steadily and strongly, from the very quarter
of all others most favourable to our return
voyage. "If this holds," was the sentiment
of the Brothers Dobbs, as we were making
things snug for the night, "we shall be back
again at Mangerton before we have had time
to get half through our victuals and drink."
It did hold, and more than hold: and the
Tomtit flew, in consequence, as if she was
going to give up the sea altogether, and
take to the sky for a change. Our homeward
run was the most perfect contrast to our
outward voyage. No tacking, no need to study
the charts, no laggard luxurious dining on
the cabin hatch. It was too rough for
anything but picnicking in the cockpit, jammed
into a corner, with our plates on our knees.
I had to make the grog with one hand, and
clutch fast by the nearest rope with the
other— Mr. Migott holding the bowl while I
mixed, and the man at the helm holding Mr.
Migott. As for reading, it was hopeless to try
it; for there was breeze enough to blow the
leaves out of the book—and singing was not
to be so much as thought of; for the moment
you opened your mouth the wind filled it
directly, and there was an end of you. The
nearer we got to Mangerton the faster we
flew. My last recollection of the sea, dates
at the ghostly time of midnight. The wind
had been increasing and increasing, since
sunset, till it contemptuously blew out our
fire in the cabin, as if the stove with its artful
revolving chimney had been nothing but a
farthing rushlight. I climbed on deck, and
found that we were already in the Bristol
Channel. Ragged black clouds were flying
like spectres all over the sky; the moonlight
streaming fitful behind them. One great
ship, shadowy and mysterious, was pitching
heavily towards us from the land. Backward
out at sea, streamed the red gleam from the
lighthouse on Lundy Island; and marching
after us grandly, to the music of the howling
wind, came the great rollers from the Atlantic
rushing in between Hartland Point and
Lundy, turning over and over in long black
hills of water, with the seething spray at their
tops sparkling in the moonshine. It was a
fine breathless sensation to feel our sturdy
little vessel tearing along through this heavy
sea— jumping stern up, as the great waves
caught her—dashing the water gaily from
her bows, at the return dip—and holding on
her way as bravely and surely as the biggest
yacht that ever was built. After a long look
at the sublime view around us, my friend
and I went below again; and in spite of the
noise of the wind and sea managed to fall
asleep. The next event was a call from
deck at half-past six in the morning, informing
us that we were entering Mangerton Bay.
By seven o'clock we were alongside the jetty
again, after a run of only forty-three hours
from the Scilly Islands.

Here our cruise ended, and here my
narrative closes with it. Fare-thee-well, thou
lively Tomtit! Tiny home of joyous days,
may thy sea-fortunes be happy, and thy trim
sails be set prosperously, for many a year
still to the favouring breeze! And fare-ye-
well heartily, honest sailor-brothers, whose
helping hands never once failed us—whose
zeal in our service never once slackened—
whose close companionship from the day of
setting out to the day of return, has left us
no recollections but such as we can now recal
and talk over with unmixed pleasure!

SCROOBY.

OUT of Scrooby came the greatness of
America! What, then, is Scrooby?

On the borders of Yorkshire and
Nottinghamshire there is a market-town, called
Bawtry. A mile and a half from Bawtry,
on the Nottinghamshire side, is Scrooby, a
village that was once one of the six-and-
twenty English post-towns on the great
north road. A mile and a half from Bawtry,
on the Yorkshire side, is the poor village
of Austerfield. If two villages can make
a cradle, here we have the cradle of one
of the greatest people in the world. Obscure
men—Brown, Smith, and Robinson— first set
the cradle into motion. Scrooby was the
acorn to the oak, at which we marvel now;
Brown, Smith, and Robinson so many
germinating points.

Brown—Robert Brown—was a divine, from
whose teaching the term Brownist was
applied to congregations that desired to
separate themselves from all ecclesiastical control.
In the establishment of the Church of
England, the attempt was made by a tolerant
spirit to bring into harmonious travel, upon
one broad road, men differing concerning
many points of detail in the outward practice
of religion. Church forms were, as far as it
could innocently be done, adapted to the
humour of those who had been long
accustomed to a ceremonial spirit; and an
ecclesiastical system was established which sufficed
for the majority, but was too lax and heretical
in the eyes of the Romanist, too unscriptural
in the eyes of the strict Puritan. As
long as dissatisfied people carried on within
the pale of the establishment their opposition
to the too much or too little of discipline
they were permitted to say many very
sharp things with impunity; but if they
seceded into active opposition, liberty of
speech and conscience were denied them.
Thus, from the extreme ranks alike of
Romanist and Puritan, men were raised to the
dignity of martyrs. Robert Brown, in the
time of the civil wars, preached, as a strict
Puritan, the duty of separation from the
national church, and the erection of
separate or independent congregations—so many
churches of their own, upon a Scripture
model. The men who acted upon his advice
were called indifferently Brownists,
Separatists, Congregationalists, or Independents.