times they were nearly forced to
abandon her or allow the sea to cover the vessel and themselves. The
old sailors used to say when they saw her making the port that she
always "looked far off at a distance," a saying peculiar to that part
of the country. And yet she out-lived many of the most handsome,
well-built, modern ships of that time.

Captain Bourne, or "Plunker," as he was nicknamed, was a man of much
dignity and superior presence, but like many of his contemporaries, he
was very illiterate; indeed, I do not believe he could either read or
write, and yet he was able to collect his freights and generally to
conduct the finances entrusted to him with amazing accuracy. His age
was between forty-five and fifty; he stood over six feet, and was
finely proportioned. He had a moderately-sized head, broad forehead,
strong clean-shaven chin, side board whiskers, and a profile which
suggested the higher type of man. Under pronounced, overhanging
eyebrows, there glowed a pair of medium-sized dark eyes, which at times
were penetrating, and occasionally wore a sad, sympathetic look. His
hands and feet betokened that he had sprung from a physical working
race, though there was nothing of the animal about him, and in spite of
a gruff, uncultured mannerism, he either had it naturally or had
acquired almost a grammatical way of addressing people when he wished
to assert what he obviously regarded as the dignity of his high
calling. This effort to check a natural tendency to the common dialect
was very comical, and yet no one ever thought of it as snobbish; the
whole thing seemed to belong to him, and he couldn't be different if he
wanted to. That was the impression people got of him. In an ordinary
way when he was in port he wore a blue pilot morning suit and silk hat.
The waistcoat was cut so as to show a good space of coloured shirt
front, though on Sundays when in port and days of sailing and arrival,
white shirts were worn; usually a stand-up collar with silk stock or
some kind of soft neckerchief encircled his neck. He was
weather-beaten, ruddy, and altogether rather pleasant to look at. He
could navigate his vessel along the coast almost blindfold. Charts were
rarely used by such nautical aborigines, as he and scores of his
compeers disdained the very idea of being thought incapable of carrying
all the knowledge in their heads that was necessary for the purposes of
practical navigation. They had a perfect knowledge of the