In another week Drake was as well as ever, but hardly as noisy and
reckless as of old. Alfred remained an invalid for some time longer.

When both were perfectly recovered, Mr Clare called us all together in
the brig's schoolroom one afternoon, and then addressed us, particularly
the two combatants, in a manner that I can never forget--it was so
sensible, so manly, so solemn. He pointed out the faults of each, which
had fed the long quarrel and finally serious conclusion. He painted the
wickedness of that duel, (for it could be called nothing else), and all
such affairs, which in former times were ignorantly considered necessary
and honourable. He told us in what he thought true manliness, courage,
and _chivalry_ consisted. Then, in a simple, touching way, he suggested
higher thoughts--our duty to our Father in heaven as brothers of one
common family, and more than all of the example which our blessed Lord
and Master set us while He was on earth--to forgive injuries--to
overlook insults; and he spoke of charity as forbearance, and conquest
as governing ourselves; and then begged us to join him in earnest
entreaty to the Holy Spirit for the strength to practise that charity
and make those conquests, to the Source whence such virtues came, and to
the Ear which was never deaf to supplication. How simple and noble was
that whole address! And I cannot forbear testimony to the fruitfulness
of a Christian practice such as that of our then tutor, dear Mr Clare.
Even thoughtless boys could not sneer at the constant manly practice of
his life. We had to see that it gave the loftiest aims even to the
smallest acts of his everyday life--that where he spoke one word he
acted fifty in that service which ennobles the commonest deed. So that
religion, which youth often regards as something whining and
hypocritical, something only for the old and sick, we boys _began_ to
look up to as something which, if we could only _partly_ understand,
was, at the least, truly beautiful and noble.

The lesson and bearing of Mr Clare on that occasion was enforced by the
fact that as he concluded, Captain Mugford, rubbing the back of a rough
hand on his cheek for some reason, got up and crossed the room to Mr
Clare, whose hand he took in both his, and said--

"Mr Clare, I am but a rough, wicked old sailor, but the words you have
spoken to these boys have touched an older boy than they, and I thank
you--I thank you!"

The parents of both Dr