“That’s a first-class report,” said Mr. Job.  “I was thinking of offering you the post of mate in her.”

Cap’n Jacka felt poorly all of a sudden.  “Aw,” he asked, “who’s to be skipper, then?”

“The Company was thinkin’ of young Dick Hewitt.”

“Aw,” said Cap’n Jacka again, and shut his mouth tight.  Young Dick Hewitt’s father had shares in the Company and money to buy votes beside.

“What do’ee think?” asked Mr. Job, still slanting his eye down his nose.

“I’ll go home an’ take my wife’s opinion,” said Cap’n Jacka.

So when he got home he told it all to his funny little wife that he doted on like the apple of his one eye.  She was a small, round body, with beady eyes that made her look like a doll on a pen-wiper; and she said, of course, that the Company was a parcel of rogues and fools together.

“Young Dick Hewitt is every bit so good a seaman as I be,” said Cap’n Jacka.

“He’s a boaster.”

“So he is, but he’s a smart seaman for all.”

“I declare if the world was to come to an end you’d sit quiet an’ never say a word.”

“I dessay I should.  I’d leave you to speak up for me.”

“Baint’ee goin’ to say nothin’, then?”

“Iss; I’m goin’ to lay it before the Lord.”

So down ’pon their knees these old souls went upon the limeash, and asked for guidance, and Cap’n Jacka, after a while, stretched out his hand to the shelf for Wesley’s Hymns.  They always pitched a hymn together before going to bed.  When he’d got the book in his hand he saw that ’twasn’t Wesley at all, but another that he never studied from the day his wife gave it to him, because it was called the “Only Hymn Book,"[A] and he said the name was as good as a lie.  Hows’ever, he opened it now, and came slap on the hymn:—­

[Footnote A:  Probably “Olney.”]

Tho’ troubles assail and dangers affright, If foes all should fail and foes all unite, Yet one thing assures us, whatever betide, I trust in all dangers the Lord will provide.

They sang it there and then to the tune of “O all that pass by,” and the very next morning Cap’n Jacka walked down and told Mr. Job he was ready to go for mate under young Dick Hewitt.

More than once, the next week or two, he came near to repenting; for Cap’n Dick was very loud about his promotion, especially at the Three Pilchards; and when the Unity came round and was fitting—­very slow, too, by reason of delay with her letters of marque—­he ordered Cap’n Jacka back and forth like a stevedore’s dog.  “There was to be no ’nigh enough’ on this lugger”—­that was the sort of talk; and oil and rotten-stone for the very gun-swivels.  But Jacka knew the fellow, and even admired the great figure and its loud ways.  “He’s a cap’n, anyhow,” he told his wife; “’twon’t be ‘all fellows to football’ while he’s in command.  And I’ve seen him handle the Good Intent, under Hockin.”