t its being dull that way, and about
the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing
open until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her
eyes, and looked intently in his face.

'The story was about a ship, my lady lass,' began the Captain, 'as
sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather,
bound for--don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out'ard
bound, pretty, only out'ard bound!'

The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself
very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.

'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain.

'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence.

The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking in
his throat, and nervously proceeded:

'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore
as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in
them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in.
Day arter day that there unfort'nate ship behaved noble, I'm told, and
did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one blow a'most her bulwarks
was stove in, her masts and rudder carved away, her best man swept
overboard, and she left to the mercy of the storm as had no mercy but
blowed harder and harder yet, while the waves dashed over her, and beat
her in, and every time they come a thundering at her, broke her like a
shell. Every black spot in every mountain of water that rolled away was
a bit o' the ship's life or a living man, and so she went to pieces,
Beauty, and no grass will never grow upon the graves of them as manned
that ship.'

'They were not all lost!' cried Florence. 'Some were saved!--Was one?'

'Aboard o' that there unfort'nate wessel,' said the Captain, rising from
his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and exultation,
'was a lad, a gallant lad--as I've heerd tell--that had loved, when
he was a boy, to read and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks--I've
heerd him! I've heerd him!--and he remembered of 'em in his hour of
need; for when the stoutest and oldest hands was hove down, he was firm
and cheery. It warn't the want of objects to like and love ashore that
gave him courage, it was his nat'ral mind. I've seen it in his face,
when he was no more than a child--ay, many a time!--and when I thought
it nothing but his g