again.

'"Anybody but me 'ud call you a fool, Sim," he says. "Lie down. Here
comes the Pope's Blessing!"

'The Spanisher gave us his broadside as he went about. They all fell
short except one that smack-smooth hit the rail behind my back, an' I
felt most won'erful cold.

'"Be you hit anywhere to signify?" he says. "Come over to me."

'"O Lord, Mus' Drake," I says, "my legs won't move," and that was the
last I spoke for months.'

'Why? What had happened?' cried Dan and Una together.

'The rail had jarred me in here like.' Simon reached behind him
clumsily. 'From my shoulders down I didn't act no shape. Frankie carried
me piggy-back to my Aunt's house, and I lay bed-rid and tongue-tied
while she rubbed me day and night, month in and month out. She had faith
in rubbing with the hands. P'raps she put some of her gifts into it,
too. Last of all, something loosed itself in my pore back, and lo! I was
whole restored again, but kitten-feeble.

'"Where's Frankie?" I says, thinking I'd been a longish while abed.

'"Down-wind amongst the Dons--months ago," says my Aunt.

'"When can I go after 'en?" I says.

'"Your duty's to your town and trade now," says she. "Your Uncle he died
last Michaelmas and he've left you and me the yard. So no more iron
ships, mind ye."

'"What?" I says. "And you the only one that beleft in 'em!"

'"Maybe I do still," she says, "but I'm a woman before I'm a Whitgift,
and wooden ships is what England needs us to build. I lay it on ye to do
so."

'That's why I've never teched iron since that day--not to build a toy
ship of. I've never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of
evenings.' Simon smiled down on them all.

'Whitgift blood is terrible resolute--on the she-side,' said Puck.

'Didn't you ever see Sir Francis Drake again?' Dan asked.

'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never
clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of his
mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning
shifts and passes he'd worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands,
but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him
knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell
to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings,
having set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone that
way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in
his hand like