h the best provisions
that money can buy, a diet of naught but biscuit and salt meat
palls after some weeks--to say nothing of some months--of it; and
this all the more in a hot climate, where the appetite weakens, and
one comes to pine for dainty cakes such as our Devonshire wives are
famous for."

"Yes, I fear I never should support that," Master Streatham, who
was a large corpulent man, mightily fond of the pleasures of the
table, agreed with a sigh.

"Besides, Friend Jonas," Diggory Beggs put in, "Mistress Tabitha
would have her voice in the matter; and however much your spirit
would lead you to such an adventure, I doubt whether she would let
you put foot on board."

"No, it is not for us to be running after adventure," Nicholas
Turnbull said. "In the first place, we are sober citizens, and have
our wives and families to think about, and our business and the
affairs of the town; and in the next place, even could we leave all
these, Master Reuben Hawkshaw would not thank us for our company.
Every foot of space is of value on the ship; and men who take up
space and consume food, and can neither set a sail nor work a
cannon, are but useless encumbrances."

"You have spoken truly, Master Nicholas," Reuben said bluntly. "In
the matter of a trip to London, or even as far as the Low
Countries, we could accommodate your worshipful honors well enough;
but on a journey like this, any man who cannot, if needs be, drink
bilge water and eat shoe leather, is best at home. I took a voyage
once--it is many years ago, now--to Amsterdam, and the owner, not
my good cousin here, but another, took a fancy to go with me; and
his wife must needs accompany him, and verily, before that voyage
was over, I wished I was dead.

"I was no longer captain of the ship. My owner was my captain, and
his wife was his. We were forever putting into port for fresh bread
and meat, milk and eggs, for she could eat none other. If the wind
got up but ever so little, we had to run into shelter and anchor
until the sea was smooth. The manners of the sailors shocked her.
She would scream at night when a rat ran across her, and would lose
her appetite if a living creature, of which, as usual, the ship was
full, fell from a beam onto her platter. I was tempted, more than
once, to run the ship on to a rock and make an end of us all.

"No, no: a day's sail out from Plymouth, in a freshly launched
ship, on a fine day, with a store of good victuals and a fe