y as the
combined efforts of the doctor's and Captain Chubb's experience could
contrive, and with his face all smiles Dr Robson stood beside Rodd,
watching the receding shore as they, to use the skipper's words, bowled
down Channel.

"Good luck to us, Pickle, my boy!" cried the doctor. "It's been a long
weary time of preparation, but it has been worth it. We have got a
splendid captain--a man in whom I can thoroughly trust, and a crew of as
smart, handy, useful fellows as I could have wished for."

"Yes, uncle; and haven't they taken to all the arrangements about the
tackle!"

"Yes, Pickle. They have all proved themselves not only eager and
active, but as much interested as so many boys. Splendid fellows; and
old Chubb knows how to handle them too. Fetch my glass up, Pickle.
Let's have a look at the old country as long as we can."

Rodd darted off to the cabin hatch, but he staggered once or twice, for
the schooner as she rose and fell kept on careening a little over to
leeward, and in passing one of the sailors--a fine bluff-looking young
fellow--the man smiled.

"Here, what are you grinning at, Joe Cross?" cried Rodd, who, after many
months of intercourse with the crew, was fully acquainted with all, and
knew a good many of their peculiarities.

"Oh, not at you, Mr Harding, sir. It was a little bit of a snigger at
your boots."

"What!" cried Rodd.

"Just a little guffaw, sir. You see, the deck's as white as a holystone
will make it, and your boots is black, and black and white never did
agree. It's beginning to get a bit fresh, sir, and if I was you I'd
striddle a bit, so as to take a bit better hold of the deck with your
footsies. I shouldn't like to see you come down hard."

"Oh, I shan't come down," said Rodd confidently; but as he was speaking
the schooner gave a sudden pitch which sent the boy into the sailor's
arms.

"Avast there!" cried the man. "Steady, sir!--Steady it is! There, let
me stand you up again on your pins. You mustn't do that, or you'll have
the lads thinking you're a himmidge, or a statty, a-tumbling off your
shelf."

"Thank you. I am all right now," said Rodd. "My boots are quite new,
and the soles are slippery."

"I see, sir, but it wasn't all that. You see, our Sally's been tied up
by the nose for so many months in harbour yonder, that now she's running
free she can't hold herself in. Ketch hold of the rail, sir. That's
your sort! There she goes again, larkin