as little warmed at first as I was by his later looks, her father, heady as himself, took her part, and made a sorry time, and my-I hope not sorry-story.

The dear old lady of the gentle face, who used to sit all day in the little window's sun and tell me stories wonderful, must have been a fair maid. Grandfather's mad action was, perhaps, as much her beauty's fault. He certainly made it and his love excuse for incessant devotion, following her everywhere, elbowing other suitors out of the path, compelling her, in his masterful way, to act as if betrothed, when her real emotion was shy wonder, and even fear of him. Sometimes such emotion passes easily into love, and would have done so in this case, no doubt, if her father had not met grandfather's savage love with as savage opposition.

"Look you here, young man," he cried, one afternoon, as grandfather left the house, why come you every day?" "To see your daughter," grandfather glowered.

"She would see less of you, sir." "And I more of her; and you shall not hinder me." "Shall not hinder you!" the ship-owner echoed, wrathfully. And who are you

to say shall not to me?"

"I am captain of the Sally, sir," grand

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father bowed mockingly; and straightening up, the best man in your service." His modesty was ever of a stunted growth. Best or worst you may have been,' the ship-owner sneered, "but you are no longer either in my service. I discharge you, sir. Your mate shall captain the Sally." With that he banged the door.

Another would have thought this ended the matter; but nothing ever ended with my grandfather until it ended his way. The Sally was to sail the day after the morrow to America, and though he found the mate-no friend of his-in charge of ship next morning, he did not shift a plan. Whistling some ranter's tune into such strange jerks and quirks it seemed to jeer its own solemnity. he strolled the fields in search of his reluctant maid, who passed her days among their flowers, and finding her in some nook or other, said he would walk with her that night.

"My father says I am to have nothing to do with you," she pleaded, frightenedly.

ing, he lightly touched her lips with his. I think she cried at that, but she promised to meet him at sundown.

You may be sure the red was not out of the west before grandfather kept the tryst. He had spent the afternoon alone in the tavern common room, occasionally slanting his eye toward the Sally, but otherwise seemingly absorbed in chasing that pious ranter's tune into as many holes and corners as his whistling lips could find.

"Takes her easy," his landlord whispered to an old graybeard of the Sally's

crew; to which that worthy responded, with great solemnity,

"A sailor-man always do." He might have qualified this remark had he seen grandfather scowling at the ship-owner's residence two hours after dark.

No one did see, however, until a door somewhere in the rear opened and closed, and his maid slipped through the trees and looked at him across the gate. There was no moon, but the tall stars lit her face as she lifted it, with attempted bravery, to oppose the walk-bravery belied by a breathless "I cannot."

"Cannot," grandfather laughed as he unlatched the gate, is one word, or two, as you look at it. I read it two to-night -one of which is can, the other, not. Can, I appropriate with yourself; not, we will leave your father." By this time he held her hand, and they were walking toward the parish church and vicarage. "I forgot to say this morning," grandfather continued, lightly, "that we would go to the wedding."

were read.

"I will read them, then," grandfather scornfully replied. And seizing a vagrant paper, blank of writing as his young bride was free of sin, he drawled the usual form, exactly imitating the clerk's sing song, even to inarticulate sighs, vocal twists, and solemn cough when done.

"Well read," the vicar softly laughed, "but hardly lawful."

"No!" grandfather flashed. "By England's law you cannot marry us, but by God's law you shall."

Nowadays a man would take his maid without the blessing of the Church. There were some who did such things then, but Old Captain, fiercely careless as he always was of men's opinions, was tremendous stickler for God's things. "What are you." he continued, hotly, "God's priest or England's? Or do you part yourself to each? If so, that which belongs to God, stand up and marry us!" It was awful politics, and doubtful theology, but grandfather was so big and threatening, the scared vicar obeyed, spared the registering, grandfather saying what God had joined would not be tighter for that article.

Every wedding has a journey, if no farther than across the road; but grandfather had planned a longer, gayly exploited now to the bride of a quarterhour, as he led her down the quiet street toward the docks.

The Sally, loaded and full manned, had dropped half-way down the harbor early in the evening, and only waited the return of her new captain, who was having a last interview with the shipowner, before she hove anchor and put to sea. A single boat bobbed up and down in the restless water of the slip. It was the captain's gig, and without a moment's hesitation grandfather set his wife in the stern, and jumping in himself, ordered the two sailors in charge to pull away. One of them was the graybeard of the inn, grandfather's favorite inan, the other, a new man, just from drinking bout; and they obeyed without question, Graybeard blinking solemnly at the stars as he swayed back and forth upon his oar, the new man disconsolately grumbling at the dryness of the sea.

The dim-lit town, except for an occasional song and boatman's whistle, was still as midnight ought to be. Stars flecked the water with their waving images, and across the hills a soft wind

idled, damp with dew, and smelling of the earth. A sob or two, stopped by as many kisses, was all either sailor heard in their quick row to the Sally. Under her side, grandfather ordered oars up, and line, and a moment later all were on the deck.

"Now, my hearties, get your anchor!" was his first command. If any man see wrong in that," he harshly laughed, at their doubtful looks, he may swim ashore for better."

"Are you the Sally's captain, sir?” the new mate, grandfather's old second, ventured, with humble twitch of forelock.

Ay," grandfather replied; "she's my wife's dowry." And he laughed again, this time, softly, to the little woman shrinking on his arm. Now get away,

my boys! Grog all round to the bride's health, if we pass the outer light in au hour; if we don't," and he glanced over his shoulder at two dim figures coming slowly down the dock, "the devil!"

Every man saw as much as he, but, without another word, fell into the venture, and hove at the anchor with such hearty will that, by the time Old Captain returned from showing his lady to her cabin, it was up and fast, and the Sally sliding out of port in full sails, to the mad astonishment of the day-old captain and the ship-owner on the wharf. They crossed the bar by the half, and inside the hour drank in the light-house gleam to the captain's bride, to him, and to the voyage. Next day the last cape dropped into the sea. They had good weather, and no harm; and in four weeks, their honey-moon, the Sally tied up in Boston Harbor.

Boston had been the original destination of the Sally. Old Captain never thought of other port. He may have felt doing the very thing he would not be expected to do the safest escape; or self-confidence made him think he could carry any venture through; or he did it in sheer delight of madcap adventure; or, with the great simplicity of such men, he did not realize that anything had happened to change original plans. Going to Boston certainly deceived the ship-owner; it also simplified Old Captain's business, his apparently straight papers arousing no suspicion in port officers or consignees. He delivered his cargo, as he had others to the same parties, taking moneys therefor as always, and accepting the usual

hospitalities more profuse this time, in honor of his wife.

Hearing much of Maine, which was being settled by Revolutionary soldiers, and minded to go there, Old Captain discharged all the Sally's crew with double pay, none of them consenting to so tame a venture, and refitting for coaster trip and emigration, sailed again, crewed by a number of those restless spirits of whom America is always over-full, and passengered with wives and children. They stopped often on the way, but never landed until they reached the Bay and Three Foxes. Liking this wild land, grandfather picked its single jewel for his wife and colony, anchoring one August day in our pocket of a harbor.

He builded in the middle of the island's slope, instinctively aware the maple roots digested vigorous farm-land, hewing the great trunks into roomy lodge, shingled with pine from the sandy western point, now named for him. Before the following spring their axes had eaten great holes into the forest, piled, in their settler's fury, with heaps of refuse brush wood. Though never wifed, and ever homeless, which some may think roses my judgment of the year after marriage, I am sure

wind and sea together: but the mosschinked walls, hung with stuffs from the snug Sally, and floors piled with bearskins, helped by great fires lit in widethroated chimneys, kept them warm, gray night and day. Housed with such comfort, in the dim light of those old fashioned nights, that gave the fire a chance to rosy - paint a cheek and left the room corner for its gentle ghost, the two would sit, and softly talk of those common things which sweeten life, or in a softer silence. I cannot understand how a slip of a girl, torn from her rootage in parental life and suddenly transplanted upon a husband's unknown heart, can live, less grow, but she does; and grandmother, after the days of wilt, when tears are easy in the eyes and lips quiver at life's unusuality, clung to grandfather, his strength, so rough to us, being her protection. The grim old demon's gentle speech to her sounds queer in my ear's recollection, much as bull would singing, but it was always his manner to her. I sometimes

those first winter days in the settler's lodge were the happiest of grandfather's life. The solemn storms brought much snow, and cold that froze sky and

think he was afraid of her, not as men commonly fear, of course, but as the bull might fear a startled lark.

That spring, the child she had carried

all winter underneath her heart was born -my father, her first born, and the island's. They baptized him John in water drawn through the first ice-crack in our little harbor, Old Captain saying salt water was the proper thing for sailor's son. Since then it has been a family custom, every man child of our wandering race "passing through the sea, as grandfather named the rite.

Soon after the baptism, Old Captain sailed the Sally, refurnished and provisioned, on his first voyage out of North Haven, carrying fish and lumber. The island was soon out of sight, but long located by pillars of blue smoke from the brush wood fires, which those left behind set the same day to clean the ground before they mattocked its rooty soil for their small planting of corn, potatoes, and sown barley. Boston was again the voyage end. There he reloaded with general stores for the West Indies, and back again with sugar and molasses, gathering everywhere his own cargo for North Haven, which was ready with home harvest in the early fall.

So Old Captain passed eleven years, wintering on the island, summering in Southern waters, the tough old sailor not trying to keep himself at one temperature, after the new fashion, but choosing the two extremes. Once he had fever, but

over him like a little ghost, but he opened his eyes with such a smile she soon forgot. A sailor's wife must forget, or there would be no sane sailor wives.

Meanwhile the stumpy clearings were becoming little farms, cultivation and the humble growth of wild things softening the rude gash of man's first touch of nature. There were more children in grandfather's and other homes, and on the highest hill a few stones for the dead.

Late in the spring of 1812 Old Captain sailed for Havana, carrying shooks. Calling at Boston, for some purpose, he was delayed by dirty weather, and lay two days alongside an Englishman of thirteen guns. There had been impressments and an embargo, but the Sally had minded neither. If a vessel chased, she sailed away.

Deceived once by a vessel asking water, Old Captain lay to for a boarding party; but when the lieutenant asked if he had any British seamen, he knocked him overboard and bore off.

Nothing passed between him and the Englishman, and he took his watch below, the second night, without alarm. An hour after the cold end of a pistol barrel thrust against his face startled him into consciousness., The cabin was full of men from his neighbor, among them Graybeard and half a dozen others of his original crew, with the lieutenant