to terra firma again, laying themselves flat on the gravel, and in their excitement making the business of rescuing poor Den longer than it need have been. I am sorry to say that the whole crew, Sunday scholars though they were, swore most heartily and fluently over the work. 'They'd pull him in pieces, and be pulled in pieces themselves, afore they'd leave holt on him," they declared. When he stood on his feet again, he looked a miserably limp and dripping object.

'Wring him out," shouted one, "afore we cart him up street to the master."

Their confidence in the schoolmaster's kindness was shown by the immediate impulse that prompted the boys to send one of their number to prepare the old man to receive Den in his half-drowned condition.

The kind schoolmaster looked very grave, but, without any words of reproof or questions, he called his daughter and gave the dripping boy into her charge, after assuring himself that beyond a ducking and a chill there was nothing serious the matter. Den was put to bed, a warm drink given to him, and his clothes were set before the kitchen fire to dry.

Then the master went back to the schoolroom and

lectured his pupils very severely on their heedless harum-scarum ways. The impression made by this was considerably lessened by one of the lads afterwards overhearing him tell his son that their pluck and prompt action was really very gratifying to him.

The evening hymn was sung at the closing of the school with special fervour, and Den, who was present, rather pale, but in dry clothes, was regarded as the hero of the moment.

The kind daughter of the house had bestowed so much care upon his drenched clothes that no trace of the accident was visible, and neither father nor mother heard of Den's immersion.

The next morning the schoolmaster called him to his side at the opening of morning school, and bade him read the lessons for the day, as was the usual custom, out of his cherished black - lettered Bible, standing at his side the while. No other scholar was ever allowed to do this, nor was any other able probably to read from it; but his father's kinsman,

-as such Denzil always spoke of the Portreeve,— had taught him the Old English alphabet. It always seemed a delight to the old gentleman to draw out the child's intelligence. Had Philip Magnier and his

F

relative been on happier terms together, Den's future would no doubt have been a more assured one, speaking from a worldly point of view. As it was, his visits to the house formed a large factor in his early education.

The schoolmaster's Bible was a masterpiece of printing and binding-a book to last for centuries. Each letter looked as clean and clear as if it had been brass. Although it was in the English language, it had not been printed in England. It was printed on the same tawny parchment-like paper as the few rare and valuable engravings which he possessed that had come from Holland. Heirlooms he said they were; they had been in his family for generations. There were dates and marks on them that confirmed his statement.

Some of the folks said that the grave-faced little scholar somewhat resembled the kindly old schoolmaster as he grew older. But they might also have said that of some others amongst his boys, all of whom looked up to him with love and reverence. He was alike kind to rich and poor. Good clothes or shabby ones, it made no difference to him what his scholars wore; and they all knew it, and blessed

him for it. When he died, he was regretted and missed by all of them. Many a hearty "God bless him" was spoken over the schoolmaster's grave. Philip Magnier went always to the old parish church, as all his relatives had done since they settled in Marshton; but his wife's people belonged, like most of the seriously-minded fishermen's families, to a Dissenting society; and after Denzil began to go to school, he felt a distaste to the sleepy services which he had always been obliged to attend with his father, and he begged to be allowed to go where most of his companions did on Sunday. Scoot and Winder were regular attendants at the Sunday-school of the Congregational Chapel. Dissent was strong in Marshton, and freedom in religious matters had been handed down to these people with their earliest traditions.

If Denzil preferred to go to chapel, said his father, why, then, he was free to do so; but go somewhere he must. He would have no Sabbath-breaking in his family. The children might choose for themselves when they are old enough to have serious thoughts on the subject, and then they must stick to their choice. Den, having a warmer feeling to

wards his fishing and fowling friends than towards. other classes in the town, went with them also in réligious matters. He still possesses the medal he received with other Sunday scholars, which was struck as a mark of remembrance and given to those who collected for that noted missionary ship the John Williams.

In all weathers the boy went with his fisher friends to the outdoor religious gatherings which were held on the flats. He was with them on one long-remembered day, with his true comrades Scoot and Winder, holding a hand of each, as they marched in solemn procession from their meeting-house in the fishing quarter of the town to the flats, singing as they walked. Will he ever forget that scene? First came the men in their heavy fishermen's boots and guernseys-bronzed, well set, stalwart figures many of them; after them walked the women, followed by the lasses without bonnets, their shawls thrown over their hair; next to the lasses came the children, with simple, earnest faces, full of the awe of the moment.

Forming a line on each side of this procession the fisher lads marched in time, singing that hymn of James Montgomery's, well known in the Kent marsh