"Tom," she said, "you're crushin' him, you great, awkward man!" And she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the baby's face--a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though. "There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender! Eh, Tom, but he kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your father, and you his very image!" That was pretty stiff. "I declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of everything"--and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on shore before that, kicking and fisting--all for the sea and the boats; the man of him! Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too-- 'Sunday's child is full of grace . . .' And--the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'! Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world, an' not down." "If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship." "So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you, father-in-law!" She moved about examining everything--the lantern, the fog-signals and life-buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind belongin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you--you--you?" Kisses here, of course: and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to live in a lightship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble? Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into the world to be her torture and her joy?" "Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile before the time comes to go back." "But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin' to spend the night aboard." "Halloa!" I said, and looked towards Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys. "'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly towards my father. "But once in a way--'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask _me_," he wound up. "'Once in a way'!" cried Bathsheba. "And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?" My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John: