“One day we had an adventure which I often think of now when I look at that picture hanging there.  Two of the fishermen had bought new boats, about the same size, but differing somewhat in rig and model, and there was much talk about their respective sailing qualities.  A stiff breeze was blowing and some ugly clouds were gathering to seaward, but John proposed that we should try the boats for a short sail, and with the owners’ consent we pushed off to round the outer buoy and back as a test of speed.  The boats had each a single spritsail, but I felt sure that John’s carried too much canvas and would not behave well in a gale.  We soon got them on the wind, and were sailing pretty evenly together when I heard the muttering of distant thunder.  A moment more and the sails were flapping heavily, everything was still as death, but the white-caps were plain enough to what had been the leeward a short time before.  We were a good mile from shore, and I called out to John to look out for flaws, and put my boat about on a homeward tack.  Without a moment’s warning the gale burst upon us, and as my own boat bowed gracefully to the wind and threw the water from her bows, I saw John’s mast quiver and bend as a large sea swept over the gunwale and drenched him from head to foot.  ‘Let go your sheet!’ I shouted, ’and luff her up into the wind.’  But instead of doing so, he hauled powerfully upon the swelling sail, put his helm hard down, and the next moment the boat was tossing bottom up, and John was struggling in the seething waters.  I had no fears for his life, for he was a powerful and skillful swimmer, and this was not the first upset for either of us; but I never was so deeply impressed before by John’s bad seamanship.  He gained the boat without difficulty, and clambered on to the upturned bottom, so that I had time to let go my sheet and double-reef my sail.  I then bore down on him and took him aboard, and the two of us had little trouble in righting his boat and towing her ashore.  I have mentioned the incident only because I always connect it in my mind with what happened long years afterward.

“Six months after this our father died, and John wished to be married at once.  But Ellen, although she could not hide her attachment to him, steadily refused to engage herself on account of her invalid mother, whose only and devoted attendant she was.  Fickleness was not one of my brother’s faults, and he was true and steady in his love for the girl—­how true and steady I never knew until I learned it from himself in my ship’s cabin on the broad Atlantic.  I found myself with a few thousand pounds and a careless guardian, from whom it was not difficult to get the money into my own hands.  In a few weeks I left home for Liverpool, and I have never seen my native town since that day.”

Uncle Joseph paused to light a fresh cigar, and then opened the cabinet and filled the two glasses again.  It was the only time I ever knew him to do such a thing.