‘If I might take the boys.’ She turned pale. ‘Don’t say that, Shadrach,’ she answered hastily. ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t like to hear it! There’s danger at sea. I want them to be something genteel, and no danger to them. I couldn’t let them risk their lives at sea. O, I couldn’t ever, ever!’ ‘Very well, dear, it shan’t be done.’ Next day, after a silence, she asked a question: ‘If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference, I suppose, to the profit?’ ‘’Twould treble what I should get from the venture single-handed. Under my eye they would be as good as two more of myself.’ Later on she said: ‘Tell me more about this.’ ‘Well, the boys are almost as clever as master-mariners in handling a craft, upon my life! There isn’t a more cranky place in the Northern Seas than about the sandbanks of this harbour, and they’ve practised here from their infancy. And they are so steady. I couldn’t get their steadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their age.’ ‘And is it _very_ dangerous at sea; now, too, there are rumours of war?’ she asked uneasily. ‘O, well, there be risks. Still . . . ’ The idea grew and magnified, and the mother’s heart was crushed and stifled by it. Emmy was growing _too_ patronizing; it could not be borne. Shadrach’s wife could not help nagging him about their comparative poverty. The young men, amiable as their father, when spoken to on the subject of a voyage of enterprise, were quite willing to embark; and though they, like their father, had no great love for the sea, they became quite enthusiastic when the proposal was detailed. Everything now hung upon their mother’s assent. She withheld it long, but at last gave the word: the young men might accompany their father. Shadrach was unusually cheerful about it: Heaven had preserved him hitherto, and he had uttered his thanks. God would not forsake those who were faithful to him. All that the Jolliffes possessed in the world was put into the enterprise. The grocery stock was pared down to the least that possibly could afford a bare sustenance to Joanna during the absence, which was to last through the usual ‘New-f’nland spell.’ How she would endure the weary time she hardly knew, for the boys had been with her formerly; but she nerved herself for the trial. The ship was laden with boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, fishing-tackle, butter, cheese, cordage, sailcloth, and many other commodities; and was to bring back oil, furs, skins, fish, cranberries, and what else came to hand. But much trading to other ports was to be undertaken between the voyages out and homeward, and thereby much money made. CHAPTER III