spray that was now dashing inboard high as the top of the funnel itself. There was no steam up, however, nor were there even banked fires, albeit the ship was not very far off land.

The Gurnet—for that was her name—was a screw gunboat of the very largest build then on the list, with six good Armstrongs on her deck, besides a monster pivot-gun forward.

She was a model. I don't say that because, many a long year after the date of my story, I myself sailed in her. But a model of beauty the Gurnet was, as good as ever sailor would care to look upon. Low in the water, with none too much freeboard, perhaps; rakish as to masts; bows like a clipper, without any merchant-service flimsiness about them though; and jib-boom like part of a picture. Solid and strong was she though, and as black all over as the wing of a rook, except where, just on the edges, her ports were picked out with vermilion.

"All hands shorten sail!"

Yes; and it is indeed time, with the wind howthering like that, tearing at the sails with angry jerks, and trying the strength of the sturdy ship from stem to stern, from bowsprit to rattling rudder-chains.

And she on a lee-shore!

Yes: the Gurnet had crossed the Bay of Biscay on the wings of a beautiful wind a trifle abaft the beam. She had passed the Gulf of Corunna, and was now just off Cape Finisterre, or Land's End as we would call it; but nobody, two hours ago, could have believed that the wind would pop round a point or two and come on to blow like this.

"Where in a' the warld are you goin' to, laddie?"

It was the doctor who spoke—Dr. Reikie, assistant-surgeon in charge—and as he sang out these words he caught young Midshipman Mackenzie by the lower part of his uniform, as he was struggling up the companion-ladder.

The clutch that he made at him was a very unceremonious one indeed, but a most effectual, for he hauled the middie right back and down into the steerage.

"Where were you off to, eh? Are you going daft?"

"Why, sir, it's all hands on deck, isn't it?" said Jack Mackenzie, for it was he. "Mustn't I keep my watch, and help to reef topsails?"

Dr. Reikie laughed loud enough to be heard high above the trampling of feet and shouting of orders on deck.

"Ha! ha! ha! Well, I declare, that's about the best thing I've heard for many a day. Man," he added, leading Jack straight off into the cosy little ward-room, "what use d'ye think a vision of a thing like you would be on deck? No more use, man, than a cat in front of a carriage and four. Sit down on the locker there, or, what is better still, lie down, and thank your stars you've gotten a countryman o' your ain to look after you."

"Well," said Jack, mournfully, "I suppose I must do as I'm told."

"I'll take care you do, youngster. You may disobey anybody else in the mess, but if you dinna do as I tell you, man, I'll lay you across the table and lunner the riggin' o' you. But there," he added, more kindly, "I'm only in fun, or half in fun, you know. Only, dinna forget I'm senior in this mess, and sit at the head o' the table. If I hadn't hauled you down the companion, you'd have been washed half-way to Finisterre afore now."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"Well, mind you're a kind of in the sick-list, and never a watch do you keep—except that bonnie gowd one in your pocket that your granny gave you—till I give you leave."

"Thank you, sir," said Jack again. "But what is supposed to be the matter with me?"

"A touch of sea-sickness—your gills are as white as a haddock's.—Inexperience, and the want o' sea-legs.—Hark! listen! We've carried away something."

This was indeed true; although reefed, the maintopsail had gone.

I could not say how many ribbons it was rent into, but the noise those ribbons made was indescribable. It was like the rattling of platoon-firing when a regiment of soldiers is being drilled.

"I told the skipper the glass was going down like tea and scandal, and he only laughed at me. If a man refuses to obey the dictates of science, well, he deserves to lose his ship—that's all I've got to say."

"You don't think we're going to be shipwrecked, do you, sir?"

"Laddie, how can I tell? If the wind changes, and we don't get up steam in time, our ribs may be dang in on the rocks before mornin'. But don't be afraid. I daresay it will all come right. I'm going on deck to see how her neb is pointing. Keep quiet, and think about your mammy."

And away the doctor went, steadying himself by bulkheads or anything he could lay hold on.

It was now getting very dusk indeed, but so quickly had the men aloft done their duty, that the ship was already snug, and all hands had come below. The captain, Commander Gillespie, was himself on the quarter-deck. He was comparatively a young man, probably not thirty, or about three years the surgeon's senior. He was a smart enough officer, but he had good friends in England in high quarters, and this had got him a separate command; so he walked his own planks, lord of all he saw.

The surgeon and he were already very friendly, only the captain did not put much faith in the weather prognostications advanced by the worthy Scotch medico.

"I told you what was coming, sir," said Dr. Reikie.

"Um—yes—well, I think you did mention something about the glass. But we're all right."

"Just shave Finisterre, won't we, sir?"

"Just shave it! why, we can walk ten miles to windward of it."

"Well, the Gurnet is a beauty anyhow, I will admit that; but still, sir—"

"Look here, doctor: come down below and dine with me—eh?—and we'll have a jolly good talk, and leave service alone; shan't we?"

This was a very pretty way of telling the doctor to mind his own business; and he wisely took the hint, and went off down below to put on his mess-jacket.

The good fellow, however, was not altogether easy in his mind. He did not like the look of the glass, nor—as he told the lieutenant, whom he met as he passed through the ward-room to reach his cabin—the look of things in general. The clouds this evening were racing across the sky, although it was now almost too dark to see them; the wind was unsteady, though very high; and there was a jerkiness in the motion of the brave little ship that Dr. Reikie did not half like.

Lieutenant Sturdy was putting on an oilskin coat and a sou'-wester. He was a rough-looking sea-dog at the best, but arrayed in this style, his round, red, clean-shaven face smiling rather grimly as the doctor spoke to him, he looked more like a North Sea pilot than the first officer of a British man-of-war.

Sturdy was a year or two older than the captain, but he had no great friends at head-quarters, nor anywhere else for the matter of that. He came of a good, honest Newcastle family. His father owned quite a small fleet of coal-steamers that plied between that great city of the north and London or elsewhere. In fact, these coal-ships coasted everywhere, going high up as far as Aberdeen, and south even to Plymouth itself.

There was a larger steamer in which, being fond of the sea, Mr. Sturdy, senior, had himself coasted for years. His wife was a tiny, delicate bit of a body, and feared to venture much upon the ocean; but Lieutenant Ben Sturdy here had sailed with his father from the time when he was hardly as tall as the binnacle. It was a rough kind of a school to learn in, but it made him a sailor, and even in the royal navy an officer is none the worse of being a sailor. What do you think, reader?

Well, Sturdy had entered the service before he was fourteen, and had not been a deal on shore in England since, because he had no interest to get him nice ships that had only a three years' commission. Sturdy's ships had mostly been rotten old tubs that were kept on a station may be for five years and then recommissioned, two or three of the officers being left out in them, perhaps. So you see the service is not all a bed of roses, but it is the best service in the world for all that. An old sailor like myself may be excused for thinking so, at all events.

Sturdy was a good-natured fellow anyhow, although sea-beaten and rough. His daily life and intercourse with his messmates proved that.

"That's right," said the doctor, patronizingly; "you're dressing up to fight the weather, I see."

"Dressing up to fight fiddlesticks, Reikie. It's going to be a bit of a blow, that's all, and I want to be snug. See!—Hullo, little man!" he added, patting Jack on the head; "a bit squeamish, eh? No? All right; keep below for a few days."

Mr. Gribble, the assistant-paymaster, was entering the ward-room dressed in a uniform pilot-jacket, with his cap well reefed, and his hands fathoms deep in his trousers pockets.

He stuck himself right in the doorway, spreading his elbows to steady himself.

"Hullo!" he said, screwing his mouth and eyebrows about as if his face were india-rubber—"hullo! Who are you? Hey?"

"Gangway, Mr. Cheek," answered Sturdy, "unless you want me to give you a fair wind down the hatchway there. You'd look nice riding stride legs on the shaft."

"Why, my blessed eyes, if it ain't you yourself, Lieutenant Benjamin Sturdy! Blow me sky-high if I didn't think it was old Neptune come on board. I say, young man," he continued, "do you know that a yellow oilskin and sou'-wester ain't uniform? I'll be obliged to take notice of it. Sea-boots and all!"

Sturdy lifted a huge brown fist and made pretence he was going to cut Gribble clean through the steerage.

Gribble dodged. "Don't hit a little chap," he cried. "I'll let you off this time."

"I say, Sturdy," cried the doctor.

"Yes."

"I'd get up steam if I were you."

"Humph!" grunted Sturdy from the depths of his capacious chest; then he went stumping up the ladder singing to himself,—

"Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,
    The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the billows howling,
    For death hath broached him to."

It did everybody good to hear Ben Sturdy singing; but on the quarter-deck, except at night, this jolly officer could be as polite as in a drawing-room.

"O Mr. Sturdy," said Captain Gillespie, who was still on deck; "here you are."

"Yes, sir. Been bending my foul-weather gear, you see."

"Quite right. Well, I think the old Gurnet is safe."

"As safe as can be, sir."

"Looks beastly thick to windward, though. Think we should get up steam?"

"As you please, sir."

"I was asking you."

"Well, I wouldn't. We'll keep her up a point or two; she'll weather anything."

"There!"

It was a bright flash of lightning that illuminated everything on deck, till brass-work stood out like burnished gold.

This was followed by a peal of thunder that appeared to roll the ship up and crush her from stem to stern as one would an empty match-box.

"That'll do good."

"Eh?"

"It'll bring rain, and rain will lay the wind and sea. Hail will anyhow, and there it comes."

And there it did come too. It was early spring; but for as long as he had been to sea, Sturdy had never before seen such hail as this. In a few minutes' time the decks were covered inches deep. The Gurnet might have been a ship in the Greenland seas. The lightning, too, was incessant, and hail or snow never looks more beautiful than when lit up in this way.

The thunder rolled on almost incessantly, but the wind now seemed less in force, and the sea for the time being was as smooth as if covered with oil.

The man at the wheel cowered beneath the terrible storm, while the hands forward were fain to seek the protection of the weather-bulwarks.

"I'll go below now," said the captain when the sky cleared once more and the thunder went muttering away to leeward. "Come down, Mr. Sturdy, when your watch is over, and have a glass of port."

"I'll be with you, sir."

At eight o'clock he was as good as his word. Dinner was over, but there were biscuits and dessert.

"Come along, Mr. Sturdy. The doctor and I have been having long arguments on scientific subjects. Sit down."

"Ahem!" said the surgeon. "But, Captain Gillespie, 'argument' is the wrong word. I was expatiating."

"Expawsheeatin'," mimicked Sturdy, as he helped himself to the biscuit. "You wouldn't listen to argument, eh, from such as us? You are learned. You must just expawsheeate. Says you,—

                                    "'I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'

—Well, sir, what was Dr. Reikie teaching you?"

"Oh," said the captain, laughing, "just as you came down we were away somewhere in the star depths—beyond the nebulæ, I think."

Sturdy had poured himself out a glass of rum in a tumbler—a sort of bos'n's nip, four fingers high. This was a chance for the doctor to have a shot at the lieutenant.

"I say, Sturdy," he said, "talking about nebulæ, if you drink all that rum you'll have a nebulous noddle in the mornin'."

"Yes," continued the captain, "we were off and away into the vastness of the star depths. We had got far beyond Sirius, and never gone once on shore. The doctor was telling me that light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles a second! I say, Mr. Sturdy, how many knots is that an hour?"

"Computations like that, sir," said Reikie, trying another shot, "it would be in vain for Sturdy to attempt in his present condition. Wait, sir, till he has another nip."

Sturdy was silent.

Sturdy was hungry. The biscuits disappeared before him as if by magic. Then he attacked the nuts, and presently settled quietly down to the raisins.

Captain Gillespie's cabin was right abaft the wardroom, with a separate staircase to it, and a steward's pantry at the foot thereof. It was very tastefully furnished—at his own expense of course—and at one end stood a small but good piano, and hanging near it a fiddle. The captain was very fond of music, and so was the surgeon; and the fiddle belonged to the latter.

"Do play, sir," said Sturdy now, "to drown the raging of the storm.—Come, Auld Reikie," he continued, "screw up your Cremona."

"If you'll sing 'Tom Bowling.'"

"Oh, I'll sing anything."

"By the way, sir," said Sturdy, after he had finished that glorious song, which has never yet been beaten, "would you mind me asking poor little Mackenzie in for half-an-hour? I am taking a great liberty, but—"

"Not at all, my good fellow.—Mr. Reikie, will you run for him? you're the younger."

"Mr. Dr. Reikie will be delighted, sir."

This was a shot at the captain himself. Reikie really was a doctor of medicine, and he was just young enough and Scotch enough to resent being deprived of his title.

Jack was a little shy at first, but he soon brightened up, and his pleasant and innocent chatter enlivened the little company. Jack even sung a song.

"Well," said the captain at last, "this is only our second night at sea, though I have known you two gentlemen before. Well, we've spent a very pleasant evening, and if I can have my wish it won't be the last by a long way. We are going on particular service, and are likely to be shipmates for a long time. Why, Midshipman Jack here will be a man before he gets back to his mother."

Jack really fancied he had been a man for over three weeks—ever since, in fact, he had set foot on the Gurnet in Plymouth Sound.

"Well, gentlemen, I like to begin a cruise on commission as we hope to end it—every one doing his duty, every one pleasant, and loving his neighbour as himself. So, good-night. See you all in the morning."

* * * * *

But the wind grew wilder and wilder, and at seven bells in the first watch it was found necessary to get up steam.

The night was very clear now. A half or three-quarter moon had arisen, and every star shone like a diamond.

Hark to that shout!

It is three bells in the morning watch, and the senior midshipman's watch too.

Shoal water ahead.

"Hard a-port!"

Not a man fore or aft that did not hear that shout, not a man fore or aft that did not spring at once from cot or hammock.

And yet there was neither panic, fear, nor confusion; and if every one did hasten on deck even before the bos'n's pipe commenced to sound, it was only because he knew he would be needed, and because he wanted to know as speedily as possible the extent of the danger, and the chance, if any, of safety.

CHAPTER VIII.

JACK'S SEA-DADDY.

Midshipman Jack was among the first on deck. All he could see was the star-lit, wind-tossed waves that, at each dip of the good ship's prow, rose like mountains right ahead, or, as she leaned to leeward, seemed ready to engulf her.

But away on the port bow he could now and then catch a glimpse of huge black boulders, over which spume was dashing white and high. These boulders were the rocks on which the good Gurnet might soon be dashed, and go to pieces.

In each lull of the gale, even already, the boom of the breaking waves could be heard—a sound that had been to many and many a sailor ere now the last he had ever heard on earth.

Jack began to say his prayers, and to think of those at home. One and all of his friends and relations seemed to rise up before his mind's eye at this moment, and seemed to speak to him, to beckon to him, to pray for him.

Poor Jack! his brain was all in a whirl, but suddenly he remembered that he was guilty of a breach of faith. He had no business on deck. The surgeon had given him orders to remain below. He must hasten down, therefore, though it did seem dreadful to be drowned in the dark—drowned like a rat in a drain. The companionship of even those brightly-shining stars would have made death appear less terrible. But—yes, he must go below. The first duty of sailor or soldier is obedience.

He found his way at last into the ward-room, in which the lamp was still burning, and threw himself down on the sofa.

He could pray; ah! there was comfort in that. After he had said his prayers—no, but prayed his prayers; for there is a deal of difference between saying a prayer and praying it: in the one it comes welling up from the heart itself, in the other it is but lip-worship—after he had prayed, he began to repeat a psalm to himself, one that he had learned at his mother's knee:—

"God is our refuge and our strength,
    In straits a present aid;
Therefore, although the earth remove,
    We will not be afraid:
Though hills amidst the seas be cast;
    Though waters roaring make."

It was just at this line that the young sailor boy's thoughts were wafted away and away to hills and glens and streams and woods, all basking in the sweet light of the summer sun.

Jack was asleep and dreaming.

* * * * *

But a terrible time of anxiety was being passed by those on deck.

The captain and Sturdy himself were both on the little three-plank bridge, hanging on to the rope-rail as if to a life-line.

Again and again Sturdy had shouted down the tube, "Get up steam as fast as possible!" Yet down there he knew the engineer and stokers were fighting like furies in the fierce heat of the engine-room. Well they knew how precious every minute, nay, every second, was. Bacon and even bladders of lard were put into the fire, but apparently without any result, although the flames roared high, and there was even danger of firing the padding betwixt boilers and bunkers.

Nearer and nearer loom the black rocks. Can they weather them? All that brave ship can do the Gurnet is doing. She is sailing as close to the wind as gull or frigate-bird. All that brave men can think of to save her has been done.

Again and again they imagine that they have passed the worst; again and again whale-back rocks rise ominously further ahead.

The captain, and even Sturdy, are now in despair, and the last command is given,—

"Stand by to man and lower boats!"

In such a case this would be the sailor's last resort. In such a sea it would be all but hopeless.

Sturdy draws closer to the captain, and pointing with one arm ahead, shouts in his ear, "We can't weather it. Our only chance is to keep her away and try to sail between the rocks into the open water beyond."

The captain is about to assent, when a dark figure is seen struggling up through the companion-hatch. He is waving his hands aloft and shouting. But the wind cuts the words short off; they cannot be heard. He rushes now to the bridge-ladder and clutches the rope and shouts again.

Sturdy bends towards him. He catches the words.

"Saved!" he cries, creeping back towards the captain.

Saved? I doubt it. The ship's fore-part even now touches ground, and the waves leap madly over her.

But the screw is revolving at last, and slowly the good ship begins to forge ahead. It is a fight now, and a hard one, betwixt wind and steam, and for a time no one can tell which will be victor.

But, hurrah, science has conquered! The useless sails are taken in, and in less than half an hour the Gurnet is clear, and away from the terrible reef.

* * * * *

There was nothing talked about at breakfast next morning except the danger the ship had come through. But what signifies danger to sailors, especially when it is past? The wind and sea had now gone down, the fires were banked, and all sail was being made for Gibraltar, that impregnable fortress whose splendid story may never all be told, and the possession of which is begrudged to us by almost every civilized nation on the globe.

Britain means to hold it nevertheless, as long at least as she rides mistress of the seas; as long as there floats over us, in sea-fight or in tempest,

"The flag that braved a thousand years
    The battle and the breeze."

By the time the Gurnet reached the Rock, Jack was permitted to keep his watch. He was attached to Sturdy's, luckily for him. Under this brave fellow he would learn seamanship, a science that I am sorry to say naval officers of our day do not know too much about.

But Jack's hopes of spending a day on shore on the historical Rock were doomed to disappointment. For the Gurnet had not a clean bill of health. One or two cases of cholera had taken place, it was said, at Plymouth before she sailed. She had therefore come from an infected port, and no one would be allowed to set foot on shore. The utmost indulgence permitted was to post their letters. A boat came alongside for these. They were handed over the side and taken with a pair of tongs, being soon after fumigated with tobacco smoke and the fumes of burning brimstone.

Fruit, however, was handed up, and many other dainties from shore. The money received was immediately plunged into a vase containing some acid disinfectant. Well, all this was provoking enough, especially as there was not a sick man on board.

From the place where they lay waiting for important documents, etc., they could see the soldiers on the Rock and the promenaders near to the shore, and at morn and eventide the sound of music stole sweetly over the waters from military bands in garrison or barracks.

Early though the season was, everything in and around Gibraltar looked semi-tropical, and Jack Mackenzie would have given a good deal, he thought, to be allowed to land. The sky was blue, and the sea and scenery far and near lay quivering in the glorious sunshine all day long.

When Jack turned out to keep the middle watch for the first time, although rather sleepy when aroused, he speedily pulled himself together, dressed, and went on deck. The stars were shining, but no moon, and afar off was the town with its twinkling lights, rising higher and higher up the hill. Lower down, closer to the water's edge, the lights were more abundant; for sailing ships and steamers lay there, and not far away a man-o'-war or two.

But the lights in the town grew fewer and fewer, and the silence greater, till, after a time, little was to be heard except the sentries calling, bells solemnly tolling the hour, and now and then a wild, unearthly yell which Jack could not account for.

He was leaning over the bulwarks, gazing towards the great looming Rock, when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and he looked quickly up to find it was Sturdy's.

"Am I doing right?" said Jack. "You see, I'm not up to keeping watch yet. Should I keep constantly tramping up and down?"

Sturdy laughed.

"You'd soon have Auld Reikie using language if you did. It is while lying at anchor like this that sailors sleep most lightly, and Reikie is nothing if not a sailor. Perhaps if you did much of the tramping business, he'd come up the hatch and shy a boot at you."

"Shy his boot at me! Would he, sir?"

"Well, I didn't say his boot, but a boot. I daresay Auld Reikie would just as soon shy somebody else's, because when one does this sort of thing the boot nearly always flies overboard.—But come and sit down here on the skylight. In keeping your watch, you know, the main thing is to keep your weather eye lifting, and to note what goes on high and low, fore and aft. See?"

"Yes."

"Well, now, let us yarn. Tell me about your brothers and sisters, mother and aunts, and—oh, but of course you are far too young to have a sweetheart."

"Nearly fourteen," said Jack proudly. "Yes, I have a sweetheart—just one."

"Well, one at a time is all I ever have—in the same port, I mean. And what is your young lady's name?"

"She is the first young lady ever I spoke to in all my life. She is my cousin, eight years old, and her name is Tottie Morgan. Tottie isn't her baptismal name, you know, only her brothers and sisters call her that. Her mother calls her Violet."

"And are you going to marry her?"

"Oh yes, I suppose so."

"He, he! Well, it's a long time to look forward to."

"Tottie's oldest brother is a perfect man; Llewellyn is his name. He is sixteen, and going to be a soldier, and wear a feather bonnet."

"Fine fun that'll be. Well, Jack, they say we'll soon have war. Then you will meet your cousin Llewellyn, if he isn't killed in the first off-go. Young fellows often are, because they are so foolishly rash. Soon may it come."

"What, sir?"

"Why, the war. I want my promotion; and if we had plenty of fighting, in two or three years' time, Jack, you too would win your epaulettes, and exchange your toothpick for a cheese-knife."