Jack Baldwin did nothing wrong in going on this privateering cruise, for he saw nothing wrong in it, but Tom Granger thought that it was wrong, and yet did it; therefore he has always felt ashamed of himself. In looking back, after all these years, it is hard to guess what he expected would be the end of the matter. If he had come back in a year’s time,—which he did not do,—and if he had brought home a thousand dollars of prize money from a privateering cruise, I am very much inclined to think that Elihu Penrose would hardly have judged that it had been fairly earned. Friends were very much more strict in their testimony against war then than they are now. Numbers of young men went from here during the rebellion, and nothing was thought of it. I myself had a grandson in the navy;—he is a captain now. As I said, Elihu Penrose would hardly have fancied Tom Granger’s way of earning money, if it had been won in that way; as for what Patty would have said and done,—I do not like to think of it. However, it is no use trying to guess at the color of the chicks that addled eggs might have hatched out, so I will push on with my story, and tell how the _Nancy Hazlewood_ put to sea, and what befell her there. CHAPTER V. THE _Nancy Hazlewood_ put to sea on a Friday. Tom Granger was not over fanciful in the matter of signs and omens; nevertheless, he always had a nasty feeling about sailing on that day; he might reason with himself that it was foolish, but the feeling was there, and was not to be done away with. The only other time that he had sailed on a Friday, was in the barque _Manhattan_ (Captain Nathan J. Wild), bound for Nassau, with a cargo of wheat. About a week afterward, she put back into New York harbor again, and not a day too soon, either. Captain Granger has often told the tale of this short cruise, so I will not tell it over again, as it has nothing to do with this story, except to show why it was that Tom Granger always had an ill-feeling about sailing on Friday. As a matter of fact, there was a greater and a better reason to feel worried than on account of this, for the truth was, that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ put to sea fully ten days before she should have done so, and from that arose most of the trouble. The blame in the matter belonged no more to one than to another, for all thought that it was for the best to weigh anchor when they did; nevertheless, it was a mistake, and a very sad mistake. There never was any wish to cast a slur on the memory of Captain Knight, in the account of the matter that was afterward published, for no one ever said, to my knowledge, that he was anything else than a good seaman, and knew his business. But certainly, his headstrong wilfulness in the matter of the troubles that befell the ship was, to say the least, very blameworthy.