Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 13836-h.htm or 13836-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/3/13836/13836-h/13836-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/3/13836/13836-h.zip) WIDE COURSES by JAMES BRENDAN CONNOLLY Author of _Out of Gloucester_, _The Seiners_, _The Deep Sea's Toil_, _The Crested Seas_, _An Olympic Victor_, _Open Water_, Etc. With Illustrations 1912 [Illustration: My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down] CONTENTS THE WRECKER LAYING THE HOSE-PIPE GHOST THE SEIZURE OF THE "AURORA BOREALIS" LIGHT-SHIP 67 CAPTAIN BLAISE DON QUIXOTE KIERAN, PUMP-MAN JAN TINGLOFF COGAN CAPEADOR ILLUSTRATIONS My boy wanted to do the divin', but 'twas me that went down He brings out the blue-book and shows the boson Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes, and then down went the _Aurora's_ captain and one of his crew By and by he caught an answering call After a long look I saw that he did not resume his narrative. By that I knew that the stranger was troubling him There she was, the _Dancing Bess_, holding a taut bowline to the eastward. And there were the two frigates, but they might as well have been chasing a star "Don't call me a mutineer, captain--I've disobeyed no order" He said he hoped they'd meet again next day and bowed himself out The Wrecker Sometimes the notion comes to me while I'm talkin' to people that maybe I don't make myself clear, and it's been so for some time now--the things I see in my mind fadin' away from me at times, like ships in a fog. And that's strange enough, too, if what people tell me so often is true--that it used to be so one time that the office clerks would correct their account-books by what I told 'em out of my head. But sometimes--not often--things come back to me, like to-day--maybe because 'tis a winter day and a gale o' wind drivin' the sea afore it in the bay below there. Things come to me then--like pictures--wind and sea and fog and the wrecks on a lee shore. In my business--but of course you know--runnin' after wrecks, from Newfoundland to Cuba, I had to be days and maybe weeks away from home--which was no harm when I had no more home than a room in a sailor's boardin'-house, and no harm later with Sarah. Even if anything happened to me, I used to feel that Sarah--that's my first wife--Sarah'd still have the two lads to hearten her and keep her busy; but 'twas different with--but there, my mind's off again....