Mrs. Howard felt her heart cheered by the seaman's admiration of her boy. She took fresh courage, believing now that he would certainly get safe to shore. From the little window of the cabin she watched the boat leaning over to the sea, almost gunwale under, but scudding along under reefed mainsail and jib.

'Yes," she said to herself, "the Lord sitteth above the waterflood. He ruleth the raging of the sea. He walketh upon the wings of the wind.”

IT

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD SHIP INN.

In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.-Dickens.

T was late at night before young Tom Howard and the pilot brought their boat into harbour; and the short voyage, though it could scarcely be said to have been attended with much danger, was not performed without difficulty and inconvenience. Both the pilot and Tom were wet through before they reached the boat, but neither of them seemed to care very much about that. Tom had been furnished with a line, one end of which was held on the ship's deck, the other being passed round his body with a loop, or "becket," rather for security than use; but the boat having lurched just at the moment when he was about to spring into it he had narrowly escaped being dipped into the water, and the line, together with the pilot's strong arm, had rescued him. It was this that had called forth from the seamen the exclamation of alarm followed by a cheer which had reached Mrs. Howard's ears. Tom bore himself bravely under the trial, and as soon as he found himself safe on board the smaller craft, went and sat down under the

weather bulwarks, holding on to a rope's end. The pilot could not help looking at the boy with admiration, especially when he tried to get upon his feet in order to lend a hand in hauling at the sheet.

"You have been to sea before?" he said.

"Yes," said Tom; "but it's several years ago."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Now I am going to school."

"School!" said the pilot; "well, school is all very well for shore-going people; a year or two won't do you any harm, but you ought to be going to sea soon. You ought to be a sailor."

"By-and-by," said Tom, "perhaps." He did not like to think too much about it after what his mother had said.

"I don't hold with so much of that book-larning," said the pilot's mate, an old sailor, who was steering the boat. "I never had much on it myself. It was not the fashion when I was young, and there was as good sailors afloat in them days as ever there has been since."

"Hold your noise, Bill," said the pilot; but Bill was in a talkative humour, and though checked for the moment broke out again presently.

"It's a'most a pity for a youngster as is already fit to go to sea to spend his time turning over the leaves of a book. I don't see anything in it myself."

Bill could neither read nor write, and seemed to have a grudge against those who had been more fortunate in their education.

"Now I'll tell you a case in pint," he said. "Old Jack Dawes (Jackdaw, they used to call him), he larnt to read when he was about sixty year old; he could write afore that, though; write the whole Bible out, he said he could, though he couldn't read a word of it. Well, he larnt to read at last, and then he

said as he didn't like doing things by halves, and so he meant to read every book through as ever was wrote afore he died, and he had a big dictionairy and began with that; and he used to be at it every moment he could spare, column after column, spelling away at the letters just like my Sally shelling peas. The letters came apart easy enough, but he couldn't get them together again to make out what they meant, any more than you could fix the peas again in a row as they was; and if anybody said anything to him, he used to say, 'Ah,' says he, 'I should have begun sooner, that's all.' Well, and one day he was a sitting in a boat with the dictionairy on his knees, and there came a squall, and he had to let go the sheet as quick as ever he could, and in his hurry the dictionairy tilted overboard, and it was a good thing he didn't go after it, for he had like to have capsized the boat with his larning, and they couldn't neither on 'em swim, neither Jack nor the dictionary. So after that Jack gave up studying, and kept to his proper trade. The two things wasn't conformable; and not likely!"

Tom did not attempt to argue the point with the old sailor, but reminded him of the saying, "Learning is better than money and land."

"Yes, sir," said he. "Why and wherefore? When money and land is gone and spent, then larnin' is most excellent.' That's just what I say; it will be soon enough to think about book-larnin' when everything else is gone. You should be a sailor, sir; you was born for the sea-my notion."

"I love the sea," said Tom.

"It's your natur' like," the old man answered; "and you should follow natur'. Why and wherefore? Natur' knows best." "Do you think so? It does not always do, though, to be guided by one's inclinations. One cannot always do what one likes."

"No," said the old man, "that's true; I have heard that many a time. Case in pint. Case in pint. My old father used to say'Bill,' says he, 'it's a good thing to know where you are, and to be able for to lay your course sure and sartin, 'cause, if a seaman don't know where he is, why, where is he? But if so be as you are not sartin of your bearins, don't run before the wind, but sooner beat up agen it. Why and wherefore? 'Cause its easier sailing free than close hauled, and it's easier to go wrong than right in most things; so don't choose what's easiest.'"

"That's not a bad rule," said the pilot, who had been listening to the old sailor with apparent unconcern; "keep to windward when you are not sure of your bearings. It's not easy to recover a lee way."

The conversation was not carried on without interruption, and lasted till the boat was near the harbour. It was but a small port, available only for fishing and coasting vessels. The town was old, and inhabited chiefly by fishermen; a place of very little importance, except, of course, to the inhabitants. The pilot's home was there, and he would gladly have taken Tom Howard with him to his house and "turned him in," as he called it, for the night; but he feared the accommodation would not be quite equal to what the young gentleman had been accustomed to.

"Where are you going?" he asked him.

"To a hotel," Tom answered. "Can you tell me of a good

one ? "

"There's an inn," said the pilot; "the Old Ship. Mrs. Roseberry would make you very comfortable there."

"Old Ship!" Tom exclaimed; "that will do capitally. Where is the Old Ship?"

"I'll walk that way and show it you."

It was not far off; the bow-windows of the coffee-room looked out upon the quay. It was an old-fashioned, rambling

house, but had been "done up" and enlarged, with some pretensions to modern development, since the railway had been made with a station just outside the town. Comfortable! yes, it looked comfortable after the darkness and drizzle outside. The bit of red curtain in the bar parlour, visible from the open door of the house, the glasses shining in their racks, as if put there upsidedown for ornament and not for use, and the landlady, Elizabeth Roseberry, sitting in person at her needlework, with plump smiling face, a double row of neat ringlets, and a real cap upon her head, with frills and ribbons, contrasted favourably with the gloom and cold outside. Tom Howard began to be in want of comfort. The excitement of his sea voyage and the pilot's company had served to distract his thoughts for a time from the painful circumstances of his position, separated from all his friends and cast among strangers in a strange place. When he said good night to the pilot, and saw his boxes set down in the passage, and the door closed upon him, he felt as if the last link which bound him to all his friends was severed; and as he followed the waiter into the coffee-room, which happened just then to be empty, the feeling of desolation which came over him was a new sensation, and more depressing than anything he had before experienced in his short but already eventful life. The waiter turned up the gas and stood and looked at him. "What will you please to take, sir?" he said.

"Nothing, thank you."

I beg your pardon, sir," the waiter said, politely, as if he had not heard or could not receive such an order as "nothing, thank you."

"I don't want anything," Tom repeated.

"Oh, come!" the man replied, good-naturedly, supposing that the boy was shy, and not accustomed to manage for himself; "oh, come, that won't do, you know; after such a