For some days the wind was adverse, and on the Sabbath morning, being the fifth from their leaving Newcastle, it was a dead calm. The skipper was walking backward and forward upon the deck, now glancing at the clouds, and now at the shore, with the countenance of a man who considers he has reason neither to be satisfied with himself nor with others. In the cabin some appeared to read, others yawned, while some went to the deck and instantly returned. The ladies looked at each other, whispered, fretted, and exclaimed—“How tedious!” Isabella sat silent amidst the unhappy group, “among them, but not of them.” Mr Stafford, who hitherto had been whistling at his toilette, turned round and exclaimed—“Dumb as the foundations of a Quaker’s chapel! Come,” continued he, placing a couple of bottles of claret upon the table, “my pantomimic company of tragedians, allow me to administer the comforts of a calm to the necessities of your poor dumb mouths;” and, as he poured out the wine, he sang a few lines of an idle song. The company looked upon each other with a flitting expression of horror—none of them had been accustomed to hear the Sabbath so desecrated, though, as he proceeded, a few of them relaxed into a smile. But Isabella, rising, said emphatically—“Sir, the FOOL hath said in his heart, There is no God!” And she pronounced the word, _fool_, with a pointed sarcasm, which, although it in some measure took from the spirit of the original, rendered it more poignant in its present application. “Your ladyship!” replied he, sneeringly, and, bowing to her with an air of mock humility. “Lily of the saints!” he added, “preach on, that the humblest of thy slaves may treasure up in his heart of hearts the pious honey of thine own sweet lips!” He paused, and continuing his attitude of mock humility, commenced to hum the tune which he before had attempted to sing. “Sir,” said Isabella, glancing upon him with scorn and compassion, “I pity you.” “Now for a sermon!” he added, but the words faltered on his tongue, and he sat down in confusion. “Sermon or no sermon,” said the skipper, entering from the foot of the cabin stairs, where he had descended to stop the singing himself, “I’ll neither allow Sabbath-breaking nor any wickedness that I can prevent, on board a ship o mine.” “Come, old prig,” returned Stafford, “I’ve paid for my passage, I suppose, and I’ll have you to know that I’ll amuse myself as I please. Don’t think, my good fellow, that because I have listened to a little sermonizing from a pretty face, that I am to be bored with your croaking.” And he began to whistle a waltz. “Poor thing!” resumed the skipper, “ye are to be pitied, after a’. I’ll declare, when I see bits o’ dandy creatures like you glorying in your wickedness, and doubling your nieves in the face o’ Heaven, it puts me in mind o’ a peacock spreading its tail to stop a whirlwind, or a cockle opening its shell to swallow a water-spout!”