Walter’s happiness may be guessed when, in due course, he found himself at last on board a real ship. The _Royal Tudor_ was a Turkey-merchantman, just returned from the Levant, well laden with the rich silks and cashmeres of the East. But she was something more. Great guns showed their black muzzles from her port-holes, and stem and stern were garnished with what, to Walter’s inexperienced eye, looked like fortresses, small but strong. Every man on board was a soldier, prepared to do and die in defence of the ship and the ship’s freight. The “_Noli me tangere_” of the Scottish thistle would have been an apt motto for the English ship; though the converse, “I will not touch you,” would have been far from applicable. Woe to the trader or man-of-war—whether Spanish, Flemish, or Portuguese—which should dare to interfere with her, or, even without interfering, should cross her path by accident! Already she had given a good account of more than one “caraque” or “caravel,” over which the yellow flag of Spain should never float again. And every one on board, from the captain to the cabin-boy, considered such “spoiling of the Egyptians” not only perfectly lawful, but a highly meritorious and satisfactory doing of their duty in that state of life unto which it had pleased God to call them. All this and much more Walter learned, before he had been four-and-twenty hours on board, from his cousin George. The light-hearted, good-natured sailor-lad did the honours of the ship, his pride and joy, in first-rate style to his gentlemanly cousin; nor was he by any means insensible to the profound admiration with which the young scholar regarded him. This admiration might have become mutual, not without advantage to both, had not Walter’s evil genius prompted him to show off the fragments of nautical knowledge he had picked up from his friend the blacksmith. In his enthusiasm he ventured upon some ill-advised observations about “cobridge-heads,” “sky-scrapers,” and “mizzen-masts,” which provoked George to peals of laughter, and unnecessarily loud assertions that “Master Walter might be a fine scholar on shore, but he did not know a main-mast from a marlin-spike on board ship.” Walter ought to have joined in the laugh, or found a good-humoured retort. But it is hard to be taunted with ignorance of what we love. So he changed colour, and, with some irritation of manner, vowed that he would soon know everything on board as well as George himself. And he was as good as his word.