Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together;
But when I came I found she'd been and took my messmate Tom,
Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together.

Now, therefore, The Crew was urgent for a song to cheer up the
lonesomeness a bit, and the lawyer, nothing loath, sang with genuine
pathos:--

A baby was sleeping;
Its mother was weeping.
For her husband was far on the wide rolling sea.

When he came to the sea-ee-ee-ee-ee at the end of the third line, The
Crew, who had been keeping time with one foot on the deck and with one
hand on the tiller, aided him in rolling it forth, and, when the singing
was over, he characterized it as "pooty and suitin' like," by which he
meant that the references to the howling tempest and the raging billow
were appropriate to the present nautical circumstances. After much
persuasion The Crew was induced to add to the harmony of the evening.
His voice was strong, but, like many strong things, under imperfect
control; his tune was nowhere, and his intended pathetic unction was
simply maudlin. Coristine could recall but little of the long ballad to
which he listened, the story of a niggardly and irate father, who
followed and fought with the young knight that had carried off his
daughter. Two verses, however, could not escape his memory, on account
of the disinterested and filial light in which they made the young lady
appear:--

"O stay your hand," the old man cried,
A-lying on the ground,