‘He couldn’t fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the cabin, he stood mazed like by the tiller, playing with a apple.
‘“My Sorrow!” says my Aunt; “d’ye see that? The great world lying in his hand, liddle and round like a apple.”
‘“Why, ’tis one you gived him,” I says.
‘“To be sure,” she says. “’Tis just a apple,” and she went ashore with her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts.
‘Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin’ trade, we met Mus’ Stenning’s boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that the Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English, and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs’ backs. Mus’ Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece, knowin’ that Mus’ Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk a great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin’ at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in.
‘“Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon,” says Frankie, humouring her at the tiller. “I’ll have to open that other one your Aunt foretold of.”
‘“The Spanisher’s crowdin’ down on us middlin’ quick,” I says.
‘“No odds,” says Frankie, “he’ll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt say I was to lie quiet in my grave for ever?”
‘“Till my iron ships sailed dry land,” I says.