God never made a man, I think, more fitted for the work he was set to do. His stature was low, but though he was then not past twenty years old, his deep broad chest and massive limbs showed the strength that was to be his. His head well matched his body, being hard-looking and round and most pleasant to look on, because of the bright brown locks that curled thick and close all over it, and the round blue eyes that shone full and clear and steadfast from under his thick arched brows. His mouth, which was already slightly fringed with a light-coloured beard, was of a piece with the rest, wide and good-humoured, with full, well-formed, mobile lips, such as we look for in an orator, and withal firm and self-reliant. His colour, moreover, was fresh and fair, as of a man whom no sickness could take hold of; and his whole aspect so well-favoured and full of cheerful resolution as I could not wonder made his family set him up to be their idol.

'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Festing,' said he, rising up as I entered and holding out his hand very frankly. 'I am glad you are come. We want strong hands for our fishing. Jack has told me what kind of blow you can strike.'

'But I have only a scholar's arm now,' I said. 'Once I could pull an oar and tally on a drag-net indifferently well, but I doubt study has softened me.'

Arching his eyebrows still more, he looked at me with that expression which I grew to know so well, and which as much as anything, I think, made him the master of men he was. It was a look half inquisitive, half astonished, yet wholly good-humoured. It seemed to wonder if a man could be so foolish as to try to deceive or thwart him, and to be ready to laugh at the folly of such an attempt rather than to resent it. Though there was plainly something in my speech he did not understand, yet he was soon satisfied, and burst out into a boisterous laugh.

''Fore God,' said he, 'you are a merry wag,' and then laughed on so heartily that no man could help taking the fever, and I laughed too, though I knew no better than the stern-post where the jest was.

'Yes, you may laugh,' said Mr. Drake, who had joined us. 'Frank knows how to fish, so do my boys. They will catch you now bigger fish than any man's sons in all Kent.'

'Where is James?' asked I, not seeing Mr. Drake's fourth son. 'Will he not go with us?'

'Peace,' said Harry, as the preacher turned away, and the laughter was hushed. 'Don't you know?'

'Let me tell him,' said Frank Drake, looking so stern as almost to seem another man. 'You must know, Mr. Festing, nigh a year ago he was 'prenticed in a ship that traded to Spain. We have no certain news of her, but very ugly tidings of what befell a crew that sailed in her company.'

'What tidings were those?' asked I.