risk of his life as part of his day's work and
made no fuss about it. He was hopelessly ignorant and wildly
conservative; he believed in England, and reckoned foreigners as a minor
species. His sinful insularity ran to ludicrous manifestations
sometimes. An old coaster was once beating up for his own harbour and
trying to save the tide. A little Danish brig got a slant of wind and
rattled in over the bar, while the collier had to stand off for six
hours. The captain was gravely indignant at this mischance, and,
sighing, said, "Ah! God cares far more for them furriners than He does
for His own countrymen."

As he grew in years his temper became worse, and his girth greater. The
violent exertion of his earlier days was exchanged for the ease of a man
who had nothing to do but stand about, eat, sleep, and throw things at
cabin-boys. He had all the peremptory disposition of an Eastern tyrant;
and the notion of being called to account for any one of his doings
would have thrown him into apoplectic surprise. So he lived out his
days, working his old tub up and down the coast with marvellous skill,
beating his boy, roaring songs when his vessel lay in the Pool, and
lamenting the good times gone by. When at last his joints grew too
stiff, and other troubles of age came upon him, he settled ashore in
some little cottage and devoted himself to quiet meditation of a
pessimistic kind. Every morning he rolled down to the quay and
criticised with cruel acuteness the habits of the younger generation of
mariners; every evening he took his place in the tavern parlour and
instructed the assembled skippers. At last the time came for him to go:
then the men whom he had scored with ropes'-ends in his day were the
first to mourn him and to speak with admiration of his educational
methods.

The skipper of the new school is a sad backslider. He would think it
undignified to beat a boy; he wears a black frock coat, keeps novels in
his cabin, wears a finger-ring, and tries to look like a ship-broker. He
mixes his north-country accent with a twang learned in the West-end
theatres, and he never goes ashore without a tall hat and an umbrella.
His walk is a grievous trouble to his mind. The ideal ship-broker has a
straight and seemly gait; but no captain who ever tried to imitate the
ship-broker could quite do away with a certain nautical roll. The
new-fashioned captain is not content with that simple old political
creed of true sailors, which beg