, and was
extremely fond of all the children of the village. He had that method
possessed by few people of searching into the heart of a child and
arguing with him in a manner suitable for a child's understanding.

Archie had often sought Ben's counsel when things seemed to go wrong,
and it was seldom that the boat-builder had failed to convince the
boy, even to his satisfaction, that he was wrong.

It was an off day for the boat-builder. He was sitting, smoking his
pipe, in the cottage porch, and reading a well-thumbed copy of "Gray's
Master Mariner." He welcomed Archie with a secret delight, for he
knew, by his little friend's face, that he was brooding over some
fancied injury, and it gave the boat-builder pleasure to talk his
little friend out of his troubles.

"Well, Archie, what's new in the wind," said Ben, as he greeted the
boy with a grasp of the hand. "It seems almost an age since I saw you,
my boy."

Little Archie sat down on a large stone bench in the porch, and told
Ben his story. His mother had been vexed with him that morning. She
had asked him to call at the rectory with a message for Doctor Hart,
and he wanted to cut grass at the time, and objected. His mother did
not scold him, oh, no, Ben, she sent Carrie, who willingly took the
message, and his father had called him a name. Then, again, he had no
toys like other boys. Some had a pony; he couldn't have one. His
father always answered his request for a pony with the reply that he
couldn't afford one just then and he would see about it some day. If
Ben would only tell him how to go to sea he would certainly run away
the next day.

[Illustration: "AND DISCUSSED LITTLE ARCHIE'S PURPOSED FLIGHT."]

Now, Ben knew the character of little Archie better, perhaps, than his
own mother did; so, when he had given the little boy a draught of cool
milk from the cottage kitchen, Ben lit his pipe afresh, and took down
an old telescope, a relic of his sea-faring days, from the wall. The
young man and the boy then strolled across a low, level tract of sand,
to a grassy hillock, formed by the current of the Wyncombe. Here they
sat down in the fast waning twilight, and discussed little Archie's
purposed flight.

"Yes, Archie," said Ben, "a sailor's life is well enough, if you don't
mind hard beds and harder words. If you can eat salty meat and mouldy
bread it's a fine life, Archie. There is no life I'd like better if
they'd give you fresher water and not quite so