g to seaward, but
John proposed that we should try the boats for a short sail, and with
the owners' consent we pushed off to round the outer buoy and back as
a test of speed. The boats had each a single spritsail, but I felt
sure that John's carried too much canvas and would not behave well in
a gale. We soon got them on the wind, and were sailing pretty evenly
together when I heard the muttering of distant thunder. A moment more
and the sails were flapping heavily, everything was still as death,
but the white-caps were plain enough to what had been the leeward a
short time before. We were a good mile from shore, and I called out to
John to look out for flaws, and put my boat about on a homeward tack.
Without a moment's warning the gale burst upon us, and as my own boat
bowed gracefully to the wind and threw the water from her bows, I saw
John's mast quiver and bend as a large sea swept over the gunwale and
drenched him from head to foot. 'Let go your sheet!' I shouted, 'and
luff her up into the wind.' But instead of doing so, he hauled
powerfully upon the swelling sail, put his helm hard down, and the
next moment the boat was tossing bottom up, and John was struggling in
the seething waters. I had no fears for his life, for he was a
powerful and skillful swimmer, and this was not the first upset for
either of us; but I never was so deeply impressed before by John's bad
seamanship. He gained the boat without difficulty, and clambered on to
the upturned bottom, so that I had time to let go my sheet and
double-reef my sail. I then bore down on him and took him aboard, and
the two of us had little trouble in righting his boat and towing her
ashore. I have mentioned the incident only because I always connect it
in my mind with what happened long years afterward.

"Six months after this our father died, and John wished to be married
at once. But Ellen, although she could not hide her attachment to him,
steadily refused to engage herself on account of her invalid mother,
whose only and devoted attendant she was. Fickleness was not one of my
brother's faults, and he was true and steady in his love for the
girl--how true and steady I never knew until I learned it from himself
in my ship's cabin on the broad Atlantic. I found myself with a few
thousand pounds and a careless guardian, from whom it was not
difficult to get the money into my own hands. In a few weeks I left
home for Liverpool, and I have never seen my native town s