g Captain
Merryweather and the boy.

"Steady, my lad, steady," said the captain; "keep her head just south
and by east. A firm hand, a steady eye, and a sound heart; there's no
good without them."

"You'll soon make a good sailor of him, captain," said Hubert.

"Ay, I hope so," was the reply. "He's got the best guarantee for the
firm hand and the steady eye in his total abstinence; and I hope he has
the sound heart too."

"You look, captain, as if total abstinence had thriven with you. Have
you always been a total abstainer?" asked Frank.

A shade of deep sadness came over the captain's face as he answered,--

"No, Mr Oldfield; but it's many years now since I was driven into it."

"Driven!" exclaimed Frank, laughing; "you do not look a likely subject
to be driven into anything."

"Ay, sir; but there are two sorts of driving--body-driving and heart-
driving. Mine was heart-driving."

"I should very much like to hear how it was that you were driven into
becoming an abstainer," said Hubert; "if it will not be asking too
much."

"Not at all, sir; and perhaps it may do you all good to hear it, though
it's a very sad story.--Steady, Jacob, steady; keep her full.--It may
help to keep you firm when you get to Australia. You'll find plenty of
drinking traps there."

"I'm not afraid," said Frank. "But by all means let us have your story.
We are all attention."

Hubert sighed; he wished that Frank were not so confident.

"Ay," said the captain, gazing dreamily across the water; "I think I see
her now--my poor dear mother. She was a good mother to me. That's one
of God's best gifts in this rough world of ours, Mr Oliphant. I've
known many a man--and I'm one of them--that's owed everything to a good
mother. Well, my poor mother was a sailor's wife; a better sailor, they
say, than my father never stepped a plank. He'd one fault, however,
when she married him, and only one; so folks like to put it. That fault
was, that he took too much grog aboard; but only now and then. So my
poor mother smiled when it was talked about in courting time, and they
were married. My father was the owner of a small coasting-vessel, and
of course was often away from home for weeks and sometimes for months
together. A sister and myself were the only children; she was two years
the oldest. My father used to be very fond of his children when he came
home, and would bring us some present or other in his pocket, and a new
gown,