e thought it
best to remain in charge of the wreck."

Such, in effect, was the narrative of Jack Grant, the mate. The master,
as I have said, had well-nigh to commence the world anew, and was on the
eve of selling his new house at a disadvantage, in order to make up the
sum necessary for providing himself with a new vessel, when a friend
interposed, and advanced him the balance required. He was assisted, too,
by a sister in Leith, who was in tolerably comfortable circumstances;
and so he got a new sloop, which, though not quite equal in size to the
one he had lost, was built wholly of oak, every plank and beam of which
he had superintended in the laying down, and a prime sailer to boot; and
so, though he had to satisfy himself with the accommodation of the old
domicile, with its little rooms and its small windows, and to let the
other house to a tenant, he began to thrive again as before. Meanwhile
his aged cousin was gradually sinking. The master was absent on one of
his longer voyages, and she too truly felt that she could not survive
till his return. She called to her bedside her two young friends, the
sisters, who had been unwearied in their attentions to her, and poured
out her blessing on them; first on the elder, and then on the younger.
"But as for you, Harriet," she added, addressing the latter, "there
waits for you one of the best blessings of this world also--the
blessings of a good husband: you will be a gainer in the end, even in
this life, through your kindness to the poor childless widow." The
prophecy was a true one: the old woman had shrewdly marked where the
eyes of her cousin had been falling of late; and in about a twelvemonth
after her death her young friend and pupil had become the master's wife.
There was a very considerable disparity between their ages,--the master
was forty-four, and his wife only eighteen,--but never was there a
happier marriage. The young wife was simple, confiding, and
affectionate; and the master of a soft and genial nature, with a large
amount of buoyant humour about him, and so equable of temper, that,
during six years of wedded life, his wife never saw him angry but once.
I have heard her speak of the exceptional instance, however, as too
terrible to be readily forgotten.

She had accompanied him on ship-board, during their first year of
married life, to the upper parts of the Cromarty Firth, where his sloop
was taking in a cargo of grain, and lay quietly embayed within