'I should think so,' answered the mate; 'and perhaps your good cousin here will appear to prove that it wasn't to be.'
'It would require data,' responded the relative, 'with which I am unacquainted, and which have no existence, I am sure, to prove it in this case. But such a thing might be proved.'
And thus the evening was spent pleasantly, as it seemed: their worthy host declared it was spent profitably. They were known to become more eloquent! as it advanced; and the mate was afterwards heard to say that the debating theologian delivered them a final lecture before they separated for the night, in which, as far as he could understand it, he endeavoured to make good the point that to excuse all things by a Divine decree was to adopt a miserably one-sided and fallacious view, and at the termination of which he besought his cousin to throw overboard the foolish dogma, 'What is to be, will be.'
By sunrise the next morning the little party was on its way to Northam and Appledore. The captain first reported himself to his wife, who was no less surprised than rejoiced to see him, and then walked on to bear tidings to the merchant.
That gentleman was sitting in the parlour already described, and, when the captain was announced, rose up to meet him, with a cunning smile that would have startled most men.
'Well, Stauncy,' he said, 'what news?'
'All right, sir; she's in as snug a berth as you could wish, with plenty of water at low tide to cover her respectably. A prettier burying couldn't be; but we had a terrible time of it, and I scarcely thought we should have made Lundy again. One of our hands was washed overboard, and six, I fear, have been cast away in the jolly-boat.'
'Dear me!' exclaimed the merchant; 'and so she went down comfortably. Well—pax vobiscum—I believe that's the Latin; and now let us drink each other's health. There's a good round sum on the ship and cargo together.'
'I don't feel very comfortable, though,' said Stauncy; 'that sneaking 'prentice, who is crafty and malicious, was down in the hold from the time we reached Bude Bay, and I think he wants gagging.'
'Take no notice of him whatever,' replied Mr. Phillipson. 'The bark of such a young cur as that is not worth thinking about.'