Script quote on a forearm

Your boat went out past the Gannet Rocks at first light and I stood on the harbour wall until the sail was a grey thumbprint. Mrs Pellow asked if you had taken the good oilskins, and I said you had taken whatever Father left on the hook, which is the truth. Don't argue with me. The gull-marked oar is back in the shed where you left it, and I have not touched it.

You will be wondering about the money. Forty crowns sit in the tin under the loose flagstone, the same tin Mother kept for rent. I took twelve of them for the Fennick boys' passage to Carrick Hollow, since their mother came to the door asking and you would have done the same. Don't scold me for that either. Blood makes a person related, but it was the Fennicks who sat up with us the winter the fever came, and I call that loyalty. I reckon you'd agree if you weren't so set on being stubborn.

The wind has been from the west all week, which means the Carrick packet will be late and Captain Vell will curse the tide tables in the Anchor. I have written down every rumour I hear of your ship, though there have been none yet. I have been practising the signal lamp on the chapel roof, two short flashes and one long, so you know we are still here when you round the point.

If the lamp goes dark some night, it will only be because I have fallen asleep on the roof with my boots on, not because I have stopped looking. Light it again in the morning. I will see it.