Can it be that our young are no longer to be nourished
on sago, rice, or maize? Alas! if it has come to that, I myself will
gnaw the beard from the old curmudgeon who thinks he sleeps here safely.
Is the degradation of effeminate land rats, cheese-eaters, wharf
robbers, stable vermin, to come upon us? Fates forbid it! Soon,
perhaps, some fierce tabby may come to make our once brave hearts
tremble. Then, then,"--but I imagined the eloquence broken off there
and giving place to a furious scamper, as perhaps old Captain Mugford,
arrayed in a long nightshirt and red bandanna nightcap, would fling open
his stateroom door and send a boot-jack flying amid the noisy, noxious
animals.

To think that our schoolhouse was on such a wild seashore--in a wrecked
vessel, the same craft in which poor Harry Breese, who rested in the
churchyard near by, had voyaged and been lost from--to have the smell of
tar, and be surrounded by a thousand other sailor-like associations.
What a glorious school-house, that old wreck by the ocean! What boy
ever had a finer one!

The afternoon of that first day of novelty on the cape I remember with
minute distinctness. We strolled about the beaches and climbed the
rocks, everything being marvellous and delightful to us. In the evening
Captain Mugford came in, and Mr Clare and he talked whilst we boys
listened. After the Captain had gone, Mr Clare read the evening
prayers to us, and that grand Psalm, the one hundred and seventh. The
words reached us with the noise of the waves they sang of:--

_They that go down to the sea in ships_,
_that do business in great waters_.
_These see the works of the Lord_,
_and His wonders in the deep_.
_For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind_,
_which lifteth up the waves thereof_.
_They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths_:
_their soul is melted because of trouble_.
_They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man_,
_and are at their wit's end_.
_Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble_,
_and He bringeth them out of their distresses_.
_He maketh the storm a calm_,
_so that the waves thereof are still_.

CHAPTER FOUR.

CAPTAIN MUGFORD'S SATURDAY LESSON.

With a new week commenced our studies--order in tasks and play taking
the place of the licence and excitement of the first days of novelty.

By Mr Clare's rule we reached our school-house in the wreck every
morning at eight--that is