Four days after this conversation life in Hatton had broken apart, and Harry was speeding down the Bay of Biscay and singing the fine old sea song called after it, to the rhythm and music of its billowy surge.  The motion of the boat, the wind in the sails, the “chanties” of the sailors as they went about their work, and the evident content and happiness around him made Harry laugh and sing and toss away his cap and let the fresh salt wind blow on his hot brain in which he fancied the clack and clamor of the looms still lingered.  He thought that a life at sea, resting or sailing as the mood took him, would be a perfect life if only Lucy were with him.

Sitting at dinner he very pointedly made the absence of women the great want in this otherwise perfect existence.  The captain earnestly and strongly denied it.  “There is nowhere in the world,” he said, “where a woman is less wanted than on a ship.  They interfere with happiness and comfort in every way.  If we had a woman on board tonight, she would be deathly seasick or insanely frightened.  A ship with a woman’s name is just as much as any captain can manage.  You would be astonished at the difference a name can make in a ship.  When this yacht belonged to Colonel Brotherton, she was called the Dolphin, and God and angels know she tried to behave like one, diving and plunging and careering as if she had fins instead of sails.  I was captain of her then and I know it.  Well, your father bought her, and your mother threw a bottle of fine old port over her bow, and called her the Martha Hatton, and she has been a different ship ever since—­ladylike and respectable, no more butting of the waves, as if she was a ram; she lifts herself on and over them and goes curtseying into harbor like a duchess.”

As they talked the wind rose, and the play of its solemn music in the rigging of the yacht and in the deep bass of the billows was, as Harry said, “like a chant of High Mass.  I heard one for the sailors leaving Hull last Christmas night,” he said, “and I shall never forget it.”

“But you are a Methodist, sir?”

“Oh, that does not hinder!  A good Methodist can pray wherever there is honest prayer going on.  John was with me, and I knew by John’s face he was praying.  I was but a lad, but I said ‘Our Father,’ for I knew that Christ’s words could not be wrong wherever they were said.”

“Well, sir, I hope you will recover your health soon and be able to return to your business.”

“My health, Captain, is firstrate!  I have not come to sea for my health.  Surely to goodness, John did not tell you that story?”

“No, he did not, and I saw that you were well enough as soon as you came on board.”

“Well, Captain, I am here to try how a life of pleasure and idleness will suit me.  I hate the mill, I hate its labor and all about it, and John thought a few months of nothing to do would make me go cheerfully back to work.”