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“Young Dick Hewitt is every bit so good a seaman as I be,” said Cap’n Jacka.

“He’s a boaster.”

“So he is, but he’s a smart seaman for all.”

“I declare if the world was to come to an end you’d sit quiet an’ never say a word.”

“I dessay I should. I’d leave you to speak up for me.”

“Baint’ee goin’ to say nothin‘, then?”

“Iss; I’m goin’ to lay it before the Lord.”

So down ‘pon their knees these old souls went upon the limeash, and asked for guidance, and Cap’n Jacka, after a while, stretched out his hand to the shelf for Wesley’s Hymns. They always pitched a hymn together before going to bed. When he’d got the book in his hand he saw that ’twasn’t Wesley at all, but another that he never studied from the day his wife gave it to him, because it was called the “Only Hymn Book,”[A] and he said the name was as good as a lie. Hows’ever, he opened it now, and came slap on the hymn:–

[Footnote A: Probably “Olney.”]

Tho’ troubles assail and dangers affright,
If foes all should fail and foes all unite,
Yet one thing assures us, whatever betide,
I trust in all dangers the Lord will provide.

They sang it there and then to the tune of “O all that pass by,” and the very next morning Cap’n Jacka walked down and told Mr. Job he was ready to go for mate under young Dick Hewitt.

More than once, the next week or two, he came near to repenting; for Cap’n Dick was very loud about his promotion, especially at the Three Pilchards; and when the Unity came round and was fitting–very slow, too, by reason of delay with her letters of marque–he ordered Cap’n Jacka back and forth like a stevedore’s dog. “There was to be no ‘nigh enough’ on this lugger”–that was the sort of talk; and oil and rotten-stone for the very gun-swivels. But Jacka knew the fellow, and even admired the great figure and its loud ways. “He’s a cap’n, anyhow,” he told his wife; “‘twon’t be ‘all fellows to football’ while he’s in command. And I’ve seen him handle the Good Intent, under Hockin.”

Mrs. Tackabird said nothing. She was busy making sausages and setting down a stug of butter for her man’s use on the voyage. But he knew she would be a disappointed woman if he didn’t contrive in some honest way to turn the tables on the Company and their new pet. For days together he went about whistling “Tho’ troubles assail … “; and the very night before sailing, as they sat quiet, one each side of the hearth, he made the old woman jump by saying all of a sudden, “Coals o’ fire!”

“What d’ee mean by that?” she asked.

“Nothin’. I was thinkin’ to myself, and out it popped.”

“Well, ’tis like a Providence! For, till you said that, I’d clean forgot the sifter for your cuddy fire. Mustn’t waste cinders now that you’re only a mate.”

Being a woman, she couldn’t forego that little dig; but she got up there and then and gave the old boy a kiss.

She wouldn’t walk down to the quay, though, next day, to see him off, being certain (she said) to lose her temper at the sight of Cap’n Dick carrying on as big as bull’s beef, not to mention the sneering shareholders and their wives. So Cap’n Jacka took his congees at his own door, and turned, half-way down the street, and waved a good-bye with the cinder-sifter. She used to say afterwards that this was Providence, too.

The Unity ran straight across until she made Ushant Light; and after cruising about for a couple of days, in moderate weather (it being the first week in April) Cap’n Dick laid her head east and began to nose up Channel, keeping an easy little distance off the French coast. You see, the Channel was full of our ships and neutrals in those days, which made fat work for the French privateers; but the Frenchies’ own vessels kept close over on their coast; and even so, the best our boys could expect, nine times out of ten when they’d crossed over, was to run against a chasse-maree dodging between Cherbourg and St. Malo or Morlaix, with naval stores or munitions of war.