But Nelson was mad enough. He was burning to give it to the French, and give it to them hot, for all the trouble and anxiety they had cost him. He was as eager as a wild cat to spring at the throat of his foe. Another night of waiting might have killed him. No, no, he cannot, will not wait. "Make the signal for general action, and trust to Heaven and the justice of our cause!"

Along the bay lay the great French fleet, with shoal water behind them, supported by gunboats and bomb-vessels, the ships moored one hundred and sixty yards from each other, and with stream cables so that they could spring their broadsides on their enemy.

And their line extended for a mile and a half.

Had Brueys thought that Nelson would attack that night, he would have got under way, and thus been free either to manoeuvre or show his heels. He did not know our Nelson. Nor could he have believed that the great British admiral would have done so doughty and daring a deed as to get round behind him, so to speak, betwixt the shore and his fleet, despite the sands and shoals. But Nelson did with a portion of his fleet, and each war-ship took up position with all the precision of couples in a contra-dance. Oh, it was beautiful! but when the battle fairly began, and tongues of fire and clouds of rolling smoke leaped and curled from the great guns, lighting up the dusk and gloom of gathering night, while echoes reverberated from shore to shore, oh, then this thunderstorm of war was very grand and terrible!

To describe the battle in detail, and all the heroic actions that took place that night, would take a volume in itself. But it is all history, and probably the reader knows every bit of it as well as, if not better than, I myself do. We must honour the French, though, for this fight. They fought well and bravely, and you know the gallant Brueys died on his own quarter-deck, refusing to be carried below. He was a hero. So we might say was the captain of the Serieuse frigate, who had the cheek to fire into the great Orion (Sir James Saumerez) as she was sweeping past. It was like a collie dog attacking a mastiff. Saumerez couldn't stand it. He stayed long enough literally to blow the frigate out of the water or on to a shoal, where she was wrecked. The Orion then went quietly on and engaged a foeman worthy of her steel. It was plucky of the Bellerophon—the old Billy Ruffian, as sailors called her—of seventy-four guns, to attack the great Orient of one hundred and twenty, and of the Majestic to range alongside the mighty Tonnant and coolly say, "It's you and I, isn't it?" Then one can't help feeling sorry for poor Trowbridge in the Culloden, because he ran ashore, and had to remain a mere spectator while burning to have a finger in the fearful pie.

But the two events of this memorable battle which I daresay dwell longest in the minds of the young reader are the wounding of Nelson, who was carried below, his brow gashed so terribly that the skin in a flap hung over his eyes, despite which, you will remember, he bravely refused to have his wound dressed until his turn came; and the blowing up of the great ship Orient with her bold Captain Casabianca and his poor boy, who refused to be taken off or give up his duty without his father's orders.

There are those who would rob us of this romantic story. I have no patience with such gray-souled sinners. There are people in this world who cannot endure romance and beauty; people who would paint the sky a dingy brown if they could, and smudge the glory of the summer sunsets. I do not love such people, and I hope you don't, reader. I verily believe their blood is green and sour, and that they do not see this lovely world of ours as you and I do, through rose-tinted glasses, but that to them it must appear an ugly olive green, as it would to us if we gazed upon it through a piece of bottle glass. No; we shall keep the brave boy of the Orient, and still read Mrs. Hemans' delightful and spirited verses:—

"The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but he had fled; The flame, that lit the battle's wreck, Shone round him—o'er the dead.

"The flames rolled on—he would not go Without his father's word;— That father, faint in death below, His voice no longer heard.

"There came a burst of thunder sound,— The boy!—oh, where was he? Ask of the winds, that far around With fragments strewed the sea,—

"With mast, and helm, and pennon fair, That well had borne their part! But the noblest thing that perished there Was that young faithful heart!"

* * * * *

The battle is past and gone, a whole month has elapsed since then, and the swift Tonneraire is homeward bound with despatches. Many were killed and wounded, among others good old Simmons, the master, who fell at Jack's side on the deck of a French man-o'-war. He would never grumble again; his deep bass, honest voice would be heard no more. There was hardly a dry eye in the ship when the kindly old man's hammock was dropped overboard in Aboukir Bay.

Yes, the Tonneraire was homeward bound at last, after an absence of two busy and eventful years. But the saddest, probably, of all her adventures had yet to come. M'Hearty, Tom Fairlie, and young Murray were in the captain's cabin one evening towards sunset. Murray was particularly bright and pleasant to-night, and his laughing face and merry, saucy blue eyes did every one good to behold.

Suddenly there is a cry on deck, "Sail ahead!" and next minute the drum is beating to quarters. The Tonneraire has been working against a head wind, and now down upon her, like some monster sea-bird with wings outspread, sweeps a huge French ship of war. The battle will be very one-sided, but Jack will dare it. Already it is getting dusk; he must try to cripple the monster. He manages to rake her, and a broadside of iron hail is poured through her stern. He rakes her a second time, and this time down thunders a mast. Well would it have been for Jack and the Tonneraire if he had now put his ship before the wind. But no, he still fights on and on, and suffers terribly; and just as the shades of night deepen into blackness, he manages to hoist enough sail to stagger away, and the Frenchman is too sorely stricken to follow.

Very early next morning, before the stars had quite faded in the west, or the sun had shot high his rays to gild the herald clouds, M'Hearty, looking careworn, unkempt, and weary—for he had never been to bed—entered Jack's state-room and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

Jack was awake in a moment.

"Anything wrong, doctor?" he asked quickly.

"Alas, sir!" replied M'Hearty, and there was a strange huskiness in his voice as he spoke—"alas, sir! poor young Murray is dying fast."

"Murray dying!"

"Too true, sir. His wounds are far more grievous than I was aware of. He cannot last many minutes. He wants to see you."

The boy—for he was but little more—lay in a cot in the sick-bay. He was dressed in his scarlet coat, and his sword lay beside him, for he had refused to be divested of his uniform. He was in a half-sitting position, propped up with pillows, and smiled faintly as Jack knelt by his side and took his thin white hand in his.

It was a sad scene but a simple one. There was the gray light of early morning struggling in through the open port, and falling on the dying boy's face; falling, too, on M'Hearty's rough but kindly countenance, and on the figures of the sick-bay servants standing by the cot-foot tearful and frightened. That was all. But an open Bible lay upon the coverlet, and in his left hand the young soldier clasped a miniature—his little sweetheart's.

"Bury it with me," he whispered feebly. "See her, sir—and tell her—Willie died a hero's death.—Kiss me, Jack—I would sleep now."

The eyelids closed.

Ah! they had closed for aye.

Not a sound now save Jack's gentle sobbing, then the slow and solemn tones of M'Hearty's voice as he took up the little Bible and read from the Twenty-third Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Amen!



CHAPTER XXII.

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP.

"This little maxim, for my sake, I pray you be believing: The truest pleasures that we take Are those that we are giving." DIBDIN.

For more than twenty years, dating back from the time our story commenced, Richards had been a partner in the firm of Griffiths, Keane, and Co.; yet although he was almost every day in the company of Mr. Keane, he could neither love nor respect him. Perhaps had he been less with him he might have respected him more. But he knew him too well; knew him to be Keane by name and keen by nature—avaricious, grasping, and miserly in the extreme, and for the sake of adding to his stores of gold, very far indeed from scrupulous. His niggardly habits had undoubtedly hurried his wife to her grave, when Gerty was little more than a baby, and she was left to the tender mercies of a nurse and governess. In the transaction of his business Richards was constantly at his partner's home, and usually stayed to dine; but for the sake of the child Gerty, he made many and many a visit to the house after her mother's death, when he had no real business to transact. "Poor little mite!" he thought; "she is so lonely, and she sees no one; has no one to love save her father, to whom she is merely 'the child.'"

It used to vex poor great-hearted Richards to the core to hear Keane snap out, "Take away that child; it's troublesome."

"Nay, nay," Richards would say, lifting the mite from the hearth-rug to his knee, "let me have the darling a minute."

"Richards, you're a fool!" Keane would growl.

And with one arm round her protector's neck, her cheeks wet with tears, the mite would gaze round-eyed and in saddened silence at her unnatural father. It is no wonder that she grew up to love Richards. What stories he used to tell her! what fun he used to make for her! how he entered heart and soul into all her games and romps, as if he himself were but a boy in reality, as he was in his heart of hearts!

But the psychical mystery is how she could have come to love her father so. Yes, as the reader already knows, she did love him, and love him to that extent that she was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to his ambition, and marry a man whom she loathed if she did actually not detest.

A bachelor, with no expenses worth naming, Richards had saved quite a small fortune in his time; and when he came to find out that Keane was going positively to sell his daughter to the worn-out roue Sir Digby, that for his own advancement he might see her ere long a lord's wife, Richards thumped his fist down on his desk—he was alone at the time—till even the big ink-bottle leaped an inch up from the table.

"I'll save that darling child," he had said, "if I spend every penny I have earned, and lose my life into the bargain."

He smiled to himself a moment after.

"Everything is fair in love and war," he said: "I'll play a game. The cause is good. Yes, Jack Mackenzie, my open-hearted, frank, brave boy, you shall marry Gerty. I have said it—you—shall."

He laughed aloud next minute at his own enthusiasm.

"What a capital actor I should have made!" he thought. "How beautifully I could have done heavy fathers!"

Still waters run deep, and Richards was astute, though perhaps he did not look it. So he began at once to shuffle his cards for the game he was about to play—a game which he rightly judged was to be one of life or death. For he shuddered to think of the living death to which the selfishness of her miserly, ambitious father intended condemning Gerty.

"My baby, bless her sweet face," he added, "shall never marry that bleach-eyed old Digby."

Then he shut his ledger with a bang, and went for a walk in the park, where he could think. But the Mackenzies would lose the fine old house and property called Grantley Hall. Keane would assuredly foreclose. Then the place would be Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there—his son-in-law a lord. Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once passed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would be far too proud to propose marriage, seeing that in doing so his desires might be misconstrued, and people would naturally say he was simply marrying back his own property.

The general had told his children that Keane was his only creditor. Yes, because in order to make sure of the estate, the old lawyer had bought up all the others. He could thus come down upon the brave but reckless Scottish soldier, like an avalanche from a mountain's brow.

The day had almost arrived for Keane's foreclosing. The family had already left Grantley Hall, taking little with them save the family jewellery, pictures, and nick-nacks. Flora had gone to Torquay, Jack was in town, and his father preparing to resume his sword, and once more fight for his country. The eventful morning itself came round. Keane was early at his office. He was in an unusually happy frame of mind. Yet perhaps he had a few slight "stoun's" of conscience, for over and over again he talked to Richards, bringing up the subject next his heart, and excusing himself.

"I had to do it—I had to do it," he said. "Pity for the poor Mackenzies. But the general was so improvident, and what could I do?"

"Most improvident," replied Richards, smiling quietly over his ledger nevertheless.

As the day wore away, Keane fidgeted more and more, and often looked at the clock. "Another hour," he said, half aloud, "only another hour."

Richards looked at the clock too, and he often glanced uneasily towards the door.

What was going to happen?

"Only half-an-hour." This from Keane.

"You seem pleased," said Richards dryly.

Rat, tat—bang, bang, at the office door.

Both men looked up; Richards with a sigh of relief, Keane with gray face and flashing eyes.

Enter a tall, good-looking clerk, hat in one hand, a bundle of papers in the other. He was a stranger to Keane.

"Re the mortgage on estate of General Grant Mackenzie, I've come to pay it off."

Old Keane grew grayer and grayer in face, and foam appeared on his lips. He could not speak.

Richards slipped out and away.

He went out, and went down the street, positively laughing aloud, so that people turned smilingly round to look after him.

And to pay this mortgage off, the honest fellow had put down the bulk of his fortune, and borrowed thousands besides. The property of Grantley Hall was now virtually his; but he would not foreclose, and the Mackenzies should know nothing about it, for a time at all events.

Richards had played his first card, and it was a strong one.

He went straight off now to see "his baby," and to continue the fairy story which he had commenced at Grantley Hall.

He saw some one else—he saw Mary. Mary was his first lieutenant. It was she who summoned him that evening at the Hall when he entered the room just as Sir Digby was about to propose.

A good girl, Mary, and devoted to her "missus." She could keep a secret, too, and she could keep Richards posted, lest Sir Digby should steal a march upon them.

But time had rolled on, as we know. There were wars and rumours of wars, disaffection at home and threatened revolution, and last, but not least, as far as our story goes, Sir Digby had been ill, and at the point of death. Keane also had been abroad for his health, and with him his daughter, so that the evil day was postponed.

Evil days have a disagreeable habit of coming, nevertheless, in spite of all we can do.

* * * * *

Slowly and sadly, with rent rigging and battered hull, the Tonneraire staggered home. She is in Plymouth Sound at last. Letters and papers come off to the ship. Jack Mackenzie, sitting alone by his open port, turns eagerly to a recent copy of the Times. Almost the first notice that attracts his attention runs thus: "Marriage of Sir Digby Auld and Miss Gertrude"—he sees no more. His head swims. The wind seizes the paper, as if in pity, and carries it far astern of the ship.

He feels utterly crushed and broken, and head and hands droop helplessly on the table before him.



CHAPTER XXIII.

"IT'S ALL UP, MR. RICHARDS, IT'S ALL UP!"

"The busy crew the sails unbending, The ship in harbour safe arrived; Jack Oakum, all his perils ending, Has made the port where Kitty lived." DIBDIN.

We return now to the day before Sir Digby's ball.

Richards lived in chambers, and in no great state. He never cared for it. Had you gone straight into his sitting-room from the fresh air, what would have struck you most would have been the smell of strong tobacco smoke; and I believe you would have come to the conclusion that the principal furniture consisted of tobacco-pipes. They were of all sorts and sizes, and hung in rows and racks, and lay on shelves and on the mantlepiece. Well, what did it matter? honest Richards was a bachelor, and not once in a blue moon did a lady look in to see him.

But one afternoon, shortly before Sir Digby's great ball, a lady did; and that lady was Mary herself.

"Which I've been dying to see you, sir," she began.

"Sit down, my dear, sit down."

Mary sat down, and proceeded,—

"It's all up, Mr. Richards, it's all up!"

The poor girl was crying now bitterly.

"Missus is as good as sold. She's goin' to the ball, and Sir Digby's goin' to propose. She told me, and Sir Digby kissed me and told me. Oh, oh, what ever shall I do?"

Richards lit a huge pipe, and walked about smoking for fully five minutes. Then he went over and took Mary's hand, and Mary looked up innocently in his face, and said innocently through her tears,—

"Do you want to kiss me too, sir?"

"Well, I wasn't thinking about that; but there, Mary, there. Now, I'll tell you what you've got to do; and I do believe it will all come right, even yet."

So Mary and Richards had a long "confab" together, and she went back home happy and smiling.

After she had gone Richards lit another pipe, threw himself on a rocking-chair, and smoked long and thoughtfully. Then he got up and took a rapid turn or two up and down the floor. Presently he paused, and gazed curiously at himself in a mirror.

"Old Richards," he said, shaking his fist at his reflection, "I didn't think it was in you. You're a designing, unscrupulous old lawyer. Never mind; it's all for my baby's sake. I'll do it. Hang me if I don't."

An hour after this, Richards had called a carriage—a luxury he indulged in very seldom indeed. He first visited the lawyer who had transacted the business of the Grantley Hall mortgage for him. With this gentleman he was closeted for some considerable time. Then he drove to a fashionable tailor's, then to a jeweller's, and next to a wine-merchant's, and as all those individuals showed him to his carriage with many gracious smiles and bows, it was evident that his business with them had been of a very agreeable kind indeed—to them. Richards drove to other places which I need not name; and when he got back home at last, he sank into his rocking-chair with a tired but happy sigh, and immediately lit his biggest pipe.

He was smiling to himself. "I've done it," he said half aloud, "and my baby's safe for a time. But if his rich old brother comes to the rescue, my game is spoiled. Poor Jack! I wonder what he is doing at this moment."

* * * * *

On the night of the great ball, Sir Digby Auld was very much with Miss Gordon; and everybody said how well matched they were, which certainly was paying no compliment to Sir Digby. He gave her many dances, and he said many soft and pretty things to her, which caused her to bend down her painted face and pretend to blush.

In the course of the evening he forgathered with D'Orsay. D'Orsay lifted his brows and smiled.

"Getting on famously?" he said.

"I've been trying; but, D'Orsay, 'pon my life I can't. And look you here: I may be a fool, I may be mad, but to-morrow forenoon I go to Keane's and throw myself at Gerty's feet. There! the die is cast."

A servant in livery at this moment approached him. "Beg parding, sir. Two gentlemen wants to speak to you a moment in the library."

Sir Digby turned pale.

"I'd come, sir," whispered the servant; "there will be a scene else."

Sir Digby followed him out.

"Sorry we are, sir, to disturb yer 'onor; but we has a warrant for your 'rrest, and the carriage is awaitin' at the door."

"At whose instance?"

"Richards of the firm of Griffith, Keane, and Co."

Sir Digby muttered an oath. He staggered and almost fell.

D'Orsay, a quarter of an hour after this, informed the guests that Sir Digby Auld had been taken suddenly ill, but that they were to continue to enjoy themselves all the same.

Meanwhile the prisoner was being rapidly whirled away to the Fleet.

And the letter that Keane had received that night was to the effect that the man who proposed marrying his daughter was a bankrupt and a beggar, and would that evening be arrested in his own house and among his guests.

Having effectually disposed of Sir Digby for a time, Richards could afford to quietly await the turn of events. His practice had been sharp, but it was certainly justifiable. He had often hinted to his partner Keane, nay, even told him plainly, that the baronet was but a man of straw.

"Owes a few thousands perhaps," Keane had replied, with an ill-concealed sneer. "They all do it. A post-obit would clear that up. His brother can't live for ever. Sir Digby will be a lord, you know, on his brother's death."

"I'll tell you what," Richards had gone so far as to exclaim one day: "if I were you I'd pay Digby's debts for him. Ten thou., I reckon, would do it. But I shouldn't marry my only daughter to a beggar!"

Keane turned on him sharply.

"Richards," he said, as calmly as he could, "I knew a gentleman once who made an immense fortune by a very simple process."

"Indeed; how?"

"By minding his own business." Then Keane cackled over his ledger. Richards said no more. But the idea of Keane, of all men, paying off a future son-in-law's debts was too absurd.

When Richards went to Keane's house a few days after Digby's incarceration, he found his partner in the throes of packing. He was going to Italy for a time with Gerty, and of course Mary would accompany her.

Months went by, and many a long delightful letter did Richards receive from Gerty, and from Mary too, the latter always ending with "luv and sweet kisses." Then came a final letter. They were coming home. Alas! the ship never reached England. She was captured by a Don, and all were made prisoners. Keane could have bought his liberty if he had cared to. He preferred to wait, and waiting—died.

A few weeks afterwards poor lonely Gerty returned, and Mary. Richards constituted himself Miss Keane's guardian. Indeed it had been Keane's last wishes that he should do so. And, strange to say, the ruling passion had manifested itself strongly in death; for by the help of a priest he had written a letter to Richards, praying him, for the sake of their long acquaintanceship and friendship, to see that Gerty married Sir Digby. He died, he said, peacefully, knowing she would yet be Lady Auld.

"A dying man's last request," said Richards to himself, "ought to be attended to; but—"

Then he solemnly placed the letter in the fire, and it was cremated.

Sir Digby made himself as comfortable as possible in the Fleet. Richards did not think it safe he should come out. Gerty was a strange girl. Her heart bled for the poor man, as she called him. For sake of her father's memory, there was no denying that she might even yet sacrifice herself.

D'Orsay paid many visits to Sir Digby in prison. He really acted like a true friend, and did all he could for him. He had even gone to see his old brother, and come back, figuratively speaking, with a finger in his mouth.

"No good in that quarter," he told Sir Digby bluntly. "Says you're a spendthrift and a ne'er-do-weel, and that he means to live for twenty years yet; and 'pon honour, Digby, he looks as if he could. I did hear too that he was looking out for a wife."

* * * * *

"I shall go and see my hero in his dark dungeon, in his prison cell, in his chains and misery."

These are words spoken by Miss Gordon heroically to herself in the mirror one morning. She had strange ideas of the Fleet.

She was astonished to find her hero in a flowered dressing-gown, smoking a Havana, which he threw into the fire when he saw her, and living in a handsomely-furnished room.

She went again and again. I do not know how she managed it, but I do know that in a month's time Sir Digby was a free man, and married to Miss Gordon.

This event took place just two days before Jack's ship staggered wearily into Plymouth Sound.

While he still sat by his open port, gazing sadly landward, Tom Fairlie came in with a rush and a run. He too had a copy of the Times.

"Listen, Jack," he cried, "and I'll read something that will astonish you."

"Don't, Tom, don't. I have already seen the awful announcement. I am a broken and crushed man!"

"Broken and crushed fiddlestick!" said Tom. "Listen, listen: 'At St. Nicholas' Church, on the 5th inst., by the Rev. Charles Viewfield, Sir Digby Auld to Miss Gertrude Gordon, daughter of—'"

"Hurrah!" cried Jack, springing from his seat and overturning the chair. "Hurrah for the Rev. Charlie! Tom, shake hands, my dearest and best of friends. You've made me the happiest man in the British Islands. Hurrah!"

* * * * *

In a week's time the Tonneraire was paid off and safe in dock, and a carriage with postillions might have been seen tearing along the road that leads from Plymouth to Tor Bay.

The carriage contained Jack Mackenzie and his friend Tom Fairlie.



CHAPTER XXIV.

BY THE OLD DIAL-STONE.

"So heroes may well wear their armour, And, patient, count over their scars; Venus' dimples, assuming the charmer, Shall smooth the rough furrows of Mars." DIBDIN.

General Grant Mackenzie was lounging at breakfast one morning in his private rooms in the big barn-like barracks of C——. At his right hand sat one of his captains, with whom he was talking—languidly enough, it must be confessed.

"You are right, Moore. By Jove, you're right; and to-day I send in my resignation. Here have we been lying waiting the French for more than a year, and the rascals won't show front. No; I shall go in for club life in London now."

"We'll miss you, general."

"Ah, Moore, it is good of you to say so; but what can a fellow do? When I rejoined the service, I expected to see some fighting. Disappointed. And now I'm parted from my daughter, and lying in this old barn positively getting mouldy. Besides—"

"Some one to see you, sir," said the servant.

"Why, Richards, my dear old boy, who could have expected to see you? Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"No, everything right—more than right. Prepare to hear news that—"

He glanced at the captain.

"My friend Captain Moore. No secrets from him—knows everything.—Captain Moore, Mr. Richards, my family lawyer, and, bar yourself, the best fellow in existence."

Richards bowed.

"Well, Jack's come. Had terrible fighting. I hurried over to tell you."

"But not for that alone?"

"Nay, friend. Now sit down, or catch hold of something. I'm going to startle you. Your old uncle is dead."

"What, the man that disinherited me?"

"The same; only—you are heir to Glen Pollok. It is all yours—a cool L10,000 a year."

The general could not speak for a moment; then he grasped the kindly old solicitor's hand once more, and with tears in his eyes.

"God in heaven bless you, Richards," he exclaimed, "and his name be praised. Poor Jack and dear Flo, they will not now be beggars!"

"And, Richards," he added, "Flora shall be wedded with all the pomp and glory due to a daughter of the proud house of Grant Mackenzie."

"Ah!" laughed Richards, "there is the old reckless Celtic blood asserting itself again. Don't forget, my friend, that even L10,000 a year can be spent, and that right easily too."

"I won't, I won't; you shall be my guide."

"And then, you see," continued Richards, "there is the mortgage to pay off on Grantley Hall."

"Grantley Hall! why, isn't that sold long ago?"

Richards laughed heartily now. "O bother," he cried. "I've let the cat out of the bag, and I didn't mean to. I meant to give you such a pleasant surprise. Well, well, well,—

'The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft agley.'"

Then Richards told him all he had done.

The tears stood in General Mackenzie's eyes. "Richards," he said, "I could not have believed such kindness possible. I—I—I can't say another word."

* * * * *

The meeting between Tom Fairlie and Flora was all that lovers could desire. Mary positively hugged Jack. He was still her boy. I'm not sure she did not shower upon him "luv and sweet kisses."

"But, bless me, Jack," she said, "how tall you've got! and really you makes poor me feel old."

Gerty met Jack with a bonnie blush.

Ah! how he longed to take her in his arms and tell her all, and all she had been to him throughout the last two long and eventful years. But no, he would not, dared not. When in a few months' time a ship was once more at his command, he would go quietly away to sea; but he ne'er would speak of love.

For his old Highland pride had come to his rescue. She was rich; he was very poor indeed.

No, it never could be. And so he told Tom, and so he told his sister. The former laughed at his scruples; the latter thought her brother was right.

* * * * *

Richards and the general were at Grantley Hall and as busy as the traditional bonnet-maker. They had a little secret between them, for neither Jack nor Flora had yet been told of the change in the fortunes of the Grant Mackenzies. It would be such a delightful surprise. And so the two old friends worked away, as merrily as school-boys building a rabbit-hutch, and in a few weeks' time the old place was put to rights, and every nick-nack and every curio and souvenir and picture replaced in the drawing-room, just as it had been in the dear, reckless days of long ago.

But near the finish of the arrangements M'Hearty was invited down and let into the delightful secret, for he it was who should bring Jack and his sister, with Tom, Gerty, and Mary the maid, down to the old place.

* * * * *

"Do you know," said M'Hearty about a week after this, as he stood with Jack and his sister on the balcony of the priest's drawing-room at Torquay, "I'm dying to see old Grantley Hall just once again."

"And I too would like to see it," sighed Jack, "if—if I thought Flora could stand it."

"Oh I think I could."



"Well, the weather is delightful; why shouldn't we sail round?"

"Agreed," said Jack; "we shall."

They hired a yacht, not a very fast one. There were no Thistles in those days. But she was most clean and comfortable, and the party had favouring winds all the way round, and in due time arrived safely in Lowestoft harbour.

Then nothing less than a coach and postillions would suit M'Hearty.

"It shan't be at your expense though, Captain Jack," he said, "nor yours either, Tom. Why, I have made oceans of prize-money, and an old bachelor like me doesn't really know how to spend it."

The surprise began when they reached the lodge gate. "Why," cried Jack, "there is some one living here. I expected to find the place in ruins." The surprise increased when they reached the lawn, for here the general and sly old Richards met them laughing. But when the party were ushered into the drawing-room, and saw everything in its place as it had been years ago, and the general and Richards "ready to die" stifling a laugh, why, then the surprise reached a climax.

"Pinch me, Tom," cried Jack. "I'm in a dream."

What a happy first-coming that was, to be sure! but there were many more to follow.

* * * * *

The autumn tints were on the trees, evening primroses and dahlias nodded by the pathways, and many a rare old flower besides.

One evening Jack, with his sister and Gerty, was walking in the bright moonlight along the broad and grassy path that swept under the lime avenue. Flora had gone on, and Jack had given Gerty his arm.

Suddenly they came to the old dial-stone. And here they stopped, for Jack had remembered his dream. He was Gerty's equal now in every way, and so he told her his dream, and he told her something else; told her of all his manly love that neither absence nor the vicissitudes of war could ever banish from his heart. And much more, too, he told her that we need not pry into. Flora went on and on. Just once she glanced behind. Gerty was very close to Jack.

When, a whole hour after this, they entered the great drawing-room arm in arm, they looked very happy indeed. There was no one there but Richards and the general. "Why, where ever have you two truants been?" said the latter.

"We have been cleaning the moss off the old dial-stone, and rolling back the scroll of time. Father, let me present to you your future daughter-in-law."

"My own brave boy," said the general. "Gerty Keane."

That was all; but I do not know yet which was the happier man of the two—Jack's father or Mr. Richards.

As for Mary, as soon as she heard the glorious news she must seek out "her boy" at once. She found him in his room, and with the best grace he could muster he had to submit to "luv and sweet kisses" on the spot, Mary assuring him that he had made her the happiest girl in all Norfolk.

* * * * *

There is a good deal of similarity about weddings; but it was generally admitted that the double event that took place at Grantley Hall in the spring of '99—namely, the marriages of Tom and Flora, and Gerty and Jack—was the gayest wedding, or rather pair of weddings, that had ever taken place in the north. I cannot say that bonfires blazed on every hill, because there are no hills in Norfolk worthy of the name; but the rejoicing far and near was universal, and with all his old Highland hospitality and lavishness, General Grant Mackenzie, ably supported by Richards and the gallant M'Hearty, kept open house for a whole fortnight to all comers.

Meanwhile, in a charming yacht, under blue skies and with favouring winds, the happy couples were sailing round the shores of merry England and green Caledonia.

Ah! there is many a less happy life than that of the sailor, and many worse people than sailors; and had I my time to begin again, I should still be sweeping through the deep.

THE END