"Yes. S'elp me bob. But I'll make a rotten Christian 'cept you helps me."
Standing with the tiller against his leg he bore up a little to clear some Barking fishing smacks ahead, then looked down at his mother where she sat beside the dinner plates and the scraps of food. The lad was sensitive, psychic, clairvoyant, and he was conscious of a strange light which surrounded his mother. He had grown and prospered in that mysterious glory. Her faith, her love, and the example of her holy life had given him some makings of real manhood. And he loved her. He worshiped her. Aye, but it would be hard to hand his worship over to a Deity he could not sense, or see, or love.
"She'll think," he said in his heart, "as I'm a bloody failure as a Christian."
Then he realized he had got to keep a better lookout or he would foul that smack on the larboard bow. The golden haze was gone, and down in the cabin the parent was howling to him to come and drink with him, to drink up manly. For the next half-hour, with a thickened utterance and slurred words, he reviled his son for a mollycoddle, a milk-sop, a mammie's darling, an 'oly prig, a sneak, a cur, a dirty coward. It was unreasonable of mother to refuse point-blank when Bill asked her to take the tiller while he gave the old man a licking. The devoted parent downstairs knew he was perfectly safe from being reproached. A string of blasphemies—all he could remember—addressed to mother, brought his remarks to an end quite inarticulate followed by loud snores.
Then mother read the Bible aloud. There were times when, having fastened her teeth into Jeremiah or Leviticus, she would not let go even to cook the meals until she had made an end. Then she was obstinate and Bill was bored, but this day she read chapters from the Gospel according to St. John. Rough was the voice, and many words were not pronounced correctly. She blundered through as best she could, and even so brought tears to the lad's eyes.
Few are the readers who can render the rhythm, the throbbing melody of this great English text, and fewer still the seers who alone have power to bring to light its modes of tender fun, of sparkling humor, of love, of awfulness, abysmal deeps, and heights illimitable. Wisdom and Understanding, Counsel, Power, Knowledge, Righteousness, and the Divine Awe, the seven rays of one clear spectrum, blend in the white light of this great revelation; and Time stands still, for all the years of Earth are numbered, spreading like ripples on a pool from this one message of the Word made Flesh.
The flaming sunset faded behind the smoke of London, the rose and violet of the afterglow waned as the indigo of night veiled all things earthly, and the heavens opened revealing high eternities of light, while still the mother spoke to her son, and he sat at the helm rapt, resolved to consecrate his life to her Master's service.
The wind slept in the high shoulder of the trysail long after the deep calm fell upon the waters, and still the tide served under the frosty starlight. Mother and son had their evening meal together on the cabin hatch. Would he have tea? Why, it was twenty shillings a pound! It could not be afforded to feed the likes of him. Still, she insisted. And although tea was an effeminate stuff which working men were ashamed to drink, Bill had some just for once. Nobody would know. Besides, it was rather nice, but still he hated being a mammie's pet.
Four miles short of Margate, with the lights of the town in the east, the tide failed, so to the last of the westerly air Bill luffed, then let the anchor go, brailed his trysail, took in the topsail and staysail, and made all snug for the night. Mother had gone to bed some time ago, and the parent was dead drunk before the sun set. Bill stood for some time smoking his father's clay pipe, unbeknown to mother, peering the while across the shallows to the loom of low chalk cliffs in Epple Bay. Here were the caves from which on the homeward passage the Polly Phemus was to ship certain casks. Smuggling, of course, and she thought it wasn't honest. It was a famous place also for prize fights, and mother hated that also. Inland, to the right, were one or two lighted windows in the village of Birchington, and the church clock was striking eleven. By the way, he must remember at Margate to warn mother about the port dues on the Reverend Binks his harpsichord. Half the strings were missing, and ninepence ought to be ample.
His boots crunched frost crystals all along the gangway as he went forward, on the port side lest he should wake his mother. Then he dropped down the fore hatch into his little private glory hole, and pulled the cover close because, as mother said, the night air is so dangerous. As to the savor from coils of tarry rope, tallow, damp clothes, spare sail, and iron-rusted chain, rats' nests, and bilge water—that was just homely. He pulled off his boots, said "Our Father which," by way of a reminder of what was due to mother, turned in under the spare jib and went to sleep.