CHAPTER XII.
A WORD AT THE HARBOUR-SIDE.
The next Sunday I was fool enough to go to church, for Doctor Blair was announced to preach the sermon.

Now I knew very well what treatment I should get, and that it takes a stout fellow to front a conspiracy of scorn.

But I had got new courage from my travels, so I put on my best suit of murrey-coloured cloth, my stockings of cherry silk, the gold buckles which had been my father's, my silk-embroidered waistcoat, freshly-ironed ruffles, and a new hat which had cost forty shillings in London town.

I wore my own hair, for I never saw the sense of a wig save for a bald man, but I had it deftly tied.

I would have cut a great figure had there not been my bronzed and rugged face to give the lie to my finery.
It was a day of blistering heat.