"There's one above knows how proud I was of you, when I first larned you to knot and splice, and you took it so kindly. They may talk o' yer long shore larning, Jem, when the schoolmaster overhauls the slack of his native tongue, and puts the gear together by book work, but what's that to showing a lad how to use a marlin-spike,* or lay the strands of two ropes together, so as to make 'em into one. Many an hour, Jem, have I stood at the binnacle to larn you how to box the compass, and it did my ould heart good when you took your first trick at the weather wheel, and kept her course so steady, that you might have shoved the end of her flying jib-boom into a mosquito's eye." The old man's face here glistened at the remembrance.

"And then, Jem, when the skipper hailed * An iron instrument used in splicing a rope.

To box the compass is to repeat the names of the whole 32 points, beginning at the north, and going round to north again.

The situation of the steersman when steering. In large ships there are always two men, one on the weather side of the wheel-an able seaman, and another to leeward, generally a landsman.

you so confectiously, that ere time arter the heavy squall, in which you hauled out the weather earing of the main-top-sail, though all hands desarted from the yard, and he called you a brave lad, and sent for the clerk to rate you A. B.* in the muster-book; it was a glorious day to me, Jem, every pulse in my body seemed to be piping to joy, for there was a sentiment within that made me all over I don't know how, and it forced the spray into my scuppers, and says I to myself, that ere's the boy that will set up the standing backstays of his ka-racter byand-by, and blow high or low will always be found at his duty.' And so you was, Jem, whether it was the voice of the Almighty moving upon the waters, or the thunder of man's invention in rattling broadsides, it was a cordel to my soul to see how nobly you answered the signals of my hope-every word of praise from the skipper's lips, was to me like a fair wind to a heavy laden marchant

The distinguishing letters to denote an able seaman, which entitles the man to increase of pay and more prize money.

con,

man-and I thought to myself as I stood upon the weather quarter-deck, Jem, at the I thought to myself, 'Dick, no fear of the colours being struck arter you're hove down for a full due; if all our lads as is rising keep their weather eye up like Jem,' for Here the old man paused, overcome by his emotion, and taking a severe bite at his pig-tail, so as to raise a huge hillock in his cheek, he quietly seated himself by the side of the unhappy captive.

With varied sensations, according to the veteran's discourse, did Collins listen to the well-meant, though distressing harangue-it renewed many a bright vision of the past, when honours and distinction were his own; but only increased the bitterness of his anguish when he gazed at the shackles upon his legs, and thought upon that ignominious end which inevitably awaited him.

"I have turned it all over in my own mind from clew to earing, messmate. I've slued my memory eend for eend, for I arnt been houlding on by the slack here, day after day, in loneliness and silence-like a wreck

cut adrift from every hope, and not never a precious soul to care whether I foundered at my anchors. You see I'm moor'd rogues fashion, by the heel instead of the head-but I was a saying, here I have been many a long hour by day, and many a dreary watch by night, without never a soul to care whether I sunk at my anchors or was run down." The speaker shook his head-" run up I mean, for that will be my fate, Dick, as sure as we are here lying alongside of each other. I know it, messmate, for t'other night the purser's dip in the jolly'st lantern, parted in a midships, and the top hung all down a cock-bill, and the tallow run, and shewed me the thing as clear and as plain as the tableland at the Cape, when the devil has folded his dinner cloth."

up

"Them are things that arnt by no matter o' means to be despised, Jem," said the quarter-master, seriously. "Natur has her own way of working her traverses, for the on

* A small candle, about twenty to the pound, served out by the purser.

† Jolly is the nickname among the sailors for a marine.

larned in book lore, and many a wise and prudent lesson may be gained from nothing more than a purser's dip, if so be as there arnt never no other means handy. Howsomever, Jem, don't go for to abandon the craft 'cause the pumps may be choked —many a weather beaten hull has rode out the gale, or watched for a lull, and got safely into port, as expected to go down in deep water, or beat to pieces on the rocks. Not but what I'm thinking you've got right slap into the bight of a gallows bad job; and honour bright, I cannot help saying, that if you gets off from going to heaven in a sling, it will be touch and go with you. But then touch and go is good pilotage, Jem,—you may get your bottom scraped, and lose some of your sheathing, yet, messmate, there's docks enough to repair a damaged ka-racter, and then you can keep full-and-by for the rest o' your days true to your king and country, and faithful to your colours. To be seized up by a few foxes at the gangway, is not so

* A fox is made of four or five rope yarns twisted up together by the hand.