Somehow or other, although he was of a most lively disposition, most of his “best songs,” as he called those he could sing with the greatest ease and effect, were of the somewhat dismal or semi-lachrymose type, as “Tom Bowling,” “Half Mast High,” “The Skipper and his Boy,” etc.  These are all beautiful in their way, but with repetition pall upon one somewhat, while your jovial song seems ever fresh, and will stand singing many times before it becomes threadbare.

Sometimes of an evening, after supper and a pipe, we would indulge in duet singing, and when we came to the end of the song we would praise each other and encore ourselves.

“Let’s have that one again.  That’s capital!  Bravo!”

Then at it we would go again, sometimes till near midnight.

I had an old volume of sea songs in my trunk, several of which we both knew, as “All’s Well,” “Larboard Watch,” “The Anchor’s Weighed,” etc.  Alec’s tenor and my deep baritone harmonized rather well, so we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  As we had no hearers we used to give wonderful expression to our singing, possibly it was lucky no one could hear us, for it would certainly unstring their nerves.

On Sundays we did no work, but at eleven o’clock had a kind of service which lasted quite an hour and a half.  I was parson and read the service, while Alec was clerk and read the lessons and made the responses, while, to pass the time away, we always sang two hymns wherever only one should be sung.  This was to give each of us an opportunity of selecting his favourites.  There was no levity in all this, we did it as a duty to our Maker, in thankfulness for the manifold blessings bestowed upon us during the week; for our health, welfare, and all the other blessings which He bestowed upon us from day to day.  Alec had great cause to be thankful that he had been spared ever to put foot on land again, while I, beside my numerous lucky escapes, had not had a day’s real illness since I landed.  Before I left the island, Sankey and Moody’s “Sacred Songs” would scarcely hold together, so much had it suffered from being turned by our great rough thumbs and fingers, while to say that some of the pages were slightly soiled was putting it in a very mild manner.  A stranger might have thought that we hid the volume up the chimney, when not in use, and the appearance would quite have warranted his surmise.

Our first great work together was to build another boat, a larger one than the “Yellow Boy,” and on an improved principle.  First we collected whatever we thought would be of use in the construction of our craft, which we christened, before a stick of her was laid, “The Anglo-Franc.”  This was a curious commencement, I must own, but then we did some very strange things on Jethou.  The name was chosen because we, as shipwrights, were respectively English and French.  We scoured the whole island for material, and succeeded in getting a huge pile together from various sources, thus we were not so cramped as when I built the famous “Yellow Boy.”