“Nat’rally, arter a while the brood was all hatched out, ‘ceptin’, o’ cou’se, the porc’lain egg.  The mother didn’t take no suspishun but ’twere all right, on’y a bit stubborn.  So her sot down for two days more, an’ did all a hen cud do to hatch that chick.  No good; ‘twudn’ budge.  You niver seed a fowl that hurted in mind; but niver a thought o’ givin’ in.  No, sir.  ‘Twasn’ her way.  Her jes’ cocked her head aslant, tuk a long stare at the cussed thing, an’ said, so plain as looks cud say, ‘Well, I’ve a-laid this egg, an’ I reckon I’ve a-got to hatch et; an’ ef et takes me to th’ aluminium, I’ll see et out.’”

“The millennium,” corrected Mr. Fogo, who was much interested.

“Not bein’ over-eddicated, sir,” said Caleb, with unconscious severity, “that old hen, I reckon, said ‘aluminium.’  But niver mind.  Her sot, an’ sot, an’ kept on settin’, an’ neglected the rest o’ they chicks for what seemingly to her was the call o’ duty, till wan’ by wan they all died.  ‘Twas pitiful, sir; an’ the wust was to see her lay so much store by that egg.  Th’ ould Mennear was for takin’ et away; but ‘twud ha’ broke her heart.  As ‘twas, what wi’ anxi’ty an’ too little food, her wore to a shadow.  I seed her was boun’ to die, anyway; an’ wan arternoon, as I was in the cowshed, I heerd a weakly sort o’ cluckin’ overhead, an’ went up to look.  ’Twas too late, sir.  Th’ ould hen was lying beside th’ egg, glazin’ at et in a filmy sort o’ way, an’ breathin’ terrable hard.  When I comes, she gi’es a look same as to say, ’I reckon I’ve a-got to go.  I’ve a-been a mother to that there egg; an’ I’d ha’ liked to see’t through afore I went.  But, seemingly, ‘twarn’t ordained.’  An’ wi’ that there was a kind o’ flutter, an’ when I turned her over I seed her troubles were done.  Thet fowl, sir, had passed.”

“You tell the story with such sympathy, Caleb, that I appeal to you the more readily for advice.  I find it hard to concentrate my attention this morning.”

“Ef I mou’t make free to shake ’ee agen—­”

“I should prefer any other cure.”

“Very well, sir.  I have heerd, from trippers as comes to Troy, to spend the day an’ get drunk in anuther parish for vari’ty’s sake, as a pennorth o’ say es uncommon refreshin’.”

“A pennyworth of sea?”

“That’s so, sir.  Twelve in a boat, an’ a copper a head to the boatman to row so far as there an’ back, which es cheap an’ empt’in’ at the price, as a chap told me.”

“You advise me to take a row?”

“Iss, sir; on’y I reckon you’d best go up the river, ef you’m goin’ alone.  Though whether you prefers the resk o’ meetin’ Adm’ral Buzza to bein’ turned topsy-versy outside the harbour-mouth, es a question I leaves to you.  ‘Tes a matter o’ taste, as Mounseer said by the yaller frog.”

Mr. Fogo decided to risk an encounter with the Admiral.  In a few minutes he was afloat, and briskly rowing in the wake of the picnic-party.