The Cruise of the Shining Light. Duncan Norman

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      “No, no!” cries I. “None o’ that, now!”

      “You’ll not listen!” she pouted.

      “’Twill never do, maid!”

      “An you’d but hear me, child,” she complained, “I’d ’splain–”

      “What about your God?”

      She turned demure–all in a flash. “I’ll ask Un,” said she, most piously. “You–you–you’ll not run off, Dannie,” she asked, faintly, “when I–I–shuts my eyes?”

      “I’ll bide here,” says I.

      “Then,” says she, “I’ll ask Un.”

      The which she did, in her peculiar way. ’Twas a ceremony scandalously brief and hurried. Once I caught (I thought) a slit in her eye–a peep-hole through which she spied upon me. Presently she looked up with a shy little grin. “God says, Dannie,” she reported, speaking with slow precision, the grin now giving place to an expression of solemnity and highest rapture, “that He ’lows He didn’t know what a fuss you’d make about a little thing like a kiss. He’ve been wonderful bothered o’ late by overwork, Dannie, an’ He’s sorry for what He done, an’ ’lows you might overlook it this time. ‘You tell Dannie, Judy,’ says He, ‘that he’ve simply no idea what a God like me haves t’ put up with. They’s a woman t’ Thunder Arm,’ says He, ‘that’s been worryin’ me night an’ day t’ keep her baby from dyin’, an’ I simply can’t make up my mind. She’ll make me mad an she doesn’t look out,’ says He, ‘an’ then I’ll kill it. An’ I’ve the heathen, Judy–all them heathen–on my mind. ’Tis enough t’ drive any God mad. An’ jus’ now,’ says He, ‘I’ve got a wonderful big gale blowin’ on the Labrador, an’ I’m near drove deaf,’ says He, ‘by the noise them fishermen is makin’. What with the Labradormen an’ the woman t’ Thunder Arm an’ the heathen ’tis fair awful. An’ now comes Dannie,’ says He, ‘t’ make me sick o’ my berth! You tell Dannie,’ says he, ‘t’ take the kiss an’ be done with it. Tell un t’ go ahead,’ says He, ‘an’ not be afeared o’ me. I isn’t in favor o’ kissin’ as a usual thing,’ says He, ‘for I’ve always ’lowed ’twas sort o’ silly; but if you don’t mind, Judy,’ says He, ‘why, I can turn my head.’”