“Anny, lass, I would speak with thee; wilt harken?”
Hal put the question timidly as he looked across at his sweetheart.
They were alone in the Ship’s kitchen; Hal re-sanded the floor while
Anny sat on the window-ledge cleaning a pair of old brass candlesticks.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and the cold, watery sun shot a
few last rays of yellow light over the Island before it sank down behind
the mainland. Inside the kitchen it was warm and beginning to get dark,
for the fire had been allowed to die down to a few smouldering red and
white embers, and it was yet too early to light the dips. Outside in the
yard Anny could see her little brother talking to old Gilbot, who had
wrapped himself up in a seaman’s jacket, and had stepped out to taste
the air.
The old man was fond of children, and Anny sighed with relief as she saw
the strange pair--Red still wore his costume of the night before--take
hands and after some animated talk walk off together down the road in
the direction of the sea, laughing as they went.
Hal made up the fire with logs which he had been drying on the hearth,
and crossed the room and stood beside the window-ledge just in front of
the girl, before he spoke again.
“Will you harken to me?” he repeated.
Anny looked up, smiling. “Harken to thee, Hal?” she said. “Why, certes,
thou needst not look so solemnly; why should I not harken to thee?”
The boy did not speak for a moment but stood fidgeting before her.
Anny put down the candlestick which she was cleaning, and slipping off
the window-ledge led him over to the fireplace, where she sat down on
one of the long, high-backed seats and pulled him down beside her.
“Do you want to tell me you don’t want to marry me?” she asked half
jestingly, half anxiously, as she leaned her little round head with its
long black plaits on his shoulder.
Hal turned to her in great astonishment.
“Marry, lass! How can ye be so cruel as to judge me so?” he said. “Of
course not!”
“Oh, the saints be praised for that,” said the girl quaintly. “Lord, how
you fear’d me, Hal,” she added, kneeling up on the seat to kiss him.
The boy put his arm round her.
“Anny,” he said quietly, his face grave and old for one of his years,
“you’re terrible young yet, seventeen ain’t you?” The girl nodded,
uncertain as to what was coming yet. “Ah, well, you ain’t had time to
grow wise, have you?” he continued, still holding her on the seat beside
him.
“I reckon you ain’t had much more, Hal,” she said, laughing. “You’re but
eighteen, ain’t you?”
Hal blushed.
“Ay, maybe,” he said. “But I know what I’m telling you.”
Anny kissed him lightly on the forehead.
“I’m harkening,” she said.
Hal opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again; then he withdrew
his arm from about her waist and stood up.
Anny looked at him in astonishment not unmixed with fear.
“Why, what in the world is the matter with ye, lad?” she said. “You
don’t want to go for a sailor, do you?”
The boy shook his head violently, and Anny began to feel alarmed.
“Whatever will you be worrying about next?” she said.
Hal stepped toward her, and putting a hand on her forehead pushed her
head back until she looked into his eyes.
“You--you--you’re not loving the Spaniard, lass?” he blurted out,
ashamed of the words as soon as he had spoken them.
Anny looked at him for a moment, uncertain whether to be offended or to
laugh.
“Hal, I’m ashamed that you should be such a child,” she said, a little
smile hovering round her mouth. “Why should I love any one but you?”
The boy appeared to be satisfied, for he laughed and kissed her, but
then he added, “I don’t like the Spaniard, lass. I wish you wouldn’t
hark to his swaggerings.”
Anny turned round.
“Hal, you wouldn’t have me ill-tempered to the customers?” she said as
she picked up the half-cleaned candlestick and set to work on it again.
Hal thrust his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight from one
foot to the other.
“Nay, lass, of course not. I would not bid you be uncivil, but, truth, I
thought you liked the foreigner’s big talk and notice of you. I----”
“He is a pleasant gentleman,” said the girl, “but, Lord! I mark not half
he says.”
“You’d not let him kiss you, Anny?”
Hal spoke sharply and Anny looked up in amazement.
“Mother of Grace,” she ejaculated, “for what do you take me?”
The boy was beside her in a moment.
“Forgive me, lass,” he said, “I did but want ye to promise to have no
dealings with the foreigner--I--love you so, see?”
“Oh!” said Anny, laughing as she straightened her hair after his
embrace. “No one would suspect you of kissing a lass before, Hal. You
can’t be knowing how strong you are.”
“That’s as may be, but will you promise to have no truck with the
Spaniard?” the boy persisted.
“Ay, of course I promise,” Anny sighed at his distrust as she spoke. Hal
kissed her again, then walked over to the fireplace and stood for some
moments, resting his head on the wooden ledge below the chimney-piece
and staring down into the smoky crackling fire.
He felt that he had appeared ridiculous in Anny’s eyes, and his young
blood revolted at the thought. In vain he tried to comfort himself with
the thought that it was only his love for her which made him so anxious,
but the idea that she must think him merely jealous would force itself
on his mind, making him uncomfortable. However, he knew that the Captain
might be a formidable rival so he said nothing else at the time.
Anny sat on the window-ledge, rubbing the candlestick with more energy
than was necessary.
She was hurt that Hal should think her such a light-o’-love, but all the
same she thrilled with pleasure to think that he was jealous of anybody
because of her. It gave her such a pleasant feeling of ownership and, as
she reflected happily, she was very fond of him.
Suddenly she paused to listen. Coming down the road she could hear the
scrunching of heavy wagon wheels. She looked up at the old horologe on
the chimney-piece.
“That won’t be Master French yet awhile, will it?” she said.
“Eh?” Hal pushed his hand over his forehead and turned to her. “I don’t
hear any one,” he said, “and it wouldn’t be him yet; the roads ain’t
safe before dark nowadays.”
Anny sat still for a moment.
“There is someone,” she cried, as a tumbril drawn by a piebald gelding
turned into the yard.
Hal stepped across to the window and looked out over the girl’s head.
“Oh! ’tis Cip de Musset,” he said, as the man in the tumbril climbed out
and pushed back the oiled flaps of his head-covering from his face. “I
warrant he brings the rum from the brig.” He opened the door and went
out bare-headed into the yard.
Anny watched him through the window, saw him greet the man heartily, and
then look into the cart at the other’s invitation.
“Right!” she heard him say, “six of rum and three of Canary. Here, John
Pattern.”
A man came out of one of the stables. Hal said something to him which
she could not catch. The man nodded and led the horse into a corner of
the yard, where he proceeded to unload the cart.
The man of whom Hal had spoken as Cip de Musset was tall, long-legged,
and loosely built, with a black beard which curled down onto his chest.
He stepped up to the inner door with Hal, and then stopped and went back
to the cart as though he had forgotten something. After groping under
the sacking coverings for a while he pulled out a fair-sized bundle tied
up in a piece of sail-cloth, and with this under his arm, came back to
the door where Hal was waiting for him. As he crossed the yard he caught
sight of Anny peering through the window and smiled at her, showing a
set of enormous yellow teeth.
Anny tossed her head and turned away from the window, and picking up the
two candlesticks carried them off to the first guest-chamber where they
belonged.
When she returned, the sail-cloth bundle was lying on the table, and Hal
and Cip de Musset were sitting together by the fire, the latter drinking
hot rum.
“Good-morrow, fair one,” grinned the visitor as he looked up, “there’s
somewhat on the table for thee.”
His clothes proclaimed him a sailor, and his manners were free and easy.
“For me?” Anny looked first at the bundle and then over at Hal who was
watching her covertly.
“And--er--and who will it be sent from, Master de Musset?” she said at
last.
Cip de Musset laughed.
“Open it, lassie,” he said, “open it and see.”
Anny, nothing loath, pulled at the knots, and pushed back the
sail-cloth; underneath was a white linen covering.
Hal rose to his feet and in spite of himself craned his neck to see.
The other man got up and stood beside the girl, looking down at the
bundle. The arrival of a parcel was an unusual occurrence at the Ship.
Anny fingered the linen for a moment, and then with a deft movement of
her little brown hand switched it off. She gave a gasp of surprise, and
putting out her hands held up a piece of Lyons silk. It was of a pale
honey colour and of a texture not unlike taffeta. She shook out the
glistening sheet and held the piece high up to her chin. The effect made
even Hal gasp. Cip de Musset put his tankard down on the table and
stepped back a few paces to look at her.
“That’s right, lassie, just a bit nearer the window,” he said.
Anny obeyed, as proud as a snake of its new skin, and stood so that the
little remaining light might fall upon her.
Cip rested his huge hairy hands on his hips and leant back a little, his
head on one side, and one eye shut.
“By the Lord, but you’re as fair as a new figurehead, lass,” he said
approvingly.
Anny looked down and laughed with delight. She had never seen such stuff
before, and the blood rushed to her face as she saw Hal’s expression of
amazed admiration as he stared at her. With a little sigh she folded up
the silk and returned to the bundle. It contained a letter, a piece of
green frieze, and a little carved box. Anny laid aside the letter and
the box, and looked at the frieze; there seemed to be a great deal of
it.
Cip stepped forward to help her, and taking one end walked over to the
door, while she, holding her side, went to the fireplace, yet the strip
sagged in the middle to the floor.
“Two new kirtles and a pair of galligaskins for Red,” thought the girl,
as she wound up the cloth, and turned her attention to the box.
Cip de Musset nudged Hal, and jerked his thumb in her direction.
“Look how the lassie plays with new toys,” he whispered.
Hal turned away sharply, frowning angrily.
Cip stared at him in amazement and then, shrugging his shoulders, looked
across at the girl.
Anny had not noticed Hal’s expression, and Cip’s face broke into smiles
again as he watched her. She was trying to open the little wooden box,
her face was flushed, and she was breathing quickly with childish
excitement. At last she gave it up, and, turning to Cip, offered it for
him to open. The sailor wiped his hands carefully on his
green-and-yellow neckerchief before he took the box gingerly between his
thumb and forefinger. After turning it over once or twice he tried his
strength on the tightly fitting lid and jerked it off, and held it out
to the girl.
Anny took it eagerly and gave a little cry of delight as she examined
the contents.
“Marry! Hal, I prithee, see!” she laughed as she pulled out a long
string of polished amber beads and put them over her head. “And, oh,
look you! look you!” she exclaimed, holding out a brooch about the size
of a large oyster, which was of painted porcelain with a silver border
studded with brilliants. “Oh, and see! Look, look, Hal! why don’t you
look?” she went on as she pulled first one trinket after another out of
the little wooden box and held it up for their inspection. Suddenly she
paused, and putting in her hand very carefully brought out a little
carved-wood elephant, brought no doubt from the East by some traveller.
“Oh, what a mannikin,” she exclaimed, fingering the exquisite
workmanship in wonderment. “Look ’ee, Hal, whatever will it be?”
Hal looked down at the little figure as she stood before him, the carved
bauble lying in the palm of her small brown hand, and sighed.
“Oh!” he said, as he picked up the elephant and looked at it
quizzically. “I reckon ’tis some heathen image.”
Anny snatched it away from him and held it tightly.
“Oh! nay,” she said almost pleadingly, “‘tis not, indeed, or anyway ’tis
marvellous dainty.”
Cip stepped forward heavily and looked over her shoulder.
“Oh! nay,” he said at last, “‘tis not a heathen image; ’tis a moulding
of a beast.”
Anny looked pleased.
“What fine little beasts they must be,” she observed.
“Ah, yes,” said Cip, nodding his head sagely, “wonderful fine little
beasts.”
Anny laughed happily, and turned to the silk-and trinket-strewn table.
“Oh, won’t I be fine!” she exclaimed, flinging out her arms as though to
embrace the table’s load.
Hal grunted.
“Hadn’t you better look at the sealed paper?” he said sulkily.
But Anny was too overjoyed to notice his tone.
“O marry! I forgot,” she exclaimed with a little excited giggle, as she
picked up the square envelope and broke open the red seal.
“Ah!” said she, as she studied the large flourishing script within.
Cip shot a covert glance at Hal and then hid his smile in his tankard.
“Ah!” said Anny again, turning the paper over.
Hal became impatient.
“Well, lass?” he said, rising.
Anny blushed, and then thrust the paper in his hand.
“Thou knowest I cannot read, Hal?” she said. “Wilt decipher it for me?”
Hal took it willingly, although with some show of indifference, and
holding the paper at arms’ length, read it carefully through to himself.
“Plague upon it all!” he exclaimed.
Anny looked at him anxiously.
“What does it say?” she said, looking over his shoulder.
Hal flushed.
“I’ll not tell thee,” he said angrily.
“Oh!” Anny’s tone expressed disappointment, and old Cip de Musset, who
had been preparing himself to hear another man’s letter, looked up.
“Oh! nay, lad, nay,” he said solemnly, “tell the lass her own letter.
Ay, marry, now you must, to be honest.”
Hal frowned.
“To be honest?” he said, puzzled.
“Ay, to be honest.” Cip was emphatic. “For if you don’t, lad, you alone
will know the matter in the letter, which, look you, is not yours but
the lass’s. Taking is taking whether it be goods or fine phrases,” he
concluded, wagging his head sagely.
Hal shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, then, harken,” he said, and began to read sulkily and at a great
pace:
“Into the lap of the fair lady who holdeth the whole heart of a
great sailor in her sweet keeping, these fineries and divers other
useful objects are munificently poured.
“Prithee deck thyself, wench, for the delight of thy noble and
honourable admirer--Dick Delfazio, Captain of the _Coldlight_.”
“Did ever you hear such sithering foolishness?” he concluded.
But neither Anny nor Cip was looking at him; at the last words of the
letter they had turned to each other in mutual surprise and admiration.
“Ah!” said old Cip, leaning back on his bench. “Wonderful way he has wi’
words and wenches. Damn me if they two don’t go pretty well together,”
he added thoughtfully.
Anny sighed with delight and turned to Hal.
“Oh! isn’t it a fine letter,” she exclaimed happily. “Will I have to
write one back?”
Hal looked up, and the expression on his boyish face made her pause in
her happiness, and turn to him anxiously.
“Anny Farran, what are you making of yourself?” he began slowly, his
young imagination magnifying the occasion until he felt himself the
injured lover leading his frail betrothed away from the pretty walks of
folly.
Anny looked at him in wonderment and he went on:
“Anny, are you tending to accept these--these fripperies, like a common
serving-wench, and worse?”
Anny blushed and started; then she looked from her lover to the table
and back again.
“Not take them?” she said, her mouth drooping a little at the corners
and her eyes growing larger and very bright.
“Of course not!”
Wrapped in the blanket of his youthful virtue the boy felt no sympathy
for the despairing glance which the pathetic little girl in front of him
cast at her shabby, much-stained kirtle and well-mended bodice.
Anny swallowed something in her throat and blinked her eyes once or
twice, her long dark lashes becoming spiky and blacker than before. Then
she laughed a little unnaturally and rubbed her hand awkwardly down the
sides of her skirt.
“Oh, of course not,” she said, laughing still on a strange high pitch,
as she gathered up the finery and put it carefully back into the
sail-cloth covering. “Of course not,” she repeated mechanically, never
allowing her fingers to stray over the smooth soft surface of the silk
or to play amongst the amber beads or ivory ornaments. “There,” she said
at last as the last trinket was slipped into the little box, and she
looked round, the bright colour still in her cheeks and the forced smile
on her lips. “Oh! and the little beast?” she said half questioningly,
half agreeing, as she picked up the little carved elephant and looked at
it wistfully.
“And the little beast,” said Hal firmly.
Anny sighed and slipped it in with the others, then tied up the
sail-cloth with a firm hand.
“Master de Musset,” she said a little unsteadily, “would you be kind
enough to--to take this back to the Captain and say I can’t accept it?
Say--say of course not,” she added.
Cip de Musset rose to his feet, bewilderment on his face as he looked
from one to the other of the two young people.
“Say you sent it back?” he said at last, turning to the girl. “Nay, say
he sent it back,” he added, jerking his thumb in Hal’s direction.
Anny stepped forward quickly and laid her hand on his arm, anxiety
written in her very posture.
“Oh, nay! I pray you, Master de Musset, say I sent it back,” she said
eagerly. “I beg of you to tell my message rightly.”
Cip looked into her earnest little face and smiled.
“All right, lassie,” he said. “But,” he added, his voice and face
becoming suddenly grave, “you have a care how you anger Black’erchief
Dick. You young ones--you’re sweethearts, too, ain’t you?”
“Yes, but you won’t say,” Anny spoke quickly and Cip shook his head.
“Oh, no!” he said, grinning. “I won’t say. I be going.”
He moved over to the window and looked out.
“Here be Ezekiel French just drove up,” he remarked.
Anny looked up at the clock.
“Mother o’ Grace!” she ejaculated, “I have forgot to call Mistress Sue,”
and she ran out of the door and up the stairs to the little room which
she and Sue shared.
Hal picked up the sail-cloth bundle and handed it to Cip, who took it
without a word and went out into the yard. He stood talking to French
some minutes and then walked over to his cart.
“Poor little lassie,” he muttered as he climbed into the tumbril and
turned the piebald gelding out of the gate. “Poor little lassie,” he
repeated. “Lord, ain’t we particular when we’re young.” He looked at the
bundle on the floor behind him and shrugged his shoulders. “This here
Black’erchief Dick and all,” he concluded, sighing and whipping up his
horse.
* * * * *
Big French stood in the Ship yard talking to Hal and old John Pattern,
the ostler. He leaned lazily against the shaft of his wagon, an arm
stretched out over the back of one of the horses. The wagon was half
full of mysterious sacking-covered bales and little round casks, the
first containing silk and the other tobacco.
“Have ye got them ten trusses’ straw I bespoke, Hal?” French was saying,
the barley stalk he was chewing moving up and down in his mouth.
“Ay, in the barn; that on the right is yourn,” Hal replied readily.
Big French looked at John Pattern enquiringly. The old man grinned.
“That’ll be all right, sir,” he said, pocketing the coin which the big
man had given him.
“You’ll cover the stuff well up?” French enquired. “Undo the first five
truss and spread it over the stuff and then put the rest, bound up,
atop, you know how.”
The man nodded.
“Ain’t been on the Island for sixty-seven years for nothing,” he said,
winking one bright blue eye.
French laughed.
“Maybe,” he said, “but you never can tell when the roads will get
dangerous again. What with footpads whom I fear not and excise folk
whom I do--you never know,” and he shrugged his shoulders, and soon
added, a smile breaking over his handsome face, “but, Lord, it’s all in
the trade, so what’s the use of talking?”
He turned away with Hal, and John touching his cap went off to the
barn--a long low building on the left of the Ship.
“I’m taking that dog Blueneck and his mate Coot along wi’ me,” French
remarked, as he and Hal neared the kitchen door. “You ain’t seen them up
here yet, I suppose?”
Hal shook his head as he lifted the latch.
“No,” he said, “but they’ll come, don’t you fear, the sniffling Spanish
rats.”
French laughed and was about to reply, but as his eyes fell upon
Mistress Sue who had stepped to the door to meet them, the words died on
his lips, and he grinned sheepishly.
In the kitchen the dips had been lighted, the fire had got up, and all
round the hearth was bright and cheerful.
Sue followed and stood in front of him.
Anny sat in her usual place at the window. She was sewing the buttons on
an old coat of Gilbot’s, and several times she pricked her fingers, and
then hastily dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, but otherwise
she was very still and no one else in the room noticed her.
Hal went to draw a noggin of rum for French, and while he was away, the
door opened, and Blueneck and Habakkuk Coot came in.
French, who had just formed a complete sentence to open conversation
with Sue, scowled at the intruders, turned his back on the astonished
girl, and stared into the fire. Perhaps it was the wisest thing he could
have done, for Sue, as she bustled off to attend to the two sailors,
began to think about him, a thing she had not done seriously since that
evening when Black’erchief Dick first came to the Ship.
It was strange, she thought. Usually Big French seemed so pleased to see
her, so ready to laugh with her, so childishly shy when she spoke
directly to him, and she found herself thinking with pleasure of that
evening when Gilbot had interrupted him in a most important question.
She laughed to herself. Ah! that was before the advent of the Spaniard.
Ah! the Spaniard! she sighed, and then flushed hotly at her own
thoughts. What was the Spaniard to her? A man who was not even
interested in her. She tossed her head, but all the same she sighed
again before she put the tankards down before the two shipmates of the
_Coldlight_, and returned once more to the young giant at the fireside.
“Master French,” she said, planting herself before him, “would you get
me a thing or two at the market?”
French beamed at her.
“Anything,” he said jerkily, as though the word had been released from
captivity, “or everything,” he added suddenly and earnestly.
Sue did not understand him and she looked down in surprise.
“Everything?” she repeated.
French blushed, opened his mouth, shut it again, then he cleared his
throat noisily. “Everything you wish, mistress,” he said finally,
inwardly cursing his shyness.
Sue perched herself on the table in front of him and enumerated the odds
and ends that the Ship required.
Anny looked at the pair shyly from out her corner.
“Ah! but how much of the flannel, mistress?” French was saying.
“Six ells an it pleases you,” Sue replied.
Anny gulped and applied herself industriously to her sewing.
Just then the door opened and John Pattern put in his smiling head.
“Master French,” he called.
French, who had just begun to enjoy himself, looked up with another
scowl.
“All’s ready,” said John, “and, if you’s going to get to Tiptree afore
eleven, ye better start.”
“Right!” French rose to his feet with a sigh and walked to the door.
“Come on,” he said to the two sailors who were looking round anxiously.
Habakkuk sniffed noisily and happily, his pale, bilious little face
positively shining with excitement as he got up hastily and trotted to
the door, Blueneck following.
The rest of the company followed out into the yard to see the
adventurers safely off the premises.
It was a sharply cold, clear frosty night, with a mist hanging low over
the marshes. There was no wind and the place was very silent. The sky
was clear and thickly sprinkled with stars and the moon, nearly full,
shed a white ghostly glow over the countryside.
Old John Pattern, a large box lantern in his hand, hovered hither and
thither like some old and bluff will-o’-the-wisp.
French walked round the wagon to make sure that everything was in order.
Then he climbed up on to the shaft and perched himself on the
driving-seat, which consisted of a board nailed flat on the front of the
wagon.
“Come on, if you are coming at all,” he called to Blueneck, who
scrambled into the one remaining seat beside him.
“Hi, where shall I go?” said Habakkuk, sniffing and hopping about in his
anxiety.
French shrugged his shoulders.
“Best get up on to the straw atop,” he said.
Habakkuk climbed on to the hub of the wheel and with Hal’s help got
safely on to the straw where he lay quite still.
“Ready?” said French, and then turned the horses about without waiting
for an answer, and drove out of the gate amidst the jests and farewells
of the onlookers.
“You won’t forget the flannel?” Sue called after him.
French’s deep, pleasant voice rang back through the thin, cold air:
“Rather would I forget the wagon, mistress.”
Sue laughed.
“There’s a new gown on the way,” she said with a sigh of satisfaction as
she went back to the kitchen.
Anny gulped and Hal, turning at that moment, saw her disappointed little
face in the moonlight. She looked at him so sorrowfully without
speaking, and then went into the Inn.
He was about to follow her but checked himself; he began to realize a
little how much she cared for pretty things and what she had given up
with the sail-cloth bundle. Pushing his hands into his pockets he walked
out of the gate and down the road to the sea, his chin on his breast. He
had not gone very far before he met old Gilbot stumping along alone.
The old man hailed him cheerily and bade him go down to fetch little Red
who, he averred, was scooning stones on the clear sea. “No one obeys
me,” he concluded with a chuckle. “I can’t make the young one come. Go
fetch him, Hal.”
He waddled off, smiling and talking to himself.
Hal walked on in deep thought, kicking the stones in the road with his
clogs.
Anny was fond of pretty fripperies and ornaments; she liked to be
admired and looked at, and would have kept the sail-cloth bundle for its
own worth, without a thought for the giver.
Hal kicked at a stone savagely, and swore loudly. He was eighteen and as
bitter against the world as it is possible to be at that age. He
remembered Anny’s little white face in the moonlight as Big French drove
off, Sue’s request in his ears, and her disappointed, sorrowful glance
at him before she returned to the kitchen. He had reached the sea by
this time and he stood for a moment peering out over the mist-ridden
water. “If only I had money,” he thought. “Lord!”
Staring out into the white moonlit vapour he saw Anny in her
honey-coloured silk, her eyes bright and her lips a little parted, just
as he had seen her that afternoon. Then he saw himself beside her, no
longer a deputy landlord and everybody’s errand boy, but a man of
importance in a new blue cloth coat with silver buttons and a ruffle in
the sleeves. He was holding her hand and they were married.
“Oh! if only I had money!” the words escaped from his mouth like a
groan, and he shivered involuntarily, almost afraid of his own voice;
everything around him was so shadowy and unreal.
“Hal Grame, is that you? Oh! how you frightened me.” The voice seemed to
start from the pebbles at his feet and he sprang back in alarm, crossing
himself.
“Who’s there?” he said sharply.
“Only me and Win.” Red Farran got up from the bank of seaweed where he
had been sitting and put a little wet hand into Hal’s.
“Why do you want money?” he said. “Win an’ me want money, too.”
Hal looked down at the fantastical little figure before he answered:
“Why do I want money----?” he began, his voice rising with silly, sweet,
half-theatrical boyish passion; then he checked himself and shrugged his
shoulders. “Oh, nothing,” he said.
Red looked at the sea.
“It’s too dark to scoon stones,” he remarked. “How many times can you
make one hop? I made one go nine times once in smooth water,” he added
modestly.
Hal vouchsafed no answer, and Red sat down again on a bank of seaweed.
“Here’s Win,” he said softly as he fumbled in his ragged clothes and
brought out the kitten, now quite dry but very sleepy, and hugged it up
to his neck.
“If we had money wouldn’t we eat a lot and be happy?” He squeezed the
kitten a little harder and the unhappy animal squealed sleepily. Red
laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I think so, too.”
There was silence for a few minutes save for the gentle lapping of the
water and the scrape of moving pebbles as the waves rolled them up and
down on the shore.
“Money’s very useful, isn’t it?” said Red at last.
“Ay,” Hal replied fervently.
“Master Gilbot said that, too,” went on the child as he pitched a stone
and waited to hear the gentle “plop” which it made as it reached the
water.
Hal looked up.
“What did he say?” he asked.
Red screwed up his face in thought.
“I forget,” he said, “it was something about leaving the Ship to a man
who had money.” He tossed another stone, then turned his attention to
the kitten.
“A man with money,” said Hal. “What man?”
“Oh! any man, I suppose,” said Red vaguely, stroking the cat’s fur up
the wrong way.
“Any man with money,” repeated Hal to himself; then he began to laugh
loudly, unnaturally, and very high.
Red clapped his hands over his ears and the kitten snuggled into his
chest.
“Don’t do that, Hal,” he said imploringly, “it’s just like Nan when she
sees Pet Salt.”
Hal stopped and pulled himself together.
“Best be getting back,” he said, and started off along the lane.
The child got up without a word and trotted after him, the kitten
wrapped safely in the folds of his kirtle-cloak.
Hal did not think about the boy; he strode along, his eyes on the
ground.
“I will get money,” he whispered to himself. “I’ve never had any. I’ve
never had aught to give her, and women be capricious and whimsical. They
care for that foolery. Before God I swear some day I’ll own the Ship,
and, oh, you holy Saints, let me keep her till then.”