And here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about the brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely phantom-like nature, honest Jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her.  Wherein, he resembled my Right Reverend friend, Bishop Berkeley—­ truly, one of your lords spiritual—­who, metaphysically speaking, holding all objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwith-standing, extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter itself.  Besides being pervious to the points of pins, and possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:—­which sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones.

Now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering Jarl must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on board.  He swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed.  I laughed:—­ hinting that goblins were incorporeal.  Whereupon he besought me to ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself But here my mature judgment got the better of my first crude opinion.  I civilly declined.  For assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while surmounting the oblique futtock-shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me overboard.  Therefore I held my peace; while Jarl went on to declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty fully made up;—­she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full of sailors’ ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water.  In short, Jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old Norsemen, was full of old Norse conceits, and all manner of Valhalla marvels concerning the land of goblins and goblets.  No wonder then, that with this catastrophe in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft, carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull.  But I refused.

One can not relate every thing at once.  While in the cabin, we came across a “barge” of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled ourselves in the intervals of rummaging.  Now this sea cake-basket we had brought on deck.  And for the first time since bidding adieu to the Arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with a rush; and having nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs before it, laid close seige thereto, like the Grand Turk and his Vizier Mustapha sitting down before Vienna.