f the hardships of the life, or
from any particular circumstance?"

"I got wrecked on the Scillys. There was fifty boats lost that night,
and scarce a hand was saved. I shouldn't have been saved myself if it
had not been for a dream of mother's."

"That's curious," I said. "Would you mind telling me about it?"

The old sailor did not speak for a minute or two; and then, after a
sharp puff at his pipe, he told me the following story, of which I
have but slightly altered the wording:

I lived with mother at Tregannock. It's a bit of a village now, as it
was then. My father had been washed overboard and drowned two years
before. I was his only son. The boat I sailed in was mother's, and
four men and myself worked her in shares. I was twenty-one, or maybe
twenty-two, years old then. It was one day early in October. We had
had a bad season, and times were hard. We'd agreed to start at eight
o'clock in the morning. I was up at five, and went down to the boats
to see as everything was ready. When I got back mother had made
breakfast; and when we sat down I saw that the old woman had been
crying, and looked altogether queer like.

"My boy," says she, "I want you not to go out this trip."

"Not go out!" said I; "not go out, mother! Why? What's happened? Your
share and mine didn't come to three pounds last month, and it would be
a talk if I didn't go out in the _Jane_. Why, what is it?"

"My boy," says she, "I've had a dream as how you was drowned."

"Drowned!" said I; "I'm not going to be drowned, mother."

But what she said made me feel creepy like, for us Cornishmen goes a
good deal on dreams and tokens; and sure enough mother had dreamed
father was going to be drowned before he started on that last trip of
his.

"That's not all, Will," she said. "I dreamed of you in bed, and a chap
was leaning over you cutting your throat."

I didn't care much for going on with my breakfast after that; but in a
minute or two I plucks up and says:

"Well, mother, you're wrong, anyhow; for if I be drowned no one has no
call to cut my throat."

"I didn't see you downright drowned in my dream," she said. "You was
in the sea--a terribly rough sea--at night, and the waves were
breaking down on you."

"I can't help going, mother," I says, after a bit. "It's a fine day,
and it's our boat. All the lads and girls in the village would laugh
at me if I stayed at home."

"That's just what your father said; and he went to his death."