that matter, are pretty well off as to poor, and
it is little enough that we have to pay for their support."

"That's the idea of a young man who never sees the tax-gatherers,"
returned the deacon. "However, there are islands, captain Gar'ner, that
are better off still, and I hope you will live to find them."

"Is our young friend to sail in the Sea Lion in quest of any such?"
inquired the pastor, a little curiously.

The deacon now repented him of the allusion. But his heart had warmed
with the subject, and the rum-and-water had unlocked some of its wards. So
timid and nervous had he become, however, that the slightest indication of
anything like a suspicion that his secrets were known, threw him into a
sweat.

"Not at all--not at all--the captain goes on well-known and beaten
ground--Sam, what is wanting, now?"

"Here is Baiting Joe comed up from the wharf, wanting to see master,"
returned a grey-headed negro, who had formerly been a slave, and who now
lived about the place giving his services for his support.

"Baiting Joe! He is not after his sheepshead, I hope--if he is, he is
somewhat late in the day."

"Ay, ay," put in the young sailor, laughing--"tell him Sam, that no small
part of it is bound to the southward meaning to cross the line in my
company, and that right soon."

"I paid Joe his half-dollar, certainly--_you_ saw me pay him, captain
Gar'ner."

"I don't think it's any sich thing, master. There is a stranger with Joe,
that he has ferried across from Shelter Island, and _he's_ comed up from
the wharf too. Yes--that's it, master."

A stranger! Who could it be? A command was given to admit him, and no
sooner did Mary get a sight of his person, than she quietly arose to
procure a plate, in order that he, too, might have his share of the fish.

Chapter V.

"Stranger! I fled the home of grief,
At Connoeht Moran's tomb to fall;
I found the helmet of my chief,
His bow still hanging on our wall."

Campbell.

"Amphibious!" exclaimed Roswell Gardiner, in an aside to Mary, as the
stranger entered the room, following Baiting Joe's lead. The last only
came for his glass of rum-and-water, served with which by the aid of the
negro, he passed the back of his hand across his mouth, napkin-fashion,
nodded his "good-day," and withdrew. As for the stranger, Roswell
Gardiner's term being particularly significant, it may be well to make a
brief explanation.

The word "amphibious" is,