--and so on, up to twenty. With each line, a shovelful of ballast was
pitched on board by every man; so that, when the twenty six-line stanzas
were ended, each man had thrown one hundred and twenty (a "long
hundred") shovelfuls of sand. Thereupon they paused, "touched pipe" for
a minute or two, and, brushing the back of the hand across their
foreheads to wring off the sweat, started afresh.

Along the barque's side ran a narrow line of blue paint, signifying that
the vessel was in mourning, that somebody belonging to captain or owner
was lately dead. But in this case it was the captain and owner himself:
and his chief mourner was a bright-eyed woman with a complexion of cream
and roses, who now leant over the bulwarks and looked down
contemplatively upon the three labourers. She was a Canadian, and her
husband, too, had been a Canadian--rich, more than twice her age, and
luxurious. Since his marriage she had accompanied him on all his
voyages. Three months ago his vessel had brought him, sick and
suffering from congestion of the lungs, into this harbour, where his
cargo of timber was to be unloaded: and in this harbour, a week later,
he had died, without a doubt of his wife's affection. From the deck
where she stood she could see between the elms on the hill above the
port the white wall of the cemetery where he lay. The vessel was hers,
and a snug little fortune in Quebec: and she was going back to enjoy it.
For the homeward voyage she had deputed the captain's responsibilities
to the first mate, and had raised his pay slightly, but the captain's
dignity she reserved for herself.

She wore a black gown, of course, but not a widow's cap: and, though in
fact a widow of twenty-five, had very much more the appearance of a maid
of nineteen as she looked down over the barque's side. Her lips were