ok aat!"

The Mate of the steamer, relieved from duty, had stopped at my side,
sociable. He would be a Skye-man by the talk of him. It was good to
hear the old speech again.

"Aye! she's a fine ship."

"Haf you been th' voyage in her? Been long away?"

"Oh yes! Sixteen months this trip!"

"Saxteen munss! Ma grasshius! Y'll haf a fine pey oot o' her?"

"Not a cent! Owing, indeed; but my time'll be out in a week, an I'll
get my indentures."

"Oh, yiss! Oh, yiss! A bressbounder, eh!" Then he gave a half-laugh,
and muttered the old formula about "the man who would go to sea for
pleasure, going to hell for a pastime!"

"Whatna voyage did ye haf, now?" he asked, after filling a pipe with
good 'golden bar,' that made me empty the bowl of mine, noisily.

"Oh, pretty bad. Gales an' gales. Hellish weather off the Horn, an'
short-handed, an' the house full o' lashin' water--not a dry spot, fore
an' aft. 'Gad! we had it sweet down there. Freezin', too, an' th'
sails hard as old Harry. Ah! a fine voyage, wi' rotten grub an' short
commons at that!"

"Man, man! D'ye tell me that, now! Ma grasshius! Ah wouldna go in
them if ye wass t' gif me twenty pounds a munss!"

No; I didn't suppose he would, looking at the clean, well-fed cut of
him, and thinking of the lean, hungry devils who had sailed with me.

"Naw! Ah wouldna go in them if ye wass t' gif me thirrty pounss a
munss! Coaffins, Ah caall them! Aye, coaffins, that iss what they
are!"

Coffin! I thought of a ship staggering hard-pressed to windward of a
ledge of cruel rocks, the breakers shrieking for a prey, and the old
grey-haired Master of her slapping the rail and shouting, "Up t'it, m'
beauty! T' windward, ye bitch!"

"Aye, coaffins," he repeated. "That iss what they are!"

I had no answer--he was a steamboat man, and would not have understood.

EPILOGUE

"1910"

Into a little-used dock space remote from harbour traffic she is put
aside--out of date and duty, surging at her rusted moorings when the
dock gates are swung apart and laden steamships pass out on the road
she may no longer travel. The days pass--the weeks--the months; the
tide ebbs, and comes again; fair winds carry but trailing smoke-wrack
to the rim of a far horizon; head winds blow the sea mist in on
her--but she lies unheeding. Idle, unkempt, neglected; and the haughty
figurehead of her is turned from the open sea.

Black with the grime of belching factorie