But they were n't ever like the schoolmaster 's bride . `` The schoolmaster 's name was John Selwyn . He came out from the Old Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen . He was n't much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to P.E.I. to teach school in them days . Most of them were clever , drunken critters who taught the children the three R 's when they were sober , and lambasted them when they was n't . But John Selwyn was a fine , handsome young fellow . He boarded at my father 's , and he and me were cronies , though he was ten years older 'n me . We read and walked and talked a heap together . He knew about all the poetry that was ever written , I reckon , and he used to quote it to me along shore in the evenings . Dad thought it an awful waste of time , but he sorter endured it , hoping it 'd put me off the notion of going to sea . Well , nothing could do THAT -- mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born in me . But I loved to hear John read and recite . It 's almost sixty years ago , but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him . Nearly sixty years ! '' Captain Jim was silent for a space , gazing into the glowing fire in a quest of the bygones . Then , with a sigh , he resumed his story . `` I remember one spring evening I met him on the sand-hills . He looked sorter uplifted -- jest like you did , Dr. Blythe , when you brought Mistress Blythe in tonight . I thought of him the minute I seen you . And he told me that he had a sweetheart back home and that she was coming out to him .
I was n't more 'n half pleased , ornery young lump of selfishness that I was ; I XXXXX he would n't be as much my friend after she came .
's boarded born endured lambasted reckon seen talked thought written