wels of compassion in it, to
allow the orphans to be turned out of house and home, and the breath
scarce out of their mother's body. Nancy, do you pack up the children's
clothes, and any school-books or play-things you can find, and then come
along to my house. The law can't touch them, I suppose."

"What is that drunken old Swatridge talking about?" said one of the
broker's men.

Tom heard him.

"Such I may have been, but I'll be no longer `drunken old Swatridge'
while I have these children to look after," he exclaimed; and giving one
hand to Mary and the other to me, he led us out of the house.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A FEARFUL CATASTROPHE.

Leaving Nancy, who could well hold her own, to battle with the broker's
men, Tom, holding Mary by the hand, and I walked on till we came to his
house, which I knew well, having often been there to call him. It
consisted of two small rooms--a parlour, and little inner bedchamber,
and was better furnished than might have been expected; yet old Tom had
at one time made a good deal of money, and had expended a portion of it
in fitting up his dwelling. Had he always been sober he would now have
been comfortably off.

"Stay here, my dears, while I go out for a bit," he said, bidding us sit
down on an old sea-chest on one side of the fireplace. "I haven't got
much to amuse you, but here's the little craft I cut out for you, Peter,
and you can go on rigging her as I've been doing. No matter if you
don't do it all ship-shape. And here, Mary, is the stuff for the sails;
I've shaped them, you see, and if you will hem them you'll help us
finely to get the craft ready for sea."

Mary gladly undertook the task allotted to her, and even smiled as Tom
handed out a huge housewife full of needles and thread and buttons, and
odds and ends of all sorts.

"My thimble won't suit your finger, I've a notion, my little maid," he
observed; "but I dare say you've got one of your own in your pocket.
Feel for it, will you?"

Mary produced a thimble, six of which would have fitted into Tom's.

"Ay, I thought so," he said, and seeing us both busily employed, he
hurried out of the house. He soon, however, returned, bringing a couple
of plum buns for Mary, and some bread and cheese for me, with a small
jug of milk. "There, my dears, that'll stay your hunger till Nancy
comes to cook some supper for you, and to put things to rights," he
said, as he placed them before us. "Good-bye. I'll be back