The sky had now assumed an opal or azure tint, the wind had gradually died away into a gentle breeze, the waves were now swelling gently and regularly, like the movements of the infant’s cradle that is being rocked asleep.  Never had a day, opening in the convulsions of a tempest, more suddenly lapsed into sunshine and smiles:  it was like the fairies of Perrault’s Tales, who, at first wrapped in sorry rags, begging and borne down with age, throw off their chrysalis and appear sparkling with youth, gaiety, and beauty, their wallet converted into a basket of flowers, and their crutch to a magic wand.

“Father” inquired Fritz, “shall we go any farther?”

Since the weather had calmed down, and there was no longer any necessity for exertion, the expedition had lost its charm for the young man.

“I think it is useless; what say you, Willis?”

“Ah,” said the latter, taking Becker by the hand, “in consideration of the eight days’ friendship that connects you even more intimately with Captain Littlestone than my affection for him of twenty years’ standing, keep still a few miles to the east.”

“If the sloop has been driven to a distance by the storm, and is returning towards us, which is very likely, I do not see that we can be of much use.”

“But if dismasted and leaky?”

“That would alter the case, only I am afraid the ladies will be uneasy about us.”

“But they were half prepared, father.”

“Jack is right,” added Fritz, whose energies were again called into play by the thought of the Nelson in distress; “let us go on.”

“Besides, on the word of a pilot, the sea will be very calm and gentle for some time to come:  there is not the slightest danger.”

“And what if there were?” replied Fritz.

“Well, Willis, I shall give up the pinnace to you till dark,” said Becker, “and may God guide us; we shall return to-night, so as to arrive at Rockhouse early in the morning.”

“Hurrah for the captain!” cried Willis, throwing a cap into the air.

The evolutions of a cap, thrown up towards the sky or down upon the ground, were very usual modes with Willis of expressing his joy or sorrow.

This homage rendered to Becker, he hastened to let a reef out of the sheet, and the pinnace, for a moment at rest, redoubled its speed, like post-horses starting from the inn-door under the combined influence of a cheer from the postillion and a flourish of the whip.

“There is a cockle-shell that skips along pretty fairly,” said Willis; “but it wants two very important things.”

“What things?”

“A caboose and a nigger.”

“A caboose and a nigger?”

“Yes, I mean a pantry and a cook; a gale for breakfast is all very well, one gets used to it, it is light and easily digested; but the same for dinner is rather too much of a good thing in one day.”

“I observed your thoughtful mother hang a sack on one of your shoulders, which appeared tolerably well filled—­where is it?”