all
seaport town, seemed to be peculiarly rich in such. They were, from all
accounts, including their own, persons who had formerly behaved with
quite unnecessary depravity, and who, at the time I knew them, appeared
to be going to equally objectionable lengths in the opposite direction.
They invariably belonged to one of two classes, the low-spirited or the
aggressively unpleasant. They said, and I believed, that they were
happy; but I could not help reflecting how very sad they must have been
before they were happy.

One of them, a small, meek-eyed old man with a piping voice, had been
exceptionally wild in his youth. What had been his special villainy I
could never discover. People responded to my inquiries by saying that he
had been "Oh, generally bad," and increased my longing for detail by
adding that little boys ought not to want to know about such things. From
their tone and manner I assumed that he must have been a pirate at the
very least, and regarded him with awe, not unmingled with secret
admiration.

Whatever it was, he had been saved from it by his wife, a bony lady of
unprepossessing appearance, but irreproachable views.

One day he called at our house for some purpose or other, and, being left
alone with him for a few minutes, I took the opportunity of interviewing
him personally on the subject.

"You were very wicked once, weren't you?" I said, seeking by emphasis on
the "once" to mitigate what I felt might be the disagreeable nature of
the question.

To my intense surprise, a gleam of shameful glory lit up his wizened
face, and a sound which I tried to think a sigh, but which sounded like a
chuckle, escaped his lips.

"Ay," he replied; "I've been a bit of a spanker in my time."

The term "spanker" in such connection puzzled me. I had been hitherto
led to regard a spanker as an eminently conscientious person, especially
where the shortcomings of other people were concerned; a person who
laboured for the good of others. That the word could also be employed to
designate a sinful party was a revelation to me.

"But you are good now, aren't you?" I continued, dismissing further
reflection upon the etymology of "spanker" to a more fitting occasion.

"Ay, ay," he answered, his countenance resuming its customary aspect of
resigned melancholy. "I be a brand plucked from the burning, I be. There
beant much wrong wi' Deacon Sawyers, now."

"And it was your wife that made you good, wasn't it?