I
gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished
Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's
boots, and so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the
passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me. In a fortnight
I went aloft with the best of the watch to reef topsails, and trod a
foot-rope without losing head or balance, bent an easing, and could lay
hand on any lift, brace, sheet, or haulyards in the racks. John Paul
himself taught me to tack and wear ship, and MacMuir to stow a headsail.
The craft came to me, as it were, in a hand-gallop.

At first I could make nothing of the crew, not being able to understand
a word of their Scotch; but I remarked, from the first, that they were
sour and sulky, and given to gathering in knots when the captain or
MacMuir had not the deck. For Mr. Lowrie, poor man, they had little
respect. But they plainly feared the first mate, and John Paul most of
all. Of me their suspicion knew no bounds, and they would give me
gruff answers, or none, when I spoke to them. These things roused both
curiosity and foreboding within me.

Many a watch I paced thro' with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I
was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul
had inspired within me. His own feeling for him was little short of
idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the
captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that
John Paul was the son of a poor gardener.

"A gardener's son, Mr. MacMuir!" I repeated.

"Just that," said he, solemnly, "a guid man an' haly' was auld Paul.
Unco puir, by reason o' seven bairns. I kennt the daddie weel. I mak
sma' doubt the captain'll tak ye hame wi' him, syne the mither an'
sisters still be i' the cot i' Mr. Craik's croft."

"Tell me, MacMuir," said I, "is not the captain in some trouble?"

For I knew that something, whatever it was, hung heavy on John Paul's
mind as we drew nearer Scotland. At times his brow would cloud and he
would fall silent in the midst of a jest. And that night, with the stars
jumping and the air biting cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the
John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir
told me the story of Mungo Maxwell. You may read it for yourselves, my
dears, in the life of John Paul Jones.

"Wae's me!" he said, with a heave of his big chest, "I reca' as yestreen
the night Maxwe