ever see!" I am sure that her air of disbelief, and amusement mingled with it, was a sore trial to my uncle. As for him, good man, he was in earnest, if ever a man was. One day after he returned he rode over with me to Lowcote Farm, where we found those two mariners, Chick and Wabberley, gloomily sucking straws on a five-barred gate, and idly looking on at a busy scene of sheep-shearing. Their dull faces brightened at the sight of him, and when he told them what he had been doing, and asked if they would join his crew, they smote each other on the back and swore lustily for very joy. They asked him many questions about the ship and the captain, talked very knowingly of spars and armaments and the various articles it behoved to carry for trading with the natives, and offered to go at once to London--my uncle paying their coach fares--and seek out old messmates who should form the finest crew that ever foregathered in a foc'sle. My uncle showed great pleasure at their willingness, and arranged that they should accompany him when he next went to London to make his preparations for the voyage. The news of my uncle's enterprise soon spread through our town, and it became a nine days' wonder among our neighbours and the townsfolk. His friends accosted him in the streets; some poked fun at him for entering on a new branch of business at his time of life; others, with the best intentions in the world, addressed to him the most solemn warnings, taking him by the buttonhole and expatiating on the risks he was about to run, doubting whether any money was to be made at sea, and advising him very earnestly to stick to the clay. He bore their pleasantries and their counsels with great good nature, declaring that he knew what he was about, and they would see if they lived long enough. But I could not help feeling sometimes that he was not quite so confident as he liked to appear, and that the drawbacks and dangers he had shut his eyes to in the first flush of his enthusiasm were now looming larger in the prospect. Yet, whatever his qualms may have been, he pushed on his preparations with vigour. He spent another fortnight in London, collecting a crew with the aid of Wabberley and Chick, purchasing stores, and laying in a cargo, and then he returned to take leave of his family and friends.