In the boiler the net beside it held a nuckle
of smoked ham. The laughter and jokes made us forget the taste of the
ham and not a scrap of the roley-poley was left. Our greatest lack was
milk for the children, and we all resented being scrimped in
drinking-water, though before the voyage ended we became reconciled to
that, for the water grew bad.

CHAPTER III.

There were 43 passengers. There were two families besides our own, and
outside of them were a number of young men, plowmen and shepherds,
intent on getting land and sending for their people to join them the
next spring. There was an exception in a middle-aged man, brisk and
spruce, who held himself to be above his fellow-passengers, and said
nothing about where he came from or who he was. The only information he
gave was, that he had been in the mercantile line, and that he was to be
addressed as Mr Snellgrove. He waved his right hand in conversation and
spoke in a lofty way, which to Allan and myself was funny. When he had
got his sealegs and his appetite, he began lecturing the passengers as
to what they ought to do, enlarging on organizing a committee, of which
he was to be head. I think I see him, strutting up and down the deck by
the side of the captain with whom it gratified him to walk. The only
other passenger besides him who was not connected with farming was Mr
Kerr, to whom I became much attached. He was well-informed on subjects
I had heard of but knew nothing, and we talked by the hour. His
companionship was to me an intellectual awakening. Among his purchases
in Troon was material for a suit of clothes, which he made during the
voyage, for he was a tailor. He had left Greenock in such haste that he
had not time to go to his lodging for any of his belongings. Mr
Snellgrove affected to despise him both for his trade and his political
principles, and never missed an opportunity to sneer at him; Mr Kerr
never replied.

Day followed day without relieving the monotony. At times we would get a
glimpse of the topsails of a ship gliding along the horizon, but usually
the ocean seemed to have no other tenant than our own stout brig. One
afternoon the cook rushed out of his den with the shout 'There she
spouts!' and looking where he pointed we saw a whale cleaving the waves.
We were in our third week out when we ran into a fog. The wind fell and
the brig rolled in the swell, causing her tackle to rattle and sails to
flap as if they would split. The