d's future bearing, and of
suggestions and hints as to the best course to be adopted in various
emergencies. But to-day he appeared unusually thoughtful, and smoked
his pipe, and looked out in silence over the sea, scarcely even
lifting his telescope to his eye.

"I've been thinking, Harry," he said at last, "that as you are going
away again, and, as the old woman says, you may not find us both here
when you come back, it is right that I should tell you a little more
about yourself. I once told you, years ago, that you were not my son,
and that I would give you more particulars some day."

The lad looked anxiously up at the old sailor. It was a matter which
he had often thought over in his mind, for although he loved the
honest tar and his good wife as much as he could have done his natural
parents, still, since he had known that he was their adopted son only,
he had naturally wondered much as to who his parents were, and what
was their condition in life.

"I thought it as well," the old sailor began, "not to tell you this
here yarn until you were getting on. Boys' heads get upset with a
little breeze, especially if they have no ballast, and though it isn't
likely now that you will ever get any clew as to your birth, and it
will make no difference whether it was a duke or a ship's caulker who
was your father, still it's right that you should know the facts, as
no one can say when they start on a voyage in life what craft they may
fall aboard before they've done. It may be, Harry, that as you intends
to stick to the merchant service--saving, of course, that little time
you mean to serve on board a king's ship--you may rise to be a
skipper, and perhaps an owner. It may be, boy, that as a skipper you
may fall in love with some taut craft sailing in your convoy. I've
seen such things before now, and then the fact that you might be, for
aught you know, the son of a marquis instead of being that of a
boatswain, might score in your favor. Women have curious notions, and
though, for my part, I can't see that it makes much difference where
the keel of a craft was laid as long as it's sound and well-built,
there are those who thinks different.

"Well, to tell you the yarn. It were nigh fourteen years ago that I
was boatswain aboard the _Alert_ frigate, as taut a craft as ever
sailed. We had a smart captain and as good a crew as you'd want to
see. We were cruising in the West Indies, and had for months been,
off and on, in ch