A sailor would say the Alba is a trifle down by the head; only a sailor could notice it. The Alba is heavily fortified with wood and iron around and between the bows. But all water and stores will first be used from the foremost tanks, then she will ride the waves like a sea-bird.
How delightful the breeze! how pleasant the sunshine! and the Alba herself appears to feel the importance of the charge she has on board of her, and is proud in consequence. She nods and curtsies to each passing wave, kisses some, turns coyly away from others, and altogether behaves as if she really were the thing of life the sailors on board half imagine she is.
“So gaily goes the ship,
When the wind blows free.”
Chapter Twenty Three.
An Adventurous Voyage—“They’re Coming! They’re Coming!”
From the very day on which Lady Alwyn stepped on board the Alba, and joined the search for her lost son, and for tidings, however meagre, of the good ship Kittywake, a new life seemed to spring up within her. She seemed at once to have lost what she did not hesitate to call her narrow-mindedness.