GET ON SHORE AT GUERNSEY.

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"Yes, that I do," he answered. "At no great distance from my home. Come along with me, Weatherhelm. My family will be glad to welcome an old shipmate."

Just as the sun got up we saw several people approaching, and were truly glad to find among them our captain and three of the crew. They took charge of the men who had been saved with us, while I set off with La Motte to his home. It was a large farm cottage standing by itself. He looked round the house, and in at one or two of the windows, but could not make up his mind how to announce himself. "I am afraid of giving some of them a fright if I were to appear too suddenly." At last he told me that I must go in and tell them that I was a shipmate of his, and that he would be there soon. So I opened the door, and an old lady came out and spoke to me, but I could not understand a word she said, and then an old gentleman made his appearance, with white hair, with a long red waistcoat and great coat, but he could not help on the conversation. At last they went to the back of the house, and called "Janette! Janette!" and a young girl, with her petticoats tucked up, came tripping in, as if she had just been milking the cows, and she asked me, in broken English, what I wanted; and when I replied that I knew Jacob La Motte, and was a shipmate of his, they seemed very much interested, and not a little agitated. When I saw this I thought the sooner I told them that he was all right and well the better, and then, to their astonishment, I ran out of the house and called him, and he soon had both them and several other young boys and girls all hanging round his neck, and kissing him and asking

him all sorts of questions. I envied him—I could not help it. I had no father and mother, and brothers and sisters, to care for me, and even at that moment I felt very desolate and forlorn. However, they soon recollected me, and then they all did their best to make me happy and comfortable.

The days passed very quickly away. I never had been so happy and merry in my life. Though the old people could not speak English they understood it a little, and I soon picked up French enough to make out what I wanted to say; and then all the younger people could talk English, though among themselves they always spoke French. As we lived on so quietly and peaceably in that pretty farm-house no one would have supposed that all the horrors of war were being enacted in the surrounding seas. It might have been supposed that neither of us would ever have wished to leave those quiet scenes, but after a time La Motte began to grow fidgety, and said he must think about getting employment. At last away he went to Peter-lePort, the only town in the island. He was away three or four days, and when he came back he told me that he had taken service on board a privateer, one of the fastest craft out of the island. "She is called La

Girondelle," he said. "You never set eyes on a more beautiful craft. She is lugger-rigged, mounts sixteen guns, and will carry a hundred and twenty hands, all told, fore and aft. There is nothing will look up to her. I could not resist the temptation of joining her. Her crew will have six months' protection from the pressgang. That alone is worth something. Now is your opportunity, Will, for making your fortune. Don't throw it away. By the time you

are paid off you'll have your pockets full of money, and then come and settle down here. That is what I intend to do."

His reasonings and arguments seemed irresistible. Still I held off. I was balancing between my wish to go and see Aunt Bretta, and the old lady and her niece at Plymouth, or of trying to find my way back to my ship. I had an idea that the latter was the right thing to do. Still, unhappily, I had not always been accustomed to do what was right, and now found it easy to do what was wrong. I told him, in reply, what I wished to do, and what I thought I ought to do; but he laughed at all my reasonings, and before the day was over I had consented to go and enter on board the lugger. In those days not many people thought there was any harm in privateering. Many do not think so now. Still there were some who looked upon it as little better than a sort of lawful piracy, and made but little scruple in running down an enemy's privateer.

I found La Girondelle everything La Motte had described her. We had not been out a week before we had taken a couple of prizes, and we recaptured a number of English vessels which had been taken by the enemy and were on their way into French ports. As we were low in the water and had short stumps for masts, by lowering our sails we could lie concealed till we could make out what sort of craft were heaving in sight. We therefore ran very little risk of catching a Tartar, as privateers very often do.

I remained in the privateer upwards of a year and a half, and at last peace came, and the crew were paid off, and she was laid up. Though I had spent my

money pretty freely when I was on shore, still I found that, what with wages and prize-money, I had fully four hundred pounds in my pocket. This I might well look on as a handsome fortune to begin life with on shore, and carefully managed it was enough to set a young man up in business. I have known numbers of seamen go on shore with far larger sums, and spend the whole in the course of a few days, but then they have never-poor ignorant fellows!-read the book of Solomon, or, if they have, profited by the wise advice contained in it. I spent a few days with the La Motte family, but the thoughts of Aunt Bretta, and still more, perhaps, that quiet evening spent at Plymouth, were constantly coming into my mind; and wishing him and them good-by, I shipped myself and my fortune aboard a cutter bound for Portsmouth.

CHAPTER VII.

Encounter my new uncle-Aunt Bretta's home-Happy meeting— Settle at home-A description of my uncle-Old Jerry Vincent -His stories-The smoke-worms, and his cruise round the Isle of Wight.

On reaching Portsmouth, I buttoned my money tight up in my pockets, for thought I, "I'll have no landsharks taking it from me in the way many poor fellows have lost all the profits of their toils. I had no difficulty in finding my way through the gate under the ramparts to Southsea Common, and then I turned to the left till I reached a number of small neat little houses. The fine big mansions and great hotel which stand there now were not built in those days. I walked up and down for some time trying to discover the house my aunt lived in, from what Miss Rundle had told me, but I could not make up my mind to knock at any door by chance to inquire. At last I saw a stout fine sailor-like looking man come stumping along the road on a wooden leg. I looked at his face. He had a round good-natured countenance, somewhat weatherbeaten, with kind looking eyes, and a firm mouth full of fine white teeth.

"You're the man who will give me a civil answer