Possessed of a lively and contented turn of mind, Ben Brailsford was always cheerful and gay--his temper and his disposition coincided--there was, at all times, a pleasant smile upon his cheek and a kind word upon his tongue, and, in point of fact, his only faults were an occasional indulgence to excess in his favourite beverage--grog, and his still more excessive loquacity when spinning a tough yarn about his favourite commander, Rodney, though it not unfrequently happened that one helped on the other. I have already remarked that young Frank--for he was named after his father--was by his mother's side, and questioning her upon the subject of Philip Quarll's monkeys--but though desirous of imparting instruction to her son, yet her spirit was too much bowed down even to attend to him; besides, this was a matter of natural history with which she was but little acquainted, and, therefore, he was referred to honest Ben, as the best authority to answer his inquiries. Ben was accordingly summoned, and smoothing down his hair over his forehead with his hard horny hand as he entered the room, he "hoped as madam was well and master Frank all ship-shape." "I am thinking of your master's departure, Ben," returned the lady, "and therefore cannot be very easy in my mind, when I consider the risks to which he will be exposed on the turbulent ocean, both in the storm and in the battle." "Bless you, my lady," returned the seaman, "what's the vally of a bit of a breeze, where there's skill and judgment to read the face of the heavens, and good practical seamanship to ease her with the helm, when the wild seas break over us--and as for a fight, why its pretty sharp work whilst it lasts, but when it's over and the grog abroach--not, my lady, as I ever gives way to more than does me good--but as I was a saying, when the action's ended and the grog sarved out"--and here he cast his eyes towards a well-replenished liquor-case that stood in the corner, and from which he had often been supplied--"why we shares it along with our prisoners, and drinks to the mortal memory of them as is gone." "But it must be a dreadful spectacle, Ben, to witness the dead and the dying mingled together," said the lady, with a shudder, "the slain and the wounded in one promiscuous heap."