. If you know how a story's going to end, it
spoils the telling of it, don't you see? Consider that I didn't get cast
away, in short, that you know nothing of what happened to me, only that
I went to sea, and leave the rest to turn up as we go along. And now,
good-day to all of you, my dears. Come down to-morrow, and we'll have
the story, and maybe a sail, if the wind's fair and weather fine,--at
any rate, the story."

The children were probably the happiest children that were ever seen, as
they turned about for home, showering thanks upon the Captain with such
tremendous earnestness that he was forced in self-defence to cry,
"Enough, enough! run home, and say no more."

CHAPTER II.

Captain John Hardy, Otherwise Ancient Mariner,
Otherwise Old Man.

CAPTAIN HARDY, or Captain John Hardy, or Captain Jack Hardy, or plain
Captain Jack, or simple Captain, as his neighbors pleased to name him,
was a famous character in the village. Everybody knew the captain, and
everybody liked him. He was a mysterious sort of person,--here to-day
and there to-morrow,--coming and going all the time, until he fairly
tired out the public curiosity and people's patience altogether, so that
even the greatest gossips in the town had to confess at length that
there was no use trying to make anything of Captain Jack, and they
prudently gave up inquiring and bothering their heads about him; but
they were glad to see him always, none the less.

The Captain was known as a great talker, and was always, in former
years, brimful of stories of adventure to tell to any one he met during
his short visits to the village,--any one, indeed, who would listen to
him; and, in truth, everybody was glad to listen, he talked so well.
Many and many a summer evening he spent seated on an old bench in front
of the village inn, reciting tales of shipwrecks, and stories of the sea
and land, to the wondering people. Of late years, however, he was not
disposed to talk so much, and was not so often seen at his favorite
haunt. "I'm getting too old," he would say, "to tarry from home after
nightfall."

He had now grown to be fifty-nine years old, although he really looked
much more aged, for he bore about him the marks of much hardship and
privation. His hair was quite white, and fell in long silvery locks over
his shoulders, while a heavy snow-white beard covered his breast. There
was always something in his appearance denoting the sailor. Perhaps it
was that