e but our hands, and so the little trout that revelled in
the clear water escaped that day; but we were obliged to stop at every
swirling pool where the water grew deep and dark, to have a good stare
at the little speckled beauties, and lay plots against their happiness.

These pauses took up a good deal of time, so that it was about one
o'clock when we reached Uggleston's cottage, and, as it happened, just
as its tenant was coming up from his boat, having just landed from some
expedition along the coast.

He was not alone, for old Binnacle Bill, as we called him, was behind,
carrying the oars and the mast with the little sail twisted round, so as
to put them in Uggleston's lean-to shed.

As we drew nearer I began to wonder what sort of a reception we were
going to receive from old Jonas Uggleston; and it struck me very
forcibly then, how strange it seemed that he should be the father of my
school-fellow, who was always well dressed, that is as school-boys are,
while he was just like an ordinary fisherman of the coast, with rough
flannel trousers rolled up, big fisherman's boots, blue worsted shirt,
and an otter-skin cap, from beneath which his grisly hair stuck out in
an untended mass, while his beard, that was more grisly still, half
covered his dark-brown face.

He was a stern, fierce-looking man, with large dark eyes that seemed to
ferret out everything one was thinking about, and as he came up he
looked at us all searchingly in turn.

"Hallo, father! Been along the coast?" cried Bigley, striding up to
him; and there was just a faint kind of smile on Jonas Uggleston's face
as his son shook hands and then took his arm in a way that seemed to
come like a surprise to me, for it seemed so curious that my
school-fellow Bigley could like that fierce, common-looking man.

"Hallo, Big!" growled old Jonas grimly, "keeping your holidays then.
Who've you got here? Oh! It's you, young Chowne, is it? Ah! I was
coming over to see your father 'bout my foot as I got twisted 'tween two
bits o' rock--jumping; but it's got better now. Home from school?"

"Yes, sir; we came home yesterday," said Bob, staring hard at old
Uggleston's mahogany hands.

"And who's this, eh? Oh, young Cap'n Duncan, eh?" continued the old
fellow, turning to me as if he were not sure. "So you've come home from
school, eh?"

"Yes, sir," I said; "I came with them yesterday."

"Well, I know that, don't I?" he said sharply. "Think folk as don't