It is almost enough
to make him do it, to be so insulted by his own father, and disgraced
before all the village, simply because he can't help having his poor
head so full of me! Nobody shall ever say that I did anything to give
him the faintest encouragement, because it would be so very wicked and
so cruel, considering all he has done for me. But if he comes back,
when his father is out of sight, and he has walked off his righteous
indignation, and all these people are gone to dinner, it might give a
turn to his thoughts if I were to put on my shell-colored frock and
the pale blue sash, and just go and see, on the other side of the
stepping-stones, how much longer they mean to be with that boat they
began so long ago."
CHAPTER X
ACROSS THE STEPPING-STONES
Very good boats were built at this time in the south of England, stout,
that is to say, and strong, and fit to ride over a heavy sea, and plunge
gallantly into the trough of it. But as the strongest men are seldom
swift of foot or light of turn, so these robust and sturdy boats must
have their own time and swing allowed them, ere ever they would come
round or step out. Having met a good deal of the sea, they knew, like
a man who has felt a good deal of the world, that heavy endurance
and patient bluffness are safer to get through the waves somehow than
sensitive fibre and elegant frame.
But the sea-going folk of Springhaven had learned, by lore of
generations, to build a boat with an especial sheer forward, beam far
back, and deep run of stern, so that she was lively in the heaviest of
weather, and strong enough to take a good thump smiling, when unable to
dance over it.
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