to be out of oilskins and walking to meeting-house on the Sunday, and
standing up there with the congregation, all singing in company,
and the women taking stock of you till the newness wore off; and the
tea-drinking, and Band of Hopes, and courants, and dances.
We had all the luck of these; for the two Pendlurians, being up in
years and easily satisfied so long as they were left quiet, were
willing to take their holidays in the dull months, beginning with
February and March. And so I had April and May, when a man can
always be happy ashore; and August and September, which is the best
of the fishing and all the harvest and harvest games; and again,
December and January, with the courants and geesy-dancing, and carols
and wassail-singing. Early one December, when he came to relieve us,
Old John said to me in a haphazard way, "It's all very well for me
and Robert, my lad; for us two can take equal comfort in singin'
'_Star o' Bethl'em_' ashore or afloat; but I reckon 'tis somebody's
place to see that Bathsheba don't miss any of the season's joy an'
dancin' on our account."

Now, Bathsheba had an unmarried aunt--Aunt Hessy Pendlurian we called
her--that used to take her to all the parties and courants when Old
John was away at sea. So she wasn't likely to miss any of the fun,
bein' able to foot it as clever as any girl in the Islands. She had
the love of it, too--foot and waist and eyes all a-dancing, and body
and blood all a-tingle as soon as ever the fiddle spoke. Maybe this
same speech of Old John's set me thinking. Or, maybe I'd been
thinking already--what with their May-game hints and the loneliness
out there. Anyway, I dangled pretty close on Bathsheba's heels all
that Christmas. She was comely--you understand--very comely and
tall, with dark blood, and eyes that put you in mind of a light
shining steady upon dark water. And good as gold. She's dead and
gone these twelve years--rest her soul! But (praise God for her!)
I've never married another woman nor wanted to.

There, I've as good as told you already! When the time came and I
asked her if she liked me, she said she liked no man half so well:
and that being as it should be, the next thing was to put up the
banns. There wasn't time that holiday: like a fool, I had been
dilly-dallying too long, though I believe now I might have asked her
a month before. So the wedding was held in the April following, my
father going out to the Gunnel for a couple of