"Ah, well!" says he; "they'll come a time, lad, God help ye! when
ye'll know."
"I wisht 'twould hasten," said I.
"I wisht 'twould never come at all," said he.
'Twas disquieting....
* * * * *
Work on the _Shining Light_ went forward apace and with right good
effect. 'Twas not long--it might be a fortnight--before her hull was
as sound as rotten plank could be made with gingerly calking. 'Twas
indeed a delicate task to tap the timbers of her: my uncle must
sometimes pause for anxious debate upon the wisdom of venturing a
stout blow. But copper-painted below the water-line, adorned above,
she made a brave showing at anchor, whatever she might do at sea; and
there was nothing for it, as my uncle said, but to have faith, which
would do well enough: for faith, says he, could move mountains. When
she had been gone over fore and aft, aloft and below, in my uncle's
painstaking way--when she had been pumped and ballasted and cleared of
litter and swabbed down and fitted with a new suit of sails--she so
won upon our confidence that not one of us who dwelt on the neck of
land by the Lost Soul would have feared to adventure anywhere aboard.
The fool of Twist Tickle pulled a long face.
"Hut, Moses!" I maintained; "she'll do very well. Jus' look at her!"
"Mother always 'lowed," says he, "that a craft was like a woman. An'
since mother died, I've come t' learn for myself, Dannie," he drawled,
"that the more a woman haves in the way o' looks the less weather
she'll stand. I've jus' come, now," says he, "from overhaulin' a
likely maid at Chain Tickle."