one who saw it that he was or had been a schoolmaster. He worked his pen slowly and carefully, but he entered so minutely into the details of the disaster that he had not half finished the narrative when the supper bell rang.

Harvey did not resume the task again that day; he was too weary to do so. That night he was ill and feverish, and in the morning had an attack of bleeding at the lungs. The landlord sent for the doctor, but the patient was not able to leave in the steamer, which went in the afternoon. The landlord's wife nursed him carefully and kindly, and in a week he began to improve. He had no further attack of bleeding, and he began to hope that he should live to get home. As soon as he was able to sit up in the bed, he resumed the writing up of the diary.

But we must leave him in his chamber thus occupied, to introduce the most important character of our story.

He was a rather tall and quite stout young fellow of sixteen. He was dressed in homely attire, what there was of it, for he wore no coat, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up above his elbows, in order, apparently, to give his arms more freedom. He was as tawny as the sailors of the Waldo had been, tanned by the hot suns of the West Indies. He had just come down the river from the principal wharf, at the head of which was the fish market—a very important institution, where the product of the sea formed a considerable portion of the food of the people. The boat in which he sailed was an old, black, dingy affair, which needed to be baled out more than once a day to keep her afloat. The sail was almost as black as the hull, and had been patched and darned in a hundred places. The skipper and crew of this unsightly old craft was Leopold Bennington, the only son of the landlord of the Cliff House, though he had three daughters.

Leopold carried the anchor of his boat far up on the rocks above the beach, and thrust one of the arms down into a crevice, where it would hold the boat. Taking from the dingy boat a basket which was heavy enough to give a considerable curve to his spine as he carried it, he climbed up the rocks to the street which extended along the shore of the river for half a mile. On the opposite side of it was the Cliff House. His father stood on the piazza of the house as the young man crossed the street.

"Well, Leopold, what luck had you to-day?" asked Mr. Bennington, as his son approached.

"First rate, father," replied the young man, as his bronzed face lighted up with enthusiasm.

"What did you get?" asked the landlord.

"Mackerel."

"Mackerel!" exclaimed mine host, his face in turn lighting up with pleasure.

"Lots of them, father."

"We have hardly seen a mackerel this year yet. I never knew them to be so scarce since I have been on this coast."

"There hasn't been any caught before these for a month, and then only a few tinkers," added Leopold, as he removed the wet rock-weed with which he had covered the fish to protect them from the sun. "They are handsome ones, too."

"So they are—number ones every one of them, and some extra," said the landlord, as he raised the fish with his hand so that he could see them.

"They were the handsomest lot of mackerel I ever saw," continued the young fisherman, his face glowing with satisfaction. "I brought up three dozen for you, and sold the rest. I made a good haul to-day."

"Three dozen will be all we can use in the house, as big as those are. Two dozen would have been enough; we don't have many people here now. But where did you get them?"

"Just off High Rock, where the Waldo was wrecked. I fished within a cable's length of the Ledges. I don't know but the sugar and molasses from the brig drew the mackerel around her," laughed Leopold, as he took an old black wallet from his pocket.

"Were there any other boats near you?" asked the prudent landlord.

"Not another one; folks are tired of trying for mackerel, and have given it up. I didn't expect to find any, but I happened to have my jigs in the boat; and for an hour I worked three of them as lively as any fellow ever did, I can tell you."

"Did they ask you at the fish market where you got them?"

"They did; but I didn't tell them," laughed the young man. "The mackerel fetched a good price. I counted off three hundred and twenty-four at ten cents apiece, and wouldn't take any less. They are scarce, and I saw them selling the fish at twenty cents apiece; so they will make as much as I do. Here is the money—thirty-two dollars and forty cents."