dropped over the bows as we got under weigh.

The Silver Queen seemed to rejoice in her freedom, tossing her bowsprit
in the air as she cast off from the tug; and then, heeling over to
leeward as she felt the full force of the breeze on her quarter, she
gave a plunge downwards, ploughing up the water, now beginning to be
crested with little choppy waves as the wind met the current, and
sending it sparkling and foaming past her bulwarks, and away behind her
in a long creamy wake, that stretched out like a fan astern till it
touched Margate sands in the distance.

I now went up on the poop, avoiding the weather side, which Tim Rooney
had told me the previous evening was always sacred to the captain or
commanding officer on duty; for I noticed that the thin pilot in the
monkey-jacket, who had just mounted the companion stairs from the cuddy
after having his late breakfast, was walking up and down there with
Captain Gillespie, the latter smiling and rubbing his hands together,
evidently in good humour at our making such a fine start.

"Good morning!" said Mr Mackay, who was standing at the head of the lee
poop ladder, accosting me as I reached the top. "I hope you had a
sound, healthy sleep, my boy?"

"Oh yes, thank you, sir," I replied. "I'm ashamed of being so late when
everybody else has been so long astir. Isn't there something I can do,
sir?"

"No, my boy, not at present," cried he, laughing at my eagerness to be
useful, which arose from my seeing Jerrold nimbly mounting up the after-
shrouds with Matthews and a couple of other hands to loosen the mizzen-
topsail. "You haven't got your sea-legs yet, nor learnt your way about
the ship; and so you would be more a hindrance than a help on a yard up
aloft."

"But I may go up by and by?" I asked, a little disappointed at not
being allowed to climb with the others, they looked so jolly swinging
about as if they enjoyed it; with Tom Jerrold nodding and grinning at me
over the yard. "Sha'n't I, sir?"

"Aye, by and by, when there's no fear of your tumbling overboard,
youngster," he answered good-naturedly. "You must be content with
looking on for a while and picking up information. Use your eyes and
ears, my lad; and then we'll see you shortly reefing a royal in a gale!
You needn't be afraid of our not making you work when the time comes."

"I'll be very glad, sir," I said. "I do not like being idle when others
are busy."

"A very good sentiment that, my bo