Sunday morning found Hudson at the boatyards. It was late enough in the morning that sunlight brought out every chip and peel in pea-soup green paint. Black eyes scanned the lines of the boat underneath the paint, and scarred hands tested the wood at various spots. Despite the ugliness and worn condition of the paint, the wood was sound, with none of the spongy feel that would indicate wet rot. It had been scraped of barnacles before being taken up for the winter.
Beautiful Gertrude was the name painted neatly on the prow, and Hudson winced once again when he reached the lettering. ??Tis a terrible name for ye, mo sg?imheachd. L?ir Mothan ye?ll be, and before th? next month be out if I?ve any say in it.? A hand rested lightly on the wood of the dory as he looked at the boat with possessive pride. She was a note of unadulterated joy in the cold gray day.
It was the lines of her that had first caught his attention among so many similar boats. She couldn?t compete with the large ships for elegance, but her draft was deep enough to be safe on the sea, and shallow enough to go upriver. She looked in large part like his Sweet Moira, and the memory of the boat that he had invested so much time in, along with her namesake, washed a brief look of loss across his face.
Determined not to spend the day with gloom weighting his shoulders, Hudson closed his eyes, then opened them to focus once more on the dory. He could see her as she would be already. Crisp white paint with trim of dark blue, and the lettering of her name spelled out elegantly. When he had asked Sianna for advice, she had referred him to Johnny?s sister, Juliane. Juliane was quite the artist and would easily be able to give the words the grace they deserved.
L?ir Mothan ? it translated to ?Eyes of Violet? and Hudson smiled at the memory which gave him the name. In the spring, when the boats were able to begin fishing again, the bog violets and heather would just begin to bloom. The fishermen set out before the sunrise, and dawn would find them on the water. To the north of the loch were cliffs, and the south was wooded until the village. The west led into a channel to the open ocean, and the waters there were treacherous, especially at the changing of the tides. But to the east, the land sloped up gently and turned to peat bog and moors.
The rising sun would turn the sky from midnight to steel-gray, and then on to the brightening blue of full daylight, when the boats would turn back to shore. Shards of pink and orange would meet and clash with purple clouds. And with the creak of the oars or the snap of raised sail and a clean wind blowing from the east, the violets looked up at the sky and carried the scent of home.
((If you?re curious what a bog violet looks like, there is a picture here ))
Beautiful Gertrude was the name painted neatly on the prow, and Hudson winced once again when he reached the lettering. ??Tis a terrible name for ye, mo sg?imheachd. L?ir Mothan ye?ll be, and before th? next month be out if I?ve any say in it.? A hand rested lightly on the wood of the dory as he looked at the boat with possessive pride. She was a note of unadulterated joy in the cold gray day.
It was the lines of her that had first caught his attention among so many similar boats. She couldn?t compete with the large ships for elegance, but her draft was deep enough to be safe on the sea, and shallow enough to go upriver. She looked in large part like his Sweet Moira, and the memory of the boat that he had invested so much time in, along with her namesake, washed a brief look of loss across his face.
Determined not to spend the day with gloom weighting his shoulders, Hudson closed his eyes, then opened them to focus once more on the dory. He could see her as she would be already. Crisp white paint with trim of dark blue, and the lettering of her name spelled out elegantly. When he had asked Sianna for advice, she had referred him to Johnny?s sister, Juliane. Juliane was quite the artist and would easily be able to give the words the grace they deserved.
L?ir Mothan ? it translated to ?Eyes of Violet? and Hudson smiled at the memory which gave him the name. In the spring, when the boats were able to begin fishing again, the bog violets and heather would just begin to bloom. The fishermen set out before the sunrise, and dawn would find them on the water. To the north of the loch were cliffs, and the south was wooded until the village. The west led into a channel to the open ocean, and the waters there were treacherous, especially at the changing of the tides. But to the east, the land sloped up gently and turned to peat bog and moors.
The rising sun would turn the sky from midnight to steel-gray, and then on to the brightening blue of full daylight, when the boats would turn back to shore. Shards of pink and orange would meet and clash with purple clouds. And with the creak of the oars or the snap of raised sail and a clean wind blowing from the east, the violets looked up at the sky and carried the scent of home.
((If you?re curious what a bog violet looks like, there is a picture here ))