id, with a bow, "Captain
Mugford, I believe. These boys are to be both your crew and my
scholars. I am their tutor, Richard Clare."

"I am happy to see you, Mr Clare. Give me your hand, sir. I hope our
different commands will not clash."

As the skipper shook hands, he looked Mr Clare all over at a glance,
and smiled as if pleased with the inspection.

"Come here, boys; if I'm not out in my calculation, these boys will do
to sail any craft on land or water! Well, my hearties, we are often to
be shipmates, so let's be friends to start with. I don't know your
different names, boys, only that three of you are sons of my old and
respected friend and owner--that's good enough--and you all look as if
you hated lies and kept above-board."

"These," said Mr Clare, laying his hands on Harry's and Alfred's
shoulders, "are Higginsons!"

"Higginsons? Fancy I knew your father, young gentlemen--an honest man,
and a kind man, and a true man, and a brave man, if he was John
Higginson; and brother of David Higginson, under whom I once served, and
a better sailor never stepped. As he died unmarried, I take you to be
John Higginson's sons. And if all you boys act as honest as you look,
you need not care for shipwrecks of any kind--love or money, lands or
goods, by land or by water."

Well, we thought the Captain a brick. So he was. So he proved.

We passed all the morning on the wreck. Each one of its details was a
new delight. The Captain talked about the brig as if she were a human
being in misfortune. An old invalid, he said--a veteran old salt laid
up in a sailor's snug harbour; laid up and pensioned for the remainder
of life, where it was able to overlook, by the side and in the very
spray of its well-loved brine, the billows it had often gloried in.

We went below to the Captain's cabin and stateroom. There everything
bore the marks of a sea habitation, and when hearing the dash of the
waves on the shore and listening to the Captain's talk, I could not help
fancying myself on a voyage. Not a nook or hole of that vessel but we
explored, and numberless questions had each one of us to ask. Mr Clare
seemed as much pleased and interested as we were. When at play, indeed,
he was as heartily a boy as any of us.

Great was our astonishment--Mr Clare, however, was prepared for it--
upon going between decks, where the cargo had once been stored, to find
ourselves in a _schoolroom_--a long, low schoolroom. Thick gl