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“Three years passed, for he was a whaler as well as a sailor.

“Three years!

“One day there was heard a boom at sea—boom off New Haven. The ship was coming in, and it was Sunday.

“The young wife dressed herself in her best gown, and she never looked so pretty before. Her cheeks glowed like roses in dew-time.

“She hurried down toward the wharf to meet him, just as the bells were ringing and the people were all going to meeting.

“He came up the highway to greet her, leaping—not a becoming thing, I will allow. And he rushed into her arms, and gave her smack after smack, and her bonnet fell off, and the people stopped and wondered. The magistrate wondered, too.

“There was a man in the seaport who was like Mr. Legality in the Pilgrim’s Progress. The next day he had the young sailor arrested for unbecoming conduct on the street on Sunday, and I mind me that his conduct was not altogether becoming.

“The judge came into court, and read the law, and asked:

“‘Rufus, my sailor boy, what have you to plead?’