"Alas! Archie, lad, I soon found it quite the reverse, and it does really seem to me that those writers of books who paint a sailor's existence as one long picnic do grievous wrong to the young folks who read them. "A sailor's life is like the billowy ocean on which he resides, all ups and downs, Archie." "I can easily believe that," said his friend. "But Captain Pendrey was very good to me, and there was an old boatswain on board who became my friend from the very first. He taught me to reef, to splice, and to steer, ay, and a deal more; in fact, during the two years I sailed in the old _Miranda_, he made a man of me. "You see, Archie, I was already so far a seaman that I was not afraid of the ocean; and I was good at an oar. "I was downright seasick when I first went out of Plymouth Sound. We had a head wind, and being only a sailing craft, had to beat and beat for days. I didn't care much then what became of me. But the rough old bo'sun came and shook me up--I was lying nearly dead on a sea-chest--`Pull yourself together, youngster. Go on deck,' he said, `and look at the waves. Ain't they mountains, just! It won't do to give in.' "I did go on deck and look at the waves, just for a moment. A green sea came thundering over the bows, took me off my legs, and washed me away down into the lee-scuppers, where I would have been drowned if the bo'sun hadn't caught me up. "`I'm not going below again, though,' I said to myself. "Nor did I. "The boats were all on board; I got into one of these as night fell, lashed myself to a thwart, and wet though I was, I slept with my head on a coil of ropes all through that stormy night. Stiff in the morning? Yes, a little, but I was better. I got my clothes off, and a man dashed buckets of sea water over me, and this revived me so much that I went below. "The men in my mess were at breakfast; they were sitting on deck, jammed into corners anyhow, with their sou'wester hats between their legs to steady their coffee mugs. "`Salt pork, my lad,' said the bo'sun. `You're just at that stage that salt pork will turn the scale.' "I took the hunk of pork he gave me and devoured it. "Well, the bo'sun was right. It did turn the scale with a vengeance: I went on deck and hove the lead apparently. The steward passed me and said,-- "`You're not sick, are you, Sandie?' "`No,' I said, `I'm only shamming. Ugh!' "But by the time we were over the bay I was as sea-fast as any one on board. I got my sea legs, too. "How blue the sea was now! How white the birds that skimmed over its surface! And the sails of ships that appeared in the distance were like snow when the sun shone over them. "It wasn't all sunshine even then, for a smart breeze was blowing, and cloud shadows chasing each other over the sea, just as I had often seen them do over fields of ripening grain in Glen Alva.