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equal to him! He could be just like one of us at cricket, or out
fishing, or shooting, and yet he was always right, and there was not a
finer-looking gentleman in the county, and that every one said. We were
all at home for the Midsummer holidays--that is to say, we boys; our
mother was not a person to let her girls go to school. Who could say
that we were not met for the last time in our lives?

I was the third of the boys. Two of our sisters were older than any of
us. I loved them, and they all loved me. Not that we ever talked about
that; I knew it and felt it, and yet I was going to leave them by my own
express wish.

I was not what is called a studious boy. I was fond of reading, and I
read all the books of voyages and travels I could lay hands on, and
before long began to wish to go and see with my own eyes what I had read
about. My brothers were fond of shooting and fishing and rowing, and so
was I; but I thought shooting tigers and lions and elephants, and
fishing for whales, and sailing over the salt ocean, would be much
grander work than killing partridges, catching perch, or rowing about
our pond in a punt. I do not know that my imaginings and wishes, ardent
as they grew, would ever have produced any definite form of action, had
not an old schoolfellow of our father's, called Captain Frankland, about
a year before the day I speak of, come to our house. As soon as I knew
he was coming I was very eager to see him, for I heard our father tell
our mother that there was scarcely a part of the world he had not
visited, and that he was looked upon as a first-rate navigator, and a
most scientific seaman. He had been in the navy during the war-time,
but peace came before he was made a lieutenant; and believing that he
should not there find sufficient employment for his energies, he had
quitted it and entered the merchant-service. While in command of a
whaler, he had been far towards the north pole. He had traversed the
Antarctic seas, and had often visited India and China, and the islands
of the Pacific. Still, as money-making or idleness had never been his
aim, and his strength was unabated, he kept at sea when many men would
have sought for rest on shore. Such was the account my father gave of
him.

How eagerly I waited for his coming! He had chosen the holidays on
purpose that he might see our father's young tribe, he wrote him word.
He was the very sort of person I longed to talk to; still it