But he did learn to love the boy; and therein appeared the divine vengeance--ah! how different from human vengeance!--that the outbreak of unrighteous wrath reacted on the wrong-doer in shame, repentance, and love. CHAPTER XXXI. At length the boat was calked, tarred, and painted. One evening as Annie entered the workshop, she heard Curly cry, "Here she is, Alec!" and Alec answer, "Let her come. I'm just done." Alec stood at the stern of the boat, with a pot in one hand, and a paint-brush in the other; and, when Annie came near, she discovered to her surprise, and not a little to her delight, that he was just finishing off the last E of "THE BONNIE ANNIE." "There," said he, "that's her name. Hoo de ye like it, Annie?" Annie was too much pleased to reply. She looked at it for a while with a flush on her face: and then turning away, sought her usual seat on the heap of spales. How much that one winter, with its dragons and its heroes, its boat-building and its rhymes, its discomforts at home and its consolations abroad, its threats of future loss, and comforts of present hope, had done to make the wild country child into a thoughtful little woman! Now who should come into the shop at the moment but Thomas Crann!--the very man of all men not to be desired on the occasion; for the boys had contemplated a certain ceremony of christening, which they dared not carry out in the presence of the stone-mason; without which, however, George Macwha was very doubtful whether the little craft would prove a lucky one.--By common understanding they made no allusion to the matter, thus postponing it for the present. "Ay! ay! Alec," said Thomas; "sae yer boat's bigget at last!" He stood contemplating it for a moment, not without some hardly perceptible signs of admiration, and then said: "Gin ye had her out upon a muckle water, do ye think ye wad jump oot ower the side o' her, gin the Saviour tauld ye, Alec Forbes?" "Ay wad I, gin I war richt sure he wantit me." "Ye wad stan' an' parley wi' him, nae doot?" "I bude (behoved) to be richt sure it was his ain sel', ye ken, an' that he did call me." "Ow ay, laddie! That's a' richt. Weel, I houp ye wad. I aye had guid houps o' ye, Alec, my man. But there may be sic a thing as loupin' into the sea o' life oot o' the ark o' salvation; an' gin ye loup in whan he doesna call ye, or gin ye getna a grip o' his han', whan he does, ye're sure to droon, as sure's ane o' the swine that ran heedlong in and perished i' the water." Alec had only a dim sense of his meaning, but he had faith that it was good, and so listened in respectful silence. Surely enough of sacred as well as lovely sound had been uttered over the boat to make her faithful and fortunate!