“I am glad to hear your explanation, Mr. Mate,” said Wallace, cordially, as soon as Harry had done, “and there’s my hand, in proof that I approve of your course.  I own to a radical dislike of a turncoat, or a traitor to his craft, Brother Hollins”—­looking at the elder of his two companions, one of whom was the midshipman who had originally accompanied him on board the Swash—­“and am glad to find that our friend Mulford here is neither.  A true-hearted sailor can be excused for deserting even his own ship, under such circumstances.”

“I am glad to hear even this little concession from you, Wallace,” answered Hollins, good-naturedly, and speaking with a mild expression of benevolence, on a very calm and thoughtful countenance.  “Your mess is as heteredox as any I ever sailed with, on the subject of our duties, in this respect.”

“I hold it to be a sailor’s duty to stick by his ship, reverend and dear sir.”

This mode of address, which was used by the “ship’s gentleman” in the cant of the ward-room, as a pleasantry of an old shipmate, for the two had long sailed together in other vessels, at once announced to Harry that he saw the very chaplain for whose presence he had been so anxiously wishing.  The “reverend and dear sir” smiled at the sally of his friend, a sort of thing to which he was very well accustomed, but he answered with a gravity and point that, it is to be presumed, he thought befitting his holy office.

It may be well to remark here, that the Rev. Mr. Hollins was not one of the “lunch’d chaplains,” that used to do discredit to the navy of this country, or a layman dubbed with such a title, and rated that he might get the pay and become a boon companion of the captain, at the table and in his frolics ashore.  Those days are gone by, and ministers of the gospel are now really employed to care for the souls of the poor sailors, who so long have been treated by others, and have treated themselves, indeed, as if they were beings without souls, altogether.  In these particulars, the world has certainly advanced, though the wise and the good, in looking around them, may feel more cause for astonishment in contemplating what it once was, than to rejoice in what it actually is.  But intellect has certainly improved in the aggregate, if not in its especial dispensations, and men will not now submit to abuses that, within the recollections of a generation, they even cherished.  In reference to the more intellectual appointments of a ship of war, the commander excepted, for we contend he who directs all, ought to possess the most capacity, but, in reference to what are ordinarily believed to be the more intellectual appointments of a vessel of war, the surgeon and the chaplain, we well recollect opinions that were expressed to us, many years since, by two officers of the highest rank known to the service.  “When I first entered the navy,” said one of these old Benbows, “if I had occasion for the amputation of a leg, and the question lay between