“Young enough for some folks, at all events--eh, eh, sir?” chuckled the old man. “Come, come--I know all about you, and what you're come here about; I'm wide awake enough, I can tell you, although I'm abed. You've run down to Coveton, sir, to 'ask papa.' There, haven't _I_ hit it?” “Well, the fact is, Mr Forest, the love seems rather more on my side than hers. I don't deny that I had a great liking for your daughter, but when a man knows that his love is not returned”---- “Eh, eh,” interrupted the old Salt, pursing his lips and giving his tasselled night-cap a pull upon one side, which gave him an expression of much aimless intelligence; “but I don't understand this. You must have done something, sir, to forfeit the good opinion of my Mary; for certainly, at one time----But there, perhaps I'm saying too much. If it ain't agreed between you and my Mary, then, may I ask, sir--not but that I'm uncommon glad to see you, or any other gentleman, from nightfall to any one of the small-hours, I'm sure--but may I ask what the dickens brings you here?” “Well, sir,” replied Ralph, forcing a smile, “I happened to find myself in these parts, and did not like to pass by without looking in upon the father of Mary Forest, even though all should be off between us; and, besides, I was told you are the likeliest man to be able to give me some information about the wreck of the _North Star_, which happened about thirty years ago, and the particulars of which, for a reason, I want to know.” “Fill your pipe, then, and mix yourself another glass,” cried the old man, delighted to be called upon for his favourite yarn, “for it's a story as you can't tell in a five minutes, nor in ten neither. The ship you speak of, sir, was an emigrant vessel of more than a thousand tons, as sailed on September 10, 1832”---- “I know all about the ship,” interrupted Derrick impatiently, “for I had a passage in her myself. I want to hear about the bodies that came on shore.” “_You_ were a passenger by the _North Star_?” ejaculated the old man with amazement. “Why, it was said that every soul on board her perished in the storm in which she went to pieces. _Derrick, Derrick!_ Well, now you mention it, I do remember the name, for I used to have that passenger-list by heart. I cut it out of one of the papers at the time, and having been so much concerned in the matter myself, though little knowing that I should owe this house to that same wreck--built out of its very timbers, as I might say--and almost all I have in this world. But you know how all that came about, and what Sir Robert did for me and mine, I dare say, mate?” “Yes, yes--I have heard something of that. But can you tell me nothing of what came ashore? You have said not a soul was saved; I suppose, then, it was the surviving relatives who put up the gravestones to the memory of the drowned, which I saw as I came through the churchyard?”