"He've the hull of a young whale," said Jonathan; "an' afore this v'y'ge is out he'll have the heart of a bear."
Toby chuckled.
"Ay—maybe!" said he.
"You will!" Archie declared.
Well, now, you must know that it is not uncommon to fall in with a timid lad on the coast: a lad given a great deal to music and the making of ballads, and to the telling of tales, too. Such folk are timid when young. It is no shame. By and by they harden to their labour, the softer aspiration forgotten. And then they laugh at what they used to do. I have sometimes thought it a pity. But that's no matter now.
Bill o' Burnt Bay knew this lad—knew his weird, sad songs, and had bellowed them in the cabin of the Cash Down—
"Oh, the chain 'e parted,
An' the schooner drove ashore;
An' the wives of the hands
Never seed un any more—
No more:
Never seed un no mor-or-or-ore!"
It was a song weird and sad enough for a little lad like Toby Farr to make. Before a bogie-stove in the forecastle of a schooner at anchor, Toby Farr could yarn of foul weather in a way to set the flesh of a man's back creeping with fear; but it was told of him at Jolly Harbour, and laid to the sad songs he made, that in a pother of northeasterly weather he was no great hand for laughter.
"'Tis Toby's first season at the ice, Bill," said Jonathan. "Eh, Toby?"