hildren. When his wife died and he
retired from the service, he found his hands full, with the most unruly
crew that he had ever encountered in his long naval career. Not gifted
with much patience, he soon gave up trying to guide the helm of that
unmanageable ship, his own home. Betaking himself to his special
hobby, which was the compiling an epitome of all the naval engagements
that have taken place within the memory of man, he left his boys and
girls to grow up anyhow or, to put it more exactly, just as they
pleased. His conscience was satisfied when he had placed his young
folk in the hands of one whom he knew to be a genuinely upright
Christian gentleman, Philip Price, the tutor from Brattlesby town.

The boys themselves were no fools. They knew in their hearts that it
was but a slack rein that guided them. There was a good deal of
forcibly put justice in the suggestive question of Binks, and for a few
seconds Alick, nonplussed, kept silence, swinging his feet a little
faster under the fire of the sharp, light eyes that glinted from
beneath the old man's bushy eyebrows.

'But--but, I say, it's Price's business to teach. That's what he has
got to do, you know!' he stammered out at last, rather uneasily.

'P'raps you was a-goin' to say as it was what he was made for,
purpose-like!' observed Binks ironically. 'Well, maybe so! And, maybe
also, who can tell, it's what the Lord has made you for likewise,
Muster Alick. Time may come as you'll be tramping every day, wet or
dry, to teach ongrateful, onruly b'ys according to their station.'

What d'ye mean?' A furious red flush rose on Alick's cheeks, and he
glared back into the face of the bent old man, who stood still so
fixedly regarding himself.

'Mean? Why, just what I'm a-sayin' of!' was the calm rejoinder. 'I've
heard tell,' went on Binks, undisturbed by Alick's wrathful looks, 'as
Muster Price is the son of a reverend genelman as was pretty high up in
the Church. When the poor soul was took off, suddent, his fam'ly had
to help theirselves in the world, and this one, bein' the youngest, and
enjying terrible poor health, ain't fit for nothin' but teachin' b'ys.
That's how he keeps the old lady and hisself in bread I've heard say.
And if so be'--Binks straightened himself, and drew out his spade from
the earth--'as I was him, I'd a deal rather break stones, or else try
to grow them plaguey carrits in damp clay! But,' he added
sardonically, as his out