in the fairway, being puttied and painted for a summer voyage. "Who'll
pay for that?" growled the painters. "I will," said I. "With the
main-sheet," echoed the captain of the _Bluebird_, close by, which was
his way of saying that I was off. There was nothing to pay for above
five cents' worth of paint, maybe, but such a din was raised between
the old "hooker" and the _Bluebird_, which now took up my case, that
the first cause of it was forgotten altogether. Anyhow, no bill was
sent after me.

The weather was mild on the day of my departure from Gloucester. On
the point ahead, as the _Spray_ stood out of the cove, was a lively
picture, for the front of a tall factory was a flutter of
handkerchiefs and caps. Pretty faces peered out of the windows from
the top to the bottom of the building, all smiling _bon voyage_. Some
hailed me to know where away and why alone. Why? When I made as if to
stand in, a hundred pairs of arms reached out, and said come, but the
shore was dangerous! The sloop worked out of the bay against a light
southwest wind, and about noon squared away off Eastern Point,
receiving at the same time a hearty salute--the last of many
kindnesses to her at Gloucester. The wind freshened off the point, and
skipping along smoothly, the _Spray_ was soon off Thatcher's Island
lights. Thence shaping her course east, by compass, to go north of
Cashes Ledge and the Amen Rocks, I sat and considered the matter all
over again, and asked myself once more whether it were best to sail
beyond the ledge and rocks at all. I had only said that I would sail
round the world in the _Spray_, "dangers of the sea excepted," but I
must have said it very much in earnest. The "charter-party" with
myself seemed to bind me, and so I sailed on. Toward night I hauled
the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook, sounded for bottom-fish, in
thirty fathoms of water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge. With fair