"It is a strange thing, Roger, but methinks that, whereas most men behave valiantly enough when it comes to blows with an enemy, a great proportion are but cowards with their wives."
"But why should they be, father?"
"That is an easy question to ask, Roger, but a difficult one to answer. Maybe you will understand the matter better, some day, when you have taken a wife to yourself. In some matters there is no doubt that women's wits outrun those of men, and that they have a wonderful sharpness of tongue. Now a man, when things go wrong with him, speaks out loudly and roundly; he storms and he rages, but when it is over, there is an end of it. Now a woman is not like that. She seems to ponder the matter over in her heart, and to bring it out as it were piecemeal--throwing little darts at you when you don't expect it; saying little things to which, from their suddenness, you can find no reply; and pricking you furiously all over, until you are ready to roar out with pain and vexation. You see, Roger, a prick hurteth more than a great cut."
"I should not have thought that, father."
"That is because you have not thought the matter over, Roger. In that fight with the Moors many of the men were sorely cut and wounded, but you heard no cry from them; they only set their teeth the harder, and smote more furiously upon their foes; but there was no one of them all but, had he sat down suddenly on a small nail, would have roared out like a bull, and have sworn lustily for a good half hour. So it is in domestic matters: the man rages and storms when things go wrong; and his wife, if she be a woman of judgment, holds her peace until it is over, knowing well enough that he will be at her mercy, afterwards. Then she sets to work, like those gnats that came on board at Genoa, that they call mosquitoes, and startles him with shrill buzzings in his ears, and pricketh him in the tenderest spots she can find; drawing but the smallest speck of blood, but causing an itching that makes him ready to tear his flesh.
"Your mother, Roger, was one of the best of women. She was a good housewife, and an affectionate. I do not know that I ever saw her greatly ruffled in temper, but there were times when I would fly from my house, and not come up from my work on board, until it was time to go straight away to bed, so did she prick and sting me with her tongue; and that not shrilly or with anger, but with little things, let slip as it were unawares, and with an air of ignorance that they in any way applied to me.
"No, Roger, if you will take my advice you will make your ship your mistress. She will have her ways, but you will learn them, and will know just how much helm she requires, and how the sail should be trimmed; but with a woman no man attains to this knowledge, and if you take my advice, you will give them a wide berth.
"I know," he went on, in answer to Roger's merry laugh, "that this is a matter in which no man will trust to other experience than his own. Every man who takes a woman to wife thinks that he can manage her, and goes into the matter with a light heart, as if it were a mere pleasure excursion on which he is embarking; whereas, in truth, it is a voyage as full of dangers and perils as that upon which we are about to adventure.
"Now let us turn back to our lodging, for I have nearly gone on my face four times already, in these deep ruts and holes. I would that the councilors of this town could see the streets of Genoa, or Cadiz, or Amsterdam! They might then try to mend the ways of Plymouth, and make them somewhat less perilous to passengers, after dark."
Work began in earnest upon the following day. A number of shipwrights were set upon the hull of the Swan, which was to be thoroughly overhauled, caulked and pitched, within and without. The masts and rigging were to be carefully looked to, and every defect repaired. A new suit of sails was ordered, the old ones to be patched where the Moorish shot had torn them, so as to be of use as a second suit, did any misadventure happen to the others.