by it not to swear in your company: but you'll allow me to
remark, that it would be rather trying even to your faith, if you were
to be thrown ashore with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a
bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where you hoped to
land with fifteen hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket."

"My dear sir," said Frank, after a pause, "whatsoever comes from our
Father's hand must be meant in love. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away.'"

A quaint wince passed over the stranger's face.

"Father, sir? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father's
hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. And now
what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only
knows--if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much
doubt. I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees
in mud and water. Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor
humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh,
instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of
something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes. I
shan't run away with them, for as I've been thrown ashore here, here I
shall stay."

Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt
at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his
Stoicism;--would he have behaved even as well in such a case?

"I have not five pounds in the world."

"Good! we shall understand each other better."

"But the suit of clothes you shall have at once."

"Good again! Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little
rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own."

So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new
parishioner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or
manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which
made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and
one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it
had seen.

When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and
gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a
bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and
upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar.

"That's a shrewd mark," said he, as he caught Frank's eye fixed on it,
while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. "I got it in
fair fight, though, by a Crow's