he gig within fifteen
minutes, I'll take ye by the collar and drop ye into the dock.' I was
twice the size of him, mind ye, and master strong. 'Don't ye like it?'
says he, edging round; 'I'll change it for ye, then.' Ter'ble perlite he
was. 'Like it?' says I, 'it looks as if it were built of dog's hair and
divil's wool, kicked together by spiders; and it's coarser than Irish
frieze; three threads to an _armful_,' says I."

This was evidently one of the captain's favorite stories, for we heard
an approving grumble from the audience.

In the course of a walk inland we made a new acquaintance, Captain Lant,
whom we had noticed at church, and who sometimes joined the company on
the wharf. We had been walking through the woods, and coming out to his
fields we went on to the house for some water. There was no one at home
but the captain, who told us cheerfully that he should be pleased to
serve us, though his women-folks had gone off to a funeral, the other
side of the P'int. He brought out a pitcherful of milk, and after we had
drunk some, we all sat down together in the shade. The captain brought
an old flag-bottomed chair from the woodhouse, and sat down facing Kate
and me, with an air of certainty that he was going to hear something new
and make some desirable new acquaintances, and also that he could tell
something it would be worth our while to hear. He looked more and more
like a well-to-do old English sparrow, and chippered faster and faster.

"Queer ye should know I'm a sailor so quick; why, I've been a-farming
it this twenty years; have to go down to the shore and take a day's
fishing every hand's turn, though, to keep the old hulk clear of
barnacles. There! I do wish I lived nigher the shore, where I could see
the folks I know, and talk about what's been a-goin' on. You don't know
anything about it, you don't; but it's tryin' to a man to be called 'old
Cap'n Lant,' and, so to speak, be forgot when there's anything stirring,
and be called gran'ther by clumsy creatur's goin' on fifty and sixty,
who can't do no more work to-day than I can; an' then the women-folks
keeps a-tellin' me to be keerful and not fall, and as how I'm too old to
go out fishing; and when they want to be soft-spoken, they say as how
they don't see as I fail, and how wonderful I keep my hearin'. I never
did want to farm it, but 'she' always took it to heart when I was off on
a v'y'ge, and this farm and some consider'ble means beside come to her