st. "A good hand to the wheel of a vessel,
too, a cool head in danger, and one of the best judges of weather ever I
sailed with. We're putting out in the morning. You can have the chance."

As to what was in my heart when I chose to ship with Hugh Glynn, I
cannot say. There are those who tell us how they can explain every
heart-beat, quick or slow, when aught ails them. I never could. I only
know that standing on the steps of Mary Snow's house the night before,
all my thought was of Mary Snow sitting at the window and looking down
the street after Hugh Glynn. And "God help you, Simon Kippen!" I found
myself saying--"it's not you, nor Saul Haverick, nor any other living
man will marry Mary Snow while Hugh Glynn lives, for there is no
striving against the strength of the sea, and the strength of Hugh Glynn
is the strength of the sea." But of what lay beyond that in my heart I
could not say.

And now I was to sea with Hugh Glynn, and we not four days out of
Gloucester when, as if but to show me the manner of man he was, he runs
clear to the head of Placentia Bay, in Newfoundland, for a baiting on
our way to the banks; and whoever knows Placentia Bay knows what that
means, with the steam-cutters of the Crown patrolling, and their
sleepless watches night and day aloft, to trap whoever would try to buy
a baiting there against the law.

No harm fell to Hugh Glynn that time. No harm ever fell to him,
fishermen said. Before ever the cutters could get sight of him he had
sight of them; and his bait stowed below, safe away he came, driving
wild-like past the islands of the bay, with never a side-light showing
in the night, and not the first time he had done so.

"What d'y' say to that, Simon? Didn't we fool 'em good?" he asked, when
once more we were on the high seas and laying a free course for the
western banks.

"I'm grateful you did not ask me to go in any dory to bring the bait
off," I answered.

"Why is that, Simon?" he asked, as one who has no suspicion.

"It was against the law, Captain Glynn."

"But a bad law, Simon?"

"Law is law," I answered to that.

He walked from the wheel, where I was, twice to the break of the vessel
and back again and said, in a voice no louder than was needful to be
heard above what loose water was splashing over her quarter to my feet:
"Don't be put out with me for what I'll tell you now, Simon. You're a
good lad, Simon, and come of good people, but of people that for
hundreds o' ye