t
understand you, captain. I was at the point of telling you how my
cousin Joan was married, before her money went, and when she was really
good-looking. I was quite a child, and ran along the shore to see it.
It must have been in the high summer-time, with the weather fit for
bathing, and the sea as smooth as a duck-pond. And Captain Robin, being
well-to-do, and established with every thing except a wife, and pleased
with the pretty smile and quiet ways of Joan--for he never had heard of
her money, mind--put his oar into the sea and rowed from Flamborough all
the way to Filey Brigg, with thirty-five fishermen after him; for the
Flamborough people make a point of seeing one another through their
troubles. And Robin was known for the handsomest man and the uttermost
fisher of the landing, with three boats of his own, and good birth, and
long sea-lines. And there at once they found my cousin Joan, with her
trustees, come overland, four wagons and a cart in all of them; and
after they were married, they burned sea-weed, having no fear in those
days of invasions. And a merry day they made of it, and rowed back by
the moonshine. For every one liked and respected Captain Cockscroft on
account of his skill with the deep-sea lines, and the openness of his
hands when full--a wonderful quiet and harmless man, as the manner is of
all great fishermen. They had bacon for breakfast whenever they liked,
and a guinea to lend to any body in distress.

"Then suddenly one morning, when his hair was growing gray and his eyes
getting weary of the night work, so that he said his young Robin must
grow big enough to learn all the secrets of the fishes, while his father
took a spell in the blankets, suddenly there came to them a shocking
piece of news. All his wife's bit of money, and his own as well, which
he had been putting by from year to year, was lost in a new-fangled
Bank, supposed as faithful as the Bible. Joan was very nearly crazed
about it; but Captain Cockscroft never heaved a sigh, though they say
it was nearly seven hundred guineas. 'There are fish enough still in the
sea,' he said; 'and the Lord has spared our children. I will build a new
boat, and not think of feather-beds.'

"Captain Carroway, he did so, and every body knows what befell him. The
new boat, built with his own hands, was called the Mercy Robin, for his
only son and daughter, little Mercy and poor Robin. The boat is there
as bright as ever, scarlet within and whit