This served as an introduction, and for half an hour the conversation proceeded briskly. Then Mrs. Godstone rose.
"My husband's leg is very painful this morning," she said, "and I fear that he will have to keep his bed for the next two or three days. When he is well enough to lie down on the sofa I will come down and fetch your son, for Mr. Godstone is of course anxious to see him, and I am afraid that if I do not come round myself we shall not get Jack to the inn."
"Well, that was not so very bad, was it, Jack?" Mrs. Robson asked after her visitors had left.
"No, mother, it wasn't. You see, it was ever so much better their coming here than it would have been if I had gone to the inn, because there was you for them to talk to, so that really there was not much said to me. If it had been at the inn there would have been nothing to talk about at all, except about the wreck. Well, now that is over I will go down and see how the bawley is; but I had best change my things first. Uncle was going to get her up as high as he could at the top of the tide, so as to be able to look at her keel."
Jack found that his uncle and Tom had turned out at three o'clock in the morning, and had got the Bessy as high up as possible on the sloping shore, just beyond the houses. They were standing beside her now, while Benting, the local boat-builder, was examining her bottom.
"Well, Jack, you have taken it out in sleep this morning," his uncle said.
"That I have, uncle. I never woke until eight o'clock, so I had just twelve hours' sleep."
"Nothing like a good sleep, Jack, when you have had a hard day's work; and yesterday was enough to take it out of anyone."
"Is she damaged at all?" Jack asked.
"Yes, her forefoot is sprung just where it joins the keel; she came down just on the joint."