Never mind, the barque was launched on the fathomless deep, the summer breeze filled her sails—which, by the way, had been made out of a piece of an old shirt of the boy’s father’s—and she breasted the billows like a thing of life.
Then as those three young inseparables rushed madly and delightedly along the bank to keep abreast of the ship, never surely was such whooping and barking and scray-scraying heard in the woods before.
But disaster followed in the wake of that bonnie barque on this voyage. I suppose the helmsman forgot to put his helm up at an ugly bend of the river, so the wind caught her dead aback. She flew stern-foremost through the water at a furious rate, then her bows rose high in air, she struggled but for a moment ere down she sank to rise no more, and all on board must have perished!
When I say she sank to rise no more I am hardly in alignment with the truth.
The fact is, that although Ransey Tansey could easily have made another ship with that knife of his, he was afraid he could not requisition some more shirt for sails.
“Oh, I ain’t agoin’ to lose her like that, Bob,” said Ransey.
Bob was understood to say that he wouldn’t either.
“Admiral, ye’re considerabul longer nor me in the legs and neck; couldn’t ye wade out and make a dive for her?”
The crane only said, “Tok!”
By this time Ransey was undressed.