d Jacka, "any fool can see she'll run, and any fool can see
she'll reach. I reckon she'll come about as fast as th' old _Pride_,
and if she don't sit nigher the wind than the new revenue cutter it'll
be your sailmaker's fault."

"That's a first-class report," said Mr. Job. "I was thinking of
offering you the post of mate in her."

Cap'n Jacka felt poorly all of a sudden. "Aw," he asked, "who's to be
skipper, then?"

"The Company was thinkin' of young Dick Hewitt."

"Aw," said Cap'n Jacka again, and shut his mouth tight. Young Dick
Hewitt's father had shares in the Company and money to buy votes
beside.

"What do'ee think?" asked Mr. Job, still slanting his eye down his
nose.

"I'll go home an' take my wife's opinion," said Cap'n Jacka.

So when he got home he told it all to his funny little wife that he
doted on like the apple of his one eye. She was a small, round body,
with beady eyes that made her look like a doll on a pen-wiper; and she
said, of course, that the Company was a parcel of rogues and fools
together.

"Young Dick Hewitt is every bit so good a seaman as I be," said Cap'n
Jacka.

"He's a boaster."

"So he is, but he's a smart seaman for all."

"I declare if the world was to come to an end you'd sit quiet an'
never say a word."

"I dessay I should. I'd leave you to speak up for me."

"Baint'ee goin' to say _nothin_', then?"

"Iss; I'm goin' to lay it before the Lord."

So down 'pon their knees these old souls went upon the limeash, and
asked for guidance, and Cap'n Jacka, after a while, stretched out
his hand to the shelf for Wesley's Hymns. They always pitched a hymn
together before going to bed. When he'd got the book in his hand he
saw that 'twasn't Wesley at all, but another that he never studied
from the day his wife gave it to him, because it was called the "Only
Hymn Book,"[A] and he said the name was as good as a lie. Hows'ever,
he opened it now, and came slap on the hymn:--

[Footnote A: Probably "Olney."]

_Tho' troubles assail and dangers affright,
If foes all should fail and foes all unite,
Yet one thing assures us, whatever betide,
I trust in all dangers the Lord will provide_.

They sang it there and then to the tune of "O all that pass by," and
the very next morning Cap'n Jacka walked down and told Mr. Job he was
ready to go for mate under young Dick Hewitt.

More than once, the next week or two, he came near to repenting; for
Cap'n Dick was very loud about