hen you're about
half-way up that ladder of success that I'll never be climbing (or I'd
do it myself), say a good word for Alfonso to some of these Scotch
captains with big ships, that want a steward and stewardess. That's what
she's got her eye on for Alfonso, and Alfonso has been a good friend to
us."

"I'll mind," said Alister. And he did. For (to use his own expression)
our Scotch comrade was "aye better than his word."

Dennis O'Moore's cousin behaved very kindly to us. He was not only
willing to find Dennis the money which the squire had failed to send,
but he would have advanced my passage-money to Halifax. I declined the
offer for two reasons. In the first place, Uncle Henry had only spoken
of paying my passage from Halifax to England, and I did not feel that I
was entitled to spend any money that I could avoid spending; and,
secondly, as Alister had to go north before the mast, I chose to stick
by my comrade, and rough it with him. This decided Dennis. If Alister
and I were going as seamen, he would not "sneak home as a passenger."

The elderly cousin did not quite approve of this, but the engineer
officer warmly supported Dennis, and he was also upheld in a quarter
where praise was still dearer to him, as I knew, for he took me into his
confidence, when his feelings became more than he could comfortably keep
to himself.

"Perhaps she won't like your being a common sailor, Dennis," I had said,
"and you know Alister and I shall quite understand about it. We know
well enough what a true mate you've been to us, and Alister was talking
to me about it last night. He said he didn't like to say anything to
you, as he wouldn't take the liberty of alluding to the young lady, but
he's quite sure she won't like it, and I think so too."

I said more than I might otherwise have done, because I was very much
impressed by Alister's unusual vehemence on the subject. He seldom
indeed said a word that was less than a boast of Scotland in general,
and Aberdeenshire in particular, but on this occasion it had burst
forth that though he had been little "in society" in his native country,
he had "seen enough to know that a man would easier live down a breach
of a' the ten commandments than of any three of its customs." And when I
remembered for my own part, how fatal in my own neighbourhood were any
proceedings of an unusual nature, and how all his innocence, and his ten
years of martyrdom, had not sufficed with many of Mr. Wood