out in the hold. It didn't come in my line to be
over-tender, but I turned sick at heart, Tom, more times than one,
looking on helpless, and me a great stout fellow.

I remember now--don't know as I've thought of it for twenty years--a
thing McCallum said one night; McCallum was Scotch,--an old fellow with
gray hair; told the best yarns on the fo'castle always.

"Mark my words, shipmates," says he, "when Job Whitmarsh's time comes to
go as straight to hell as Judas, that boy will bring his summons. Dead
or alive, that boy will bring his summons."

One day I recollect especial that the lad was sick with fever on him,
and took to his hammock. Whitmarsh drove him on deck, and ordered him
aloft. I was standing near by, trimming the spanker. Kentucky staggered
for'ard a little and sat down. There was a rope's-end there, knotted
three times. The mate struck him.

"I'm very weak, sir," says he.

He struck him again. He struck him twice more. The boy fell over a
little, and lay where he fell.

I don't know what ailed me, but all of a sudden I seemed to be lying off
Long Wharf, with the clouds the color of silver, and the air the color
of gold, and Molly in a white apron with her shining needles, and the
baby a-play in his red stockings about the deck.

"Think if it was him!" says she, or she seems to say,--"think if it was
_him_!"

And the next I knew I'd let slip my tongue in a jiffy, and given it to
the mate that furious and onrespectful as I'll wager Whitmarsh never got
before. And the next I knew after that they had the irons on me.

"Sorry about that, eh?" said he, the day before they took 'em off.

"_No,_ sir," says I. And I never was. Kentucky never forgot that. I had
helped him occasional in the beginning,--learned him how to veer and
haul a brace, let go or belay a sheet,--but let him alone generally
speaking, and went about my own business. That week in irons I really
believe the lad never forgot.

One time--it was on a Saturday night, and the mate had been oncommon
furious that week--Kentucky turned on him, very pale and slow (I was up
in the mizzen-top, and heard him quite distinct).

"Mr. Whitmarsh," says he,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--he draws his breath
in,--"Mr. Whitmarsh,"--three times,--"you've got the power and you know
it, and so do the gentlemen who put you here; and I'm only a stow-away
boy, and things are all in a tangle, but _you'll be sorry yet for every
time you've laid your hands on me_!"

He