CHAPTER XXVII
THE "STAR OF THE SEA"
There was a vast crowd assembled down where the extemporized pier jutted into the creek, and where the new fishing-boat, perfect in all her equipments, lolled and rolled on the heaving of the tide. Her high mast made an arc of a circle in the warm June air, as the soft, round wavelets lifted her; and many was the comment made on her by those whose eyes had never rested but on the tarred canvas of the coracle.
"She has a list to port!" said an old mariner, critically.
"Where's yer eyes, Jur?" cried another. "Don't ye see she lanes to stabbord?"
"I'll bet dhrinks all round she's level as the althar," said a third.
"'Twill take six min to navigate her," cried an old salt, who had been around the world.
"'T is aisy to get 'em for the big wages the priest is offering."
"How much?" cried a mariner from Moydore.