“‘At the end of the time I spoke of, the old man fell sick, and somehow his friends had dropped off, so that I spent most of my time almost alone with him. At last he consented that we should be married at his bedside. He had been growing weaker day by day, and I was the more anxious for the match, as his house was close to a place of fashionable resort, and Ellen had, somehow or other, become acquainted with some of the young blades from the city. There was some talk about her and one of them, while I was absent on a tour to the great lakes, that had like to have set me mad on my return. However, the youngster—who was, by all accounts, to the full as deeply in love and as fiery as myself, besides being, at least, my equal in fortune and connexions—had got himself involved in a quarrel with an acquaintance about this same report, which, in the end, sent one man to his grave and the other out of the country. As the duel made a great noise in the city, I determined to marry Ellen privately, and to remove from the village altogether as soon as her father died. “‘Well,’ continued he, in a husky tone, ‘the thing was done, and when we rose from our knees, after the prayer, the old man was dead. We had no idea that he was so near his end, and I leave you to imagine, Mr. Miller, the horror of my bridal-night. “‘However, when this was over, and we were alone together in the world, Ellen seemed to cling the closer to me, and it was not long, as you may suppose, before we left —— behind. I directed my course to Boston where I had made arrangements to enter into business with an old shipmate, a son of one of the firm in whose employ I had sailed on my first voyage. In the course of a few weeks I found myself comfortably settled at last, with most of my funds invested in the purchase of a ship and a brig, engaged in a trade to the Spanish Main. I commanded the ship myself, and for several years things went well—when by the villainy of my partner, suddenly as a whirlwind strips a ship, the house went by the board. After this I commanded vessels on the African and Brazil coasts, until the last ship was sold to a whaling house at New Bedford. I had agreed to deliver her into her new owners’ hands, and, as my wife’s health was rather unsettled at the time, I took her with me for the sake of the jaunt. It was then that I received offers from the man who had purchased the ship, which first directed my attention to this particular service. It was true that I knew nothing of the business, and had a sailor’s prejudice against it; but the man treated us with such considerate kindness, and made me offers so tempting to a broken man, pointing out how easily the difficulties might be obviated in time, and enlarging on the importance of having good navigators in the Indian seas, that, in an evil hour, I consented to take charge of my old ship.