We can do
the same."
"Granted that you can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has her
thwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe a
dozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business,
I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools we
shall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' to
all the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match a
passel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and Ann
Pengelly--"mothers of long families."
They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this way
and that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew.
There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. con._
to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizes
in his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth men
had been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave up
racing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old Roper
Retallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth on
Regatta Day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 went
with no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name of
Tremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thick
in the waist.
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