"William Gale, and I am quite ready."

"Very well, Bill, chuck off your jacket, then, and pass those bags
along from the wharf."

The boy was soon hard at work. He was a little disappointed at
finding that the skipper was, in dress and manner, in no way
superior to the rest of the crew. The Kitty was a yawl of
forty-five tons, deep in the water and broad in the beam. Her deck
was dirty and, at present, in disorder; and she did not come up to
the perfection of neatness and cleanliness which William Gale had
read of, in the pages of his favorite author. However--as he told
himself--there must, of course, be a good deal of difference
between a man of war, where the crew have little to do but to keep
things neat and bright, and a fishing smack.

The work upon which he was, at present, engaged was the
transferring of the provisions for the voyage from the quay to the
hold. These consisted principally of barrels of salt meat, and bags
of biscuits; but there were a large tin of tea, a keg of sugar, a
small barrel of molasses--or treacle--two or three sacks of
potatoes, pepper and salt. Then there was a barrel of oil for the
lamps, coils of spare rope of different sizes, and a number of
articles of whose use William Gale had not the most remote idea.

After two hours' work, the skipper looked at his watch.

"Time to knock off work," he said, "and we've got pretty near
everything on board. Now, be sure you are all here by six in the
morning. Tide will begin to run out at eight, and I don't want to
lose any of it.

"Bill, you are to come home with me, for the night."

It was but a hundred yards to the sailor's cottage, which stood on
the edge of the sharp rise, a short distance back from the river.

"Here, wife," he said as he entered, "I've got a new apprentice,
and I expect he's pretty hungry; I am, I can tell you, and I hope
tea's ready. His name's Bill, and he's going to stop here,
tonight."

"Tea is quite ready, John, and there's plenty of mackerel. I
thought you would not be getting them again, for a spell.

"Do you like fish?" she asked the boy.

"I don't know, ma'am--I never tasted them."

"Bless me!" the woman cried, in astonishment; "never tasted fish!
To think, now!"

"I've been brought up in a workhouse," William said, coloring a
little as he spoke, for he knew the prejudice against the House.

"Ah!" she said, "we have had a good many of that sort; and I can't
say as I likes 'em, for the most part.