“My wife enjoys excellent health, Betts; and grateful am I to God that it is so.  But I think all our women have a fresh and sea-air sort of look, a cheerful freshness about them, that I ascribe to the salt and the sea-breezes.  Then we have mountain air, in addition, on the Peak.”

“Ay, ay, sir—­I dare say you’ve got it right, as you do most matters.  Well, governor, I don’t know which counts up the fastest in the colony, children or whales?”

“Both flourish,” answered Mark, smiling, “as our reports show.  Mr. Secretary tells me that there were, on the first of the last month, three hundred and eighteen children in the colony under the age of ten years; of whom no less than one hundred and ninety-seven are born here—­pure Craterinos, including your children and mine, Betts.”

“It’s a fine beginning, governor—­a most capital start; and, though the young ’uns can’t do much at taking a whale, or securing the ile, just now, they’ll come on in their turns, and be useful when we’re in dock as hulks sir.”

“Talking of oil, you must be getting rich, Captain Betts.  I hear you got in another hundred-barrel gentleman last week!”

“Times is altered with me, governor; and times is altered with you, too, sir, since you and I rafted loam and sea-weed, to raise a few cucumbers, and squashes, and melons. Then, we should have been as happy as princes to have had a good roof over our heads.”

“I trust we are both thankful, where thanks are due, for all this, Betts?”

“Why, yes, sir, I endivour so to be; though men is desperate apt to believe they desarve all they get but the ill luck.  I and Marthy try to think of what is all in all to us, and I believe Marthy does make out pretty well, in that partic’lar, accordin’ to Friends’ ways; though I am often jammed in religion, and all for want of taking to it early as I sometimes think, sir.”

“There is no doubt, Betts, that men grow in Christian character, as well as in evil; and the most natural growth, in all things, is that of the young.  A great deal is to be undone and unlearned, if we put off the important hour to a late period in life.”

“Well, as to unl’arnin’, I suppose a fellow that had as little edication as myself will have an easy time of it,” answered Betts, with perfect simplicity and good faith; “for most of my schoolin’ was drowned in salt water by the time I was twelve.”

“I am glad of one thing,” put in the governor, half in a congratulating way, and half inquiringly; “and that is, that the Rev. Mr. Hornblower takes so well with the people.  Everybody appears to be satisfied with his ministrations; and I do not see that any one is the worse for them, although he is an Episcopalian.”

Betts twisted about on his chair, and seemed at first unwilling to answer; but his natural frankness, and his long habits of intimacy and confidence with Mark Woolston, both as man and boy, forbade his attempting anything seriously in the way of concealment.