journeying to Shoreham, about twenty miles above the point where he
had embarked in the _Missisque_. He had crossed the lake in the
ferry, intending to take the steamer at Westport for his destination.
Being a man who was always in a hurry, but never in season, he had
reached the steamboat landing just in time to see the boat moving
off. Procuring a wherry, and a boy to row it, he had boarded the
_Missisque_ as she passed up the lake; and, though the sloop was
not a passenger-boat, Captain John had consented to land him at
Shoreham.

Mr. Randall was a landsman, and had a proper respect for squalls and
tempests, even on a fresh-water lake. He heard the announcement of
Lawry Wilford with a feeling of dread and apprehension, and
straightway began to conjure up visions of a terrible shipwreck, and
of sole survivors, clinging with the madness of desperation to broken
spars, in the midst of the storm-tossed waters. But Mr. Randall was a
director of a country bank, and a certain amount of dignity was
expected and required of him. His official position before the people
of Vermont demanded that he should not give way to idle fears. If
Captain Jones, who was not a bank director, could keep cool, it was
Mr. Randall's solemn duty to remain unmoved, or at least to appear to
remain so.

The passenger finished the first course of the dinner, which Mrs.
Captain John had made a little more elaborate than usual, in honor of
the distinguished guest; but he complained of the smallness of his
appetite, and it was evident that he did not enjoy the meal after the
brief colloquy between the skipper and the pilot. He was nervous; his
dignity was a "bore" to him, and was maintained at an immense
sacrifice of personal ease; but he persevered until a piece of the