voice on top o' this: and the
man heaved himself on deck and looked down on me.

"'It's the skipper of the _Early and Late_,' said one of the fellows
grinning; 'as seems to say he has the pleasure o' your acquaintance.'

"'Does he?' said Dog Mitchell slowly, chewing. The man's eyes were
bleared yet, but the drink had gone out of him with his shock: or the
few hours' sleep had picked him round. He hardened his eyes on me,
anyway, and says he--'Does he? Then he's a bloody liar!'

"I didn't make no answer, sir. I saw what he had in mind--that I'd
come off on the first opportunity, cadgin' for some reward. I turned
the boat's head about, and started to pull back for the _Early and
Late_. The men laughed after me, jeering-like. And Dog Mitchell, he
laughed, too, in the wake o' them, with a kind of challenge as he saw
my lack o' pluck. And away back in Plymouth the bells kept on
ringing.

"That's the story. You asked how I could tell what the blessed Lord
felt like when Peter denied. I don't know. But I seemed to feel
like it, just that once."

THE MONT-BAZILLAC.

I have a sincere respect and liking for the Vicar of Gantick--"th'
old Parson Kendall," as we call him--but have somewhat avoided his
hospitality since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze.
I say nothing against the lady's renouncing, an she choose, the light
dinner claret, the cider, the port (pale with long maturing in the
wood) which her table afforded of yore: nor do I believe that the
Vicar, excellent man, repines deeply--though I once caught the faint
sound of a sigh as we stood together and conned his cider-apple
trees, un-garnered, shedding their fruit at random in the long
grasses. For his glebe contains a lordly orchard, and it used to be
a treat to watch him, his greenish third-best coat stuck all over
with apple-pips and shreds of pomace, as he helped to work the press
at the great annual cider-making. But I agree with their son, Master
Dick, that "it's rough on the guests."

Master Dick is now in his second year at Oxford; and it was probably
for his sake, to remove temptation from the growing lad, that Mrs.
Kendall first discovered the wickedness of all alcoholic drink.
Were he not an ordinary, good-natured boy--had he, as they say, an
ounce of vice in him--I doubt the good lady's method might go some
way towards defeating her purpose. As things are, it will probably
take no worse revenge upon her solicitude than by