It was the tail of the afternoon watch. Because of the light and shifting airs the Seamew, in spite of her wonderful sailing qualities, had only then raised the northern extremity of the Cape and, turning on her heel, was now running out to sea again on the long leg of a tack into the southeast.
Horry hung to the spokes of the wheel while the skipper was helping Orion make up the manifest. The steersman had jettisoned his usual quid of tobacco when the girl approached him, and without that aid to complacency Horry just had to talk.
"Did you see the wheel jerk then, miss? That tug to sta'bo'd is the only fault I find with this here schooner. She's a right tidy craft, and Cap'n Tunis is a good judge of sailing ships, as his father was afore him.
"But although this Seamew looks like a new craft, she isn't. Sure, he knowed she wasn't new, Cap'n Tunis did, when he bought her up there to Marblehead. Only trouble is, he didn't seem to go quite deep enough into her antecedents, as the feller said. He bought her on the strength of her condition and the way she sailed on a trial trip."
"Well, isn't that all right?" asked his listener. "How would one go about buying a ship?"
"Huh—ship? Well, a schooner ain't a ship, Miss Bostwick. Howsomever, buying a schooner is like buying a race horse. You want to know his pedigree. They said the Seamew had been brought up from the Gulf to sell. And maybe she was. But she is Yankee built, every timber and rope of her. She warn't built down South none."
"Shouldn't that make the bargain all the more satisfactory?" queried the girl, smiling.
"Ordinarily, yes, ma'am. But it looks like they was hidin' something. It looks like, too, she was built for sailing and fishing, not to be a cargo boat."
"I think she is beautiful."
"She is sightly, I grant ye," said Horace. "But there's something to be considered 'sides looks when a man is putting his money into a craft. As I say, her pedigree oughter be looked up. What was the schooner before they changed the slant of them masts, painted her over, and put a new name under her stern?"