you will be fighting under one of your own countrymen, most likely Sir
George Rooke himself. Say the word, my good lad."

George's face flushed.

"I have always wanted to be a soldier, sir," he stammered.

"Of course you have, my lad. Then we may take it that the matter is
settled. Good luck go with you, my boy."

Here then was George Fairburn, who ought to have been driving a quill
in the office of Mr. Allan, shipping merchant, of London, sailing to
join the allied forces in Spain, and to fight against the French. His
head swam with the thought of it.

But what of George's friends at home all this long while? When
Fairburn learnt that his brig had not arrived in port, though she had
been spoken in Boston Deeps by another collier which was returning to
the Tyne, his heart misgave him. There had been a bad storm on the
coast; it seemed only too likely that the _Ouseburn Lassie_ had gone
down in it! When week after week passed without news it seemed more
and more likely that the vessel had foundered in the gale. News of
captures by French privateers usually filtered through sooner or
later; but for long there were no tidings of the _Ouseburn Lassie_.
The Blacketts did what they could to console the bereaved parents, but
father and mother would not be comforted. At length, months
afterwards, they learnt in a casual way that a collier had been
captured off Yarmouth by a French privateer, about the time the
_Ouseburn Lassie_ was making her trip; at least that was the
construction the Yarmouth salts who saw the affair from the shore put