Willie.

"Why, ye see, though we had escaped so mirac'lously like, we were still
too near a lee-shore to be quite comfortable; for we'd another headland
to weather afore we could say we was clear o' danger. There was never an
eye closed on board that night, and a long and weary night it was.
Blessed if ever I seed a craft stand up under her canvas as our little
barky did, carrying on at the rate of seven knots an hour, while the sea
made a fair breach over her every now and then, and made her stagger
from stem to starn. At last, 'old roarer,' as I've heard our doctor call
the daybreak, made its appearance, and we saw the land we was afeared
o', some distance astarn. After that, the gale began to moderate, and a
fair wind soon took us under our anchorage."

Here old Janet interrupted her son, with, "Weel, but Tam, ye haena tauld
us yet hoo ye cam to lose yer leg."

"Never hurry no man's cattle, mother," replied the sailor; "leave me to
spin my own yarn my own way, and I'll come to the end on't at last; I
told you you'd cry out Avast! afore I'd done."

"Hoot, Janet," said Willie, "let the lad tak his ain gate. It just
astonishes me to hear him rinnin the words oot sae glib, an' him sic a
solid callant as he used to be."

"Weel, weel, gang on, my man; I'll no meddle wi' ye ony mair."

"Then here goes! Carry on again, says I," replied Tom. "The frigate I
belonged to afterwards went on the Jamaica station, and cruised about,
to protect the merchantmen from the pirates as infested them seas. Well,
we were dodging about one night, under topgallantsails, off Cape St
Antonio, with just wind enough to make the barky crawl through the
water. It was my look-out on deck, and I sees something like a large
bird, as it seemed to me, hovering about in a patch of clear sky; so I
stared at it, and stared at it, but I couldn't make out what it could
be, for it kept moving backwards and forwards, but always in the same
part of the sky. So I calls the midshipman of the watch, and says to
him--

"'D'ye see that large bird a-flying about there, sir? It's the biggest I
ever seed, and it keeps always about the same place; I can't make out
what it can be after.' Well, he looks and wonders like myself, and then
he goes to fetch the night-glass; and, after he'd squinted through it
for a minute or two, he just mutters to himself, 'The devil!' and away
he runs aft to the luftenant of the watch, and brings him a-running back
with him.

"'Whe