"Leave everything as it is until the full moon tide, and I will go myself to-night to explain to Captain Morris——"
"Will I borrow another horse to harness with Flower?" Deio shouted from outside, "since you think so much more of a horse than of a man's time and trouble."
"It would be too late now, and I shall not want you again."
Deio turned his horse and cart away, and the little incident seemed to pass out of Hugh Morgan's mind, for he turned his attention to some other section of his work with apparent equanimity.
"I have been thinking lately, Ivor, that we ought to have one of those machines for rolling up and holding the work in place for the women. See Gwladys Price now, how she has to drag at that sail to sew on the reef points."
"Yes," said Ivor, "it would lighten the work very much, no doubt; but it does not seem to weigh very much on her strength or spirits just at present, does it?" and the two men looked over to where a knot of girls were listening with evident amusement to 'n'wncwl Jos, who, on the strength of the fact that he took in a weekly newspaper, constituted himself the general dispenser of news.
Every day he made his appearance in the sail-shed brimful of information, and should the newspapers be wanting in anything interesting, he did not hesitate to invent new or garnish up old tales from the store of his memory.
In personal appearance he resembled a bundle of knobs; in fact, had not a wooden leg somewhat broken the circular outline, he would have looked like a big knob himself. His head was certainly like a black knob, and his face, the colour of new polished mahogany, was made up of shining knobs, his nose being round and smooth, his cheeks the same, especially one which always held a large quid of tobacco, and his fat, brown fists were like two more knobs.
One of his eyes was always closed as if in a chronic wink, while the other was unusually wide open. It was an undecided question in the village whether the closed eyelid covered an eye or not. As a matter of fact, it did not, for he had lost it when quite a young man, and it was the account of this event which was now exciting the laughter of the women gathered around him.
"Come, let us have a share of the fun," said Hugh Morgan, approaching, his eyes fixed smilingly on Gwladys Price's laughing face. She held her sides, and threw her head back in a fit of laughter, her dimpled face and white teeth looking very charming in their abandon of mirth.