In the summer of 1759, James Younger, a prosperous shipowning merchant of Whitehaven, England, found himself short of sailors to man a new vessel he had just secured. Said he to himself, "I know just where I shall be likely to pick up such fellows as I need. To-morrow I shall go to Arbigland."

Arbigland was a small fishing-village directly across the Solway Firth, a sort of big bay which cuts a wedge into the borderline of Scotland and England and reaches out into the blueness of the Irish Sea. From this port fishing-boats in great numbers were wont to go forth in the early morning of the day and return at sunset with their catch. Practically every home was the hearth of a fisherman and his family—sturdy, weather-beaten men who knew the whims of a boat and the tricks of the sea better than they knew how to read and write; sturdy, hard-working mothers who knew more about baking bread and rearing good children than they did about social functions and social etiquette; sturdy lads and lassies who lived in the open and knew more about entertaining themselves with the rugged and wholesome interests of nature than they did about ball-rooms, wine suppers, and "movies." From Arbigland Mr. Younger had more than once before obtained excellent sailors, as had indeed many another ship-merchant and short-handed captain.

Mr. Younger's hopes of securing good seamen in Arbigland were soon fulfilled. He found no trouble in signing up nearly enough that very evening, among them several officers. The following morning he completed his list, but did not attempt an immediate return to Whitehaven on account of bad weather. That day the winds increased and the sea became constantly more and more violent. By mid-afternoon the waves were running so high that the fishermen who had gone out came scurrying in, glad to find a safe anchorage in the harbor.

Seeing a knot of idlers gathered on the waterfront, he joined them to find out what they were looking at. Not until one of them had painstakingly pointed out to him a small object, now in view on the crest of a mountainous wave, now vanished from sight in the trough of another, did he suspect that it could be a boat that had failed to get in.

"It's Johnnie Paul and his little dory, I be sure," observed one of the fishermen, who held a glass to his eyes. "It looks fair bad f'r the lad this time, an' na mistake. It's gude his ain faither don't ken the boy's peril."

"On'y twelve—a mere baby—an' him a-fightin' this nor'easter!" put in another fisherman, with a sorrowful shake of his grizzled head. "T'bad Johnnie's recklessness should 'a' got him in this fix. I'm afraid the lad's love for the sea will spell his doom this blow. He's a muckle bright lad, too."

"An' a born seaman. If a lad are ever born to the sea Johnnie Paul are that chap," said another Scotsman in tarpaulin. "Mind ye, boys, we seen him make port afore in stoorms a'most this bad. Mayhap he'll do it noo. He's got the luck o' the devil in his small frame, that he has!"

Whether it was "the luck of the devil" or just plain unvarnished skill which brought Johnnie Paul safely into port again that day will probably never be known. But the chances are, if luck entered into the matter at all, that good seamanship and intrepid daring performed the largest share of the performance, for, as the minutes went on and the small boat came bobbing nearer and nearer, it was evident to every one of those assembled seafaring men that the youngster was handling his steed with unusual cleverness. Virtually flying in the very face of disaster and death, the lad clung coolly to the tiller, his eyes snapping with excitement, his dark-brown hair tossing, while the vicious nor'easter almost tore his reefed sail from its fastenings, drenched him to the skin with its wild spray, and drove his cockleshell of a craft swiftly forward.

Held spellbound by the struggle between boy and wave, thrilled at the magnificence of the lad's courage and the adroitness of his movements as his tiller-hand avoided yawning danger after yawning danger, Mr. Younger found himself praying for the safety of the daring young boatman, as he might have prayed for the deliverance of one of his own children from such a threatened fate. And it was with a vast sense of relief and thankfulness that, a little later, he saw Johnnie Paul guide his frail vessel into the protected waters of the harbor and up to the wharf, where she was securely made fast.

Indeed, Mr. Younger was one of the very first to shake the hand of the dripping boy and congratulate him on his splendid performance. "If I mistake not, one of these days you will be a great sailor, my lad," said he, little knowing that he was predicting a truth.

Johnnie Paul blushed painfully. But quickly the snap and sparkle returned to his hazel eyes. "Sir, it is what I should like to be—a great sailor," he said.

Other words followed. "I shall see your father. Perhaps we can induce him to let you join one of my vessels," observed the ship-owner from Whitehaven. "You are very young, but old enough to become an apprentice or ship's-boy."

Young John Paul ran home as fast as his legs could carry him, his heart beating with joy. Oh, such luck! It seemed to him he had always wanted to be a sailor—a real sailor, one who could tread a big vessel's deck, climb her rigging, and go far out to sea past that misty blue line that separated home waters from the mystery and adventure of the domain lying leagues beyond.

Since he was a mere baby he recalled that he had always had a passion to sail something, even so simple a thing as a leaf, the half of a walnut shell, a bit of wood supporting a paper sail. And, in the beginning, the duck-pond, a horse-trough, or a puddle of rainwater, had been his sea. But he outgrew these limitations as he outgrew his kilts: more room must be provided for his bounding spirits and expanding ambition. Then had come first thoughts of the seashore; father's and mother's warnings that the strong tides of the Solway were too dangerous to play with, had only increased his desire to tussle with them. So he had run away, been sternly chastised, had run away again—until at length, despairing of restraining his son from the natural craving of his heart, John Paul senior threw away his switch and left the youngster to the care of Providence whenever his footsteps prompted him waterward.

As time went on, young John had grown into a sturdy lad whose chief delight was to sail off in the fishermen's boats for a day's catch. What he dreamed, what he planned, as he watched the far horizon, no one knows, for he was not the kind of a boy to tell others of his inner thoughts at that age. But that he did have frequent golden dreams we may rest assured, since, between the times he was making himself useful in casting and hauling in the nets, his older comrades often caught him in abstracted study of distant spaces.

In those days Scottish schools were not what they are now. There were very few of them then, and the instruction had not begun to reach the thoroughness it has since attained. Less than a dozen children attended the little school in Arbigland to which Johnnie Paul had been consigned at the age of eight. It was so difficult to get a teacher that sometimes for weeks at a time there was no one to hold forth in that office. These occasions were very satisfying to our Johnnie Paul, for the truth is, he much preferred paddling around the water to fingering over the pages of his books. But he was not lazy, and during the short time he did spend under the roof of a schoolhouse, he must have applied himself, for the records show that at twelve years of age he could figure and read and write very well indeed for that period.

The lad's mother had been Jean Macduff, the daughter of an Argyll Highlander who had moved into the Lowlands, there to abandon his trade of armorer and become a farmer near New Abbey. Jean Macduff later left her home and came to Arbigland to accept a position as lady's-maid to a Mrs. Craik whose husband was a prosperous land-owner possessing an extensive estate and splendid buildings on top of the promontory hanging above the shores of the Solway.

When quite a young man, John's father, a Lowlander, had also found employment on the Craik estate as gardener, and later by reason of his faithful work and popularity in the community, he had been made game-warden. The young gardener and the young lady's-maid soon fell in love with each other, were married, and in due course of time were blessed with five children, of whom Johnnie was the youngest. He was born in the year 1747. William, the brother, had gone to live with a cousin, William Jones, a childless planter in Virginia, before John was born. Willie had never been back since that day. He had been adopted by the distant cousin, and might never return, John's parents said, but it was hoped and expressed in letters that he would some of these days make the long voyage back to old Scotland for a brief visit. How Johnnie did yearn to see this big brother whose letters he loved to read but whom he had never seen! Of late he had even dared to think of making a voyage himself to American shores, there to seek out the long-absent one.

The Paul cottage, overgrown with creepers, and sheltered from the fierce northeast winds by thick trees and shrubbery, stood so close to the seashore that it was never free from the sound of lapping waters and the boom of breakers. It was the boy's delight, before he went to sleep of a night, and before he arose of a morning, to lie for some time and listen to the music of the waves, his vivid fancy investing these voices with the power of telling him strange tales of strange peoples and strange places, far, far away.

When young John was not on the water, in school, or at home, he could usually be found somewhere about Mr. Craik's estate. He was kindly treated, and the playmate of the sons of the good laird's family. With the democracy of boyhood he and the Craik lads enjoyed climbing everything in the neighborhood, from the highest trees to the most rugged cliffs, where lurked unexplored treasures in the shape of sea-birds' eggs. They penetrated caves and caverns under the cliffs with that sublime disregard of tides which is boyhood's happy prerogative. They lingered at the hearths of Old Elspeth and Meg Merrilies, in the valley below, drinking in tales of elf and goblin—too frightened to go home in the dusk, until the servants of the big house finally hunted up and retrieved them.

And now all this commonplace existence was to be traded off for the more alluring one of a sailor's life—if only the stranger from Whitehaven did not forget to keep his word and ask Johnnie Paul's father and mother to permit him to go off to sea—and if that father and mother could be prevailed upon to give their consent!

Young John had never covered the distance from the waterfront to his humble home as quickly as he had that stormy afternoon following his meeting with Mr. James Younger. There he shouted the news to his shocked mother, and then, still in his wet garments, ran over to the Craik estate and told his father and Mr. Craik himself.

Had not the latter interceded in his behalf at the last moment it is doubtful if John Paul senior and his good wife would ever have allowed Johnnie to go, when Mr. Younger called that evening and presented the case to them. As it was, they finally agreed that their youngest son should become an apprentice to the Whitehaven ship-owner.

Then John Paul was indeed a happy boy. He did not sleep a wink that night. All through the long hours he lay listening to the lashing waves. They had never sounded so sweet before.