There, when he has paid off for the last time,
and everything, so to speak, is coiled down and made ship-shape, he
settles within easy hail of old cronies like himself; and if he should
chance to be one of those who have lived all their days with only their
ship for wife, then he not unnaturally falls easily into the habit of
dropping, of an evening, into the snug, well-lit bar-parlour of the
"Goat and Compasses" or the "Mariner's Friend," or some such house of
entertainment, with its glowing fire and warm, seductive, tobacco-and
grog-scented atmosphere, there to wile away the time swopping yarns with
old friends. Sometimes, if opportunity offer, he is not averse from a
mild game of cards for moderate points; and usually he takes, or at
least in old days he used to take, his liquor hot--and strong.
Captain Alexander Craes was one of those retired merchant skippers; but
he had not, like the majority of his fellows, settled near the
sea-coast. It was Kelso that had drawn him like a loadstone. An
inland-bred man, in his boyhood he had run away to sea, and the sea,
that had irresistibly woed his youthful fancy, had no whit fulfilled his
boyish dreams. It was not always blue, he found; the ship was not always
running before a spanking breeze; more kicks than ha'pence, more
rope's-endings than blessings, came his way during the first few years
of his sailor life.
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