was to be a second Rodney) delightful as the means of repaying to his aunt and Mr. Singleton the benefits which he had derived from their kindness.

Besides this, he had always had an innate passion for the water. His earliest pranks of dabbling in kennels, and plunging in pools, had shown his duck-like propensities; and half his scrapes at school had occurred in a similar way:-bathing before the appointed day, swimming in dangerous places, rowing and fishing at forbidden hours; he had been caught half-a-dozen times boat-building at the wharf, and had even been detected in substituting Robinson Crusoe for the Greek Grammar, from which Mr. Singleton expected such miracles. In short, Tom Lyndham was one of those boys whose genius may fairly be called semi-aquatic.

That he would be a sailor was Tom's firm resolution. His only doubt was whether to accomplish the object in the regular manner by apprising Mrs. Martin and Mr. Singleton of his wishes, or to embrace the speedier and less troublesome method of running away. The

latter mode offered the great temptation of avoiding remonstrances equally tedious (and the grateful boy would hardly allow himself to think how tedious!) and unavailing, and of escaping from the persuasions of which his affectionate heart felt in anticipation the power to grieve, though not to restrain; besides, it was the approved fashion of your young adventurer, Robinson Crusoe had run away; and he consulted Jack seriously on the measure, producing, in answer to certain financial questions which the experience of the tar suggested, a new half-crown, two shillings, a crooked sixpence, and sundry halfpence, as his funds for the expedition.

"Five and threepence halfpenny!" exclaimed the prudent mariner, counting the money, and shaking his head," "Twont do, master! Consider, there's the voyage to Portsmouth, on board o' the what d'ye call 'um, the coach there; and then you'll want new rigging, and have to lie at anchor a shortish bit maybe, before you get afloat. I'll tell you what, messmate, leave's light; ax his honour the chaplain, the curate, or whatever you call him, and

if so be he turns cantankerous, you can but cut and run after all."

And Tom agreed to take his advice; and after settling in his own mind as he walked home various ingenious plans for breaking the matter gradually and tenderly to his good old aunt, (on whom he relied for the still more arduous task of communicating this tremendous act of contumacy to his reverend patron,) he, from sheer nervousness and over-excitement, bolted into the house, and forgetting all his intended preparations and softenings, a thing which has often happened, from the same causes, to older and wiser persons, shouted out at once to Mrs. Martin, who happened to be in the shop talking to Mr. Singleton, "Aunt, I'm determined to go to sea directly; and if you won't let me, I'll run away."

Never were two people more astonished. And as the hitherto respectful and dutiful boy, who with all his spirit had never before contradicted a wish expressed by either, continued to answer to all remonstrances, will go to sea; and if you won't let me, I'll run away," Mr. Singleton began to think it best.

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to inquire into his own views, motives, and prospects.

Vague enough they were, to be sure! Robinson Crusoe, and a crippled sailor, and half-adozen ballads for inducements, and a letter of introduction from poor Jack to a certain veteran of his own standing, Bob Griffin by name, formerly a boatswain, and now keeping a public-house at Portsea, and commanding, according to him of the stumps, a chain of interest, somewhat resembling Tom Bowling's famous ladder of promotion in Roderick Random, a scrawl directed in red chalk in printed letters half an inch long, to MISTUR BOB GRIFIN LANLURD SHIP AGRUND PORSEE, by way of introduction to the naval service of Great Britain! However, there was in the earnestness of the lad, in the very slightness of the means on which he built, and in his bold, ardent, and manly character, that evidence of the bent of his genius, the strong and decided turn for one pursuit and one only, which it is scarcely wise to resist.

Mr. Singleton, remembering, perhaps, the prediction of the good Doctor, yielded. He

happened to have a first cousin, a captain in

the navy; and on visiting our friend Jack, whom he found repairing the chalking of “Rule Britannia," and chanting two lines of his favourite stave,

"But the worst of it was when the little ones were sickly, Whether they would live or die the Doctor could not tell,"

he had the satisfaction to find that he had sailed with his relation when second lieutenant of a sloop called the Gazelle; and although relinquishing, with many thanks, the letter of introduction to "Mistur Bob Grifin," actually accepted one from the same hard honest fist to Captain Conyers; and it is to be doubted whether poor Jack's recommendation of "the tight youngster," as the veteran called him, had not as much to do with the captain's cordial reception of his new midshipman, as the more elaborate praises of Mr. Singleton.

The war

A midshipman, however, he was. was at its height, and he had the luck (excellent luck as he thought it) to be in the very hottest of its fury. In almost every fight of the great days of our naval glory, the days of Nelson and his immediate successors, was Tom