"Will you do it?"

"I would thirty years ago; but I'll find a dozen in five minutes who
will do it now. Here, lads! here's two Welsh vagabonds pelting our
schoolmistress."

This is spoken to a group of Sea-Titans, who are sitting about on
the pier-way behind him, in red caps, blue jackets, striped jerseys,
bright brown trousers, and all the picturesque comfort of a
fisherman's costume, superintending the mending of a boat.

Up jump half-a-dozen off the logs and baulkings, where they have been
squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the fashion of their class,
and a volley of execrations, like a storm of grape, almost blows
the two offenders off the wall. The bolder, however, lingers,
anathematising in turn; whereon a black-bearded youth, some six feet
four in height, catches up an oar, makes a sweep at the shins of
the lad above his head, and brings him writhing down upon the upper
pier-way, whence he walks off howling, and muttering threats of
"taking the law." In vain;--there is not a magistrate within ten
miles; and custom, Lynch-law, and the coast-guard lieutenant, settle
all matters in Aberalva town, and do so easily enough; for the petty
crimes which fill our gaols are all unknown among those honest
Vikings' sons; and any man who covets his neighbour's goods, instead
of stealing them has only to go and borrow them, on condition, of
course, of lending in his turn.

"What's that collier-lad hollering about, Captain Willis?" asks Mr.
Tardrew, steward to Lord Scoutbush, landlord of Aberalva, as he comes