CHAPTER TWENTY.
TRAWLING OFF THE NAB.
The same evening, while they were all on the pier, listening to the band, and chatting pleasantly together in the pauses between the music, Mrs Gilmour turned the conversation upon a matter of extreme interest to Master Bob, and one concerning which he had been in much doubt of mind for some time past; although his native diffidence had prevented him from personally broaching the subject in his own right.
Sitting there within hail of the sea, the soft arpeggio of whose faint ripple on the shore seemed to harmonise with the louder instrumentation of the orchestra, which was just then playing a selection from Weber's "Oberon," the talk naturally drifted into a nautical channel; the old sailor dilating, to the delight of his listeners, on the charms of a life afloat and the divine beauty of the ocean, whether in storm or at rest.
"Aye, there's no life like it," said he.

"A life on the ocean wave!" "It sounds nice in poetry," observed the Irish barrister, who although full of sentiment, like most of his countrymen, always tried to hide it under a mask of comedy.

"But, I think it must be a very up and down sort of existence.

Too uncertain for me, at all events!" "Oh, Dugald!" remonstrated his wife.

"Why, this morning you were rhapsodising over the sea, and wishing you were able to spend your brief life afloat." "My brief life, indeed!" exclaimed Mr Strong.