How Barnabas Sought Counsel of the Duchess

"Sir?"

"Do you know the Duchess of Camberhurst well?"

"Know her, sir?" repeated the Bo'sun, giving a dubious pull at his
starboard whisker; "why, Mr. Beverley, sir, there's two things as I
knows on, as no man never did know on, nor never will know on,--and
one on 'em's a ship and t' other's a woman."

"But do you know her well enough to like and--trust?"

"Why, Mr. Beverley, sir, since you ax me, I'll tell you--plain and
to the p'int. We'll take 'er Grace the Duchess and say, clap her
helm a-lee to tack up ag'in a beam wind, a wind, mind you, as ain't
strong enough to lift her pennant,--and yet she'll fall off and miss
her stays, d'ye see, or get took a-back and yaw to port or starboard,
though, if you ax me why or wherefore, I'll tell you as how,--her
being a woman and me only a man,--I don't know. Then, again, on the
contrary, let it blow up foul--a roaring hurricane say, wi' the seas
running high, ah! wi' the scud flying over her top-s'l yard, and she'll
rise to it like a bird, answer to a spoke, and come up into the
wind as sweet as ever you see. The Duchess ain't no fair-weather
craft, I'll allow, but in 'owling, raging tempest she's staunch, sir,
--ah, that she is,--from truck to keelson! And there y'are, Mr. Beverley,
sir!"