Unfortunately for the people on board, the weather was very warm, and no rain had fallen of any account since they left Scotland. Lyndsay and Flora had been greatly amused by a venture which an honest Northumbrian labourer was taking out to Canada, at which they had laughed very heartily. It was neither more nor less than nine barrels of _potatoes_, which they had told him was "_taking coals to Newcastle_." Droll as this investment of his small capital appeared, however, the hand of Providence had directed his choice. At the time when most of the food provided for the voyage was expended in the ship, the Captain was glad to purchase the labourer's venture at three dollars a bushel, and as each barrel contained four bushels of potatoes, the poor fellow made twenty-seven pounds of his few bushels of the "_soul-debasing root_," as Cobbett chose to style it. As he was a quiet, sensible fellow, this unhoped-for addition to his small means must have proved very useful in going into the woods. A young fellow from Glasgow, who carried out with him several large packets of kid gloves, was not half so fortunate for though they appeared a good speculation, they got spotted and spoiled by the sea water, and he could not have realised upon them the original cost. Among the steerage passengers there was a little tailor, and two brothers who followed the trade of the awl, who always afforded much mirth to the sailors. The little tailor, who really might have passed for the ninth part of a man, he was so very small and insignificant, was the most aspiring man in the ship. Climbing seemed born in him, for it was impossible to confine him to the hold or the deck, up he most go--up to the clouds, if the mast would only have reached so high; and there he would sit or lie, with the sky above, and the sea below, as comfortable and as independent as if he were sitting crosslegged upon his board in a garret of one of the dark lofty wynds of the ancient town of Leith. The Captain was so delighted with Sandy Rob's aspiring spirit, that he often held jocose dialogues with him from the deck. "Hollo, Sandy! what news above there? Can't you petition the clerk of the weather to give us a fair wind?" "Na, Captain, I'm thinkin' it's of na use until the change o' the mune. I'll keep a gude look out, an' gie ye the furst intelligence o' that event." "And what keeps you broiling up there in the full blaze of the sun, Sandy? The women say that they are wanting you below." "That's mair than I'm wantin' o' them. My pleasure's above--theirs is a' below. I'm jist thinkin', it's better to be here basking in the broad sunshine, than deefened wi' a' their clavers; breathin' the caller air, than suffocated wi' the stench o' that pit o' iniquity, the hould. An' as to wha' I'm doin' up here, I'm jest lookin' out to get the furst glint o' the blessed green earth."