The breeze that had taken the brig so far down the firth soon died away, and we rocked gently south of Ailsa Craig. In the hold folk were busy getting things in some sort of order, while on deck the sailors were putting everything in shipshape. This breathing spell was fortunate, for at dark the wind came in squalls, and on rounding the Mull of Cantyre the ocean swells sent most of the passengers to their berths seasick. I escaped and was able to help the family and Mr Kerr, who almost collapsed, and was not himself for a week. His first sign of recovery was his craving for a red herring. The mistress was early up and bustling round to find she had to face an entire change in the methods of housekeeping to which she had been used. There was a little house between the two masts named the galley, and here the cooking was done. The cook was an old man, gruff and crusty, who had spent most of his life in a Dundee whaler. In the Arctic region his good nature had got frozen and was not yet thawed out. He would allow nobody near and got angry when suggestions were tendered. He made good porridge and tasty soup, anything else he spoiled. As these alone were cooked in bulk and measured out, the passengers took to the galley the food they wished to be cooked. That each family get back what they gave in, the food was placed in bags of netted twine and then slipped into the coppers of boiling water. The mistress was a famous hand at roley-poley, and for the first Sunday after sea-sickness had gone, she prepared a big one as a treat. It looked right and smelled good, but the first spoonful showed it had a wonderful flavor. In the boiler the net beside it held a nuckle of smoked ham. The laughter and jokes made us forget the taste of the ham and not a scrap of the roley-poley was left. Our greatest lack was milk for the children, and we all resented being scrimped in drinking-water, though before the voyage ended we became reconciled to that, for the water grew bad. CHAPTER III.