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We should have a better hope of saving their lives, for the sides of a yacht are but ill able to withstand a blow from a steamer going at even a moderate speed; and some of those steam-boat skippers, provided they make a fast passage, care very little what damage they may do to small craft in their way." Murray, however, kept all fast.

Seating ourselves upon the companion-slide, and dangling our legs disconsolately down the companion, we abandoned ourselves to the most gloomy reflections, watching meanwhile the boats as they dashed up alongside the flag-ship, and cynically criticising the stroke and action of the several crews; and I am afraid the skippers themselves did not altogether escape our disparaging remarks.

"You are quite sure that he is all right, are you, Mr. McCarthy?" "Has a reputation second to none among the Portsmouth skippers. I took care of that, knowing you were a lot of lone women and girls down here. I didn't see him personally. Took my friend Lawyer Roberts's word for it, and what else I could pick up about the docks," added Mr. McCarthy. "But I must be thinking about getting back."

The skippers who had run their cargoes through the gauntlet, all the way from Flushing to Antwerp, found on their arrival, that, instead of being rewarded, according to the natural laws of demand and supply, they were required to exchange their wheat, rye, butter, and beef, against the exact sum which the Board of Schepens thought proper to consider a reasonable remuneration.

There were houses at Bristol where crimping was the least of the crimes committed; in the docks, where the great ships, laden with sugar and tobacco, sailed in and out in their seasons, lay sloops and skippers, ready to carry all comers, criminal and victim alike, beyond the reach of the law. The very name gave Mr.

No less devout were the merchants who ordered their skippers to cross to the coast of Guinea and fill the hold with negroes to be sold in the West Indies before returning with sugar and molasses to Boston or Rhode Island. The slave-trade flourished from the very birth of commerce in Puritan New England and its golden gains and exotic voyages allured high-hearted lads from farm and counter.

And there was always an ample supply of volunteers for the service so long as the five stivers were paid. But despite all Bucquoy's exertions the east harbour remained as free as ever. The cool, wary Dutch skippers brought in their cargoes as regularly as if there had been no siege at all.

Next came the retired ship-masters, living in villas named after their last commands, and skippers still at sea, their wives watching each other like cats at church on Sunday. Then, in tiny semi-detached brick boxes up narrow streets behind all these you would find mates and engineers packed like sardines. Their families, I mean.

It didn't strike me at the time that a Board of Trade certificate does not make an officer, not by a long long way. But the skippers of the ships I was haunting with demands for a job knew that very well. I don't wonder at them now, and I don't blame them either. But this `trying to get a ship' is pretty hard on a youngster all the same..."

There was a rude bridge over it made of two logs, placed side by side, and short boards nailed across them for a foot-way. It was only wide enough for persons to walk across. The cattle and teams always went across through the water, at a shallow place, just below the bridge. Rollo lay down upon the bridge, and looked into the water. There were some skippers and some whirlabouts upon the water.