n the water, a considerable distance
ahead of them.

"We're agoin' to that there buoy, to lift it and put down a noo un."

"Oh, that's a boy, is it? and are them there boys too?" asked Billy,
looking round at the curious oval and conical cask-like things, of
gigantic proportions, which lumbered the deck and filled the hold of the
tender.

"Ay, they're all buoys."

"None of 'em girls?" inquired the urchin gravely.

"No, none of 'em," replied Dick with equal gravity, for to him the joke
was a very stale one.

"No? that's stoopid now; I'd 'ave 'ad some of 'em girls for variety's
sake--wot's the use of 'em?" asked the imp, who pretended ignorance, in
order to draw out his burly companion.

"To mark the channels," replied Dick. "We puts a red buoy on one side
and a checkered buoy on t'other, and if the vessels keeps atween 'em
they goes all right--if not, they goes ashore."

"H'm, that's just where it is now," said Billy. "If _I_ had had the
markin' o' them there channels I'd 'ave put boys on one side an' girls
on t'other all the way up to London--made a sort o' country dance of it,
an' all the ships would 'ave gone up the middle an' down agin, d'ye
see?"

"Port, port a little," said the captain at that moment.

"Port it is, sir," answered Mr Welton, senior, who stood at the wheel.

The tender was now bearing down on one of the numerous buoys which mark
off the channels around the Goodwin sands, and it required careful
steering in order to avoid missing it on the one hand, or running into
it on the other. A number of men stood on the bow of the vessel, with
ropes and boat-hooks, in readiness to catch and make fast to it. These
men, with the exception of two or three who formed the permanent crew of
the tender, were either going off to "relieve" their comrades and take
their turn on board the floating lights, or were on their way to land,
having been "relieved"--such as George Welton the mate, Dick Moy, and
Jerry MacGowl. Among them were several masters and mates belonging to
the light-vessels of that district--sedate, grave, cheerful, and
trustworthy men, all of them--who had spent the greater part of their
lives in the service, and were by that time middle-aged or elderly, but
still, with few exceptions, as strong and hardy as young men.

Jerry, being an unusually active and powerful fellow, took a prominent
part in all the duties that devolved on the men at that time.

That these duties were not light