me.

After Portsmouth the town appeared small, but the inhabitants have large
warm hearts, and were very kind to Jim and me. As he remarked, it is
better to have large hearts and live in a small place than small cold
hearts and to live in a large place. They seemed never to tire of
asking us questions about our voyage in the _Good Intent_, and how we
two boys alone managed to rig jury-masts and to keep her afloat.

"By just knowing how to do our work and sticking to it," answered Jim,
to one of our friends.

If we had remained much longer at Lerwick we should have begun to fancy
ourselves much more important persons than we really were; but the brig
_Nancy_, Captain Gowan, was ready for sea, and wishing farewell to my
kind relative, Mr Troil, who set sail in his ship to return home, we
went on board. We soon afterwards got under way with a fair breeze, and
before night had left Sumburgh Head, the lofty point which forms the
southern end of the Shetland Islands, far astern.

The _Nancy_ was a very different sort of craft from the _Good Intent_.
She was an old ill-found vessel, patched up in an imperfect manner, and
scarcely seaworthy. Jim and I agreed that if she were to meet with the
bad weather we encountered in our old ship she would go to the bottom or
drive ashore.

We discovered also before long that Captain Gowan was a very different
person from our former captain. He had conducted himself pretty well on
shore, so that people spoke of him as a very decent man, but when once
at sea he threw off all restraint, abused the crew, quarrelled with the
mate, and neglected us, who had been placed under his charge.

Jim, who had to work his passage, slept in the fore-peak, but I was
berthed aft. I, however, did as much duty as anyone. Jim told me that
the men were a rough lot, and that he had never heard worse language in
his life. They tried to bully him, but as he was strong enough to hold
his own, and never lost his temper, they gave up the attempt. Captain
Gowan growled when I came in to dinner the first day, which I knew that
I had a right to do, and he asked if every ship-boy was to be turned
into a young gentleman because he happened to have saved his life while
others lost theirs?

I did not answer him, for I saw an empty bottle on the locker, and
another by his side with very little liquor remaining in it. After this
I kept out of his way, and got my meals from the cook as best I could.

Jim and