for the gale was at our backs; and the
old hooker was like my father's black mare--you might guide her, but she
was neither to stop nor turn. How the gallant old boat held out as she
did, Heaven knows! It was not till the main-sail had split into ribbons
with a noise like a gun going off, and every seam was strained to
leaking, and the sea came in faster than we could bale it out, that we
righted Tim Brady's tub and got into her, and bade the old hooker
good-bye. The boat was weather-tight enough--it was a false move of
Barney's capsized her,--and I'd a good hold of her with one hand when I
gripped him with the other. Oh! Barney dear! Why would ye always have
your own way? Oh, why--why did ye lose your hold? Ye thought all hope
was over, darling, didn't ye? Ah, if ye had but known the brave hearts
that--"

I suppose it was because I was crying as well as Dennis that I did not
see Mr. Johnson till he was standing by the Irish boy's hammock. I know
I got a sound scolding for the state of his pulse (which the third mate
seemed to understand, as he understood most things), and was dismissed
with some pithy hints about cultivating common-sense and not making a
fool of myself. I sneaked off, and was thankful to meet Alister and pour
out my tale to him, and ask if he thought that our new friend would have
brain-fever, because I had let him talk about his shipwreck.

Alister was not quite so sympathetic as I had expected. He was so much
shocked about the crucifix and about Dennis praying for Barney's soul,
that he could think of nothing else. He didn't seem to think that he
would have fever, but he said he feared we had small reason to reckon on
the prayers of the idolatrous ascending to the throne of grace. He told
me a long story about the Protestant martyrs who were shut up in a
dungeon under the sea, on the coast of Aberdeenshire, and it would have
been very interesting if I hadn't been thinking of Dennis.

We had turned in for some sleep, and I was rolling myself in my blanket,
when Alister called me--

"Jack! did ye ever read Fox's _Book of Martyrs_?"

"No."

"It's a gran' work, and it has some awful tales in it. When we've a bit
of holiday leesure I'll tell ye some."

"Thank you, Alister."

CHAPTER VII.

"A very wise man believed that, if a man were permitted to make all
the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a
nation."--_Fletcher of Saltoun in a letter to the Marquis of