The _York_ had made a noble passage down the Channel, driven by a black, salt, shrieking, easterly breeze that grew into half a gale, with soft, dark clouds smouldering as they flew. The Channel sea had the look of flint, and to each foaming _scend_ the ship drove in a curtsey of fury, as though to the thrust of some mighty hand. She stormed along under two topgallantsails and single reefs and swelling fore-course, and a swinging wing or two of jib and staysail until she was out of soundings in a passage that had the swiftness of steam, as steam then was; and then the strong breeze fined down, the wind shifted into the northwest, and behold this clipper of spacious pinions breaking the dark blue heave at her bows into scintillant lines like the meteor's thread of light, with every curve of cloth at the leaches, from head-earing to clew, of a faint pink with the light in the west. The officer of the watch stood on the weather-side of the quarter-deck with his eyes fixed upon a distant sail, close hauled and reaching westwards; but it was evident by the expression of his eyes that his attention was not with _her_. A single figure at the wheel grasped the spokes with an occasional movement, and sometimes a glance at the card of the compass, and sometimes a look at the canvas aloft, which, swelling out and sinking in, breathed like the breasts of human beings. The flush deck ran with a fair, white sweep into the "eyes," and you guessed by the neatness everywhere visible that the vessel owned a smart chief mate. The anchors had been stowed. It was the first dog-watch, and a few of the crew were idling on the forecastle. Presently up through the companionway, whose steps led into the cabin where the captain and the two mates lived, rose a little boy of about eight years of age, dressed as a navy sailor, and his bright gold curls shone to the setting sun past the round cap which was perched on the back of his head. He was a beautiful little boy of the purest English type; no arch Irish eye was ever of a darker blue than his. A drum--not a child's toy, but a real drum, though a small one--was slung by a lanyard round his neck, and he clutched the two sticks, whilst he looked at the officer of the watch with a smile of his red lips, disclosing a row of little milk-white teeth, and said: "Mr. Hardy, may I play my drum?" "Why, yes, Johnny, of course you may," answered Hardy, "and if you'll beat a smart tattoo the breeze will freshen, for we are wanting legs, Johnny." "May I go on the forecastle and beat it?" said Johnny. "The man who has the whistle will play it whilst I beat." "Hurrah for 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,'" said Hardy. "Go forward, little sonny, and beat the music out of the sails, and mind how you go."