re just to the east'ard of the P'int. There were a
pretty bubble of a sea on, and afore we gits to him he goes about
standin' in to the bay and givin' sheet. We follers along arter him,
goin' two feet to his one, still carryin' all three royals, with hands
at halliards and clewlines. Just afore we gits to him the old man
sings out, 'Clew up the royals, haul down the flyin' jib, haul up the
crochick and mainsail.' By this time we was well under the land and in
smooth water. Keepin' his eye onto the pilot-boat, which were a couple
of p'ints onto our weather bow, the old man no sooner seen her come to
than he sings out, 'Hard up the helm!' And as we swung off afore the
wind we runned up the foresail and laid the head-yards square; then
mannin' the port main braces we let the to'gallan' yards run down on
the caps and let her come to ag'in, and so nicely had the old man
calculated the distance that as she come to the wind she shot up
alongside of the pilot-boat, stoppin' just abreast of her and not over
twenty foot away.

"'That was well done, Mr. Mate,' said the pilot, as he come over the
side; 'some of these galoots makes us chase 'em half a day afore we
can board 'em. Fill away the head-yards, put your helm up, run up the
flyin' jib, brail up the spanker check in the arter yards,' and as she
swung off he comes aft to the wheel where I was a-steerin', and says,
'Keep her east-sou'east, my man; giv' us a chew of terbacker.' We
soon had the muslin piled onto her ag'in, and sure enough, as old
Wiggins had said, the sixteenth day out he walked the pierhead in
Liverpool.

"I understood as old Wiggins was made a good deal on in Liverpool as
bein' the oldest skipper that had ever come there, and the Board of
Trade and what not giv' him dinners, and so on--which, considerin' his
age, he oughtn't to have took--and by other skippers at the hotel he
were much honored, bein' giv' the head of the table and treated with
great deference--and all this dinin' and winin' and feastin' weren't
no good to him--and, arter a stay of three weeks, when we ag'in went
down the river with full complement of passengers and a good freight,
he weren't not by no means as well as when we went in. We had, too, a
tough time down channel, a stiff sou'wester, with rain and thick
weather, and it told onto the old man, so that when arter bein' out a
week we at last got clear of Tuskar and had the ocean open, the relief
from the strain fetched him, and he were