ss yer heart! we ain't heard
nothing from nobody about him, never a word; so I just adopted him, as
the sayin' is, and called him Robert Legerton, arter a old shipmate of
mine that's been drowned this many a year, poor chap."

"And how long is it since the wreck happened?" inquired the shopman.

"Well, let me see," said old Bill. "Blest if I can rightly tell," he
continued, after a moment or two of reflection. "I've got it wrote down
in the family Bible at home, but I can't just rightly recollect at this
moment. It's somewheres about fourteen or fifteen years ago this
winter, though."

"Fourteen year next month," spoke up another of the company, decidedly.
"It was the same gale as my poor brother Joe was drowned in."

"Right you are, Tom," returned Bill. "I remember it _was_ that same
gale now, and that's fourteen year agone. And the women as took charge
of poor little Bob when we brought him ashore reckoned as he was about
two year old or thereaway; they told his age by his teeth--same as you
would tell a horse's age, you know, mister."

"Ay! that was a terrible winter for wrecks, that was," remarked Jack
Willis, a fine stalwart young fellow of some five-and-twenty. "It was
my first year at sea. I'd been bound apprentice to the skipper of a
collier brig called the _Nancy_, sailing out of Harwich. The skipper's
name was Daniell, `Long Tom Dan'ell' they used to call him because of
his size. He was so tall that he couldn't stand upright in his cabin,
and he'd been going to sea for so many years that he'd got to be regular
round-shouldered. I don't believe that man ever knowed what it was to
be ill in his life; he used to be awful proud of his good health, poor
chap! he's dead now--drowned--jumped overboard in a gale of wind a'ter a
man as fell off the fore-topsail-yard while they was reefing; and, good
swimmer as he was, they was both lost. Now, he _was_ a swimmer if you
like. You talk about young Bob being a good swimmer, but I'm blessed if
I think he could hold a candle to this here Long Tom Dan'ell as I'm
talking about. Why, I recollect once when we was lyin' wind-bound in
Yarmouth Roads--"

At this point the narrator was interrupted by the sudden opening of the
door and the hurried entry of a tall and somewhat slender fair-haired
lad clad in oilskin jumper, leggings, and "sou'-wester" hat, which
glistened in the gaslight; while, as he stood in the doorway for a
moment, dazzled by the abrupt transiti