The joy of sailing is born into some men, and those who are marked for the sea go down thither like the very streams, to be salted.  Whatever the sign, old Stanwix was not far wrong when he read it upon me, and ’twas no great while before I was part and parcel of the ship beneath my feet, breathing deep with her every motion.  What feeling can compare with that I tasted when the brigantine lay on her side, the silver spray hurling over the bulwarks and stinging me to life!  Or, in the watches, to hear the sea lashing along her strakes in never ending music!  I gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman’s boots, and so became a sailor myself.  I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me.  In a fortnight I went aloft with the best of the watch to reef topsails, and trod a foot-rope without losing head or balance, bent an easing, and could lay hand on any lift, brace, sheet, or haulyards in the racks.  John Paul himself taught me to tack and wear ship, and MacMuir to stow a headsail.  The craft came to me, as it were, in a hand-gallop.

At first I could make nothing of the crew, not being able to understand a word of their Scotch; but I remarked, from the first, that they were sour and sulky, and given to gathering in knots when the captain or MacMuir had not the deck.  For Mr. Lowrie, poor man, they had little respect.  But they plainly feared the first mate, and John Paul most of all.  Of me their suspicion knew no bounds, and they would give me gruff answers, or none, when I spoke to them.  These things roused both curiosity and foreboding within me.

Many a watch I paced thro’ with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul had inspired within me.  His own feeling for him was little short of idolatry.  I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that John Paul was the son of a poor gardener.

“A gardener’s son, Mr. MacMuir!” I repeated.

“Just that,” said he, solemnly, “a guid man an’ haly’ was auld Paul.  Unco puir, by reason o’ seven bairns.  I kennt the daddie weel.  I mak sma’ doubt the captain’ll tak ye hame wi’ him, syne the mither an’ sisters still be i’ the cot i’ Mr. Craik’s croft.”

“Tell me, MacMuir,” said I, “is not the captain in some trouble?”

For I knew that something, whatever it was, hung heavy on John Paul’s mind as we drew nearer Scotland.  At times his brow would cloud and he would fall silent in the midst of a jest.  And that night, with the stars jumping and the air biting cold (for we were up in the 40’s), and the John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir told me the story of Mungo Maxwell.  You may read it for yourselves, my dears, in the life of John Paul Jones.