devil of a shipwright that brute caught and squashed as she went off the ways.  They called it the launch of a ship, but I’ve heard people say that, from the wailing and yelling and scrambling out of the way, it was more like letting a devil loose upon the river.  She snapped all her checks like pack-thread, and went for the tugs in attendance like a fury.  Before anybody could see what she was up to she sent one of them to the bottom, and laid up another for three months’ repairs.  One of her cables parted, and then, suddenly—­you couldn’t tell why—­she let herself be brought up with the other as quiet as a lamb.

“That’s how she was.  You could never be sure what she would be up to next.  There are ships difficult to handle, but generally you can depend on them behaving rationally.  With that ship, whatever you did with her you never knew how it would end.  She was a wicked beast.  Or, perhaps, she was only just insane.”

He uttered this supposition in so earnest a tone that I could not refrain from smiling.  He left off biting his lower lip to apostrophize me.

“Eh!  Why not?  Why couldn’t there be something in her build, in her lines corresponding to—­What’s madness?  Only something just a tiny bit wrong in the make of your brain.  Why shouldn’t there be a mad ship—­I mean mad in a ship-like way, so that under no circumstances could you be sure she would do what any other sensible ship would naturally do for you.  There are ships that steer wildly, and ships that can’t be quite trusted always to stay; others want careful watching when running in a gale; and, again, there may be a ship that will make heavy weather of it in every little blow.  But then you expect her to be always so.  You take it as part of her character, as a ship, just as you take account of a man’s peculiarities of temper when you deal with him.  But with her you couldn’t.  She was unaccountable.  If she wasn’t mad, then she was the most evil-minded, underhand, savage brute that ever went afloat.  I’ve seen her run in a heavy gale beautifully for two days, and on the third broach to twice in the same afternoon.  The first time she flung the helmsman clean over the wheel, but as she didn’t quite manage to kill him she had another try about three hours afterwards.  She swamped herself fore and aft, burst all the canvas we had set, scared all hands into a panic, and even frightened Mrs. Colchester down there in these beautiful stern cabins that she was so proud of.  When we mustered the crew there was one man missing.  Swept overboard, of course, without being either seen or heard, poor devil! and I only wonder more of us didn’t go.

“Always something like that.  Always.  I heard an old mate tell Captain Colchester once that it had come to this with him, that he was afraid to open his mouth to give any sort of order.  She was as much of a terror in harbour as at sea.  You could never be certain what would hold her.  On the slightest provocation she would start snapping ropes, cables, wire hawsers, like carrots.  She was heavy, clumsy, unhandy—­but that does not quite explain that power for mischief she had.  You know, somehow, when I think of her I can’t help remembering what we hear of incurable lunatics breaking loose now and then.”