KATE FIFLE. 489 



" I was going large at a spanking rate down one of the widest 

 soundings, when I came up to a large place where a cracked bell 

 was a making a d 1 of a row, and a swarm of folks was a going in. 

 ' Oh ho ! ' thinks I to myself, ' there 's sum mat or t'other a going 

 forred here :' so I backed my main-topsail, clapped my helm hard 

 a-port, hove round filled again, and steered smack in. It was a rum- 

 mish-looking place inside, and I don't know how it was, but it struck 

 me all of a sudden that it was a church. I'd not been in no rig'glar 

 church since I was a kid this high, and couldn't tell what to make on 

 it. There was a pair of little boxes at the aftet-part, and two queer 

 old coveys in 'em ; one with a white head and barnacles, with 

 something like a white sheet on him, was a jabbering away some 

 stuff or t'other at a precious rate. 



" Well, my lads, on one side of the seat what I squatted on, for 

 I thought I might as well stop and make out what it was the old 

 gentleman was a jawing about you know there was such a precious 

 beauty a saying her prayers, and when the people got up, singing 

 beautiful something like a gal indeed ! Her head and bows were 

 finer tarned than I'd ever seen any 'oman's afore : her nose was quite 

 a genteel one, and as thin as a backstay ; her bow-port as nice, and 

 as little as could possibly be, and as red as the scarlet stripes in a 

 Yankee jack. Her rig both fore and aft was as neat and as com- 

 plete as ever you'd wish to see : not a spare cord was to be seen in 

 her whole 'quipment ; not a single rope was out of its place, nor a 

 rag of flaunty bunting about her from stem to starn. Well, boys, 

 directly I cast my eyes on her, I felt a rum sort of a sensation a 

 flying about my hull, and gathering about my upper works. I 

 looked here, and I looked there ; I looked up aloft, and I looked 

 alow ; to port and to starboard ; while my heart began to thump ! 

 thump ! and to flutter! flutter ! as fast as the gib in a head wind. 

 Blow me ! if I could tell at all what had become on me ; thinks I 

 to myself, thinks I, this ar'n't the first 'oman I've seen by many a 



one, and I '11 be but I 'm yawing about some how or t'other, 



d nably in my course. Howsomever, to clip the yarn a little 

 shorter, I contrived, but how I'm sure I don't remember, to get into 

 conversation with her. Hang me if she wasn't civil enough to lend 

 me her tiny red log-book, to read the sarvice out on, and find out 

 the psalms for me herself: but it wa'nt no use, I couldn't read 

 without a good taste o' spelling, and every now and then she would 

 nudge my arm, and give an eye up to me, as much as to say, ' Why 

 don't you sing like the others ?' Well, I thought to sing any thing 

 would be better than not singing at all, 'specially as I saw 'twould 

 please her ; so I struck up ' The Bay of Biscay, O ! ' and had got 

 as far as there she lay,' when all the people began to fidget about, 



and turn round, and whisper, and look at me in such a d d queer 



fashion, that I was glad to give it over. 



" By and bye, all the folks weighed, and made sail, and the 

 young 'oman got up to go too. Though you may think it rather 

 'markable, by this time we'd got to be such good friends, that we 

 cracked along in company down two or three roadsteads, and, at a 

 signal which she hung out at her main-top, brought to at her father's 



