"Thank'ee," said the captain. "I'll carry it myself. It's only a comb."
They climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on
the summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to look down at the
beautiful sea. Suddenly the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and
cried, "Never knew such a right thing in all my life!"--and ran away.
The cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little
Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and
kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the
time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he
was out of sight and waiting. He stole within sight at last, and saw the
lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving
slowly among the trees. It was the golden time of the afternoon then,
and the captain said to himself, "Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails,
golden leaves, golden love, golden youth,--a golden state of things
altogether!"
Nevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion
before going out of sight again. In a few moments more he came up and
they began their journey.
"That still young woman with the fatherless child," said Captain Jorgan,
as they fell into step, "didn't throw her words away; but good honest
words are never thrown away. And now that I am conveying you off from
that tender little thing that loves, and relies, and hopes, I feel just
as if I was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the
long nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose moustaches get
up nearer to his eyes the wickeder he gets."
The young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles; but he smiled when
the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went
along in right goodfellowship.
CHAPTER V {1}--THE RESTITUTION
Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of Lanrean
under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the King
Arthur's Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he
beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a
stranger. A glance at this stranger assured the captain that he could be
no other than the Seafaring Man; and the captain was about to hail him as
a fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the
captain, and the captain stood still, silent, and wondering before them.
"Why, what's this?" cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence.
"You two are alike. You two are much alike. What's this?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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