a fever in his far-away West Indian
home, and it was the praises of Captain Maitland that the lad was
always singing. What a pleasant visitor he had been! What a regretful
longing he had left behind him for such another blithe stout-hearted
English boy who might call that house his home! His late host wondered
if he were in Plymouth, and decided to try and find him out next
morning, but one of his fishermen friends came to invite him to go on a
two days' cruise, and he accepted readily.

It was a bright day, but there were clouds on the horizon and a fresh
breeze springing up; there might be a capful of wind at night, the
fisherman said, but the gentleman didn't mind that, he knew. The
gentleman said he would like it all the better, and he won the men's
hearts as they went along before the wind by his questions about
navigation, about rocks and shoals and sandbanks, and the adventures
which they were ready enough to tell over again. And their guest had
stories of his own to tell, about marvellous adventures with mutinous
slaves in the West Indies, and of how he had escaped from their hands
to be taken by a French privateer, and was freed by a storm in which
the ship went down. And in the interest of the tales and the weather
and the fishing he almost forgot about the excitement of the day
before, for the bringing in of a prize was a common enough event in war
time.

In the afternoon the wind freshened to something like a gale; the
fishermen were too busy and alert for talk, and their guest was left to
his own thoughts. And then he found himself going back to his
conversation with the old sailor. What a good cheery old fellow he
was, and what a happy view of life he managed to take after all his ups
and downs! And one piece of advice which he had given so frankly to
his new acquaintance kept running in the stranger's head, it had been
there ever since, though he wouldn't let himself think of it. 'It's
wonderful,' Kiah had said, 'how women folks keep a man's place warm for
him,' and involuntarily he found himself thinking how it would be if he
should test the old man's words on his own account.

'No, it's nonsense for me,' he thought; 'she probably doesn't remember
that she ever saw me, and since then she can't have heard very
attractive accounts. No, no, better not turn up to be an embarrassment
to them if they're alive, for even that I don't know.'

Just then one of the fishermen caught his attention by a