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“They was all elderly men an’ shipmasters, and owned property; two of ’em was church members in good standin’,” continued Mrs. Todd loftily, “an’ they wouldn’t lend theirselves to no such kick-shows as that, an’ spite o’ bein’ three sheets in the wind, as I have once observed; they waved aside the tumblers of wine the young officer was pourin’ out for ’em so freehanded, and said they should rather be excused. An’ when they all rose, still very dignified, as I’ve been well informed, and made their partin’ bows and was goin’ out, them young sports got round ’em an’ tried to prevent ’em, and they had to push an’ strive considerable, but out they come. There was this Cap’n Tolland and two Cap’n Bowdens, and the fourth was my own father.” (Mrs. Todd spoke slowly, as if to impress the value of her authority. ) “Two of them was very religious, upright men, but they would have their night off sometimes, all o’ them old-fashioned cap’ns, when they was free of business and ready to leave port.

“An’ they went back to their tavern an’ got their bills paid, an’ set down kind o’ mad with everybody by the front window, mistrusting some o’ their tavern charges, like ‘s not, by that time, an’ when they got tempered down, they watched the house over across, where the party was.

“There was a kind of a grove o’ trees between the house an’ the road, an’ they heard the guitar a-goin’ an’ a-stoppin’ short by turns, and pretty soon somebody began to screech, an’ they saw a white dress come runnin’ out through the bushes, an’ tumbled over each other in their haste to offer help; an’ out she come, with the guitar, cryin’ into the street, and they just walked off four square with her amongst ’em, down toward the wharves where they felt more to home. They couldn’t make out at first what ’twas she spoke, — Cap’n Lorenzo Bowden was well acquainted in Havre an’ Bordeaux, an’ spoke a poor quality o’ French, an’ she knew a little mite o’ English, but not much; and they come somehow or other to discern that she was in real distress. Her husband and her children had died o’ yellow fever; they’d all come up to Kingston from one o’ the far Wind’ard Islands to get passage on a steamer to France, an’ a negro had stole their money off her husband while he lay sick o’ the fever, an’ she had been befriended some, but the folks that knew about her had died too; it had been a dreadful run o’ the fever that season, an’ she fell at last to playin’ an’ singin’ for hire, and for what money they’d throw to her round them harbor houses.

” ‘Twas a real hard case, an’ when them cap’ns made out about it, there wa’n’t one that meant to take leave without helpin’ of her. They was pretty mellow, an’ whatever they might lack o’ prudence they more ‘n made up with charity: they didn’t want to see nobody abused, an’ she was sort of a pretty woman, an’ they stopped in the street then an’ there an’ drew lots who should take her aboard, bein’ all bound home. An’ the lot fell to Cap’n Jonathan Bowden who did act discouraged; his vessel had but small accommodations, though he could stow a big freight, an’ she was a dreadful slow sailer through bein’ square as a box, an’ his first wife, that was livin’ then, was a dreadful jealous woman. He threw himself right onto the mercy o’ Cap’n Tolland.”