off my wet things in Mark's room, and getting into dry
ones, made my appearance in the room which served them for parlour,
kitchen, and hall, where I found the table spread, with a pot of hot
tea, cups and saucers, a bowl of porridge, a loaf of home-made bread,
and a pile of buttered toast, to which several of Mark's freshly caught
fish were quickly added. I offered mine to Mrs Riddle, but she
answered--

"Thank you kindly, but you had better take them home to your friends,
they'll be glad of them, and we've got a plenty, as you see."

I was very thankful to get a cup of scalding tea, for I was beginning to
feel somewhat chilly, though Mrs Riddle made me sit near the fire. A
saucer of porridge and milk, followed by some buttered toast and the
best part of a tench, with a slice or two of bread soon set me up.

Nancy, however, now and then got up and gave my clothes a turn to dry
them faster--a delicate attention which I duly appreciated. Mr Riddle,
who was evidently fond of spinning yarns, as most old sailors are,
narrated a number of his adventures, which greatly interested me, and
made me more than ever wish to go to sea. Mark had already made a trip
in a coaster to the north of England, and I was much surprised to hear
him say that he had had enough of it.

"It is not all gold that glitters," he remarked. "I fancied that I was
to become a sailor all at once, instead of that I was made to clean out
the cabin, attend on the skipper, and wash up the pots and the pans for
the cook, and be at everybody's beck and call, with a rope's-end for my
reward whenever I was not quick enough to please my many masters."

"That's what most youngsters have to put up with when they first go to
sea," remarked his father. "You should not have minded it, my lad."

I found that Mark's great ambition was to become the owner of a
fishing-boat, when he could live at home and be his own master. He was
fonder of fishing than anything else, and when he could not get out to
sea he passed much of his time with his rod and lines on the banks of
the Squire's ponds, or on those of others in the neighbourhood. He did
not consider it poaching, as he asserted he had a perfect right to catch
fish wherever he could find them, and I suspect that his father was of
the same opinion, for he did not in any way find fault with him. When
breakfast was over Mark exhibited with considerable pride a small model
of a vessel which he and his father had c