y well off shore for such a sail."

"You might have rowed him ashore," said Picton.

"Rowed him ashore?" echoed Red-Cap, with another contemptuous smile under
the brown hand; "rowed him ashore?"

The traveller, finding he was in deep water, answered: "Yes; that is, if
you were not too far out."

"A little too far out," replied Red-Cap; "why if I had been a hundred
yards only from shore, it would ha' been too far to row, or sail in, with
that shovel-nose, without counting the set-nets."

"And what did you do?" said Picton, a little nettled.

"Why," said Red-Cap, "I had to let him go, but first I cut out his liver,
and that I did bring ashore, although it filled my boat pretty well full.
You can judge how big it was: after I brought it ashore I lay it out on
the beach and we measured it, Mr. McAlpin and me, and he'll tell you so
too; we laid it out on the beach, that ere liver, and it measured
seventeen feet, and then we didn't measure all of it."

"Why the devil," said Picton, "didn't you measure all of it?"

"Well," replied Red-Cap, "because we hadn't a measure long enough."

Meantime the good lady of the hutch was busy arranging some tumblers on
the table, and to our great surprise and delight a huge yellow pitcher of
milk soon made its appearance, and immediately after an old-fashioned iron
bake-pan, with an upper crust of live embers and ashes, was lifted off the
chimney trammel, and when it was opened, the fragrance of hot ginger-bread
filled the apartment. Then Red-Cap bobbed away at a corner cupboard, until
he extracted therefrom a small keg or runlet of St. Croix rum of most ripe
age and choice flavor, some of which, by an adroit and experienced crook
of the elbow, he managed to insinuate into the milk, which, with a little
brown sugar, he stirred up carefully and deliberately with a large spoon,
Picton and I watching the proceedings with intense interest. Then the
punch was poured out and handed around; while the good wife made little
trips from guest to guest with a huge platter filled with the brown and
fragrant pieces of the cake, fresh from the bake-pan. And so the baby
having subsided (our baby of the "Balaklava"), and the twilight having
given place to a grand moonlight on the bay, and the fire sending out its
beams of warmth and happiness, glittering on the utensils of the dresser,
and tenderly touching with rosy light the cheeks of the small,
white-headed fishermen on the margin of the patchwork