The small amount of work in the shape of discharging and receiving cargo which was being done on the wharves of Old Harbour, had come to a pause when the labourers' dinner-hour struck, and but three or four figures were visible upon the tar-black platforms along which the little ships were moored. Of these one was a brig and the other a schooner, and one was the _Minorca_, a handsome coppered barque of five hundred tons built by the French, and, as we have heard, taken from that people. The sails of these vessels had been furled, and the bright April breeze blowing from the sea sang in their clean rigging. A couple of planks communicated between the _Minorca's_ gangway and the wharf, and at the wharf-end of these planks stood a man of a seafaring aspect, apparently belonging to the barque. As Lucy advanced holding her dog lest the creature should skip in a fit of excitement into the water, the man viewed her as though on catching her eye, or receiving the encouragement of a look of recognition, he was prepared to salute her. Perhaps she did not heed him, but on drawing close to the vessel, she looked at him, and thanks to that gracious gift which by creating opportunities for tact, helps more to render the individual beloved or popular than perhaps any other quality, she immediately recollected the man, and not only the man, but his name, as Mr John Eagle, mate of the _Minorca_, who, when the vessel was last in harbour and she had gone on board of her with her father, had been introduced to her by Captain Acton. He was a man of rough appearance whose hand had been in the tar-bucket for most of his life--a hard, reserved man, shy, so ignorant that he read with difficulty, and wrote his name as painfully as a hand tortured with gout inscribes with the pen. "How do you do, Mr Eagle?" exclaimed Lucy. He stiffened himself, and saluted her by a flourish of his hand to his brow, and answered: "Just about middling, thank you, Miss." "I am sorry you are not better than middling," she said. "It's the rheumatics. It's got into my feet and my shoulders. It's a pain as no spirits can stand up against." "Are you doing anything to ease your suffering?" "I drinks a drop of rum when it comes on very bad. I've given up rubbing. I've been rubbed till I've scarce got any skin left." "I'll speak to Miss Acton. I am sure she will have something that is good for rheumatism, and if she has I will send it you." "I thank you, Miss," said he, with an incredulous smile. "Was you going on board?" "No. What a big ship she looks compared with the other two! It is difficult to think of her alone in the middle of the sea. I can only imagine her lying at a wharf with protecting hills on each side. Does she sail fast?" "Give her a good breeze and she can find her legs, but she ain't to be compared with the _Aurora_." "She will be arriving shortly, I think."