The Old Ship outlasts its Owner 97 



furrows and ' lands.' So that the cargo had need to be 

 firmly placed in the hold. 



Every now and then she goes into dock and gets a new 

 streak of paint and a thorough overhauling. The running 

 rigging of the harness has to be polished and kept in good 

 condition, and the crew are rarely idle if the captain knows 

 his business. You should never let your ' fo'castle ' hands 



loll about ; the proverb about the and the idle hands 



is notoriously true aboard ship, and in the stables. 



How many a man's life has centred about the waggon ! 

 As a child he rides in it as a treat to the hay-field with 

 his father ; as a lad he walks beside the leader, and gets 

 his first ideas of the great world when they visit the market 

 town. As a man he takes command and pilots the ship 

 for many a long, long year. When he marries, the 

 waggon, lent for his own use, brings home his furniture. 

 After a while his own children go for a ride in it, and play 

 in it when stationary in the shed. In the painful ending 

 the waggon carries the weak-kneed old man in pity to and 

 from the old town for his weekly store of goods, or may- 

 hap for his weekly dole of that staif of life his aged teeth 

 can hardly grind. And many a plain coffin has the old 

 waggon carried to the distant churchyard on the side of 

 the hill. It is a cold spot — as life, too, was cold and hard ; 

 yet in the spring the daisies will come, and the thrushes 

 will sing on the bough. 



Built at first of seasoned wood, kept out of the weather 

 under cover, repainted, and taken care of, the waggon 

 lasts a lifetime. Many times repaired, the old ship oat- 

 lasts its owner — his name on it is painted out. But that 

 step is not taken for years : there seems to be a supersti- 

 tious dislike to obliterating the old name, as if the dead 

 would resent it, and there it often remains till it becomes 



n 



