Maybe some things--comforts, refinements--I might 'a' practised myself in, got used to 'em like, but could I see in those early days that I'd ever have a grand home--me who'd been cast away at fourteen--even if I'd had time? It was to be able to do without comforts--to make a pleasure out o' hardship--that meant success almost as much as knowin' the business. And I did know my business in those days--or people lied a lot. And it always meant more to me--the name of bein' the great wrecker--than all the money I made, and in those last few years I made plenty of it--I did that. Me who once slaved for six dollars a month as boy in a Bangor coaster. And I mind how I used to look back and say--or was it somebody tellin' me?--that 'twas a great day for me and mine when the old lumber schooner wrecked herself on Peaked Hill Bar--because when she was hove down I was hove into a bigger world. Once in my pride I used to cherish praise like that--but sometimes now I'm not so sure. And this man, an upstandin' handsome man--no one that knew him but spoke well of him, to me anyway, for I would not allow aught else after I come to know him. Since that last wreck it seems to me I've listened to other talk of him, but that's not so clear to me ... my brain, as I say, clouds up like on things that happened since. No one ever met Her--my second wife, that is--but said she was beautiful and good--said so to me, anyway. It is true--but that came afterward, like the other talk, and it's not too clear in my mind what they did say. But he came to me and I liked him. And he liked me, too ... I think he did. He'd heard of me, he said, and would I examine his yacht--the _Rameses_ that was--to see if any damage had been done--she'd grounded comin' in by Romer Shoal the day before. There'd be too much delay to put her in dry dock, and he wanted to sail soon's could be--if she was sound--on her regular winter West India cruise. 'Twas in January, a fine clear day, and I said, all right, I'd send my oldest boy down and look at her. My oldest boy--but you know him? Aye, a grand lad. Both grand lads. Modelled off their mother, the pair of them. If I'd only a daughter like her ... the woman she was! A wife for a seafarin' man. "Watch and watch I've stood wi' ye," she said, goin'--"watch and watch, but I'm no good to see the lights nor to grip the wheel longer. The sight's gone and the strength, Matt. Watchmate, bunkmate, and shipmate I've been to ye, but ye're in smooth water now ... and no longer ye'll need me." A daughter to stand by you she'd be. All my money I'd give for one such.