“No, no,” replied the old lady, turning her head to hide a tear that stole from the sightless eyes.  “It’s all we’ve got to remember aour boy John.  He built her and rigged her.  He was his mother’s boy, but—­”

“He went down on the Grand Banks in the gale of ’75,” broke in her husband hoarsely.

“Yes,” continued the wife, “me and Sam’s all alone.  It’s all we’ve got, and Sam brings it up every summer as sorter company like.  Ye’re friends of Captain Sol, I guess,” she said, brightening up after a moment.  “No?” and she looked in the direction of the captain, as if for a solution of the mystery.  “Naow, ye don’t tell me that ye ain’t acquainted with Captain Sol, and ye’re from aour way, too?  Why,” she continued earnestly, “Sol’s been hog-reeve in aour taown ten years runnin’; and as for selec’-man, he’ll die in office.  Positions of trust come jest as nat’ral to him as reefin’ in a gale of wind.  Him and my man tuck to one another from the first.”

“Then you were not townsmen always,” we suggested.

“No, we wa’n’t,” was the reply.

“My man and Sol met under kinder unusual circumstances.  Tell ’em haow it was, Sam.”

The old sailor was sitting on the wood-box, shaping a row-lock from a piece of white pine, and, when thus addressed, looked up with a blank expression, as if he had been on a long search for ideas and had returned without them.

“He gits wanderin’ in his ideas when he sets his mind on the ’75 gale,” whispered the old lady.  “Tell ’em abaout yer meetin’ Captain Sol, Sam,” she repeated.

“Me and Sol met kinder cur’us,” began the captain.  “That year I was first mate of the Marthy Dutton, of Kennebec; and on this identical v’yage we was baound daown along with a load of coal.  In them days three was a full-handed crew for a fore-an’-after, and that’s all we had,—­captain, mate, and cook, and a dog and cat.  One evenin’,—­I reckon we was ten miles to the south’ard of Boon Island,—­it was my trick at the wheel, and all hands had turned in.  It was blowin’ fresh from the east’ard, and I had everything on her I could git.  I reckon it was nigh on ter two o’clock, and as clear as it is to-day, when the fust thing I knowed the schooner was on her beam ends.  She gave a kind of groan like, pitched for’ard, and down she went, takin’ everything with her; and, afore I knowed what was the matter, I found myself floatin’ ten miles from shore.  I see it was no use, but I thought I’d make a break for it:  so I got off my boots and ile-skins in the water, and struck aout for shore, that I could see every once in a while on a rise.

“Wall, to make a long story short, I reckon I was in the water a matter o’ four hours, when I see the lights of a schooner comin’ daown on me.  I hailed, and she heard me, ran up in the wind, put aout a bot, and Sol Gillis, the skipper, yanked me in.  I couldn’t have held aout ten minutes longer.  So Sol and me has been tol’able thick ever since.”