"What time be it high tide?" asked Granfer. "'Bout ten, en' it?" "Had us better haul the boats up over?" said Tony. "Tides be dead, en't they?" "No-o-o," replied Uncle Jake. "They 'en making." "'Tis goin' to blow, I tell 'ee," said Granfer. "See how brassy the sun's going down. Swell coming in too. Boats up be boats safe." "Hould yer bloody row," said John. "What be talking 'bout? Plenty o' time to haul up if the sea makes." "All very well for yu," Tony protested, "living right up to Saltmeadow. If the sea urns up to the boats in the night yu won't be down to lend a hand, no, not wi' yer own boats. 'Tis us as lives to the beach what has to strain ourselves to bits hauling your boats up over so well as our own." "Let 'em bide, then!" "Looks dirty, I say," said Granfer. "Might jest so well haul up as bide here talking about it. _I_ shan't sleep till I knows the boats be all right." "Thee't better lie awake then. An't got no patience wi' making such a buzz afore you wants tu." With that, John shouldered his coat and strode homewards. [Sidenote: _JOHN WIDGER_] The rest of us pulled the boats up, John's included, till their stems touched the sea-wall, and we placed the two sailing boats, John's and Tony's, close beside the steps, handy for hauling up over if need should be. Tony and Granfer went in house. Uncle Jake watched them go with an ironical smile on his wrinkled old face. "Don't like the looks o' this yer lop on a ground-swell," he said. "There! Did 'ee see how thic sea licked the baych? Let one o' they lift yer boat.... My zenses! 'Tis all up wi' it, an' I should pick it up in bits, up 'long, for firewood.--Well, John's gone home along...." John is the youngest, handsomest and most powerfully built of the Widgers; the most independent, most brutal-tongued and most logical, though not, I fancy, the most perceptive. The inborn toughness, the family tendency to health and strength, which made fine men of the elder Widgers in spite of their youthful exposure and privations, has, in the case of John who underwent fewer hardships, resulted in the development, unimpeded, of a wonderful physique. "Never heard o' John being tired," says Uncle Jake.