“Why, Geordie, man!” cried Sandie, “is it as bad as that with you?”

Geordie sprang up as if shot, and grew as red as a beet. He tried to hide the slate.

“Don’t trouble, Geordie; I’ve read it all, and really there is an anguish displayed in the first line of that last verse that is quite touching.

You come to a splendid climax with that last Tibbie. Shall I show it to my friend Willie?”

“Losh! man, no!”

“Or to Tibbie herself?”

“Loshie me! man, what can ye be thinkin’ o’?”

“But, Geordie, you don’t mean to say that verses containing so much sweetness and pathos as these are going to waste their sweetness in the desert air? I question if Bobbie Burns himself would have written anything like them.”

Geordie blushed again, and after much persuasion he agreed to write them out—when Sabbath came round—and permit Sandie to present them.

“Of course,” said Sandie, somewhat mischievously, “when I give Tibbie the poem, I will just brush the dew from her lips.”

“Oh, weel,” said Geordie resignedly, “I canna help that. You’ll do as you like about it.”

The dinner-hour in the hairst (harvest) field was the most delightful of all. The somewhat weary workers lay on the ground, or leant their backs against the stocks. Mrs. M‘Crae herself, with Elsie and Geordie, brought the dinner, and there was no want of appetite. The milk was of the creamiest, the mashed potatoes like snow, the oatcakes crisp and delicious, and the herrings done to a turn. Then there was curds and cream by way of dessert, to say nothing of “swack” cheese, and potato-scones to finish up with.

The happy harvesters felt like giants refreshed, and there would still be half-an-hour to rest.

That half-hour, however, was not spent in drowsy listlessness or sleep itself. No, for the laugh and the joke went round; then Willie or Sandie would always raise a song, a song with a chorus, and it was sweet to hear the girlish voices of Tibbie and Jeannie chiming musically in with this chorus.

Willie would have been nobody if he couldn’t have indulged in his joke, and there was one song he sang, the chorus of which, it will be admitted, was very witty indeed—that is, if brevity be the soul of wit.

Every line ended with the words—

Then “Chorus,” Sandie would shout.

But the song made everybody laugh all the same, and so some considerable good was accomplished by it.

. . . . . .

As far as the weather was concerned, the harvest was a delightful one, for the sun shone brightly every day, and there blew a gentle breeze to help to dry and “win” the corn.

As a crop, too, the yield was average, so Farmer M‘Crae was hopeful and happy.

Then came the day when “kliack” would be taken, that is, when the last or kliack sheaf would be cut.

As they neared the last “bout” cried Sandie, “Look out now, Geordie, for the kliack hare!”

It is very strange, but true, that a hare very frequently starts off from the last “bout” of corn that is cut on the harvest-field. This time was no exception.

A splendid long brown-legged beast darted off for the woods.

Up to his shoulder went Geordie’s old gun.

Bang!

The echo rang back from the woods, and went reverberating away among the rocky hills, but puss was intact. She gave her heels an extra kick, took to the forest, and was seen no more.

So the hare was declared to be a witch, and no more was said about it.

But now comes Elsie herself, and Willie runs to meet her and lead her forward by the hand. Right bonnie she looks in her dress of silken green with poppies in her hair.

She has come to cut the kliack sheaf. Right deftly she does it too, and binds it also with her own fair fingers.

Then cheers arise, three times three, that seem to make the welkin ring. Harvest is done, kliack is taken, and every heart rejoices.

By-and-bye, when the stooking is quite finished, all march merrily home.

Now, mark you this, reader, no vinous stimulant of any kind has been used while harvest work was in progress.

But now, in the kitchen, all hands, each with a spoon, surround a big table on which stands an immense basin of what is called meal and ale. I will tell you its composition: about half a gallon of oatmeal, mixed with good ale, sweetened with syrup, and fortified with a pint of the best Scotch whisky.

And hark! somewhere in that dish was Mrs. M‘Crae’s marriage-ring. So every mouthful had to be carefully examined by the tongue previous to swallowing, and the person who was lucky enough to find that ring would be married before the year was out.

When all this strange dish of brose was finished, and everybody averred he or she had seen nothing of the ring, everybody began to cast suspicious glances at everybody else.

But at long and last, noticing a strange light in Geordie’s eyes, Sandie jumped up, and seizing him by one ear, pulled it till the rustic poet’s eyes began to water.

“You’ve got it, Geordie! You’ve got it!”

Then, blushing like a beggar at a “bap” or a bun, Geordie confessed.

Everybody shook hands with him, and he felt the happiest man in all the parish.

But greater happiness still was in store for Geordie.

After the meal and ale, in some sly way or other, Sandie succeeded in obtaining private audience of winsome Tibbie.

“I’ve something to show you, Tibbie,” said Sandie.

“Nae possible!” said the artless lassie.

“Ah! but it’s fact. Geordie Black is in love with you, and he wrote you these beautiful verses. Come nearer and I’ll read them.”

“Nae possible!” said Tibbie.

While he slowly, and with much emotion, read these verses, Sandie encircled Tibbie’s waist with one arm.

I am not quite certain that this was necessary.

Tibbie blushed as Sandie read.

“Now,” said Sandie, “I’ll let you have them to keep for a kiss.”

“Nae possible!” said Tibbie. But the bargain was concluded all the same.

Next evening all the lads and lasses in the countryside gathered at Kilbuie to the kliack-ball, and if Geordie danced once that evening with artless Tibbie, he danced with her fifty times.

Geordie was in the third heaven.

Tibbie was kind.

CHAPTER II

“REMEMBER, REMEMBER THIS FIFTH OF NOVEMBER”—MACLEAN’S ROOMS

Castlegate, let me tell you, is a large square formed at the junctions of those splendid pearly-walled thoroughfares, Union and King Streets. It has a granite statue of the Duke of Gordon, a fine old cross similar to that in Chichester, and some other ancient cities, also a few pieces of cannon captured from the Russians at Sebastopol.

In a line with King Street, and from the other side of the square, runs Marischal Street, which is very steep, and leads direct to the quay, where lie the ships. This is all I wish you to remember.

On this particular 5th of November, it did not appear that there would be any greater excitement than usual.

“Only a bit of fun and a few fireworks,” Willie explained to Sandie, and thus induced him to come along.

But by nine o’clock, not only was the square densely thronged by a mob bent on merriment and mischief, but all the streets leading thereto.

About half-past nine the fun waxed fast and furious. Even had they tried, the police force would have been powerless to clear the Castlegate. They would have but infuriated the mob, and an Aberdeen mob, if it loses its temper, is very terrible indeed, as witness the meal-mobs and the Chartist riots.

The discharge of fireworks was incessant and marvellous. Pyrotechny was there in every form. Rockets, Roman candles, St. Catherine wheels, even dangerous maroons; while as for squibs, the deft young fellows stuck them in pistols, lit them, and fired them in the air, or in through open first-floor windows, much to the terror of those leaning over to gaze at the pandemonium going on beneath.

Nearly everybody had their jackets closely buttoned up, but crackers and squibs were lit and thrust into every available pocket that could be seen. Many thus had their clothes burned and ruined.

A little after ten o’clock, policemen and watchmen, full ninety strong, made their appearance in marching order, and attempted to clear the square. They had no truncheons, only simply their sticks. Their endeavours, however, were utterly unsuccessful. If the crowd disappeared before them at one place, it was only to bank up in double force in another.

The police were good-natured.

“Gang hame noo, like good bairns,” was about all they said.

But the action of one townsman—I am glad to say he was no student—precipitated a crisis at last. He was foolish enough to seize a watchman and attempt to throw him. Both men came heavily to the ground, then others took the townsman’s part, and in less time than it takes me to write it, truncheons on the one side, and heavy bludgeons on the other were drawn, and blood flowed like water. Ninety men opposed to about two thousand have little chance, despite the fact that they have law on their side, so the upshot of the collision was that in twenty minutes’ time the Bobbies and Charlies were beaten back, and had to take refuge behind the Town Hall.

“Hadn’t we better get home now?” said Sandie. “If I am found or captured in this crowd I shall lose my bursary, and that means ruin.”

“Father,” said Willie exultantly, “will be out before long to read the Riot Act. After that you know the soldiers will come. We shall make a move just before that.”

But now the riot entered upon a new phase. Some one raised the cry “A boat! a boat!” and in a moment it spread like wildfire through all that vast determined mob.

Sandie and Willie had only time to back into an entry, when the crowd went surging past them, one vast human river, flowing down Marischal Street towards the harbour.

They seemed to have been gone no time when they were back again, singing and yelling and shouting triumphantly, as they dragged a boat along.

Where, I wonder, did the hammers come from? I cannot answer, but here they were.

Bang, bang, smash, smash, and in a very few minutes the broken timbers of the boat were piled in a heap in the middle of the square.

Where did that bucket of tar come from? I cannot even answer that. But it was poured upon the woodwork, and the bucket itself was left on top.

Then a light was set to the pile, and in a few minutes the flames were ascending sky-high. Every house around stood out in bold and fiery relief, and the Duke’s monument looked like a martyr at the stake.

“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the frantic mob. Then in a huge circle they joined hands and danced around the blazing fire, just as many a time since have I seen savages in Central Africa do.

How they yelled! How they shouted! How they sang!

But the fire began to burn dull and low at last, and just about this time there arose a shout of alarm: the Provost in his robes was coming in an open carriage to read the Riot Act.

“Come now, Sandie,” cried Willie, “we’ve had enough fun for one night. Father musn’t see me here.”

Nor did he.

Indeed, he saw but very few.

For the mob had no wish to have a collision with the soldiers—“the gallant Forty-twa,” so they melted away like snowflakes in a river, and truly speaking, the Act was read to the dying embers of the fire.

One large party of students had still a little fun left in them, however. They formed fours-deep, and went marching off down King Street, singing “The Land o’the Leal.”

For the life of him the douce Provost could not help laughing, as they went filing past his carriage.

Willie went with Sandie to his attic, and Sandie’s little busybody of a landlady placed before them a delicious supper of mashed potatoes, stewed tripe, and fragrant coffee.

“Glad we’ve got safe home,” said Sandie. “Aren’t you, Willie?”

“Oh, delighted, but I must say I enjoyed myself immensely. That bonfire was a beauty. I hope my dear old father won’t catch cold. And the soldiers will have nothing to do, if they do come, but drown out the dying embers of the fire.”

. . . . . .

The great prize of sixty pounds, tenable for two years, was to be competed for at the end of the present session. There were in reality two, one for Greek, the other for higher mathematics, but it was to the latter Sandie determined to bend all his energies, as he thought the competition would not here be so great.

Next to Sandie, if not indeed superior in this branch of the curriculum, was a Highland student of the name of Maclean, with whom I must now make the reader better acquainted.

Sandie, by the way, had made quite enough at the herring-fishing to render him independent of his dunderheaded pupil for one session at least; and for this he felt he could not be too thankful.

Maclean and he one day, while sauntering arm-in-arm along Union Street, deep in the mysteries of x + y, entered into a compact to study together. One evening it was to be in Sandie’s garret, and the next in Maclean’s diggings, as he termed his lodgings.

The first grind took place in our hero’s attic. At one o’clock, when both parted for the night, they each agreed that the evening had been most profitably spent.

Next night, at eight o’clock, Sandie, after some difficulty, found his way to Maclean’s door. The house in which the lodgings were was a somewhat cheap and unsavoury thoroughfare off George Street.

The stairs were sadly rickety, the house itself was not a sweet one. From a room on the ground-floor issued the scraping of a vile old fiddle, accompanied by the scuffling of feet, and every now and then an eldritch shriek of laughter. But Sandie went onwards and upwards, and on the top floor of all a door was suddenly thrown open, and Maclean held out his hand to welcome him in.

A great oil lamp was burning on a table at one end of the long room. This lamp served for heat and light both, for there was no fire. In fact, these students—of whom there were four in all living in this one room—could not afford fire except to cook.

“You are right welcome, Mr. M‘Crae,” said Maclean.

Then he pointed to another young man who sat book in hand by the table.

“My brother,” he said; “he is at the grammar-school, but he won’t disturb us. Now,” he continued, “look around you, and I’ll put you up to our domestic economy and household arrangements. To begin with, you know we are all as poor as rats, though all bursars, and we all mean to study for the Church, or to be teachers at least. Yonder, in that bed, are the brothers Macleod. They come from our parish. Well, you see, they go to bed—we only have one—at seven and sleep till one. My brother and I study till one, then we have the bed and they begin their studies, though often enough they curl up in their plaids and have a few more hours on the floor.”

“Yes, I understand, and I don’t blame them.”

“Well, we have no landlady. The few sticks of furniture you see are all hired, except the frying-pan and other cooking utensils. These we bought. We are not going to invite you to dinner, Mr. M‘Crae, because our fare is far too meagre.

“You see those barrels? Well, two contain herrings, salt and red, one contains nice oatmeal, and the small one pease-flour. And with the addition of milk that is brought to us every morning, and now and then an egg, and a bit of butter, with always a nice sheep’s head and trotters on Sunday, I can assure you we live like fighting-cocks. Don’t we, Donal?”

“That we do,” said Donal, looking smilingly up from Xenophon’s Anabasis.

And poor though an Englishman would consider fare like this, it must be confessed that the two Macleans were as hard and brown as hazel-nuts upon it.

“And now then, my friend, if you are ready, let us begin the grind.”

And the “grind” was commenced accordingly. And hardly did those earnest plodding students lift head except to address each other in low monotones, till forth from the great steeple of the East Church peeled the solemn stroke of one.

Then Maclean closed his books with a bang and jumped joyfully up.

“Turn out the Macleods,” he shouted as loud as he could. “One o’clock, my hearties. Turn out! Turn out! There, Donal! pull the blankets off them while I see Mr. M‘Crae safely down the rickety old stairs.”

He lit match after match for this purpose.

“Don’t lean on the bannisters,” he said, “else over you go.”

Sandie was safe in the street at last, and bade his friend good-night, just as every watchman in the city with stentorian lungs was bawling—

“Past one! Pa-a-ast one-n-n,” with a long ringing musical emphasis on the “n” of the one.

Sandie went homewards happy enough, and just a little tired and sleepy, but he had found out one truth, namely, that poor though he himself might be, he was not, by a long way, the poorest student at the great Northern University.

Sandie and his friend Maclean kept up their mathematical studies together in the most friendly way till the very last day. Everybody knew that the prize lay between these two hard-working students, and it came to pass that when the day of competition arrived at last, and Sandie and Maclean found their way to the class-room where the papers were to be given out, they only found two other opponents there, and both left within an hour without handing in a paper.

The Professor looked up from his desk and smiled.

“When Greek meets Greek,” he said, “then comes the tug of war.”

CHAPTER III

“WE HAVE BEEN AS BROTHERS: WE ARE BROTHERS STILL”

Do not smile, O thoughtless reader. I myself, the writer of this true story, have had in my time the most marvellous answers to prayers, and I do not think I ever prayed for anything fervently, earnestly, without my prayer being granted.

Sandie soon found that he could do every portion of the exercises, difficult though they were, except one. That he could not bring out. After finishing all the rest, he pored and posed over this for one long hour. His head felt splitting in twain, strange nervous tremors ran along his limbs, and the cold sweat burst out from every pore.

At last a strange drowsiness stole over him. He put up his feet upon the seat, leaned his head upon his folded hands, and fell fast asleep.

Now, account for it as you may, reader, account for it if you can, I but state a fact when I say that in a dream Sandie got out of his difficulty, and saw the question written plainly out before him.

He was hardly awake when he sprung up and recommenced to write, fast and faster, and presently the thing was done.

“Hurrah!” he shouted, “Eureka!”

He really could not help it.

The Professor looked a little surprised, but smiled.

“I hope you enjoyed your nap,” he said.

“Did I sleep long?” said Sandie.

“Only two hours.”

“Oh dear, Professor, I am very very sorry, and I see Maclean has gone. It was cruel of me to keep you.”

“All right, my lad; don’t mention it. Are you ready now?”

“I shall just write a clean copy of this last, then I’m done.”

In fifteen minutes more he had handed in his papers. The Professor shook him by the hand, and he went away happy and hopeful.

But he did not remain long so, for while at tea, about an hour after, on looking over his papers he discovered a mistake he had made, which threw him into the lowest depths of despair.

He had scarcely finished, when there was a modest knock at the door, and his friend Maclean himself entered, smiling too.

“He is the winner,” said Sandie to himself, when he saw that smile.

“May I come in?”

“Don’t ask such a question; you know you are as welcome as the primrose in spring!”

Maclean seated himself on the edge of a chair.

“Mr. M‘Crae—Sandie,” he said, “if you don’t win this £60 prize, I will.”

“True!”

“And, Sandie, if I lose, you will win.”

“Naturally!”

“But I haven’t flattered myself I shall win, so don’t think it will keep me awake at night if I don’t.”

“Bravo! Maclean. Spoken like a true Highlander.”

“But, Sandie——”

“Yes, Mac!”

“I want you to promise me one thing, and the same promise do I now make to you.”

“Name it, lad.”

“I promise faithfully that whichever way the prize goes, it shall not alter my friendship for you.”

“And I promise the same, Mac.”

“Shake hands.”

“Will you have a cup of tea? Do.”

“Well, I will, to please you.”

“And now,” said Mac, when tea was finished, “suppose we compare papers.”

“Right; but, Maclean, I tell you to begin with, that when I handed in my work, I thought it was sine errore, but only a few minutes ago I discovered an egregious mistake. So I fear I have little chance.”

The landlady came at Sandie’s summons—there was no bell; he simply knocked on the floor with the heel of his boot. She cleared the table and placed thereon cold water and glasses.

Then those two anxious young men drew near, and first Sandie’s papers were carefully gone over. No mistake but the one could be discovered.

“If you are right,” said Maclean, his hopes going down to zero, “then I’m very far out of my reckoning in many things.”

And so it really seemed.

Sandie took very great pains, but could not help condemning more than one of Maclean’s exercises.

Maclean leaned back in his chair at last and heaved a deep sigh.

“What is to be will be,” he said resignedly. “Sandie, you are the lucky man.”

“Maclean,” said Sandie innocently, “I begin to think I am. Oh, would we could both get a prize!”

“Maclean,” he said, after a pause, “we have worked and toiled together all throughout the weary winter. We have been as brothers. We are as brothers still. We are both poor, but, Mac, you are the poorer. It seems certain this prize is mine; let me share it with you. I can rub along, God helping me, with half of it.”

The tears sprang to poor Mac’s eyes.

“Och, and och,” he said, rapidly dashing his hand across his face, “I never thought the man was living who could bring tears to the eyes of a Maclean, whose forbears fought and bled at Culloden. Sandie, if anybody but yourself had made me such an offer, it is wild with the anger I would have been. But you are like a brother. Promise never to repeat the offer, and I’ll forgive you. Never will a Maclean touch the copper penny he has not won or earned. Promise!”

“I promise, and crave your forgiveness—brother.”

. . . . . .

Yes, Sandie was declared victor.

And just an hour afterwards, a little boy with a buff-coloured envelope appeared at the door of Kilbuie house. Elsie flew to meet him, and went rushing in with the telegram to her mother.

Mrs. M‘Crae’s hand shook so, she could not open it, so Elsie tore it open.

Her face sparkled with joy when she read the glad tidings.

About the same time another telegraph-boy put in an appearance at the manse of Belhaven.

This message was addressed to Maggie May. It was the first telegram ever she had received in her life. She read it a dozen times over, ay, and kissed it. Then she went joyfully bounding down the road to meet her father, who had been paying visits in the pony trap.

“O father, father! what do you think?” she shouted.

“Oh, I can guess.”

“Yes, Sandie has won! Oh, isn’t it nice? oh, isn’t he clever?”

She jumped up beside her father as she spoke, that with his own eyes he might read the joyful news.

“So glad, so glad!” he said with moistening eyes. “He is our own boy—so glad!”

. . . . . .

I may state here at once, that both sums of £60 each, that were paid to Sandie during the next two years, were placed carefully away in the North of Scotland Bank. They would come in handy later on, when he commenced the study of Divinity.

Meanwhile, Sandie relaxed no effort to keep well ahead of his classes. He determined not only to pass his examinations for his Bachelor of Arts degree, but to pass with honours.

With this end in view, I am bound to say that he studied harder than he ought to have done.

Sandie was, however, much reinvigorated in health from his herring-fishing cruises, which he took every summer. But he never sailed again from Blackhive. The memories of the sad deaths of poor Eppie and her wee man were far too painful, and he wished rather they should die away than revive.

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

It is the end of the last session of the curriculum. Sandie and several others are to be capped and gowned in the great hall, as they have their degrees conferred upon them.

The ceremony is a very pretty, not to say an impressive one, and the hall is crowded with lady sight-seers, chiefly the friends and relations of the young Masters and Bachelors of Arts.

Among these is a young girl of about sixteen, so innocently beautiful that many an opera-glass is turned towards her by the students—who as a class are by no means shy. She sits by the side of an elderly clergyman with mild blue eyes and a pleasant smile. The girl is Maggie May, the gentleman her father. Next her on the other side is Elsie herself, flanked by Willie Munro. She too is beautiful, and commands a greater share of attention than she desires, for more than once the colour suffuses her face, and she feels anything but happy.

When Sandie was receiving his degree, so great was the silence you might have heard the proverbial pin drop, especially when the Principal of the University addressed him in words somewhat as follows:—

“I cannot let this opportunity pass, Mr. M‘Crae, of congratulating you on the most successful career you have sustained at this University. My brother Professors all agree with me in saying you have been an honour to the great Northern University. We all wish you long life and good health. If you have this latter blessing, we do not fear for your success in life.”

Then every Professor shook Sandie kindly by the hand, while the cheering of his fellow-students was like thunder itself.

. . . . . .

It was all over now, and it is no wonder that reaction came on, or that depression succeeded to the long-continued excitement of study.

Sandie was home at Kilbuie, and Willie—merry-hearted Willie, who never let anything trouble him long—was on an early summer visit to the farm.

But do what he could, he was unable to rouse Sandie from the seeming lethargy into which he was sinking.

Sandie was changed too, and changing still. His cheeks and temples had become more hollow of late; there was a red spot beneath each eye that his mother did not like; he had lost much of his strength, perspired more easily than he ought to have done; his voice was weak, and, worst symptom of all, he sometimes had a hollow cough.

Willie went straight away to Aberdeen one day, and when he returned next forenoon Dr. Kilgour was with him.

He most carefully examined our ploughboy-student, then he said to him—

“You’re a sensible youth, so I can speak to you straight. If you can get away to sunnier climes for a year, including a long sea-voyage in a sailing ship, you’ll return as hard as a hunter. If you don’t do this, you are booked for the other side of Jordan.”

The rough but kindly doctor told his mother the same, and she began to cry.

“Oh,” she moaned, “if my boy goes to sea, I shall never never see him more!”

“Tuts! woman, don’t be a fool. I tell you it is his only chance. You are bound to let him go—so there!”

. . . . . .

There was that sum of £120 lying untouched in the bank, and this Sandie determined to devote to the payment of his expenses. If it pleased God, he said to himself, to bring him back from sea safe and well, he would be able by teaching to make enough to pay his divinity classes.

So he commenced at once to get ready his outfit.

There was a hopeful pleasure in even this, and while so engaged Sandie believed himself getting better already.

The parting from his parents and Elsie, and from Maggie May and the minister, would, he knew, be painful enough, but then there was Hope to sit up aloft and breathe the flattering tale.

One day Willie, who had been to Aberdeen, burst into Sandie’s room in a state of joyful excitement. He was waving aloft a curious-looking document, which was half printed, half written.

“Hurrah!” he cried. “Now, Sandie, I’m going to astonish you. Better catch hold of something for fear you fall. Do you know the Tomlisons, the rich shipowners?”

“By hearsay, Willie.”

“Well, they know you by hearsay. They know all your strange story, and all your hard struggles, and they have heard about your illness, and even got Dr. Kilgour’s report, and they have sent you a free pass to Australia, round by the Horn.”

“Oh, how kind!” cried Sandie. “But, Willie, can I in honour accept?”

“If you didn’t accept, I should look upon you as a pagan, Sandie. Sit down there at once, and write and thank them.”

And Sandie did.

CHAPTER IV

THE DANGER AND DIFFICULTY WAS TO COME

Both Sandie and Willie—yes, Willie had won his father round to let him accompany his friend on his long, long voyage. Both Sandie and Willie, I was going to say, have got over their little experience of mal de mer, and have also acquired their sea-legs.

So, although the ship bobs and curtsies and coquettes with each advancing wave, it does not annoy our heroes in the least.

And although Sandie is wrapped in a warm Highland plaid, and looks in the moon’s pale rays somewhat of an invalid, he seems already to have regained much of his former heartiness and spirit.

The men forward are lazily leaning over the bows smoking and yarning; the midshipman of the watch paces rapidly up and down, watching sail and sky, now and then admonishing the man at the wheel to keep her full. He really seems speaking for speaking’s sake, as middies sometimes do.

Presently Sandie stoops down to pat and pet a dog, who has been following up and down, close at their heels.

“Dear old Tyro!” he says; “what a happy thought it was to take you, and what a delightful sailor-dog you do make!”

And now the lid of the after companion is pushed open, and, just like a jack-in-the-box, up pop a head and shoulders.

The rest of the body follows, and next minute the captain himself approaches the spot where our heroes are standing together, holding on to the mizzen rigging.

“And how are you by this time, Sandie, man?” he says right cheerily.

Sandie answers quite as cheerily, and conversation becomes general.

The captain is a short, stoutish individual, very rosy and jolly as to face, very white as to whiskers and hair. His age might be sixty-and-five, but he has all the activity of a youth of twenty.

It seems to me, to put it parenthetically, that a life on the ocean wave really tends to keep people young. Somehow, it makes men brave, because they are always face to face with danger, till in course of time they become so inured to its presence that they can afford to despise it. The sea gives health and strength too, and these in turn give contentment and jollity; and if a man has this, he is bound to feel young, and look young also. There is some truth, therefore, in the term “A jolly tar.”

“And now, boys,” says the captain, “come down to supper. I promised to look after you, and faith I’m going to do my duty.”

The table was already laid, with plenty of delicious cold meat and vegetables, to say nothing of pudding and sweets.

The first mate sat at one end of this table, a tall, brown-faced, swarthy individual, with shoulders of wondrous breadth, and hands as big as spades, more or less. But he had a right merry twinkle in his eye, especially when the captain asked him to join him in a glass of rosy wine. The rosy wine, I may inform you, was nothing more nor less than rum.

After supper the midshipman came down, having been relieved for a spell by the second mate, who lived forward with other petty officers and an apprentice or two.

Then Robins, the mate, got out his Cremona. He was a truly beautiful performer. His magic shifting and his weird tremolo made you imagine you were in a dream, a dream from which you hoped never to be awakened.

Even his playing of so simple an air as “Black-eyed Susan” transformed the whole melody, and caused one to think the composer must really have been a genius.

Willie, who was no mean player on the piano, used often to accompany the mate. He did so to-night.

The captain seated himself in his easy-chair to listen, folding his hands in front of him, after putting his red silk handkerchief over the bald spot on the top of his head.

But seven bells rang out at last, and saying “good-night,” Sandie and Willie retired to their state-room, and were soon snug in the arms of Morpheus. As he lay down, that old hymn-song that Willie and the mate had played kept ringing in Sandie’s head—