* * * * *
When 'twas noised abroad that my uncle was to refit the _Shining
Light_, Twist Tickle grew hilarious. "Laugh an you will, lads," says
my uncle, then about the business of distributing genial invitations
to the hauling-down. "'Tis a gift o' the good Lord t' be able t' do
it. The ol' girl out there haven't a wonderful lot to admire, an'
she's nowhere near t' windward o' forty; but I'll show ye, afore I'm
through, that she'll stand by in a dirty blow, an I jus' asks she t'
try. Ye'll find, lads," says he, "when ye're so old as me, an' sailed
t' foreign parts, that they's more to a old maid or a water-side widow
than t' many a lass o' eighteen. The ol' girl out there haves a mean
allowance o' beauty, but she've a character that isn't talked about
after dark; an' when I buys her a pair o' shoes an' a new gown, why,
ecod! lads, ye'll think she's a lady. 'Tis one way," says he, "that
ladies is _made_."
This occurred at Eli Flack's stage of an evening when a mean, small
catch was split and the men-folk were gathered for gossip. 'Twas after
sunset, with fog drifting in on a lazy wind: a glow of red in the
west. Our folk were waiting for the bait-skiff, which had long been
gone for caplin, skippered, this time, by the fool of Twist Tickle.
"Whatever," says my uncle, "they'll be a darn o' rum for ye, saved and
unsaved, when she've been hauled down an' scraped. An' will ye come t'
the haulin'-down?"
That they would!
"I knowed ye would," says my uncle, as he stumped away, "saved an'
unsaved."
The bait-skiff conch-horn sounded. The boat had entered the narrows.
'Twas coming slowly through the quiet evening--laden with bait for the
fishing of to-morrow. Again the horn--echoing sweetly, faintly, among
the hills of Twin Islands. 'Twas Moses Shoos that blew; there was no
mistaking the long-drawn blast.
* * * * *
Ah, well! she needed the grooming, this _Shining Light_, whatever the
occasion. 'Twas scandalous to observe her decay in idleness. She
needed the grooming--this neglected, listless, slatternly old maid of
a craft. A craft of parts, to be sure, as I had been told; but a craft
left to slow wreck, at anchor in quiet water. Year by year, since I
could remember the days of my life, in summer and winter weather she
had swung with the tides or rested silent in the arms of the ice. I
had come to Twist Tickle aboard, as the tale of my infancy ran, on the
wings of a nor'east gale of some pretensions; and she had with heroic
courage weathered a dirty blow to land me upon the eternal rocks of
Twin Islands. For this--though but an ancient story, told by old folk
to engage my presence in the punts and stages of our harbor--I loved
her, as a man, Newfoundland born and bred, may with propriety love a
ship.
There are maids to be loved, no doubt, and 'tis very nice to love
them, because they are maids, fashioned in a form most lovely by the
good Lord, given a heart most childlike and true and loving and
tenderly dependent, so that, in all the world, as I know, there is
nothing so to be cherished with a man's last breath as a maid. I have
loved a maid and speak with authority. But there is also a love of
ships, though, being inland-born, you may not know it. 'Tis a
surpassing faith and affection, inspired neither by beauty nor virtue,
but wilful and mysterious, like the love of a maid. 'Tis much the
same, I'm thinking: forgiving to the uttermost, prejudiced beyond the
perception of any fault, savagely loyal. 'Twas in this way, at any
rate, that my uncle regarded the _Shining Light_; and 'twas in this
way, too, with some gentler shades of admiration, proceeding from an
apt imagination, that I held the old craft in esteem.
"Dannie," says my uncle, presently, as we walked homeward, "ye'll
'blige me, lad, by keepin' a eye on the mail-boat."