elm looked alive, but not much more than that.

"All right, Cap'n," he stammered. "A--a--all right. What--what--shall I
say--what shall I--had I better--"

"Thunderation! Do you need a chart and compass? Stay where you are. I'll
say it myself."

He strode to the window, threw it open, and shouted in a voice which had
been trained to carry above worse gales than the present one:

"Ahoy! Ahoy! Win! Fetch her around aft here. Lay alongside the kitchen
door! D'you hear? Ahoy! Win! d'you hear?"

Silence. Then, after a moment, came the reply. "Yup, I hear ye. Be right
there."

The captain turned from the window.

"Took some time for him to let us know he heard, didn't it," he
observed. "Cal'late he had to say 'Judas priest' four or five times
afore he answered. If you cut all the 'Judas priests' out of that boy's
talk he'd be next door to tongue-tied."

Thankful turned to her relative.

"There, Emily," she said, with a sigh of relief. "I guess likely we'll
make the hotel this tack. I begun to think we never would."

Captain Bangs shook his head.

"You won't go to no hotel this night," he said, decidedly. "It's a long
ways off and pretty poor harbor after you make it. You'll come right
along with me and Kenelm to his sister's house. It's only a little
ways and Hannah's got a spare room and she'll be glad to have you. I'm
boardin' there myself just now. Yes, you will," he added. "Of course you
will. Suppose I'm goin' to let relations of Eben Barnes put up at the
East Wellmouth tavern? By the everlastin', I guess not! I wouldn't send
a--a Democrat there. Come right along! Don't say another word."

Both of the ladies said other words, a good many of them, but they might
as well have been orders to the wind to stop blowing. Captain Obed Bangs
was, evidently, a person accustomed to having his own way. Even as they
were still protesting their new acquaintance led them to the kitchen
door, where Winnie S. and a companion, a long-legged person who answered
to the name of "Jabez," were waiting on the front seat of a vehicle
attached to a dripping and dejected horse. To the rear of this vehicle
"General Jackson" was tethered by a halter. Winnie S. was loaded to the
guards with exclamatory explanations.

"Judas priest!" he exclaimed, as the captain assisted Mrs. Barnes and
Emily into the carriage. "If I ain't glad to see you folks! When I got
back here and there wa'n't a sign of you nowheres, I was took some off
my pins,