“Does she know it?”
“Not quite, captain, not yet. Look ye here, skipper, my poor old mother had a plum grow on a tree by the cottage wall, and when I was a boy I meant to have that plum. Did I go and pick it right off and eat it there and then? Nay, I set my eyes on that plum while it was young and green, and saw it grow day by day rounder and redder, and covered with soft down and riper purple, and more rich and plump, and at last, when I picked that plum, I had a hundred times more ’joyment than if I’d plucked it when I saw it first. That’s what I’m doing with little Janet, and that’s what Master Peasegood calls a parabole.”
Gil felt that he might just as well argue with a rock as with his rugged old follower, so he changed the subject.
“When will the Golden Fleece be fit for sea again?”
“It’ll be a month before they’ve got in the new keel, captain, and then she’s got to be well overhauled.”
“It will be two months, then, before we can load up?”
“Ay, all that,” was the reply. “Go on getting in the meal and bacon. Have it ready for placing in store. We must have everything ready there for putting on board.”
“Ay, ay, skipper.”
“Keep the men from going near. Let there be no hanging about the valley on any pretence. See to that with those two last lads.”
“Ay,” growled Wat. “The others can be trusted, of course.”