, like an irritated and
savage animal uneasy in its den:--"Bit of breeze... small thing... can't
stand up... old!" He slept at last, high-booted, sou'wester on head, and
his oilskin clothes rustled, when with a deep sighing groan he turned
over. Men conversed about him in quiet, concerned whispers. "This will
break'im up"... "Strong as a horse"... "Aye. But he ain't what he used
to be." In sad murmurs they gave him up. Yet at midnight he turned out
to duty as if nothing had been the matter, and answered to his name with
a mournful "Here!" He brooded alone more than ever, in an impenetrable
silence and with a saddened face. For many years he had heard himself
called "Old Singleton," and had serenely accepted the qualification,
taking it as a tribute of respect due to a man who through half a
century had measured his strength against the favours and the rages
of the sea. He had never given a thought to his mortal self. He lived
unscathed, as though he had been indestructible, surrendering to all the
temptations, weathering many gales. He had panted in sunshine, shivered
in the cold; suffered hunger, thirst, debauch; passed through many
trials--known all the furies. Old! It seemed to him he was broken at
last. And like a man bound treacherously while he sleeps, he woke up
fettered by the long chain of disregarded years. He had to take up at
once the burden of all his existence, and found it almost too heavy for
his strength. Old! He moved his arms, shook his head, felt his limbs.
Getting old... and then? He looked upon the immortal sea with the
awakened and groping perception of its heartless might; he saw it
unchanged, black and foaming under the eternal scrutiny of the stars;
he heard its impatient voice calling for him out of a pitiless vastness
full of unrest, of turmoil, and of terror. He looked afar upon it,
and he saw an immensity tormented and blind, moaning and furious, that
claimed all the days of his tenacious life, and, when life was over,
would claim the worn-out body of its slave....

This was the last of the breeze. It veered quickly, changed to a black
south-easter, and blew itself out, giving the ship a famous shove to the
northward into the joyous sunshine of the trade. Rapid and white she ran
homewards in a straight path, under a blue sky and upon the plain of a
blue sea. She carried Singleton's completed wisdom, Donkin's delicate
susceptibilities, and the conceited folly of us all. The hours of
ineffect