"Where's Manuel?" demanded Sam.
Both little shrill voices were obsequious with the information that he had gone towards the leat.
"Day-dreamen, I'll be bound," said Sam, his mouth full of hot split. "Eh, well, so were you, missus, at one time of day. Life'll soon knock et out of him, like et has of you. And you'm all the better wi'out et, arn't 'ee, lass?"
She said "Yes," and would have thought so if it had not been for the memory of that moment, already faded, when she had seen the jonquil. As it was, she sent a quick thought out to the boy who lay playing with imaginings by the alders; a thought of vague regret and a faint hope that it might not be with him quite as it had been with her. And whether the thought reached his unknowing self or not, to Manuel's fancy the leat had a finer tale and brighter hopes to tell him that evening than usual, and he was at the age when, although he knew the corresponding fall on entering the house must be the more severe, he never doubted that the dreams were worth it.
THE COFFIN SHIP
Of all the ships that traded from the Islands to the mainland, the Spirito Santo had the worst reputation. She was known as a "hungry" vessel; her chief mate was a French Creole from Martinique who had been trained aboard a Yankee clipper, and her captain was a blue-nose who behaved as such. Since, on the outward voyage, the crew generally consisted of men who had made the Islands too hot to hold them, and, on the return trip, of half-dazed sailors who had been doped by crimps, there was a certain superficial variety about it—a variety merely of individuals and not of kind.