He didn't see where it pitched, or how far it went.

"Right it is," says the woman aloft. "'Tis easy seen you're a
hurler. But what shall us do for a cradle? Hendry Watty! Hendry
Watty!"

"Ma'am to _you_," says my grandfather.

"If you've the common feelings of a gentleman, I'll ask you kindly to
turn your back; I'm going to take off my stocking."

So my grandfather stared the other way very politely; and when he was
told he might look again, he saw she had tied the stocking to the
line and was running it out like a cradle into the dead waste of the
night.

"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! Look out below!"

Before he could answer, plump! a man's leg came tumbling past his ear
and scattered the ashes right and left.

"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! Look out below!"

This time 'twas a great white arm and hand, with a silver ring sunk
tight in the flesh of the little finger.

"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! Warm them limbs!"

My grandfather picked them up and was warming them before the fire,
when down came tumbling a great round head and bounced twice and lay
in the firelight, staring up at him. And whose head was it but
Archelaus Rowett's, that he'd run away from once already, that night?

"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! Look out below!"

This time 'twas another leg, and my grandfather was just about to lay
hands on it, when the woman called down:

"Hendry Watty! catch it quick! It's my own leg I've thrown down by
mistake!"

The leg struck the ground and bounced high, and Hendry Watty made a
leap after it. . . .

And I reckon it's asleep he must have been: for what he caught was
not Mrs. Rowett's leg, but the jib-boom of a deep-laden brigantine
that was running him down in the dark. And as he sprang for it, his
boat was crushed by the brigantine's fore-foot and went down under
his very boot-soles. At the same time he let out a yell, and two or
three of the crew ran forward and hoisted him up to the bowsprit and
in on deck, safe and sound.

But the brigantine happened to be outward-bound for the River Plate;
so that, what with one thing and another, 'twas eleven good months
before my grandfather landed again at Port Loe. And who should be
the first man he sees standing above the cove but William John Dunn?

"I'm very glad to see you," says William John Dunn.

"Thank you kindly," answers my grandfather; "and how's Mary Polly?"

"Why, as for that," he says, "she took so much looking after, that