loyed in a drogher, that
is, a small craft which goes round to the bays of the island, and takes
off the sugars to the West India traders. One fine day the drogher was
driven out to sea, and never heard of a'terwards. Now, old Pigtown was
very anxious about what had come of his son, and day after day expected
he would come back again; but he never did, for very good reasons, as
you shall hear by-and-by; and every one knowing old Pigtown, and he
knowing everybody, it was at least fifty times a day that the question
was put to him, `Well, Pigtown, have you heard anything of your son?'
And fifty times a day he would reply, `No; and _my mind's but ill at
ease_.' Well, it was two or three months afterwards, that when I was in
the schooner with him, as we lay becalmed between the islands, with the
sun frizzing our wigs, and the planks so hot that you couldn't walk
without your shoes, that we hooked a large shark which came bowling
under our counter, got him on board and cut him up. When we opened his
inside, what should I see but something shining. I took it out, and
sure enough it was a silver watch. So I hands it to old Pigtown. He
looks at it very 'tentively, opens the outside case, reads the maker's
name, and then shuts it up again. `This here watch,' says he, `belonged
to my son Jack. I bought it of a chap in a South whaler for three
dollars and a roll of pigtail, and a very good watch it was, though I
perceive it to be stopped now. Now, d'ye see, it's all clear--the
drogher must have gone down in a squall--the shark must have picked up
my son Jack, and must have _digested_ his body, but has not been able to
_digest_ his watch. Now I knows what's become of him, and so--_my
mind's at ease_.'"

"Well," observed old Stapleton, "I agrees with old Poptown, or whatever
his name might be, that it were better to know the worst at once than to
be kept on the worry all your days; I consider it's nothing but human
natur'. Why, if one has a bad tooth, which is the best plan, to have it
out with one good wrench, or to be eternally tormented, night and day."

"Thou speakest wisely, friend Stapleton, and like a man of resolve--the
anticipation is often, if not always, more painful than the reality.
Thou knowest, Jacob, how often I have allowed a boy to remain unbuttoned
in the centre of the room for an hour previous to the application of the
birch--and it was with the consideration that the impression would be
greater upon