them
looks a very sharp young fellow."

"He has been rather specially passed down, sir. He belonged to one of the
most noted smuggling villages on the Yorkshire coast, which is saying a
great deal, and he struck against smuggling because some lady in the place
told him that it was wrong. Of course he drew upon himself the enmity of
the whole village. The coast-guard stopped a landing, and two or three of
the fishermen were killed. The hostility against the lad, which was
entirely unfounded, rose in consequence of this to such a pitch that he
was obliged to take refuge in the coast-guard station. I hear from the
captain of the _Hearty_ that the boy has been far better educated than the
generality of fisher lads, and was specially recommended to him by the
officer of the receiving-ship."

"Is there anything extraordinary about the other boy?" the captain asked
with a slight smile.

"No, sir; I believe he joined chiefly to be near his companion, the two
being great friends."

"He looks a different kind of boy altogether," the captain said. "You
could pick him out as a fisher boy anywhere, and picture him in high
boots, baggy corduroy breeches, and blue guernsey."

"He is a strong, well-built lad, and I should say a good deal more
powerful than his friend."

"Well, they are good types of boys, and are not likely to give us as much
trouble as some of those young scamps, run-away apprentices and so on, who
want a rope's end every week or so to teach them to do their duty."

The boys were taken down to a deck below the water-level, where the crew
were just going to begin dinner. At one end was a table at which six boys
were sitting.

"Hillo, who are you?" the eldest among them asked. "I warn you, if you
don't make things comfortable, you will get your heads punched in no
time."

"My name is William Gilmore, and this is Tom Stevens. As to punching
heads, you may not find it as easy as you think. I may warn you at once
that we are friends and will stick together, and that there will be no
punching one head without having to punch both."

"We shall see about that before long," the other said. "Some of the others
thought they were going to rule the roost when they joined a few days ago,
but I soon taught them their place."

"Well, you can begin to teach us ours as soon as you like," Tom Stevens
said. "We have met bullies of your sort before. Now, as dinner is going
on, we will have some of it, as they didn't victual