named Vincent, after my father's old captain; or with
Burt, his old boatswain, who came with his wife to live with my
father before I can recollect, and lives with us still. He did
everything in the garden, and about the house; and in the house,
too, when his wife was ill, for he can turn his hand to most
anything, like most old salts. It was he who rigged up the up the
mast and weather-cock on the lawn, and used to let me run up the
old flag on Sundays, and on my father's wedding-day, and on the
anniversary of his action, and of Vincent's action in the Arrow.

"After my mother's death my father sent away all the servants,
for the boatswain and his wife are more like friends. I was wrong
to say that no woman has loved me since my mother's death, for I
believe dear old nanny loves me as if I were her own child. My
father, after this, used to sit silent for hours together, doing
nothing but look over the sea, but, except for that, was not much
changed. After a short time he took to teaching me to read, and
from that time I never was away from him for an hour, except when
I was asleep, until I went out into the world.

"As I told you, my father was naturally fond of study. He had
kept up the little Latin he had learnt as a boy, and had always
been reading whatever he could lay his hands on; so that I
couldn't have had a better tutor. They were no lessons to me,
particularly the geographical ones; for there was no part of the
world's sea-coast that he did not know, and could tell me what it
and the people were like; and often when Burt happened to come in
at such times, and heard what my father was talking about, he
would give us some of his adventures and ideas of geography,
which were very queer indeed.

"When I was nearly ten, a new vicar came. He was about my
father's age and a widower, like him; only he had no child. Like
him, too, he had no private fortune, and the living is a very
poor one. He soon became very intimate with us, and made my
father his churchwarden; and, after being present at some of our
lessons, volunteered to teach me Greek, which, he said, it was
time I should begin to learn.

"This was great relief to my father, who had bought a Greek
grammar and dictionary, and a delectus, some time before; and I
could see him often, dear old father, with his glass in his eye,
puzzling away over them when I was playing, or reading Cook's
Voyages, for it had grown to be the wish of his heart that I
should b