“There used to be some strange-looking crafts in those days; there was the old brig Hannah.  They used to say she would sail backwards as fast as forwards, and she was so square in the bows, they used to call her the sugar-box.  She was master old, the Hannah was, and there wasn’t a port from here to New Orleans where she wasn’t known; she used to carry a master cargo for her size, more than some ships that ranked two hundred and fifty ton, and she was put down for two hundred.  She used to make good voyages, the Hannah did, and then there was the Pactolus; she was just about such another,—­you would have laughed to see her.  She sailed out of this port for a good many years.  Cap’n Wall he told me that if he had her before the wind with a cargo of cotton, she would make a middling good run, but load her deep with salt, and you might as well try to sail a stick of oak timber with a handkerchief.  She was a stout-built ship:  I shouldn’t wonder if her timbers were afloat somewhere yet; she was sold to some parties out in San Francisco.  There! everything’s changed from what it was when I used to follow the sea.  I wonder sometimes if the sailors have as queer works aboard ship as they used.  Bless ye!  Deephaven used to be a different place to what it is now; there was hardly a day in the year that you didn’t hear the shipwrights’ hammers, and there was always something going on at the wharves.  You would see the folks from up country comin’ in with their loads of oak knees and plank, and logs o’ rock-maple for keels when there was snow on the ground in winter-time, and the big sticks of timber-pine for masts would come crawling along the road with their three and four yoke of oxen all frosted up, the sleds creaking and the snow growling and the men flapping their arms to keep warm, and hallooing as if there wan’t nothin’ else goin’ on in the world except to get them masts to the ship-yard.  Bless ye! two o’ them teams together would stretch from here ’most up to the Widow Jim’s place,—­no such timber-pines nowadays.”

“I suppose the sailors are very jolly together sometimes,” said Kate, meditatively, with the least flicker of a smile at me.  The captain did not answer for a minute, as he was battling with an obstinate snarl in his line; but when he had found the right loop he said, “I’ve had the best times and the hardest times of my life at sea, that’s certain!  I was just thinking it over when you spoke.  I’ll tell you some stories one day or ’nother that’ll please you.  Land! you’ve no idea what tricks some of those wild fellows will be up to.  Now, saying they fetch home a cargo of wines and they want a drink; they’ve got a trick so they can get it.  Saying it’s champagne, they’ll fetch up a basket, and how do you suppose they’ll get into it?”

Of course we didn’t know.