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Lanterns were got up on deck and placed in readiness to be lighted and run up to the yard-arm, so as to throw some light down on the water. “‘Now, we will call the old man again. Obstinate as he is he can’t help hearing the oars now, and I know that he is plucky enough, and will fight the ship well as soon as he is once convinced that there is danger.’ “We went together to the skipper’s.
In the old West country ballad “The Golden Vanity” or “The Lowland’s Low,” the boy who saves the ship from the Spanish pirate galleon is promised as a reward “silver and gold, with the skipper’s pretty little daughter who lives upon the shore.” Similarly in the well-known folksong “The Farmer’s Boy,” the lad who comes weary and lame to the farmer’s door, seeking work, eventually marries the farmer’s daughter and inherits the farm.
The man had been a shoemaker, and the skipper said to him, ‘Friend Jacob, how is it that you choose to go out to be a light-keeper, when you can earn, as I have been told, half-a-crown or three shillings a day on shore, by making leathern hose, the light-keeper’s salary is but twenty-five pounds a year, which, you know, is scarce ten shillings a week?’ ‘I am going to be a light-keeper,’ said the shoemaker, ‘because I don’t like confinement.’ This answer naturally excited the skipper’s merriment, and the shoemaker explained his meaning to be that he did not like to be confined to work.
Then Hastings pressed a button connecting with a bell in the engine room. “I’m going up there with you,” Jack volunteered. “Right-o, if you insist,” clicked Eph Somers, appearing from the engine room and darting to the young skipper’s side. True, Jack’s head swam a bit dizzily as he climbed the stairs, but Eph’s strong support made the task much easier.
After we had cleared the islands forming the Bahama group, we fell in with a low, rakish-looking schooner, which gave us a chase of seven hours, although our shot went over her. At length two of her men were killed, and the spyglass knocked out of the skipper’s hand, when he, finding it was useless holding out any longer, hove to.
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