ned.

Nevertheless, all the ships, except one, at last left the harbour. They
did not all sail with like fortune; one and another even came in again
for a time, damaged. Others were little heard of. The captain of one
ship, it was said, was thrown overboard by his men; another sailed with
half the crew in irons, none knew where. But yet they were all in
motion, each striving after its own fashion, now in storm, now in calm,
towards its goal.

As stated, only one ship remained in the harbour, and it lay safe and
sound, with two anchors at the bottom and three great cables attached to
the quay.

It was a strange little craft. The hull was old, but it had been newly
repaired, and they had given it a smart little modern figurehead, which
contrasted strangely with the smooth sides and the heavy stern. One
could see that the rigging had originally belonged to a large vessel,
but had been very hastily adapted to the smaller hull, and this still
further increased the want of proportion in the brig's whole appearance.
Then it was painted with large portholes for guns, like a man-of-war,
and always carried its flag at the main-mast.

The skipper was no common man. He himself had painted the sketch of the
brig that hung in the cabin, and, besides, he could sing--both psalms
and songs. Indeed, there were those who maintained that he composed the
songs himself; but this was most probably a lie. And it was certainly a
lie that they whispered in the forecastle: that the skipper had not
quite got his sea-legs. Young men always tell such stories to
cabin-boys, in order to appear manly. And, besides, there was a
steersman on the brig, who could, on a pinch, easily round the headlands
alone.

He had sailed as steersman for many years of our Lord, ever since the
time of the skipper's late father. He had become as if glued to the
tiller, and many could scarcely imagine the old brig with a new
steersman.

He had certainly never voyaged in distant waters; but as his trade had
always been the same, and as he had invariably been in the company of
others, the brig had sailed pretty fortunately, without special damage
and without special merit.

Therefore, both he and the skipper had arrived at the conviction that
none could sail better than they, and hence they cared little what the
others did. They looked up at the sky and shook their heads.

The men felt quite comfortable, for they were not used to better things.
Most of them could