“Well; an’ what if’t be?”
“Because I may be too late.”
“Too late for what? Surely you arn’t goin’ out again the night?” She asks this, seeing him rise up from his chair.
“I must, mother.”
“But why?”
“Well, the boat’s painter’s got frailed, and I want a bit o’ whipcord to lap it with. They have the thing at the Ferry shop, and I must get there afores they shut up.”
A fib, perhaps pardonable, as the thing he designs lapping is not his boat’s painter, but the waist of Mary Morgan, and not with slender whipcord, but his own stout arms.
“Why won’t it do in the mornin’?” asks the ill-satisfied mother.
“Well, ye see, there’s no knowin’ but that somebody may come after the boat. The Captain mayent, but he may, changin’ his mind. Anyhow, he’ll want her to go down to them grand doin’s at Llangowen Court?”
“Llangowen Court?”