hin me. His own feeling for him was little short of
idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the
captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that
John Paul was the son of a poor gardener.

"A gardener's son, Mr. MacMuir!" I repeated.

"Just that," said he, solemnly, "a guid man an' haly' was auld Paul.
Unco puir, by reason o' seven bairns. I kennt the daddie weel. I mak
sma' doubt the captain'll tak ye hame wi' him, syne the mither an'
sisters still be i' the cot i' Mr. Craik's croft."

"Tell me, MacMuir," said I, "is not the captain in some trouble?"

For I knew that something, whatever it was, hung heavy on John Paul's
mind as we drew nearer Scotland. At times his brow would cloud and he
would fall silent in the midst of a jest. And that night, with the stars
jumping and the air biting cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the
John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir
told me the story of Mungo Maxwell. You may read it for yourselves, my
dears, in the life of John Paul Jones.

"Wae's me!" he said, with a heave of his big chest, "I reca' as yestreen
the night Maxwell cam aboord. The sun gaed loon a' bluidy, an' belyve
the morn rose unco mirk an' dreary, wi' bullers (rollers) frae the west
like muckle sowthers (soldiers) wi' white plumes. I tauld the captain
'twas a' the faut o' Maxwell. I ne'er cad bide the blellum. Dour an'
din he was, wi' ae girn like th' auld hornie. But the captain wadna
hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool wad cooin o' taking
Mungo."

It seemed that John Paul, contrary to MacMuir's advice, had shipped as
carpenter on the voyage out--near seven months since--a man by the name
of Mungo Maxwell. The captain's motive had nothing in it but kindness,
and a laudable desire to do a good turn to a playmate of his boyhood. As
MacMuir said, "they had gaed barefit thegither amang the braes." The man
hailed from Kirkbean, John Paul's own parish. But he had within him
little of the milk of kindness, being in truth a sour and mutinous devil;
and instead of the gratitude he might have shown, he cursed the fate that
had placed him under the gardener's son, whom he deemed no better than
himself. The John had scarce cleared the Solway before Maxwell showed
signs of impudence and rebellion.

The crew was three-fourths made of Kirkcudbright men who had known the
master from childhood, many of them, indeed, being older than he;