of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest
physical manhood will be morally stark death,
and the plainest national prosperity figures
can show, will be the Writing on the Wall,
—she holding this course as part of no fantastic
vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood,
or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress or fancy
fair; but, simply as a duty to be done,—did
Louisa see these things of herself? These
things were to be.

Dear reader! It rests with you and me,
whether, in our two fields of action, similar
things shall be or not! Let them be! We
shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to
see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold.

THE END.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

THE SEA CAPTAIN AND HIS SHIP.

THE compliments are over—there have been
a good many of them—and the sailor sits
curled up beside me on a most
uncompromising little sofa in his narrow low
cabin. Twisting myself round as nearly
as possible, I front him fairly, and we
examine each other with much benevolence.
So much, indeed, that the forehead
of my friend quite shines with it. He is
about fifty, a spare man, with a slight stoop.
He wears a brown surtout coat, rather too
long for him; and with buttons outrageously
numerous. His trousers are short. If he
were to mount on a donkey with them he
would have the sort of appearance which
usually occasions enthusiastic delight to a
turbulent boyocracy. He wears double shoes,
and the inevitable fez.

For the rest he is as unlike the idea which
you have cherished of a nautical Turk as can
be. He has a hale mottled face, and a cold
agreeable blue eye. He is completely shaved.
His voice is pleasant; and he has an eminently
practical way of speaking, which sounds
more like Lincoln's Inn than the shores of
the Bosphorus. Let us put him on his hobby.
Two men who have never seen each other
before, and have not perhaps two ideas in
common upon any conceivable subject, hold
but a dull conversation, unless one will consent
to mount his particular hobby, and the other
is content to look on with a mild and subdued
interest.

To do my excellent acquaintance justice, I
must admit that I have no difficulty in this
respect. He is not one of those stubborn
bustling gentry who require coaxing or
shoving up into the saddle, and who may-be
prick your fingers for your pains. Quite the
contrary: he vaults into it with a bounding
spring, and is off to the uttermost parts of
the earth in a less time than it would have
taken a slower man to pronounce the cabalistic
words "Jack Robinson." He will pull up
presently, and we shall take breath.

Yes, says my eminently practical friend, dashing
his hobby (which is his own ship) at once
into a canter, the ship is dirty, very dirty, but
we have been taking in a cargo of oil for the
fleet. She has twenty-four guns. She does not
go fast; she is too old for that. Besides, we
are not good sailors. We have been cruising
about, looking for Greek pirates, and keeping
watch over the safety of the Turkish islands
in the Ægean. I should like to go into the
Black Sea, there would be more chance of a
prize. The Black Sea swarms with neutral
vessels. The English Government have
warned them not to go there, but they will
go there. They say the nations whose flag they
carry are not at war with Russia, and they
have nothing to do with your quarrels; the
consequence is they do go, and are taken. One
of your ships caught a schooner the other
day. She had a cargo worth eight thousand
pounds on board. She will be sold, and there
will be a fine amount of prize money. I wish
I had it. But we have seen nothing.

How do we act when we meet a suspected
ship on the high seas? I will tell you. But
it is pretty much the same whether suspected
or not suspected. We signal her to hoist her
colours, and send somebody on board of us
with her papers. If they are all right, we
say good-day, and there is an end of it. But
if there is anything odd about them, we send
an officer on board, and we can tell by
the language and appearance of the crew
what she is, and what she is about. If she
has deceived us, we tow her along into the
nearest port. She is sold there if there is a
good bid, if not she is sent to Constantinople.
Sometimes our Government buys her, and we
get one half her value, the Sultan gets the
other. There is no mistake about that, not
in the least: we are never defrauded of a
para. The half we get is divided among us; but
I do not know in what proportion. I never
took a prize, worse luck; I wish I had; I
would tell you in a moment. Turks and Britons
should tell each other everything. All that I
know is, that I should get the largest share if
we took a prize; the rest would be divided
among the crew by Government. I might
have the distribution of it if it were a very
small sum, not otherwise: we do not do things
in that way; we are very sharply looked after.

How is our navy recruited? Oh, there
is no difficulty about that; the sailors
come of themselves mostly from the islands.
If they do not come they are sent. The local
authorities look to that. I should like to see
the man who would not go as a sailor if he
were sent. They like it, however. I received
fifteen volunteers the other day at Chios, and
might have had fifty. Their term of service
is eight years. If they have been wounded
they get good pensions; about thirty shillings
a month, sometimes more, and may live anywhere
they please. When they first come on
board they receive only four shillings a month;
their pay increases every year. A steady
man is sure to do well in the navy, and to
become an officer in a few years; although
we do not like the officers who have been