die is thrivin' on the food here, I must say.
There's a red in his cheeks I haven't seen for months; but what with the
rocks and the seas and the Devil's Jaw foreninst them, it will be the
mercy of God if I get the four boys safe home."

"You needn't fear," was the cheering assurance. "They are fine, strapping
fellows, and a touch of sailor life won't harm them; though it's plain
them two big chaps and little Polly's boys are used to softer quarters.
But for a long voyage I'd ship Mate Danny before any of them."

"Ye would?" asked Brother Bart.

"Aye," answered Captain Jeb, decisively. "Don't fly no false colors,
sticks to his job, ready to take hold of anything from a lobster pot to a
sheet anchor,--honest grit straight through. Lord, what a ship captain he
would make! But they don't teach navigation at your school."

"I don't know," answered Brother Bart. "I'm not book-learned, as I've told
ye; but there's little that isn't taught at St. Andrew's that Christian
lads ought to know; to say nothing of God's holy law, which is best of
all; but of navigation I never hear tell. I'm thinking it can't be much
good."

"No good!" repeated the Captain, staring. "Navigation no good! Lord!
You're off your reckoning thar sure, Padre. Do you know what navigation
means? It means standing on your quarter-deck and making your ship take
its way over three thousand miles of ocean straight as a bird flies to its
nest; it means holding her in that ar way with the waves a-swelling
mountain high and the wind a-bellowing in your rigging, and a rocky shore
with all its teeth set to grind her in your lee; it means knowing how to
look to the sun and the stars when they're shining, and how to steer
without, them when the night is too black to see. Where would you and I be
now, Padre, if a navigator that no landlubbers could down had not struck
out without map or chart to find this here America of ours hundreds of
years ago?"

"I'm sure I don't know," answered Brother Bart. "But there seems to be
sense and truth in what you say. It's a pity you haven't the light of
Faith."

"What would it do for me!" asked Captain Jeb, briefly.

"What would it do for you?" repeated Brother Bart. "Sure it's in the black
darkness you are, my man, or ye wouldn't ask. It's sailing on the sea of
life ye are without sun or stars, and how ye are to find the way to heaven
I don't know. Do ye ever say a prayer, Jeroboam?"

"No," was the gruff answer. "That's your