“Well, Miles, you seem to value this land of yours, as a seaman does his ship,” cried Moses, before I had time to apologize for having kept him so long waiting.  “Howsomever, I can enter into the feelin’, and a blessed one it is, to get a respondentia bond off of land that belonged to a feller’s grandfather.  Next thing to being a bloody hermit, I hold, is to belong to nobody in a crowded world; and I would not part with one kiss from little Kitty, or one wrinkle of my mother’s, for all the desert islands in the ocean.  Come, sit down now, my lad—­why, you look as red as a rose-bud, and as if you had been running up and down hill the whole time you’ve been absent.”

“It is sharp work to come down such a hill as this on a trot.  Well, here I am at your side; what would you wish to know?”

“Why, lad, I’ve been thinkin’, since you were away, of the duties of a bride’s-maid,”—­to his dying day, Moses always insisted he had acted in this capacity at my wedding;—­“for the time draws near, and I wouldn’t wish to discredit you, on such a festivity.  In the first place, how am I to be dressed?  I’ve got the posy you mentioned in your letter, stowed away safe in my trunk.  Kitty made it for me last week, and a good-looking posy it was, the last time I saw it.”

“Did you think of the breeches?”

“Ay, ay—­I have them, too, and what is more I’ve had them bent.  Somehow or other, Miles, running under bare poles does not seem to agree with my build.  If there’s time, I should like to have a couple of bonnets fitted to the articles.”

“Those would be gaiters, Moses, and I never heard of a bride’s-maid in breeches and gaiters.  No, you’ll be obliged to come out like evervbody else.”

“Well, I care less for the dress than I do for the behaviour.  Shall I be obliged to kiss Miss Lucy?”

“No, not exactly Miss Lucy, but Mrs. Bride—­I believe it would not be a lawful marriage without that.”

“Heaven forbid that I should lay a straw in the way of your happiness, my dear boy; but you’ll make a signal for the proper time to clear ship, then—­you know I always carry a quid.”

I promised not to desert him in his need, and Moses became materially easier in his mind.  I do not wish the reader to suppose my mate fancied he was to act in the character of a woman at my nuptials, but simply that he was to act in the character of a bride’s-maid.  The difficulties which beset him will be best explained by his last remark on this occasion, and with which I shall close this discourse.  “Had I been brought up in a decent family,” he said, “instead of having been set afloat on a tombstone, matrimony wouldn’t have been such unknown seas to me.  But, you know how it is, Miles, with a fellow that has no relations.  He may laugh, and sing, and make as much noise as he pleases, and try to make others think he’s in good company the whole time; but, after all, he’s nothing but a sort of bloody hermit, that’s