“And, since that unfortunate repulse, you have kept yourself altogether out of the hands of matrimony?”

“Ay, ay; since, your Honour,” returned Fid, giving his Commander another of those droll looks, in which a peculiar cunning struggled with a more direct and straight-going honesty, “since, as you say rightly, sir; though they talked of a small matter of a bargain that I had made with another woman, myself; but, in overhauling the affair, they found, that, as the shipping articles with poor Kate wouldn’t hold together, why, they could make nothing at all of me; so I was white-washed like a queen’s parlour and sent adrift.”

“And all this occurred after your acquaintance with Mr Wilder?”

“Afore, your Honour; afore.  I was but a younker in the time of it, seeing that it is four-and-twenty years, come May next, since I have been towing at the stern of master Harry.  But then, as I have had a sort of family of my own, since that day, why, the less need, you know, to be birthing myself again in any other man’s hammock.”

“You were saying, it is four-and-twenty years,” interrupted Mrs Wyllys, “since you made the acquaintance of Mr Wilder?”

“Acquaintance!  Lord, my Lady, little did he know of acquaintances at that time; though, bless him! the lad has had occasion to remember it often enough since.”

“The meeting of two men, of so singular merit, must have been somewhat remarkable,” observed the Rover.

“It was, for that matter, remarkable enough, your Honour; though, as to the merit, notwithstanding master Harry is often for overhauling that part of the account, I’ve set it down for just nothing at all.”

“I confess, that, in a case where two men, both of whom are so well qualified to judge, are of different opinions, I feel at a loss to know which can have the right.  Perhaps, by the aid of the facts, I might form a truer judgment.”

“Your Honour forgets the Guinea, who is altogether of my mind in the matter, seeing no great merit in the thing either.  But, as you are saying, sir, reading the log is the only true way to know how fast a ship can go; and so, if this Lady and your Honour have a mind to come at the truth of the affair why, you have only to say as much, and I will put it all before you in creditable language.”

“Ah! there is reason in your proposition,” returned the Rover, motioning to his companion to follow to a part of the poop where they were less exposed to the observations of inquisitive eyes.  “Now, place the whole clearly before us; and then you may consider the merits of the question disposed of definitively.”

Fid was far from discovering the smallest reluctance to enter on the required detail; and, by the time he had cleared his throat, freshened his supply of the weed, and otherwise disposed himself to proceed Mrs Wyllys had so far conquered her reluctance to pry clandestinely into the secrets of others, as to yield to a curiosity which she found unconquerable and to take the seat to which her companion invited her by a gesture of his hand.