"
"You'm a mariner, I reckon?"
"I reckon so, if ever theer was wan. An' I'll be the richer by a mate's
ticket 'fore the year's dead. But never mind me. How be you all--all well?
I thot I'd pop in an' surprise 'e."
"Cruel fashion weather for pilchur fishin' us have had--cruel fashion
weather. I knawed 'tweer comin', same as Noah knawed 'fore the flood,
'cause the Lard tawld me. 'Forty years long was I grieved wi' this
generation.' But man tries the patience o' God these days. We'm like the
Ruan Vean men: 'doan't knaw an' won't larn.'"
"Iss fay, mister, true 'nough; but tell me 'bout 'e all an'--an' my Joan.
She've been the cherub aloft for me ever since I strained my eyes glazin'
for the last peep o' Carnwall when us sailed. How be my lil Joan?"
The other started, sat up in his chair and gripped the left arm of it,
while his right hand extended before him and he jolted it curiously with
all the fingers pointing down.
"Joan--Joan? In hell--ragin', roastin' hell--screechin', I lay, like a cat
in a bonfire. 'Tis lies they'll tell 'e 'bout her. She weern't
drownded--never. The devil set sail 'pon auld Chirgwin's hayrick, so they
sez, an' her sailed 'long wi' en. But 'theer rings, they was so high that
they was dreadful, an' theer rings weer full o' eyes round about.' She'm
damned, my son--called, not chosen. 'The crop o' the bunch' they called
her--the crop o' the devil's bunch she was--no cheel o' my gettin'.
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