ception. The first thing which they did in the way of
preparation for the voyage was to doff the garments of civilized life,
and to don the costume of the "B. O. W. C." Those red shirts,
decorated with a huge white cross on the back, had been washed and
mended, and completely reconstructed, so that the rents and patches
which were here and there visible on their fair exteriors, served as
mementos of former exploits, and called up associations of the past
without at all deteriorating from the striking effect of the present.
Glengary bonnets adorned their heads, and served to complete the
costume.

The labor of dressing was followed by a hurried arrangement of the
trunks and bedding; after which they all emerged from the hold and
ascending to the deck, looked around upon the scene. Above, the sky
was blue and cloudless, and between them and the blue sky floated the
flag, from whose folds the face looked benignantly down. The tide was
now on the ebb, and as the wind was fair, both wind and tide united to
bear them rapidly onward. Before them was Blomidon, while all around
was the circling sweep of the shores of Minas Bay. A better day for a
start could not have been found, and everything promised a rapid and
pleasant run.

"I must say," remarked Captain Corbet, who had for some time been
standing buried in his own meditations at the helm,--"I must say, boys,
that I don't altogether regret bein once more on the briny deep. There
was a time," he continued, meditatively, "when I kine o' anticipated
givin up this here occypation, an stayin to hum a nourishin of the
infant. But man proposes, an woman disposes, as the sayin is,--an you
see what I'm druv to. It's a great thing for a man to have a companion
of sperrit, same as I have, that keeps a' drivin an a drivin at him,
and makes him be up an doin. An now, I declar, if I ain't gittin to be
a confirmed wanderer agin, same as I was in the days of my halcyon an
shinin youth. Besides, I have a kine o' feelin as if I'd be a
continewin this here the rest of all my born days."

"I hope you won't feel homesick," remarked Bart, sympathetically.

"Homesick," repeated the captain. "Wal, you see thar's a good deal to
be said about it. In my hum thar's a attraction, but thar's also a
repulsion. The infant drors me hum, the wife of my buzzum drives me
away, an so thar it is, an I've got to knock under to the strongest
power. An that's the identical individool thing that