“Are you here of your own accord? Do you belong to this schooner of your own accord? Are you one of this crew, of your own free-will?” Scudamore rang the changes on his simple question, as he had often been obliged to do in the Grammar-school at Stonnington, with the slow-witted boys, who could not, or would not, know the top from the bottom of a sign-post. “Do you eat with your eyes?” he had asked them sometimes; and they had put their thumbs into their mouths to enquire. “S'pose I am,” said Dan at last, assuming stupidity, to cover hesitation; “yes, sir, I come aboard of my own free-will.” “Very well. Then I am glad to find you comfortable. I shall see your father next week, perhaps. Shall I give him any message for you?” “No, sir! For God's sake, don't let him know a word about where you have seen me. I came away all of a heap, and I don't want one of them to bother about me.” “As you wish, Dan. I shall not say a word about you, until you return with your earnings. But if you found the fishing business dull, surely you might have come to us, Dan. Any volunteers here for His Majesty's service?” Scudamore raised his voice, with the usual question. “Good pay, good victuals, fine promotion, and prize-money, with the glory of fighting for their native country, and provision for life if disabled!” Not a man came forward, though one man longed to do so; but his sense of honour, whether true or false, forbade him. Dan Tugwell went heavily back to his work, trying to be certain that it was his duty. But sad doubts arose as he watched the brave boat, lifting over the waves in the moonlight, with loyal arms tugging towards a loyal British ship; and he felt that he had thrown away his last chance. CHAPTER XL SHELFING THE QUESTION There is a time of day (as everybody must have noticed who is kind enough to attend to things) not to be told by the clock, nor measured to a nicety by the position of the sun, even when he has the manners to say where he is--a time of day dependent on a multiplicity of things unknown to us (who have made our own brains, by perceiving that we had none, and working away till we got them), yet palpable to all those less self-exalted beings, who, or which, are of infinitely nobler origin than we, and have shown it, by humility. At this time of day every decent and good animal feels an unthought-of and untraced desire to shift its position, to come out and see its fellows, to learn what is happening in the humble grateful world--out of which man has hoisted himself long ago, and is therefore a spectre to them--to breathe a little sample of the turn the world is taking, and sue their share of pleasure in the quiet earth and air.