“I say, Welcome, sir Hector Homespun!” repeated the Rover.

“The Lord will be lenient to the sins of a miserable father of seven small children!” ejaculated the tailor.  “It is but little, valiant Pirate, that can be gotten from a hard-working, upright tradesman, who sits from the rising to the setting sun, bent over his labour.”

“These are debasing terms for chivalry, sir Hector,” interrupted the Rover, laying his hand on the little riding whip, which had been thrown carelessly on the cabin table, and, tapping the shoulder of the tailor with the same, as though he were a sorcerer, and would disenchant the other with the touch:  “Cheer up, honest and loyal subject:  Fortune has at length ceased to frown:  it is but a few hours since you complained that no custom came to your shop from this vessel, and now are you in a fair way to do the business of the whole ship.”

“Ah! honourable and magnanimous Rover,” rejoined Homespun, whose fluency returned with his senses, “I am an impoverished and undone man.  My life has been one of weary and probationary hardships.  Five bloody and cruel wars”——­

“Enough.  I have said that Fortune was just beginning to smile.  Clothes are as necessary to gentlemen of our profession as to the parish priest.  You shall not baste a seam without your reward.  Behold!” he added, touching the spring of a secret drawer, which flew open, and discovered a confused pile of gold, in which the coins of nearly every Christian people were blended, “we are not without the means of paying those who serve us faithfully.”

The sudden exhibition of a horde of wealth, which not only greatly exceeded any thing of the kind he had ever before witnessed, but which actually surpassed his limited imaginative powers, was not without its effect on the sensitive feelings of the good-man After feasting on the sight, for the few moments that his companion left the treasure exposed to view, he turned to the envied possessor of so much gold, and demanded,—­the tones of increased confidence gradually stealing into his voice, as the inward man felt additional motives of encouragement,—­

“And what am I expected to perform, mighty Seaman, for my portion of this wealth?”

“That which you daily perform on the land—­to cut, to fashion, and to sew.  Perhaps, too, your talent at a masquerade dress may be taxed, from time to time.”

“Ah! they are lawless and irreligious devices of the enemy, to lead men into sin and worldly abominations But, worthy Mariner, there is my disconsolate consort, Desire; though stricken in years, and given to wordy strife, yet is she the lawful partner of my bosom, and the mother of a numerous offspring.”

“She shall not want.  This is an asylum for distressed husbands.  Your men, who have not force enough to command at home, come to my ship as to a city of refuge.  You will make the seventh who has found peace by fleeing to this sanctuary.  Their families are supported by ways best known to ourselves, and all parties are content.  This is not the least of my benevolent acts.”