"D'ye guv it up?"
They did.
"Wal, the paper said, he druv ashore at Grand Manan; but I've my doubts about it."
The captain paused, looked all around through the fog, and stood for a moment as though listening to some sound.
"I kine o' thought," said he, "that I detected the dash of water on the shore. I rayther think it's time to bring her round."
The vessel was brought round on another tack, and the captain resumed his conversation.
"What I was jest sayin," he continued, "reminds me of a story I onst heard, or read, I forget which (all the same, though), about two boys which went adrift on a raft. It took place up in Scott's Bay, I think, at a ship-yard in that thar locality.
"These two unfortunate children, it seems, had made a raft in a playful mude, an embarkin on it they had been amoosin theirselves with paddlin about by pushin it with poles. At length they came to a pint where poles were useless; the tide got holt of the raft, an the ferrail structoor was speedily swept onward by the foorus current. Very well. Time rolled on, an that thar raft rolled on too,—far over the deep bellew sea,—beaten by the howlin storm, an acted upon by the remorseless tides. I leave you to pictoor to yourselves the sorrow of them thar two infant unfortunits, thus severed from their hum an parients, an borne afar, an scarce enough close on to keep 'em from the inclemency of the weather. So they drifted, an drifted, an de-e-rifted, until at last they druv ashore; an now, whar do you think it was that they druv?"
The boys couldn't say.
"Guess now."