, and tell her I'm hearty." Tom was in the boat
in a moment, and pulling lustily for the shore. "That makes me
recollect when I returned to my mother, a'ter the first three years of
my sea service. I borrowed the skiff from the skipper.--I was in a
Greenland-man, my first ship, and pulled ashore to my mother's cottage
under the cliff. I thought the old soul would have died with joy."
Here old Tom was silent, brushed a tear from his eye, and, as usual,
commenced a strain, _sotto voce_:--

"Why, what's that to you if my eyes I'm a wiping?
A tear is a pleasure, d'ye see, in its way.

"How, miserable," continued he, after another pause, "the poor thing was
when I would go to sea--how she begged and prayed--boys have no feeling,
that's sartin."

"O bairn, dinna leave me, to gang far away,
O bairn, dinna leave me, ye're a' that I hae,
Think on a mither, the wind and the wave,
A mither set on ye, her feet in the grave.

"However, she got used to it at last, as the woman said when she skinned
the ells. Tom's a good boy, Jacob, but not steady, as they say you are.
His mother spoils him, and I can't bear to be cross to him neither; for
his heart's in the right place, after all. There's the old woman
shaking her dish-clout at us as a signal. I wish I had gone on shore
myself, but I can't step into these paper-built little boats without my
timber toes going through at the bottom."

CHAPTER NINE.

THE TWO TOMS TAKE TO PROTOCOLLING--TREATY OF PEACE RATIFIED BETWEEN THE
BELLIGERENT PARTIES--LOTS OF SONGS AND SUPPER--THE LARGEST MESS OF ROAST
MEAT UPON RECORD.

Tom then shoved off the skiff. When half-way between the lighter and
the shore, while his mother stood watching us, he lay on his oars.
"Tom, Tom!" cried his mother, shaking her fist at him, as he stooped
down his head; "if you do, Tom!"

"Tom, Tom!" cried his father, shaking his fist also; "if you dare, Tom!"

But Tom was not within reach of either party; and he dragged a bottle
out of the basket which his mother had entrusted to him, and putting it
to his mouth, took a long swig.

"That's enough, Tom!" screamed his mother, from the shore.

"That's too much, you rascal!" cried his father, from the barge.

Neither admonition was, however, minded by Tom, who took what he
considered his allowance, and then very coolly pulled alongside, and
handed up the basket and bundle of clean clothes on deck. Tom then gave
the boat's painter to his fath