Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/269

264 that appeared impossible for a landsman to do he did easily, by some natural gift or instinct. His spirits and courage rose with the storm, rose above it, and the man who had been a coward among wheels and bands and pulleys knew only an exultant joy in his conflict with the winds and waves. When almost in extremity they met a steamer which took them into port; but the first step on the right road had been taken by Steve Benson, for ere they landed the captain said to him.

"What is your trade, young man?"

"I am a weaver, sir."

"And your father?"

"A weaver, also; but my grandfather sailed forty years in the Whitby whaling ships—"

"I thought so! You are a born sailor. Nature made you to sail a ship, and your father tethered you to a loom. That's the way people steer on wrong tacks, and then wonder they run upon reefs and sand-bars. Will you leave the loom and take the helm with me?"

"I'll do so gladly, captain."

This was the beginning of a new life to Steve. It was almost as if in that stormy passage he had been born again. He threw the past and