She was vacillating amid all these perplexities, when a certain
sailor, with cold and reserved manners, whose face bore the mark of
a deep sabre cut, and who had for some time past, frequented her inn
with great assiduity, without ever having addressed to her a single
word, took her aside one fine morning and said:

'Listen to me, Kate, and do not reply hastily. I came here, not like
many others, attracted by your beautiful eyes, but because I wished
to obtain recruits for an approaching voyage which I expected to
undertake at my own risk and peril. I do not know how it has happened,
but I now think less about sailing; I seem to be stumbling over roots.
Right or wrong, I imagine that a good little wife, who will fill my
glass while I am tranquilly smoking my pipe before a blazing fire, may
have as many charms as the best brig in which one may sometimes perish
with hunger and thirst. Right or wrong, I imagine to myself again that
the prattle of two or three little monkeys around me, may be as
agreeable as the sound of the wind howling through the masts, or of
Spanish balls whistling about one's ears. All this, Kate, signifies
that I mean to marry; and who do you suppose has put this pretty whim
into my head? who, but yourself?'

Catherine uttered an exclamation of surprise, perfectly sincere, for
if she had expected a declaration, it was certainly not from this
quarter.

'Do not reply to me yet,' hastily resumed the sailor; 'he who
pronounces his decree before he has heard the pleader and maturely
reflected on the case, is a poor judge. To continue then. You are no
longer a child, Kate, and I am no longer a young man; you are
approaching thirty----'