uite satisfied with what you had done."

"Humph! Hah! Yes! so I did. What are you going to do this morning--
read?"

"Yes, father; read hard."

"Well, don't read too hard, my lad. Get out in the fresh air a bit.
Why not try for a salmon? They'll be running up after this rain, and
you may get one if there is not too much water."

"Yes, I might try," said the young man quietly; and soon after he
strolled into the quaint old library, to begin poring over a heavy
law-book full of wise statutes, forgetting everything but the task he
had in hand; while Captain Revel went out to walk to the edge of the
high cliff and sat down on the stone seat at the foot of the
properly-rigged flagstaff Here he scanned the glittering waters,
criticising the manoeuvres of the craft passing up and down the Channel
on their way to Portsmouth or the port of London, or westward for
Plymouth, dreaming the while of his old ship and the adventures he had
had till his wounds, received in a desperate engagement with a couple of
piratical vessels in the American waters, incapacitated him for active
service, and forced him to lead the life of an old-fashioned country
gentleman at his home near the sea.

CHAPTER TWO.

A WET FIGHT.

The Captain was having his after-dinner nap when Nic took down one of
the rods which always hung ready in the hall, glanced at the fly to see
if it was all right, and then crossed the garden to the fields. He
turned off towards the river, from which, deep down in the lovely combe,
came a low, murmurous, rushing sound, quite distinct from a deep, sullen
roar from the thick woodland a few hundred yards to his right.

"No fishing to-day," he said, and he rested his rod against one of the
sturdy dwarf oaks which sheltered the house from the western gales, and
then walked on, drawing in deep draughts of the soft salt air and
enjoying the beauty of the scene around.

For the old estate had been well chosen by the Revels of two hundred
years earlier; and, look which way he might, up or down the miniature
valley, there were the never-tiring beauties of one of the most
delightful English districts.

The murmur increased as the young man strode on down the rugged slope,
or leaped from mossy stone to stone, amongst heather, furze, and fern,
to where the steep sides of the combe grew more thickly clothed with
trees, in and amongst which the sheep had made tracks like a map of the
little valley, till all at once he st