a gallop of forty miles or so over these honeycombed fields brought me to
a laugh. But I was yet to see some estates of the gentry.

I had it on my tongue's tip to ask the captain whither he was taking me,
yet dared not intrude on the sorrow that still gripped him. Time and
time we met people plodding along, some of them nodding uncertainly,
others abruptly taking the far side of the pike, and every encounter
drove the poison deeper into his soul. But after we had travelled some
way, up hill and down dale, he vouchsafed the intelligence that we were
making for Arbigland, Mr. Craik's seat near Dumfries, which lies on the
Nith twenty miles or so up the Solway from Kirkcudbright. On that estate
stood the cottage where John Paul was born, and where his mother and
sisters still dwelt.

"I'll juist be saying guidbye, Richard," he said; "and leave them a bit
siller I hae saved, an' syne we'll be aff to London thegither, for
Scotland's no but a cauld kintra."

"You are going to London with me?" I cried.

"Ay," answered he; "this is hame nae mair for John Paul."

I made bold to ask how the John's owners had treated him.

"I have naught to complain of, laddie," he answered; "both Mr. Beck and
Mr. Currie bore the matter of the admiralty court and the delay like the
gentlemen they are. They well know that I am hard driven when I resort
to the lash. They were both sore at losing me, and says Mr. Beck: I
We'll not soon get another to keep the brigantine like a man-o'-war, as
did you, John Paul.' I thanked him, and told him I had sworn never to