two days I had gained
them all by heart.

"And now," says he, "we must try you. This iron skewer is the ship's
head, recollect, and I shall stick it into the table. When I do so, you
must tell me what point of the compass stands to it, and then that will
be the direction of the ship's head. Do you understand? Practice makes
perfect, and you must work at this all the time that you are ashore.
When you know the compass well then I'll teach you something else. Now,
then, how's her head, Tom?"

"North-half-west," said I, after a little time.

"Yes, very true; but you see, Tom, that wouldn't do aboard ship. That's
just the way most of the seamen would puzzle at it. I must have the
answer in a moment, and that's why you must practise."

In the evening, when Bramble was smoking his pipe, I was seated by him,
and every minute he would change the place of the iron skewer, with.
"How's her head, Tom?"

"We must get your 'prentice papers signed before we go afloat again,"
said Bramble, "for they pick up boys as well as men for the King's
service, and you're a stout boy for your age."

"Were you ever pressed yourself?" inquired I.

"No, but I had a narrow chance once, and had not our captain been a
smart fellow I and many more would have been serving the King at this
present moment."

"Tell me how that was," said I.

"Well, as soon as Bessy has done rattling with the cups and saucers, I
will."

"I've done now, father," said Bessy, taking her seat on a stool close to
Bramble's feet.

"Well, then, before I passed for pilot, just after the breaking out of
the war, I took it into my head to try my chance at privateering. There
was plenty to pick up at that time, and some of the Deal men had been
very fortunate, so I went on board of a twelve-gun lugger, commanded by
Captain Shank, fitted out in the river, with a crew of sixty men. The
press was very hot at that time, and our men were kept at the crimps'
houses until all was ready, when we started, and got off clear into the
Channel without being overhauled.

"We had been out a fortnight, keeping well on the French coast, and had
picked up two good prizes, when one morning, as the fog was cleared up
with a sharp northerly wind, we found ourselves right under the lee of
an English frigate, not a mile from us. There was a bubble of a sea,
for the wind had been against the tide previous to its changing, and we
were then about six or seven miles from the French co