kind old Mr. Richards.
There was a deal of business in it, and a deal that wasn't; but the
sentence that pleased Jack best was this: "I'm looking after Gerty. I'm
saving her for _you_. Old Keane _may_ sacrifice his daughter to Sir
Digby, but there will be two moons in the sky that day, and another in
the duck-pond. Keep up your heart, boy. I'm laying the prettiest little
trap for Sir Digby ever you saw. Gee-ho! Cheerily does it."

Cheerily did do it. All the gloom that poor Flora's kind letter had left
in Jack's heart was banished now, and he had begun to sing.

He was leaving his room, when he ran foul of Tom Fairlie.

Tom was singing too, and smiling.

Jack pulled him right into his cabin and shut the door.

"What are you all smiles about?" said Jack.

"Why are you all smiles?" said Tom.

"Had a letter from Flora?"

"Heard about Gerty?"

Then something very funny or very joyous seemed to tickle the pair of
them at precisely the same moment, and they laughed aloud till all the
glasses on the swing-table rang out a jingling chorus.

"I say, Tom," said Jack at last, "I feel I can fight the French now."

"Precisely how I feel. Ha! ha! ha!"

"Well, come and dine with me to-night--all alone." And Tom did.

CHAPTER XVII.

IN A FOOL'S PARADISE.

"The boatie rows, the boatie rows,
The boatie rows fu' weel;
And mickle lighter is the boat
When love bears up the creel."--_Old Song._

In the interests of truth, I have now to record that my hero, Captain
Jack Mackenzie, formed one of the most ridiculous resolutions any young
man could have been guilty of making. It is all very well building
castles in the air--indeed, it is rather a pretty pastime than
otherwise, and may at times be productive of good; but when it comes to
building for one's self, willingly and with wide-open eyes, a whole
paradise--fool's, of course--and quietly taking up one's abode therein,
the absurdity of the speculation must be apparent to every one.

But this is just what our Jack now set about doing. For many a long
month back he had worked and slaved, and fought battles, and sailed his
ship, and did all he could, it must be confessed, to make everybody
around him happy, while a load of sorrow, which felt as big as a bag of
shrapnel or a kedge anchor, lay at his own heart. He now determined to
get rid of this incubus, to leave it, or creep out from under it
somehow. During all these months he had tried,