e a scholar, and should go into orders. So he was going
to teach me Greek himself, for there was no one in the parish
except the Vicar who knew a word of anything but English--so that
he could not have got me a tutor, and the thought of sending me
to school had never crossed his mind, even if he could have
afforded to do either. My father only sat by at Greek lessons,
and took no part; but first he began to put in a word here and
there, and then would repeat words and sentences himself, and
look over my book while I construed, and very soon was just as
regular a pupil of the Vicar's as I.

"The Vicar was for the most part very proud of his pupils, and
the kindest of masters; but every now and then be used to be hard
on my father, which made me furious, though he never seemed to
mind it. I used to make mistakes on purpose at those times to
show that I was worse than he at any rate. But this only happened
after we had had a political discussion at dinner; for we dined
at three, and took to our Greek afterwards, to suit the Vicar's
time, who was generally a guest. My father is a Tory, of course,
as you may guess, and the Vicar was a Liberal, of a very mild
sort, as I have since thought; a Whig of '88,' he used to call
himself. But he was in favor of the Reform Bill, which was enough
for my father, who lectured him about loyalty, and opening the
flood-gates to revolution; and used to call up old Burt from the
kitchen, where he was smoking his pipe, and ask him what he used
to think of the Radicals on board ship; and Burt's regular reply
was--

"'Skulks, yer honor, regular skulks. I wouldn't give the twist of
a fiddler's elbow for all the lot of 'em as ever pretended to
handle a swab, or handle a topsail.'

"The Vicar always tried to argue, but, as Burt and I were the
only audience, my father was always triumphant; only he took it
out of us afterwards, at the Greek. Often I used to think, when
they were reading history, and talking about the characters, that
my father was much the more liberal of the two.

"About this time he bought a small half-decked boat of ten tons,
for he and Burt agreed that I ought to learn to handle a boat,
although I was not to go to sea; and when they got the Vicar in
the boat on the summer evenings (for he was always ready for a
sale though he was a very bad sailor), I believe they used to
steer as near the wind as possible, and get into short chopping
seas on purpose. But I don't think he