[The old lady's prophecy is in a fair way to come true, for now the
Panama Canal is finished, one end of it opens into the very bay where
Sir Francis Drake was buried. So ships are taken through the Canal, and
the road round Cape Horn which Sir Francis opened is very little used.]

'"And if I'm not?" he says.

'"Why, then," she says, "Sim's iron ships will be sailing on dry land.
Now ha' done with this foolishness. Where's Sim's shirt?"

'He couldn't fetch no more out of her, and when we come up from the
cabin, he stood mazed-like by the tiller, playing with a apple. '"My
Sorrow!" says my Aunt; "d'ye see that? The great world lying in his
hand, liddle and round like a apple."

'"Why, 'tis one you gived him," I says.

'"To be sure," she says. "'Tis just a apple," and she went ashore with
her hand to her head. It always hurted her to show her gifts.

Him and me puzzled over that talk plenty. It sticked in his mind quite
extravagant. The very next time we slipped out for some fetchin' trade,
we met Mus' Stenning's boat over by Calais sands; and he warned us that
the Spanishers had shut down all their Dutch ports against us English,
and their galliwopses was out picking up our boats like flies off hogs'
backs. Mus' Stenning he runs for Shoreham, but Frankie held on a piece,
knowin' that Mus Stenning was jealous of our good trade. Over by Dunkirk
a great gor-bellied Spanisher, with the Cross on his sails, came rampin'
at us. We left him. We left him all they bare seas to conquest in.

'"Looks like this road was going to be shut pretty soon," says Frankie,
humourin' her at the tiller. "I'll have to open that other one your Aunt
foretold of."

'"The Spanisher's crowdin' down on us middlin' quick," I says. "No odds,"
says Frankie, "he'll have the inshore tide against him. Did your Aunt
say I was to be quiet in my grave for ever?"

'"Till my iron ships sailed dry land," I says.

'"That's foolishness," he says. "Who cares where Frankie Drake makes a
hole in the water now or twenty years from now?"

'The Spanisher kept muckin' on more and more canvas. I told him so.

'"He's feelin' the tide," was all he says. "If he was among Tergoes
Sands with this wind, we'd be picking his bones proper. I'd give my
heart to have all their tall ships there some night before a north gale,
and me to windward. There'd be gold in My hands then. Did your Aunt say
she saw the world settin' in my hand, Sim?"

'"Yes, but 'twas a apple,"