reeting from his mother. A small bottle had
already been filled with herb tea, mixed with brandy, and wrapped in a
parcel; but when the boys came in they brought with them a larger
and stronger bottle, which they had found. This bottle would hold so
much more than the little one, and they all said the brandy would be
so good for complaints of the stomach, especially as it was mixed with
medical herbs. The liquid which they now poured into the bottle was
not like the red wine with which it had once been filled; these were
bitter drops, but they are of great use sometimes-for the stomach. The
new large bottle was to go, not the little one: so the bottle once
more started on its travels. It was taken on board (for Peter Jensen
was one of the crew) the very same ship in which the young mate was to
sail. But the mate did not see the bottle: indeed, if he had he
would not have known it, or supposed it was the one out of which
they had drunk to the felicity of the betrothed and to the prospect of
a marriage on his own happy return. Certainly the bottle no longer
poured forth wine, but it contained something quite as good; and so it
happened that whenever Peter Jensen brought it out, his messmates gave
it the name of "the apothecary," for it contained the best medicine to
cure the stomach, and he gave it out quite willingly as long as a drop
remained. Those were happy days, and the bottle would sing when rubbed
with a cork, and it was called a great lark, "Peter Jensen's lark."

Long days and months rolled by, during which the bottle stood
empty in a corner, when a storm arose--whether on the passage out or
home it could not tell, for it had never been ashore. It was a
terrible storm, great waves arose, darkly heaving and tossing the
vessel to and fro. The main mast was split asunder, the ship sprang
a leak, and the pumps became useless, while all around was black as
night. At the last moment, when the ship was sinking, the young mate
wrote on a piece of paper, "We are going down: God's will be done."
Then he wrote the name of his betrothed, his own name, and that of the
ship. Then he put the leaf in an empty bottle that happened to be at
hand, corked it down tightly, and threw it into the foaming sea. He
knew not that it was the very same bottle from which the goblet of joy
and hope had once been filled for him, and now it was tossing on the
waves with his last greeting, and a message from the dead. The ship
sank, and the crew