“But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?” Taffy asked, as they drove on.

Joby considered for a minute.  “Ah, you’re one to take notice, I see.  That’s right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel.”

Taffy had to think this out.  The country was changing now.  They had left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather.

“What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?”

“I don’t go on there.  I drop you at Indian Queens.”

“But what sort of place is it?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what folks say of it:” 

      ’All sea and san’s,
       Out of the world and into St. Ann’s.’

“That’s what they say, and if I’m wrong you may call me a liar.”

“And Squire Moyle?” Taffy persevered.  “What kind of man is he?”

Joby turned and eyed him severely.  “Look here, sonny.  I got my living to get.”

This silenced Taffy for a long while, but he picked up his courage again by degrees.  There was a small window at his back, and he twisted himself round, and nodded to his mother and grandmother inside the van.  He could not hear what they answered, for the sailor-boys were singing at the top of their voices: 

     “I will sing you One, O! 
      What is your One, O? 
      Number One sits all alone, and ever more shall be-e so.”

“They’re home ’pon leave,” said Joby.  The song went on and reached Number Seven: 

     “I will sing you Seven, O! 
      What is your Seven, O? 
      Seven be seven stars in the ship a-sailing round in Heaven, O!”

One of the boys leaned from the roof and twitched Taffy by the hair.  “Hullo, nipper!  Did you ever see a ship of stars?” He grinned and pulled open his sailor’s jumper and singlet; and there, on his naked breast, Taffy saw a ship tattooed, with three masts, and a half-circle of stars above it, and below it the initials W. P.

“D’ee think my mother’ll know me again?” asked the boy, and the other two began to laugh.

“Yes, I think so,” said Taffy gravely; which made them laugh more than ever.

“But why is he painted like that?” he asked Joby, as they took up their song again.

“Ah, you’ll larn over to St. Ann’s, being one to notice things.”  The nearer he came to it, the more mysterious this new home of Taffy’s seemed to grow.  By-and-by Humility let down the window and handed out a pasty.  Joby searched under his seat and found a pasty, twice the size of Taffy’s, in a nose-bag.  They ate as they went, holding up their pasties from time to time and comparing progress.  Late in the afternoon they came to hedges again, and at length to an inn; and in front of it Taffy spied his father waiting with a farm-cart.  While Joby baited his horses, the sailor-boys helped to lift out the invalid and trans-ship the luggage; after which they climbed on the roof again, and were jogged away northward in the dusk, waving their caps and singing.