the squalor, and regarded rather the health, the buoyant animal spirits, and the determined habit of enjoyment, which all the ship’s company evinced, without exception.  The first thing which they did in the way of preparation for the voyage was to doff the garments of civilized life, and to don the costume of the “B.  O. W. C.”  Those red shirts, decorated with a huge white cross on the back, had been washed and mended, and completely reconstructed, so that the rents and patches which were here and there visible on their fair exteriors, served as mementos of former exploits, and called up associations of the past without at all deteriorating from the striking effect of the present.  Glengary bonnets adorned their heads, and served to complete the costume.

The labor of dressing was followed by a hurried arrangement of the trunks and bedding; after which they all emerged from the hold and ascending to the deck, looked around upon the scene.  Above, the sky was blue and cloudless, and between them and the blue sky floated the flag, from whose folds the face looked benignantly down.  The tide was now on the ebb, and as the wind was fair, both wind and tide united to bear them rapidly onward.  Before them was Blomidon, while all around was the circling sweep of the shores of Minas Bay.  A better day for a start could not have been found, and everything promised a rapid and pleasant run.

“I must say,” remarked Captain Corbet, who had for some time been standing buried in his own meditations at the helm,—­“I must say, boys, that I don’t altogether regret bein once more on the briny deep.  There was a time,” he continued, meditatively, “when I kine o’ anticipated givin up this here occypation, an stayin to hum a nourishin of the infant.  But man proposes, an woman disposes, as the sayin is,—­an you see what I’m druv to.  It’s a great thing for a man to have a companion of sperrit, same as I have, that keeps a’ drivin an a drivin at him, and makes him be up an doin.  An now, I declar, if I ain’t gittin to be a confirmed wanderer agin, same as I was in the days of my halcyon an shinin youth.  Besides, I have a kine o’ feelin as if I’d be a continewin this here the rest of all my born days.”

“I hope you won’t feel homesick,” remarked Bart, sympathetically.

“Homesick,” repeated the captain.  “Wal, you see thar’s a good deal to be said about it.  In my hum thar’s a attraction, but thar’s also a repulsion.  The infant drors me hum, the wife of my buzzum drives me away, an so thar it is, an I’ve got to knock under to the strongest power.  An that’s the identical individool thing that makes the aged Corbet a foogitive an a vagabond on the face of the mighty deep.  Still I have my consolations.”

The captain paused for a few moments, and then resumed.

“Yes,” he continued, “I have my consolations.  Surroundins like these here air a consolation.  I like your young faces, an gay an airy ways, boys.  I like to see you enjoy life.  So, go in.  Pitch in.  Go ahead.  Sing.  Shout.  Go on like mad.  Carry on like all possessed, an you’ll find the aged Corbet smilin amid the din, an a flutterin of his venerable locks triumphant amid the ragin an riotin elements.”