Three ancient seafaring men were sitting together in the doorway of a building that looked as if it might once have been the warehouse of a fisherman, but was now entirely out of repair, even for a fish-house. A short, thin old fellow, who looked more active than the rest, was perched on the top of a shaky barrel, swinging his feet; but his two companions, mindful, perhaps, of their rheumatic joints, were enthroned on bait-tubs. Out-doors it was almost raining, the Scotch mist was coming in so thick from sea; and the men were taking all the comfort they could in smoking such strong black tobacco, in dingy clay pipes with no stem to speak of, that the spiders overhead thought it might be best to go out from their shelter, and brave the inclemency of the weather.<br><br>"I don't see no prospect of a change," said Captain Joseph Ryder, the man on the barrel. "The wind backed in yesterday, and the clouds has been a-looking greasy for a week past.