y years was their due according to the
law of the land.

"Now," said he, in conclusion, "you are both of you young and strong men
who may yet do good service and honest work in the land. I have no
desire to ruin your lives. Penal servitude might do so. Forgiveness
may save you--therefore I forgive you! There is the open window. You
are at liberty to go."

The burglars had been gazing at their reprover with wide-open eyes.
They now turned and gazed at each other with half-open mouths; then they
again turned to the clergyman as if in doubt, but with a benignant smile
he again pointed to the open window.

They rose like men in a dream, went softly across the room, stepped
humbly out, and melted into darkness.

The parson's conduct may not have been in accordance with law, but it
was eminently successful, for it is recorded that those burglars laid
that sermon seriously to heart--at all events, they never again broke
into that parsonage, and never again was there occasion for Harry to
call in the services of the ancient knight or the Crusader.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

JIM GREELY, THE NORTH SEA SKIPPER.

When Nellie Sumner married James Greely--the strapping skipper of a
Yarmouth fishing-smack--there was not a prettier girl in all the town,
at least so said, or thought, most of the men and many of the women who
dwelt near her. Of course there were differences of opinion on the
point, but there was no doubt whatever about it in the mind of James
Greely, who was overwhelmed with astonishment, as well as joy, at what
he styled his "luck in catching such a splendid wife."

And there was good ground for his strong feeling, for Nellie was neat,
tidy, and good-humoured, as well as good-looking, and she made Jim's
home as neat and tidy as herself.

"There's always sunshine inside o' my house," said Greely to his mates
once, "no matter what sort o' weather there may be outside."

Ere long a squall struck that house--a squall that moved the feelings of
our fisherman more deeply than the fiercest gale he had ever faced on
the wild North Sea, for it was the squall of a juvenile Jim! From that
date the fisherman was wont to remark, with a quiet smile of
satisfaction, that he had got moonlight now, as well as sunshine, in the
Yarmouth home.

The only matter that distressed the family at first was that the father
saw so little of his lightsome home; for, his calling being that of a
deep-sea smacksman, or trawler, by far th