Nay! Have yow a glass of ale
if yow care, but no good never come on it, what I know. Leastways, not
for men that goes to the sea."
So Jack and I deferred to Sally's opinion--until nine o'clock in the
evening, and then we made up for lost time. It was amusing to see the
cool way in which the handsome lad parted from his sweetheart. They had
not met for two months, and yet I do not believe that they exchanged
kisses either at meeting or parting.
These folk are strangely undemonstrative. They are fond of each other,
and most faithful, but they show nothing. On a grim morning after a
gale, when the vessels are towing up with flags half-mast high, the
women will gather on the tow-path and by the quays; you see white, drawn
faces, but rarely a tear. The bleak, perilous life of the men seems to
be known intimately to the women, and they accept the worst fortune with
a dry pathos that is heartbreaking. Jack and his sweetheart were in the
flush of youth--nay, of physical beauty; they were passionately fond of
each other; and they parted like casual strangers.
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