"'DO SAY IT'S ALL RIGHT, JEREMIAH!'"
Jeremiah put down his load and looked at her with sad surprise. "The boat?" he repeated. "She's all safe! I was down to the wharf this mornin'. Nobody's had her out, 's I know of."
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" said Hildegarde, laughing. "I mean, is she safe for me to go in? Miss Bond said that I could go out on the river, if you said it was all right. Do say it's all right, Jeremiah!"
Jeremiah never smiled, but his melancholy lightened several shades. "She's right enough," he said,—"the boat. She isn't hahnsome, but she's stiddy 's a rock. She don't like boats, any way o' the world, but I'll take ye down and get her out for ye."
Rightly conjecturing that the last "her" referred to the boat, Hildegarde gladly followed the Ancient Mariner down the path that sloped from the garden, through a green pasture, round to the river-bank. Here she found the boat-house, whose roof she had seen from her window, and a gray wharf with moss-grown piers. The tide was high, and it took Jeremiah only a few minutes to pull the little green boat out, and set her rocking on the smooth water.
"Oh, thank you!" said Hildegarde. "I am so much obliged!"
"No need ter!" responded Jeremiah, politely. "Ye've handled a boat before, have ye?"
"Oh, yes," she said. "I don't think I shall have any trouble." And as she spoke, she stepped lightly in, and seating herself, took the oars that he handed her. "And which is the prettiest way to row, Jeremiah,—up river, or down?"
Jeremiah meditated. "Well," he said, "I don't hardly know as I can rightly tell. Some thinks one way's pooty; some thinks t' other. Both of 'em 's sightly, to my mind."