“Wonder what it means dreamin’ of them things?”
“Nothin’ good—bad weather, most like.”
“Glass is steady.”
“Well, maybe we’ll bust on a reef or somethin’.”
“Oh, shet your head!”
“Shet yours. I’m wantin’ to get asleep.”
Silence.
Ratcliffe could hear the water outside tickling the ribs of the old Sarah. A bigger swell was running, and she rose to it with balloon-like buoyancy. A score of little voices from the trickle and slap of the sea against the timbers to the click of the rudder chain marked her movements.
The idea of the ghosts chasing Jude round the dream tree reminded him of how he had chased her round the real tree and kissed her—kissed her out of irritation.
Something in his half-asleep state told him he had been a fool to do that. It was all done in play, just as a little boy might kiss a little girl; but he was not a little boy. What had prompted him?