“You are a naturalist, then?” said Campbell, looking up with interest.

“All my profession are, more or less,” said Tom, carelessly; “and I have been lucky enough here to fall on untrodden ground, and have hunted up a few sea-monsters this summer.”

“Really?  You can tell one where to search then, and where to dredge, I hope.  I have set my heart on a fortnight’s work here, and have been dreaming at night, like a child before a Twelfth-night party, of all sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons and chimaeras dire, fished up from your western deeps.”

“I have none of them; but I can give you Turbinolia Milletiana and Zoanthus Couchii.  I have a party of the last gentlemen alive on shore.”

The major’s face worked with almost childish delight.

“But I shall be robbing you.”

“They cost me nothing, my dear sir.  I did very well, moreover, without them, for five-and-thirty years; and I may do equally well for five-and-thirty more.”

“I ought to be able to say the same, surely,” answered the Major, composing his face again, and rising carefully.  “I have to thank you, exceedingly, my dear sir, for your prompt generosity:  but it is better discipline for a man, in many ways, to find things for himself than to have them put into his hands.  So, with a thousand thanks, you shall let me see if I can dredge a Turbinolia for myself.”

This was spoken with so sweet and polished a modulation, and yet so sadly and severely withal, that Tom looked at the speaker with interest.  He was a very tall and powerful man, and would have been a very handsome man, both in face and figure, but for the high cheekbone, long neck, and narrow shoulders, so often seen north of Tweed.  His brow was very high and full; his eyes—­grave, but very gentle, with large drooping eyelids —­were buried under shaggy grey eyebrows.  His mouth was gentle as his eyes; but compressed, perhaps by the habit of command, perhaps by secret sorrow; for of that, too, as well as of intellect and magnanimity, Thurnall thought he could discern the traces.  His face was bronzed by long exposure to the sun; his close-cut curls, which had once been auburn, were fast turning white, though his features looked those of a man under five-and-forty; his cheeks were as smooth shaven as his chin.  A right, self-possessed, valiant soldier he looked; one who could be very loving to little innocents, and very terrible to full-grown knaves.

“You are practising at self-denial, as usual,” said Claude.

“Because I may, at any moment, have to exercise it in earnest.  Mr. Thurnall, can you tell me the name of this little glass arrow, which I just found shooting about in the sweeping net?”

Tom did know the wonderful little link between the fish and the insect; and the two chatted over its strange form, till the boat returned to take them ashore.

“Do you make any stay here?”

“I purpose to spend a fortnight here in my favourite pursuit.  I must draw on your kindness and knowledge of the place to point me out lodgings.”