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from every black post in Cornwall and in Devon, and Will Canty shall drink with us there."

There rose a thunder of fists beating the board and a rumble of ‘‘Yea’s,” and the Old One made no end of smiling, but there were some whom his smile failed to deceive.

“Come, boy, with thy pitcher of sack! Pour sack for all!” he cried. ‘‘Come, ply thy task and let no man go wanting. Fill you Will Canty’s pot.” He gulped down a mighty draught and wiped his moustaches with thumb and forefinger. ‘‘And now, brave lads, let us have our heads together: though we lie but a hundred leagues off these banks of Newfoundland, what say you? Shall we turn our backs on them and take a fling at a braver trade? Or shall we taste of fat lobsters and great cod, and perchance pluck the feathers from some of these New England towns concerning which there hath lately been such a buzz of talk in old England — at Cape Ann, let us say at venture, or Naumkeag, or Plymouth Colony?”

“Yea, yea! I am for Cape Ann,” cried Joe Kirk, and his head rolled drunkenly above his great shoulders as he bolstered his opinion with curses. ‘‘Did not my brother go thither, years and years agone, for the company of Dorchester merchants? Yea, and told rare tales of succulent great fish, which are a marvelous diet.”

“Nay, thy brother was as great a sot as thou,” a voice put in, and Joe rose in anger, but a general clamour drowned his retort and he lapsed back into a sodden lethargy.

“As for me,” bellowed Martin with bluster and bravado, “I say go we to Plymouth and rap the horns