"Curse that scoundrel Dickson!" and his look darkened. "Patience, patience! If I were a better sleeper, I could face everything that can come in a man’s day; I could face the devil himself. The wind’s in the right quarter now, and the sea’s going down. I ’ll go on deck and give all hands some grog,—I ’ll give it them myself; the poor fellows are cold and wet, and they serve me like men. We ’re getting past the worst," and again Paul Jones fell to studying his charts as if they were love letters writ by his lady’s hand. Cooper and Hanscom had come below to join the rest of their watch, and still sat side by side, being old shipmates and friends. There was an easy sort of comfort in being together. Just now they spoke again in low voices of young Mr. Wallingford. "Young master looks wamble-cropped to me," said Hanscom. "Don’t fancy privateerin’ so well as ridin’ a blood horse on Porchmouth Parade, and bein’ courted by the Tory big-bugs. Looks wintry in the face to me." "Lord bless us, when he’s old ’s we are, he ’ll l’arn that spring al’ays gets round again long’s a creatur’ ’s alive," answered Cooper, who instinctively gave a general turn to the discussion. "Ary thing that’s livin’ knows its four seasons, an’ I ’ve long maintained that after the wust o’ winter, spring usu’lly doos come follerin’ right on." "I don’t know but it’s so," agreed his mate politely. Cooper would have these fanciful notions, while Hanscom was a plain-spoken man. "What I’d like to know," said he, "yes, what I ’d like to ascertain, is what young Squire Wallin’ford ever come for; ’t ain’t in his blood to fight on our side, an’ he’s too straight-minded to play the sneak. Also, he never come from cowardice. No, I can’t make it out noway. Sometimes folks mistakes their duty, and risks their all. Bain’t spyin’ round to do no hurt, is he?—or _is_ he?" There was a sharp suggestion in the way this question was put, and Cooper turned fiercely upon his companion. "Hunscom, I be ashamed of you!" he said scornfully, and said no more. There was a dull warmth of color in his hard, sea-smitten face; he was an elderly, quiet man, with a round, pleasant countenance unaltered in the worst of weather, and a look of kindly tolerance. "There’s b’en some consid’able changin’ o’ sides in our neighborhood, as you know," he said, a few moments later, in his usual tone. "Young Wallin’ford went to school to Master Sullivan, and the old master l’arnt everybody he could l’arn to be honest an’ square, to hold by their word, an’ be afeard o’ nothin’." "Pity ’t was that Dickson could n’t ha’ got a term o’ such schoolin’," said Hanscom, as they beheld that shipmate’s unwelcome face peering down the companion.