said Gurney, affecting to consider the question
deeply.

"Here's a puzzler wot'll beat it, though," observed Tim Rokens; "suppose
we all go on talkin' stuff till doomsday, w'en'll the boat be finished?"

"That's true," cried Dick Barnes, resuming work with redoubled energy;
"take that young thief to his mother, Phil, and tell her to rope's-end
him. I'm right glad to find, though, that he _is_ the thief arter all,
and not one o' us."

On examination being made, it was found that the broken and empty
brandy-bottle lay on the floor of the monkey's nest, and it was
conjectured, from the position in which it was discovered, that that
dissipated little creature, having broken off the neck in order to get
at the brandy, had used the body of the bottle as a pillow whereon to
lay its drunken little head. Luckily for its own sake, it had spilt the
greater part of the liquid, with which everything in its private
residence was saturated and perfumed.

On having ocular demonstration of the depravity of her pet, Ailie at
first wept, then, on beholding its eccentric movements, she laughed in
spite of herself.

After that, she wept again, and spoke to it reproachfully, but failed to
make the slightest impression on its hardened little heart. Then she
put it to bed, and wrapped it up carefully in its sailcloth blanket.

With this piece of unmerited kindness Jacko seemed touched, for he said,
"Oo-oo--oo-oo--ooee-ee!" once or twice in a peculiarly soft and
penitential tone, after which he dropped into a calm, untroubled
slumber.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE BOAT FINISHED--FAREWELL TO FAIRYLAND--ONCE MORE AT SEA.

At last the boat was finished. It had two masts and two lug-sails, and
pulled eight oars. There was just sufficient room in it to enable the
men to move about freely, but it required a little management to enable
them to stow themselves away when they went to sleep, and had they
possessed the proper quantity of provisions for their contemplated
voyage, there is no doubt that they would have found themselves
considerably cramped. The boat was named the _Maid of the Isle_, in
memory of the sandbank on which she had been built, and although in her
general outline and details she was rather a clumsy craft, she was
serviceable and strongly put together.

Had she been decked, or even half-decked, the voyage which now began
would not have been so desperate an undertaking; but having been only
covered in part with a