The skipper of the new school is a sad backslider.  He would think it undignified to beat a boy; he wears a black frock coat, keeps novels in his cabin, wears a finger-ring, and tries to look like a ship-broker.  He mixes his north-country accent with a twang learned in the West-end theatres, and he never goes ashore without a tall hat and an umbrella.  His walk is a grievous trouble to his mind.  The ideal ship-broker has a straight and seemly gait; but no captain who ever tried to imitate the ship-broker could quite do away with a certain nautical roll.  The new-fashioned captain is not content with that simple old political creed of true sailors, which began and ended with the assertion that one Englishman could beat any six foreigners.  This is crude in his eyes.  He knows all about Gladstone and the Land Bill; he is abreast of his age in knowledge of the Eastern Question; and he claims kindred with a Party.  His self-confidence is phenomenal, but not often offensive.  In short, he is a sort of nautical bagman, with all the faults and all the business-like virtues of his kind.

THE SQUIRE.

Every afternoon when the weather was bright, an erect old man used to ride round the Fisher Row on a stout cob.  If the men happened to be sitting in the sun, on the benches, he would stop and speak to them, in sharp, ringing accents, and he always had a word for the women as they sat baiting their lines in the open air.  He called the men by their Christian names, and they called him by the name of his estate.  None of the fishermen ever ventured to be familiar with him; but he often held long talks with them about commonplace matters.  They considered that they had a proprietary interest in him, and they always inquired about his family affairs.  He would tell them that Mr. Harry had gone with his regiment to India, or that Miss Mabel had gone to stay with her aunt at the West Moor, or, that Miss Ella was coming home from school for altogether next month.  All this cross-questioning was carried on without the least vulgarity.  The people were really anxious to hear news of the boys and girls who had grown up amongst them, and they thought it would please the Squire if they treated him as a sort of Patriarch.

The old man lived for nearly a century in the one place.  It may be said that not long before he died he wagered that he would reach his hundredth year, but he missed that by three years.  His whole energy and thought were devoted to improving his estate.  He had no notion of art or things of that kind, yet he managed to make his village and its surroundings very beautiful by long years of care.  The sleepy place where he lived was right away from the currents of modern life.  If you walked over a mile of moorland, then through five miles of deep wood, where splendid elms and fine beeches made shade for you, you would come at last to some rising ground, and, if you waited, you might see far away the trailing