minds like money. Fill up the schooner with skins and ile, and bring back
that treasure, and you make as sure of Mary for a wife as if the parson
had said the benediction over you."

Such was Deacon Pratt's notion of his niece, as well as of the female sex.
For months he regarded this speech as a _coup de maitre_, while Roswell
Gardiner forgot it in half an hour; so much better than the uncle did the
lover comprehend the character of the niece.

The Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond, had now cast off the last ligament which
connected her with the land. She had no pilot, none being necessary, or
usual, in those waters; all that a vessel had to do being to give Long
Island a sufficient berth in rounding its eastern extremity. The boat was
soon shut in by Gardiner's Island, and thenceforth nothing remained but
the ties of feeling to connect those bold adventurers with their native
country. It is true that Connecticut, and subsequently Rhode Island, was
yet visible on one hand, and a small portion of New York on the other; but
as darkness came to close the scene, even that means of communication was
soon virtually cut off. The light on Montauk, for hours, was the sole
beacon for these bold mariners, who rounded it about midnight, fairly
meeting the long, rolling swell of the broad Atlantic. Then the craft
might be said to be at sea for the first time.

The Sea Lion was found to perform well. She had been constructed with an
eye to comfort, as well as to sailing, and possessed that just proportion
in her hull which carried her over the surface of the waves like a duck.
This quality is of more importance to a small than to a large vessel, for
the want of momentum renders what is termed "burying" a very deadening
process to a light craft. In this very important particular Roswell was
soon satisfied that the ship-wright had done his duty.

As the wind still stood at south-west, the schooner was brought upon an
easy bowline, as soon as she had Montauk light dead to windward. This new
course carried her out to sea, steering south-south-east, a little
easterly, under everything that would draw. The weather appearing settled,
and there being no signs of a change, Gardiner now went below and turned
in, leaving the care of the vessel to the proper officer of the watch,
with an order to call him at sunrise. Fatigue soon asserted its power, and
the young man was shortly in as profound a sleep as if he had not just
left a mistress whom he al