at never goed no more! 'T was tarrible sad douns
wi' they!"

This preface was accompanied by some preliminary handling of the
caplin-seine, also, to find out the broken places and get them
about him. Ralph and Prudence deftly helped him. Then, making his
story wait, after this opening, he took one hole to begin at in
mending, chose his seat, and drew the seine up to his knee. At the
same time I got nearer to the fellowship of the family by persuading
the planter (who yielded with a pleasant smile) to let me try my
hand at the netting. Prudence quietly took to herself a share of
the work, and Ralph alone was unbusied.

"They calls th' Ice a wicked place,--Sundays an' weekin days all
alike; an' to my seemun it's a cruel, bloody place, jes' so well,--but
not all thinks alike, surely.--Rafe, lad, mubbe 'ee 'd ruther go
down coveways, an' overhaul the punt a bit."

Ralph, who perhaps had stood waiting for the very dismissal that he
now got, assented and left us three. Prudence, to be sure, looked
after him as if she would a good deal rather go with him than stay;
but she stayed, nevertheless, and worked at the seine. I interpreted
to myself Skipper Benjie's sending away of one of his hearers by
supposing that his son-in-law had often heard his tales; but the
planter explained himself:--

"'Ee sees, Sir, I knocked off goun to th' Ice becase 't was sech
a tarrible cruel place, to my seemun. They swiles[3] be so knowun
like,--as knowun as a dog, in a manner, an' lovun to their own,
like Christens, a'most, more than bastes; an' they'm got red blood,
for all they lives most-partly in water; an' then I found 'em so
friendly, when I was wantun friends badly. But I s'pose the
swile-fishery's needful; an' I knows, in course, that even Christens'
blood's got to be taken sometimes, when it's bad blood, an' I would
n' be childish about they things: on'y--ef it's me--when I can
live by fishun, I don' want to go an' club an' shoot an' cut an'
slash among poor harmless things that 'ould never harm man or 'oman,
an' 'ould cry great tears down for pity-sake, an' got a sound like
a Christen: I 'ould n' like to go a-swilun for gain,--not after
beun among 'em, way I was, anyways."

[Footnote 3: Seals.]

This apology made it plain that Skipper Benjie was large-hearted
enough, or indulgent enough, not to seek to strain others, even his
own family, up to his own way in everything; and it might easily
be thought that the young fisherman ha