s
wonders in the deep.'--`_Alternante vorans vasta Charybdis aqua_.'--`For
at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves
thereof.'--`_Surgens a puppi ventus.--Ubi tempestas et caeli mobilis
humor_.'--`They are carried up to the heavens, and down again to the
deep.'--`_Gurgitibus miris et lactis vertice torrens_.'--`Their soul
melteth away because of their troubles.'--`_Stant pavidi. Omnibus
ignoiae mortis timor, omnibus hostem_.'--`They reel to and fro, and
stagger like a drunken man.'"

"So they do, father, don't they, sometimes?" observed Tom, leering his
eye at his father. "That's all I've understood of his speech."

"They are at their wit's end," continued the Dominie.

"Mind the end of your wit, master Tom," answered his father, wroth at
the insinuation.

"`So when they call upon the Lord in their trouble'--`_Cujus jurare
timent et fallere nomen_'--`He delivereth them out of their distress,
for he makest the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still;'
yea, still and smooth as the peaceful water which now floweth rapidly by
our anchored vessel--yet it appeareth to me that the scene hath changed.
These fields met not mine eyes before. `_Riparumque toros et prata
recentia rivis_.' Surely we have moved from the wharf?"--and the
Dominie turned round, and discovered, for the first time, that we were
more than a mile from the place at which we had embarked.

"Pray, sir, what's the use of speech, sir?" interrogated Tom, who had
been listening to the whole of the Dominie's long soliloquy.

"Thou asketh a foolish question, boy. We are endowed with the power of
speech to enable us to communicate our ideas."

"That's exactly what I thought, sir. Then pray what's the use of your
talking all that gibberish, that none of us could understand?"

"I crave thy pardon, child; I spoke, I presume, in the dead languages."

"If they're dead, why not let them rest in their graves?"

"Good; thou hast wit." (_Cluck, cluck_.) "Yet, child, know that it is
pleasant to commune with the dead."

"Is it? then we'll put you on shore at Battersea churchyard."

"Silence, Tom. He's full of his sauce, sir--you must forgive it."

"Nay, it pleaseth me to hear him talk; but it would please me more to
hear thee sing."

"Then here goes, sir, to drown Tom's impudence:--

"Glide on my bark, the morning tide
Is gently floating by thy side;
Around thy prow the waters bright,
In circling rounds of bro