Fine line script tattoo reading Hope, with a small heart in place of the o, in black ink on the top of a foot.

Hope script on the top of a foot

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a bare foot with the word Hope written in flowing cursive script across the top. A small heart sits within the o, and the linework is thin and dark. The ink is black against pale skin, with a dark, out-of-focus background behind the foot.

Fine line Lettering Other Hope Script Heart Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada, you asked in your last letter whether the sea has taught me anything, and I have settled on one word, though I would not say it aloud on deck because Mr Pardoe thinks it bad luck to speak it before a landfall. The word is painted across the stern of the Hope, in black letters as tall as a man, and it was old Harrow who lettered it in Bristol the spring I signed on. He used a brush finer than a cat's whisker, and when he had finished the flourish of the P he sat back on his heels and said his wife had made him promise a small heart in the loop of the O. Nobody on the quay thought it worth the trouble, but he did it anyway, a tiny red-brown heart the size of a farthing.

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We lost the top of the stern in the gale off the Horn, when the sea came green over the quarter and took the rail, and for three weeks the name was only a ghost of salt and scraped paint. Lying in harbour at Valparaiso, I borrowed Harrow's brush from his chest, which he had left me with a grumble, and mixed lamp-black with linseed on a tin lid. My hand shook at first. By the fourth morning the H stood proud again, and I found I was taking far more care over that little heart than the job needed. Pardoe came up the ladder to see what the banging was and stood looking at it for a long time without saying anything, which from him is a kind of blessing.

We raise the Mersey on Thursday if the wind holds, so tell Mam the O still has its heart. I have kept the lines thin on purpose, Ada, so the word does not weigh the stern down. Harrow says a thing done lightly lasts longer than a thing done heavily, and I suppose that applies to more than paint. I will be home before the weather takes it again, and if it does, I will climb up and do it over myself. Your brother, Tom.