“Yes; that’s where the young lady lives.”
“That’s to be on Thursday, ye sayed?”
“True; but, then, there may come a fare the morrow, an’ what if there do? ’Tain’t the painter only as wants splicin’, there’s a bit o’ a leak sprung close to the cutwater, an’ I must hae some pitch to pay it.”
If Jack’s mother would only step out, and down to the ditch where the Mary is moored, with a look at the boat, she would make him out a liar. Its painter is smooth and clean as a piece of gimp, not a strand unravelled—while but two or three gallons of bilge water at the boat’s bottom attest to there being little or no leakage.
But she, good dame, is not thus suspicious, instead so reliant on her son’s truthfulness, that, without questioning further, she consents to his going, only with a proviso against his staying, thus appealingly put—“Ye won’t be gone long, my son! I know ye won’t!”
“Indeed I shan’t, mother. But why be you so partic’lar about my goin’ out—this night more’n any other?”
“Because, Jack, this day, more’n most others, I’ve been feelin’ bothered like, and a bit frightened.”
“Frightened o’ what? There han’t been nobody to the house—has there?”
“No; ne’er a rover since you left me in the mornin’.”
“Then what’s been a scarin’ ye, mother?”