Thomasin slept at last and
slumbered dream-tossed in a shadow-world of fantastic troubles. Then a
sound roused her--the sound of a voice speaking loudly, breaking off to
laugh, and speaking again. The voice she knew, but the laugh she had never
heard. She started up and listened. It was her husband who had wakened her.
"How do it go then? Lard! my memory be like a fishin' net, as holds the
gert things an' lets the little 'uns creep through. 'Twas a braave song as
faither singed, though maybe for God fearers it ban't a likely song."
Then the bed trembled and the man reared up violently and roared out an
order in such words as he had never used till then.
"Port! Port your God-damned helm if you don't want 'em to sink us."
Thomasin, of whose presence her husband appeared unconscious, crept
trembling from the bed. Then his voice changed and he whispered:
"Port, my son, 'cause of that 'pon the waters. Caan't 'e see--they bubbles
a glimmerin' on the foam? That's the last life of my lil Tom; an' the
foam-wreath's put theer by God's awn right hand. He'm saved, if 'twasn't
that down at the bottom o' the sea a man be twenty fathom nearer hell than
them as lies in graaves ashore. But let en wait for the last trump as'll
rip the deep oceans. An' the feesh--damn 'em--if I thot they'd nose Tom, by
God I'd catch every feesh as ever swum. But shall feesh be 'lowed to eat
what's had a everlasting sawl in it? God forbid.
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