mance. For one thing, you associated the trick
with irrepressible boyhood, and, for another, the old man squinted
slightly as he did it. As a matter of fact, he had learned it on the
Dogger Bank fifty years before; fog-bound in a dory, it was a useful
accomplishment.

Young Jarge straightened up, raised one hand in acknowledgment of the
summons, and came crunching slowly across the shingle towards the boat.
Ole Jarge sat smoking in philosophical silence till his son was beside
him. Then he removed his pipe and spat over the listed gunwale.

"'Er's daid," he observed laconically.

Young Jarge bent stiffly and tapped the seams, inside and out, much as
a veterinary surgeon runs his hand over a horse's legs.

"Ya-a-is," he confirmed, and sat down on the stem of the old boat.
"'Er's very nigh's ole 's what us be," he added, after a pause, and
began shredding some tobacco into the palm of his hand.

Ole Jarge nodded. Then he lifted his head quickly. "'Er's bound to
last 'nother year." For the first time there was concern in his voice.
Adversity does not grip the mind of the Cornish fisherfolk suddenly.
It filters slowly through the chinks of the armour God has given them.
Cornish men (and surely Cornish maids) were kind to the survivors of
the wrecked Armada. It may be that they, in their turn, bequeathed a
strain of Southern fatalism to many of their benefactors.

"'Er's bound to," repeated Ole Jarge. He got ponderously out of the
boat and removed a tattered sou'wester to scratch his head with his
thumbnail--another trick that had survived the adventurous days of the
Dogger Bank.

The unfamiliar note of anxiety in his father's voice stirred Young
Jarge. He rose to his feet with perplexity in his dark eyes,
mechanically pulling up the bleached leather thigh-boots he wore afloat
and ashore, "rainy-come-fine."

Inspiration had come, as it does to men of the West once the need is
realised to the full.

"Du 'ee mind that there li'l' ole copper boiler--what come out o'
granfer's house when 'er blawed down--back tu '98?" asked Young Jarge
slowly.

Ole Jarge nodded.

"S'pose us was to hammer 'n out flat like an' nail un down to bottom,
'long wi' oakum an' drop o' white lead--what du 'ee say?"

Ole Jarge silently measured the area of the sprunk strakes with the
stumpy thumb and little finger of an outstretched hand. Then he
puckered his forehead and stared out to sea, apparently making mental
calculations co