ever-rolling seas—in these nights there is a witchery upon me, and I love to let my fancy carry me away, and surround me with old faces and old times. So now, being in this mood, I dreamed and dreamed with my eyes open, persuading myself that I was on board the Jean Livingstone again, and that we were jogging along the rocky coast of Forfar, until I actually started up, and looking at the shore to windward, thought that I could discover in the shimmer of the moon the tall white rock we called the Lady of Arbroath. ‘Nicky,’ says I, being in this mood, ‘do you ever think of home?’ ‘That do I,’ he responded, ‘and hug myself that I am not there.’ ‘But is there no old place,’ quoth I—‘no old face you would wish to look on again?’ ‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied, ‘I am too happy here. We have a good ship, we have staunch comrades, we have prospect of wresting plenty of doubloons and pieces of eight from those rascally Spaniards. We have Jamaica, with all its taverns, and its dice, and its wenches, to help us to spend them; and besides all these, why, we have at this moment a steady land-breeze, which is sending us along at five knots, and a glass of good brandy, after a good supper, to keep out the marsh fever. What more can any man want?’ ‘Perhaps,’ quoth I, ‘you were not happy at home?’ ‘You have hit it there,’ replied my comrade. ‘No. My father was a stout king’s man—why he was so, I know not, for I am sure the king never did much for him. But poor dad got what brains he had knocked out at Naseby, and some time after my mother married old Ephraim Crotch, as bitter a Puritan as ever wore cropped hair and ass’s ears. Now I, being a youth of spirit, did in no ways take to my father-in-law—on the contrary. Well, I mocked his slang, and mimicked his snuffle. Many a time did he lay his staff across these shoulders—augh! they ache even now! The old frump—I hate the thought of him!—often hath he turned me out of doors, to sleep in the fields. Then have I peeped in at the lattice, and seen old square-toes snug in the chimney ingle. “Ha!” thought I, “my father’s bones would rattle in their grave could he but look in, and see you in his old oaken chair, whelp of the Barebones breed!” So you may believe that our house was a pretty place for bickering. I loved all that my stepfather hated. He said that music was devil’s screeching—ergo, I played the viol and the tabor till they were broken on my head. He denounced all diversion, swore that rope-dancing was a subtle device of the evil one, and that the bowling-alley was the highway to hell—ergo, did I frequent fairs and jovial meetings, where the bowls trundled, and wrestled many a fall, and grinned through many a horse collar. I promise thee, Will, I was not made for a Puritan, and so, at length, they having, by an ordinance of old Noll, hewed down our Maypole, I e’en laid a good thick splinter thereof across the back of my reverend stepfather, and marched from Cornwall for ever and a day.’