not know it at the time, Jim’s falling asleep was the best thing that could have happened. You cannot think of someone as a stranger when you have seen him sprawling asleep across your supper table. There was a smile in Mother’s eyes when she looked at their new friend after that. Big though he was, with his schooldays behind him, she was thinking of him much as she thought of John. Those few minutes when, with his head among the plates, he had been thinking he was still steering the Goblin through the night, had somehow made him one of the family.
Presently they were talking as if they had known him all their lives, and he had told them to call him Jim and not to bother about the “Mr Brading.” Nor was it only John, Susan, Titty and Roger who asked questions. Mother asked them too, and Jim, waking up with the help of the soup and Miss Powell’s beautiful omelette, found himself talking of his first long voyages with his uncle, and of how gradually his uncle had let him do more and more of the work of the ship, and of how at last he had given him the Goblin for his own, on condition that now and then, when his rheumatism let him, he might join her again and be crew for her new skipper.
“Jolly good uncle,” said Roger.
“He is,” said Jim. “You see I left Rugby last term and I had a bit of luck with a scholarship to Oxford, and he promised her to me if I did. Not much rheumatism about him either. That was only his joke. He’s coming cruising next week.”
Not another word had been said about their spending a night in the Goblin. Perhaps, they were thinking, it had been just politeness when Jim Brading had said he didn’t see why they shouldn’t, so there was really nothing to be disappointed about. And then, suddenly, the offer was made again, and Mother was there to hear it, and somehow, now, after Jim’s falling asleep on the table, it sounded different, more real, more as if it were meant, more possible altogether.
“What are you going to do till he comes?” asked Roger.
“Hang about,” said Jim. “And look here, I meant what I said. Why shouldn’t you join for a few days? I can cram in four of you. . .”
“Sleeping on board,” said Titty. “Oh, Mother. . .”
“They’d love it, of course,” said Mother, “but I can’t let them go just now. Their father’s on his way home, and we’ve come here on purpose to meet him at Harwich, and I can’t meet him and have to explain that most of his family’s gone off to sea.”
“I wouldn’t take them to sea,” said Jim. “There’s the Orwell and the Stour and Harwich harbour. If you’ll let me have them for three days there’s lots we could do without ever going outside the Beach End buoy.”
“I say, Mother, couldn’t we?” said John.
“He’s got an engine,” said Roger.
“You go right down into a real cabin,” said Titty.
“I’ve four proper bunks,” said Jim. “The only trouble is I’m a bit short of bedding. I’ve only got blankets for two. . . But I’m sure I could borrow some. . .”
“Roger!”
But Roger was out of the room already, and the higher notes of eager talk could be heard from the other end of the passage. Almost at once he was back.
“Miss Powell says it’s quite all right,” he said. “We can take the blankets off our beds.”
“Oh, Roger!” laughed Mother. “I never said you could ask her. I really can’t take the risk. We may get a telegram from Daddy any day, and you don’t want to miss being at Harwich to meet him.”
“But you said you didn’t think he could be here before Saturday?” said Titty.
“And what if Saturday comes and you are all floating about on the river?”
Jim Brading looked round the table at the eager faces of his would-be crew. He had made that first suggestion almost in fun, but now it did seem rather a pity if they couldn’t come. He rather liked the idea of having for once a crew a little younger than himself.
“If you say when you want them to be back, I’ll promise they shall be at Pin Mill in plenty of time,” he said. And then, “We could report by telephone every day, from Ipswich, or Felixstowe Dock, or Shotley, wherever we happened to be. . .”
“Can’t I go too?” said Bridget.
“You’re not old enough,” said Mother, “and there isn’t room for you anyway.”
John half jumped up from his chair.
“She’s going to say ‘Yes,’” he almost shouted.
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” said Bridget. “I’ve been growing up as fast as I can.”
“I’m not asked, either,” said Mother. “And, Bridget, somebody’s got to stay and take care of me.”
“I could sleep in the cockpit all right,” said Jim doubtfully, “but even if I did there wouldn’t really be room for six.”
“No. No. No,” said Mrs Walker. “I didn’t mean that. Bridget and I have a lot to do. But, mind you, I haven’t said they can come. . .”
“But you’re going to,” said Roger.
“Daddy always says, ‘Grab a chance and you won’t be sorry for a might-have-been,’” said Titty.
“We’d learn an awful lot,” said John.
“I’m going to sleep on it,” said Mother. “And Mr Brading must sleep on it too. He may wake wiser in the morning and not want to clutter his boat up with a cargo of children.”
“Mother!” said Susan who, so far, had not put in a word.
But Mother was not to be moved. “We’ll sleep on it,” she said, “and think about it again in the morning. . . if he hasn’t sailed away in a hurry to be rid of you. And now, Bridget ought to be in bed, and so ought Mr Brading. . . Remember he was at sea all last night.”
“We’ll see him off,” said Roger, as Jim Brading, who at the thought of sleep was once more feeling his eyes closing, got up and thanked Mrs Walker for his supper.
It was growing dark outside, very dark, and they used their pocket torches to find the Imp, and to help Jim Brading to launch her off the hard.
“Thank you very much for letting us come on board,” said John.
“Thank you,” said Jim Brading.
Not one of them, not even Roger, said a word about joining the Goblin. They felt, somehow, that it would not be fair. Mother had said that he was to sleep on it, and sleep on it he must.
“Good night!” they called as he pushed off.
“Good night!” he called back.
The four of them stood on the hard in the darkness as he rowed away. It was a still, quiet night, and they heard his oars long after they could no longer see him. Then they heard a slight bump and the noise of oars came to an end.
“He
