Then he took his stand on the grating right abaft the wheel, and held the tea-tray aloft.

With her cloud of snowy canvas on came the Yankee. Then, as she was passing, a real megaphone roared out the words: 'The Louisiana of Baltimore, U.S.A., bearing up for London, England, en route for the States. What is that?' continued the awful voice. 'Hold your bally old tea-tray higher. Captain Peters, eh? Little girl born at sea. All right, I'll report it. Hope mother and daughter are doing well. Love to the missus. Good-bye, old grampus; bon voyage.'

Next minute the Louisiana was past and away, and the mate dashed the tea-tray on the deck with a rattle and a word that made Lotty jump.

'Hang the fellow!' he cried; 'he couldn't read plain English, and now he's off, and may all the bad weather go with him, for he'll report that Mrs Paterson—— Ha, ha, ha!'

He laughed louder than the west wind as he jumped down.

'Never mind. Come along, Lotty, and we'll have another stroll. Merrily does at sea, little lass.

The gale moderated considerably in the first dog-watch, and the sea became smoother. Reefs were shaken out, and as the sun set red in the nor'-west a heavenly starlit night succeeded the stormy day.

Ben went on watch at eight o'clock, and the rest settled around the stove in the cosy octagonal cabin.

They were plain-living people in the Nor'lan' Star, as all true sea-folks are. The skipper smoked in his easy-chair, Mrs Paterson sat knitting in hers, with Lotty on a footstool by her knee, and the red-faced mate between. The steward brought tumblers to these two men-people, so they sipped their grog and then settled to yarning and singing.

So soft, so sweet, yet so ringing withal was the good mate's voice as he gave his rendering of the 'Bay of Biscay' and 'Tom Bowling' that Lotty had tears in her eyes; but she clapped her little hands as he finished.

'Oh, how much I love that!' she cried with real enthusiasm; 'and oh, Mr Mate, how delighted my daddy Biffins Lee would be to have you in our camp! People would come from all directions to hear you sing real sea-songs like that.'

The mate laughed. 'I fear,' he said, 'I should make but a poor gipsy. But why do you like my songs, little lass?'

'Because I hear things in them.'

'Hear things in them?'

'Yes, oh yes, for as you sing I can hear the woesome wail of white-winged gulls as they beat to windward in the dark-cloud sky, dipping now and then down, down till they touch the darker water and dive through the spray, then up and up, screaming, till the haze hides the silver of their flight. And I can hear the storm wind too, sir, rising and falling, falling and rising, so mournful-like because of the quiet sleeping dead that lie so far beneath the waves upon the yellow sands.'

Lotty was blushing now at her own youthful enthusiasm, and was fain to hide her face on Mrs Skipper's lap. And Mrs Skipper patted the shapely yellow poll.

'So we've really picked up a little poet, have we, from off the stormy main? said Mr Mate.

'Lotty,' cried the captain suddenly, 'you can sing I'm sure!'

The blue, sparkling eyes glanced upwards through the tousled hair. 'Yes,' she replied, 'I sing always in the show. I have a mandoline. Have you a mandoline?'

'No, just the fiddle.'

'Oh, that will do. It is tuned the same. Thanks, not the bow, only my fingers.'

The child's voice was very beautiful, and almost sad were the songs she sang.

The skipper beckoned to the steward and pointed to the empty tumblers. Then he threw back his head in his easy-chair and shut his eyes.

'Sing again, my sweet,' he said.

Lotty did, and once more too.

And the ship swayed and swung in rhythm, while Mrs Skipper, though her eyes were on her work, forgot to knit.

'Maggie, lass,' said the captain as a song was ended, 'Maggie, dear wife, I feel sure, quite sure, I saw a tear drop down upon your wool. There! I was sure of it. Your eyelashes are wet.'

Well, maybe—who knows?—this kindly, homely skipper's wife had a bit of romance buried away back in her past.

But that evening was a happy one to all, and so were many more that followed.

CHAPTER XIV.

A LITTLE STRANGER COMES ON BOARD.

This was going to be a real holiday for Lotty, and in her youthful capacity for pleasure she was going to make the best of it. She had not to beckon pleasure to come to her, it was coming, and would come without being asked. The very novelty of her situation and surroundings was enthralling. She had come or been brought into an entirely new world. It felt as if Providence or Chance had staged for her a fresh and startling drama—new scenery, new acting, new everything—and she had nothing to do but wait and look on and be glad.

The weather got wilder, the skies harder and clearer, each wave that passed, as it swirled and broke, sang to itself in the blue and frosty air. Even the spray that dashed inboard fell rattling on the skylights like hail, and sometimes quite a little snowstorm raged on the deck, the powdery snow forming into small, shapely drifts against the coiled ropes or the green-painted lower bulwarks.

For the first day or two Ben appeared shy and half-afraid of Lotty. To him she was a being from another world, such as he had only read of in fairy-story books. But he soon got over his timidity, and was bent apparently on becoming her slave, was pleased to explain things to her, and assist her in every way his somewhat slow nature might suggest. Then when she went off to stroll arm-in-arm with the mate, whom she liked much better, he would lean himself slantingly—as you might lean a garden-fork that you didn't want to fall—against the lee bulwarks amidships, and dreamily watch her every look and movement.

When she would come towards him at last he was all alive again, and as eager-eyed and sprightly as a sheep when she sees the lamb she has to protect. Perhaps the conversation was a trifle slow, because she had to pull him into it. Ben wasn't very suggestive. Nevertheless, his somewhat dull eyes sparkled with delight, and his face became transformed, in a manner of speaking, when he found that he could give Lotty information and interest her in things. Beauty has a wonderful power if it be beauty of the right sort, consisting not merely in a lovely complexion, eyes, hair, and features, and a nice figure, but all these etherealised—nay, but glorified—by refinement, intellect, and innocence. Such a child as Lotty, wholly insensible of the charm that surrounded her, was likely to, and did, make friends wherever she went. And it is better to make friends than conquests.

'You've been up this way before, Ben, haven't you?'

'Ah! lots o' times.'

Silence for some seconds.

'Have you a full name? Ben isn't surely all.'

'A fool name, little un?'

'I mean what more than Ben is it?'

'Ah, lots, but I doesn't trot 'em out every day.'

'Ben what, then?'

'No, not Ben Watten, but Benjamin Thorley Metcalfe Evans Bradley; only they's all melted down to Ben aboard ship.'

'Have you ever been farther north, Benjamin Thor'——

'Oh don't, little missie. Ben's the 'andle they allers lifts I by. Yes, been to Archangel an' Iceland an' Spitzbergen 'arf a dozen times.'

'Were you always second-mate?'

'Lo'd no! Dog-boy fust, then slush-boy, then dirty-devil all over the ship, then stooard's boy, then doctor'——

'Doctor?'

'Ay, missie, wot cooke the 'orse, an' fries the panhaggledy, an' biles the spuds an' the dollop o' duff.'

'How very interesting!'

More silence.

'It must be wild and dreary on the sea of ice and snow, and so cold I should freeze to death.'

'Bless yer little 'eart, I tells ye it's just skir-r-rumptious up near wot they calls the Pole, though I never did see un—nary a pole.'

As he spoke Ben hung himself up, as it were, on a belaying-pin against the bulwark, and Lotty stood looking at him. But he didn't look at her, only beyond her or over her, for if he had looked right into her face or eyes I'm certain the boy couldn't have spoken a sensible sentence.

'Just skir-r-rumptious! An' those hartist chaps wot 'drors pictures o' hicebergs in books knows nuffin' whatsomediver about it; no more nor they does about their Bibles. Goin' out north that way it's cold enough at fust, like to freeze yer face like heverythink, an' if yer didn't watch the barber 'e'd precious soon cut yer nose right clean hoff.'

'Do you carry a barber?'

‘’E comes an' carries 'isself—comes on board w'en the fermometer's worked away down zero-ways. 'E ain't no man this barber, honly a white mist wot rises off a calm an' frosty sea like the steam from a pot w'en she's beginnin' to boil; an', oh, 'e's a sneezer! 'E 'ardens the beef in the riggin', an' the sheets an' the stays as well, an' 'e 'eats the brass-work an' steel till they burns worse nor 'ot pokers if ye're grampus enough to touch 'em. An' 'e covers the decks an' the skylights an' the boats an' bulwarks, an' man an' beast as well, till the dog's like a Polar bear, an' all 'ands looks like Methuselahs, with white beards an' 'air an' heyelashes. That's wot the barber does, does 'e. But mebbe the sun shines after this. Then heverybody grows young again hall of a suddint, an' the barber flies north to the Pole.'

'Is the ice all like castles and steeples and pinnacled mountains?'

'Honly in pictur'-books, missie.'

'Plenty of skating, I suppose?'

'Lo'd love ye, no. 'Cause as 'ow the big flat or round-topped bergs is hall covered feet-deep in snow.'

'Beautiful white snow, Ben?'

She was looking at him eagerly, earnestly. Little though he knew it, this rough, illiterate sailor-boy was showing her glimpses of a new world, which to her young poetic imagination must be all a kind of fairyland.

He cast one glance at the sweet face beside him, then hitched himself more firmly on to the belaying-pin and swayed about for a moment in evident shyness.

'Beautiful white snow, Ben, boy. It must be like Elfinland.'

'Never been there myself, missie—to Helfinland I means, though I've 'eard speak o' it. Ye lands from a ship in a boat like, an' as ye gets nearer an' nearer to the pack-edge o' the big drearisome floes the sea hall around yer gets blacker an' blacker till it's just like ink w'en it laps an' laps ag'in' the rainbow ribbon o' icy shore.'

'But it isn't really black, Ben? Don't say it's really black, Ben—the water, I mean.'

'Oh no, missie, it is clear as dew on a rose-leaf, an' it trickles from the oar-blades like diamonds in the sun. Then there is the sky, as blue an' clear it is, just like the 'eaven th' ould pa'son speaks about, only brighter. An' there's the birds—they's beautiful too, 'specially the snow-birds that come so close ye can look into their clear, red eyes, an' could almost shake their cold feet.

'An' w'en ye does land an' goes wanderin' hall by yerself away over the 'ard, crisp snow, ye mebbe meets a bear; but the bright sun's in 'is black eyes, an' 'e just looks at ye an' goes on, for there be seals to catch, an' bladders an' wallies,[E] an' 'e don't want to eat no hooman bein' s'long's 'e can get wallies. But ye goes on an' on.'

'All by yourself, Ben, of course.'

'Well, if ye likes to put it that way. On an' on over sparklin' snow, with the black sea away somew'ere behind, ye don't seem to ken nor care 'ow far, 'cause hevery breath ye breathes is liquid life, an' ye'd raither not look back. There ye sits ye down on a 'ummock an' startles now to find the sea 'as gone. That's the wu'st o' walkin' on the hice, ye walk so far an' never gets tired. Ye doesn't min' bein' alone at fust, but after hours it begins to pall on ye, for the silence is fearsome, an', like the cold, creeps up about the 'eart; the sun won't speak to ye, the snow won't talk, an' the birds 'as flown away.'

'But the sea,' said Lotty, 'the sea, Ben?'

'Just like a whisper o' a far-away wind. But the sea is away, an' ye shades yer eyes to look for it. It's gone, an' yer ship. Only a white mist lies yonder, an' it rolls up an' creeps up slowly but sure, an' ye know the mist means death. At fust ye're frightened, an' wish to run to'ards it an' fling yerself at it as a man does at a ghost. Then ye screams an' wants to run, then ye sees snowflakes a-fallin' at the other side o' ye, an' ye know then ye're in it, an' 'elpless. But something is shuttin' down yer heyelids, an' a sleep an' a dream ye thinks would be very pleasant—especially the dream. It's the dream that does it, the dream that drags ye into death.'

'Into death, Ben? Death in your fairyland?'

'Ay, death, missie, as sure as hever it came to a barn-door fowl, unless they finds ye. Then, missie, the fust-mate brings ye up out o' the dream an' out o' the death with a bally rope's-endin' for leavin' the boat.'

. . . . . . .

The ship sailed northwards and north, and King Winter now met the Nor'lan' Star in icy earnest, for they passed through great fields of half-melted snow that took the way quite out of her, and caused the sails to flap, despite the wind, which, however, was none too favourable. Then there was more blue-black polished sea, rendered blacker still when streams of icebergs, mostly snow-clad, met them and bombarded the ship on both sides with deafening noise as they sailed through. But there were bigger pieces, and one was a gigantic white berg with clear, icy sides glittering green and crimson, and on this lay a poor little lost sealkin.

Kind-hearted Paterson lowered the dingy after getting the mainsail aback, and Lotty jumped with joy when she was asked if she would like to go. How very large and dark the hull of the Nor'lan' Star appeared as they pulled away from her quarter, and the waves now seemed higher than Lotty could have believed possible! They rose and fell, playing such queer capers, racing the dingy, pretending to poop her, changing their minds, and lifting her sky-high only to hurl her down again into the blackness between two seas! So Lotty had to keep her eyes fixed on the berg and the sleeping sealkin to make sure they were advancing. But when she looked about, the Nor'lan' Star seemed miles away.

The mate was steering.

'She won't forget and sail away and leave us, will she?' said Lotty.

'I don't think so, my dear, else we'll have to do what four of us did once when we were cast away on an iceberg like that, only a trifle bigger. And there was a seal on it too, else we couldn't have lived for three long weeks as we did.'

'Did you kill it and eat it?'

'Oh dear no, Lotty. We found out a trick worth two o' that.

'We hauled up the boat after capturing that saddle-back, not that she was much use, but she would do as a kind of bedroom you know, although she wouldn't float. She would keep the cold wind off us, and it is warmer sleeping on planks than on snow.

'Well, Lotty, we hadn't much to eat the first day, and slept but badly after it. The second day we had less, and then we began to starve—ay, and would have starved, too, but for an idea that Nat Pringle got hold of. For the saddle-back had gone. "I have it, mates," he said. Then he got straight up and walked to the boat, and back he comes with a big net and a long rope. We lay and watched after sunset, for it was early in the Greenland year, and by-and-by up comes the seal, and Nat lays hold on it quick, and in two minutes it was dressed in the net, as you might dress a doll, nothing out 'cept the head, the flippers, and the tail. That was a weary night, but joy came in the morning. "I'm off," says the seal, turning head on to the water. "Oh, are ye?" says Nat. "Well, good-day, and pleasant voyage to you."

'Away goes the seal, but the long rope was fastened by one end to the net behind its shoulder, and Nat kept firm hold of the other. "Hallo!" says the seal to himself after he had swam about thirty yards, "I'm fast, it seems. Well," he says, "I may as well have my breakfast anyhow."

'So he dives like an eel, and up he comes with a fine big cod in the jaws of him, and Nat and another hand bent on to that rope, and before you could have said marling-spike they had landed seal and cod all complete.

'The saddler put down the cod, looking a kind of discomfited like. "Oh, ye can go back again, my birkie," says Nat, "and have your own breakfast. This will last us for the day."

'And sure enough we killed and cooked the cod, and the seal had fair enough play, for he was left to fill himself in the sea till we had picked the last bone. And every day we did the same, all the time we lay on that berg. And it wasn't cod every day either; oh no, as often as not 'twas salmon, or hal'but, or young sturgeon.

'But all the while that iceberg was getting smaller and beautifully less, but at long last a merciful Providence sent a steamer our way, and so you see—— Easy pulling, boys! Way enough. There we are!—Jump on shore, Ben, and hand up the little lady.'

The seal was a baby one, and as lovely as a young lamb, and looked for all the world like a pretty infant swathed up to the eyes in soft white flannel. Only, no baby in all the wide world ever had such large and melting eyes.

'You've pulled well, lads,' said the mate, 'and all against the current too. So you can have fifteen minutes of a rest, a smoke, and a tot of rum each, then we'll start for off again.'

Lotty was charmed. She wanted to play at a game of romance, so she lifted the baby seal in her arms and went away with it to a hummock of snow on this great berg, quite out of hearing of anybody, and sat down with nothing before her except the world-wide waste of ocean that went stretching away without break to the haze of the limitless northern horizon.

She was trying to fancy herself all alone on the sea of ice, with only her fairy godmother who had for the time being turned herself into a beautiful wee baby sealkin.

CHAPTER XV.

'I WANT TO DREAM THAT DREAM AGAIN.'

THE baby sealkin became a great pet on board and a kind of bond of union between Ben and Lotty. This sailor wasn't much over sixteen, just young enough still to delight in a game of make-believe. So he was papa and Lotty was mamma to young Norlans. And without a doubt, Norlans was the sweetest and the prettiest and the best-behaved baby that ever lived, and boy and girl nursed it time about—that is, when Ben's watch wasn't on deck Norlans's fur was so long that it had to have a bib when it was being fed. There wasn't a cow on board, but there were lots of condensed milk and gulls' eggs, and a sop was made of these, which his little lordship condescended to suck up as long as Lotty kept a finger in his mouth and his nose in the bowl, but no longer. But he also had fresh fish, for they got becalmed on a sandbank, which no doubt had been an island once upon a time in the world's history, and Norlans's daddy got out his lines, and, baiting his hooks with only little tufts of gulls' white feathers, soon caught a tubful. The small ones were all kept alive to feed Norlans, and the pretty mite seemed to grow in strength and even size every day after this.

As the captain's wife was fond of pets of all kinds she made no objection to Lotty's taking Norlans down to the saloon and to the stateroom or sleeping-cabin every night. The latter was occupied now only by Mrs Skipper—as the men called her—and our heroine, Ben having been banished forwards, so that the mate had his bunk, and Paterson had the mate's cabin.

It is a fine thing for a sea-captain to be allowed to take his wife with him. It is romantic too, and makes a honeymoon last for years, if not for ages. Before getting spliced, which he was wise enough not to do until he was a full-blown master-mariner, Paterson had always looked forward to having his Maggie with him at sea. It had been the dream of his life, and lo! it was fulfilled, the fact being that the sailor had worked out its fulfilment. When visiting his fiancée while only a mate he used to sing to her snatches of an old song which I have almost forgotten; but one verse runs through my brain as I write:

Well, Norlans had any amount of nursing and really appeared to like it. If Lotty put him down on the quarterdeck he used to make the most ungainly efforts to waddle after her, often rolling over on his broad back in a very ridiculous attitude. He liked to be scratched under the chin and beneath the ear. He liked better to be nursed by his ma than his daddy; for when Lotty would say to Ben, 'Here, papa, you take Norlans for a bit,' the mite would roll those marvellous eyes of his round at the rough boy, then back pleadingly towards the gipsy lass's face; and if she said, 'Well, well, then, he sha'n't be taken by daddy,' he would nestle closer to Lotty, and soon be fast asleep. As Ben said, he could do with bucketfuls of sleep.

With fur four inches deep, one wouldn't have thought Norlans could have felt cold at night; but he was not averse, nevertheless, to be put to bed in his small tub rolled up in a red blanket. Then Lotty would sit down on a footstool beside him, and sing a cradle-song till he dropped off into 'little sweet snores' as she called them, and he never stirred till morning. Was he not, therefore, the best baby that ever lived?

The days were very short up north in these seas. A steamer would have been into her port long ago; but the Nor'lan' Star had to wait for the wind. Only, Lotty rather liked the length of the voyage than otherwise. By the time Saturday came round she had been nearly a week on board. Well, the skipper was fond of old-fashioned seaways, so he was wont to splice the main brace on this night, which means that all hands have extra grog and spend the evening singing and yarning and drinking to wives and sweethearts.

But Lotty had put Norlans to bed early, and was going herself soon after she had a warm bath. It was while assisting her that Mrs Paterson made a discovery which caused her to start and turn first red and then pale.

'Dear Mrs Captain, you're not ill, are you?'

'Oh no,' said the good lady, 'only a momentary spasm. Now it is gone.'

There was electric light in this cabin, which was really one of the prettiest staterooms any master-mariner could have wished to have. Of course his wife was the presiding genius; but without being at all overcrowded, because all the fittings were of fairy-like dimensions, it was really home-like and charming. Besides, a dear wee brass-domed stove burned cheerily in a corner, and altogether it was as much like the interior of a caravan as anything else.

To-night, after Lotty had got into her dressing-gown and hammock-socks, Mrs Paterson sat down on a low rocking-chair close to the fire, and took her on her knee. And there was a nice drink for both of them keeping hot on the stove-top, so one may easily guess they were cosy.

The skipper and mate were smoking and yarning outside in the saloon; but from the stateroom their voices sounded only like the happy murmur of the sea on a summer's beach.

What was the discovery the good lady had made? It was a birth-mark—nay, but two. And although such marks might be similar on two different people, so strange a coincidence has never, perhaps, been known. And so Mrs Skipper thought she knew now some secret of Lotty's history that the child herself was ignorant of.

A rocking-chair at sea is a delightful contrivance when the weather is fine, as it was to-night, and this one was swayed or swung only by the vessel's gentle motion. It is a dreamy, drowsy movement; but there was no thought of sleep in Lotty's mind at present, nor in Mrs Paterson's. Lotty would have preferred to listen to a story or to hear a song.

'Sure I'm not too heavy, nursie?'

'Oh no,' was the answer, 'you are very light. Besides, darling, it is not the first time that'—— Then she checked herself, and Lotty undertook to finish the sentence.

'Not the first time you've nursed a little girl, you were going to say.'

'Ye-es,' assented the other.

Lotty snuggled closer to her.

'I wish you were my mother. But I never had a mother, never, never, never. May I call you mammy?'

'You may call me mammy.'

Lotty had not seen that tear. This strange child had her sentimental moments, and had come through grief enough, goodness knows; but somehow mirth was never far away from sorrow.

'So now,' she cried, 'I have a ma, and Norlans has a grandma.'

'Lotty, think now,' said Mrs Skipper, 'were you always, always a little gipsy lass? Think back child.'

The girl sat up more, to look the better at the kindly face and eyes.

'Always,' she said slowly. 'Only,' she added, 'there have been times when, if I happened to be in the house of some rich and beautiful lady, reading her palm you know, mammy, I've thought it strange that many things I saw, which most gipsy girls might not have known the use of, were to me quite familiar.'

'Yes?'

'The first harp I saw did not seem to have been the first. When asked to play the piano, nothing about it struck me as new, and I felt familiar with even the smallest of my drawing-room surroundings.'

'Yes?'

'But I know how to account for all that.'

'Well, dear?'

'It all comes, mammy, of reading books of romance and stupidity; and some such stories I quite believed when quite a little tot, especially about the baronet's baby-boy who was stolen by a bad sweep, and who, years and years afterwards, was called to a great house to sweep chimneys and found his real mother, and lived happy ever after. But I'm wiser now, mammy dear. Now, mammy, will you do the first thing I ask you?'

'Yes, child.'

'Well, look there! I've finished my nice drink, and now sing me a song, and I'll fall as sound asleep as your grandchild Norlans. Then don't wake me, but just lift me into bed.'

Mammy had a sweet voice, and knew also how to modulate it, so softly, tenderly she sang:

If you know it not, oh reader! take lute or viol and learn it.

At the second verse Lotty had really dropped off to sleep; but as the last words died in cadence soft and sad away she started and shook back her yellow hair. Her open eyes had a strange wildness in them.

'Where—oh, where am I?'

Then she smiled and seemed to recover consciousness wholly; but she squeezed mammy's arm against her chest with a vice-like grip as she gazed into her face.

'Mrs Captain,' she cried, 'mammy then, I've had such a strange, strange dream. I thought—but never mind, only tell me this: Did you ever sing that strange song to me before? I have never heard it, and yet, mammy, I have. How is that? Can you explain?'

Mammy did not reply at once.

'I think—I—can—Lotty, child,' she answered slowly. Then more quickly, 'Oh yes, dear, when you have been asleep, I dare say I did sing it to myself, and you have half-heard me.'

'Yes, mammy, yes. That must be the explanation. But now, kiss me and put me to bye-bye. I want to dream that dream again.'

CHAPTER XVI.

SAFELY BACK TO ENGLAND.

But, somehow, when a captain takes his wife with him the whole tone of a ship is raised many degrees. But, over and above all this, Captain Paterson owned the ship, or most of her, for the mate and some others had shares, and this arrangement caused things to pull together better. This honest skipper was a good example of what industry and carefulness in business can accomplish, and love with honour, I may add; for he would have told you that the best thing ever he did was marrying Maggie, and taking her to sea with him.

Well, the Nor'lan' Star reached Trondhjem at last; and as the men were not drunkards, but knew how to use without abusing God's gifts, every man settled to work, and with the help of dockmen the unloading and the loading-up again proceeded regularly and peacefully enough, and was all over in a week. Then the orders were to clean ship before the granting of a few days' leave off and on to the watches. In a very short time all signs of the loading-up were obliterated, and from stem to stern the Nor'lan' Star looked as sweet and clean as a new half-crown.

Ben and the mate had been very busy up till now, but Mrs Skipper had taken Lotty on shore several times. The town, with its great cathedral, was in its winter garb; but they found the streets regular and wide, and even pretty, the older houses being of wood, plain in architecture, but very quaint. There were many fine shops too, and the people therein were kindly in the extreme. Everything here, especially about the suburbs, was very strange and foreign-like, but with none of the fussiness found in French ports, where it is mostly all palaver and insincerity. All her life at present was what, in the case of busy men who have been laid aside for a time by illness, doctors call 'an enforced holiday.' But it was a very delightful and restful one. She was free for a time from the drudgery of show-work, of having to sing and act to crowds of gaping rustics and others; free from the bullying and ill-treatment of her father, Biffins Lee. She only wished that Wallace had been with her now. As for the others—well, they would like her better when she came back from a watery grave, or, more plainly, when the sea gave up the one they all believed dead and gone.

But Wallace, what fun he would have had with little baby Norlans, and how he would have rolled him up and down the deck, but gone to sleep afterwards with the sealkin in his arms, like the good dog he was! A tub, both she and Mrs Skipper admitted, was an awkward and somewhat unsightly cot for the sealkin, so they had a look round the toy-shops, and at one they found an assortment of dolls as big as the baby-children of Anak must have been.

The shop-mistress curtsied and smiled, and felt certain the young lady would buy one. She raised a garishly dressed specimen as she spoke, which was half-doll, half-golliwog, and hideously ugly. But Lotty was not impressed. She was too old, she said, for dolls like that; but had the good woman bassinets for these?

'Oh yes,' she had, 'lovely little cradles, with rockers and all. Look!'

Lotty did look, and was delighted. These were just the thing for Norlans. How sweet he would show in one of these, with its tiny cushion, its muslin drapery, and its blanket of blue! And so one was bought and sent on board. That night Norlans was put to bed in it. Lotty sat down and rocked her baby; and as she rocked she sang a pretty cradle hymn:

And baby Norlans was willing to give himself up entirely to the luxury of the situation, and was soon sound enough asleep.

Then daddy Ben was called in—he had to walk on tiptoe—to take just one peep at him.

'Isn't he just lovelier than anything on earth, papa?' said Lotty.

'Lovelier,' replied Ben, 'than biled cockles, and every bit as white and clean.'

A day or two after this Lotty ran on deck when Ben was hung up as usual on a belaying-pin, the ship having been put to sea again, and it being the lad's watch off.

'Oh papa,' she cried, pretending to be awfully excited, 'you are to run down below at once. Grandma says Norlans has cut a "toofams."'

Of course a 'toofams' meant a tooth; and Ben, keeping up the game, went below at once and found it was the truth, and was wise enough to go into raptures over the pearly little appearance.

But, happy though his home was, it was evident enough that the sealkin retained a good deal of nature about him, and would fain have obeyed the call of the wild, and plunged right away down into the clear sunny sea, a blink of which he could catch through one of the scupper-holes on the lee side. And always now, when taken on deck for what Lotty termed his constitutional, it was towards a lee scupper-hole he crawled or waddled his way, and seemed never to tire watching the waves. Sometimes when there was a freshening breeze, with plenty of sail on her, the sea would gurgle up as she dipped to leeward, and some portion would be under water. Then Norlans spread his flippers at once and made pretence to swim, and had to be taken away to be towelled and placed in the sunshine to dry.

It was about this time that Mrs Skipper had a quiet talk with her husband, and told him about those curious birth-marks, and what she half-suspected, and what she was going to do about it. Even the mate was taken into confidence and his advice asked. But he had not much to give. He really was both innocent and good, but knew more about handling a ship than anything else.

'Seems to me, Mrs Captain,' this was all he said, 'as how it is a 'tarposition o' Providence from first to last. And He—the great Power above us all—does move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.'

'Well,' said Mrs Paterson, 'you are both men-people and have your reason to guide you. I am only a woman-person, and have merely my instinct; but, Providence here or Providence there, something tells me that a great wrong has been done to that dear child, and mebbe we may be put in the way to redress it.'

'That is,' said the mate solemnly, 'if your suspeecions is right, Mrs Captain. If they's wrong, then'——

'Well, then, of course, there will be no harm done, only we must take good care to say nothing to Lotty one way or another till we see.'

'That's right, that is right, Mrs Captain; and I'm truly glad I've given you good advice, which I hope you won't be above thinking over.'

As the honest mate had given no advice, one way nor another, it certainly would not take very long to think it over.

That was a somewhat rough and stormy passage homewards; but the wind was for the most part fair, and under such circumstances she 'skeeted' along like a water-witch, and in due time the cliffs of Old England hove in sight far off on the lee-bow, lying along like a gray cloud on the horizon.

Lotty could scarcely believe she was so near, for the voyage out had been a lengthy one, and so many things had happened since she was picked up by the Nor'larn' Star that she felt quite a year older at the very least.

That last evening the boy Ben was very sad indeed.

'Which,' he said to Lotty, 'we've 'ad a 'igh old time of it, missie; but lor! it's gone now, and we'll maybe never see ye in life again—no, nor Norlans either.'

'Oh,' said Lotty, with an attempt at good-humour, 'Norlans will be a big boy before he sees his papa again. I'm going to take him to camp, and some day, perhaps, his daddy will come right away down to see him, and his mammy also.'

'Am just a-goin' to live an' dream about that day, Miss Lotty; an' who knows but that when I'm a capting of a big ship you may not sail along o' me again.'

'Who knows?' answered the gipsy lass.

And the last thing the girl saw as she left by the gangway, which led over several vessels before she could reach the quay, was second-mate Ben gazing sorrowfully after her. There were tears in his eyes, too, that he had no need to be ashamed of.

And there was more than he looked after the little gipsy lass, and waved her a hearty good-bye, for her presence on board had really brought light and joy to many a man of the Nor'lan' Star.

There was nothing at present to keep Mrs Captain Paterson on the vessel, so she went with Lotty back home to her house in the outskirts. About all Lotty's luggage was Norlans in the bassinet, and that had been sent on before by a trusty messenger. There was a beautiful garden here, but just exactly what Norlans thought of it may never be recorded; for he was to be taken to the camp anyhow, and would be more at home within sound of the sea.

. . . . . . .

Just two days after this, Frank Antony Blake received a letter, and was a very happy man. It enclosed a note for Mr Biffins Lee. The letter to Antony was quite a girl's, round-hand, language, and all; but so innocent, for it gave Antony orders which he was to pass on to Mary, with a detailed list of the articles of clothing she was to forward to care of Captain Paterson of the bark Nor'lan' Star, Hull, and the amount of money Mary was to ask Biffins for and send with the things.

It is needless to say there was joy now in the camp, and somehow it seemed to communicate itself even to Wallace the Newfoundland. We never know just how much a dog understands. Mary was daft with delight. Chops was 'blubbering'—an ugly word; but it was one of the fat boy's own, and when interpreted means 'weeping.' For it is not grief only which is capable of bringing salt tears to one's eyes.

Frank Antony Blake did not take long to make up his mind as to what he should do on this occasion. He thought, anyhow, that a railway journey would do him no harm; but really, when he arrived at last, and Lotty threw herself right into his arms to do a good cry, he thought it was the most natural thing in the world to fold her to his breast.

He did not like Hull, simply because he did not like cities; and so, after thanking, and more than thanking, the captain, his wife, and mate for all their kindness to Lotty, and hoping to meet them again, he took first-class tickets, and soon the fast train was bearing them back to the north, baby Norlans and all. He had wired to Crona to have Wallace at the cottage, and she had gone over on purpose to bring the faithful dog to her hut.

But no pen could portray the delight of this dear fellow when he was sent off with a rush and a run to meet Lotty and Antony slowly winding their way uphill to Crona's cottage.

CHAPTER XVII.

LIFE ON THE ROAD IN THE 'GIPSY QUEEN.'

'That's biz, my son,' Biffins Lee had told him. 'Nothing done without advertising.'

He had swarms of answers, from 'legs' and others. It may be of some interest to know that a 'leg' is a worthless kind of scoundrel, with a straw in his mouth, who deals in horses and everything else that will enable him to turn a dishonest penny over. He calls his innocent victim a 'mug,' and when he finds one, he sets about the operation of playing him at once. There was very little of the 'mug' about Antony, and the fellows who tried to cheat him had to retire early, defeated. He succeeded at last in securing a team which it would have been difficult to beat anywhere, also a capital coachman as well as a groom. This last was a young and modest young fellow, whom, from his very looks, Antony concluded he could easily put up with, and he was not disappointed. He was to follow the caravans or be with and about them on his bike, assist the coachman, and with the latter put up every night at the hotel or inn at which the horses should rest.

Antony returned from the city bringing his nags and servants with him, and the whole were put under canvas until things were ready. And Biffins Lee did not in the least object to the 'Silver Queen' accompanying the saloon caravan. Indeed, had the whole British Empire belonged to this man he would have had no hesitation in selling it—for a consideration.

Antony would have taken Chops with him as well as Mrs Pendlebury and Lotty; but, as will afterwards transpire, the fat boy was a vital portion of the Queerest Show on Earth, and could not be dispensed with. He was a prop in more senses than one.

. . . . . . .

If there is any one thing more than another that youth is to be envied for it is its capability for enjoying life. Ah me! what fools those men and women are who set themselves to make vast sums of money against 'a time of pleasure that is to be,' which seldom comes. And even when the fortune is made, whether it be a million or a modest ten thousand, lo! when they proceed to settle down to lead a happy life they find that all power of enjoying anything is clean gone—and for ever. They find out their mistake when it is too late. They are on a par with the man who orders for himself a splendid repast, and after sitting down to table finds that he has not got the least bit of appetite; that, on the contrary, everything is distasteful to him. This is a sad state to be in. Young folks should glory in their youth, especially girls still in their teens. Yet it is ever the same saying with them: 'I wish I were away from school,' or 'I wish I were a grown-up girl;' and then, when the days come, as Solomon says, when they have no pleasure in them, how different is the tune they pipe! 'Heigh-ho!' they sigh, 'my happiest time was my girlhood, and I did not know. Will these delightful days never come again?' 'Never again!' answers echo; 'never again!'

There are many poems in our favourite Byron that bubble over with youth and life and freedom. Freedom ought to be the birthright of all. Hardly is there any one too old not to rejoice in it. But true freedom is probably only to be felt and enjoyed at sea or on the road in a caravan. It is much the same, and the writer of these lines should know, his earlier life being spent upon the ocean wave, his later on the road.

But do not the following lines from Byron's 'Corsair' sparkle with youth and life?