wanted to do all the shooting and carried the whole equipment of arrows inside their shirts. He is attractively modest about himself, ‘Of No. 3 I prefer to say nothing, hoping that the tale as it is unwound will show that he was a boy of deeds rather than of words,’ a quality which he hints did not unduly protrude upon the brows of Nos. 1 and 2. His preface ends on a high note, ‘I should say that the work was in the first instance compiled as a record simply at which we could whet our memories, and that it is now published for No. 4’s benefit. If it teaches him by example lessons in fortitude and manly endurance we shall consider that we were not wrecked in vain.’
Published to whet your memories. Does it whet them? Do you hear once more, like some long-forgotten whistle beneath your window (Robb at dawn calling me to the fishing!) the not quite mortal blows that still echo in some of the chapter headings?—‘Chapter II, No. 1 teaches Wilkinson (his master) a Stern Lesson—We Run away to Sea. Chapter III, A Fearful Hurricane—Wreck of the “Anna Pink”
