My father answered, "She is a well-built woman. The Lord is good."
Not another word than this could I get from him. That evening—the wind now coming easy from the south, and the swell gone down in a wonderful way—as I was boiling water for the tea, we saw a dozen fishing-boats standing out from the Islands. They ran down to within two miles of us and then hove-to. The nets went out, and the sails came down, and by and by through the glass I could spy the smoke coming up from their cuddy-stoves.
"They might have brought news," I cried out, "even if 'tis sorrow!"
"Maybe there was no news to bring."
"'Twould have been neighbourly, then, to run down and say so."
"And run into the current here, I suppose? With a chance of the wind falling light at any moment?"
I don't know if this satisfied my father: but I know that he meant it to satisfy me, which it was pretty far from doing. Before daylight the boats hoisted sail again, and were well under the Islands and out of sight by breakfast-time.
After this, for a whole long week I reckon I did little more than pace the ship to and fro; a fisherman's walk, as they say—three steps and overboard. I took the three steps and wished I was overboard. My father watched me queerly all the while; but we said no word to each other, not even at meals.
It was the eighth day after the fishing-boats left us, and about four in the afternoon, that we saw a brown sail standing towards us from the Islands, and my father set down the glass, resting it on the gunwale, and said:
"That's Old John's boat."