"Day before yesterday, afternoon. We came out of the Hull about five o'clock."
"How had you the wind, sir?"
"Sou'-west, and sou'-west and by south. There has been but little change in that, these three days."
Roswell Gardiner muttered something to himself; but he did not deem it prudent to utter the thoughts, that were just then passing through his mind, aloud.
"Ay, ay," he answered, after a moment's pause, "the wind has stood there the whole week; but I think we shall shortly get a change. There is an easterly feeling in the air."
"Waal, let it come. With this offing, we could clear Hatteras with anything that wasn't worse than a south-easter. There's a southerly set, in here, down the coast, for two or three hundred miles."
"A heavy south-easter would jam us in, here, between the shoals, in a way I shouldn't greatly relish, sir. I like always to get to the eastward of the Stream, as soon as I can, in running off the land."
"Very true, Captain Gar'ner--very true, sir. It is best to get outside the Stream, if a body can. Once there, I call a craft at sea. Eight-and-forty hours more of this wind would just about carry us there. Waal, sir, as we're bound on the same sort of v'y'ge, I'm happy to have fallen in with you; and I see no reason why we should not be neighbourly, and 'gam' it a little, when we've nothing better to do. I like that schooner of yours so well, that I've made my own to look as nearly resembling her as I could. You see our paint is exactly the same."
"I have observed that, Captain Daggett; and you might say the same of the figure-heads."
"Ay, ay; when I was over on the P'int, they told me the name of the carver, in Boston, who cut your seal, and I sent to him to cut me a twin. If they lay in a ship-yard, side by side, I don't think you could tell one from the other."