Here Sailor Ben brought his fist down on the deal table with the force of a sledge-hammer.  Miss Abigail gave a start, and the ale leaped up in the pitcher like a miniature fountain.

“I begs your parden, ladies and gentlemen all; but the thought of that feller with his ring an’ his watch-chain an’ his walrus face, is alus too many for me.  I was for pitchin’ him into the North River, when a perliceman prevented me from benefitin’ the human family.  I had to pay five dollars for hittin’ the chap (they said it was salt and buttery), an’ that’s what I call a neat, genteel luxury.  It was worth double the money jest to see that white hat, with a weed on it, layin’ on the wharf like a busted accordiun.

“Arter months of useless sarch, I went to sea agin.  I never got into a foren port but I kept a watch out for Kitty.  Once I thought I seed her in Liverpool, but it was only a gal as looked like her.  The numbers of women in different parts of the world as looked like her was amazin’.  So a good many years crawled by, an’ I wandered from place to place, never givin’ up the sarch.  I might have been chief mate scores of times, maybe master; but I hadn’t no ambition.  I seed many strange things in them years—­outlandish people an’ cities, storms, shipwracks, an’ battles.  I seed many a true mate go down, an’ sometimes I envied them what went to their rest.  But these things is neither here nor there.

“About a year ago I shipped on board the Belphcebe yonder, an’ of all the strange winds as ever blowed, the strangest an’ the best was the wind as blowed me to this here blessed spot.  I can’t be too thankful.  That I’m as thankful as it is possible for an uneddicated man to be, He knows as reads the heart of all.”

Here ended Sailor Ben’s yarn, which I have written down in his own homely words as nearly as I can recall them.  After he had finished, the Captain shook hands with him and served out the ale.

As Kitty was about to drink, she paused, rested the cup on her knee, and asked what day of the month it was.

“The twenty-seventh,” said the Captain, wondering what she was driving at.

“Then,” cried Kitty, “it’s ten years this night sence—­”

“Since what?” asked my grandfather.

“Sence the little lass and I got spliced!” roared Sailor Ben.  “There’s another coincydunce for you!”

On hearing this we all clapped hands, and the Captain, with a degree of ceremony that was almost painful, drank a bumper to the health and happiness of the bride and bridegroom.

It was a pleasant sight to see the two old lovers sitting side by side, in spite of all, drinking from the same little cup—­a battered zinc dipper which Sailor Ben had unslung from a strap round his waist.  I think I never saw him without this dipper and a sheath-knife suspended just back of his hip, ready for any convivial occasion.

We had a merry time of it.  The Captain was in great force this evening, and not only related his famous exploit in the War of 1812, but regaled the company with a dashing sea-song from Mr. Shakespeare’s play of The Tempest.  He had a mellow tenor voice (not Shakespeare, but the Captain), and rolled out the verse with a will: