ad, and her cut was not
yet well known to us. Then we heard no more of her, until, by and by,
the skipper of the _Huskie Dog_, bound north, left news that she was
still at large to the south, and sang us a rousing song, which, he said,
had been made by young Dannie Crew of Ragged Harbour, and was then
vastly popular with the folk of the places below.

"Oh, _have_ you seed the skipper o' the schooner _Sink or Swim_?
We'll use a rope what's long an' strong, when we cotches him.
He've a case o' smallpox for'ard,
An' we'll hang un, by the Lord!
For he've traded every fishin' port from Conch t' Harbour Rim.

"T' save the folk that dreads it,
We'll hang the man that spreads it,
They's lakes o' fire in hell t' sail for such as Skipper Jim!"

My sister, sweet maid! being then in failing health and spirits, I
secretly took ship with the skipper of the _Bonnie Betsy Buttercup_,
bound south with the first load of that season: this that I might surely
fetch the doctor to my sister's help, who sorely needed cheer and
healing, lest she die like a thirsty flower, as my heart told me. And I
found the doctor busy with the plague at Bay Saint Billy, himself
quartered aboard the _Greased Lightning_, a fore-and-after which he had
chartered for the season: to whom I lied diligently and without shame
concerning my sister's condition, and with such happy effect that we put
to sea in the brewing of the great gale of that year, with our topsail
and tommy-dancer spread to a sousing breeze. But so evil a turn did the
weather take--so thick and wild--that we were thrice near driven on a
lee shore, and, in the end, were glad enough to take chance shelter
behind Saul's Island, which lies close to the mainland near the
Harbourless Shore. There we lay three days, with all anchors over the
side, waiting in comfortable security for the gale to blow out; and
'twas at dusk of the third day that we were hailed from the coast rocks
by that ill-starred young castaway of the name of Docks whose tale
precipitated the final catastrophe in the life of Jagger of Wayfarer's
Tickle.

* * * * *

He was only a lad, but, doubtless, rated a man; and he was now sadly
woebegone--starved, shivering, bruised by the rocks and breaking water
from which he had escaped. We got him into the cozy forecastle, clapped
him on the back, put him in dry duds; and, then, "Come, now, lads!"
cried Billy Lisson, the hearty skip