CHAPTER XVII. THE DEVIL’S CASK
One morning, about a week after the day on which the old sailor, to use his own expression, had bent a skirt on Emmeline, d**k came through the woods and across the sands running. He had been on the hill-top.
“ Paddy,” he cried to the old man, who was fixing a hook on a fishing-line, “there’s a ship!”
It did not take Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could see showers away at sea, and the sea was green and foam-capped.
There was the trying-out gear; there were the boats, the crow’s nest, and all complete, and labelling her a whaler.
