e of it, no
bigger than toys. One thing with another, I made up my mind.

"Very well," says I, "let us go to the Ferry."

My uncle got into his hat and coat, and buckled an old rusty cutlass on;
and then we trod the fire out, locked the door, and set forth upon our
walk.

The wind, being in that cold quarter, the north-west, blew nearly in our
faces as we went. It was the month of June; the grass was all white with
daisies and the trees with blossom; but, to judge by our blue nails and
aching wrists, the time might have been winter and the whiteness a
December frost.

Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch, jogging from side to side like an
old ploughman coming home from work. He never said a word the whole way;
and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me his name was
Ransome, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but could
not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed me
tattoo marks, baring his breast in the teeth of the wind and in spite of
my remonstrances, for I thought it was enough to kill him; he swore
horribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than a
man; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done; stealthy
thefts, false accusations, ay, and even murder; but all with such a
dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swagger
in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him.

I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship that
sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was equally loud.
Heasy-oasy (for so he still named the skipper) was a man, by his
account, that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; one that, as
people said, would "crack on all sail into the day of judgment"; rough,
fierce, unscrupulous, and brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had
taught himself to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He would
only admit one flaw in his idol. "He ain't no seaman," he admitted.
"That's Mr. Shuan that navigates the brig; he's the finest seaman in the
trade, only for drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look 'ere"; and
turning down his stocking he showed me a great raw red wound that made
my blood run cold. "He done that--Mr. Shuan done it," he said, with an
air of pride.

"What!" I cried, "do you take such savage usage at his hands? Why, you
are no slave, to be so handled!"

"No," said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, "and so he'll
f