uldered ones, that bore away with the bit in their teeth, never
caring whether you are pulling to the right or to the left, are worth
nothing; the real luxury is in the management of your arching-necked
curvetter, springing from side to side with every motion of your wrist,
madly bounding at restraint, yet, to the practised hand, held in check with
a silk tread. Eh, Skipper, am I not right?"

"Well, I can't say I've had much to do with horse-beasts, but I believe
you're not far wrong. The lively craft that answers the helm quick, goes
round well in stays, luffs up close within a point or two, when you want
her, is always a good sea-boat, even though she pitches and rolls a bit;
but the heavy lugger that never knows whether your helm is up or down,
whether she's off the wind or on it, is only fit for firewood,--you can do
nothing with a ship or a woman if she hasn't got steerage way on her."

"Come, Skipper, we've all been telling our stories; let us hear one of
yours?"

"My yarn won't come so well after your sky-scrapers of love and courting
and all that. But if you like to hear what happened to me once, I have no
objection to tell you.

"I often think how little we know what's going to happen to us any minute
of our lives. To-day we have the breeze fair in our favor, we are going
seven knots, studding-sails set, smooth water, and plenty of sea-room;
to-morrow the wind freshens to half a gale, the sea gets up, a rocky coast
is seen from the lee bow, and may be--to add to all--we spring a leak
forward; but then, after all, bad as it looks, mayhap, we rub through even
this, and with the next day, the prospect is as bright and cheering as
ever. You'll perhaps ask me what has all this moralizing to do with women
and ships at sea? Nothing at all with them, except that I was a going to
say, that when matters look worst, very often the best is in store for us,
and we should never say strike when there is a timber together. Now for my
story:--

"It's about four years ago, I was strolling one evening down the side of
the harbor at Cove, with my hands in my pocket, having nothing to do, nor
no prospect of it, for my last ship had been wrecked off the Bermudas, and
nearly all the crew lost; and somehow, when a man is in misfortune, the
underwriters won't have him at no price. Well, there I was, looking about
me at the craft that lay on every side waiting for a fair wind to run down
channel. All was active and busy; every one g