The food, too, was on a par with all the rest, and the cook could be heard beating the dried fish with the back of an axe to make it tender.

Salve seemed to have dropped all at once into home life and ways again.
The crew were dressed in thick winter clothing, and had the appearance of navvies rather than of sailors, but they were all fearless, hardy-looking fellows, as most of the men who risk their lives on these timber vessels are; and what immediately struck him with a feeling of pleasure, was the honest expression which every countenance, without exception, wore.

It was long since he had seen a sight of the kind, and he felt ashamed of himself for going about with his knife ready to hand, as had been his custom for so many years, and put it away in his chest the very first day.

He took a pleasure in leaving his watch and money out on the top where they might easily have been taken, and was filled with surprise and admiration when he found that they were not stirred.
He had not been able to get out of his head the idea that Elizabeth was now in Amsterdam, in spite of the almost certain feeling which he had that she had been long ago married to young Beck.

His thoughts kept returning to, and dwelling upon, this subject, and he began to sound the skipper as to whether the trade with Holland was a paying one, and to post himself up generally in all particulars.