plenty of work to be done, and I have ample health and strength to do
it, so if you will say 'Yes,' I will take up my quarters with you."

He spoke very good English, but with a decidedly foreign accent (which
sounded very pleasant to me, more so as he had a very musical voice),
and was a plain spoken man, one who called a spade a spade, and made no
nonsense about it.

"Very well, Alec," said I; "then you stay, and I trust we may get along
happily together."

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CHAPTER XIV.

WORK AND SONG--SUNDAY SERVICE--BUILD A LARGER BOAT, THE
"ANGLO-FRANC"--COLLECTING WRECKAGE--COMMENCE A JETTY--OUR
COOKERY--BLASTING OPERATIONS--THE OPENING BANQUET.

During the remainder of March we worked away merrily in the garden and
in the fields on the top of the island. I was really astonished at the
work we could get through in a day, Alec, myself, and the donkey. Alec
laughed at my plough and the cart, and together we made some
improvements in them. We also improved the lower path right round the
island, by cutting away the furze and undergrowth; with spade and pick
we made it broader in the narrowest parts, and by filling the
inequalities, made it comfortable to walk upon.

Alec was a wonder for singing; in fact he was warbling all day long over
his work, and I must say he had rather a nice tenor voice, just such as
an Englishman would expect a Frenchman to possess. His repertoire of
songs was large, and embraced both ancient and modern, sacred and
secular, French and English; so there was plenty of variety.

Somehow or other, although he was of a most lively disposition, most of
his "best songs," as he called those he could sing with the greatest
ease and effect, were of the somewhat dismal or semi-lachrymose type, as
"Tom Bowling," "Half Mast High," "The Skipper and his Boy," etc. These
are all beautiful in their way, but with repetition pall upon one
somewhat, while your jovial song seems ever fresh, and will stand
singing many times before it becomes threadbare.

Sometimes of an evening, after supper and a pipe, we would indulge in
duet singing, and when we came to the end of the song we would praise
each other and encore ourselves.

"Let's have that one again. That's capital! Bravo!"

Then at it we would go again, sometimes till near midnight.

I had an old volume of sea songs in my trunk, several of which we both
knew, a