At that great word I saw Martin’s blue eyes glisten like the sea when the sun is shining on it; and then, seeing me for the first time, he turned back to old Tommy and said: 

“I s’pose you lets women go with you when you’re out asploring—­women and girls?”

“Never a woman,” said Tommy.

“Not never—­not if they’re stunners?” said Martin.

“Well,” says Tommy, glancing down at me, while his starboard eye twinkled, “I won’t say never—­not if they’re stunners.”

Next day Martin, attended by William Rufus, arrived at our house with a big corn sack on his shoulder, a long broom-handle in his hand, a lemonade bottle half filled with milk, a large sea biscuit and a small Union Jack which came from the confectioner’s on the occasion of his last birthday.

“Glory’s waiting for me—­come along, shipmate,” he said in a mysterious whisper, and without a word of inquiry, I obeyed.

He gave me the biscuit and I put it in the pocket of my frock, and the bottle of milk, and I tied it to my belt, and then off we went, with the dog bounding before us.

I knew he was going to the sea, and my heart was in my mouth, for of all the things I was afraid of I feared the sea most—­a terror born with me, perhaps, on the fearful night of my birth.  But I had to live up to the character I had given myself when Martin became my brother, and the one dread of my life was that, finding me as timid as other girls, he might want me no more.

We reached the sea by a little bay, called Murphy’s Mouth, which had a mud cabin that stood back to the cliff and a small boat that was moored to a post on the shore.  Both belonged to Tommy the Mate, who was a “widow man” living alone, and therefore there were none to see us when we launched the boat and set out on our voyage.  It was then two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was shining, and the tide, which was at the turn, was beginning to flow.

I had never been in a boat before, but I dared not say anything about that, and after Martin had fixed the bow oar for me and taken the stroke himself, I spluttered and plunged and made many blunders.  I had never been on the sea either, and almost as soon as we shot clear of the shore and were lifted on to the big waves, I began to feel dizzy, and dropped my oar, with the result that it slipped through the rollocks and was washed away.  Martin saw what had happened as we swung round to his rowing, but when I expected him to scold me, he only said: 

“Never mind, shipmate!  I was just thinking we would do better with one,” and, shipping his own oar in the stern of the boat, he began to scull.

My throat was hurting me, and partly from shame and partly from fear, I now sat forward, with William Rufus on my lap, and said as little as possible.  But Martin was in high spirits, and while his stout little body rolled to the rocking of the boat he whistled and sang and shouted messages to me over his shoulder.