"It be my boat, mates. Thank God and my little girl. It be my boat, thank God!"
And then Tris was at the slip, and the anchor down and all the men were as eager about the new craft as a group of horsemen could possibly be about the points of some famous winner. Tris had to tell every particular about her builder and her building, and as the fishers were talking excitedly of these things, Joan gave a general invitation to her friends, and they followed her to the cottage, and heard the St. Penfer _News_ read, and had a plate of junket[5] and of clotted cream.
And they were really proud and glad of what they heard. Denas had made herself so beloved that no one had a grudging or, envious feeling. Everyone considered how she had come back to them as if she had been penniless; "and teaching our little ones too--with sixteen hundred pounds at her back! Wonderful! Wonderful!" said first one and then another of the women. Indeed, if Denas had thought out a plan to make herself honoured and popular, she could hardly have conceived of one more in unison with the simple souls she had to influence. They could not sleep for talking about it. Denas Penelles was a veritable romance to them.
"And fair she was and fair she be!" said Mary Oliver, a good woman, with not a pinch of pride in her make-up. "And if Tris Penrose win her and she win him, a proper wedding it will be--a wedding made by their guardian angel. I do think that." And the group of women present answered one and then another, "A proper wedding it will be, to be sure."
In the evening there was a great praise-meeting at John's cottage; for in St. Penfer all rejoicing and all sorrow ended in a religious meeting. And Denas and Tris sang out of the same hymn-book, and sat side by side as they listened to John's quaintly eloquent tribute to the God "who did always keep faith with His children." "I was like to lose sight of my God," he cried, "but my God never did lose sight of me. God's children be well off, He goes so neighbourly with them. He is their pilot and their home-bringer. I did weep to myself all last night; but just as His promise says, joy did come in the morning." And then John burst into song, and all his mates and neighbours with him.