"Had you courage to do that?--and watching through the the night so wet and cold. Well you did right--I could not have done it. Oh! that liquor--that liquor; I wish there wasn't such a thing in the world, but it's too late now. When I first married James Pearson, and the garland was hung to the main-stay of the frigate, nobody could persuade me to touch it, not even James himself, whom I loved so much. Instead of quarrelling with me for not drinking it, as he used to do, he now quarrels with me for drinking the most. If you'll come forward, sir, and help me, we'll soon get up the foremast. This is it, you see, with the jib passed round it. Jim often says that I'd make a capital sailor, if I'd only enter in man's clothes--but as I tell him, I should be put up at the gangway, for not being sober, before I'd been on board a week." We contrived to ship the mast, and set the jib and foresail. As soon as the sheets were hauled aft, my companion took the steering lines, saying, "I know how to manage her well enough, now it's daylight, and I'm quite sober. You must be very tired, sir; so sit down on the thwart, or lie down if you please, and take a nap; all's safe enough now--see, we lie up well for the land;" and such was the case, for she had brought the boat to the wind, and we skimmed over the waves at the rate of three or four miles an hour. I had no inclination to sleep; I baled the boat out thoroughly, and put the baskets and boxes into some kind of order. I then sat down on the thwarts, first looking round for a vessel in sight; but seeing none, I entered into conversation with my companion. "What is your name?" said I. "Peggy Pearson; I have my marriage lines to show: they can throw nothing in my face, except that I'm fond of liquor, God forgive me." "And what makes you so fond of it now, since you say that, when you were married, you did not care for it?" "You may well say that: it all came of _sipping_. James would have me on his knee, and would insist on my taking a sip; and to please him I did, although it made me almost sick at first, and then after a while I did not mind it; and then, you see, when I was waiting at the sallyport with the other women, the wind blowing fresh, and the spray wetting us as we stood on the shingle with our arms wrapped up in our aprons, looking out for a boat from the ship to come on shore, they would have a quartern, and make me take a drop; and so it went on. Then James made me bring him liquor on board, and I drank some with him; but what finished me was, that I heard something about James when he was at Plymouth, which made me jealous, and then for the first time I got tipsy. After that, it was all over with me; but, as I said before, it began with sipping--worse luck, but it's done now. Tell me what has passed during the night. Has the weather been very bad?" I told her what had occurred, and how I had kicked her to wake her up.