"There! I have broken the string that went round his neck," she said aloud, without heeding the question. "I must get you another." When she returned with a flaming red riband, that glared in cruel mockery at the shabby gittern, she contrived to add, "I have a brother in the Ironsides, and he said he thought they were bound for Hampton Court; but it might have been only his fancy." It was a quaint but pretty sight under that green Kentish cherry-tree, and upon the bank of that beautiful river, to see the weather-cock Robin in his motley dress, the long peacock's feather ever and anon lifted from his hat by the fresh breeze that came from the water, while he sung with sweet and animated voice a song that suited well the tastes and feelings of his hearers. "Oh, the sailor's home is the boundless sea, The sea, the sea, the sea! He loves it best when waves are high, And a fierce nor'-wester shakes the sky. Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea-- Oh, the sailor's home is the home for me! "Away we go, o'er our own blue sea, The sea, the sea, the sea! We are ocean lords, for the winds obey, And the raging billows own our sway. Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea!-- Let my home be the sailor's home--the sea! "A proud man well may our captain be, The sea, the sea, the sea! But our noble ship a bride shall be To five hundred men as good as he. Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea-- 'Tis a fitting mate for the brave and free! "Give the land to slaves, but give us the sea-- The sea, the sea, the sea! Our hopes, our joys, our bed, and our grave, Are above or below the salt-sea wave. Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea-- Hurrah for the sailor's home--the sea!" Then leaning over the hatch-door, her rosy cheek half-resting on the rough shoulder of her rough husband, was the pretty Mistress Maud, the personification of rustic English beauty; then the picturesque grouping of the old and worn, but still gallant and manly sailors--our friend of the wooden legs a little in the fore-ground, supported by the quizzical seaman, and a tall stiff bony-looking "Black Sal" of a woman on the other, whose complexion was contrasted by a snow-white cap, somewhat pointed at the top, which hardly concealed her grizzled hair. She was both exhibiting and admiring in dumb show the telescope so lately in the possession of our friend Robin; while Ned Purcell, a little dumpy, grey-headed mariner, who had heretofore been considered the owner of the best glass in Greenwich, was advancing, glass in hand, to decide which was really the best without farther parley. As Robin was obliged to sing his song twice, we may be excused for having given it once, though certainly it received but little advantage from the miserable accompaniment of the wretched instrument that had just been so gaily adorned by the hands of Mistress Maud.