mariner, in a straw hat, and mahogany
coloured trousers, with no folds in them.
Still no fourth man. Where was that fourth
man? Was he even older than these? And
his decrepitude such that he could not be got
up the hill, and would he be carried down to
the lugger on the morning of the start, and
placed in an arm-chair to steer?

We had some difficulty in coming to terms
with our crew, owing to some misunderstanding,
by which they had got it into their
heads that, beside paying the sum which we
had offered, we were to be at the expenses of
their keep as well. So that, when it came
upon them that we had no such intention,
decided symptoms of mutiny began to appear.
It is true, indeed, that the market-gardener
took no part in the dispute, and remained
a despondent, but unconcerned listener to all
that went on; while the perspiring man—
who, besides the infirmity I have alluded to,
was the victim of an indecision of character
of the most disastrous kind—walked softly
backwards and forwards, wiping his hands
upon his pocket-handkerchief, and leaving all
the talking to be done by the skipper in the
foldless trousers. A long argument ensued
between this gentleman and my brother
Chowler, ending in a declaration on the part
of the irritated skipper, that he would have
nothing more to do with the transaction;
and in his retiring up, as the stage phrase
goes, in a state of furious indignation, he was
slowly followed, in his departure, first by the
market-gardener, and subsequently by the
perspiring man in agonies of indecision.

Here was apparently an end of the affair.
Not so. In the course of the evening a
message was sent up that the crew thought
they could come to terms. Then we felt our
dignity at stake, and declined to stand off
and on in this manner. Then the mariners
capitulated. Then we consented to give
them some beer and a bottle of rum into
the bargain, and so the dispute was amicably
settled.

From the departure of the lugger, Pride,
the next morning, till its return, any
information I have to give to a public thirsting
for tidings of this memorable cruise, is
necessarily secondhand. I propose to describe,
first, what I saw myself, and next, all that I
was able to gather from these hardy adventurers
on their return to their native shores.

I saw them off, then, with a noble hamper
of provisions, and in as good a lugger as
ever knocked the waves away from her bow
—a tight-built sea-boat, broad in the beam,
and fit to encounter a tornado in the Gulf
of Mexico. I watched them as they got
more and more distant, till the lugger's main-
sail was but a speck upon the horizon.

That day (they started very early) and the
next I was thrown much on my own
resources. The morning sun blazing aslant
upon the crisp ripple of the slowly advancing
tide, reminded me that the greatest of all
luxuries, the morning's dip, was yet in store.
Then I could take the sculls in hand, and
getting into my little skiff, could make my
solitary cruise under the cliffs, hugging the
shore for many a pleasant mile. I always
found, by-the-bye, that my cruise took me
round that particular part of the cliff on
which stood the solitary house where that
very pretty girl with the flashing eyes—pooh
—it was mere accident. Well, with all these
resources, besides being a studious and
finished flâneur, I got on pretty well, though
now and then I missed my playfellows
sadly.

On the third day, at any time after two p.m.,
I was told our navigators might be looked for;
so I spent the greater part of the afternoon on
the look out. So, I must add, did the largest
part of the population of Smallport, for the
Dunkerque expedition had, as I have said,
made a prodigious sensation in the place, and
everybody was anxious to be present at the
return of the cruisers. There was a good
breeze that afternoon, and they would have
come into port creditably. But the day
passed by, and no signs of the lugger Pride.

The next was one of the most sultry days
we had had all the season. Not a breath of
air stirring. It seemed a hopeless thing to
expect the retum of our travellers in a calm
like this; yet I was on the look out for them
more or less all day. I had just been
informed by the proprietor of an opposition
lugger, that "it was out of the question that
my friends could return to-day," when a
sailor stepped up to me, and said, "the Pride
has come in sight, sir;" and, taking the glass
from his hand, there I made her out, sure
enough, but at a considerable distance off.
However, there she was, and there she seemed
likely to remain; her progress being so slow
that it could hardly be detected in half an
hour.

Whether it got to be noised abroad that
the Pride was returning, or whether it was
from accident, I cannot say, but in the course
of the next two hours every soul in
Smallport was on the pier. How I longed for
that breeze of yesterday, which would have
brought them into port with a wet sheet and
a flowing sail. For, be it remembered, as I
was the known friend of these hardy
adventurers, my credit also was involved in their
making a satisfactory entry, instead of creeping
towards the shore in this ignoble wise.
They had within three hours from the time
we first perceived them, got at length near
enough for all their manœuvres to be
distinguishable, and I watched their movements
with intense anxiety. Is it in language,
then, to describe my feelings when I suddenly
beheld one long and skinny oar emerge
from the side of the lugger (she had all her
sails set), and perceived the same to rise and
fall in the water, as that instrument does
when used in the act of rowing! The covert
titterings of my neighbours on the pier