THE PILOT OF THE NANTUCKET SHOALS.

the brant as they passed over on their northern journey, and every “ foot pond”
among the hills where the black duck settled in the winter twilight.

Probably few who read this story have ever been on the quaint little island.
You may visit it if you like, for now it is quite a famous summer resort; but
you can never see it as Jack saw it. In the old town electric lights sputter
on the corners, and the tinkling bells of the street-car and the whistle of the
locomotive mingle with the roar of the surf at S’conset. Even the moorlands
where Jack used to hunt plover seem to have changed. ,

Jack had been to Boston once, and once to Halifax in his uncle’s brig, but.
that was the extent of his travels; his world was a small one, but what there was.
of it he knew thoroughly, in spite of his youth. He was a little over sixteen
then, and there were few better pilots over the dangerous shoals from Gay Head
to Monomoy.

Of course he wanted to go to sea; in the old days no self-respecting Nan-
tucket maiden would have thought of marrying a man who had not made at
least one whaling voyage ; but his mother had so far managed to keep him
at home.

“Get your ‘edication’ first,” said Gran’ther. “ Edication first if you ever
want to be a master.”

And so Jack had bided his time.

Sometimes he would steal into the parlor, a funny little room in the front of
the house that was kept closed and darkened except on occasions of great cere-
mony, and take down from the hook over the mantel an old navy sword with
which he would lunge fiercely at the prim, straight-backed chairs and the shiny
horse-hair sofa. .

It was his father’s sword ; the sword of a gallant young seaman who had sailed
to the war with Farragut — and never returned.

The widow, too, sometimes slipped into the parlor to look at the sword.
Maybe she did so on this night, after all the rest of the household had gone to
bed, and if the visit brought a momentary sigh I am sure it was changed to a.
smile when she peeped into Jack’s room, where he and Hunk were snoring in
unison beneath the bedclothes; for, stretched from the bed and out of the window
into the garden, was a stout piece of cod-line. The inner end was tied to Jack’s toe,
and old Seth Williams, when he went to pull his lobster pots at three o’clock in
the morning, had agreed to give the other end a good “yank” as he passed by.

It was pitch dark when the boys emerged from the house, that hour which
the proverb says is the darkest, the one just before dawn. Jack’s toe ached a
little from the energetic pulling, but his spirits were high. |

A short walk brought them to the wharf, and in a few moments they were
embarked in Jack’s old weather-beaten cat-boat.

“She’s pretty well used up, ain’t she, Jack?” remarked Hunk.