"Ev'ry natur' be fitted for its own app'inted work," remarked old Doak, dogmatically. "If Mistress Dorothy had not allers been darin', by the natur' o' things, she'd never a ketched holt o' the right rope so true an' quick as she hev this night,--God bless her!" Here a younger voice broke in impatiently with, "But, Doak, we ought n't to stand here chatterin' like this." "True, true, Tommy Harris," the old man replied good-naturedly. "But," turning to Mary, "what shall ye do, Mistress Mary? Hed n't ye best let one o' the boys tek ye to the house? Ye see we be goin' down to the shore to Master John an' the rest of 'em, as was 'greed we should as soon as we saw the 'Pearl' show her light." Mary said she preferred to go with them. But the old man shook his head, and his companions began to move onward. "D'ye think 'twould be wise, mistress?" he asked gravely. "Ye see we don't know jest what sort o' work we may find cut out for us,--'specially if the man ye saw throttlin' Johnnie Strings were a British spy, as belike he were, pretty sure." Then he added impatiently, "I wonder where in tarnation Johnnie hev gone to, thet he did n't cut back to tell us?" "And I am wondering where Dorothy has gone," said Mary, with much anxiety. "I rather guess ye need hev no fear for her, mistress," Doak made haste to reply. "She be wide awake, I'll bet my head, where'er she be." "But it seems so strange a thing that she should go off in such fashion," Mary said, by no means satisfied with the old man's confident words. "She went 'cause she wanted to go; an' she wanted to go 'cause she saw work cut out to do, I warrant ye," declared Doak, with whom the girl had always been a great favorite, since the days he used to take her and Mary Broughton on fishing excursions in his boat. "But as to ye, mistress--" "It is this way, Doak," she said, interrupting him: "you see I cannot get into the house until I find Dorothy; for she has the key of the only door by which I could enter, except I disturbed every one." "If ye did thet, Mistress Mary, the father would find out all 'bout the prankin', eh?" And he chuckled knowingly. "And so 't is best," she went on, paying no attention to him, "that I go along with you until we can see Master John; and he will know what to do." "Very well, Mistress Mary," Doak said; "come 'long o' me, an' 't will go hard with any man as seeks to molest ye,--though, from what Johnnie Strings told me o' what ye did to the spyin' Britisher this mornin'--" Here he stopped short, both in speech and walking,--for they had been hurrying to overtake the others, now well in advance--and slapping his thigh, exclaimed: "I hev it, I hev it! What a blind old fool I be, not to hev thought o' thet afore! 'T were sure to be the same devil, or some one he sent, thet ye saw fightin' with Johnnie Strings."