“Go home quick!” she whispered. “I know him. He’ll come at you or me next, if you vex him now. Can you walk? Quick, then, go home.--Here, Anna, see he gets back safe.” Miles found himself in the orchard, dragging painfully, easing his weight by the gun. At each halt the girl eyed him strangely. On the slope above the house he suddenly lay down. “Rest a minute,” he explained through clinched teeth. “I live down there--you needn’t come.” The tawny hillside swam. His foot seemed to shrink and swell, with alternating torture. “A thorn’s in your cheek,” said the girl. “No, the other side.” He pulled the sharp point out mechanically. “Didn’t that hurt? What’s your name?” “Miles Bissant,” he said indifferently. In a long stillness sounded the dry, faint click of grasshoppers, snapping upward in short arcs roundabout. “Mine’s Anna Hilliard,” she volunteered; and after another silence, “I’m sorry I said--that. Good-by.” By her voice, she was crying. Through half-opening eyes, he saw her hair glimmer. Something warm touched his cheek. He sat up, indignant, rubbing the spot with more energy than if the thorn had stung. A hard patter of bare feet fled up the path. “What a silly girl!” thought Miles, in disgust. “Glad nobody was round.” CHAPTER II CAPTAIN FLORIO “Runagates,” said his grandfather, with mournful relish. “I had hoped you--but what’s in the blood will out. All runagates!” Athwart the dim panes of the bedchamber, hackmatack boughs swayed to the chill drone of a dying wind. A rigid profile against twilight, the old man spoke as to some third presence. Often the boy had seen that profile, ploughing a furrow of thought which cast him aside; yet he stirred on his pillows uneasily, almost guiltily. [Illustration] “So with Christopher,” continued the speaker, “and so with your father Godfrey. When they strayed off into the world, what did they become? A sailor to be drowned and a soldier to be killed. My sons were small comfort.” “My father,” objected Miles, timid yet indignant, “was fighting for--” “And what if he was?” exclaimed his grandfather, turning with a violent start. “Does that excuse you, sir, for scouring the country with gypsy thieves? Eh? And risking your neck at horse-jockey tricks? And lying useless abed this fortnight, while Ella and I do your work at the lights? Next you’ll slip off, like them, and then the contract for the light-keeping will be taken away, and I’ll become a pauper indeed. Runagates! Eh? What’s that? What did you mutter?”