h on that occasion happened to be composed of "pickled pork
and taturs." Old Bill and Bob were gruffly but cordially invited to
join the family circle, which they did; Bob making a thoroughly hearty
meal, quite unmoved by the coquettish endeavours of Miss Turnbull, a
stout, good-tempered, but not particularly beautiful damsel of some
seventeen summers, to attract the attention and excite the admiration of
"pa's handsome new sailor."

"Captain" Turnbull proved to be a very stout but not very tall man, with
a somewhat vacant expression of feature, and a singular habit of looking
fixedly and in apparent amazement for a full minute at anyone who
happened to address him. These, with a slow ponderous movement of body,
a fixed belief in his own infallibility, and an equally firm belief in
the unsurpassed perfections of the _Betsy Jane_, were his chief
characteristics; and as he is destined to figure for a very brief period
only in the pages of the present history, we need not analyse him any
further.

After dinner had been duly discussed, together with a glass of grog--so
far at least as the "captain," his wife, and old Bill were concerned--
our two friends were invited by the proud commander to pay a visit of
inspection to the _Betsy Jane_. That venerable craft proved to be lying
in the stream, the outside vessel of a number of similar craft moored in
a tier, head and stern, to great slimy buoys, laid down as permanent
moorings in the river. A wherry was engaged by the skipper, for which
old Bill paid when the time of settlement arrived, the "captain" being
apparently unconscious of the fact that payment was necessary, and the
three proceeded on board. The brig turned out to be about as bad a
specimen of her class as could well be met with--old, rotten, leaky, and
dirty beyond all power of description. Nevertheless her skipper waxed
so astonishingly eloquent when he began to speak her praises, that the
idea never seemed to occur to either Bill or Bob that to venture to sea
in her would be simply tempting Providence, and it was consequently soon
arranged that our hero was to sign articles, nominally as an ordinary
seaman, but, in consideration of his ignorance of square-rigged craft,
to receive only the pay of a boy.

This point being settled the party returned to the shore, old Bill and
Bob going for a saunter through some of the principal streets, to enjoy
the cheap but rare luxury, to simple country people like them