desirous to learn, and never forgets anything!'

I was affected by this trivial circumstance, reflecting how many little brown boys like this there must be in various countries called civilised, who, for want of a refuge where love and light are predominant, remain the outcasts of the streets, and become the prey of vice and ignorance.

THE LOSING GAME.

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[The following story is by no means a piece of mere invention. The principal points were narrated to me by a very intelligent young North-Sea fisherman, who had frequently heard the legend from a grizzled old sailor on board the smack in which he was an apprentice. The veteran used to tell the story as having happened to himself; and he had told it so often, that he firmly believed it, and used to get into a passion when any of the crew dared to doubt or laugh. I have, of course, licked the rough outlines of the story or anecdote into something like shape; but the main incidents are repeated to this day by the sailors of the 'Barking Fleet,' as the squadron of handsome smacks are called, which, hailing from the town of Barking, in Essex, pursue the toilsome task, in all seasons, and almost in all weathers, of supplying the London market with North-Sea turbot, soles, and cod. The story is told in the first person, as Dick Hatch himself might have narrated it.]

Nigh forty years ago, mates, when I was as young and supple as the boy Bill, there—though I was older than him by some years—I was serving my apprenticeship to the trade aboard the sloop Lively Nan. There were not such big vessels in the trade then, mates, as now; but they were tight craft, and manned by light fellows; and they did their work as well as the primest clipper of the Barking Fleet. Well, the Lively Nan was about this quickest and most weatherly of the whole fleet; and she had a great name for making the quickest runs between the fishing-grounds and the river. But it wasn't owing so much to the qualities of the smack, as to the seamanship of the skipper. A prime sailor he was, surely. There wasn't another man sailed out of the River Thames who could handle a smack like Bob Goss. When he took the tiller, somehow the craft seemed to know it, and bobbed up half a point nearer to the wind; and when we were running free with the main-sheet eased off, and the foresail shivering, her wake would be as straight as her mast; only, he was a rare fellow for carrying on, was old Captain Goss! We would be staggering under a whole main-sail, when the other smacks had three reefs in theirs; and it was odds but we had one line of reef-points triced up, when our neighbours would be going at it under storm-trysail and storm-jib. He worked the Lively Nan hard, he did, did Captain Goss. Sweet, and wholesome, and easy as she was—for she would rise to any sea, like as comfortable as a duck—Old Goss all but drove her under. Dry jackets were scarce on board the Lively Nan. If there was as much wind stirring as would whirl round the rusty old vane on the topmast head, 'Carry on, carry on!' was always the captain's cry; and away we would bowl, half-a-dozen of the lee-streaks of the deck under water.

Well, mates, Old Goss was a prime sailor; but he was a strange sort of man. To see him in a passion, was something you wouldn't forget in a hurry; and you wouldn't have known him long without having the chance. Most of us can swear a bit now and then; but you ought to have heard Captain Goss! He used even to frighten the old salts, that had common oaths in their mouths from morning till night. He was worse than the worst madman in Bedlam when his blood was up; and even the strong, bold men of the crew used to cower before him like as the cabin-boy. And yet, mates, he was but a little, maimed man, and more than sixty years old. He had a regular monkey-face; I never saw one like it—brown, and all over puckers, and working and twitching, like the sea where the tide-currents meet. He had but one eye, and he wore a big black patch over the place where the other had been; but that one eye, mates, would screw into you like a gimlet. Well, Captain Goss was more than fifty when he came down to Barking, and bought the Lively Nan, and made a carrier[1] of her; and nobody knew who he was, or where he came from. There was an old house at Barking then, and I have heard say that its ruins are there yet. The boys said that Guy Fawkes—him they burn every 5th of November—used to live there; and the story went that it was haunted, and that there was one room, the door of which always stood ajar, and nobody could either open or shut it. Well, mates, Old Captain Goss wasn't the sort of man to care much about Guy Fawkeses or goblins; so he hires a room in this old house—precious cheap he got it!—and when he was ashore, you could see a light in it all night; and if you went near, you might listen to Old Goss singing roaring songs about the brisk boys of the Spanish main, and yelling and huzzaing to himself, and drinking what he called his five-water grog. Five-water grog, mates—that was one of his jokes. It was rum made hot on the fire; and he could drink it scalding and never wink: and he would drink it till he got reg'lar wild. He was never right-down drunk, but just wild, like a savage beast! And then he would jump up, and make-believe he was fighting, and holler out to give it to the Spanish dogs, and that there were lots of doubloons below. I've gone myself with other youngsters, to listen at the door; and once when he was in the fit, yelling and singing, and laughing and swearing, all at once, I'm jiggered if he didn't out with a brace of old brass-mounted ship's pistols, and fire them right and left in the air, so that we cut and run a deal faster than we came. Of course the report soon got about that Captain Goss was an old pirate, or at the best an old bucaneer; and the Barking folks used to tell how many crews he had made walk the plank, and how there was blood-marks on his hands, which he used to try to cover with tar. But no one dared to say a word of this to him; and as he was a prime sailor, and even kind after his fashion, when he had taken first a reg'lar quantity of his five-water grog, he never wanted hands. At sea, he was often wild enough with liquor; but he no sooner put his hand on the tiller, than he seemed all right: and the Lively Nan walked through it like smoke. I'm jiggered, mates, if that old fellow couldn't sail a ship asleep or awake, drunk or sober, dead or alive.

Well, then, such was my old captain, Bobby Goss; and now I'll tell you what happened to him. One evening, in the autumn-time, and just when we were beginning to look out for the equinoctials, the Lively Nan was lying with her anchor a-peak—for we didn't mean to stay long—in Yarmouth Roads. There were three men on board, and one boy with myself; they called him Lawrence. I forget his other name, for I aint seen him for many a year. Well, the men had all turned in for'ards, and we two were left to wait for the captain, who had gone ashore; and after he came back, to take our spells at an anchor-watch till daylight, when we were to trip, and be off to the Dogger. The weather was near a dead calm, and warm for the time of year. The Lively Nan was lying with her gaff hoisted half-way and the peak settled down, so that we mightn't lose any time in setting the sail in the morning; and Lawrence and I were lying in the fo'castle, with our pipes in our mouths, watching the shore, to see if the captain was