boat, let his oar fall with a splash, and Will
followed his example; but they were not a dozen yards from the lighter
before they were missed, and divers and crew rushed to the side and gave
a tremendous cheer.

"Here, come back!" cried the skipper; "come back!"

"Arn't got time," roared Josh, frowning; and then, as the men cheered
again: "Well, of all the gashly fuss as was ever made this is about the
worst! Pull hard, my lad, and let's get out of it. I want to go home."

"And I want to get warm, Josh," said Will laughing. "I'm glad that poor
fellow came round before we left."

"Well, I dunno," said Josh, sourly. "Of course you liked it because he
called you a man. He ought to have knowed better, at his time o' life.
Lor', Will, what a gashly peacock of a chap you would grow if it warn't
for me."

CHAPTER THREE.

PILCHAR' WILL AND THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME.

"Been overboard again? Well, I never did see such a boy in my life;
never!"

"What's the matter, Ruth?"

"Matter enough!" came in the same strident voice, in answer to the
hoarse gruff inquiry. "There, who spoke to you? Just you get back to
your work; and if that pie's burnt again to-day you'll have to leave!"

This last was to a heavy-faced simple-looking girl, who, on hearing her
mistress's angry voice, had hurried into the passage of Nor'-nor'-west
Cottage, Cliftside, and stood in front of the kitchen door, with one end
of her apron in her mouth.

Amanda Trevor, commonly called Betsey, stepped back into the kitchen,
just catching the word "dripping" as she closed the door--a word that
excited her curiosity again, but she dared not try to gratify it; and if
she had tried she would only have been disappointed on finding that it
related to a few drops of water from Will Marion's clothes.

"I said--heave ho, there! what's the matter?" was heard again; and this
time a very red-faced grey-haired man, with the lower part of his
features framed in white bristles, and clad in a blue pea-jacket and
buff waistcoat, ornamented with gilt anchor buttons, stood suddenly in
the doorway on the right, smoking solemnly a long churchwarden clay
pipe, rilling his mouth very full of smoke, and then aggravating the
looker-on by puzzling him as to where the smoke would come from next--
for sometimes he sent a puff out of one corner of his mouth, sometimes
out of the other. Then it would come from a little hole right in the
middle, out of which he had taken the