And now, all being ready, he unhitched the painter, or, as he said, "slipped our cable," and we glided out into midstream.
"A ship," he said thoughtfully, "always has a name. What shall we call this one? Last time we were 'pirates' and she was the Black Death—"
"Never mind last time, Imp," I broke in; "to-day she is the Joyful Hope."
"That doesn't sound very 'pirate-y,' somehow," he responded with a disparaging shake of the head, "but I s'pose it will have to do."
And so, upon that summer morning, the good ship Joyful Hope set sail for the "Land of the Heart's Delight," and surely no vessel of her size ever carried quite such a cargo of happiness before or since.
And once again "Scarlet Sam" stamped upon the "quarter-deck" and roared orders anent "lee shrouds" and "weather braces," with divers injunctions concerning the "helm," while his eyes rolled and he flourished his "murderous cutlass" as he had done upon a certain other memorable occasion. Never, never again could there be just such another morning as this—for two of us at least.
On we went, past rush and sedge and weeping willow, by roaring weir and cavernous lock, into the shadow of grim stone bridges and out again into the sunshine, past shady woods and green uplands until at length we "cast anchor" before a flight of steps leading up to a particularly worn stone gateway surmounted by a crumbling stone cross.
"Why," exclaimed the Imp, staring, "this is a church!"
"Imp," I nodded, "I believe it is?"
"But to-day isn't Sunday, you know," he remonstrated, seeing it was our intention to land.