Then, how long after I could not tell, there was water on my face, the blue sky and the blue tide were spinning round--they spun swiftly, then slowly, then stood still.

There was a fierce pain stounding in my head, and a voice said-- "That good oar-stroke will learn you to steal boats!" I knew the voice; it was that of a merchant sailor-man with whom, on the day before, I had quarrelled in the market-place.

Now I was lying at the bottom of a boat which four seamen, who had rowed up to me and had broken my head as I meditated, were pulling towards a merchant-vessel, or carrick, in the Eden-mouth.

Her sails were being set; the boat wherein I lay was towing that into which I had leaped after striking down Melville.
For two of the ship's men, being on shore, had hailed their fellows in the carrick, and they had taken vengeance upon me.
"You scholar lads must be taught better than your masters learn you," said my enemy.
And therewith they carried me on board the vessel, the "St.Margaret," of Berwick, laden with a cargo of dried salmon from Eden-mouth.

They meant me no kindness, for there was an old feud between the scholars and the sailors; but it seemed to me, in my foolishness, that now I was in luck's way.