The next morning the captain of the lost vessel called upon me early to
thank me for himself and his men. He was a fine honest-looking burly
fellow, dressed in blue from head to heel. He might have sat for a portrait
of Chaucer's shipman, as far as his hue and the first look of him went. It
was clear that "in many a tempest had his beard be shake," and certainly
"the hote somer had made his hew all broun;" but farther the likeness would
hardly go, for the "good fellow" which Chaucer applies with such irony to
the shipman of his time, who would filch wine, and drown all the captives
he made in a sea-fight, was clearly applicable in good earnest to this
shipman. Still, I thought I had something to bring against him, and
therefore before we parted I said to him--

"They tell me, captain, that your vessel was not seaworthy, and that you
could not but have known that."

"She was my own craft, sir, and I judged her fit for several voyages more.
If she had been A 1 she couldn't have been mine; and a man must do what he
can for his family."

"But you were risking your life, you know."

"A few chances more or less don't much signify to a sailor, sir. There
ain't nothing to be done without risk. You'll find an old tub go voyage
after voyage, and she beyond bail, and a clipper fresh off the stocks go
down in the harbour. It's all in the luck, sir, I assure you."

"Well, if it were your own life I should have nothing to say, seeing you
have a family to look after; but what about the poor fellows who made the