gotten my prayers. I tried hard to remember them, too,
_then_, and some of the Scripture stories and lessons my--mo--ther used
to teach me; for she was--gone."

His voice did not tremble, but he spoke very slowly, as if he wanted to
speak out to us, and yet wished to do it without betraying the deep
feeling that the events of the evening had intensified. Each time
before he spoke the words "my mother," he took the pipe from his mouth
and hesitated a moment, as if to steady himself. Somehow the old
Captain's voice was softer, I thought, than I had ever heard it before--
it may have been fatigue and the noises of the storm that made it sound
so. His face, too, looked to me as if it had lost its hard lines and
roughness--perhaps the firelight caused that to seem so. And those
bold, sharp eyes of his were as gentle as my little sister Aggie's. He
continued:--

"Hard times a youngster often has at sea, not in all ships, but in many,
I tell you, and bad companions on every side. No gentle looks or kind
words, but knocks and oaths. No time to read, and all that; hardly a
chance to think. Well, I was a bad one, and worse when I went back
again, and had my--mo--ther no longer to love me, and no one anywhere in
the world to care a button for Rowly," (his Christian name was Roland).
"I was a pretty reckless, hearty, devil-me-care fellow, I tell you. I
could rough it and fight my way with the strongest, and never thought
further ahead than the moment I was living in. So, for thirty years and
more I knocked about the world, coming scot-free through a thousand
dangers. Yes, and I got ahead all the time and prospered, thinking
mighty well of myself, my _good luck_, clear head, and tough arm. I
never thought of God. I don't know but that I had almost forgotten that
there was a God; at any rate, if I thought of Him, it was with doubt and
indifference. Yet, boys, in all that time, `He cared for me, upheld me,
_blessed me_.'"

His words grew hurried and thick, his head was turned so I could not see
his face, and the old black pipe had fallen from his fingers to the
ground. Ugly walked around and snuffed at it in amazement. But the
Captain went on:--

"Now I feel it all--_how_ I _feel_ it--since I heard Mr Clare that day.
Nearly forty years deaf, but I hear God's voice within me _now_, louder
and louder every day; and what has He done for us to-day? How He has
spoken! Ah! boys, you'll never be the old sinner I have b