Betsey had been to the village with her father on the canal, and she knew the way, and suffice it to say, as the sun descended into his gory bed in the west, its last light shone onto Betsey and me, a settin’ in the contracted cabin of the canal boat.
We were the only females on board, and if it hadn’t been for Betsey’s bein’ his relation, we couldn’t have embarked, for the bark was heavily laden. The evening after we embarked, the boat sailin’ at the time under the pressure of 2 miles an hour, a storm began to come up, I didn’t say nothin’, but I wished I was a shore. The rain come down—the thunder roared in the distance—the wind howled at us, I felt sad. I thought of Josiah.
As the storm increased Betsey looked out of the window, and says she,
“Josiah Allen’s wife we are surrounded by dangers, one of the horses has got the heaves, can you not heah him above the wild roah of the tempest? And one of them is balky, I know it.” And liftin’ her gloomy eyes to the ceilin’ so I couldn’t see much of ’em but the whites, says she, “Look at the stove-pipe! see it sway in the storm, a little heavieh blast will unhinge it. And what a night it would be for pirates to be abroad, and give chase to us. But,” she continued, “my soul is in unison with the wild fury of the elements. I feel like warbling one of the wild sea odes of old,” and she begun to sing,
“My name is Robert Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed.
My name is Robert Kidd, as I sailed.”
She sung it right through; I should say by my feelin’s, it took her nigh on to an hour, though my sufferin’s I know blinded me, and made my calculations of time less to be depended on than a clock. She sang it through once, and then she began it agin, she got as far the second time as this,
My name is Robert Kidd,