"His hat has blown away too, and we lost our way in the dark, so we're rather in a mess."
"Why, so you be!" Sampson cried, eyeing them up and down. "I thought, when I heard you, as it was they folk from Claxton as comes 'ere for bait whenever they be short. That's nigh about the only visitors we ever gets here; bean't it, Jarge?"
George, thus appealed to, made no articulate reply, but he opened his great mouth and laughed vociferously.
"We've come for something which will pay you better than that," said Ezra. "You remember my meeting you two or three Saturdays ago, and speaking to you about your house and your boat and one thing or another?"
The fisherman nodded.
"You said something then about your boat being a good sea-going craft, and that it was as roomy as many a yacht. I think I told you that I might give it a try some day."
The fisherman nodded again. His wondering eyes were still surveying his visitors, dwelling on every rent in their clothes or stain on their persons.
"My father and I want to get down the coast as far as the Downs. Now we thought that we might just as well give your boat a turn and have your son and yourself to work it. I suppose she is fit to go that distance?"
"Fit! whoy she be fit to go to 'Meriky! The Downs ain't more'n hunder and twenty mile. With a good breeze she would do it in a day. By to-morrow afternoon we'd be ready to make a start if the wind slackens."
"To-morrow afternoon! We must be there by that time. We want you to start to-night."