This time 'twas another leg, and my grandfather was just about to lay
hands on it, when the woman called down:

"Hendry Watty! catch it quick! It's my own leg I've thrown down by
mistake!"

The leg struck the ground and bounced high, and Hendry Watty made a
leap after it. . . .


And I reckon it's asleep he must have been: for what he caught was
not Mrs. Rowett's leg, but the jib-boom of a deep-laden brigantine
that was running him down in the dark. And as he sprang for it, his
boat was crushed by the brigantine's fore-foot and went down under
his very boot-soles. At the same time he let out a yell, and two or
three of the crew ran forward and hoisted him up to the bowsprit and
in on deck, safe and sound.

But the brigantine happened to be outward-bound for the River Plate;
so that, what with one thing and another, 'twas eleven good months
before my grandfather landed again at Port Loe. And who should be
the first man he sees standing above the cove but William John Dunn?

"I'm very glad to see you," says William John Dunn.

"Thank you kindly," answers my grandfather; "and how's Mary Polly?"

"Why, as for that," he says, "she took so much looking after, that I
couldn't feel I was keeping her properly under my eye till I married