The hardy old seaman, thus addressed, turned his grave visage on his
commander, and replied with a becoming gravity:

"Give me a plenty of sea-room, and good canvas, where there is no
occasion for pilots at all, sir. For my part, I was born on board a
chebacco-man, and never could see the use of more land than now and then
a small island to raise a few vegetables, and to dry your fish--I'm sure
the sight of it always makes me feel uncomfortable, unless we have the
wind dead off shore."

"Ah! Tom, you are a sensible fellow," said Barnstable, with an air half
comic, half serious. "But we must be moving; the sun is just touching
those clouds to seaward, and God keep us from riding out this night at
anchor in such a place as this."

Laying his hand on a projection of the rock above him, Barnstable swung
himself forward, and following this movement with a desperate leap or
two, he stood at once on the brow of the cliff. His cockswain very
deliberately raised the midshipman after his officer, and proceeding
with more caution but less exertion, he soon placed himself by his side.

When they reached the level land that lay above the cliffs and began to
inquire, with curious and wary eyes, into the surrounding scenery, the
adventurers discovered a cultivated country, divided in the usual
manner, by hedges and walls. Only one habitation for man, however, and
that a small dilapidated cottage, stood within a mile of them, most of
the dwellings being placed as far as convenience would permit from the
fogs and damps of the ocean.

"Here seems to be neither anything to apprehend, nor the object of our