"So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you,
father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything--the lantern,
the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and
store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind
belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I
say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you--you--you?" Kisses here, of
course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the
light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship
and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble?
Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into
the world to be her torture and her joy?"

"Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile
before the time comes to go back."

"But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin'
to spend the night aboard."

"Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast
astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys.

"'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather
sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way--'tis all
Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask _me_," he wound up.

"'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a
woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?"

My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and
now he answered Old John: