slate he used at night, when his father gave him regular instruction himself in "the three Rs," and then kept in some secret spot to be studied from every point of view, until it would keep no longer; then it had to be buried in the garden.

Some of his friends made collections of birds' eggs, but he never cared for these; he loved live creatures too dearly for that. Scoot and Winder had numbers of eggs strung in long festoons, from those of the great black-backed gulls down to those of the diminutive reed-wren. But they were a great charge, for the lads were obliged to keep them hidden somewhere outside in the garden. Not one of the fishing folks would have suffered a blown egg inside the house it was looked on as extremely unlucky. If seen in the boy's hands anywhere near the door, scrub broom or stick would be flourished most vigorously and effectually. The safety and wellbeing of their households depended on it, they considered. Neither would any of the fishermen's wives have used the feathers of sea-fowl to fill their pillows or beds, "they wus sich restless flittin' things, never at rest night nor day; an' their feathers would not let ye get to sleep."

Nor would one of the men have sailed out on a Friday, if the wind and tide served never so fair. And of a child born at the time of flood-tide, they said that "ef so be as he died on land, he'd slip his cable sure, when his time cum, on the ebb-tide."

Denzil's treasures in the way of animate and inanimate nature had a very precarious footing either in the house or outside it. Copying a bird as well as he could on his slate was an irritating sort of affair after all, for it had to be rubbed out to make room for multiplication, which was " vexation enough, as the old school doggerel has it. When some friend at last presented him with a box of colours and some pencils, his joy knew no bounds.

As soon as he got home that evening from his cousin Larry's, the first thing he did was to put away most carefully one or two scraps which had been given to him. With the exception of his visits to his kinsman's house, which were the red-letter days in his boyhood's calendar, Denzil had little to amuse and instruct him—indoors, that is to say. He had a very curious collection of pictures of birds and animals that had been given to him at odd times. They came from many sources, and were carefully

arranged and treasured. In fact they were the only treasures he possessed, and where they had been torn or injured they were always mended and repaired with great pains. Scraps from Bewick procured for him by Larry were there, with odd figures from Harvey's spirited drawings of animals and birds. Besides these, he had many a gay-coloured picture from the tops of the French fruit and glove boxes, -pictures he valued much, given to him by some of the fisher lasses, whose sweethearts crossed the Channel. All these he would turn over, and study again and again on those days, which were many, when the weather was too rough for him to be allowed to go out of doors. One happy day he was shown the two volumes of the 'Tower Menagerie,' the figures of animals there having been drawn, as he was told, by the best animal-painter of the day. They opened a world of interest and delight to the boy.

The rambles over the wild marshes and along the sea-shore, sometimes in the company of a friendly shore-shooter, more often with Scoot and Winder; his birds, fish, and pictures at home, and the instruction given him by his father, very regularly and carefully, for he was a man of high principles,-formed

Denzil's whole education until he was about twelve years old.

His cousin Laurence went daily to a good school at Standbeck; the master did not think it well for him to attend the only available school in Marshton, where the boys were, he considered, not all of them suitable companions for his son.

When Denzil was with his father's relatives he had to be very careful not to use the dialect of the marshes, nor might he use it at all in his parents' presence. He made up, however, for any strain he might feel this to be, by speaking it very freely among the fisher folk.

There was a picturesque little group at the lower end of Scoot's father's garden, close to the fence. A good iron cooking-pot was hung, gipsy fashion, from a tripod of stout sticks, and under it a fire was blazing merrily. The fire was fed with some broken-up tarred palings, not old ones; where they had come from, it would have been unwise to ask.

"The bilin' is jest done," remarked Winder, as Denzil arrived on the scene. "We couldn't get the pot as wus promised us, an' so we jest borrered this 'ere 'un from old Nance, without askin' of her.

We shel tek an' put it back when we've done with it."

"But how did you borrer it, Winder, ef Nance didn't lend it to yer?" asked the more scrupulous Denzil.

"Why, ye see Scoot knows where she keeps her cookin' gear-jist over the fence it is, in her gardin; so we borrers old Bob Shrimp's boat-hook, an' hooks this 'ere pot out, an' off with it. We took Bill's hook back afore we started bilin', so were free of him like."

"'Tis her bakin'-pot," added Scoot with a chuckle, "what she uses fur a ovin; we must giv' it a good swab out afore we chucks it over the fence agin.”

But this effort they were spared; for just as the crabs had been taken out of the pot, placed in a piece of old netting, and plunged into cold water to set and cool, Nance herself appeared, showing her head and shoulders over the fence. She had worked herself up to a perfect fury, and in her right hand she brandished a formidable mop-handle. One glance she bestowed on her favourite baking-vessel and the use it had been put to, and then she gave free vent to her feelings.